This link has been bookmarked by 50 people . It was first bookmarked on 06 May 2008, by Rudy Garns.
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03 Jul 08
Julia Lesage"We're the only species smart enough to plan systematically for the future -- yet we remain dumb enough to ditch even our most carefully made plans in favor of short-term gratification."
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31 May 08
Brian G. DowlingHow many times has this happened to you? You leave work, decide that you need to get groceries on the way home, take a cellphone call and forget all about your plan. Next thing you know, you've driven home and forgotten all about the groceries.
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Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University, is the author, most recently, of "Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind."
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Our conscious, deliberate systems will never have total control, and our memories will never be perfect, but as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, recognition is the first step. If we come to recognize our limitations, and how they evolved, we just might be able to outwit our inner kluge.
Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University, is the author, most recently, of "Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind." -
Still, all is not lost. Even though our short-term desires are pretty good at grabbing the steering wheel of our consciousness, our more recently evolved deliberate minds are powerful enough to regain at least some measure of control.
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The problem is that evolution failed to realize that remembering goals is not like recognizing objects. When your brain sees a lion, the thing to do is to decide, lickety-split, to get out of the way. Run first; ask questions later. We're programmed for just that kind of split-second decision; just about every creature on the planet is built such that it can identify things like predators and prey very rapidly. We're not programmed to remember precise episodes from the past. Why not? Because remembering the exact date on which you last saw a lion is not particularly helpful when you're trying to get out of the way.
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In practical terms, that means that evolution's products aren't always particularly sound. Truly dismal solutions are quickly weeded out; if someone has a genetic condition that brings them into the world without a functioning heart, they don't live long enough to reproduce. But merely adequate solutions (what engineers call "kluges") -- like the awkward, injury-prone human spine, good enough but far from perfect -- can stick around indefinitely if better solutions are too far away on the evolutionary landscape.
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What gives? Why are we as a species so often so desperately poor at achieving our goals? If we are, as the selfish-gene theory would have it, organisms that exist only to serve the interests of our genes, why do we waste so much of our time doing things that are not, in any obvious way, remotely in the interest of our genes? How can one explain, for example, why a busy undergraduate would spend four weeks playing "Halo 3" rather than studying for his exams?
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The selfish-gene theory doesn't, in itself, answer these questions, but there is another facet of evolution that can: The fact that evolution is entirely blind, unable to look forward, backward or to the side. As Charles Darwin observed, evolution invariably proceeds through a process called "descent with modification." In lay language, this means that Mother Nature never starts from scratch, no matter how useful an overhaul might be. Everything that evolves necessarily builds on that which came before. Our arms, to take one simple example, are adaptations of the front legs of our primate ancestors.
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We're programmed for just that kind of split-second decision; just about every creature on the planet is built such that it can identify things like predators and prey very rapidly. We're not programmed to remember precise episodes from the past. Why not? Because remembering the exact date on which you last saw a lion is not particularly helpful when you're trying to get out of the way.
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Our attempts to pursue our goals are often thwarted by the fact that evolution has built our most sophisticated technologies on top of older technologies -- without working out how to integrate the two. We can plan in advance, using our modern deliberative reasoning systems, but our ancestral reflexive mechanisms, which evolved first, still basically control the steering wheel.
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If we come to recognize our limitations, and how they evolved, we just might be able to outwit our inner kluge.
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17 May 08
Why can't we stick to our goals like "I will lose wieth" or "I plan to finish this article before the deadline. "Nice thoughts, but not forumulated in terms that your ancestral, reflecxive brain might understand," says psychologist Gary Marcus. The work a
latimes memory walter_mischel resisting_tempation selfish_gene_theory autopilot descent_with_modification distractions short-term_memory inner_kluge gary_marcus deliberate_mind linkingthinking engaging delicious_import
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13 May 08
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Jimmy Baikoviciusrecognition is the first step. If we come to recognize our limitations, and how they evolved, we just might be able to outwit our inner kluge.
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We're the only species smart enough to plan systematically for the future -- yet we remain dumb enough to ditch even our most carefully made plans in favor of short-term gratification.
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evolution is entirely blind, unable to look forward, backward or to the side
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evolution invariably proceeds through a process called "descent with modification."
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Mother Nature never starts from scratch
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evolution's products aren't always particularly sound
-
merely adequate solutions (what engineers call "kluges")
-
can stick around indefinitely if better solutions are too far away on the evolutionary landscape
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The problem is that evolution failed to realize that remembering goals is not like recognizing objects
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evolution didn't have the foresight to realize that different kinds of tasks require different kinds of memory, and it used the same basic sort of memory for everything
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the brain is structured such that the more tired, stressed or distracted we are, the less likely we are to use our forebrains and the more likely to lean back on the time-tested but shortsighted machinery we've inherited from our ancestors
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formulated in terms that your ancestral, reflexive brain might understand
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Translate those abstract goals into a form your ancestral systems -- which traffic largely in dumb reflexes -- can understand: if-then. If you find yourself in a particular situation, then take a specific action
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wally maharTranslate those abstract goals into a form your ancestral systems -- which traffic largely in dumb reflexes -- can understand: if-then. If you find yourself in a particular situation, then take a specific action: "If I see French friesthen Iwilavoid them
psychology brain evolution gtd memory lifehacks neuroscience
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Felipe CavazosWhy can't we stick to our goals? Blame the sloppy engineering of evolution.
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10 May 08
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08 May 08
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In practical terms, that means that evolution's products aren't always particularly sound. Truly dismal solutions are quickly weeded out; if someone has a genetic condition that brings them into the world without a functioning heart, they don't live long enough to reproduce. But merely adequate solutions (what engineers call "kluges") -- like the awkward, injury-prone human spine, good enough but far from perfect -- can stick around indefinitely if better solutions are too far away on the evolutionary landscape
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No sensible engineer would have designed things this way. Why design fancy machinery for making long-term goals if you're not going to use it? Yet the brain is structured such that the more tired, stressed or distracted we are, the less likely we are to use our forebrains and the more likely to lean back on the time-tested but shortsighted machinery we've inherited from our ancestors
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06 May 08
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No sensible engineer would have designed things this way. Why design fancy machinery for making long-term goals if you're not going to use it? Yet the brain is structured such that the more tired, stressed or distracted we are, the less likely we are to use our forebrains and the more likely to lean back on the time-tested but shortsighted machinery we've inherited from our ancestors.
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Rudy Garns"Our conscious, deliberate systems will never have total control, and our memories will never be perfect, but as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, recognition is the first step. If we come to recognize our limitations, and how they evolved, we just might be able to outwit our inner kluge." (Gary Marcus, Los Angeles Times)
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