5 minute summaries

1 quote, 3 ideas & 1 question from each episode

__________

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#247 — Constructing Minds

Making Sense with Sam Harris

22 Apr 2021

1hr 7mins

Owltail Summaries

1 quote, 3 ideas & 1 question from each episode

_________

#247 — Constructing Minds

22 Apr 2021

1hr 7mins

Quote

"Reflecting on your past, for the purposes of bettering your future, which will become your present."

Ideas

1

What's interesting is that our brains most important job isn't thinking or seeing, or even feeling.
It's most important job is regulating systems in your body. Your heart, immune system as well as our systems for motor movements.

Despite not actually experiencing most of these things, it's all going on underneath the hood.

A lot of our thinking, feeling & seeing that we actually do, is actually in service of regulating these systems.

1

What's interesting is that our brains most important job isn't thinking or seeing, or even feeling.
It's most important job is regulating systems in your body. Your heart, immune system as well as our systems for motor movements.

Despite not actually experiencing most of these things, it's all going on underneath the hood.

A lot of our thinking, feeling & seeing that we actually do, is actually in service of regulating these systems.

2

Metabolically speaking, it's much cheaper for the brain to use past experience to guess what's going to happen next than interpret it in real-time.
The brain changes the firing of its own neurons to prepare you to see, hear, smell and most importantly do something in the next moment. Which it then checks against the incoming data from the body and the world.

If we purely relied on reacting to data, there are many examples of things such as baseball where there simply isn't enough time for us to react to the ball and fire the neurons to swing.

2

Metabolically speaking, it's much cheaper for the brain to use past experience to guess what's going to happen next than interpret it in real-time.
The brain changes the firing of its own neurons to prepare you to see, hear, smell and most importantly do something in the next moment. Which it then checks against the incoming data from the body and the world.

If we purely relied on reacting to data, there are many examples of things such as baseball where there simply isn't enough time for us to react to the ball and fire the neurons to swing.

3

No sensation or action has intrinsic meaning or emotion attached to it by itself.
Someone else has to make it emotional by understanding or categorizing it in a particular way.

We choose the meaning and how we react to any sensation or action.

3

No sensation or action has intrinsic meaning or emotion attached to it by itself.
Someone else has to make it emotional by understanding or categorizing it in a particular way.

We choose the meaning and how we react to any sensation or action.

Questions

1

Can you think of a sensation or action that you thought had intrinsic action without realizing you attached it?

1

Can you think of a sensation or action that you thought had intrinsic action without realizing you attached it?

What else is in the episode

1

The brain's structure & network organization.

1

The brain's structure & network organization.

2

The predictive nature of perception and action.

2

The predictive nature of perception and action.

3

Concepts as prescriptions for action.

3

Concepts as prescriptions for action.

Who is Lisa Feldman Barrett?

1

Who is a professor of psychology and the author of How Emotions are Made and Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain.

1

Who is a professor of psychology and the author of How Emotions are Made and Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain.

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