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Key phrase: "reading creates pathways in the brain, strengthening different mental processes." I've read a boat load of business books and I don't remember a l
by melvinram 16y ago
Key phrase: "reading creates pathways in the brain, strengthening different mental processes."
I've read a boat load of business books and I don't remember a lot of the specifics in the books but because the books often reenforced a lot of the same thoughts from different angles, I've got well formed mental pathways in my head, which help me in all kinds of situations. Same thing happens if you're a regular consumer of mixergy videos.
When faced with a decision, instead of thinking "Peter Drucker said to do this", I think "The right approach is probably... " because that is how my brain is now "wired" to think. It's kind of like self-brain-washing or creating marcos for your brain. You are what you read.
- robg 16y agoI think that's spot on. My neuorimaging research has examined how the meaning of words are represented in the brain. Quite literally, words and their relationships to experiences, and each other, shape how we think. Mentalese may not be purely linguistic but the language we use reflects how our minds work. With and through language we rise above experience to penetrate beyond what our senses tell us and build realities independent of sensation. Lawyers are lawyerly because they've trained their brains. That may seem tautological, but it's a gradual, continuous process. Yet, even long after we seem like we're done learning, traces of child-ish thought remain under the surface of everyday abstract concepts.
- mseebach 16y agoIt's almost if like the brain works a little like a neural network :)
- katovatzschyn 16y agoCould this be why incorrect facts may be recollected as true after proved false? Pathway for "false" not "rewritten / erased" but "pre-empted" by possibly "less robust" "true," to say this colloquially?
- jemfinch 16y agoObviously there are at least four people smarter than me here, because I can't for the life of me figure out what in the world you're trying to say.
- danparsonson 16y agoI think what katovatzschyn is saying is that, if you've already decided something is true, it's encoded as 'true' in your brain and hence more easily remembered as such, even if you later discover that it's false.
- astrofinch 16y agoHe's saying that if you learn of an argument that shows Fact A to be false, instead of Fact A being deleted from your brain, that argument will be stored as Fact B in your brain. If Fact B is not sufficiently well-integrated in to your thinking then you will pretty much continue to believe Fact A. BTW don't feel bad that you couldn't understand his sentence, it was pretty hackneyed.
- mkramlich 16y agoYes and I think it's part of the mechanism that makes propaganda and innuendo effective.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- nocman 16y ago"creating marcos"? Marco who? :-D Please tell me you meant "creating macros" -- or is there some secret meaning of "marco" that I'm missing here?
- melvinram 16y ago:D yes, I meant macros