Remember the first time you learnt to ride a cycle? How hard you had to struggle to maintain your balance, and how much you had to focus to remember to pedal and turn the handle in the right way? But after those first few (dozen?) falls, suddenly it was as if some secret door had opened in your head and you could suddenly cycle without falling. Not just that, you could even look around and enjoy the scenery around you. In a month’s time, you were cycling along like you‘ve done it all your life and your attention if fully free to be spent on everything else.
But now, imagine if I give you a cycle where everything is the same, expect for one difference. When you turn the handle left, the front wheel swings right, and vice versa. Would you be able to ride this cycle as well, on the first go? This is called the Backward Brain cycle and it is a fun, if slightly painful way of learning how the brain learns and unlearns things. Because you’ll find that just that one small difference makes you fall down multiple times before you get the hang of it , even though you know how to ride normal cycle perfectly well, and you are constantly reminding yourself about the new handle direction rule.
Why does this happen?
Our brain is an efficient but lazy machine.
It believes in using the least amount of energy to get the maximum amount of work done. But that doesn’t mean it uses less energy overall. Despite being only 2% of the body weight, it uses responsible for nearly 20% of the body’s energy requirement.
When it comes to decision making, it believes in following the ‘learn it once but learn it well’ philosophy. When the brain is presented with a new problem, the first question it will ask is - Do I need to deal with this?
The answer is usually no, unless proven otherwise. Which is why your brain ignores most of the sensory inputs it gets from the world. It develops a ‘Not my problem’ attitude.
But once it is convinced it needs to deal with it, it will look in its database for any similar problem in the past that is has already dealt with, and if it finds one, it will try and use the same principles for solving the new one. This is called a heuristic.
Heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow us to make quick and efficient decisions.
Heuristics play a critical role in how we navigate the world around us.
One of the most well-known heuristics is the availability heuristic, which refers to the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of an event based on how easily examples of it come to mind. For example, if you hear about a shark attack on the news, you may overestimate the likelihood of being attacked by a shark because the story is fresh in your mind. However, the actual risk of a shark attack is quite low.
Another important heuristic is the representativeness heuristic, which is the tendency to classify objects or events based on how similar they are to a prototype or stereotype. For example, if you see a person walking down the street with a backpack, you may assume they are a student, even though there are many other possible explanations for why someone might carry a backpack.
Heuristics can be helpful in many situations, but they can also lead to errors in judgment. For example, the availability heuristic can lead to overestimating the likelihood of rare events, while the representativeness heuristic can lead to stereotyping and discrimination.
To mitigate these errors, it is important to be aware of the heuristics you are using and to consider alternative explanations for situations.
If you find yourself in mental ruts and are struggling to get out, examine the jumps to conclusions you’re taking.
See you next week!
Cheers and love,
Sid.