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On Being Fruitful

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Our brains track two kinds of uncertainty. Expected uncertainty makes us trust our model of the world more and exploit familiar patterns (be biased). Unexpected uncertainty makes us explore and update our model (prefer noise). Correctly diagnosing the uncertainty is the key.

Uncertainty vs Risk

Article

I’ve been talking about we’re all quite scared of bias, but actually bias is quite handy. It’s a preference for precision—you can ignore a noisy world because you have some expectations about how things are going to play out. But you don’t always know when to be biased, or when to open yourself up to the noisy world. So, sometimes you’re biased when you shouldn’t be, and sometimes you’re paralysed by indecision when you should have just gone from the gut. This article explores the lever that sits under that process—uncertainty.
Our brains track two kinds of uncertainty. Expected uncertainty makes us trust our model of the world more and exploit familiar patterns (be biased). Unexpected uncertainty makes us explore and update our model (prefer noise). Correctly diagnosing the uncertainty is the key.
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article

Cogntive dissonance often describes a bias towards seeing ourselves as coherent. Sure, it’s sneaky and prevalent, but entirely necessary. And, other times we tolerate how noisy we are, keeping us open to new insights and better equipped for a complex world.

Preferring Coherence

Article

The concept of cognitive dissonance gets flogged online. It’s always this malevolent feature of our minds lurking back there making us do outrageous stuff. But cognitive dissonance isn’t really this. It’s just another example of bias—optimising us for certain features of a messy world so we can get on with things. Of course this doesn’t always help. But actually most of the time it does. And people don’t often talk about the fact that we don’t always worry about conflicting cognitions. But we don’t—sometimes we’re open to the noise too.
Cogntive dissonance often describes a bias towards seeing ourselves as coherent. Sure, it’s sneaky and prevalent, but entirely necessary. And, other times we tolerate how noisy we are, keeping us open to new insights and better equipped for a complex world.
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betterment gratification on-(un)happiness on-aesthetics on-being-fruitful on-thinking-and-reasoning somatic-architecture thought-architecture wealth-architecture

article

Cognitive dissonance is often thought of as the <em>discomfort</em> we have with conflicting cognitions. But it’s really about how the brain will smooth over <em>dissonant</em> cognitions, whether they’re uncomfortable or not. It happens a lot.

Cognitive dissonance isn't discomfort

Article

I’ve never written an article about the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance, even though I’ve referenced it a lot. It’s so mainstream that I assume everyone knows what it is. But, actually, people don’t. And even the guy who came up with it was a little disappointed by where the literature around it went. So I thought we’d revisit it, and keep it short and fun.
Cognitive dissonance is often thought of as the discomfort we have with conflicting cognitions. But it’s really about how the brain will smooth over dissonant cognitions, whether they’re uncomfortable or not. It happens a lot.
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betterment gratification on-(un)happiness on-aesthetics on-being-fruitful on-thinking-and-reasoning somatic-architecture thought-architecture wealth-architecture

article

Stress promotes bias—stereotypical thinking and behaving. Less stress promotes cognitive flexibility—an openness to new ways of thinking and behaving. Neither is better than the other. It’s about the situation you deploy them in.

Stress and Creativity

Article

Bias is just you using your expectations and assumptions to ignore the noise, and see the picture more clearly. The trade-off is that, sometimes, the noise is useful or your expectations are off. The human stress response is perhaps the most fundamental example of this in behaviour, and a very valuable tool.
Stress promotes bias—stereotypical thinking and behaving. Less stress promotes cognitive flexibility—an openness to new ways of thinking and behaving. Neither is better than the other. It’s about the situation you deploy them in.
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betterment on-(un)happiness on-being-fruitful somatic-architecture on-leadership

article

The behavioural economists treat bias as an error. But the brain isn’t an economist. It’s more like a statistician, using bias as a trade-off. Bias ignores noise to see something more clearly, though of course, sometimes the noise shouldn’t be ignored.

Bias vs Noise pt. I: Bias vs Bias

Article

The perils of cognitive bias is a subject that’s dominated a substantial slice of social psychology, and appears in any leadership or personal development course as something to be avoided at all costs. It’s interesting, but it’s not actually that useful. You can’t sift through 200+ biases to work out what you might do wrong. The brain treats bias differently. Bias is a strategy to solve certain kinds of problems. Let me show you how.
The behavioural economists treat bias as an error. But the brain isn’t an economist. It’s more like a statistician, using bias as a trade-off. Bias ignores noise to see something more clearly, though of course, sometimes the noise shouldn’t be ignored.
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