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The common mistake that many (but not necessarily you) make is to assume that conscious effort is proportional to energy use in the brain. The idea that willpow

by Cybiote 10y ago

The common mistake that many (but not necessarily you) make is to assume that conscious effort is proportional to energy use in the brain. The idea that willpower brain is some kind of store that can be depleted is not as parsimonious as other hypotheses. Cognizing is a costly activity, whether daydreaming or thinking, a lot of stuff is going on. So why does thinking in particular feel difficult? The least terrible analogy I can think of is to imagine a distribution network. Postal systems, railways, the internet; whether they are at 20% or 100% utilization, the marginal costs don't budge much. The other key concept is that the brain both learns as well as has to figure out how to do so efficiently. Reward schedules and surprises play prominently into this. The hypothesis: some things feel difficult in a way not directly related to energy use because it's attention that is key and it is better thought of as a resource to be allocated and managed. The questions are: why is it so hard to maintain focus on abstractions for extended periods of time? Someone is going to mention the ADHD hunter ancestor theory as selectors for extended focus, but even then, I will say that their attention still did not stay as fixed or devoid of obvious rewards as some abstract thinking requires. Is focus trainable? Why are some better at not responding to immediate rewards? Is this trainable?

bhouston 10y ago
I understand focus is related to dopamine, a neurochemical and it is know that nearly all neurochemicals can be depleted or their pathways become less effective because of various run-time compensations that occur. Coffee effects me most for the first cup, most likely because I have stores of adrenaline and dopamine, after than first cup any cup after than decreases its effect on me. The first coffee probably is more noticable because of the difference between my no coffee state and my coffee state -- which is difference than a wearing off coffee state and a free cup coffee state. It is reasonable to be able to measure these effects. Not saying this effect is true, but neurochemical store depletion as well as real-time and long-term compensation are real.
visarga 10y ago
I think conscious effort in itself is not difficult. What is difficult is to be lacking acceptable options or strategies to solve the problem at hand. That is causing anxiety and fatigue. To put this in terms of machine learning, the brain is doing reinforcement learning maximizing a value function. But when the value function is very low and options (strategies) available are too limited, the system can't output a satisfactory action for the next step so it interprets this as suffering. It's all about availability of choices, not the actual effort. What's depleting is not energy in the brain but the perception of how well we can handle the situation. The state of flow is also related to conscious effort, but in flow there is always a good outlook, there are many options available, many strategies, creative possibilities of combination, and consequently, it's a joyful activity.
- gragas 10y ago
  That is a near perfect description of a feeling I feel a lot when debugging without a clear path.
wpietri 10y ago
That's a very interesting point. I had never thought that conscious effort would be proportional to energy use, as if some tiny gas tank in the brain would run low. I can happily move from one high-focus thing (e.g., coding) to a different one (e..g, complex game) without problem. And as long as a problem keeps being interesting (that is, providing novelty or progress) I can focus for very long periods. That made me think that my experience of mental tiring was more a way to prevent lock-in and to keep me away from situations of diminishing returns. In our natural environment, I'd expect the cost/benefit curve for pure abstract focus to drop sharply, so it wouldn't surprise me for there to be a special mechanism to get us out of our heads and back into dealing with our environment and bodily needs.

by Cybiote 10y ago

bhouston 10y ago

I understand focus is related to dopamine, a neurochemical and it is know that nearly all neurochemicals can be depleted or their pathways become less effective because of various run-time compensations that occur. Coffee effects me most for the first cup, most likely because I have stores of adrenaline and dopamine, after than first cup any cup after than decreases its effect on me. The first coffee probably is more noticable because of the difference between my no coffee state and my coffee state -- which is difference than a wearing off coffee state and a free cup coffee state. It is reasonable to be able to measure these effects. Not saying this effect is true, but neurochemical store depletion as well as real-time and long-term compensation are real.

visarga 10y ago

I think conscious effort in itself is not difficult. What is difficult is to be lacking acceptable options or strategies to solve the problem at hand. That is causing anxiety and fatigue. To put this in terms of machine learning, the brain is doing reinforcement learning maximizing a value function. But when the value function is very low and options (strategies) available are too limited, the system can't output a satisfactory action for the next step so it interprets this as suffering. It's all about availability of choices, not the actual effort. What's depleting is not energy in the brain but the perception of how well we can handle the situation. The state of flow is also related to conscious effort, but in flow there is always a good outlook, there are many options available, many strategies, creative possibilities of combination, and consequently, it's a joyful activity.

gragas 10y ago
That is a near perfect description of a feeling I feel a lot when debugging without a clear path.

wpietri 10y ago

That's a very interesting point. I had never thought that conscious effort would be proportional to energy use, as if some tiny gas tank in the brain would run low. I can happily move from one high-focus thing (e.g., coding) to a different one (e..g, complex game) without problem. And as long as a problem keeps being interesting (that is, providing novelty or progress) I can focus for very long periods. That made me think that my experience of mental tiring was more a way to prevent lock-in and to keep me away from situations of diminishing returns. In our natural environment, I'd expect the cost/benefit curve for pure abstract focus to drop sharply, so it wouldn't surprise me for there to be a special mechanism to get us out of our heads and back into dealing with our environment and bodily needs.