Navigation is an excellent metaphor for describing human thinking. How does the mind know in which direction to move to the next thought and how does it know which landmarks are relevant to remember?
In deliberate (system 2) thinking, it has a map that it follows. In unconscious (system 1) thinking it is just wandering around without an aim.
Try navigating without a map through a forest or a new place. Your mind is engaged in remembering landmarks from the rich scenes it sees. There's an intuition underneath that gives a sense of which direction to move with a purpose.
Navigation is, in fact, a very ancient cognitive skill that animals have. It lies at the deep core of cognition. We know it exists, but we don't know how to recreate it in artificial form.
The mental state of 'flow' that many have described as an intense engagement in an activity such that one loses an awareness of time is a navigational activity. It's like the skilled rock climber who intuitively knows which crack to reach for and how.
There is nothing more exhilarating in the human context than being in the state of 'flow'. It's the realization of competence after previous investment in training. It is a participatory experience that cannot be replicated by passive experience.
This is why books can be more engaging than movies. The activity of reading allows a reader to control the pace of consumption of its content. It is like walking through a forest. One can rush through it or one can slow down and immerse oneself in the complexity of the moment.
This is why movies can rarely replicate the experience of a book. It is the observer that gives meaning to what it sees. But seeing is not passive process of consuming photons. It is an active one like navigation. We see because we navigate with our perception.
Our eyes are constantly moving, essentially 'feeling' the world around us. Our eyes move around seeking parts in a scene of relevance. Yet, despite how often our eyes move, we see a constant mental image of the world around us.
Try moving your eyes very quickly for the left to right and blinking. You will see a constant image that is in front of you. The eye moves around but the brain has a purpose to remain in focus.
But how do we find purpose in our thinking? What are the maps of our thoughts? What differentiates the dreaming state (without a map) and the waking state? What is our internal mental map?
Our waking consciousness is informed by our narrative self. We are driven by the stories we invent about ourselves. We are guided by the map that we have invented for ourselves.
People with a high fluidity in thinking are more capable of re-inventing their narratives than others. Many have ossified narratives of selves that do not change despite the world changing. Humans struggle in modern society due to a lack of permanence.
But permanence implies the unchanging (i.e. the static). This is against our very nature of being beings of navigation. We are alive because we navigate. We are alive because we seek and share experiences. We are alive because we seek novelty.
Thus, the eternal conflict of the human spirit. The conflict between our narrative selves and our navigational selves. The conflict between our stories and our participation.
@threadreaderapp unroll please
