Social Hacking

No, I have not died.. (yes, I got that question). The reason why I don't update my blog is that I simply don't have time to write. As soon as I get some more free time I will update this blog more frequently.
Anyhow, I will write a little more this time...
So this weekend I ran the Cologne (Köln) Marathon. For you who don't know, a marathon involves running 42 km or 27.1 miles. I completed the race in 3 hours and 53 minutes, which means that I had a lot of time to think.
The main thing that I distracted myself with was to think about how the human body handles pain. After 41 km, my legs were really stiff and my brain told me to just stop. However, I was still able to continue and even run faster the last kilometer. The interesting thing about this is that even though our brain tells us that we should not be able to do something, our body can still go through with it. However, the next day it was quite clear that I should have listened to my brain since my whole body was aching.
The same thing (not as interesting though) can be applied to when our brain tells us that we are thirsty. We do not have to drink, however, if we ignore it long enough we will surely die.
In some way we humans can affect these signals that our brain gives us and to some degree choose to ignore them. So my next though was; what would happen if we were able to completely turn of these signals? This could be compared with turning of our basic survival instincts. If it would be possible we would probably die pretty quickly because we would forget to eat or drink.
In the marathon running case, without any signals from my brain, I would probably have been able to finish the race in a better time. I come to this conclusion because I was still able to walk after the race, if I had used all my energy I would not have been able to stand. However, a more realistic conclusion would be that I'd died before the end of the race since if I was able to use all my energy without restrictions, my heart would not have the energy to beat.