“I think therefore I am.” So declared Rene Descartes sometime in 1640.
Cogito ergo sum! was the culmination of his attempt to identify something he could be certain of, some bedrock truth of which there was no doubt.
Even he knew, way back then, that sensory perception can be incredibly misleading and was not to be trusted. His thinking led him to wonder if we are all hallucinating our experiences. Or part of the Matrix. These are not new thoughts.
In coming to his conclusion, Descartes assumed a separation between the physical and the mental that many members of the species continue to grapple with, at the same time he elevated the mental beyond all proportion.
Right off the bat, however, the first two words, as translated—“I think”—are totally misleading. They imply agency and intent. It would be more accurate to say “I have thoughts” or better, “thoughts have me.” Most of the thoughts running through our mind at any given time are involuntary and unintended. The best analogy is to the air we breathe.
Having air circulate via the nostrils, throat, lungs, etc. is highly desirable, but (fortunately) it isn’t under our voluntary control. It’s debatable how desirable it is to have thoughts continually circulating in the mind, but circulating thoughts, like circulating air, is not something to take credit for or, in the case of Descartes, crow about.
This is all to say that at least since Descartes, thinking has been assumed to be the crowning glory, so to speak, of the species. Granted, there are some tasks only thinking (i.e., System 2 logical/linear, voluntary/intentional thinking) can and should handle. But that kind of thinking is extremely hard, so we do very little of it. And even when we do it, if we don’t follow it up with action, there isn’t much point to it.
A number of false assumptions follow from the false belief that it’s what we think that matters most. The most significant of these assumptions is:
- Understanding something will automatically have an effect on behavior, as will having a desire or an intention to do something.
Two more false assumptions:
- We don’t need to pay much conscious attention to what we do.
- Only some of the actions we take are worth paying attention to, in any case.
The unconscious part of the brain, however, pays attention to everything we do, including the things we’d really prefer no one—including us—noticed at all. It pays considerably less attention to what we think or even what we think about doing.
What Is the Brain for?
The purpose of the brain is to figure out what to do (what action to take) and then to make those actions happen.
It’s blindingly obvious why we have a brain. We have a brain for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to produce adaptable and complex movements. There is no other reason to have a brain. Think about it. Movement is the only way you have of affecting the world around you. —Daniel Wolpert, neuroscientist
It’s also via the actions we take that the brain figures out how to interpret the information it receives, including who we are and what things mean. It’s via repetitive actions that the brain determines what behaviors to turn into habits and hand off to the basal ganglia to administer. It’s via persistent actions that the brain changes: trajectory, perception, identity, awareness, and areas of attention.
Yes, it’s annoying that the brain pays attention to all our actions—including those we aren’t paying attention to. It’s as if the brain maintains or modifies our mental model of the world according to its own parameters rather than to our wishes. [That was sarcasm. Of course that’s what it’s doing.] But since our wishes, like our thoughts, are fleeting and contradictory and ephemeral, it’s a good thing the brain doesn’t take them seriously because that would result in chaos.
As we know, our moment-to-moment choices—or actions—are not consciously determined. Rather, it’s our unconscious that determines out actions based on its interpretations of the internal and external sensory data it views through our mental model of the world.
Since action is the only way we can affect the world (of which we are a part), then the only way to create change is to get our brain to take different actions than the actions it is currently taking. And that requires modifying the brain’s interpretations of the sensory data it processes.
How does the brain modify its interpretations? By the actions we take. If this sounds like a vicious cycle, it really isn’t. This is where thinking comes into the process. Thinking can provide a bridge between the undesired actions (and outcome) and the desired actions (and outcome). It can do that by identifying the outcome we want, the actions that are likely to produce that outcome, and the contrivance or contrivance we can use to train the brain to take the actions we want it to take.
This is what contrivances are for: to train the brain (our movement organ) to automatically take the actions we want it to take rather than the actions it’s automatically taking now. This is how to use the brain to create a satisfying and meaningful life. The process isn’t complicated or complex. It’s our thoughts about the process that get in the way.
Note: This post is an update of an article in lucidwaking from February 2022. Look for the companion piece next week!