Neural Networks
Computers are the ideal metaphor for the human mind. Cognitive scientists have long used the serial processor as their model for the brain because this type of computer excels in deductive reasoning.
Researchers are also exploring whether parallel processors can serve as models for how the brain functions. Parallel processors are computers that excel at pattern recognition, or inductive thinking. Parallel processors that can handle many instructions at once are called neural networks (or nets). Neural nets excel at inductive tasks, such as pattern recognition, for which many commercial applications are now being developed.
It’s possible these researchers will conclude that the brain is not a linear tool, as originally suggested by the serial model, but that the parallel model of processing information more closely represents how the mind works. Maybe the ultimate model of the human brain would be one that combines both the serial and parallel analogies.
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I believe that the human brain works so fast that it give the appearance that it is multitasking. I presume that the brain works on electrical activity which is, in a sense, matter in motion (electrons). If this is the case, then the law of impenetrability of matter and law of conservation of matter and energy should apply. Thus the brain would have to work at the rate of one unit of thought per unit of time since two units of thought would tend to ocupy the same same space at the same time causing interference.
However,I do think that a “whole unit of thought” contains more than one part that can be handled by the human brain “at a time.” I believe this is another reason that the human brain appears to have the capability to multitask.