Post 55 – Wet Feet

Psychology used to be called a young science. At a certain point in time that was true.  I guess we all used to be called young at one point. For me, it was a long time ago.

Now we have new branches of science emerging almost quicker than academic departments can adapt. Put the word neuro in front of anything and bam!, new science. Neuro biology, neuro anthropology, and even neuro computing. Notice that all of those currently narrow streams of knowledge branched off from just one bigger one.

What about all of the currently narrow sciences or academic disciplines that are branching off from the larger river of knowledge that is commonly known as computer science? There is: computer engineering, software engineering, theory of computation, machine learning, and AI.  There are tons of others to be sure, but you get the idea. Knowledge and the ways it is categorized are expanding at an ever-increasing pace. I’m not a futurist, but I can say that it is exciting and scary at the same time.

So let me go back to my comfort zone, the middle-aged science of psychology. Yes, psychology is a science, not because of what it studies, but how it studies things. For example, a badly designed psychological study that involves brain tissues or MRI’s is less scientific than a well-designed study using a simple survey.  But, I digress.

When psychology was young, in fact when psychology was still unborn, there was a philosopher or academic named William James.  He is considered the first American Psychologist and wrote the first psychology textbook. First sophism, how can someone write a textbook for an academic field that doesn’t exist yet?

James is quoted as saying as saying something like, “The first psychology lecture I heard was the one I gave.”  He is also credited with coining the term, “stream of consciousness. (Benjamin, 2014)”

That simply means your mind is always flowing. Don’t believe me? Second sophism and this one is going to require you to open your phone’s stopwatch app and get ready to time yourself. Ready? Hit start, and try to think of nothing. Let no thoughts enter your consciousness.  Impossible, right? 

It is interesting to note that there is a whole stream of meditational knowledge and practice that asks its practitioners to still the mind. People who practice that skill can have a still mind for quite some time. Third sophism, do you want to be able to slow and even stop the stream of thoughts flowing from your unconscious to your conscious or do you want to speed them up?

Whatever you choose, and hopefully you say both, will take practice. Let’s remember that it is a theme of the creativity algorithm to not try to control the mind, especially the unconscious mind. Rather we want to build not only a working relationship but, more importantly, a playing relationship. 

Don’t like that nebulous, namby-pamby, hippie talk? Want to get control, schedule, and master your mind? Gotcha. Before you try, let me challenge you to go to your nearest stream or creek and try to speed it up.  From where you are standing, you can’t. But you could if you went to where the stream started. And, you could if you went downstream to clear some obstacles.

But…. and here is the fourth sophism: Where is upstream in your mind? If we think about William James’ stream of consciousness, where is upstream and downstream?

What in the name of William James does this have to do with helping sales managers help their teams have good ideas more often?

Let’s look at the information flow of your organization. Let’s imagine that the employees are smaller streams. Are those employees’ streams outflow or inflow? In typical hierarchical structures, employee streams are the outflow. Information starts upstream from management and flows downward.  But often it is the employees who are customer-facing. They have pools of knowledge about what works well and what doesn’t.  Perhaps smart managers should work on a way to periodically reverse the flow so that employee streams become temporary inflows. 

As I mentioned in post 34, Christmas Vacation, my family and I are Disney nuts. We love to go to Disneyworld for vacations. And, as the father of two one-time young girls, I have pretty much seen every Disney princess movie multiple times. In the movie “Pocahontas” which is so historically wrong to be almost harmful to children, there is a great song titled “Up Around The River Bend.” In that song, there is the line, “You can’t put your foot in the same river twice.” As thought-provoking as that might be, it is generally credited to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. 

Which brings us back to the more modern philosopher and founder of American Psychology William James who, again, had the idea of stream of consciousness.

So, if Heraclitus (and Pocohantus) is right, that means we cannot put our foot in the same stream of consciousness twice. That means we cannot have the same thought twice. So here is the fifth sophism, get a stopwatch ready. This time set a timer for 45 seconds. When you hit start, let your mind wander. Stop when the alarm goes off.  Distract yourself with a dad joke such as: “Two fish were swimming up a stream. One of them hit his head on a wall and said to the other, Dam”  Now, set the timer for 45 seconds again. When you hit start, try to have the exact same thoughts as the first time you did it. Bet you can’t.  

Here’s why:

1. Your brain was changed by the awful dad joke. On a microscopic, cellular level, your brain changed. Was it enough to prevent you from stepping in the exact same mental footsteps as your previous attempt? Maybe.
2. Because you were aware of the task and had some conscious awareness of what you were trying to do, that conscious interference would prevent you from truly letting your thoughts flow in the exact same way. 

Now, before you start to argue and say that you can have the same thoughts twice, I suppose that is so for concepts like 2+2 is 4. Maybe. But remember to ask yourself, are you a good and impartial judge of your own thoughts? To sum up, every thought you have changes your mind which then changes the way you think of even familiar thoughts. 

Now, there are some people who are convinced that they can tell the same story twice. Exactly the same.  And, for those of us who have spent time with older folks who sometimes repeat themselves, it can feel that way.  But the reality is, even if you memorize a story, recite it perfectly, and give the exact same inflections, you do not have the same mind/brain as you did when you said it the first time.

Now, again, some folks might argue and say they have the exact same negative thoughts. Whether it is obsession-based, anxiety-based, or whatever. They swear they have the exact same intrusive thoughts. Maybe. But let’s deal with that in a future post. 

A word about those who repeat stories. In my family, there is a relative who repeated stories often, his grandkids would call him ‘papa three times.’ At the time the nickname was given, it wasn’t due to dementia or cognitive disability. He just liked to tell certain stories.  Rather than focus on the surface-level content, let’s focus on why.  Why did he or anyone who repeats stories do so? What does the story mean to them? How does it make them feel and how do they want you to react? As seemingly bothersome as hearing a story for the umpteenth time might be, ask yourself, what are they really trying to tell you?

It might be the same with reoccurring thoughts that you have that you might think are the same. Rather than listen to the content, try to listen to the why.  Your unconscious mind is delivering you something, it might not be what you want, but it just might be important enough to listen to. 

Take Away: Make time for three alpha-state sessions this week. How you get into that state is up to you.  A walk, engaging in your hobby, or working with some breathing exercises. Once you do, float on the stream of your mind. Let yourself go. And… do not set a timer. You’ll know when it is time to stop. You will bump into the shore or river bank that is your consciousness and that is good and healthy.  Just enjoy the ride and let your unconscious take you where it wants to. Trust it. 

Spreading the Thoughts:  Ask your neighbors and/or coworkers if they would rather slow down their minds or speed them up.  Whatever their answer might be, please tell them about The Creativity Algorithm.

Next Post:  Dirty Sticks

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References

Benjamin, L. T. (2014). A Brief History of Modern Psychology. Wiley.