I drive a lot, and sometimes I just “scare” back into reality and I realize I wasn’t even paying attention the last few seconds, and it feels weird. Why and how does this happen?
In: 2885
When you’re doing something you have done countless times before, the neural pathways involved have become so engrained that they fire correctly without conscious effort. The conscious mind is easily bored, we did not evolve to do something as monotonous as driving for hours on end. The human mind craves constant stimulation, and when it can’t get it it will invent it via day dreaming.
A few seconds is amateur hour. I was driving cross-country and made it to mile marker 50 into the next state over in full on autopilot mode.
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As well as the top answer, it’s also the case that your brain doesn’t store into long term memory anything that it seems as unnecessary. You feel like your brain was blank and you weren’t paying attention, but you probably were – your brain just didn’t store any of that information.
“You”, whatever that is, decides conscious intervention is not needed and lets you think about other things, or shut down completely. No sense wasting brain time. Will let you know when something unexpected occurs. Hopefully it won’t be a tragic revelation.
Check out the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” It’s a distilled version of Nobel Prize winning research on this exact topic.
You have two cognitive processing systems: system 1 (fast, emotional, largely unconcious) and system 2 (slow, deliberative, largely conscious).
When we first learn a task, we do it through system 2, which is why you never clicked into autopilot when you were first learning to drive. After we practice a task a shit-ton, under various circumstances, we learn it to “automaticity,” and then that task can be controlled by system 1 (after driving for a year you can weave in and out of traffic at 100mph while you fiddle with the radio station and drink your latte). If the task gets more difficult than system 1 can handle, we pivot back to system 2 (which is why you turn the radio down when you’re looking for a new address the first time).
We usually have conscious access and the ability to override system 1 (you can refocus on driving whenever you want), but not always. One explanation for “choking” in athletic performance is that athletes try to take conscious control over system 1, but they’ve forgotten how to do the task consciously (try to consciously think about where every letter on the keyboard is as you type and watch what happens to your typing speed).
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I really don’t think it’s answered here in an important sense
There is of course the part of you that has neural and muscle memory, you don’t need to think about changing gears because it is engrained.
More importantly though
Most people are lost in thought, they are in auto pilot the majority of the time, in that they are thinking without knowing that they are thinking.
Once you begin to analyse consciousness and its contents, through forms of mindfulness and meditation you can begin to break the spell somewhat!
Notice how you are doing this when you are also not driving or requiring memorized motor control (no pun)
Plato- ” An unexamined life is not worth living”
Whether that quote is true or not is up for debate
I’d recommend Vipassana and some Sam harris
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I drive a lot, and sometimes I just “scare” back into reality and I realize I wasn’t even paying attention the last few seconds, and it feels weird. Why and how does this happen?
In: 2885
When you’re doing something you have done countless times before, the neural pathways involved have become so engrained that they fire correctly without conscious effort. The conscious mind is easily bored, we did not evolve to do something as monotonous as driving for hours on end. The human mind craves constant stimulation, and when it can’t get it it will invent it via day dreaming.
A few seconds is amateur hour. I was driving cross-country and made it to mile marker 50 into the next state over in full on autopilot mode.
[removed]
As well as the top answer, it’s also the case that your brain doesn’t store into long term memory anything that it seems as unnecessary. You feel like your brain was blank and you weren’t paying attention, but you probably were – your brain just didn’t store any of that information.
“You”, whatever that is, decides conscious intervention is not needed and lets you think about other things, or shut down completely. No sense wasting brain time. Will let you know when something unexpected occurs. Hopefully it won’t be a tragic revelation.
Check out the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” It’s a distilled version of Nobel Prize winning research on this exact topic.
You have two cognitive processing systems: system 1 (fast, emotional, largely unconcious) and system 2 (slow, deliberative, largely conscious).
When we first learn a task, we do it through system 2, which is why you never clicked into autopilot when you were first learning to drive. After we practice a task a shit-ton, under various circumstances, we learn it to “automaticity,” and then that task can be controlled by system 1 (after driving for a year you can weave in and out of traffic at 100mph while you fiddle with the radio station and drink your latte). If the task gets more difficult than system 1 can handle, we pivot back to system 2 (which is why you turn the radio down when you’re looking for a new address the first time).
We usually have conscious access and the ability to override system 1 (you can refocus on driving whenever you want), but not always. One explanation for “choking” in athletic performance is that athletes try to take conscious control over system 1, but they’ve forgotten how to do the task consciously (try to consciously think about where every letter on the keyboard is as you type and watch what happens to your typing speed).
[removed]
I really don’t think it’s answered here in an important sense
There is of course the part of you that has neural and muscle memory, you don’t need to think about changing gears because it is engrained.
More importantly though
Most people are lost in thought, they are in auto pilot the majority of the time, in that they are thinking without knowing that they are thinking.
Once you begin to analyse consciousness and its contents, through forms of mindfulness and meditation you can begin to break the spell somewhat!
Notice how you are doing this when you are also not driving or requiring memorized motor control (no pun)
Plato- ” An unexamined life is not worth living”
Whether that quote is true or not is up for debate
I’d recommend Vipassana and some Sam harris
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