Col Mohinder Pal Singh & SS Bawa
The dexterity of a human body with round-the-clock working process could put the best super-computer to shame.
Let’s examine the human computer (Hum-com). To understand the human body as a Hum-com, it is necessary to break it into its components like an IT professional.
Any computer is composed of two components; hardware and software. Hardware is composed of computing parts as well as input and output devices and off course the peripherals.
The Hum-com also has all these components albeit in a different state of matter.
The hardware is made up of bones, muscles and flesh along with its galaxy of internal organs.
The software includes the process of languages, knowledge and thoughts. Eyes, ears, skin, nose, tongue are the input devices and ofcourse the brain is the CPU. Tongue is an output device. Some organs alternate between input or output devices.
For example, the face is sometimes used for a frown or a smile as output ,and to feel the hot or cold air temperature as an input device.
Manufacture & Delivery – The Hum-com is assembled in a mother’s body and delivered to the client in a sealed packing. Even the mother cannot tamper with the hardware being assembled in her body. She is just a carrier of the product.
Although the manufacturing process though has been studied in great detail it cannot be fiddled with by a human being. The manufacturing process for moves in a timeframe of about nine months. The delivery date is predictable though not fixed.
Over a million years, the manufacturing period of the Hum-com has not changed. Nor has the mode of delivery. The assembly line for the assembling of the components of Hum-com has only been alloted to the female species.
The male species, even if it wants, cannot deliver, as it lacks the assembly line. When a new Hum-cum comes into the world it comes fitted with all the internal organs in a functioning state.
Typically, the initial booting has to be done by the Doctor/ Nurse taking the delivery. It is the same as when we are buying a new wristwatch . The moment you buy a new watch, the shopkeeper pulls out the thin film which insulates the battery from the watch, it begins to tick. On coming out of the womb the doctor or the nurse, provide the Hum-com with a tap and the new Hum-com commences its breathing cycle through the lungs.
Warranty. The Hum-com comes with no warranty. Sometimes, it may even have manufacturing defects. There is absolute no return policy for the Hum-com.
Components. The Hum-com comes fitted with both RAM and ROM in which subsequently software gets uploaded. The Hum-com comes loaded with very basic booting software or an operating system – called CLS(crying,laughing and sleeping)! The other functions like eating, excreting, and other sensory activities are the hardware functions which work on an auto-mode. Also out of the three functions of the CLS software , Hum-com is unique in two features , laughing and crying. No animals are known to laugh or cry. Their software is bereft of this feature. Try to tickle a dog , it cannot laugh, it will only bark. You scold , it cannot sob , it will only bark. This means that the Creater has gifted Hum-com with a higher version of the booting system software. So with this very basic software and fully furnished hardware in which all the cables are so well insulated , protected, all the signals are perfectly passed across the organs the Hum-com is ready to be loaded with new software.
Software Installation. The first software installation starts at home and it is a long drawn process. A new Hum-com quickly starts to imitate his parents and picks up words of the language spoken around him. The hearing input device, the ear begins to pick up sounds and brain the CPU immediately tries to recognize and deliver signals to the output device ,the tongue to imitate the sound. Thus, the installation of language software begins. Like any other installation process this software too takes a long time to get installed. All hardware devices are very interdependent at this initial stage. If an input device like ear malfunctions, the CPU does not get the requisite signals and correspondingly the tongue no orders. Hence its a known fact that Hum-com born with hearing defects develops speech defects too.
The Hum-Com software programs are generally divided into two categories; Basic software and the Knowledge software. Read, write and speech software programs are typically considered to be part of Basic software, or B Program. Knowledge software or K software needs B software as a pre-requisite.
Uploading of software is another unique feature of Hum-com when we compare it to the Ani-Com (animals computers). Thousands of attempts to teach a Ani-Com a human language have failed miserably. In-spite of being fitted with similar input devices as a Hum-Com they are unable to speak. The only plausible reason seems to be lesser developed CPU, lesser RAM or the output device of tongue not compatible.
B-Software installation starts at home. The parents start teaching a child how to speak their language, their culture, their traditions etc . Then the child is slightly grown up he goes to school where he is loaded with a heavy K-software.
Alongside the B and K-software is a third category of software called the Values or V Software. V Software covers morals and ethics. As the child grows up he develops a circle of friends who intentionally or unintentionally add to the B, V and K software of the child, also known as software sharing. Now some such shared software is good, but some of it is malware. When the Hum-Com is growing up software and data loading continues, and results in increased complexity for the CPU.
After the childhood phase, the Hum-Com enters adulthood. In this stage, the software and data contribution of the parents takes a back seat to that of friends and teachers. Then comes the stage when a Hum-Com takes up a job. Now each job has its own software which each employer wants an employee to imbibe. So that too gets loaded in the system. Change of job results in other job specific software additions. Every new assignment causes enhancements to the software system of the Hum-Com, and this process continues.
Now a stage comes (may be in the middle age of Hum-Com) when there are too many active pieces of software vying to get processed in the Hum-Com CPU. Also there is too much collected data in the volatile and non-volatile parts of the Hum-Com memory, and access of this data becomes increasingly more complex. This increased complexity of software and data causes the CPU to slow down. So we generally find middle aged Hum-Com averse to new procedures or software in the work place or even home. They become averse to using new gadgets because their CPU simply has no space to write a new algorithm. And when a Hum-Com becomes old his CPU has reached its limits. There is no more space for software or data. And something very typical about the natural software is that there is no delete button. Once loaded it cannot be removed . Once a Hum-com reaches his middle age, a frequent complaint about an inability to learn new things easily is observed. Such a Hum-com can be said to be experiencing system overload.
The Hum-Com environment too adds some good or bad software in a subtle manner. An old adage is – ‘a man is known by the company he keeps’. A congenital defect in Hum-Com is that it picks up malicious software very fast and benign software very slowly.
Deadly Effects of Virus
Malicious software is usually accompanied with a swarm of viruses. At some stage these viruses start affecting the Hum-com.
Once they become virulent , these deadly viruses are known to bring the system to a complete shutdown.
The Hum-com becomes listless and diseased. Once a Hum-com asked , “I never loaded myself with a malicious software so how come I got infected?”
The answer is that these malicious software get installed using different methods. For example, you go to a dear friend… He is a real good man.. But one day he is watching some objectionable material and you end up watching or reading such a material.
And Snap, the virus is loaded in your system too. This software will cling to your Hard disc. Not easy to get rid of it now. It is something like if you walk through a thick tropical forest , you are bound to get stung by leeches.
Software Problem cured by Hardware Experts
Mankind, over the ages has come up with the remedies for hardware problems of Hum-com.
We have a number of doctors who can examine the Hum-com hardware and detect any glitch.
They have potions to cure plain hardware malfunctions. But if the problem has been caused due to a software failure then the malaise would re-occur. In such cases the hardware doctors tend to give continuous medication. One classic example is the problem of Hypertension.
Hypertension occurs due to anxiety which is a software related problem but is treated by hardware experts. So obviously the medicine has to be taken continuously because the Doctor is addressing the symptom and not the cause.
What could be the other software related problems of the Hum-com?
“ Doctor, I am not able to sleep” ,
“Doctor. I keep thinking” .
Doctor, I have a very irritable bowel”
What does a hardware specialist do for you? Lately a lot of pains, lot of allergies , lot of mental sickness have been related to anxiety; a software issue.
Though fewer in numbers, software therapists have been around for ages and some have mushroomed recently.
The traditional ones are called spiritual Gurus and the recent ones are called ‘counselors’ .People throng in huge numbers to them too.. What do they do?
A real good Hum-com software therapist has to do the treatment in generally three stages- One, identify the root cause and two apply the remedy to block cropping up of the malicious program.
And three attempt to isolate and remove the offending software.
Most of the software therapists use one common characterstic of Hum-Com software – “ If a piece of software is kept from running for a period of time, it’s likelihood of running goes down over time”.
For example something which you studied in secondary school say twenty years back and if you never had to use it, you tend to start forgetting it.
It doesn’t come back so easily. Some things are totally forgotten but once reminded, come back. Others never come back.
The software therapist put the Hum-com patient under a rigorous daily routine, engages him with positive and motivational stories from the scriptures or lives of successful people.
He then teaches them techniques to control thoughts erupting in the mind. He may even make them do some physical postures which are expected to use the CPU in a predictable manner, and prevent the CPU from wandering and falling prey to the malicious and glossy crop ups from the CPU itself .
Like a hardware therapist gives his patients a habit forming pill, the software therapist gives him a habit forming exercises, or a habit forming daily routine or a habit forming diet.
As per some of the therapists type of food intake also affects the malicious software.
In the second stage of software –healing process these things happen. In US one commonly hears about such spiritual healing camps of a week or two weeks durations. Hum-com who are having serious software problems due to complexities of software loading in their life generally benefit a lot form such an exercise.
Finally, the Hum-com may think that he is the Uncle-know-it-all, he is the master of the universe, but the truth is that he is just immaculately programmed. He can play only within his ambit, within his orbit which have been set. He just cannot break loose.
He simply does not have the code to break or modify the program.
It is at that level where science cannot convincingly define a large number of phenomenon, it converges towards the super power, the super energy or what we all refer to Almighty.
(Col Mohinder Pal Singh, PhD, is an Indian army veteran and an author. SS Bawa is a Canada-based IT professional.)
