Headspace or shelfspace

Headspace or shelfspace. You don't know what you want until you see it.

Headspace is the vague, but useful, measure of an individual's subjective capacity to consciously experience the combined inner and outer environment at any one time. Headspace is not static. Headspace is a dynamic process of shifting attention between the two primary vectors; noticing and remembering.

Headspace measurement is notoriously imprecise and unreliable. Noticing can degenerate into imagining and remembering can be distorted by fantasy or false associations. Since headspace is limited, Since headspace is limited like shelfspace, it must be selective.

The limited nature of headspace explains the behavior of absent-minded professors. Einstein had so completely engaged his thinking about theoretical physics that he forgot to wear pants. He was so focused on his headspace process, he also failed to notice every item of overt evidence regarding his lack of trousers in public.

Limited and unreliable headspace is the reason for shopping lists. Others rely upon shelf displays as a memory aid. With a list you know what you need if it is on the list. With shelfspace you know what you need when you see it. If it is not on the list or not on the shelf, it falls through the cracks.

A related concept is that you often don't know what you have until it's gone. President Barack Obama is a good example of this. Consider Obama's face as it appears on a coffeemug. If you had merely heard or thought his name, would the fact he is the Nation's first and only black President come into your mind, or do you need the visual representation as a reminder, see acollection here.

The forty-forth President of the United States. Gone but not forgotten.

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