Artificial intelligence

I have often jokingly said that my mind is smarter than I am. That most of my intelligence is artificial.

Let me explain my claim to artificial intelligence.

The mind gathers information all the time, processes it and stores it, most of it without us making a manual effort towards these goals. The conscious mind is left to think, our train of thought following a path we are aware of. But all that information we don't even feel being stored away is still there and can come up, seemingly out of the blue.

I noticed this phenomenon in school a lot but also a recent event reminded me of it. I have been learning a foreign language. A lot of that learning involved simply listening to that language being spoken by natives on their local radio. I also did more formal learning, but I was still just emerging from the layer of utter beginner.

I once wanted to form a phrase in that language. Without even getting a chance to find my words, the phrase just appeared in my mind. It was a more peculiar construction too, using an unfamiliar grammar structure and a tricky word. I verified my sentence with a native speaker and it seems it was completely correct. Of course I was baffled. And a little proud too, although I can't take full credit, my unconscious mind did all the work. It referenced the information stored in my memory and was able to build something new that worked.

I'm pretty sure I haven't said anything new and everyone has experienced that. But to me, it's still utterly fascinating when it happens.