Tag Archives: Awareness

Whose Thinking Is It, Anyway?

juan-rumimpunu-nLXOatvTaLo-unsplashConsciousness has always been a topic that’s fascinated me. How do we know that we’re aware? How do we know that other people are aware? Where is consciousness? Who’s voice is that in my head? Do other people have voices in their heads? Fascinating.

There are a couple of things I’ve come across recently that, if this area is of interest to you, too, I suspect you’ll find compelling. The first comes from Seth Godin’s podcast, Akimbo. In particular, the episode from a couple of weeks ago. At the end of this episode, a listener asked Seth a question about consciousness. That is, “what do you think consciousness actually is.” Seth’s answered reminded me of some of the stuff I’ve come across, but the example he cites is on-point. In the context, he’s talking about the idea that the voice in our head might be a vestige of history:

Let’s think about a football game. Let’s think about the idea that there’s instant replay and there’s play-by-play and there’s the colour commentator. Now, let’s imagine that a play has just unfolded before our eyes. What happens is, the QB drops back to pass, he fakes a hand-off, he throws a long bomb, it’s going, it’s going, it’s a TD. Now, you just heard what the play-by-play announcer was saying.

“2nd and 13, Pickett under pressure, puts it up deep, and oh, what a play by Brandon Llyod. An incredible catch. A one-handed leaping catch by Brandon Lloyd.”

“This is one of the best catches you’ll ever see. Ever.”

You heard it after you saw the play on the field. Of course you did. Because the announcer also saw the play as you saw the play and after the fact, the announcer made up all of this story about what you just saw. For a moment, imagine what it would be like if it was in the reverse order. Imagine what it would be like if when you were watching a football game, the announcer, sped up by 10 seconds on the track, said what was about to happen and moments later, it did happen. How weird would that be?

Well, we have come to be comfortable with the idea that we say stuff in our narrative brain, in our conscious brain, and then we do it. But it’s probably true that it’s the opposite case. That at a base chemical level, much quicker than we come up with a narrative, we’ve already decided to do something. We’re already doing something. And then, only then, only after that fact do we come up with a narrative. It’s possible using fMRI and some thoughtful mind experiments to prove that this happens all the time. That really what we’ve got in our head is a play-by-play announcer. It’s possible that this evolved over time. That human beings talked to themselves. And that that was the version we had first of what we now call consciousness. But then, our brains evolved to the point where we could talk to ourselves without talking out loud. That language leads to this notion that we have a little man or a little woman in our head who’s telling us what to do. But, we don’t.

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Another example that comes to mind comes from another love of mine — baseball. When a pitcher throws the ball, it reaches home plate really fast. It’s so fast, in fact, that the batter doesn’t have time to think about the pitch and then decide to swing. There technically isn’t time to make a decision to swing (or not swing). So what’s happening there:

(With pitch velocities ranging between 80 to over 100 miles per hour, it takes approximately 380 to 460 milliseconds for the ball to reach the plate. Minimum reaction time between the image of the ball reaching the batter’s retina and the initiation of the swing is approximately 200 milliseconds; the swing takes another 160 to 190 milliseconds.) And yet, from the batter’s perspective, it feels as though he sees the ball approach the plate and then he decides to swing. (This discrepancy in the timing of our perceptions, though ill-understood, is referred to as the subjective backward projection of time.) One of the all-time great hitters, Ted Williams, once said that he looked for one pitch in one area about the size of a silver dollar. Not to be outdone, Barry Bonds has said that he reduced the strike zone to a tiny hitting area the size of a quarter.

Even though players know that their experience of waiting until they see the pitch approach the plate before making a decision is physiologically impossible, they do not experience their swing as a robotic gesture beyond their control or as purely accidental. Further, their explanations for why they swung/didn’t swing will incorporate perceptions that occurred after they had already initiated the swing.

We spectators are equally affected by the discrepancy between what we see and what we know. Take a group of diehard anti-free-will determinists to the deciding World Series game and have them watch their home team’s batter lose the Series by not swinging at a pitch that, to the onlookers, was clearly in the strike zone. How many do you think would be able to shrug off any sense of blame or disappointment in the batter? Indeed, how many would bother to attend the game if they accepted that the decision whether or not to swing occurred entirely at a subliminal level?

Worse, we think that we see what the batter sees, but we don’t. Not needing to make a split-second decision, we can watch the entire pitch and have a much better idea of its trajectory and whether it is a fastball, curveball, or knuckleball. And we judge accordingly. How could he have been a sucker for a change-up, we collectively moan and boo, unable to viscerally reconcile the difference in our perceptions. (Keep this discrepancy in mind the next time you watch a presidential debate from the comfort of your armchair. What the candidates experience isn’t what we onlookers see and hear when not pressured for a quick response.)

 

Usain Bolt False Start: Evidence for Heightened Awareness?

The are nearly over, but not without a little bit of controversy. Particularly, in the men’s 100m final that is. I’ve embedded a short 2-minute clip of the false start.

After watching the video, it’d be pretty hard not to agree with the decision that did false start (and based on the , should be disqualified). While some people , some other people took a little closer look at the footage of the race. In fact, some people don’t think that Bolt was the first one who moved! Take a look:

You might find it a little difficult to see on the video (on the TV), but what this fellow is saying seems to be accurate to me. You can watch the actual footage from the race () and pay close attention to the 0:13 mark. You can see the runner on the (left-side of the screen) flinch before Bolt false starts.

You can read about the running implications on some of the articles I’ve linked to earlier in this post or even in the video of the fellow attempting to exonerate Bolt. I’m more interested in the implications of this for heightened awareness.

There’s a concept in psychology that’s known as “.” There are other “colloquial” terms for this concept. : “on the ball; in the moment; present; in the zone; wired in; in the groove; keeping your head in the game.” Flow is often something associated with sports, but it is a concept that can be transferred to any human activity where one “is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.” Music is often cited in flow studies, along with religious/spiritual experience. Gamers and coders often describe experiences that could be considered “flow.”

I can’t say this with certainty, but in my review of the literature, I haven’t come across a journal article on flow that specifically studies the body. Most flow studies I have read focus on the brain (of course, a part of the body) and what’s going on in the mind. This is logical given the definition we cited earlier. However, when I first saw the Usain Bolt video, the first thing I thought of was flow. Usain Bolt is a rather gifted athlete and many gifted athletes, whether they know it or not, participate in their sport, while in a state of flow.

I suspect that when humans experience a state of flow, not only are they in an energized focus (mentally), but physically, too. And when this physical focus arises, I would bet that their senses are heightened. Baseball players who are on a hot streak (at the plate) often talk about being able to see the ball really well. Almost as if the ball is slowing down when it gets to them. We could say that this is a heightened sense of awareness. In a way, it (sounds) like they are able to slow down time. In essence, this could be as a result of their heightened awareness.

Because of Usain Bolt’s chosen sport of sprinting, there is a hyper-focus on quick movements, especially at the starter’s block. The runner’s have to wait for the sound that signals the start of the race and then go! As humans are complex systems, it is unreasonable to expect that runner’s rely solely on their auditory ability to know when to go. In fact, I would almost guarantee that runners also take in visual cues from their neighboring runners. “If the person next to me goes, then I better start running.” Of course, this is not something that is taking place cognitively. That is, the runner isn’t consciously deliberating as to when to go because of when the person next to him goes.” This is something that has to take place in the subconscious.

One more piece to add to this is the body. I mentioned this briefly earlier, but then went on to talk about the visual cues. Not only are we (as humans) taking in information through our eyes and ears, but it could also be said that we also take in information through our body. (Some may argue that this information is actually entering through our eyes/ears, but just at a level that is immeasurable with the current scientific tools, but I digress.) Taking in information through our body — through sensing the space around us. For a tangible example, you could think of a blind person. Yes, they rely on their ears to help them navigate the world, but there’s also an intangible that allows them to know what’s around.

Tying this into the race that we have witnessed: Yohan Blake flinches (ever so slightly) and I would argue that Usain Bolt, as a result of being in a state of flow, and with a heightened sense of awareness, noticed this movement, and consequently, began the race.