The human mind is a beautiful machine. It can record and playback sounds and images, perform calculations and generate original thoughts and ideas. Although the brain is capable of so many wonderful things, it is outperformed in nearly every area by modern computers. There is, however, one function that a computer cannot do: comprehend abstract ideas. No matter how much information we feed into a program, it cannot grasp the philosophical ramifications of that information or explain how it relates to the life of a human being. This is where the human brain excels. In fact, our brains are so good at thinking abstractly, that we can relate any two things in the universe together. Our ability to link seemingly unrelated concepts and objects is a significant source of art and humor.
To explore our brain’s ability to relate any two things to each other, let’s play a game of Forced Abstract Relation. The game requires at least two people to play and becomes more fun in larger groups. It begins with one player asking one, or more, other player(s) to relate two random ideas, people or items based on the given category. The other player(s) then respond based on whatever reasons come to mind. If we have more than one player answering, they can debate until the correct conclusion is reached. Let’s look at a few examples.
1. A fork and a spoon – which one is liberal, which one is conservative? Well, the jagged edges of the fork remind us of war, which is associated with conservatism. The soft, round shape of the spoon signifies equality, a foundational principle of liberalism. In addition, forks are used to stab tough food such as meat, which conservatives love to eat, while spoons are used to eat soup, which is quite a mild, agreeable dish. There you have it, spoons are liberal, forks are conservative. Easy, huh?
2. An apple and an orange – which one is angry and which one is kind? This one is a bit tougher. At first glance the apple seems angry because apples are red, the color of rage, and oranges are the softer fruit. The orange, however, is much more acidic than the apple and acid is obviously angry. The apple also reminds us of grandma’s apple pie, which is a very kind treat. Applies are kind, oranges are angry.
The proposed relation can be between any two things in relation to any category. One interesting observation, as we play the game we notice that the number of categories is not as vast as we may have first thought. We even observe that most, if not all of the categories could fall under the master category of male vs. female. Conservative vs. liberal, salt vs. pepper, angry vs. kind, beautiful vs. ugly, waffle vs. pancake, Canadian vs. American – these could all be easily translated into male vs. female. It appears that in every subject that we dichotomize, the divergent characteristics stem from the stereotypical differences between male and female human beings. In any case, it’s a great game because we can exploit our brain’s ability to relate things that should not be relatable in order to find out whether Coke or Pepsi is the male of sodas.
It’s Coke.