When I was about 20 years old, I worked as a janitor at a home for elderly
people. I had no skills that a janitor was supposed to have. In fact I didn't
even know that a janitor needed skills :)
One day I was asked to fix a clogged sink, I thought,
"Sure, how hard can it be?", then I went to work. This is how I did it.
- I examined the sink and quickly established that the problem was a clogged
water trap (vattenlås).
- I carefully removed the water trap, it was filled with filthy stinking brown
water.
- Very carefully I lifted the trap, to avoid spilling the filthy water on the
floor.
- Then, I poured the water into the sink...
I realized that I was not as smart as I thought I was. How could I do this? I
was so very careful not to spill a drop and yet my stupid brain failed me big
time. What was wrong with me?
After many years, and a lot of books, I think I have understood what the
problem is. It is not me, it is my brain. I am a pattern matching robot, who
reacts to incoming patterns in predefined ways. If there is not a pattern that
matches, it chooses the closest matching pattern and that is not necessarily
good.
Robots
My intention with this text is to show that we are more like machines than any
of us are willing to admit. We react to patterns that we pick up through our
senses. Our ability to work in a rational way is extremely limited since our
rational part of the mind is extremely limited. To demonstrate this, I'll start
with several examples.
Irrationality
What I mean with irrationality is, something we do without paying attention. It
is something we can do without involving our conscious part of the brain.
Irrational = Unconscious = Without paying attention
Facts are useful; they give the conscious mind something to do while the
emotions decide what’s true! --Dale Dauten
Most of what we do, we do without paying attention
Earphone Study
In an earphone study researchers wanted to find out how much we are affected by
actions that are seemingly unrelated to our brains.
In the study a number of people were asked to test out earphones, to tell if
they were comfortable.
- The first group were told to sit without moving and listen to what was
being said in the earphones.
- The second group were told to nod their heads while listening.
- The third group were told to shake their heads while listening.
After the test was completed the subjects were asked about what the person had
been talking about in the earphones. The result was statistically significant:
The group that were nodding were more positive than the group who sat without
moving and, they were more positive than the group who had been shaking their
head. The opinion of the people were affected by how they were moving their
head while they were listening!
How rational is that?
Biking
How do you ride a bicycle? You grab a hold on the handlebars, push off with
your foot to get some initial speed, keep you balance by moving the front wheel
in the direction in which the bike is falling. When the bike is falling the
other way you turn the wheel that way instead, and so on.
Needless to say this way of teaching someone to ride a bike will not work. We
can ride bikes, but we don't know how we do it. And even if we could do it the
way I described it, our conscious minds are too slow to be of any use. Try
riding a bike with a wheel that turns the opposite way, when you turn the
handlebars. It is very, very difficult.
Decisions
Imagine that you are standing on a trampoline, preparing to jump into the pool.
Half a second before you jump, your unconscious mind has started its activity
that will eventually make you jump. Half a second! Conscious decisions are
initiated unconsiously!
Cocktail Party
Imagine you are at a cocktail party, having a conversation with some
friends. Then, suddenly, you hear someone mention your name somewhere
around you. Your conscious attention is moved to the other conversation. You
may not even hear what your friends are talking about anymore, because your
unconscious mind has scanned the environment around you and now you want to
know what they are saying about you.
Is this a rational way to act?
Snap
Our unconscious mind is exceptional at making snap decisions. It does it all
the time. If we meet a person in the street we, unconsciously, scan them to see
if they are a threat, if they look good, etc. If there is something that is not
"normal" about them we are immediately aware of it.
Sleep
When we are sleeping, our brains repeat the thoughts we have thought
during the day. In a study two groups of people were tasked with first learning
some new skills, then solve creative problems based on what they
had learned. The first group learned the skills and started applying them right
away. The second group learned the skills, had a nights sleep, and then applied
their skills to the problems. The group that was allowed to "sleep on it", were
70% more effective than the first group.
Beauty
You may have heard the song by Skunk Anansie, called "Just because you feel
good", some of the lyrics go like this.
Just because you look good, doesn't make it right! -- Skunk Anansie
It is a good song, but unfortunately the conclusion is wrong. We are,
naturally, affected by beauty. We cannot do anything about it.
A good example of this is the justice system, who ought to be immune to this.
Beautiful people get, significantly, lower sentences than ugly people.
Our irrational mind, doesn't have any problem discriminating people.
Tumour
This is a story about a man who started to like child
pornography. After he had made a pass at his wife's sisters daughter, his life
went to pieces. He was divorced. But he went through a medical examination that
showed that he had a tumour in his brain... When they removed the tumour his
mind returned to normal. Of course, it was too late to do anything about his
broken marriage, but still, good for him. But there is an epilogue to this
story. The man started to feel the urge for child pornography again, and went
to see his doctor. The tumour had returned and once removed,
the behavior of the man returned to his "normal" behavior.
Dreyfuss Model of Skills Acquisition
In the Dreyfuss Model of Skills Acquisition
an expert is defined as someone who has "intuitive grasp of situations based on
deep, tacit understanding". Intuitive! In order to become experts we have to
let go of our need to be rational and trust our intuition. Being rational is too slow.
Einstein
Einstein was an extremely intuitive scientist. He had trouble communicating his
ideas to other scientists since he was not thinking in a language that he was
able to easily communicate to others.
I only need symbols to communicate. -- Albert Einstein
Optical Illusions
What square is lighter? "A" or "B". The obvious answer is of course incorrect.
They both have the same color as can be seen in the second picture. Just as
easily as we are fooled by this optical illusion our rational mind is fooled all
the time when our unconscious filters remove facts from our every sensation of
"reality".
This is a good thing. Our rational mind couldn't cope with the overflow of
information it would otherwise experience.
Reflective Robots
So as you can see, we are pattern matching robots, who react to patterns in
predefined ways. But that is not the whole truth. The cool part is that we are reflective robots
and this is where our rationality comes into play.
Rationality
My definition of
rationality is, of course, similar, but opposite, to my definition of
irrationality. Rational is something we do consciously, something we pay
attention to. But, rationality is extremely limited.
Time
Our rationality is able to deal with time. While our unconscious lives in
the present our conscious is able to move back and forth through time at our
whim.
Planning
Being able to deal with time is essential for planning. What is the use of
planning if there is no tomorrow? How can we plan for the future if we cannot
rely on experience from the past?
Focus
The conscious mind can focus, to concentrate the entire conscious mind and
some parts of the unconscious mind.
Discipline
Related to focus is discipline. This is also something that the conscious mind
excels at. While our irrational mind, simply reacts to incoming patterns, our
rational mind is able to keep the mind in check in order to force our rigid,
irrational mind to learn new patterns.
Choices
The conscious mind can make choices. And, every time we make a choice our mind
changes and we become more likely to make that choice again. We make choices
all the time, even when we don't.
Every Read is a Write
Andy Hunt put it very well in his book, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning.
He said that when it comes to the brain "Every read is a write". What this
means is that every time we think a thought, that thought becomes easier to think.
The patterns gets even more established. It is a thought worth thinking more
than once. Every time we think something, that thought becomes easier to think!
What do you want to think?
11 000 000 Bits
Our senses take in around 11 million bits every second. Most of it, around 10
million, comes through our vision. Our hearing picks up almost 1 million bits
and the rest comes through our other senses.
Less than 50 bits
At the same time our rational mind is able to process less then 50 bits, some
say less than 16... The rest of the information is filtered out by our
unconscious mind in order to protect our poor, limited, slow conscious mind
from overflowing.
Unconscious vs. Conscious
| Unconscious | Conscious |
|---|
| Parallel | Sequential |
| Automatic | Controllable |
| Fast | Slow |
| Rigid | Flexible |
| Now | Time aware |
| Near infinite | Very limited |
So What?
So, I have established, we are robots, and we can affect our behaviors in very
limited ways. So what? What can we do with this information.
Alfred Whitehead
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them. --Alfred Whitehead
This is not only true for civilizations it is true for humans too.
We can become whatever we want.
Even though our consciousness is extremely limited we can become whatever we
want. We do this through automation. We create habits.
Habits or routines are often taken to be boring. You have probably heard the
saying, "It is just routine, anyone can do it!" You have probably said it
yourself. But this is hogwash! Routines are vital to our behavior. Without our
automatic behavior we, as a species, would be extinct long ago. Another way to
think of habits is:
Outsourcing to our unconscious!
The more we can outsource the behavior we want, the more we will be able to
focus our attention on other things. But creating habits take time,
psychologists say that it takes 21 days.
Talent is Overrated
The Spanish violinist, Pablo Sarasate, was declared a genius by the press, this is how he
responded:
“A genius! For 37 years I’ve practiced fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius!” –- Pablo Sarasate
He took it as an insult. Becoming who we want to be takes time and effort and
practice.
Practice
Our conscious mind is able to see the benefits of learning something well. It
is able to discipline us to practice boring repetitions, over and over, until
they can be done unconsciously.
Tiger Woods started playing golf when he was two years old, and has probably practiced more
than any other golf player on the tour.
Try!
Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist who had a stroke. She had the unique
competence to be able to study the stroke while it happened. When she was
recovering she had to re-learn habits such as walking, reading and talking. She
said:
Try! When we try to do something, we tell the brain that we value this connection. The more we try, the stronger the connection becomes. The stronger it becomes, the easier it gets. -- Jill Bolte Taylor
Learning Curve
The normal learning curve, consists of plateaus of knowledge where we seem to
learn nothing new. Then after a long time of practice a small bump in knowledge
occurs, and then we are stuck on a new plateau. The small bumps are signs that
the knowledge has become second nature to us. Automatic!
Deliberate Practice
What separates most experts from the not-so-greats is something that is
called deliberate practice. A deliberate practice task has four parts.
Designed
The task to practice should be specifically designed for you and your skill
level. And it should be set up with a goal to improve in one specific area.
Small
The task should be small and specific enough for you to complete it and receive
feedback in a short time frame.
Demanding
The task should be hard. If it is not hard it will not give as much as it will
if it is designed to be just over your current abilities.
It is only human nature to want to practice what we already know, since it is a hell of a lot less work, and a hell of a lot more fun! --Sam Snead
Observed
It is important to observe yourself while practicing. This should be done before,
during and after the task.
Mentor
Sometimes we need help in observing ourselves. It is easy to lose focus and
start falling back into old habits, even during practice. Having a mentor or
coach that can help observe and correct you can be very helpful. This does not
have to be an expert as long as you can describe what you want them to do.
Loosing Bad Habits
The good thing about good habits is that they are automatic and can be
performed without conscious thought.
The bad thing about bad habits is that they are automatic and performed
without conscious thought.
Since we are not aware of our bad habits, it is very difficult to lose them.
Thus, if someone criticizes us for something, we should take this as a kind
gesture. They are helping us to notice our bad habits. And, once they are
noticed we can do something about them, such as replacing them with something
else. It is easier to replace a bad habit with a good one, than to just stop
doing the bad habit.
Hormones
Some bad habits are supported by our hormones. When we get angry at someone,
adrenaline is pumped out into our body. This will make us more
hostile and make it more difficult for us to act the way we would like to.
Spirals
If we react while our hormones are keeping us on edge, we may react more
strongly than we would wish to act. This can lead us into a downward spiral
where our anger feeds our behavior, which in turn makes us more angry...
Wait
The solution to this is simple. Wait! This is taught to our children in
kindergarten. They are told to count to ten before retaliating when something
has annoyed them. We should do this too. Jill Bolte Taylor writes in her book,
that it takes our body 90 seconds to wash out the hormones. If we
can just wait for a minute and a half, we may respond in a more thoughtful way.
What Habits Do You Want?
When deciding on what habits you want to cultivate, keep the wise words of
Ralph Waldo Emerson in mind.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Just because we have done something in the past does not mean that we have to
do it in the future. Just because people expect us to do something doesn't
mean that we have to do it at all!
Happiness
So, what habits do I cultivate. I cultivate habits that make me happy! Not only
because it feels good to be happy, although that is a large part of it.
Authentic Happiness
In his book, Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman studies what happiness
does with people, especially creative people. Here are some of his conclusions.
Happy people perform better!
.
People that are in a good mood produces much better results.
Increasing happiness increases the likelihood of insight!
And insight is the key to creativity.
Flow
Flow is the feeling you get when you do something that you are good at. When
you are performing on the limit of your ability. You lose the concept of time
and you are living in the moment. The conscious and unconscious are one. We are
whole!
Flow is my favorite state to be in and I believe that it can be achieved not
only when we are performing complex tasks, but also when we are doing much more
mundane tasks.
As long as we want to do what we are doing, we can immerse ourselves in the
task and in the moment and find flow in anything. I think this is the key to
living a happy life, finding flow in anything.
Stress
When writing about flow, I also want to write about stress. Stress is the
opposite of flow. Instead of doing what we want, right here, right now, we want
to be somewhere else. We want to be done. We don't want to do! This is fatal.
It is the end of creativity.
In a stress study with clerical students, who were to become priests, the
following happened.
Clerical Students
The students were at a lecture, where they were discussing what was the most
important trait of a priest. They all agreed that compassion, and helping those
in need, was the most important trait of a Christian priest. Towards the end of
the lecture, the teacher interrupted and said. "Oh! I forgot, you are supposed
to meet the bishop at his office in five minutes. You must hurry!"
The students hurried out of the classroom and started walking, at fast pace,
towards the bishops' office.
Along the road a homeless man who looked to be suffering was planted by the
researchers. What do you think happened? Right! Most of the students, who had
been told and all agreed on, that helping people in need is the most important
trait of a Christian priest, ignored the man in need.
The stress produced by being late to the meeting made them forget or ignore
their most important trait!
This is what stress can do to us, and it is not pretty!
Be kind
Back on the happiness track. One simple way to become happier is to be kind to
others. Studies show that when you are nice to someone.
- You feel happy.
- The person being helped feels happy.
- And, everyone who witnesses the act of kindness, feel happy too.
A special form of kindness is being polite! If you thank someone who helps you
they will feel good about helping you and be more likely to help you again.
So do what your mother told you. Say "Thank You"! Say "Please"!
Beauty
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as we all have different tastes.
Surrounding yourself with beautiful things, that you care about will make you
happier. If the code you are working with is beautiful, it will be much more
enjoyable for everyone who has to touch it.
(define y-combinator
(lambda (f)
((lambda (x)
(f (lambda (arg) ((x x) arg))))
(lambda (x)
(f (lambda (arg) ((x x) arg)))))))
The Y-Combinator, one of the most beautiful functions in the world!
Death
Another tip for finding out what habits you should create is to think about
death. Death has a way of forcing you to think clearly. What would you do if
you died tomorrow?
And, remember it is about people.
No one ever said on their deathbed, "Gee I wish I spent more time in front
of the computer".
We are social animals, and we thrive in the company of people we like.
Enthusiasm
Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm! -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why waste time doing something you are not enthusiastic about. Either do something else or, become enthusiastic about it.
If I only take the time to dig into something, I find that almost everything is interesting.
Belief
What is the difference between fantasy and reality? Belief!
-- David Hume
In our brain, the only difference between what we know and what we hope is
belief. If we are sure that something is in a certain way, it is that way. No
matter if it is true or not. Believe in yourself!
Do It!
Starting something is half the battle.
Once you get going it is easy to keep going.
We Are What We Repeatedly Do
We are what we repeatedly do. -- Aristotle
We can talk all we want, but at the end of the day, we are our habits. Good
habits makes us happy and when we are happy everything becomes easier.
Resources
If you found this interesting here are some books that will go much deeper into
the topic (affiliate links):
