To see or not to see, that is the question.
As I've posted before, I think the most important book every person should read with regard to the brain, or the pursuit of knowledge in general, is the evolution of consciousness by Robert Ornstein. The reason this book is so important is that he explains the brain that virtually no one is recognizing. Not the psychiatrists, or the psychologists, or the academic institutions. Yet the odds are that he is correct.
He teaches at Stanford and UC medical school and has been a research scientists for almost 50 years. His research has shown that humans have many brains. And the thesis of his books, which I agree with completely, and is such a simple and obvious concept, is that our brain evolved to adapt to our environment as a nomadic animal. Really not one bit different then the baboon, gorilla, or chimpanzee, our relatives, or any animal for that matter. It did not evolve for cognitive excellence, per se
Once a person understands the brain not as a high-powered computer that can be used by some people better than others to learn, but instead as an information processing organism, that works in ways that we do not understand and has many facets to it that are integral to our learning e.g. the very fact that the brain actually dumbs down information so that we can use it to survive, it should change how our universities teach. The brain has filters that prevent us from learning things we would like to be able to learn and are capable of learning, if it could or would be used differently. Pattern recognition is hardwired. Probability is very difficult for us to learn.
With regard to my own life., Two things I've noticed are one, how much the brain changes if one continuously feeds iit information, how much stronger it gets, how much more it sees, and that it sets up software packages at an unconscious level quite unexpectedly.
I have spent over 50 years having to remember tremendous amounts of information. In just the last few years, what I've noticed is that if I have to do something important next week or the week after, I no longer have to write it down. My brain has set up some sort of software package that reminds me automatically. I've never read about this anywhere and it surprise the hell out of me. I never could do it before.
But the most important thing I have learned about the brain is that it directly increases your ability to literally see what is out there.Its development is directly related to vision. And I mean actual vision, not just the minds eye but the actual eye. The more you know the more you will see. So people who do not take the time to learn, literally go through life sort of blind.
Knowledge directed perception the scientific community calls it. |
