THE DISTRIBUTED BRAIN

Why do we fall prey of illusions such as the one below?

The answer lies in how our brain is wired

(thread, 1/N)
2/ Let's look at a fragment of the previous image.

It looks coherent and could plausibly exist.
3/ Also the other two fragments, when examined one by one, look plausible.
4/ The thing is, our brain does not examine the image as a whole (even though we have the impression it does so).

If it did, it would notice the logical impossibility.
5/ Instead, our brain considers the image as a patchwork.

Coherence is evaluated at this level, one piece of the patchwork at a time. If each looks coherent, our brain will *intuitively* think that the image is okay.

Hence the illusion.
6/ Of course, we have powerful analytical capabilities. If we focus, we can examine the image as a whole and notice the logical incoherences.

Analytically, it seems wrong.
Intuitively, it seems right.

Hence the awkward feeling from the illusion.
7/ Our brain does not evaluate large pieces of information as a whole. At least intuitively, it breaks them down in pieces and evaluates each separately, leading to some of the quirks in our functioning.

I call this the Distributed Brain Framework.
8/ It's an important topic, for it explain why we sometimes decide something but do something else. Or why we hallucinate. Or why we confabulate explanations for our behavior.

However, it's too complex to explain in a Twitter thread, so I decided to organize a free talk about it
9/ On Saturday the 24th of April, I'll hold a talk on the Distributed Brain Framework.

You can register for free and download the Zoom link and the calendar invite here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regist…
10/ I will record the talk and share it on my youtube channel (youtube.com/c/LucaDellanna…) and on my mailing list (luca-dellanna.com/newsletter).

If you have any friend who could be interested, please let them know!
11/ Also, you might be interested in my book on irrational behavior "The Control Heuristic" which talks about the same topics (gum.co/heuristic).

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More from @DellAnnaLuca

31 Mar
THE DISTRIBUTED BRAIN

Why do we fall prey of illusions such as the one below?

The answer lies in how our brain is wired

(thread, 1/N)
2/ Let's look at a fragment of the previous image.

It looks coherent and could plausibly exist.
3/ Also the other two fragments, when examined one by one, look plausible.
Read 8 tweets
30 Mar
THE HIVE MIND FALLACY

Principle: organizations are not influenced by incentives weighting on it; instead, their behavior is determined by the incentives weighting on the decision makers inside them.

This is because organizations have no agency; no hive mind.

Thread,
1/N
2/ Let me explain with a metaphor.

When we talk about a colony of bees, we often believe it has a collective will (the "hive mind").

However, it never takes decisions itself.
Instead, its bees take INDIVIDUAL decisions, whose result converges on a group behavior.
3/ The same applies to companies. How often do we read headlines such as "Apple decided to design a car"?

However, Apple doesn't have agency.
Its managers do.

The decision was the result of individual managers taking decisions based on their individual information & incentives.
Read 7 tweets
29 Mar
MEGA-THREAD OF ALL THE TIMES VIRUS LABS "LOST" DANGEROUS PATHOGENS

1/ SARS is documented to have escaped virus labs multiple times; twice from the same one

2/ The Institut Pasteur lost 2349 vials of SARS and once transported vials on a regular plane breaking protocols

(thread)
(I will post all sources at the end of the thread)
3/ More than 100 US labs with bioterror pathogens had faced federal sanctions for safety violations…

…and regulators allowed them to keep conducting experiments while failing inspections, sometimes for years.
Read 19 tweets
28 Mar
Today begins Autism Awareness Week, so I'll share the most important screenshots from my book on autism (available for free at gum.co/twtamg or as a paperback on Amazon amzn.to/3cqZLug)

1/ First, an example to visualize autistic perception (continues below)
2/ The second of three pages describing the example
3/ The third page
Read 5 tweets
28 Mar
SARS escaped a lab multiple times. Twice from the same one.

Regardless of the origins of COVID, the narratives that one is a bad person for suggesting that viruses can escape from labs is dangerous.

If labs are a risk, pretending they’re safe for ideological reasons is insane.
On the same topic, the tweet below and this article (a list of known lab incidents; who knows how many are unknown) (ht @trishankkarthik for the link):
eu.usatoday.com/in-depth/opini…
This paragraph in particular is shocking and everyone should be aware of it.
Read 6 tweets
27 Mar
Hypothesis: "Resistance to change" is BS.

It's not that we resist change. It's that we don't fancy doing things we didn't experience being good for us.

It has nothing to do with new or old – as a proof, we are quick to try something new when we experienced it being good.

1/4
2/ The thing is, we might know that trying the new thing makes sense, but unless we emotionally experienced it being good, we won't try it.

But it hasn't anything to do with it being new. Even if it were old, we'd only do it if we emotionally thought it'd be good for us.
3/ Hence, my hypothesis that resistance to change is BS.

It's a confabulation for why we are likely not to do something new. But it hasn't to do with it being new.

It's just selection bias: what is new is more likely to lack some factor which is required for its adoption.
Read 4 tweets

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