The Computer and the Human Brain

I am not a computer expert. At best, I possess only the basic skills that almost every ordinary computer user has today—typing, copying, cutting, pasting, editing, undoing, and performing a few simple calculations. I am fully aware that these skills are far from sufficient in this age of Artificial Intelligence. Yet, while working on a computer, a thought occurred to me.

A computer faithfully records every activity performed on it. Even after months, or sometimes years, one can often trace what was done, when it was done, and by whom. It stores information with remarkable accuracy.

Then I reflected on something even more astonishing—the human brain. It is an incomparable masterpiece, infinitely more sophisticated than any supercomputer humanity has ever built or may ever build.

Every action of our body, every word we utter, and even every thought that arises in the mind seems to leave an impression upon this extraordinary "CPU." Unlike a computer, however, it has no genuine "delete" function. We may forget what we have thought, spoken, or done, but the brain—or, more precisely, our inner consciousness—does not erase those impressions.

In due course of time, these recorded actions bear fruit, whether good or bad. That is why we are often surprised when unexpected events occur in our lives. We fail to recognize them as the consequences of actions whose memory has long faded from our conscious mind.

If this subtle record remains intact throughout the journey of life, and perhaps even across successive births, then every action inevitably contributes to an unbroken chain of cause and effect.

Therefore, the effects of our actions cannot simply be "deleted" as files are erased from a computer. Unless they are dissolved by the grace of the Divine, every attempt to erase one consequence merely gives rise to another action, and the chain continues.

Technology may provide us with a Delete key, but life does not. Every action leaves its imprint, and every imprint awaits its appropriate consequence.

— R. R. Prabhakar