Thinking Outside The Brain

Transcript

1. Thinking Outside the Brain
2. Problem Statement Live in a dilemma—one that we all share: • Succeeding in this world requires focused attention, prodigious memory, capacious bandwidth, sustained motivation, logical rigor, and proficiency with abstractions. • The gap between what our biological brains are capable of, and what modern life demands, is large and getting larger each day
3. Isn’t the brain, on its own, up to the job? Actually, no. …we’re deluged with reports of discoveries about the brain’s astounding abilities, its lightning quickness and its protean plasticity
4. For centuries, brains had been likened to machines—to whichever appliance of the time appeared most advanced: a hydraulic pump, a mechanical clock, a steam engine, a telegraph machine. Brains had also long been likened to muscles that could be strengthened with exercise—a theme promulgated, for example, by physicians and health experts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
5. The brain’s capacities are actually quite constrained and specific. The human brain is limited in its ability to pay attention, limited in its capacity to remember, limited in its facility with abstract concepts, and limited in its power to persist at a challenging task.
6. But accurately recalling complex information? Engaging in rigorous logical reasoning? Grasping abstract or counterintuitive ideas? Not so much
7. The brain does do a few things exquisitely well—and can manage fluently, almost effortlessly. For example: • sensing and moving the body, • navigating through space and connecting with other humans.
8. Rather, research suggests that we’ve got it exactly backwards. As it is, we use our brains entirely too much—to the detriment of our ability to think intelligently. What we need to do is think outside the brain. Use your head!
9. “Brainbound” Thinking Cognitive challenges posed by contemporary life has been to double down on what the philosopher Andy Clark calls “brainbound” thinking—those very capacities that are, on their own, so woefully inadequate. The smart move is not to lean ever harder on the brain but to learn to reach beyond it.
10. Psychologists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists are now able to provide a clear picture of how extra- neural inputs shape the way we think. Even more promising, they offer practical guidelines for enhancing our thinking through the use of these outside-the-brain resources.
11. The body acts as a critical conduit, supplying the brain with the visceral information it lacks
12. Thinking outside the brain means skillfully engaging entities external to our heads • the feelings and movements of our bodies • the physical spaces in which we learn and work • the minds of the other people around us …And drawing them into our own mental processes
13. When interacting with other people, we subtly and unconsciously mimic their facial expressions, gestures, posture, and vocal pitch. Then, via the interoception of our own bodies’ signals, we perceive what the other person is feeling because we bring other people’s feelings onboard, and the body is the bridge. In an act akin to taking a bite off our partner’s plate or borrowing an earbud to hear the song our friend is listening to we are sampling their emotions. We feel it in ourselves.
14. ATTENTION RESTORATION: Clearing the Mind, Restoring Directed Attention Attention Fatigue (DAF), and Facilitating Personal Personal Reflection
15. Our cognitive abilities have limits and can suffer fatigue
16. This loss of productivity is costly for businesses, with almost USD 588 billion lost per year in the United States
18. Extant research has demonstrated that that environments with certain qualities qualities can help clear the mind, restore restore “directed attention fatigue” or fatigue” or “DAF”, and facilitate personal personal reflection.
19. This research is called attention restoration theory (ART) (Kaplan & (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989).
20. According to ART, directed attention is a limited resource, subject to fatigue after significant and extended use.
21. Problem Statement: The need to reduce the fatigue fatigue of directed attention in attention in order to restore restore effectiveness.
23. BEING AWAY Detached from worries and troubles FASCINATION Evokes sense of awe and wonder #1 #2 #3 #4 EXTEND Detached from worries and troubles COMPATIBLE Human goals and environment characteristics align Restorative Environments