Pattern Recognition

Thankfully, there are still a few things that our gelatinous, lumpy, carbon-based data processing organs can do better and faster than a machine. One of these miraculous 'mutant powers' is called pattern recognition. This ability was an important milestone on the road to higher intelligence. A child is better equipped for many pattern recognition tasks than some of the most sophisticated computer hardware running cutting edge software. Some day computers emulating human/animal neural processes may force me to eat my words. The advent of truly 'intelligent' tools and devices will allow humanity to scan the infinite nooks and crannies of the natural world in an explosion scientific discovery. I just hope I'm around to see it.

If, by chance, you want to apply your amazing gift for pattern ecognition skills to a useful purpose . Go to GalaxyZoo and help astronomers categorize some of the millions of entire galaxies (clusters of hundreds of BILLIONS of stars) that have only been seen by a few (if any) human eyes. After taking a simple 3-5 minute tutorial, you are charged with a simple but awe inspiring task. You will be shown an image of a real unclassified galaxy in our universe, you need to click a button for spiral galaxy (and which way it's spinning), elliptical galaxy (round but not spiral arms), or something else (a star, a satellite in the telescopes view, alien starship, etc.). I keep finding myself going back there again and again, but it makes me feel like some kind of meat computer.