Eli5: Why can’t we truly multitask? Why is our “multitasking” just setting something aside real quick to do something else? Why can’t our limbs perform different tasks at once?
In: Biology
There are other good answers about the mechanics, but some evolutionary perspective is needed to explain the larger “why”. There are two good reasons. One is that multitasking, as we think of it, is possible thanks to the technology we have that has only existed a few decades or centuries, depending on what tech you mean. Our ancestors could not have multitasked with a computer, phone, car, or even a pencil.. not even if they wanted to.
Number two: it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. The distinctly human part of us that does “attention” to one thing has some pretty amazing capabilities. We can do reasoning and analysis. We can entertain counterfactuals (imagination of “what if..”‘s). We can solve puzzles, investigate questions, and in the process integrate information learned from others, from our senses, from our own imaginations, or from our previous experiences. While some animals can produce novel solutions and make tools (corvids, cappuchins, apes), no animal comes anywhere near to the cognitive prowess a human possesses to process and solve a totally novel problem or question.
But it’s not free. It involves the coordinated, integrated effort of many cognitive functions all at once. In a sense, we are multitasking. Consider, for example, someone comes to a gate they must open that they’ve never seen before. Perhaps one of those side gates at a friend’s house. Usually, a person will look at the gate and mechanism, jiggle and move bits and open it without issue in a few seconds.. even if they’ve never seen the design before. This seems very simple, but consider all the things that have happened in those seconds: the visual scene must be accurately perceived, objects recognized. Knowledge from memory is accessed to provide crucial contextual information: this device is an entry point that can be opened and closed. If a latch of some sort is visible, the person quickly reasons in their imagination space about how a bolt must be manipulated to permit motion of the door. If a latch is not visible, they reason such a device must be present perhaps on the other side and further consider its likely location. Whatever the case, they attempt to physically manipulate the latch while simultaneously monitoring the door for free movement. I’ve listed these things in a sequence, but really most or all of them would be happening simultaneously, dynamically. It’s pretty amazing really.
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