A Whackadoodle Definition: What is Information Overload?
How categorizing helps humans manage information overload, learning, prediction, inference, decision making, and language. Yet, we can still get in trouble when we place everything in one.
“So why do we even have categorize?” she asked dismally. We had been working on her science report, and she was not having any fun.
I reached for my iPad, and did a quick search for an official answer, “Well, according to this Psychology Today article I'm reading, 'Our brains are constantly seeking ways to manage information overload both through limiting the amount of stimuli we are willing to notice and through creating categories into which to fit things.'”
She groaned, so I clicked a bit more, and added. “Wikipedia suggest that we need to categorize because 'categorization is important in learning, prediction, inference, decision making, language, and many forms of organisms' interaction with their environments.'” I shook my head at that, adding, “What ever the heck, 'many forms of organisms 'interactions' means.”
“But what do you think?” she asked, lifting her head.
“I think that we use categorize because that is how we have been taught to think,” I told her bluntly. “Everything is either black or white, but nothing allowed to be grey.”
“Huh?”
“Good versus evil, friend versus enemy, conservative versus liberal, and nothing in between. How is it possible that you can both love someone, and hate someone at the same time, and yet people feel that emotional conflict all the time?” I offered. “Heck, even in kindergarten, we start teaching kids how to sort. One, two, three. Blue, yellow, red. Animal, vegetable, mineral. Mammal, reptile, amphibian, bird, insect, or fish,” I sighed before continuing. “But then every so often, we get hit with a platypus, and we get asked the question, 'Why?' Why is an animal who lays eggs also classified as a mammal.”
“And the answer?” she asked.
“Because she has fur, and suckles her children, and doesn't fit any other classification. She is not a fish, or a bird, or an amphibian, or a reptile, or an insect; so she must be a mammal.”
“So if it doesn't fit a category, we make it fit a category?”
“I'm afraid we often do,” I replied.
“So you are telling me that classifications don't matter,” she declared.
“No I am not,” I corrected. “Classifications do help us in learning, prediction, inference, decision making, and language. We also need classifications to keep ourselves from information overload, but we should not be limited by them. We should not feel the need to force anything into a classifications if it doesn't belong there.”
“What exactly is information overload?” she asked tentatively.
“Well,” I paused to consider my answer. “Think about a world in which nothing is classified, and everything is unique. Everything is one of a kind. What would you do with all that information? How would you handle it? Classifications help us to manage all that uniqueness.”
“Uniqueness,” she repeated.
“Everything in the world is unique,” I told her. “In fact there is a meditative technique were one is asked to just sit in stillness and notice how unique everything is--every leaf, every breeze, every cloud. It is one of my favorite pastimes; but if that was the only thing I ever did, I would not do much else. At some point, I have to make a choice.”
“And you have to classify things in order to make a choice between them?”
“Exactly.” I confirmed. “Because that beautiful and unique cloud overhead, could also be classified as a storm cloud, in which case I might want to get prepared.”
“I think that I understand,” she admitted quietly. “Classifications are important in daily life, but they are only a tool, like cause and effect. We should not feel the need to place everything in one.”
“I like it,” I smiled.
“So is that what people mean when they say, 'The exception proves the rule?'” she asked with a half smile back. “Because I have never really understood that saying.”
“Oh my dear, sayings that people use but don't understand is a whole other category,” I conceded. “You might have to ask the people who use them to explain what they mean themselves. Although, I have to admit that I have often seen people use sayings just to end an argument.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I once had this boyfriends whose final word in any disagreement was, 'That's what makes a horse race.' It was very annoying.”
“Huh?”
“It's from a Mark Twain quote. It basically means that if we didn't all have different opinions, we'd all bet on the same horse, which would not make for a profitable horse race.”
“So basically he was saying, 'We should agree to disagree,'” she informed me.
“Pretty much. But then again,” I teased. “There's an exception to every rule.”