There are various discussions around what the speed of thought is. I won't join the debate, as for this discussion an approximate number is enough. Therefore:
Some people think the speed of thought is somewhere around 250 km per second. Others call it at 300 milliseconds. It all depends on what you are actually measuring.
The speed of the electrical impulse in the human neural wiring depends on the thickness of the "wire".
Other people measure how long it takes to begin to understand objects that are visually represented.
Yet far in the past people used to think that the speed of thought is infinite, that thought is the fastest thing in the universe, as in your mind you can travel wherever instantly. To all the places you have been to, to all the places you can imagine, to all the places you can have as points of reference, or the places you have a symbol, an image or a totem of - like the moon.
For years, that thought, of the ultimate escape through thought has comforted generations. Although it did had in some cases some Jumper intrigue into it - like you can't go to a place you have never seen or visited before.
Of course this kind of brain speed doesn't visit the actual locations, doesn't see the real objects of its imagery. It just activates the symbols, the references, the representations that we hold of those objects.
But even so, it's fun and useful, it enables us to visit the world in our head, hold in the same image objects, ideas and people that we never put in the same room, manipulate reality, find meaning and solutions, and just play.
Yet here's the funny thing. The pleasure we take in our speed of thought seems to be influencing the way we interact with the world. We try to automatize things in our life, and processes, we try to create new circumstances that wouldn't naturally occur from things we put together before in our heads, we try to have the same power over reality, over the source, as we feel having over our minds and symbols.
Tuesday 18 September 2012
Friday 7 September 2012
Pure perception and the extra layers of meaning
There is no such thing as pure perception.
All we perceive has an added layer of interpretation and prediction.
In fact this layer goes so deep that we can only be aware of the fact that we are actually predicting things when these predictions are violated - like in the case of visual illusions, or impossible objects.
In this case our "perceptual" system extrapolates an object that is not truly there, but it might be (in a normal world when someone has not created a perceptual trick) - a triangle. As soon as we run our gaze over the edges we realize this couldn't possibly be, as it defies what we know about space.
This extra layer of perception is actually interpretation, and comes from our need of being able to predict the world and categorize it in things that we already know. It is a much harder to notice this layer when we deal with abstract interpretation of events, situations and people. As these rarely can provide exactly the circumstances that would violate those expectations, and even then we can reinterpret that violation under our own system's rules, or simply discard it.*
*Remember it is very hard for people to hold on to contradictory facts; we like things and facts that are coherent, and our brain will do lots to get that coherence, including brushing over very important details that don't fit the big picture, or - well - lying to us to keep our coherence and perception of our normal image of the world going.
It is fascinating to think about the fact that we deal with synthesis, inference and abstraction from the moment we open our eyes (or sensory gates), and that what we think of as being "abstract thought" has in fact roots and examples in our very mundane, anchored-in-the-concrete interactions with material objects of the world.
I call this interaction because even if we don't act on the object we are observing, we already have a predesigned cognitive system that deals with it in such a way as to make it available for our interaction. We can't have pure observation, our level of observation already involves some level of preparation for interaction.
There is no point in seeing the three lines that we perceive as a table, if there is no possible interaction with it. The layer of meaning of the object seems to be added for our possible interaction. What does that say about the ones fascinated with meaning? What is their stance on interaction?
The fact that we seem unable to have "pure" perception also makes me wonder what do those awesome people that are mainly observers actually see (yup, I mean you)? Are they the mirrors of the world, a special mirror, with the properties of their vision and interpretation, in which one can see the world reflected in their personality?
That is why we have such ambiguity with terms like vision - to see but also to have a vision of something. Having a vision is quite similar to having some higher degree of interpretation and meaning over the facts that you know, is being able to put them together in a way that makes them easy to navigate and inspires people to action and interaction.
We can only decide to interact with what we see in our vision.
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Image : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Public_art_-_Impossible_Triangle,_Claisebrook.jpg
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All we perceive has an added layer of interpretation and prediction.
In fact this layer goes so deep that we can only be aware of the fact that we are actually predicting things when these predictions are violated - like in the case of visual illusions, or impossible objects.
In this case our "perceptual" system extrapolates an object that is not truly there, but it might be (in a normal world when someone has not created a perceptual trick) - a triangle. As soon as we run our gaze over the edges we realize this couldn't possibly be, as it defies what we know about space.
This extra layer of perception is actually interpretation, and comes from our need of being able to predict the world and categorize it in things that we already know. It is a much harder to notice this layer when we deal with abstract interpretation of events, situations and people. As these rarely can provide exactly the circumstances that would violate those expectations, and even then we can reinterpret that violation under our own system's rules, or simply discard it.*
*Remember it is very hard for people to hold on to contradictory facts; we like things and facts that are coherent, and our brain will do lots to get that coherence, including brushing over very important details that don't fit the big picture, or - well - lying to us to keep our coherence and perception of our normal image of the world going.
It is fascinating to think about the fact that we deal with synthesis, inference and abstraction from the moment we open our eyes (or sensory gates), and that what we think of as being "abstract thought" has in fact roots and examples in our very mundane, anchored-in-the-concrete interactions with material objects of the world.
I call this interaction because even if we don't act on the object we are observing, we already have a predesigned cognitive system that deals with it in such a way as to make it available for our interaction. We can't have pure observation, our level of observation already involves some level of preparation for interaction.
There is no point in seeing the three lines that we perceive as a table, if there is no possible interaction with it. The layer of meaning of the object seems to be added for our possible interaction. What does that say about the ones fascinated with meaning? What is their stance on interaction?
The fact that we seem unable to have "pure" perception also makes me wonder what do those awesome people that are mainly observers actually see (yup, I mean you)? Are they the mirrors of the world, a special mirror, with the properties of their vision and interpretation, in which one can see the world reflected in their personality?
That is why we have such ambiguity with terms like vision - to see but also to have a vision of something. Having a vision is quite similar to having some higher degree of interpretation and meaning over the facts that you know, is being able to put them together in a way that makes them easy to navigate and inspires people to action and interaction.
We can only decide to interact with what we see in our vision.
--------------
Image : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Public_art_-_Impossible_Triangle,_Claisebrook.jpg
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Tuesday 4 September 2012
Preference for Escape
We have a cognitive preference for some patterns that have dominated our entire thought for years, or synthesize very intense experiences. We enjoy the taste of these concepts, they are old friends, they dilate our pupils and yield the ideas that can save us.
Me, I like escape. I like the taste of it - it feels like a breeze that lifts my arms into a flying posture, like the joy of freshness and continuous reinvention.
Also there is something in the idea of being able to escape at all times that makes you feel free and safe.
Many people associate freedom with risk, and safety with living a stable, yet sometimes boring routine. But in our thoughts of escape, in the possibility of it, some of us find the safety of not being trapped in a box that is not our size.
This taste for certain notions is reflected in our aesthetic preferences.
This is also reflected in my preference in movies. At least one stream/one taste of the movies I like shows a preference that can be traced back to the concept of escape - The Cube(s), the Saw(s), Fermat's Room, etc. Escapes from rooms, from labyrinths, from situations, survival instinct, traps, problem-solving, cues to salvation.
Being trapped in a box, in a situation, finding your way out by using your brains and your guts has intense meaning for me. And it can take various shapes.
It can be about saving yourself from a box which is not who you are, but just a situation in which others or life has put you in.
It can be escaping the box of routine into the excitement of a brand new box of things to do and people to meet and things to be good at and act upon.
What can be out there, beyond the box, if not freedom?
But freedom and pure chaos, complete indetermination are not something pleasant for the human mind. No matter how chaotic life might seem, nobody can truly live into chaos.
So we just into a different box, an unexplored one, or one in which we can be something we like more.
They are boxes which are too tight for us, and boxes which might take us an entire lifetime to explore.
And although they are boxes, they contain you, limit you, and they are limited themselves, we might not so much mind the box, as we can at times mind the fact that we don't like it's style, it's architecture, or it's tightness on our chest.
As long as there are things to explore, and the box matches our preference, we feel free.
Yet some of the ones ultimately obsessed with freedom, might intensely get focused on getting out of the box. There is escape for escape's sake. There is detachment, refusal to participate into something that feels like a box, and the intense fear that by participating you limit yourself to the size of the box, and you might forget you are in one until it is way too late.
That I understand, I can relate to. I hold the same instinct, and it took lots of learning to accept that some boxes might be "positive", and that I can escape so much as to escape everything I really want as well.
Also, if the things we do, the people we are with, the situations in which we find ourselves are boxes, it is interesting to remember we are boxes ourselves.
We can change ourselves in time by tasting other boxes, or throwing a way the things that are too tight for our liking, yet we are limited. We have the possibility of freedom, the possibility of becoming, yet we are not free to pursue everything at the same time, we naturally want the things that fit ourselves, the box that we are, and other things don't bring us much joy, no matter how heroic of an act of freedom we might be manifesting while escaping the "prison" of our previous identity.
On our road of manifesting our freedom, we want to be open, we want to embrace change, we want to discover and explore new things, new attitudes, new preferences, but something has to remain stable. Not the same thing all the time. We can't change everything at once, no matter how fluid our identities.
The thing we might not change, when we think we are changing everything, might very well be the idea of change, the internal observer, our very detachment.
Yet detachment is a box in itself. An attitude. It might feel like the secret weapon that has help you not fall, but it is also the drive that keeps you away from the things you want to stay in, because they are you, they represent what you need and like. Detachment lures you further, it whispers seductively into your ear that you can't possibly stay here, that there might be more to see, while not letting you feel the boxes you are passing through.
But there is no depth in an escape that is detached, that comes from fear. Those escapes just make you keep on running.
Where do you escape when you have escaped everything? You end up with this box of continuous escapes, which might look very much like a labyrinth. You might be the labyrinth.
Yet you can go back, grab the piece of string, trace your way, and find those exact rooms which where more than boxes to you. The rooms in which you can build, the rooms which you can enlarge, the rooms in which you are at home, and others might want to visit.
There is no point in escaping from the places that make you feel like yourself. And if you have obsessed about escape as much as I did, that comes as a revelation.
Escape was not the point to start with, but I will always have the special relationship with it. The point was being able to move, to see, and to be authentic, without constraints. Yet that is much harder of an essence to convey into one single taste, so escape has taken its place as a symbol.
The total paradox of someone focused on escape might be escape in ourselves. You never know what you have already become in the mean time, while focusing on the previous escapes. But the forever growing, adapting, changing, yet stable box of ourselves is the only box that hold us in forever, the box with that special taste - of not just having found, but feeling at home.
Me, I like escape. I like the taste of it - it feels like a breeze that lifts my arms into a flying posture, like the joy of freshness and continuous reinvention.
Also there is something in the idea of being able to escape at all times that makes you feel free and safe.
Many people associate freedom with risk, and safety with living a stable, yet sometimes boring routine. But in our thoughts of escape, in the possibility of it, some of us find the safety of not being trapped in a box that is not our size.
This taste for certain notions is reflected in our aesthetic preferences.
This is also reflected in my preference in movies. At least one stream/one taste of the movies I like shows a preference that can be traced back to the concept of escape - The Cube(s), the Saw(s), Fermat's Room, etc. Escapes from rooms, from labyrinths, from situations, survival instinct, traps, problem-solving, cues to salvation.
Being trapped in a box, in a situation, finding your way out by using your brains and your guts has intense meaning for me. And it can take various shapes.
It can be about saving yourself from a box which is not who you are, but just a situation in which others or life has put you in.
It can be escaping the box of routine into the excitement of a brand new box of things to do and people to meet and things to be good at and act upon.
What can be out there, beyond the box, if not freedom?
But freedom and pure chaos, complete indetermination are not something pleasant for the human mind. No matter how chaotic life might seem, nobody can truly live into chaos.
So we just into a different box, an unexplored one, or one in which we can be something we like more.
They are boxes which are too tight for us, and boxes which might take us an entire lifetime to explore.
And although they are boxes, they contain you, limit you, and they are limited themselves, we might not so much mind the box, as we can at times mind the fact that we don't like it's style, it's architecture, or it's tightness on our chest.
As long as there are things to explore, and the box matches our preference, we feel free.
Yet some of the ones ultimately obsessed with freedom, might intensely get focused on getting out of the box. There is escape for escape's sake. There is detachment, refusal to participate into something that feels like a box, and the intense fear that by participating you limit yourself to the size of the box, and you might forget you are in one until it is way too late.
That I understand, I can relate to. I hold the same instinct, and it took lots of learning to accept that some boxes might be "positive", and that I can escape so much as to escape everything I really want as well.
Also, if the things we do, the people we are with, the situations in which we find ourselves are boxes, it is interesting to remember we are boxes ourselves.
We can change ourselves in time by tasting other boxes, or throwing a way the things that are too tight for our liking, yet we are limited. We have the possibility of freedom, the possibility of becoming, yet we are not free to pursue everything at the same time, we naturally want the things that fit ourselves, the box that we are, and other things don't bring us much joy, no matter how heroic of an act of freedom we might be manifesting while escaping the "prison" of our previous identity.
On our road of manifesting our freedom, we want to be open, we want to embrace change, we want to discover and explore new things, new attitudes, new preferences, but something has to remain stable. Not the same thing all the time. We can't change everything at once, no matter how fluid our identities.
The thing we might not change, when we think we are changing everything, might very well be the idea of change, the internal observer, our very detachment.
Yet detachment is a box in itself. An attitude. It might feel like the secret weapon that has help you not fall, but it is also the drive that keeps you away from the things you want to stay in, because they are you, they represent what you need and like. Detachment lures you further, it whispers seductively into your ear that you can't possibly stay here, that there might be more to see, while not letting you feel the boxes you are passing through.
But there is no depth in an escape that is detached, that comes from fear. Those escapes just make you keep on running.
Where do you escape when you have escaped everything? You end up with this box of continuous escapes, which might look very much like a labyrinth. You might be the labyrinth.
Yet you can go back, grab the piece of string, trace your way, and find those exact rooms which where more than boxes to you. The rooms in which you can build, the rooms which you can enlarge, the rooms in which you are at home, and others might want to visit.
There is no point in escaping from the places that make you feel like yourself. And if you have obsessed about escape as much as I did, that comes as a revelation.
Escape was not the point to start with, but I will always have the special relationship with it. The point was being able to move, to see, and to be authentic, without constraints. Yet that is much harder of an essence to convey into one single taste, so escape has taken its place as a symbol.
The total paradox of someone focused on escape might be escape in ourselves. You never know what you have already become in the mean time, while focusing on the previous escapes. But the forever growing, adapting, changing, yet stable box of ourselves is the only box that hold us in forever, the box with that special taste - of not just having found, but feeling at home.
Wednesday 22 August 2012
Meaning, knowledge, truth
I've always been fascinated with meaning, and how meaning is created, refined, discovered and reinvented by the human mind.
Meaning is not a human creation - animals appraise the way various stimuli will impact on their world, if they will be positive or negative for their life, and have instinctive and learnt reactions at those stimuli.
Yet meaning reaches a complete new dimension in a rich cognitive life of a human being. Meaning comes both out of truth and knowledge seeking, and out of our aesthetic pleasure and style of interpretation. Sometimes shaping the facts in our life in a more beautiful meaning can give us immense satisfaction, it can motivate us to take action or change course, it can give us that deeper level of understanding that we long for.
In many ways, meaning guides our lives and our behaviour. Interpreting the events that happen to us in a certain way determines the decisions that we will make. We tend to interpret the art/music that we come in contact with based on the meaning and importance that we assign to various experiences in our lives. That is why the meaning of great art is sometimes so ambiguous, having a different nuance for each receiver (and active interpreter). Great art carries enough reference points into meaning to involve us into a new way of perceiving and interpreting, yet little enough detail, or enough vagueness to flexibly accommodate the interpretation bestowed upon it by various minds, with various experiences, impulses, obsessions, joys, sorrows.
Some of us search in art for a transcendence to a deeper form of meaning, one that will take our perception of our own experiences to a new level. We search for a new perspective, a new point of reference, a new way of perceiving the world, or just one singular event. We search for it with the same craving as we search for new knowledge, or new truth.
In a sense, new knowledge has very much the same function in our psyche - it is a rediscovery of the world, a re-understanding, re-inventing. It shifts our perspective. It changes it or transcends it. Sometimes it muddies the waters, and a new point of view that we gather through an (artistic) experience can have trouble coexisting with our other attitudes or cognitive takes on life. Sometimes it clarifies everything, integrates different types of understanding, and gives us the pure exhilaration of transcendence.
From a cognitive stance, meaning is an extraordinary product. It comes from perception, interpretation, previously-held knowledge, emotional approach, processing style and current mood, all added together. It is a synthesis, the bit of magic which sometimes we have and other times we lose, which we strive for. Anchored into meaning, and its complex, sometimes contradictory layers, actions can be understood.
Yet I can't help but wonder, what is the difference between the human search for truth and the human search for meaning? Pure truth - just fact - has to be shaped to be integrated within our meaning, which tries to be a metatruth (an integration of previous true experiences, parts of truth which we have gathered) that comes in the colouring of what that particular truth means to us.
Yet people can reject the truth and prefer something that has more meaning. Accepting the truth can come at the huge emotional and cognitive cost of having to abandon previously held meaning, lose our understanding, and carve our way into organising all the information that we have in a new form. We do not always afford to do that.
But in a way, finding truth and finding meaning is supported by the same drive. Our drive to understand - the world around us, ourselves and others. Meaning has the added bonus of a very high level phenomenological flavor - we like tasting certain types of meaning, we have an aesthetic preference for them.
If it would come to a choice and we could only have one, when would our quest for meaning and when would our quest for truth thrive?
©2012 Ana-Maria Olteteanu
Meaning is not a human creation - animals appraise the way various stimuli will impact on their world, if they will be positive or negative for their life, and have instinctive and learnt reactions at those stimuli.
Yet meaning reaches a complete new dimension in a rich cognitive life of a human being. Meaning comes both out of truth and knowledge seeking, and out of our aesthetic pleasure and style of interpretation. Sometimes shaping the facts in our life in a more beautiful meaning can give us immense satisfaction, it can motivate us to take action or change course, it can give us that deeper level of understanding that we long for.
In many ways, meaning guides our lives and our behaviour. Interpreting the events that happen to us in a certain way determines the decisions that we will make. We tend to interpret the art/music that we come in contact with based on the meaning and importance that we assign to various experiences in our lives. That is why the meaning of great art is sometimes so ambiguous, having a different nuance for each receiver (and active interpreter). Great art carries enough reference points into meaning to involve us into a new way of perceiving and interpreting, yet little enough detail, or enough vagueness to flexibly accommodate the interpretation bestowed upon it by various minds, with various experiences, impulses, obsessions, joys, sorrows.
Some of us search in art for a transcendence to a deeper form of meaning, one that will take our perception of our own experiences to a new level. We search for a new perspective, a new point of reference, a new way of perceiving the world, or just one singular event. We search for it with the same craving as we search for new knowledge, or new truth.
In a sense, new knowledge has very much the same function in our psyche - it is a rediscovery of the world, a re-understanding, re-inventing. It shifts our perspective. It changes it or transcends it. Sometimes it muddies the waters, and a new point of view that we gather through an (artistic) experience can have trouble coexisting with our other attitudes or cognitive takes on life. Sometimes it clarifies everything, integrates different types of understanding, and gives us the pure exhilaration of transcendence.
From a cognitive stance, meaning is an extraordinary product. It comes from perception, interpretation, previously-held knowledge, emotional approach, processing style and current mood, all added together. It is a synthesis, the bit of magic which sometimes we have and other times we lose, which we strive for. Anchored into meaning, and its complex, sometimes contradictory layers, actions can be understood.
Yet I can't help but wonder, what is the difference between the human search for truth and the human search for meaning? Pure truth - just fact - has to be shaped to be integrated within our meaning, which tries to be a metatruth (an integration of previous true experiences, parts of truth which we have gathered) that comes in the colouring of what that particular truth means to us.
Yet people can reject the truth and prefer something that has more meaning. Accepting the truth can come at the huge emotional and cognitive cost of having to abandon previously held meaning, lose our understanding, and carve our way into organising all the information that we have in a new form. We do not always afford to do that.
But in a way, finding truth and finding meaning is supported by the same drive. Our drive to understand - the world around us, ourselves and others. Meaning has the added bonus of a very high level phenomenological flavor - we like tasting certain types of meaning, we have an aesthetic preference for them.
If it would come to a choice and we could only have one, when would our quest for meaning and when would our quest for truth thrive?
©2012 Ana-Maria Olteteanu
Tuesday 21 August 2012
Thought as something else
Thought is the process of navigating through previous memory traces,
while navigating through present impressions,
while trying to solve the problems that we imagine will take us closer to our goals, or problems that we are merely interested in and focus on in order to clarify our mental system,
and putting at least some parts of them together in a coherent way, that enables us to do all the above.
It is physical in a sense that it is a process. It is based on physical memory traces and perceptions, under the influence of our motivation, and the combination that ensues thereof.
It is not a magical substance, yet it can't be easily captured by supervising the physical traces that it is navigating. Mainly because it is not programmed, it can lead its own way through all these traces, it can get distracted, it can rebuild memories.
There is no cartesian divide to be found, yet it is befuddling how some people can't see past it. Of course thought is "something else" than physical in certain ways - it is a process, not just its physical traces. It is emergent and happens in a now in the sense that all these traces are observed and felt and activated in the light of current preoccupations, goals, states. And representation is not an object, it's just the perceptual and representational traces it leaves within us.
I can see why people would think thought has somewhat of a vague, eerie, ethereal nature (which makes them see it as a different substance), but those are all qualities that ensue from the principle of a trace, and activating various parts of it in various moments, from the emergent in the present nature that thought has through compositionality with current state, and the changes it goes through. It is only magical to the extent that it is complex, self-guided, unique, elaborative and in creative people quite hard to predict, although a small part of that can be done if you really understand the shapes of thought they prefer, their processes, cognitive, processing and aesthetic style.
It is hard to define thought as a substance in the pure physical sense, and we have this feeling of it being mysterious and ethereal because it is not a substance, it is a process. A process of navigating and activating part of imperfect traces, while reconstructing them, and putting the present activated content together in coherent, self-directed wholes, which can spawn new traces, forever more.
Thought escapes cartesian dualism, and we need new concepts for it. Concepts that are more fluid and integrative than the dichotomies we currently have. Until we know enough to actually understand it well, thought needs us to refine our vision, to follow its versatility with concepts that are more similar in technique to painting the essence of the big picture with broad strokes, more akin to poetry than dualism.
while navigating through present impressions,
while trying to solve the problems that we imagine will take us closer to our goals, or problems that we are merely interested in and focus on in order to clarify our mental system,
and putting at least some parts of them together in a coherent way, that enables us to do all the above.
It is physical in a sense that it is a process. It is based on physical memory traces and perceptions, under the influence of our motivation, and the combination that ensues thereof.
It is not a magical substance, yet it can't be easily captured by supervising the physical traces that it is navigating. Mainly because it is not programmed, it can lead its own way through all these traces, it can get distracted, it can rebuild memories.
There is no cartesian divide to be found, yet it is befuddling how some people can't see past it. Of course thought is "something else" than physical in certain ways - it is a process, not just its physical traces. It is emergent and happens in a now in the sense that all these traces are observed and felt and activated in the light of current preoccupations, goals, states. And representation is not an object, it's just the perceptual and representational traces it leaves within us.
I can see why people would think thought has somewhat of a vague, eerie, ethereal nature (which makes them see it as a different substance), but those are all qualities that ensue from the principle of a trace, and activating various parts of it in various moments, from the emergent in the present nature that thought has through compositionality with current state, and the changes it goes through. It is only magical to the extent that it is complex, self-guided, unique, elaborative and in creative people quite hard to predict, although a small part of that can be done if you really understand the shapes of thought they prefer, their processes, cognitive, processing and aesthetic style.
It is hard to define thought as a substance in the pure physical sense, and we have this feeling of it being mysterious and ethereal because it is not a substance, it is a process. A process of navigating and activating part of imperfect traces, while reconstructing them, and putting the present activated content together in coherent, self-directed wholes, which can spawn new traces, forever more.
Thought escapes cartesian dualism, and we need new concepts for it. Concepts that are more fluid and integrative than the dichotomies we currently have. Until we know enough to actually understand it well, thought needs us to refine our vision, to follow its versatility with concepts that are more similar in technique to painting the essence of the big picture with broad strokes, more akin to poetry than dualism.
Monday 20 August 2012
Rewards as demotivators
What if all that we knew about what makes us do things would be partially wrong? What if giving people rewards for what they are doing would actually make them do that thing less, instead of doing it more?
In psychology this is called the overjustification effect.
Here is how it works: - extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation are not the same thing. Doing something to get something is not the same thing as doing something because you like doing it. Therefore being too goal-focused (and having the goal as something disconnected from the reality of the activity) might make us enjoy the reality of the activity less, shift our focus from the enjoyment, or make us feel anxious while doing it because we are trying to perform better in order to obtain the reward.
Yet why is it that it seems so normal to us that rewards should make people perform better?
How does one start to understand the genealogy of a cognitive mistake?
This theory might seem intuitive through an association to other theories that work, and a wrong inference that, by analogy, the shape of this problem of motivation should be similar.
The two theories that it might thus be associated to which spring to mind are:
- the theory of the survival drive to satisfy one's own needs - the wrong inference goes like this - > if one has an inherent drive to satisfy one's needs, then promising to satisfy them as a reward if that agent does a certain activity should project the drive to satisfy those needs on the activity the agent has to do in exchange.
mistake 1 - who says the drive is really projected on the activity at hand? (see second associated theory)
mistake 2 - given more rewards that could potentially satisfy more needs doesn't mean that a satisfaction point isn't reached, when the agent loses drive for having those needs satisfied
mistake 3 - drive for obtaining something is not the same thing as the drive needed to sustain an activity in a performant, productive fashion
- pavlovian conditioning - if an object of desire is associated with another object for long enough, the symptoms of desire could appear in the presence of the other object
mistake 1 - it might work with objects and contexts up to a point, but who is to say that one can transfer desire for an object to desire for performing an activity (by offering that object as a reward for performing the activity)
mistake 2 - as human psychology is quite complex, it is very hard to say if in the same circumstance, the human won't simply feel inadequate for being unable to get the object himself, offended by having to trade an activity for it, and angry that the other person possessing the reward is making it so hard for him to reach the object of desire - all this resentment is bound to make the human feeling not quite so positive about the activity to do.
It seems we have cognitive blindspots, which we refuse to analyse. We all have the experience of not feeling motivated to do something despite the reward we have been promised, or starting from something that we normally love doing, then spoiling it to regimenting it too much and focusing on rules of doing it, the time it takes us to do it or how to move achieve it much faster, although, thus affecting negatively instead of focusing on the pleasure we get while doing it.
Yet this is cognitively unintuitive - it is trendy to think that if only we could give ourselves more rewards we would probably be more productive, or if only we would raise the stake more, put ourselves in competition, put a more anxious deadline or deal with even more discipline with our own work.
So despite having the experiences that would permit us to learn what motivates us, we stick to the norm of what should be motivating, and fail to formulate our own theories of what is really motivating based on our own experience.
That is why when people like Daniel Pink write a book like Drive, which discusses experimental evidence on what really motivates people, they reach a chord which resonates within all of us. They overthrow trends of thought, and verbalise the cognitive reality shadowed by our blindspots. They give our brain the ability to cognitively process and understand something which was previously hidden, yet completely belongs to us, to the way we function, to our experience.
In psychology this is called the overjustification effect.
Here is how it works: - extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation are not the same thing. Doing something to get something is not the same thing as doing something because you like doing it. Therefore being too goal-focused (and having the goal as something disconnected from the reality of the activity) might make us enjoy the reality of the activity less, shift our focus from the enjoyment, or make us feel anxious while doing it because we are trying to perform better in order to obtain the reward.
Yet why is it that it seems so normal to us that rewards should make people perform better?
How does one start to understand the genealogy of a cognitive mistake?
This theory might seem intuitive through an association to other theories that work, and a wrong inference that, by analogy, the shape of this problem of motivation should be similar.
The two theories that it might thus be associated to which spring to mind are:
- the theory of the survival drive to satisfy one's own needs - the wrong inference goes like this - > if one has an inherent drive to satisfy one's needs, then promising to satisfy them as a reward if that agent does a certain activity should project the drive to satisfy those needs on the activity the agent has to do in exchange.
mistake 1 - who says the drive is really projected on the activity at hand? (see second associated theory)
mistake 2 - given more rewards that could potentially satisfy more needs doesn't mean that a satisfaction point isn't reached, when the agent loses drive for having those needs satisfied
mistake 3 - drive for obtaining something is not the same thing as the drive needed to sustain an activity in a performant, productive fashion
- pavlovian conditioning - if an object of desire is associated with another object for long enough, the symptoms of desire could appear in the presence of the other object
mistake 1 - it might work with objects and contexts up to a point, but who is to say that one can transfer desire for an object to desire for performing an activity (by offering that object as a reward for performing the activity)
mistake 2 - as human psychology is quite complex, it is very hard to say if in the same circumstance, the human won't simply feel inadequate for being unable to get the object himself, offended by having to trade an activity for it, and angry that the other person possessing the reward is making it so hard for him to reach the object of desire - all this resentment is bound to make the human feeling not quite so positive about the activity to do.
It seems we have cognitive blindspots, which we refuse to analyse. We all have the experience of not feeling motivated to do something despite the reward we have been promised, or starting from something that we normally love doing, then spoiling it to regimenting it too much and focusing on rules of doing it, the time it takes us to do it or how to move achieve it much faster, although, thus affecting negatively instead of focusing on the pleasure we get while doing it.
Yet this is cognitively unintuitive - it is trendy to think that if only we could give ourselves more rewards we would probably be more productive, or if only we would raise the stake more, put ourselves in competition, put a more anxious deadline or deal with even more discipline with our own work.
So despite having the experiences that would permit us to learn what motivates us, we stick to the norm of what should be motivating, and fail to formulate our own theories of what is really motivating based on our own experience.
That is why when people like Daniel Pink write a book like Drive, which discusses experimental evidence on what really motivates people, they reach a chord which resonates within all of us. They overthrow trends of thought, and verbalise the cognitive reality shadowed by our blindspots. They give our brain the ability to cognitively process and understand something which was previously hidden, yet completely belongs to us, to the way we function, to our experience.
Friday 18 May 2012
the advantages of fuzzy memory
If cognitive enhancements would be out there on the market, if you could go and buy more memory hard drives for your brain, many of us, that appreciate living in our own mind quite a bit, would buy them.
Some people would love more processing power, some people would love to remember things more accurately and simply be able to store more details of events over longer periods of times. Some people would just love better working memory.
I for one always imagined I would be one of those people that could finally get one of those clearly indexed memories that other people seem to possess - that I will finally remember the titles and authors of the books I read, of the movies I see, of the songs I hear, and be able to quote previous research without having to look it up.
Tape-recorder memory, who says its bad? I say bring it on and let me try it!
Except there might be a big price to pay, bigger than having your nose bleed like Johnny Mnemonic after saying Hit me! (gosh I would love to say that just before they load some AI and Cog Sci Encyclopedia in my brain).
This price might be something quite essential to our human version of cognition, version which we still seem to appreciate more than that of computers, at least at the moment. It might be creativity, and out-of-the-box problem-solving.
It might very well be that what makes us tick and go outside our own knowledge is this very fuzzy version of memory that we have (and blame so much most of the time).
Human memory is many times a process of reconstruction. Yet we might proceed to this reconstruction without actually having all the pieces. We might start from some reference points which we have memorized, then apply our commonsense knowledge to fill in the details. In this process, memories become altered (and yup, it has some disadvantages concerning eye-witness testimony).
But other than that it is great! It allows us to mix knowledge from different times. Instead of sticking to the fact and reciting them back and forth, it allows us to build new types of knowledge and memories, new relations. Some of our great mental leaps or inferences might come from having to fill in some missing detail in a fuzzy memory, running a search across present knowledge, finding a match and then adding this match to the previous knowledge, thus constructing a new piece of knowledge through this process of memory reconstruction.
Without fuzzy memories, this would not be possible. Previous details would not fade away, with the possibility of being replaced by other more accurate or new knowledge, in a way which yields new relationships, inferences and moments of insight.
So think again before getting that memory chip, your inability to remember might make you the smart unique constantly self-upgrading intelligence that you are!
Wednesday 2 May 2012
Behavioral space versus measured space
They are people that can't measure space. That can't look into the distance at the next signpost and say - yeah man, about 300 m until that one; or about 90 feet to the left of that turn you will find the post office.
Conversely, it is hard for these people to interpret instructions given in this language.
Measuring space in various types of units and having the ability to interpret these measurements by translating them back to some form of representation or ability to use them as cues for the environment is an useful skill.
But there are other skills that relate to space which one can be good at, despite doing poorly with measurements. Behavioral space is one of them.
We are talking in behavioral space terms whenever we say or have the feeling of "my phone is right here" (to my right/left; near my hand, within reach, etc) , or "the coffee cup is over there" (subtext - and I only need to make a step and lean forward to take it).
These types of representations don't talk about measurements, or at least not objective ones (e.g. in metric units) - or perhaps I don't have any friends that normally say "my coffee cup is one meter to the left on my desk). This way of perceiving space relates to our own body size, ability to move and reach for things (and our experience with that), the time we feel we would need to do so, and our feeling of access and affordance of objects around us based on the things above.
Of course, a subconscious measurement might happen - our brain might measure arm span, arm reach, speed of reach or walk, project movement on the space between us and the object we are thinking about.
But whatever the units we are using (e.g. step size/speed and arm reach) they are not meters or feet.
One can be extremely good at predicting movement in one's own behavioral space, and therefore be able to measure it, but very bad when it comes to projecting slightly more artificial, "objective" units (like meters) on space (be it concrete space we are looking at or an imaginary space we have experienced).
You might be able to catch something falling down a shelf near you, to know exactly how much to lean to get a folder from a drawer - it is rare that we lean to get something and then feel we need to lean a bit more (trying to get something from a very high shelf does not count).
Our brain seems to compute all these distances on the fly and gives us the experience of a flow-like motion. If you think that is a little thing, think again!
Arm span has to be projected on distance to be covered, so that we walk the distance before actually reaching if our arm span is not enough, or move our rolling chair, or lean. We have to compensate for that extra distance somehow, otherwise we would reach out to grab things and only then make a few steps towards them. Instead we move towards these objects and then reach.
We also need to know when to stop, when we are close enough to reach, what is the distance of our arm span, and what is the best orientation of our body in order to have the right orientation for our muscles to coordinate the grab.
Most of the time, we step towards the shelf we need to grab an object from, and our arm starts moving upwards during the last phases of getting close to the shelf. This isn't, in any way, a simple feat. And to give that feeling of flow, that we normally associate with the "simplicity" if out movement, our brain has to learn a lot about our own body, movement, the environment, distance/size, etc.
If you want to understand how great of a feature this sensation of simplicity and flow of movement is, try starting to develop a movement skill you are not used to - or remember how it felt when you learned how to ride a bicycle, how to drive, how to swim or play a musical instrument. As a pianist, I know how developing new types of movement in different speeds feels anything like simple (I swear sometimes it feels like you are being asked to move your ears, or some muscles you have very little control over), and when you finally get simplicity and flow in your movements, your brain has managed to integrate all those movements, understand the distances and speeds involved, and is able to now coordinate them to perfection.
If you learn a new skill which involves a different type of movement (playing darts? pool? badminton?), or different distances, you can let yourself observe how your brain is feeling it's way into motion flow. During such an experience (which can involve a certain degree of frustration), one learns to appreciate more the marvels of our behavioral space and our movement repertoire.
Conversely, it is hard for these people to interpret instructions given in this language.
Measuring space in various types of units and having the ability to interpret these measurements by translating them back to some form of representation or ability to use them as cues for the environment is an useful skill.
But there are other skills that relate to space which one can be good at, despite doing poorly with measurements. Behavioral space is one of them.
We are talking in behavioral space terms whenever we say or have the feeling of "my phone is right here" (to my right/left; near my hand, within reach, etc) , or "the coffee cup is over there" (subtext - and I only need to make a step and lean forward to take it).
These types of representations don't talk about measurements, or at least not objective ones (e.g. in metric units) - or perhaps I don't have any friends that normally say "my coffee cup is one meter to the left on my desk). This way of perceiving space relates to our own body size, ability to move and reach for things (and our experience with that), the time we feel we would need to do so, and our feeling of access and affordance of objects around us based on the things above.
Of course, a subconscious measurement might happen - our brain might measure arm span, arm reach, speed of reach or walk, project movement on the space between us and the object we are thinking about.
But whatever the units we are using (e.g. step size/speed and arm reach) they are not meters or feet.
One can be extremely good at predicting movement in one's own behavioral space, and therefore be able to measure it, but very bad when it comes to projecting slightly more artificial, "objective" units (like meters) on space (be it concrete space we are looking at or an imaginary space we have experienced).
You might be able to catch something falling down a shelf near you, to know exactly how much to lean to get a folder from a drawer - it is rare that we lean to get something and then feel we need to lean a bit more (trying to get something from a very high shelf does not count).
Our brain seems to compute all these distances on the fly and gives us the experience of a flow-like motion. If you think that is a little thing, think again!
Arm span has to be projected on distance to be covered, so that we walk the distance before actually reaching if our arm span is not enough, or move our rolling chair, or lean. We have to compensate for that extra distance somehow, otherwise we would reach out to grab things and only then make a few steps towards them. Instead we move towards these objects and then reach.
We also need to know when to stop, when we are close enough to reach, what is the distance of our arm span, and what is the best orientation of our body in order to have the right orientation for our muscles to coordinate the grab.
Most of the time, we step towards the shelf we need to grab an object from, and our arm starts moving upwards during the last phases of getting close to the shelf. This isn't, in any way, a simple feat. And to give that feeling of flow, that we normally associate with the "simplicity" if out movement, our brain has to learn a lot about our own body, movement, the environment, distance/size, etc.
If you want to understand how great of a feature this sensation of simplicity and flow of movement is, try starting to develop a movement skill you are not used to - or remember how it felt when you learned how to ride a bicycle, how to drive, how to swim or play a musical instrument. As a pianist, I know how developing new types of movement in different speeds feels anything like simple (I swear sometimes it feels like you are being asked to move your ears, or some muscles you have very little control over), and when you finally get simplicity and flow in your movements, your brain has managed to integrate all those movements, understand the distances and speeds involved, and is able to now coordinate them to perfection.
If you learn a new skill which involves a different type of movement (playing darts? pool? badminton?), or different distances, you can let yourself observe how your brain is feeling it's way into motion flow. During such an experience (which can involve a certain degree of frustration), one learns to appreciate more the marvels of our behavioral space and our movement repertoire.
Wednesday 25 April 2012
The thought machine
Computers allow the information-processing paradigm, which has profound implications on both cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Information processing seems to have played for cognition the role that the microscope played for biology.
For a long time I thought that the stumbling block which makes people consider intelligent machines as not truly cognitive was not consciousness, but intentionality. Machines don't have their own goals, they can't choose for themselves to take another path than the one the programmer has endowed them with, neither can they come up with problem-solving skills and methods that haven't been put there by a human.
Processing information for a goal seems to be the defining quality that characterizes living systems, which can brings about cognitive behavior and processes which we don't see in machines.
Yet something is missing from this picture. Sometimes we forget that actually organs keep functioning automatically, just by being alive. That them being alive means they keep attempting to fulfill their function. So the function of our brain might be to process information, be it with a goal or not. It might be in its programming to do so, independent of if the owner has that as a goal or not.
This is where curiosity, as a human/animal trait comes into play. Many humans go out of their way to obtain information which couldn't possibly affect their survival. Yet the drive to acquire more information, to compare it to the previous one, to patch the types of information together, can feel as important for these people as eating (or more, at least until they get really hungry).
So it might be that the information-processing machine is simply in overdrive for some people. That it takes over. And of course they are survival advantages in that (if you are in the right job to manifest that talent, and if you can make a difference to the community through what you are processing).
Perhaps we should also ask ourselves why it is that our information-processing machine seems to always be on. Do we really need to do that much information processing? Is that an inherent part of the human condition, that we would have needed to develop this constant stream of thought/awareness?
Of course we feel that our thought machine sleeps at times - we zone out and can't think of the things we would like to think of, can't solve the things that we would like to solve.
Sometimes our minds seem blank and sometimes our ability to focus is slippery. Our machine can't seem to come to terms with what we want to direct it towards, and escapes our goal, while swimming heavily in its own purposes and plays at information-processing. It keeps on asking us questions we don't want or have the time to answer then and there, instead of helping us solve what we put in our schedule as a priority. It keeps focusing on things that seem unrelated to our task, albeit interesting for the context of our lives or the way we understand the world and universe and things.
That is one of the reasons for which some people use diaries. It is not because they need to constantly say what they did that day. But because they need to give their information processing machine a place to express its concerns, and process all those things that are in the back of our head, and that otherwise would stand in the way of our normal productivity. And they are questions in our head that we can't escape, that dominate our mental landscape in such a powerful way, that the old advice applies "the only way to escape a temptation/desire is to fulfill it".
In this context, the only way to get over that preoccupation that our mind has for certain subjects is to give it free rein to think about them at will and in a focused manner, so that we can then direct it at will ourselves after it has settled into having the answers that it needed, or being closer to them.
The mind-body system might not be a dualistic machine, but our own mind can be one at times, and we can remark and reflect on the difference between the things that we want to think about and the things that seem to "think us".
Our information-processing machine is not a completely tamed one, and perhaps it shouldn't be. As it knows better what our deep goals, interests and questions are than our daily task planner ever could.
Back to the intentional/non-intentional debate, I think there that our information-processing device just plays at times. It is a ludic device that takes pleasure (and rewards are significant for motivating behavior) from being active and trying to think and "solve" the world around us.
This can be easily seen in perception illusions, where we can't help ourselves but to solve certain patterns to some known common pattern. Or we can experience it when we look with no purpose at some patterns on the wall while thinking of something else and realize after a few minutes that our mind has kept on trying to arrange those patterns in various configurations.
The major implication of that thought is that it means we are more machine-like and less intentional than we thought. And that many times it is the machine that drives us forward, not the intention.
So if information processing is a function, and our brain can't help but do it, where does that leave the debate on the importance of intentionality as being a main feature that differentiates human cognition (our benchmark) from machine cognition?
First of all having this ludic information processing machine is not an easy process to replicate in itself. I don't know of any artificial cognitive machine that just keeps on adding random observations and drawing random conclusions and inferences out of them. Are they rules or general guiding principles which apply to our mental play? To be found out.
Second, our intentionality - our goals - might predispose us to gather information about how we can solve those even during our ludic time. We might be collecting information on the weird way the patterns are distributed on the wall and associate it through some far analogy to one of the important problems we are struggling with (and which is goal related) - in fact my research focuses on this process.
Second, there is a definite degree of independence, free will and randomness (read uniqueness if you like) that comes with this ludic information-processing machine, and probably defines the human cognitive experience. To be constantly only goal-directed is, after all, what we imagine machines to be. (very funny that we think that, but we also think that us having goals and free will is what makes us human).
Third, our experience in the world and in our thoughts is sometimes what makes new goals emerge. Which is not an experience replicated by a machine yet. And I don't mean refining goals purposefully - like in the case of creating subgoals in ACT-R. I mean simply thinking about some random things then suddenly deciding some possibility is attractive enough to be worth investigating, or experiencing things and then deciding to make something our goal just because we like it (or without particular knowledge of what cognitive goal that investigation might serve).
Therefore I don't see the idea of our brain being an information-processing machine that does just that all day long cause it likes to and that is its function as something that makes intentionality less important. Perhaps it is just bridging a little bit more the gap of our minds being mechanisms that have their own function, and drive us with the expression of this function, rather then other way around (us setting goals, and constantly directing our machine forward).
How would a neural implementation or model of either intentionality or ludic information processing look like? That is what I would really like to see.
Wednesday 15 February 2012
Throwing away main results - the collateral benefits hack
Do motivated people really have their eyes on the prize? Yeah, probably, but you might be surprised about some of their actions. They might just throw away what you thought was the main benefit of their actions, and the goal you thought they were pursuing.
And it might not even be that they are behaving irrationally. But that you misunderstood their goal.
I was just thinking about this kind of behavior, from a personal perspective. They are moments when you finally got your lot organized, you know what you have to do the next 50-200 steps to get to your goal, things are finally making sense. You are content: you managed to subdivide a problem that seemed very hard to achieve into manageable subgoals, and all you need to do, in theory, now that you traced a path to your goal, is to keep walking (disclaimer: no encouragement for (a certain brand of) whiskey consumption has been intended here, but c'mon, they do have a cool ads!).
Yet it doesn't happen. You don't get on with it. You don't move to the goal, although it's finally manageable. And its not cause you are lazy - you just discover that now that you finally defined that threatening problem in terms of manageable steps, you can focus on other things, that are far more important to you for some bizarre reason.
Point taken, the managerial part of your mind is now pissed off with u. And for a good reason: you've been terrified by this problem for so long, and now that finally your brain has provided the solution, instead of defeating the monster you just.... start working on a different task? How uncool is that?
But sometimes you need to trust that your brain knows what it's doing (it got on with keeping your body alive without that much input from you quite well and for quite a while). That you might not be that dedicated to the goal you just mentally solved. That knowing you can achieve it was the main benefit, the thing that helped you move deeper into what it's actually important for you to do.
And sometimes - rarely, but it happens - you might need to just be tolerant with throwing away most of what seems the result of your action. It might be that those results where not what you where there for in the first place, but some collateral benefit, which was a necessary resource for one of your other goals.
I was just thinking about this when I stumbled across a great description of that exact situation in a book chapter by Klahr(1):
But to all of you out there that think about yourselves as highly determined people, yet cringe at seeing yourself throwing away main results of what you worked for - relax. Try to understand the bigger goal. And see how smart your brain has been in pursuing it. Don't instill forced discipline just to satisfy your managerial mind - because you came up with too good of a plan to drop it just now. That part of your mind shouldn't be the master. It is just a tool. A costly tool, that takes lots of pride in itself, and likes its own work, but finally just a tool for your deeper goals.
You might be interested to know that some of the most creative minds of the history have done exactly that: hacked into problems, thrown away what to others seemed the main benefit, kept pursuing their task using lateral thinking tools until they got all the little pieces of the puzzle that they needed. And then a solution seemed to emerge out of nowhere (to others).
Just make sure what you are throwing away doesn't have a dangerous impact on your life or others. Other than that, you can keep on playing. It's what problem-solving is all about.
The juggling metaphor of solving tasks is well known: one has too many tasks on one's hands (wonder if one could have to many hands on one's task) and can't possibly cope with everything in the same time. Yet one copes by giving big pushes to the tasks, making them go into a sleeping cycle, when they don't need attention. It's about dealing with emergencies just before they happen. And it is very stressful, although it does imply the somewhat borderline satisfaction of dealing with more than you can.
But this collateral benefits hack is more like what a trapeze artist does. You are not throwing balls in the air, but throwing yourself into goals, being in motion, hoping that the trapeze you just landed will (while still in motion) meet up with another one that will take you a bit closer to your goal, or closer to something that can take you to your goal, or closer to something that is closer to something that can take you to your goal, recursive reasoning for the win!
Part of the path you might have taken might not be intended. It might not be meaningful. It might just be the search for that trapeze which moves you in the range of your dreams, at whatever recursive depth is still exciting for you and still makes you feel near them. And sometimes you might take a path that involved days of tasks just cause you needed the equivalent of a paperclip out of there. But it might be a paperclip without which you can't go any further.
The price that we pay for various parts that we need in our problem-solving might be completely unscaled to what we get from an action. But adapted to the importance getting that thing has for our goals and dreams.
And sometimes taking a path which seems not yours, not meaningful, which seems to take you away rather than towards your goal, is a painful thing (imagine what AI programs must feel when you force them out of their local optima). Yet some paths must be taken, filtered for that paperclip and thrown away. Don't try to keep everything. Drop some balls on the floor. Don't clutch onto them in despair, throw some out there in the world and see what comes back. And find your paperclip!
The creative mind has reasons that the reasonable mind doesn't have...
(1) Klahr,D. (2000).Exploring Science: The cognition and development of discovery processes - Ch.2 Scientific discovery as Problem Solving. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
I was just thinking about this kind of behavior, from a personal perspective. They are moments when you finally got your lot organized, you know what you have to do the next 50-200 steps to get to your goal, things are finally making sense. You are content: you managed to subdivide a problem that seemed very hard to achieve into manageable subgoals, and all you need to do, in theory, now that you traced a path to your goal, is to keep walking (disclaimer: no encouragement for (a certain brand of) whiskey consumption has been intended here, but c'mon, they do have a cool ads!).
Yet it doesn't happen. You don't get on with it. You don't move to the goal, although it's finally manageable. And its not cause you are lazy - you just discover that now that you finally defined that threatening problem in terms of manageable steps, you can focus on other things, that are far more important to you for some bizarre reason.
Point taken, the managerial part of your mind is now pissed off with u. And for a good reason: you've been terrified by this problem for so long, and now that finally your brain has provided the solution, instead of defeating the monster you just.... start working on a different task? How uncool is that?
But sometimes you need to trust that your brain knows what it's doing (it got on with keeping your body alive without that much input from you quite well and for quite a while). That you might not be that dedicated to the goal you just mentally solved. That knowing you can achieve it was the main benefit, the thing that helped you move deeper into what it's actually important for you to do.
And sometimes - rarely, but it happens - you might need to just be tolerant with throwing away most of what seems the result of your action. It might be that those results where not what you where there for in the first place, but some collateral benefit, which was a necessary resource for one of your other goals.
I was just thinking about this when I stumbled across a great description of that exact situation in a book chapter by Klahr(1):
"Consider the problem faced recently by an unnamed psychologist in getting from an office at Carnegie Mellon University to a conference room at Colorado resort in order to present a talk about scientific reasoning. The "difference" was one of distance, and among the set of distance-reduction operators were flying, walking, biking, and so forth. Flying was the operator that would most rapidly reduce distance, but it could not be applied to the initial condition: that is, one could not fly directly from one office to the conference site. This presented the subproblem of creating conditions for flying (i.e., getting to an airport). Getting to the airport could best be done via taxi, but there was no taxi at Carnegie Mellon. The sub-subproblem involved making a phone call to the cab company. But all the university phones were out of order for the day during a transition to a new system: only the pay phones worked. An even deeper subproblem: make a call on a pay phone. But a lack of coins made it impossible to apply that operator (no pun intended). However, a Coke machine was handy, and it accepted dollar bills and gave change. So the problem solver bought and discarded a Coke (our emphasis) in order to get on the solution path to transport himself to Colorado."Well ok, you will say, but I might have thrown away more than a Coke. So what? Solving some problems involves exactly that kind of lateral thinking. The only thing you need to watch for is not to get trapped in too many lateral thinking loops, not to end up throwing away too many portions. Not to end up living in a lateral loop that was supposed to be a life hack and just doesn't take you to your goal anymore.
But to all of you out there that think about yourselves as highly determined people, yet cringe at seeing yourself throwing away main results of what you worked for - relax. Try to understand the bigger goal. And see how smart your brain has been in pursuing it. Don't instill forced discipline just to satisfy your managerial mind - because you came up with too good of a plan to drop it just now. That part of your mind shouldn't be the master. It is just a tool. A costly tool, that takes lots of pride in itself, and likes its own work, but finally just a tool for your deeper goals.
You might be interested to know that some of the most creative minds of the history have done exactly that: hacked into problems, thrown away what to others seemed the main benefit, kept pursuing their task using lateral thinking tools until they got all the little pieces of the puzzle that they needed. And then a solution seemed to emerge out of nowhere (to others).
Just make sure what you are throwing away doesn't have a dangerous impact on your life or others. Other than that, you can keep on playing. It's what problem-solving is all about.
The juggling metaphor of solving tasks is well known: one has too many tasks on one's hands (wonder if one could have to many hands on one's task) and can't possibly cope with everything in the same time. Yet one copes by giving big pushes to the tasks, making them go into a sleeping cycle, when they don't need attention. It's about dealing with emergencies just before they happen. And it is very stressful, although it does imply the somewhat borderline satisfaction of dealing with more than you can.
But this collateral benefits hack is more like what a trapeze artist does. You are not throwing balls in the air, but throwing yourself into goals, being in motion, hoping that the trapeze you just landed will (while still in motion) meet up with another one that will take you a bit closer to your goal, or closer to something that can take you to your goal, or closer to something that is closer to something that can take you to your goal, recursive reasoning for the win!
Part of the path you might have taken might not be intended. It might not be meaningful. It might just be the search for that trapeze which moves you in the range of your dreams, at whatever recursive depth is still exciting for you and still makes you feel near them. And sometimes you might take a path that involved days of tasks just cause you needed the equivalent of a paperclip out of there. But it might be a paperclip without which you can't go any further.
The price that we pay for various parts that we need in our problem-solving might be completely unscaled to what we get from an action. But adapted to the importance getting that thing has for our goals and dreams.
And sometimes taking a path which seems not yours, not meaningful, which seems to take you away rather than towards your goal, is a painful thing (imagine what AI programs must feel when you force them out of their local optima). Yet some paths must be taken, filtered for that paperclip and thrown away. Don't try to keep everything. Drop some balls on the floor. Don't clutch onto them in despair, throw some out there in the world and see what comes back. And find your paperclip!
The creative mind has reasons that the reasonable mind doesn't have...
(1) Klahr,D. (2000).Exploring Science: The cognition and development of discovery processes - Ch.2 Scientific discovery as Problem Solving. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
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