Reflection: Lateral Thinking #2 – How the Mind Works

I’m gonna be so honest and say this chapter was wildly difficult to read for me. There were a lot of visual metaphors without the visuals that I really just didn’t understand.

The only paragraph I felt like I fully understood was the one about “sequences of arrival of information” where they gave an example of a self-maximizing system. I think this kinda ties back to the Japanese-Buddhist idea of 初心 (Shoshin – Beginner’s Mind) we discussed. An expert on something might have some principles so deeply engraved in them that they can’t see it from the bigger picture. At least that’s my takeaway of it.

Although I only understood bits and pieces from some of the paragraphs, I think I get the general takeaway: the human mind is quick to make connections based on patterns and really good at staying that way. However, it tends to also assume that a similar but distinct pattern is the same as a pattern the mind already recognizes.

All in all this chapter was kinda confusing but I think I get the general gist.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *