Stop Paying Attention: Zoning Out Is a Crucial Mental State

“(…) mind wandering is not useless mental static. Instead, Schooler proposes, mind wandering allows us to work through some important thinking. Our brains process information to reach goals, but some of those goals are immediate while others are distant. Somehow we have evolved a way to switch between handling the here and now and contemplating long-term objectives. It may be no coincidence that most of the thoughts that people have during mind wandering have to do with the future.

Even more telling is the discovery that zoning out may be the most fruitful type of mind wandering. In their fMRI study, Schooler and his colleagues found that the default network and executive control systems are even more active during zoning out than they are during the less extreme mind wandering with awareness. When we are no longer even aware that our minds are wandering, we may be able to think most deeply about the big picture.

Because a fair amount of mind wandering happens without our ever noticing, the solutions it lets us reach may come as a surprise. There are many stories in the history of science of great discoveries occurring to people out of the blue.”

From Robin Hanson’s Overcoming Bias, a discussion on the social function of academia. This is Hanson:

“Academics get support from students, foundations, governments, media, and consulting clients.  Yes academics mainly publish papers, books, lectures, etc.; the question is why academics are paid to do this. The standard idealistic answer is that academics know useful and important things, things which students want to learn, media want to report, consulting clients want to apply, and which foundations and governments want to promote the creation and spread of, for the good of the everyone. (..) But not only are these idealistic theories pretty implausible from an evolutionary point of view, they also have detailed problems (…) it seems far simpler to me to just postulate that people care primarily about affiliating with others who have been certified as prestigious.”

But Andrew Gelman emphatically disagrees…

You can read the complete post  here.