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March 21, 2005
4. How the Mind Works
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Every teacher in every classroom should be aware that every student has a subconscious Censor, the Reticular Activating System. And they should be aware that they themselves have one as well.
In many ways, we do not act according to the truth. We act according to the truth as we believe it to be. And there is a particular danger when experts are certain that they know the truth. The human mind innately responds to "psychological certainty" by creating very real blindspots to evidence and arguments that contradict the certainty.
Anyone aspiring to be objective in viewing evidence and sorting through arguments needs to develop a degree of self-doubt in order to minimize the automatic and natural actions of the Censor in human mind.
The Story of Cliff Young
In Australia a 600-km marathon is held between the cities of Sydney and Melbourne. Several years ago a 61-year-old man named Cliff Young showed up to run the race. The world-class runners thought he was some derelict that showed up in the wrong place because Cliff showed up wearing Osh Gosh overalls and galoshes. And he was obviously an old man.
[For a detailed story on Cliff Young, go here.]
When he told them he was there for the marathon, the professional runners asked if he had ever run in a marathon before. "No," replied Cliff. "How have you been training?" they asked. "I have cattle on my station [farm] and since I have no horses, I run around to move them along." The runners laughed.
You see, every professional marathoner knew with certainty that it took about five days to run this race, and that in order to compete, you would need to run 18 hours and sleep six hours. Cliff Young was clearly not up to their standards.
When the marathon started, the pros left Cliff behind in his galoshes. He had a leisurely shuffling style of running that targeted him as an amateur.
Cliff had no training. He did not know what the world-class runners knew. As you have probably guessed, Cliff won the race, but that is not what is astonishing. What is astonishing is that he cut one-and-a-half days off the record time.
How? Because of his lack of training, he didn't "know" that you had to sleep six hours. Cliff got up three hours early and just kept on shuffling along in his galoshes while the pro runners slept, and he finished the race in three-and-a-half days. He beat everybody. He was a sensation in Australia.
Now that world-class runners "know" that it is possible to run with much less sleep, and that they can conserve energy by adopting an easy shuffling jog, they have a new way of approaching long marathons.
We are like the pro runners. We act, not according to the "real truth" but according to some cockeyed truth given to us by some well-meaning or not-so-well-meaning "expert." For this reason, people that don't know the "accepted wisdom" are more likely to discover new aspects of life, create remarkable inventions, and break through into a new realm of consciousness.
The Censor
The conscious mind perceives, associates, evaluates, and decides. The subconscious mind stores habits and attitudes, and also stores what it believes to be the truth, irrespective of what the real truth is.
The primary job of the Censor is to Maintain Sanity. (It also creates drive and energy, and resolves conflict, both of which are connected to its need to maintain sanity.)
The subconscious stores "truth" (it is initially uncritical as to the validity of the stored truth). These "truths" are stored in the form of habits and attitudes that arise from facsimiles, the picture-patterns that we hold onto as anchor points in this world.
For example, suppose my parents told me (as they did when I was twelve) that "You can't make money doing what you love; you have to be practical." If I uncritically accept that picture, it makes its way into my subconscious and is stored as true. Now immediately the Censor goes to work building blindspots to anything suggesting that I actually can make money doing what I love. I only develop habits and attitudes that reinforce the stored picture.
Or suppose that my professors tell me that Shakspere of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare poems and plays. If I uncritically accept that picture, it makes its way into my subconscious and is stored as "true." Now immediately the Censor goes to work building blindspots to anything suggesting an alternate candidate.
Unless something happens to overcome the blindspots, I will accept the orthodox view because those anchor points have been established with which I am comfortable. AND if I go on to build a scholarly career on that picture, or to tie my finances in some way with that interpretation, then I will build further blindspots to block out any threat to my comfortable and lucrative foundation.
Of course, it's just as important that if I am persuaded that someone else may have written the poems and plays attributed to a Shakespeare that I do not attach myself to this new "truth;" otherwise, I will begin building blindspots to any evidence that contradicts my new "truth."
Why does the Censor build such blindspots? Because the Censor cannot abide insanity, meaning anything that contradicts my perceived truth. The Censor functions automatically and naturally. As long as I believe this "truth," I cannot accept anything that contradicts it. The Censor has maintained my "sanity" by requiring me to see only the stored truth. You can literally be looking at the opposite truth and NOT SEE IT. (Remember the F's?)
In other words, you can literally be looking at evidence that contradicts your interpretation of historical evidence and NOT SEE IT.
This phenomenon is evident when you lose your keys. Have you ever lost your keys, and after having looked everywhere you announce, "My keys are nowhere to be found."
Immediately, your Censor builds a blindspot against your actually seeing the keys. Why? Because you would appear foolish (insane) after having made your statement. So then someone else finds them (in an obvious place where you had looked several times), and you have to say something like, "OK, who moved them? They were not here when I looked."
This phenomenon is also evident when you judge someone. I remember being on a job and being told that a certain fellow employee was stealing from the company, but had yet to be caught at it. I began to see that employee's shiftiness. Her actions were obviously suspicious. Though I had once thought her kind and ethical, now she acted in a way that reinforced her untrustworthiness. Once the real culprit was caught, she regained her kindness and innocence.
Since stored "truths" build blindspots to reality, it seems to me that the scholars have quite a challenge in leading students into higher studies. For any statement or "truth" the scholar presents, the student may accept it in such a way that blindspots are formed against other, better "truths" or interpretations.
Thus it seems incumbent upon the scholar and scientist and teacher to convey a strong sense of only standing behind interpretations as a "best case" rather than "the one and only truth."
Let's review the job of the Censor:
If you actually discover a good Oxfordian argument, you will suffer anxiety because of the conflict with your Stratfordian self-image. A good argument is then more likely to suffer a stronger attack. (The same holds true, of course, among staunch Oxfordians who come upon a good Stratfordian argument.)
Another example: If you "know" that you are not good in math, then if you do well on a math exam, you will suffer anxiety because doing well is "not like you." Your Censor then will correct for the error of success and you will do poorly on the next exam.
Why do poor people who win the Jackpot usually end up poor again soon after? Why do people who have little money and inherit a significant amount usually spend it all and end up where they started? Because they picture themselves as poor, so they must correct for the mistake of wealth.
Why do people who've been in prison for decades have such trouble adjusting to the outside world once they are released? Why will they commit a crime in order to be sent back to prison? Because freedom conflicts with their deeply ingrained picture of being an inmate. Freedom = anxiety.
To a staunch Stratfordian, a good Oxfordian argument = anxiety, insanity.
To a staunch Christian, a good evolution argument = anxiety, insanity.
To a staunch Leftist, a good deed by President Bush = anxiety, insanity. He must be lying.
That's why imagination is crucial to experience. We only attract ourselves to a state of consciousness once we can see ourselves in it.
In other words, a scholar and scientist and teacher needs to develop a kind of objectivity where deeply held beliefs are challenged and dislodged to form a more flexible scholarly consciousness.
2) Resolve Conflict - The Censor also helps us solve problems. In fact, once we understand the art of giving our Censor problems to solve (resolve), we can grow in remarkable ways.
The Censor won't allow us to hold two contradictory pictures of ourselves or reality. To experience two contradictory beliefs, pictures, or feelings is called "Cognitive Dissonance."
The Censor always works to resolve Cognitive Dissonance. Whenever we picture something as incomplete, we label it a "problem." The Censor works to make things complete, to resolve cognitive dissonance, to solve problems.
Thus, when a staunch Stratfordian faces a good Oxfordian argument, the Censor will either 1) dismiss the good argument in order to preserve the comfort of a staunch, entrenched position, or 2) let go of the staunchness and begin to allow a larger picture of reality to emerge.
3) Create Drive and Energy - Suppose you set a goal to remodel your kitchen. Suddenly you have a "problem." The picture or vision you have does not match the reality. You experience cognitive dissonance and your Censor moves into action to resolve the problem, to create wholeness. You must do one of two things: either give up your vision or remodel the kitchen.
This form of anxiety is actually creative drive and energy. In other words, to be creative is to deliberately throw your life out of order (setting a goal or creating a vision) so that the Censor gives you creative drive and energy to get your life back in order (accomplish the goal or vision).
Many people avoid setting visions and goals, or accepting new interpretations, because they confuse creative drive with stress. To grow intellectually means to continually revise yourself and your models of reality. This is why a true scholar does not require students to "lock on" to particular literary interpretations, or require students to work primarily with critical interpretations of literature rather than the literature itself.
Real scholars will help students thoughtfully explore alternative models, without prejudicing them or threatening them with academic censure.
More to come in 5. How the Mind Works.
*** I x V = R (Imagination times Vividness equals Reality) Lou Tice
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Posted by witnit at March 21, 2005 9:52 AM
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