The Sensemaking Companion (Rebel Wisdom)

Section I - First Person

When we are lost in the woods, we first need to come to our senses. To pay attention to the information we are receiving from our environment.

Good sensemaking requires discernment, humility, clarity of thought and emotional regulation [...] They are ways of seeing and ways of being that we develop over time.

The Mystery of Me

The first person perspective is the most fundamental layer of sensemaking. [...], the 'Me' is the only domain to which we have immediate and constant access for all our lives. And in groups - second and third person settings - we always bring the baggage and benefits of our individual perspectives.

Wherever you go, there you are (Jon Kabatt-Zinn)

Our unconscious mind is processing far more than what we are aware of. The mind seems to have a 'mind of its own'. Its thoughts, concepts and suggestions arise and emerge from unconscious processes we can glimpse only indirectly in our conscious minds.

Model of Cognition and Relevance Realisation

In the model of relevance realisation, the criterion that our cognition is always using is relevance: how important certain data may be for fulfilling our goals (conscious or unconscious) at any on moment. It is in the act of relevance realisation that we converge on meaning, which is a complex concept that describes our sense of connectedness to ourselves, others, and the world.

Cognition sits in a complex system between individual and environment. A field of possibly salient data is monitored and extracted. How we select for that salience and relevance is a function of our heuristics and cognitive concepts, which we would ideally 'frame and reframe' to converge on what is most meaningful for our foals. This makes relevance realisation a recursive process - one that is part and parcel of sensemaking.

(Doing so well is increasingly difficult, though, thanks to what Vervaeke calls the 'combinatorial explosion': how the internet has furnished an explosion of possibly-salient information, which builds on itself in exponential ways and dilutes our ability to hone in on what's most relevant.)

The 'framing and reframing' essential for effective relevance realisation is compared by Vervaeke to switching and trying out different pairs of glasses. We look out at the world, gather data, act, and periodically switch out our glasses using certain attentional techniques, before diving back in the process to go through another round of relevance realisation.

Heuristics and System of Thinking

'Wisdom' is that capacity to frame and reframe - to master the machinery of cognition itself to produce meaning.

Heuristics : The most basic structures our cognition uses to frame, break down, and simplify data for sensemaking. These heuristics are 'rule-of-thumb' used to speed up our thinking.

System-1 thinking : Our rapid source of intuitions and wordless thinking

System-2 thinking : Slower, more deliberate verbal processes of calculation and deduction

Heuristics belong especially to System-1 thinking, while System-2 thinking uses more conscious and manipulable 'mental models'.

Mental models are recurring concepts that help us explain, predict, or approach different and non-overlapping subjects [(e.g. opportunity cost or regulatory capture)]. [...] Part of being a good sensemaker is deploying the mental model ripe for a particular setting, and 'framing and reframing' based on how closely the model matched up to the data at hand.

Availability heuristic : we prioritise information that is 'easier-to-retrieve'

Representativeness heuristic : we estimate the likelihood of an event by comparing it to a prototype we've already stored in our minds

Bias and Making Good Decisions

What does all this suggest? A key insight from cognitive science is that in many ways human intelligence is a process of bias. Our ability to select one thing over another as relevant is fundamental to our humanity, our cognition, and every single aspect of waking consciousness.

Fundamental Attribution Error : When explaining why we did something wrong, we tend to ascribe it to 'the situation' - uncontrollable variables, mitigating circumstances, other factors - and not any failing in terms of our own character.

Loss Aversion : The pain of losing is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining.

Omission Bias : Our tendency to judge harmful actions as worse than harmful inactions, even if they result in similar consequences.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy : Our tendency to follow through on an endeavor if we have already invested time, effort or money into it, whether or not the current costs outweigh the benefits; 'We've gone this far, so we might as well carry on.'

Confirmation Bias : Our tendency to seek evidence and reasons to support our existing beliefs

Framing Effect : When the same set of information is 'framed' in a different way, we act differently.

How Does Rationality Really Work?

Becoming aware of these cognitive biases - spotting when they arise in our experience - makes us less likely to fall for them.

But rationality is not simply a matter of pure 'thinking', and learning a list of biases. ([System-2 thinking is not enough. We need to use System-1 as well])

Intuition occurs using what CFAR calls 'tacit knowledge', which is knowledge that is hard to put into words and arises intuitively. Tacit knowledge is the source of our hypotheses, and the glue that ties together our conscious linguistic concepts: The bread-and-butter of System-1 thinking.

[...] our unconscious has drawn connections too complex for our current immediate conscious mind to grasp.

Liv Boeree suggests that intuition is a great tool for something you have done a lot, but not great for a task or situation your are new to.

Intuition is something we feel rather than something we think. And this is important - because true rationality is not just about our thoughts.

Mind and Body

The 'red pill' on rationality is realising that 'mind' and 'body' are not really separate.

The better your introspective capacity, the more you will notice how certain thoughts and experiences, and especially feelings and intuitions, have a strong physiological dimension.

The Role of Trauma

Trauma is the response of an individual's body-mind - and sometimes larger groups of individuals and collectives - to overwhelming stress. [...] traumatic stress exceeds one's capacity to stay related to the experience.

Clear signs of traumatic response are:

With traumatic triggering, we are hijacked and far more likely to sink into reactive modes of thinking.

Harnessing Our Attention

Learning how to train our attention - our ability to stay focused on what is really relevant for our goals. In this regard, by far the most useful long-term technique we have encountered is mindfulness meditation.

Meditation encourages an attitude of Presence in our lives. We face up to an process the reality of each moment in its full breadth and depth: ensuring a full map for the process of relevance realisation and effective sensemaking.

IAAA Model

        ┌─────────┐
        │Intention│
        └┬───────┬┘
         │       │
 ┌───────┴─┐   ┌─┴───────┐
 │Attention├───┤Attitiude│
 └─────────┘   └─────────┘
  1. Set an intention & cultivate a particular attitude - self compassionate, curious and open. We use our ability to focus and concentrate to pay attention to our experience right now.
  2. Distraction occurs. Stay curious.
  3. Return to our intention with a healthy attitude.

Cognitive Flexibility and the De-Centering Move

Cognitive flexibility : Our ability to adapt our thinking to change to our environment.

Decentering is a mind-body move in which we 'step outside' of and observe the contents of immediate experience. We cease to identify with, and stop believing ourselves identical to, our thoughts and narratives, emotions, or somatic sensations. And with this distance, we can pay closer attention to how these contents arise, including in relation to particular triggering stimuli and the shaping of beliefs, which makes us less liable to 'hijacking' by temporary events: a cause of both ineffective sensemaking and much of our everyday suffering.

A course of mediation produced a less self-referential, emotional, and visceral state among patients asked to reflect on negative autobiographical memories. Decentering is most helpful when processing events that are the most emotionally and personally affecting for us. Decentering decreases hostile attribution, or the likelihood of projecting negative attributes to other people.

As well as facilitating de-centering, research suggests that meditation helps with compulsive behaviour by causing us to pay closer attention to the local stimuli of a trigger. This helps us to see the trigger as a mere set of sensations, and not the compulsive hook that demands our response.