Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Whittling Part Of the Brain

jeff-vogel.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 25 posts

Re: The Whittling Part Of the Brain

#11

Post by lhorie »

jonmc12 wrote: post #8

"I have found that, in general, our brains our smarter than we are. They want what they want, and if my brain wants to spend a while in front of a computer screen stabbing orcs, who am I to tell it it shouldn’t?" I have several problems with this statement, starting with the fact that it was derived from a rationalization of the author's own habits, not a meaningful empirical observation. Further, this is a formula f…

The takeaway for me wasn't so much that he was trying to rationalize wasting time instead of being productive, but rather that we all do waste time sometimes one way or another and that playing games isn't a "bad" way of wasting time.

Re: The Whittling Part Of the Brain

#12

Post by Tycho »

Im always puzzled by the superiority complex people harbour about their 'traditional' pasttimes, especially reading newspapers, watching the 6 o'clock news as if it's important, watching wildlife documentaries, going for runs, etc.

Anyway, in one of those half asleep dazes the other day, I swear I caught my brain 'compiling' or 'defragging' or something. I could feel my eyes doing REM, and I could see or sense a whole lot of information I'd been studying being chunked, parsed and filed away in a more appropriate part of memory. Of course, that itself was probably just a dream...

Re: The Whittling Part Of the Brain

#13

Post by epochwolf »

Tycho wrote: post #12

Im always puzzled by the superiority complex people harbour about their 'traditional' pasttimes, especially reading newspapers, watching the 6 o'clock news as if it's important, watching wildlife documentaries, going for runs, etc. Anyway , in one of those half asleep dazes the other day, I swear I caught my brain 'compiling' or 'defragging' or something. I could feel my eyes doing REM, and I could see or sense a who…

> I swear I caught my brain 'compiling' or 'defragging' or something.

That might be your brain telling you to switch to a task that doesn't involve one of those activities for a day or two. :P

Re: The Whittling Part Of the Brain

#14

Post by goodside »

Almaviva wrote: post #6
killerdark wrote: post #4

I don't buy it. As far as I can tell the this thing Jeff calls Whittling is simply energy preservation behavior. Brains take up 30% of your overall energy consumption. Thinking has a relatively high energy cost to it and people are hardwired to prefer limiting their energy expenditure that does not generate a return (wage, food, etc).

I'm wondering if it's ever been shown that doing something mentally difficult consumes more energy than doing something where the brain is active but that isn't perceived as difficult? Another explanation could be that the precursor to grinding in EQ is the urge to do things like searching for edible plants or animal tracks, carving tools, cleaning the home, and other things which have obvious evolutionary benefit.

The brain consumes more sugar when it's thinking harder. Before functional MRIs were invented, brain imaging required injecting irradiated glucose and scanning for radioactivity in the brain. Tasks requiring attention and self-discipline deplete glucose, and people demonstrably have higher vigilance for repetitive attention-heavy tasks when they've been injected with sugar.

This has been known to science for at least a century. The slightest glimpse at Wikipedia would have sufficed.

Re: The Whittling Part Of the Brain

#15

Post by jtbigwoo »

sliverstorm wrote: post #3

I resent the suggestion that whittling is not productive. I've made utensils in the past while in the mountains when I forgot my fork or spoon.

In my neck of the woods, the common word for making something out of wood is "carving." "Whittling" generally means destruction of a piece of wood with a knife.

Re: The Whittling Part Of the Brain

#16

Post by jonmc12 »

lhorie wrote: post #11
jonmc12 wrote: post #8

"I have found that, in general, our brains our smarter than we are. They want what they want, and if my brain wants to spend a while in front of a computer screen stabbing orcs, who am I to tell it it shouldn’t?" I have several problems with this statement, starting with the fact that it was derived from a rationalization of the author's own habits, not a meaningful empirical observation. Further, this is a formula f…

The takeaway for me wasn't so much that he was trying to rationalize wasting time instead of being productive, but rather that we all do waste time sometimes one way or another and that playing games isn't a "bad" way of wasting time.

I would agree with you if not for the last 2 paragraphs. Combine the quote I referenced above with "it's good and healthy and productive for us to like to play computer games".

Its just a reckless way to say 'we all waste time..' - not without making the distinction of the need for self-discipline and noting that there are some people that are very prone to addiction. I have an extended family member who's life outside of games has been completely destroyed by a sustained addiction to video games. He has stated repeatedly that he would rather be dead than give up gaming.

This is a real problem for a percentage of the population, and that percentage is increasing as video games are being engineered to be more and more addictive.

Re: The Whittling Part Of the Brain

#17

Post by Almaviva »

goodside wrote: post #14
Almaviva wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if it's ever been shown that doing something mentally difficult consumes more energy than doing something where the brain is active but that isn't perceived as difficult? Another explanation could be that the precursor to grinding in EQ is the urge to do things like searching for edible plants or animal tracks, carving tools, cleaning the home, and other things which have obvious evolutionary benefit.

The brain consumes more sugar when it's thinking harder. Before functional MRIs were invented, brain imaging required injecting irradiated glucose and scanning for radioactivity in the brain. Tasks requiring attention and self-discipline deplete glucose, and people demonstrably have higher vigilance for repetitive attention-heavy tasks when they've been injected with sugar. This has been known to science for at least…

> people demonstrably have higher vigilance for repetitive attention-heavy tasks when they've been injected with sugar

That's not at all the same as saying that more difficult tasks actually consume more sugar, any more than programming must consume caffeine because coffee makes some people more focused on it.

Re: The Whittling Part Of the Brain

#19

Post by goodside »

Almaviva wrote: post #17
goodside wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brain consumes more sugar when it's thinking harder. Before functional MRIs were invented, brain imaging required injecting irradiated glucose and scanning for radioactivity in the brain. Tasks requiring attention and self-discipline deplete glucose, and people demonstrably have higher vigilance for repetitive attention-heavy tasks when they've been injected with sugar. This has been known to science for at least…

> people demonstrably have higher vigilance for repetitive attention-heavy tasks when they've been injected with sugar That's not at all the same as saying that more difficult tasks actually consume more sugar, any more than programming must consume caffeine because coffee makes some people more focused on it.

Meanwhile, in reality, where evidence extends further than whatever I happen to mention, it does deplete glucose.

Re: The Whittling Part Of the Brain

#20

Post by lhorie »

jonmc12 wrote: post #16
lhorie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The takeaway for me wasn't so much that he was trying to rationalize wasting time instead of being productive, but rather that we all do waste time sometimes one way or another and that playing games isn't a "bad" way of wasting time.

I would agree with you if not for the last 2 paragraphs. Combine the quote I referenced above with "it's good and healthy and productive for us to like to play computer games". Its just a reckless way to say 'we all waste time..' - not without making the distinction of the need for self-discipline and noting that there are some people that are very prone to addiction. I have an extended family member who's life outsi…

The whole "who am I to tell my brain otherwise" seemed to meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and you kinda sound like you're twisting that to try to push your agenda... (no offense intended, I do think addictions in general are bad).

FWIW, just to put things into a bit of perspective, I recall reading some stats saying that the average american spends something like 5 hours per day in front of a TV. (And numbers for, say, surfing the web during work hours weren't particularly exemplary either.)

Regarding social withdrawal, and things like hikikomori (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori), perhaps the issue isn't so much of self-discipline, but one of social environment, e.g surely such gamers must develop above average game playing skills, but they might not want to put similar effort into real life challenges because of fear of the unknown, or out of spite of parental/social pressure, etc.

Post reply on HN