Put your attention where it is needed

Whether it's politics, COVID, or whatever, we hear a lot of opinions. Take COVID. You've probably heard people on TV saying, "I'm not a doctor, but..." and go on and on with a flood of nonsense. You've also heard others say, "I'm a doctor..." and continue with the same stream of nonsense. Likewise, you have listened to others, scientists or not, saying meaningful and relevant things. 

In a chaotic world, communication is chaotic. The consequence is that it is difficult to know whom to believe. Trust then goes away, generating stress and survival behaviors, including frustration, anger, and stuckness. Being assailed with contradictory and increasingly violent information, we seek refuge in a position that allows us to feel legitimate and find a semblance of security. Whatever the final quality of this position, there is comfort in believing in something (true or not) and "camping on its positions."

Let's take a detour through the neurology of decision making. If, for example, you are looking at multiple objects, and it isn't easy to know if the majority are heading to the right, the decision-making process will follow the following three-step process. 

In the first step, the neurons in charge of motion detection will send their information to the neurons in charge of integration. It's a bit like having a troop of neurons saying "they go right" and another troop saying "they go left." 

In the second stage, the integration neurons will "integrate" the information, a bit like a polling place. The difference is that they will not wait until they have a majority (fifty-one percent) but simply reach a threshold. It is the difference between the two choices present that will lead to the decision. 

The last step is to send the information to the motor neurons: the muscles around the eyeballs will start working. 

Let's take this information back to the cognitive level. We perceive information, it is processed, and then decisions are made. However, it is quite evident that the quality of the decision is commensurate with the information received. 

And in a system in a chaotic phase, there is a problem. As I have already mentioned in other articles, chaos produces much information, too much information, and of poor quality. 

However, many of us have been educated to at least be discerning. That should, in theory, save us from making a lot of mistakes, especially assessment errors. But this foundation of quality information and processes has a disadvantage: we have to go out and get it. We have to think about it.

And that's where the problems begin. We are bombarded with information that needs to be processed and evaluated right away, and it often has emotional components that can short-circuit our intelligence. 

The violence of the signal takes precedence over the quality of the signal.

And this is how a chaotic system ends up making smart people not so smart. 

The solution: decide where we put our attention. It is not that simple when every day brings one or more events worthy of making us jump out of our chair. 

That's the trap we must not fall into. There is no safety in a system in a chaotic phase. And it should be clear that adding our voice to this cacophony is not only unproductive for the system (it doesn't care, and it wouldn't do it any good) but dangerous for you because by doing so, you are giving it your attention. Therefore, you deprive yourself of the opportunity to focus your attention on more important matters, such as how to stay focused in the storm, what resources you have in times of uncertainty, or how to contribute to what is to come next.

The critical thing to remember about these increasingly crazy events is what the system says, and not to be dazzled and manipulated by the events. And what the system says, I leave it to you to consider for yourself.

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source: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/16/4/1486.full.pdf