Friday 19 April 2002

Information immunity

I sit here, listening to beautiful love songs by Chris de Burgh, as is good and proper. And once again I notice it. I listen to a song once, and it is beautiful. I listen to it once more, and it is even better. Perhaps a third time. But then my thoughts begin to wander. The song dissolves into background noise. It ceases to exist. I have developed information immunity.

Only for so long can you watch a beautiful scenery, or a beautiful person I presume. Then you become blind to it. Only for so long can you enjoy the same piece of music, or even type of music. But it goes even further than that. With these things, the experience can come back after a while. Perhaps not in full strength, but after a while (ranging from minutes to months) you can get a similar experience again. Yet I believe that you may get lifelong immunity to some things. Just like you know how to ride a bike, and you never consciously think about it again. For Christians, this can happen to parts of the Bible.

I was really creeped out once when I looked at an article in a Christian magazine. I read the article, and there was a quote of a few verses which I had read often enough. Suddenly I discovered that I could not read it. I could read it but it bounced off me like a raindrop off wax. Now that was creepy. I could read the text that preceded the quote, and I could read on after it. But the actual quote eluded me. Even when I read it, it wasn't there anymore when I reached the end. My first thought was that some metaphysical phenomenon caused it, demonic interference or possibly the opposite, divine interference. (Kinda like when some people on LiveJournal set their entries to Friends Only.)

In retrospect I realize that this seems to be common. I have experienced it with the news on radio too. And I have quizzed friends after watching the news on TV with them. Heh. Teflon memory. It is quite possibly the same phenomenon that makes us immune to music, sights, sounds, and smells. We filter out the familiar so we can concentrate on the unfamiliar. This has obvious survival value.

With text, it helps to translate it into another language (or read it in another language). With music, just taking a break may do the trick. Also if you are familiar with meditation, you may be able to clear your mind of buzzing thoughts that would otherwise distract you.

I wonder if traditional schools did not cause information immunity. You sat there listening to the droning voice of the teacher, and suddenly you were somewhere else in your thoughts, far far away. Or you turned a page in your textbook, and suddenly realized that you remembered nothing of it.

But surely this is not so when you surf the web. Right?