Some pattern that I used to know

I think it is funny when I come across numbers like this as they always give me some kind of feeling of comfort and I wait for the numbers on the odometer to click over to something even or, patterned. I think it is something human in us to look for repetition in our world as it allows us to create heuristics to reduce mental energy consumption. This is probably why identifying patterns comes with some kind of reward system. These become the habits that we use to direct our action.

Essentially, the brain is super lazy and it looks to cut corners in anyway possible. It is probably why people like short-form posts so much as they think they get what they need without having to go into the detail but, without spending the conscious energy to go deeper, the brain will switch off.

When we come across something new, the brain activity spikes as it tries to evaluate whether it is a threat or not, necessary or not, useful or not and this spike consumes higher amounts of energy. If the new stimulus is deemed important enough to focus on, the brain function stays high which is why tough mental work can leave one feeling physically drained, even if that is not the actual case.

However, when the brain recognizes what it sees as familiar, it almost instantly accepts it, applies the heuristic and without further investigation, shuts itself off. The brain activity when it identifies 'familiar', looks something like this:

It is pretty easy to observe if you think about walking down the street and seeing someone you might know. Your brain will work through a process until it says, it is or, it isn't them. Let's say it is them and you call out and start up a conversation. Once the brain has made the decision it is them, it doesn't keep repeating the question throughout the conversation to make sure it is still them. It works on an assumption, a heuristic.

This was definitely observable to me at university because I was a business student yet, my older brother (who doesn't look much like me at all really) was an engineering student. People would come up to me and ask about this and that for some physics class and to him ask about some management lecture. Because many did not realize we were both at the school, they worked under the assumption that it must be the right person. We all look the same right? By the way, rather than correcting the mistake, we would both attempt to answer the queries. ;)

So, the brain spikes when it sees new information, gets rewarded in some way when it recognizes a pattern and switches off if that pattern is identified as safe to ignore or if there is a heuristic that can be applied. Regardless of whether the evaluation is correct or not, the brain can shut off and stop paying attention. Magicians can use this to trick an audience into not paying attention to what is really going on.

This is of course the problem with heuristics as if they are not evaluated often enough, it is possible that in time what they were created for is no longer being satisfied but, the habit is so strong that there is not the mental energy getting applied to pay attention to it. Kind of like those people who had a very fashionable mullet hair style in 1984... and still have it.

As said, the human brain is monumentally lazy of it is allowed to be and to get it to work anywhere close to its potential means that conscious effort needs to be applied to make sure that thinking habits are for the better, not the worse. When I see patterns come up like my post count today, I use the satisfying feeling as a reminder that my brain is trying to be lazy.

I also apply this when I come across information that I read and agree with but haven't rad fully as it is essentially my brain saying, hey, you already know that, so don't bother. That is not a great process especially when so much of our life is curated by people who may have very different agendas to our own. They feed us what they want us to hear over and over until it becomes a familiar sound we identify with, we know, we recognize and, our brain shuts off.

I guess the moral of the story is that when the brain is thinking fast and recognizing what it sees as a pattern, it is good to slow it down a little and be sure that what it has evaluated as familiar, is familiar enough to use the heuristic on. Our future actions depend on it.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]