The Physiology of Misconceptions: How the Brain Protects Us and Makes Us Unique
Life is a pretty ordinary thing, although, as we all know, it’s not easy. At any given moment, the brain (just like the brain of any other creature) makes a single decision: to move toward something or away from it. The reaction we (or they) choose is based on beliefs rooted in our personal history, much like that frog in the famous YouTube video. In the video, a hungry frog jumps at a smartphone screen, trying to lick “digital” ants, guided by its past experiences.
In this way, all sensations and actions are simply direct expressions of what has worked for us in the past. But how is our brain different from a frog’s brain? Surely, there must be something special about it. What makes it so remarkable? (.The answer may surprise you.)
We All Tend to Be Mistaken!
As is well known, for the brain, “reality” is a much broader concept than our narrow ideas about it. We’re used to thinking that physical experience is real, while imagined experience is not. But for the brain, there’s almost no difference between imagining visual images and actually seeing them.
Misconceptions-our ability to see or imagine things that aren’t physically present-are an important tool of our consciousness. With them, we create new and meaningful perceptions that allow us to change the brain from within and, in the future, our perception itself. But if the human brain is the physical embodiment of all history’s trial and error-from evolution to learning-and every perceptual reaction is reflexive, how can people (even those most prone to misconceptions) change their perception? After all, we all know that the past stubbornly refuses to change. What’s done is done.
However, when it comes to the inner workings of the brain, things aren’t so simple, because, as we know, we never remember what actually happened, let alone when it happened.
“You change what you perceive. In other words, since the brain didn’t evolve to see reality, you have complete freedom to choose what you see.”
The brain carries into the future not the actual past. and certainly not an accurate reality. Based on its history of perceiving reality, the brain builds core beliefs, reflected in its functional architecture, through which we perceive the present moment. These beliefs determine what we think and do, and help us predict how to act next. Importantly, the reverse is also true: they determine what we don’t think and don’t do. Separated from a specific situation, beliefs can’t be good or bad. They are simply us. all together and each of us individually.
The Impact of Evolution
We’re very lucky that, through evolution, the brain has learned to create beliefs, most of which seem as invisible as the air we breathe. When you sit on a chair, you’re sure it won’t break under you-and usually, that’s true. Every time you take a step, you know the ground won’t disappear beneath your feet; your foot won’t twist; you’ve put your foot far enough forward and shifted your weight correctly for the next movement (since, after all, walking is really a continuous process of falling). These are fundamental beliefs.
What if you had to constantly think about how to walk, how to breathe? Or ponder all the other extremely useful things your brain does unconsciously, without any effort? Most likely, you wouldn’t get anywhere at all.
Fear of Heights
Through experience, the brain acquires as many beliefs as possible, hoping to find rules that can be applied in different situations (like theorems in physics). Take, for example, the fear of heights. Strangely enough, we aren’t born with this fear or with the knowledge of why it’s dangerous. A recent study using a “visual cliff” showed that small children avoid heights, but don’t automatically show fear. As time goes on and we develop, we might fall from the top bunk and get hurt; parents yell at us not to go near the edge-this is how life experience is gained. Thanks to this, a hierarchy of beliefs is embedded in us, eventually allowing us to recognize the danger of heights. Regardless of the reasons for our caution, a very useful belief is born, helping us stay safe. It makes sense, but this kind of certainty wasn’t in our heads from the start.
Other basic beliefs that influence behavior-of which there are thousands-aren’t about physical survival, but social survival, and they’re just as natural.
What you’re experiencing right now is just a stable pattern of electrical activity passing through your brain; it’s an unromantic view of perception, but a pretty accurate one. Throughout life, the electrical patterns created in the brain in response to stimuli become more and more “stable,” and in physics, this is called an attractor. Sand dunes in the desert, a whirlpool in a river-even our galaxy-are all examples of attractors. They’re stable patterns formed by the long-term interaction of many separate elements. In this sense, they have their own stable energy state, or moment (which is hard to shift), and it’s most natural to continue existing in that state (though children’s brains are less stable than adults’). Evolution’s task is to select certain attractors, or rather, a sequence of the most useful attractors.
The Highways of Belief
Electrical patterns are created by neural pathways connecting different areas of the brain. this network of connections is like a tangled, sprawling highway system. The patterns formed increase the likelihood of some actions and decrease others. Studies have shown: the more such connections, the more diverse and complex the beliefs (for example, a more stable vocabulary and memory). Yet, despite the abundance and importance of these connections, the number of neuro-electrical impulses received and used over a lifetime is actually quite small. That’s because, in reality, their potential is almost limitless.
Beliefs make you who you are. That is, most of what you perceive about your conscious self would be threatened if it were ever questioned. At the same time, the process of creating deviations in the brain that shape us into who we are also makes us the unique people the world needs.
“So, how can you use mental images to develop creative perception? The answer again comes down to the practical benefit the brain stores, and how the data we perceive shapes our views of the future world. The unchanging truth about perception, which I explained earlier, remains: we don’t see reality, only what was useful to see in the past. But here’s the brain’s deceptive nature: the past experience that determines how we see includes not only real sensations, but imagined ones as well. If that’s the case, you can influence what you see by thinking about it. The connection between real and imagined sensations is that what we’re looking at now reflects the history of what we’ve seen before-whether in our imagination or not (though not all experiences carry the same weight). That’s why we not only experience what we sense, but also create our own sensations!”