The Evolution of Rationality, Reason and Science

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All the components of modern cognition that we think of is rationality and reason and science, we'real already there in the brain. Wejuare kind of fine tuning it with our methods to adjust for bias. But those are all just fine tuning the cognition that's already in there. And i don't think science came out of thin air, right? It came on leaning on ways information processing and problem solving have been happening. Theres it's like we've run at the, we've run to the end of thinking as the the o know, the way out.

Research shows we are missing 50 percent of our lives because we aren’t paying attention. Many of us often feel mentally foggy, scattered, and overwhelmed. Why is it that no matter how hard you try, you seem to find yourself somewhere else — if you’re even aware you’ve drifted off to that place.

In this conversation with the acclaimed neuroscientist Amishi Jha, she recounts what her neuroscience research revealed, and shows why whether you’re simply browsing, talking to friends, or trying to stay focused in an important meeting, you can’t seem to manage to hang on to your attention.

Shermer and Jha discuss: the neuroscience of attention; what attention evolved to do; how stress, attention bias, negativity bias, thought flooding, and active listening affect attention; multitasking; the “flashlight” metaphor; mindfulness and well-being, and more…