Saturday, July 4, 2015

Why Mere Noticing Solves So Much

I was at first astonished by how often my pesky cognitive mistakes were solved by nothing but skillful use of attention. Now I sort of see what's going on, and it feels less odd.

What happens to your bad habit of motivated stopping when you train consistent reflective attention to "motivated stopping"? The motivation dissolves under scrutiny.

What happens to your disputes over definitions when you train consistent attention to having lost sight of what you really disagree about? You gain sight of what you really disagree about.

What happens to your neglect of base rates when you train consistent reflective attention to the sensations of base rate neglect? You start thinking about base rates at the times when you need to most.

If you recognize something as a mistake, part of you probably has at least some idea of what to do instead. Indeed, anything besides ignoring the mistake is often a good thing to do instead. So merely noticing when you're going wrong can be over half the battle.

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