"Thinking About Thinking" Talk

I just heard Professor Wes Cecil's "Thinking About Thinking" talk hosted by Cape George University. I know what you're probably thinking... :)

Academic, boring, a few interesting insights, light moments even but not enough to sit for an hour. Not at all. More like entertaining, thought provoking, engaging, memorable. I was eager to hang around at the end for Q&A.
 
The opening scene began about 250 million years ago in the Age of Reptiles when impulses ruled. Then we fast forward millions of years or so later when mankind was in the process of doubling the size of their brains and doing so in short order... a few million years rather than hundreds of millions. 

At some key evolutionary point, man's impulses waned or started to drift toward the societal - a kinder, gentler trend of pausing for a moment to think before acting. Maybe it was a flash of insight that killing someone too hastily might backfire. Express displeasure and give yourself or him/her/it a chance to run first. Two well-regarded books on thinking were mentioned: "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by a Nobel winning economist and "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. However "Blink" was more a popular than a critical success. 

One of the biggest surprises though is, despite all its advantages, we don't really like to think. Even today. It's hard, requires lots of calories, and is very time-consuming. Especially so now with a giga-tonnage of info to fuel (and clog) the machinery of thought.

So we develop strategies to avoid it. We buy into strange myths, join cults with a simpler world view, blindly accept narratives that reinforce our prejudices, then conveniently skip, filter, or otherwise ignore pesky little facts that don't fit. We keep doing it over and over.

That's Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results. A couple of illustrative popular myths were discussed: building more and more highways in the hope that traffic woes will ease or boosting crop production as a panacea for starvation when the problem is mostly one of politics/distribution rather than supply.

Science is much more rigorous and cautious than we usually are. Despite private biases, scientists will abandon theories that aren't supported by evidence. They'll readily admit areas of ignorance, tread lightly, ask tough questions, probe. Unless we're really far gone, we'll usually admit we should do more of that. Science is right most of the time. Our pet theories hardly ever are.

On the other hand, one of science's own refreshing admissions is that the mind is virtually "terra incognita". Most agree that the mind is a wonderful tool but a terrible master. All are victimized by the mind's impulses, quirks, unpredictability, and its relentless assault on peace and equanimity. 

That led to a question about meditation. I couldn't hear distinctly from the back row but I think possibly about meditation's benefits in dealing with random thoughts. A great future topic.

It was a wonderful evening. Many thanks to Wes Cecil and Cape George University.