Well, Chapter 11 (version 1) of the sci-fi novel is done. Yesterday I started on a small painting. Should be finished in a few days, then I'll try and figure out how to sell it, post it to the customer if any :-) and start thinking of what the next painting might be.

I was reading "Consciousness" by Rita Carter yesterday, and discovered that scientists think that our brains can actually do some of the amazing things that so far only autistic savants and the occasional genius seem able to do, such as multiplying large numbers, recording scenes in detail, remembering and calculating timetables and so on. The difference with normal folk is that our brains have built-in filters to prevent the results of those computations reaching consciousness! So, when you look at some dodgy maths on the page, your brain will have computed the answer in a flash, but you're not allowed to become aware of the answer!! It is thought that the filters are in place because your consciousness would quickly become overwhelmed by needless info: a person can only hold around 5 items in awareness simultaneously, and how many apes need to know the technical details when being chased down by a lion anyway? Consciousness seems to be needed for broader judgements. Still, ever since the invention of writing, and perhaps a bit before then, such abilities would have been pretty useful (if they could be switched on and off at will). However, that period of time is a tiny fraction of the time that our lineage has been in existence, so natural selection hasn't had long enough to do anything much about it anyway. So for now, all that capability is being edited out of our awareness. Sigh.