Why I cannot see my nose ??
Where is your nose?? Someone asks and up goes the finger pointing towards the organ located right between your eyes, doesn't it!
But if we ask you, can you see your nose right now? Not in the mirror, obviously you will see it however when you are reading this article or speaking with someone or doing some work are you able to see it?
Unless you are pinocchio whose nose grew when he lied, there is a good chance the answer to this question is going to be no. So why does this happen? Well it's still there, just close one eye and you can see its right there, seeing with both eyes and abracadabra it's not there. So what is happening exactly? Let's find out!
So we know for the fact that our nose does not go anywhere, its still there. It's just our brain making it disappear to make it easier for us. Yes, the magician is brain. And it's not just with your nose, ask anyone who wears glasses/spectacles whether they are able to see the glasses they are wearing when they are working or speaking with someone!
But, why does our brain tries to do this magic? And the name of the magic spell is "unconscious selective attention". Before explaining this, let's think about the time maybe you are reading a book, in deep conversation with your friend, deeply engrossed in doing some work all your attention is only focused on the activity you are doing. Sometimes even if there is a total chaos around, loud music playing, people talking all those distraction is almost cancelled or filtered out. What happens is you are selectively trying to give attention to something! Does this makes sense?
Well if it does, same thing is done by our brain. Our brain is constantly trying to process all the information it receives in form of touch, visual, smell and other senses, regulate external as well as internal mechanisms. This information after processing is then transformed into a response which is reflected either internally or externally through our actions. Like moving away your hand from a very hot object instantly like withing few seconds. One can understand how quickly the brain detected the hot touch through skin, processed the information, understood it is not good and produced a response to move the hand away from the hot object.
So the brain is like bombarded with so many senses which it needs to process and provide a response for the same. So the brain is very careful how much attention it gives to all input it receives.
Our brain always tries to filter out information it does not require. For example we do not feel every part of the body all the time, be it whether you have eyes, feel the hair or your toe nails right? That's kind of our brain showing efficiency in only taking what is needed.
In the same way, it also filters out lot of visual information it does not need.So when our two eyes send out visual information to the brain, it processes both the images and creates a image while filtering out the nose creating a more clear picture in front of us. Also our eyes more focuses through the center of our eyes. All this combined kind of makes the nose seemingly invisible to us normally. Well just close one eye and you can understand what we are trying to say!
So, don't worry you still have your nose, just try to look cross eyed and you will find it.
'And you can still figure out what's cooking in the kitchen through the aroma coming out of it. Thanks to your nose!
So that's it for the curious mind now! And yes, we need to be grateful and thankful to the magician brain who helps us live better with its own system of processing information and saved us from processing so much of unnecessary information by ourselves.
Until next time remember the curiosity talks and thank you our curious brain!!
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