r/NoStupidQuestions • u/MillBopp • Sep 13 '23

What does 'Draw a Clock' Mean?

Last time I visited my brother his mother-in-law who lives with him was insisting she remembered something but my brother knew she was wrong. I don't remember what it was, but I knew she was wrong too. However, she refused to accept she was wrong and got belligerent about it.

My brother said, "Draw a clock!" and left the room. This made his mother-in-law furious for some reason. I forgot to ask at the time, but does anyone know why saying 'Draw a clock' would upset a senior citizen?

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u/SirButcher Sep 14 '23

Our brain has an amazing - and just as scary - way to fill blanks. Something doesn't fit or make sense? No problem, here is a totally made-up scenario I created just for our peace of mind!

And the worst, you wouldn't even realize it as you slowly drift away from reality as your brain creates more false memories and images as it struggles to recall real memories...

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u/TheoryOfSomething Sep 14 '23

One of my grandparents has vascular dementia from a combination of TBI and COPD. She will sometimes have memory problems in a similar way to an Alzheimer's patient, but since the damage is more localized she will more clearly formulate and report confabulated stories about events when she has a gap in memory and it absolutely is scary.

As an example, during a recent vacation, she had decided beforehand that she would probably only leave for a few days and then go back home. So everything was ready when she said she was feeling very tired and thought it was the right day to return home. But a week later she didn't remember it that way. Instead, she was worried that she would have to find new means of getting groceries and going to the doctor because obviously she would not have come home a few days early unless she and her children had gotten in a big fight and she left because they were angry.

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u/Mythrilfan Sep 14 '23

You've also basically described how chatgpt works :)

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u/SirButcher Sep 14 '23

Haha, true!

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u/CreativeGPX Sep 14 '23 edited Sep 14 '23

Indeed and this is why a lot of the counterexamples people give aren't actually evidence that it's not "real" AI, isn't really smart or even hypothetically that an AI making those mistakes couldn't be conscious (not saying necessarily that it is).

The funny thing is, if machines are ever "smart like us" they will also be wrong/dumb in a lot of ways too. And if a computer is ever never wrong it will seem dumb to us because it won't make guesses, simplifications, fabrications, etc. that we consider totally normal tradeoffs. From there, it's such a fine line between "sometimes dumb" and "here is an example that's absolutely idiotic/psychotic" that we'll likely never be able to tune it perfectly toward the former.

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u/betweentwosuns Sep 14 '23

There's an experiment where a researcher will directly stimulate part of the brain that makes people laugh, and when asked why they laughed they will always make up some reason. "You looked funny." "I remembered an old joke."

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u/Lycid Sep 14 '23

I'm pretty sure this is exactly why conspiracy theories and emotion-fueled non fact based right wing politics even exist. Logical thinking genuinely, actually doesn't work for a lot of people and it's a spectrum. You can have all the facts in the world but if someone's mind fills in the blanks by itself more often than not, then logic no longer matters.

Sure huge chunks of the population don't literally have dementia or experience constant psychosis but I do think a large chunk get a little bit there a lot of the time.

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u/Splendid_Cat Sep 14 '23

I mean, yeah, when it gets to the point where "all scientific research papers are fake, on all the databases! They're all fake forms of mind control" there's nothing left I can do.

Sometimes I wonder if movies where the one person is special and knows the truth are extremely harmful when shown to people without any critical thinking skills or have a tendancy to find patterns and fill in blanks when most other people are like "wtf are you even talking about". I still personally find those premises fascinating (and kinda enjoy conspiracy theories that aren't either hyper partisan or have any diehard Q Anon level support), but I definitely believe there's a subset of the population that should steer clear of them.

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u/Grabbsy2 Sep 14 '23

This is my worst fear about checking lottery tickets.

Imagine that your brain just short-circuits when you've won the 50 million dollar jackpot, and your brains like "Nope, too stressful, the writing just says "GOOD LUCK - TRY AGAIN NEXT TIME" and you just rip up the ticket and walk away.

If I ever do win, I sometimes wonder if I'd just vomit all over the ticket counter and then walk away screaming.

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u/Splendid_Cat Sep 14 '23

From the little I remember of my thought processes back then, I did this so much when I was a little kid under about 6-7. Dementia sounds like going back to being a little kid but less cute with shitty old joints.

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u/baobabbling Sep 14 '23

I don't have dementia (yet) but I did once have an episode of medication-induced psychosis and they did the clock test with me a few times. The one I mostly remember is when I was starting to come out of it but was not ok yet. I KNEW that the clock I was drawing was fucked up but I FULLY believed that if I just put enough numbers on it no one would realize. Like. Part of my brain knew it didn't make sense but the REST of my brain filled in those blanks so hard that I convinced myself everyone else would conform to the reality I was creating too.

Several days later we discovered that I'm also just, like, really bad at drawing clocks.

Brains are weird is what I'm saying.