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Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level

ekin.substack.com

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Re: Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level

#31

Post by anonu »

ninjinxo wrote: post #12
rosstex wrote: post #2

This article does everything except actually answering the question in the title.

I think it may be a GPT3 blog: > Noise is necessary for our brains to function in an orderly fashion. In the book The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver says that “The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth.”7 Andrew Smart adds that “there are many circumstances in which the addition of the right amount of noise actually boosts the signal.” So within the randomness of the noise, we can achi…

I like the thought. The article is not very coherent, you're right... But it did fool me.

Re: Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level

#33

Post by bduerst »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #5
Isthatablackgsd wrote: post #3

I am Deaf myself and using my hearing aids all of my life. One thing I discovered that silence is the best productivity focus for me. During my job, I always keep my hearing aids off. This helps with my ADHD as I am easily distracted when there is a sound involved, sometime causes me to ‘hyperfocus’ in my “world” than doing my job. And interesting that I found that keeping my hearing aids off makes the time around me…

I have ADHD, and when it works well, the hyper-focus effect is similar to what you describe with your hearing aids turned off. But for me, the outside world's time seems to go faster , not slower . It's like the more I'm focusing on my task at hand, the less I notice the passage of time around me. I'm curious why our hyper-focus experiences differ in that way.

The phenomenon you're describing psychological flow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Where time perception starts to skip as the brain becomes hyper focused on a task. One of the things I've noticed (having ADD) is that it's easy to enter into flow and accomplish much, but can be difficult to master what you enter flow with.

Re: Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level

#35

Post by neom »

munificent wrote: post #16

I've worked in private offices, cubicles, open plan offices, coffeeshops, libraries, and now many many hours in home both when other family members are around and when they aren't. I spend a lot of time thinking about sound and focus. The conclusion I came to is that humans have a few emotional needs in order to reach deep focus: 1. We need to not be distracted and we need to feel certainty that we will not be distra…

I almost can't work without the radio on. I can buy the comment that said we want people near us to work. I like working at home with the radio on, no one will bug me, but maybe it feels like people are around?

Re: Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level

#36

Post by reactspa »

neom wrote: post #35
munificent wrote: post #16

I've worked in private offices, cubicles, open plan offices, coffeeshops, libraries, and now many many hours in home both when other family members are around and when they aren't. I spend a lot of time thinking about sound and focus. The conclusion I came to is that humans have a few emotional needs in order to reach deep focus: 1. We need to not be distracted and we need to feel certainty that we will not be distra…

I almost can't work without the radio on. I can buy the comment that said we want people near us to work. I like working at home with the radio on, no one will bug me, but maybe it feels like people are around?

By "radio on" did you mean you're listening to a radio channel or to white noise?

Re: Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level

#37

Post by neom »

reactspa wrote: post #36
neom wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost can't work without the radio on. I can buy the comment that said we want people near us to work. I like working at home with the radio on, no one will bug me, but maybe it feels like people are around?

By "radio on" did you mean you're listening to a radio channel or to white noise?

bbc world service or DW usually. I'm not listening though, occasionally I tune in, usually when I need to tune out of the work, and then tune back into the work, but it's just on, and my brain is good at using it for little rests when needed. DW is on right now, they've been talking about Bolsonaro for over an hour, all I know is some report came out and it wasn't favourable, but they've been talking about it for over an hour. Works super well for me! :)

Re: Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level

#38

Post by sbmthakur »

This was true for Von Neumann:

Von Neumann did some of his best work in noisy, chaotic environments, and once admonished his wife for preparing a quiet study for him to work in. He never used it, preferring the couple's living room with its television playing loudly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

Re: Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level

#39

Post by Karawebnetwork »

ladyattis wrote: post #14

For me, it's not so much noise but temperature and air freshness. I don't know why but if the stale is a tad too stale in my home office I just get distracted and can't focus well so I wind up opening the window before starting work so I can freshen the air and then close it to minimize the amount of city noises from creeping in. But I'll also say sound is important as well. It's why I like having a more clicky keybo…

Have you ever tried to monitor your CO2 levels? I thought it was all about temperature until I got one and learned that my home office climbs up to 2500 ppm.

At this level, it creates: "Fatigue, loss of focus and concentration, uncomfortable 'stuffy' feeling in the air"

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