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Our Brains Tell Stories So We Can Live - Issue 75: Story - Nautilus
Hypotheses and making up stories
Science is about making up stories called hypotheses and testing them, then coming up with better stories. Once a story is complete, science goes to a lab to test it. While a story is useful, it can also be a problem if we run with an incomplete story. Our brains' reward for possible pattern-matching can overlook conflicting information as it searches for patterns, not identical inputs.
We earn a dopamine reward every time we understand something - even if the explanation is defective. This may result in misinterpreting data.
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Key Ideas
Storytelling is essential to living
Stories are the primary way through which we make sense of our world. We explain ideas by telling stories.
Even science uses storytelling when they use data of the physical world to explain phenomena that cannot be reduced to physical facts, or when they extend incomplete data to draw general conclusions.
For example, knowing the atomic weight of carbon and oxygen cannot explain to us what life is.
Where science and story meet
Despite the verities of science, we feel compelled to tell stories that venture beyond the facts.
When we first see separate ideas, we feel obliged to find a relationship between the ideas to form a coherent picture. Once a possible relationship has been established, we feel the need to come up with an explanation.
The brain’s reward system
When the brain pieces separate bits of an image together to form a coherent picture, it is known as pattern recognition. Once we recognize a pattern, it can spark a degree of pleasure, often described as that "a-ha" moment.
Good science
Good science = precise data - possible interpretations.
Good science is a humble recognition of the limits of what scientific data can say.
What science to accept
- Ensure that any science you trust has passed through the peer-review process. And even then it might not be accurate.
- Search for information on the limits of the data in science reports. Were assumptions made? Be concerned if the discussion of them is missing.
- Assess the preciseness of language, tightness of structure and restraint with which they present moral issues.
- Assess the historical, cultural, and personal context of the study.
- Are they willing to entertain alternative opinions and interpretations?
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A new disorder
The World Health Organization officially added a new disorder to the section on substance use and addictive behaviors : “
The term "addiction"
Addiction can include:
- Addiction as a moral transgression, like excessive drinking or drug use.
- Addiction as a scientific disease, which characterize alcoholism and drug addiction as biological.
- Colloquial violation, which applies the term to almost any fixation.
The idea that someone can be addicted to a behavior, as opposed to a substance, remains debatable.
Arguments against gaming addiction
- Excessive gameplay is a symptom of a larger problem, like anxiety or depression.
- The fear of possible addiction arrises from moral panic about new technologies, not scientific research or clinical data.
- Making excessive gaming a disorder can harm the gaming industry by stigmatizing their products.
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The Science Of Storytelling
According to Will Storr, author of ‘The Science Of Storytelling’, reality is just a phrase for a common set of shared facts and surroundings and is mainly a mind construct. We may not be living in ...
Change Matters
Human beings react to physical and environmental changes all the time. Likewise, a good story requires changes and challenges, and characters need to be provided with certain crossroads of change, else the story does not move.
Cause And Effect
Incomplete stories are filled automatically by the brain, as we have an urge to find meaning in everything. We also tend to believe the simplest explanations. Stories need to be shown a linear cause and effect for the reader to stay interested. If there are too many effects, the effect is lost.
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Challenge Unhelpful Thoughts
Listen to your thoughts — but don’t necessarily believe them.
They're suggestions, possibilities. But they’re not gospel. You can’t control what thoughts pop up, but y...
Identifying Unhelpful Thoughts
- Black and White Thinking: There are heaping piles of nuance to most things.
- Unrealistic Expectations: Cynicism is bad, but a little skepticism is essential.
- Selective Attention: If your brain is always looking for the negative, you’re gonna find it.
- Disqualifying the Positive: Sometimes we go into problem-solving mode and focus only on what is broken.
- Predicting the Future: “This will never work” or “They’re going to think I’m stupid.” You don’t know the future. So don’t act like it.
- “Should” thoughts: It’s usually just an insistence that the world bends to your will and is a great way to amplify frustration.
Do More Stuff
Doing little positive things is better for happiness than occasionally bagging an elephant:
- Enjoyable stuff
- Achievement stuff: Defeat your goals in single combat and feel like a conquering hero
- Meaningful stuff: Do volunteer work or just help someone
- Physical stuff: Exercise. Not only keeps you alive, but it’s like miracle grow for your brain
- Social stuff.
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