Answer #56 - It's ineffable.

I was talking to a doctoral student at a party the other night. Her thesis focuses on teenagers and social networking.

"Yeah," I said, "I read that GenY will be able to multi-task 7 things at once. That's got to be some sort of evolution forward."

"Well... not sure. I was hoping it would be. But it looks as if the ability to multi-task at that level is showing a decreased ability to focus on a single subject - hence, adequately take in information in the form of learning."

Well that's depressing.

Unless, of course, it's ineffable - Evolution, that is. Maybe as our ability to learn single-subject matter decreases, we'll actually grow more limbs with which to get more virtual things done. And eventually, even, maybe a second head or something, dedicated solely to learning single-subject matter while the other brain multi-tasks social networking, gaming sites and catheter monitors.

You never know with the ineffability of evolution.  It's not that it's random or some cosmic game - it's driven by an enormously complex set of rules. But for all intents and purposes they're magic rules.  That I don't know.  And neither do you.  Someone does though, because...

As Einstein put it:  "God does not play dice with the universe."

                               

 And then Terry Prachett put it better:



"God does not play dice with the universe. He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time."


I can currently multi-task 4 things at once, more or less effectively, to a relative degree of effectivity.  It requires occasional sedatives, but I can do it. So -

Am I a tadpole poking my nasal gill out of the primordial muck or a human sticking my whole head right back in it?

Wish that damn dealer would stop smiling in the dark.