Have you realized that our mind makes a story whenever it sees anything?

I guess the title stuck in your mind for a second and perhaps you looked out for an answer as well?

?To help you with the answer, I would like to introduce a book to which I am currently hooked: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.?

When it comes to the understanding of our minds, I feel this one is an absolute Masterpiece!

To give you a little background, this book defines our Mental life by the metaphor of two agents System 1 and System 2.

But, what is System 1 & System 2?

Well, both are an integral part of our minds.

System 1 is more intuitive and operates quickly with little or no effort, something like …. singing a song while driving (like singing your favorite song requires little or no effort at all) while System 2 is more rational, allocates attention, and demands efforts by the mind, something like solving a complexed calculation while driving (maybe some of you can do but most of us can’t).

Nevertheless, the two systems are much more complex.

Our Beliefs are generally formed by System 2, with the help of intuitions, emotions, gut feelings inferred by system 1. And eventually, system 1 presents them to system 2.

There are many insights this book provides about the two systems. But, one concept which stayed with me & motivated me to write is Intentional Causality (which I’ll address later in this article as I feel it is indeed an incredible notion).?

I was completely blown over when I realized how true is that!

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Before we go further, let me again put up this question.

Do you know your mind makes a story whenever it sees anything?

Well, the answer is yes!

?That’s true! Our mind does try to connect the dots.

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As per the book, our mind makes a coherent story whenever it reads or sees anything.?It unconsciously tries to draw connections between things (it could be anything, something you hear, you see, you read…. just anything). And then it forms a causal connection between things to make the story complete.

For instance, read the below statement:

“There was traffic. She reached the venue 1 hour late.”

What likely casual connection do you infer?

After reading the above statements, our mind instantly derives the conclusion that the lady got late because she got stuck in the traffic.

However, it was never said directly that she got stuck in the traffic so reached late.

But let’s be honest, our mind constructed the coherent story here, just after finishing reading the two sentences, concluding traffic being the reason for her late arrival.

Finding such casual connections is a part of understanding the story and is an automatic operation performed by System 1 which System 2 casually accepts.

On similar lines, comes the concept of Causality: cause & effect.

My understanding suggests this can be either physical causality or intentional causality.

Sounds complex? I know!

Let’s try together to understand :)

The aristocratic Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte suggested that we see causality as we see color.

Remember how we feel & how our body responds when we play PS4, X-Box? We are not actually fighting or flying or driving but still, our minds feel and we sense the reflexes & we feel the high adrenaline rush!

Certainly, we kn0w that there is no real physical contact like real fight or drive but still we experience the power of “illusion of causality” and not just physical causality.?

To follow this more clearly, let us go through one short video.

Heider and Simmel (1944) animation (Credits: YouTube)

• What did you notice in the video? ?Did you feel:
• Is bigger triangle bullying others?
• Small circle & small triangle are friends?
• The small circle being trapped at the wrong place?
• Some EMOTIONS for LIFE-LESS shapes?

If you just watched the video, you may feel that the bigger triangle is bullying the smaller one and we may feel some emotion. The circle looked dreadful as it seems to be stuck at the wrong place for some time considering that the circle and small triangle seem to be together.

Now, this mind-play of emotions and intentions is irresistible. Like in the movie above, we knew it was a simple clip with nothing but movements of lifeless geometrical figures, still, our mind could not stop having feelings and emotions for each of them and associated them with different plausible attributes.

This is what is called Intentional Causality.

This suggests that our mind is ever-ready to spot the agents, assign them the personality traits and specific intentions and view their actions as individual propensities.

Most of this Magic is done by System 1 which eventually presents the observation to System 2.?

And then system 2 decides whether to pick the story or give it a thought.

However, in most of the cases, System2 does pick and we don’t even realize, the process is so smooth!

After reading about this, I felt this cannot be more true!

?How I don’t even come to know whilst my mind does just so much work, most of the time all subconsciously!

Isn’t this fascinating?

Have you ever noticed this? If not, then give it a try.

It’s Fun and you may realize when to make system 2 more active and when to have a one-to-one chat with System 1, before jumping to conclusions, which apparently we as humans love to do.?:)

I am enjoying the process & I hope you do too! :)