The Nature of Human Thought: “Stop Trying to Make ‘Fetch’ Happen.”

One of the enduring mysteries of everyday cognitive life is why some things pop into our minds. 

Today’s example for me happened while I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Out of nowhere the line, “Gretchen, stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen. It’s not going to happen” from the classic movie Mean Girls came to mind.

Here’s the scene in question:

Why does this happen? Sometimes the trail of associations is obvious. Last night, for example, my daughter came home singing “I Have Confidence” from The Sound of Music. A few minutes later, my wife found herself singing a different song from the same show. 

But I haven’t thought about Mean Girls in a long time… probably not since I saw the Broadway adaptation in November of 2019, back in pre-pandemic days when dinosaurs roamed Manhattan and the streets were paved with rubies.

Digression: I adore the movie Mean Girls, and so when I had a free night on a business trip to New York and a cheap ticket was available, I went for it. However, I had not reckoned with the likely audience at the show, which was entirely composed of pre-teen girls and their moms. To say the least, I stood out as the sole middle-aged white guy in the auditorium. I experienced telepathy for the first time in my life, hearing, “who’s the pedophile in aisle G” broadcast clearly across the ova-phone network connecting all the protective moms in the audience. I have never been so glad to have the lights dim for an overture in my life. End of digression.

I believe that this random associativity is a key component of what makes humans human and what differentiates human intelligence from artificial intelligence. 

We don’t want our autonomous vehicles to get distracted thinking about famous scenes from popcorn movies when they are navigating 60MPH freeway traffic. How would somebody even program a computer to do that anyway?

We humans do it effortlessly. Mind-wandering is key to creativity and part of how we alight on answers to vexing questions. 

But why Mean Girls this morning? It’s a mystery…

P.S. If for any reason you have never seen Mean Girls, then you know what you’re doing tonight. It’s rentable for $2.99 on Amazon.