The World Behind the Glass

October 16, 2005

Associative Indexing in the Brain

Leipzig, Germany:
Last night I flipped on the hotel TV...all stations, essentially are in German which i do not speak. I channel surfed for a moment, then stopped.

Scene: Night. Two men in suits and hats at the bottom of a plane stair. In the background, another man is helping a gentleman into one of the black sedans pulled up. They are 1960's cars. A fourth man is standing with his back to the camera on the plane steps. No dialog, maybe a little background music.

My brain IMMEDIATELY fired off the words "FANTASTIC VOYAGE"

I was correct, of course. I have seen this movie perhaps 3 times since 1966. Usually, I miss the begining and pick up after the old man is already in the operating room.l

Now THAT'S Associative Indexing. Every frame of that movie must have the metadata "FANTASTIC VOYAGE" stamped on it SOMEWHERE in my head. The speed with which I made that association from literally thousands of other films i have watched in my 50 years was scary!

Bill

PS
I grabbed my laptop and went out to IMDB. Almost every actor in that movie is dead now except Raquel Welch. most died in their fifties and Arthur Kennedy who played Duvall, the brain surgeon with the laser, died of a brain tumor. IMDB.com is incredible!

Bill

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