I really benefited from Eagleman's "Incognito" book about the parts of my brain that work in and for me but which I cannot knowingly and consciously access. I can't tell what part of me "thinks" or is doing!!! I have known this fact for years but Incognito emphasized it anew. The clearest it has ever hit me was when I whirled and tossed a wadded tissue to the spot where the trash can USED to be. The moment I did that, I knew that parts of me knew the old location and hadn't updated themselves with new information.
I know I usually just tell myself that I have a habit (whatever that is and wherever it is) but the moment I tossed the wad of paper, I remembered I had moved the trash can to a better location. I have begun taking another look at Duhigg's "The Power of Habit". The existence of habits shows me that my conscious and unconscious do communicate but not easily. I guess the communication is slow since merely telling myself to stop doing something doesn't wipe out the urge to perform that way I habitually do.
When I saw Brandt and Eagleman's "Runaway Species", I downloaded it and started reading it. From the title, I guessed that the Runaway book would be about how humans can ignore, over-ride or restructure their habits, their thoughts and even their bodies.
In the past couple of centuries, there has debate and some research on habits vs. instinct. John Locke and others thought it was clear that humans don't have instincts like nest building or mating song as in some birds. Incognito asserts that currently humans do have pre-wiring that affects them deeply but the effects may be so obvious that we tend to miss them. Locke used the idea of the human mind being born a blank slate that perception and experience write on. Eagleman uses the example of attraction. Normally, we are attracted to another human but not to a frog or a chair.
The existence of habits, and regular routines, and steady likes and dislikes certainly speaks to the subject of stability in human thought and action. Yet, Eagleman, with Anthony Brandt, in a more recent book "The Runaway Species", focuses on change in human thought. Since I seem to be a person with long-standing likes and dislikes, I am intrigued by the discussion of human desire for variety, for distaste for too much stability and repetition. I have a tendency to decide what color walls I most like and then paint them that color. Maybe it is my Neanderthal genes that fail to appreciate the value of a new color just for variety. Ever since I read in "Supreme Courtship", Christopher Buckley's novel, about the US president running for re-election with the campaign slogan "more of the same", I have been alerted to the possibility that others have needs for more change and variety than I knew or felt myself.
