Murphy's Law

It's the start of a brand new week, so the very studious Melvin thought he might just share a bit of this new book that he's been reading recently.

Have you ever heard of Murphy's Law? Everyone must have, in some point of their lives, experienced it, regardless of having ever heard about it or not. Simply put, Murphy's Law states that...

WHATEVER CAN GO WRONG,
WILL GO WRONG.

If you've ever experienced how the buses just don't come when you're waiting for them, how you just can't seem to find something you're looking for when it's staring at you in the face, or even how you start to feel the insects crawling all over you the moment you begin your tanning, then you have most certainly seen Murphy at work.

Rather than blaming it all on bad karma, Richard Robinson's Why the Toast Always Lands Butter Side Down seeks to provide rational scientific explanations for all these weird, and admittedly, annoying happenings. Once you find out that these happenings are really, a creation of your mind, you'd probably be able to take them in your stride more easily next time. Here are a few discussions on common experiences, extracted from this wonderfully interesting book!

1. When your hands are tied your nose itches

There is only a limited amount you can focus on at any time. But other messages are being received unconsciously. Then, when the immediate task is completed, the mind has a chance to deal with other things. Your nose has been itching for some minutes, but only now does it enter consciousness.

The old image of the puzzled professor scratching his head stems from this switch of attention. While he is focused on the task in hand, he has thoughts only for that task. As soon as he takes a step back, other things can intrude, such as the itchy scalp.

There are many examples of what happens when the working memory is finally free - when the desktop is cleared. For instance...

2. You think of 10 important things to remember just as you are falling asleep

The last thing you want to haunt you as you drift off to sleep is the things-to-do-URGENT list. But now you've remembered them you know very well that if you leave them, those important things will be forgotten. Your force yourself awake, crawl out of bed, hunt for a pen and paper, scratch down the list and crawl back into bed. Then you lie staring at the ceiling for the next hour, unable to sleep. In the morning you find you've remembered everything anyway.

Before you slip into sleep, many of the day's events will take a lap of honour round the skull. This time they will not be running in sequence, but in parallel. They'll all be equally important. New links can be made. Here we can see the extent of the mind's unconscious processing. While you were dealing with the brain's crowded destktop today, other things were being assimilated unconsciously. In the relaxed atmosphere of near-sleep, other important connections are made.

3. When you search for something, you go back to the same place again and again

There comes a time in everyone's life when we say 'I hope nobody is watching me; I feel such a fool'. We have just looked for the tenth time in the place where we left our book, and we know it's not there, but now we're going back to check once more. And no, it's still not there, so we'll just look once more to be doubly certain. Why do we keep searching the same spot when we know it's not there? Because on the twentieth look, there it is!

The mystery of the invisible object has puzzled people for centuries. In recent times quantum scientists have wondered if the object is slipping into a parallel universe, where it stays until we buy a replacement.

The truth is now known. When searching for the book we don't stare hard at everything, we take a short cut; we root around the memories in the cortex for an image of what we are trying to find. Keeping that in mind we rapidly scan the room looking for something that matches it. It's a clever trick.

The trouble happens if we are in a hurry. In the hope of a quick win we scan for a narrow range of options - perhaps the distinctive red of the book cover - and simply don't notice anything else. Which is a problem, because if we left the book face-down, with the cover hidden, the match will never happen.

The solution is easy; go and make a cup of tea. While we are distracted by tea bags and milk, the mind broadens its search. When we go back now, instead of just the flash of red, we look for any kind of 'book' image. The match now happens rapidly, and we're left wondering why we never spotted it in the first place.

Taken from Why the Toast Always Lands Butter Side Down by Richard Robinson, 2005
Available at all good bookstores and selected National Library Board branches

Melvin