Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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A recent article by Daniel Gilbert and Killingsworth is about mind wandering and happiness.

exerpt:

Unlike other animals, human beings spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them, contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or will never happen at all. Indeed, "stimulus-independent thought" or "mind wandering" appears to be the brain’s default mode of operation...this ability is a remarkable evolutionary achievement that allows people to learn, reason, and plan, it may have an emotional cost.

NYT covering this topic here

a graphic:

alt text

Any thoughts from a evolutionary view on this? Happiness is the evolutionary proverbial carrot that drives us towards evolutionary goals: food < survival < reproduction

(EDIT) Fearsclave brought up an interesting point that made me think of this article about: "It was a primitive trip with a sophisticated goal: to understand how heavy use of digital devices and other technology changes how we think and behave, and how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects." interesting read.

edited Nov 17 2010 at 14:14

asked Nov 17 2010 at 11:01

Pieter D
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Or, an unhappy mind is a wandering mind. – oo Nov 17 2010 at 12:14

Keith, my initial thought too, although from the NYT piece: "We see evidence for mind-wandering causing unhappiness, but no evidence for unhappiness causing mind-wandering,” Mr. Killingsworth says." I have no full text acces... – Pieter D Nov 17 2010 at 12:29

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They can't achieve a cause-effect relationship purely by the nature of their measuring methods. If X occurs then Y occurs, it does not mean X caused Y. So when he says, "We see evidence for X causing Y" he doesn't actually see evidence, he just sees that temporal relationship which is not necessarily causally connected. – Bryan Nov 17 2010 at 12:40

How do they know what animals are/aren't thinking? – Wozza Nov 18 2010 at 0:24

Kamal · Answer 1 · 2010-11-17 14:18:57Z UTC

Have you ever read criticisms of thought? One idea is that thought has gone loco in modern society. I'm sleep deprived at the moment, and wrote this slightly insane facebook status a couple hours ago:

*The extraordinary intelligence of the body is all that is necessary for good living, but we interfere with its natural operation through the medium of thought. The widespread hoax is that these thoughts are inside of us and special to us; in truth they rampage and trump reality at will. Complexity of modern life has allowed thought to become an overbearing roommate in the studio apartment of your mind.

**Repetitive thought forms belief, and belief becomes unassailable. Absent a practice to let go of thought, that is the human condition. Human is now a misnomer, as we would be better classified as elegant bags of opinions.

Fearsclave · Answer 2 · 2010-11-17 13:38:10Z UTC

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I'm inclined to think that a lot of this is environmental, a result of those of us living in cities being stuck in an evolutionarily inappropriate environment. I find that this state of mind tends to go away on fishing and hunting or camping trips. Bopping around in natural surroundings looking for food tends to soothe my mind fairly quickly, especially if I know I have more of it to look forwards to.

answered Nov 17 2010 at 13:38

Fearsclave
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Yeah, I immediately thought of this: nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html. – Pieter D Nov 17 2010 at 14:12

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@Pieter: yup, that "Third day effect" line about sums it up. That article addresses exactly what I was talking about. The last multi-day hunting trip I went on felt like I'd kind of dropped out of the world; my head got totally immersed into being alert and aware and looking for sign, etc., and I hardly thought about work or even missed the internet. I'm convinced that our brains are better adapted to processing huge volumes of stimuli from complex outdoors environments than they are to processing huge volumes of mediated symbolic content. – Fearsclave Nov 17 2010 at 17:40

100% agree with you Fearsclave. Being in nature is a great tool to escape your thoughts. When I deer hunt every part of my being is in the woods anticipating a deer to pop up in front of me. I become a predator hunting prey which is true to our instincts. Over the course of our history we humans have forgot how to do this. Hunting and martial arts are the 2 tools I have used to gain control over my wandering mind. – Aaron Curl Dec 17 2010 at 2:53

Bryan · Answer 3 · 2010-11-17 12:36:35Z UTC

People's minds typically wander to unhappy things. They don't have to wander to unhappy things, but they do in the average person because the average person doesn't have his life under control.

I'd look into GTD if you want something actionable to do about this. Getting Things Done is a system which allows you to outsource your worries onto paper and never think them twice. For example, how many times have you thought "Oh I have to buy flashlight batteries" when you're not at the store? That's a useless thought, and all it does is create a little unsettled anxiety. It will probably pop into your mind a few more times in the next couple days too, just creating the same amount of worry.

I'd also look up the book "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi which explains the psychological state of satisfaction in which we are immersed and single-tasking our work.

David Leitner · Answer 4 · 2010-11-17 15:28:32Z UTC

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In terms of evolution: thinking about what might happen to us or has happened in the past to us (in other words, "self-consciousness") would be a good adaptation for learning about certain watering holes to avoid or good places to hunt. But it is generally a very uncomfortable feeling. As has been pointed out, we don't feel it when we "flow." Note that this ability also allows us to anticipate death. This is not to say that it is completely useless, although my own argument for why evolution developed this skill is not very good. I'd like to hear other people's ideas on its "purpose," if it has one. This might be a question that religion or philosophy can answer but not science.

answered Nov 17 2010 at 15:28

David Leitner
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I'm highly skeptical that religion can answer anything, especially a paleohack :-( – Kamal♦ Nov 17 2010 at 15:35

Science is the religion in your case :) – Samson Nov 17 2010 at 16:11

How? If you define religion as the iterative, rigorous use of the scientific method to arrive at an adaptable nondogmatic conclusion, then yes, science is the religion in my case :) – Kamal♦ Nov 17 2010 at 18:12

Much respect to you Kamal, for all you have contributed to this board. However, I will respectfully disagree with you here. Science can answer questions like, "What caused this?" but cannot answer the question: "Why did this happen?" or "What is my purpose?" or "Why do I love this person?" Can you imagine the SM proving that you love your mother? It's scientifically impossible to prove, but that does not mean it's not true. Also, note that the scientific method cannot prove the scientific method, but you can "have faith in" the scientific method. – David Leitner Nov 17 2010 at 19:12

David- I understand your line of thinking, but do not agree with it. In my limited view, "Why did this happen" is not a valid question. When a stone is harvested to make a cobblestone walkway, it does not ask "Why did this happen?!?". We can form complex thoughts, and thus yearn to have our specialness and purpose explained. Imagine telling someone from Biblical times that a machine (fMRI) can pinpoint certain emotional activity...just because humans' scientific ability isn't perfect doesn't slay science as a universally superior explanator compared to religion. – Kamal♦ Nov 17 2010 at 19:45

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Bill1102inf · Answer 5 · 2010-11-17 18:35:51Z UTC

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"The Power Of Now" will fix you right up.

answered Nov 17 2010 at 18:35

Bill1102inf
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Dave S. · Answer 6 · 2010-11-17 19:44:52Z UTC

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I was going to answer this post, but I can't remember... What?

answered Nov 17 2010 at 19:44

Dave S.
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A wandering mind is an unhappy mind?

6 Answers