…the origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion, or doubt. Thinking is not a case of spontaneous combustion; it does not occur just on "general principles." There is something specific which occasions and evokes it. (Dewey 2010, p 1)
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Explorations Outside
Mozart, when asked, in effect, "how do you do it?!", responded: "I don't: it just happens - I have nothing to do with it."
Will and self-discipline matter, of course - but they don't generate, they prepare the field for generation. And they know when to get out of the way and when to rein in.
Although “wandering” conveys an impression of thoughts adrift, unanchored and chaotic, it may be more accurate to view such thoughts as triggered by a sense of concern and seeking some resolution. The Wandering Mind is theExploring Mind: exploring the problem space, a few moves at a time.
I've often suspected that one of the appeals of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is the idea that in the ideal society, people would only do what they feel like doing and that people shouldn't feel compelled to do something they didn't feel like doing (a teenage boy utopia). Some think this ideal is about to be realized because work is going the way of the dinosaurs, thanks to robots.
Imaginary conversations and scenarios are like the brain running through hypotheticals and counterfactuals, just in case. The imagined events may never happen but something like them may and the process of playing them out in the brain is a kind of problem-solving exercise that can sharpen one’s readiness for whatever may come one’s way.
We replay moments of accomplishment in our heads to feel something – a sense of pride, confidence, or optimism. That feeling is expansive and diffuse. We also replay bad experiences but even if the motivation if partly to re-experience the emotion, there seems to be something else driving the impulse to go over and over the bad thing that happened. Something is wrong and we’re dwelling on the problem...
“Relishing” triumphs is another way of saying replaying them in our minds. It feels good and we replay these moments over and over to have that feeling again. Our relation to negative experiences is different...
Just like with speech, thoughts aren’t only about their literal content but also their function. Morin et al (2011) found that one function of inner speech was self-motivation. Some inner outbursts do serve to boost confidence by self-praise (“that was brilliant”!) or motivate corrective behavior by self-chastisement (“that was stupid”!).
Temporal discounting undermines persistence in the pursuit of difficult long-term goals. It's too bad that the period of life associated with temporal discounting - aka youth - is also the time of greatest potential for skill/expertise building, which, unfortunately, also requires self-control, grit, emotion management, and conscientiousness.
Some may say the prosody of thoughts simply reflects their emotionality: words flowing on a sea of feeling. But when we engage in imaginary conversations, are the feelings heard in the words independent from the communicative intention, which is to have an effect on an imagined audience? Emotional expression is calibrated in the real world – why not in the world inside our heads?
Thoughts that amplify bad feelings aren’t necessarily dysfunctional – they may serve a useful purpose. Some unpleasant thoughts lead to breakthroughs; others become repetitive and reap diminishing returns.
In “Self Comes to Mind”, Antonio Damasio writes of the homeostatic range associated with the well-being of living creatures. Venture too close to the periphery of this range and you get pain. Inhabit the middle and you get pleasure. ... Now compare the concept of the homeostatic range to the idea of homeostatic balance. Homeostatic balance is a perfectly respectable concept meaning a condition of equilibrium. But my interest is in the “use value” of the word ‘balance’: what it is meant to evoke and accomplish...
When you have strong opinions, you may be wrong. When you have weak opinions, you may be wrong. When you think it's all too complicated to have an opinion, you may be wrong. If you keep having the same kinds of opinions (strong, weak, oppositional), you'll probably over-relying on heuristics and not trying hard enough.
What is the difference between “awareness” and focal attention? Is “awareness” the same as “consciousness”?... Is “awareness” of online focal attention possible, i.e., awareness simultaneous with and distinct from focal attention? Or is “awareness” really the same thing as focal attention? And if we are “aware” of focal attending, is it simultaneous with the attending or awareness of attending that just passed? Please answer and get back to me.
Can one truly embrace the scientific method and revere religious masters or teachings as depositories of wisdom? If so, is that because one has assigned different epistemological realms to science and religion? Or does one try to explain religious sentiments as compatible with an attitude of scientific scrutiny?
Viewing humans as primates-mammals-animals-life forms, the concept of “enlightenment” and of “enlightened” beings seems strange to me. If enlightenment exists, could animals other than humans become enlightened? Why? Why not?
... Instead of thinking about political differences in terms of values, think of these differences in terms of priorities. Priorities are informed by multiple, often competing, goals based on multiple, often competing, values. Since multiple goals and values are involved, at least some are likely to be shared across the political spectrum.
Self-control operates much like a cybernetic feedback system and includes 3 interacting components: the setpoint, a discrepancy, and the correction (or reduction of discrepancy).
Kelly McGonigal defines willpower as "the ability to do what you really want to do when part of you really doesn’t want to do it." It consists of three competing elements: 1) I will – the ability to do what you need to do; 2) I won’t – the other side of self-control; the inability to resist temptation; and 3) I want – your true want, the ability to remember the big picture of your life.
A lot of mind wandering does seem to be on a mission of sorts: rehearsing, planning, rehashing – as if trying to achieve resolution to some sort of unfinished business. Unfinished business implies a goal – something has not been achieved. Of course, many of these mental missions are aborted mid-stream, as life and other missions intervene.