Some neural networks are associated with attention capture, where the stimulus rules. Other networks are associated with attention deployment, where goals rule.
Viewing entries in
Explorations Outside
...attitude is rooted in 19th Century romantic aesthetics, in which emotion, imagination, freedom from rules, and spontaneity are opposed to soulless capitalism and the instrumentalist mindset it engenders.
... we often consider effort through proxies like time spent, sacrifices made, opportunities turned down, pleasures denied, unpleasantness endured, and money spent
The threshold of conscious experience is about 200 milliseconds, or one fifth of a second . This is enough time to pronounce a syllable....If the “psychological present” is 3 seconds long, the longest thought that is articulated subvocally “as it unfolds” is 15 syllables.
They all agree that some people are insufficiently skeptical, fail to appreciate their own fallibility, and/or are way too swayed by some version of authority (e.g., the consensus, unorthodox thinkers of one’s own choosing, this particular subset of research, gut feeling…).
Why does this matter? Because losing focus and having attention captured by whatever can enhance creativity, problem-solving, even wisdom.
The problem with sentences is that we rarely know what they mean without knowing what came before and what came after. Not to mention all the background information. Plus all the non-sentence-like stuff going on. Bigger worlds and smaller worlds. All are being spoken to. Or “thought” to.
In none of these articles were there specific references or links to academic papers. Rather, the authors use markers of scientific authority to present their claims as “facts”.
So a thought can be a process, the outcome of a process, capacity, inchoate intention, opinion, state of beholding, state of awareness, tentative belief, or an act of contemplation. Is there a common theme to these definitions?
Harming others directly through hands-on action is harder on our psyches than causing harm indirectly, either through inaction or action at a remove (e.g., pulling a switch, pressing a button).
To think is to follow a scent, focused and determined. To think is to pursue. To wonder is to become a vessel. To wonder is to be filled.
Patriotism is devotion and loyalty to one’s country. Some say patriotism is the author of all sorts of ills. It easily morphs into its ugly cousin Nationalism, that bully with a superiority complex. By favoring one’s own country over others, patriotism encourages the denigration, hatred or distrust of others, making violations of human rights more acceptable.
Optimism undermines success when it’s based on magical thinking. We engage in magical thinking when we believe happy endings are the result of a will-to-success. Voila! It will happen because I Can Do It.
There are two ways we dehumanize others: focus on their machine-like qualities or stress their animal nature. Mechanistic dehumanization characterizes people as unemotional, cold, and rule-bound, like robots or automatons. Animalistic dehumanization portrays people as overly emotional, impulsive, and childlike.
Concern with status is part of our animal heritage. The regard of others is a scarce resource; therefore, we compete for it. Appealing and available mates are scarce: therefore, we compete for them.
You think you have high standards for discerning the truth of the matter? Then you must be able to imagine counterevidence to your theories of how the world works. At the very least.
In a variation on the “Wason selection task”, students in a research study were asked to test the rule “if a card has D on one side, it has a 3 on the other”. They were then shown four cards, which had either a letter (D or F) or a number (3 or 7) on them, and were asked which cards they would turn over to validate the rule. The correct answer was ...
Sometimes labeling, reducing (making little and laughable), and purposely ignoring complexity can be useful. We don’t have to give our full attention and cognitive resources to everything. We have to choose: does this matter enough?
As previous posts have amply shown, I'm not a big fan of mindfulness as a quasi-religious ideology. I’m not going to propose a specific counter-ideology. Sure, I have beliefs about what makes life worthwhile, what matters, the is and the ought.
All hail the engineer’s approach to problem solving! Recognize a need...Define the problem, the objectives and the constraints...Collect information and data...Generate alternative solutions... Evaluate the consequence of different solutions...