Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind

1. The Mind Operates at Different Speeds: Hare Brain vs. Tortoise Mind.

Roughly speaking, the mind possesses three different processing speeds.

Different speeds for different jobs. The mind isn't a single-speed processor. It operates at lightning speed for immediate reactions ("wits"), at a deliberate pace for conscious problem-solving ("intellect" or d-mode), and at a much slower, often unconscious pace for deeper processing ("tortoise mind"). Trying to rush slow processes, like making meringues or untangling a fishing line, leads to breakdown or entanglement.

Cultural bias towards speed. Modern Western culture, influenced by "technopoly" and a view of time as a commodity, overvalues fast, deliberate thinking (d-mode). We prioritize efficiency, calculation, and explicit articulation, often treating complex human predicaments as technical problems requiring quick solutions. This leads to impatience and a neglect of the slower, more contemplative modes.

The need for balance. Both fast and slow modes are essential. While d-mode excels at analytical problems, the tortoise mind is better suited for intricate, ill-defined situations, creativity, and wisdom. Recognizing and valuing these different speeds is crucial for accessing the full range of our cognitive resources, which our culture has largely lost sight of.

2. Hare Brain: The Strengths and Limitations of Fast, Deliberate Thought.

Deliberate thinking, d-mode, works well when the problem it is facing is easily conceptualised.

Characteristics of d-mode. This mode is characterized by being fast, explicit, articulate, purposeful, logical, and analytical. It excels at figuring things out, weighing pros and cons, constructing arguments, and solving problems that can be clearly defined and broken into parts. It values explanation, clarity, and precision, often relying on language and symbol systems.

Strengths in specific domains. D-mode is highly effective for tasks like mental arithmetic, solving crossword puzzles, planning a meal, or diagnosing a mechanical fault. It allows us to communicate our reasoning, learn from others' explicit knowledge, and apply general rules and principles. This mode has been instrumental in scientific and technological advancements.

Limitations in complexity. However, d-mode struggles with situations that are too intricate, subtle, or ill-defined to be easily conceptualized or articulated. Its reliance on language and linear logic can become cumbersome and inept when faced with systemic or organic problems. The demand for clarity and justification can also lead to premature conclusions and a dismissal of potentially fruitful, but less articulate, insights.

3. Tortoise Mind: The Power of Slow, Implicit, and Intuitive Knowing.

Allowing the mind time to meander is not a luxury that can safely be cut back as life or work gets more demanding.

Characteristics of slow knowing. This mode is slow, leisurely, playful, receptive, and often less purposeful or clear-cut than d-mode. It involves ruminating, mulling things over, contemplating, or simply observing without trying to solve. It is tolerant of ambiguity, confusion, and information that is faint, fleeting, or does not immediately make sense.

Strengths in complexity and subtlety. The tortoise mind excels at making sense of situations that are intricate, shadowy, or ill-defined, where the relevant factors or even the right questions are unclear. It is associated with creativity, intuition, and wisdom. It can detect and respond to meanings in art, relationships, and complex systems that cannot be clearly articulated.

Accessing the undermind. Slow knowing draws on the "undermind," the intelligent unconscious. This realm can learn subtle patterns that consciousness cannot even see, make sense of complex situations, and get to the bottom of difficult issues more successfully than the intellect. Accessing it requires patience, a willingness to tolerate uncertainty, and a revised understanding of the mind as having resources beyond conscious control.

4. Premature Articulation and Pressure Hinder Slow Knowing.

Trying to force the situation to fit your expectations, even when they are demonstrably wrong, allows you to continue to operate in d-mode – but prevents you from solving the problem.

Thinking gets in the way. The urge to immediately understand, articulate, and explain can actively interfere with slower, intuitive processes. Studies show that people who try to articulate what they are doing in complex tasks perform worse than those who rely on implicit know-how. This is because focusing on verbalizable aspects distorts the problem and prevents the unconscious from processing the full, non-articulated information.

Pressure increases rigidity. Stress, time pressure, and the feeling of being judged push people into relying on familiar, often over-complicated, d-mode strategies, even when simpler, more intuitive solutions are available. This "functional fixedness" prevents them from seeing new possibilities.

• Wason's rule discovery task: People stick to confirming their initial hypothesis.
• Luchins' water jars: Stress makes people cling to complex solutions.
• Coulson's factory task: Prior confusion (weakening d-mode) helps with illogical tasks.

Dislocation of knowledge. Explicit knowledge (what you can say) and implicit know-how (what you can do) can develop independently. People may perform well intuitively but lack confidence because they can't explain it, or conversely, think they understand but perform poorly. Premature articulation can solidify a faulty understanding, hindering further learning.

5. Incubation: The Gentle Art of Mental Gestation and Idea Generation.

Everything is gestation and bringing forth.

Creativity as gestation. Good ideas often emerge from a process akin to biological gestation. They require a seed (a puzzling detail, a resonant observation), a safe, inaccessible "womb" (the undermind), and time to grow. The conscious mind acts as a host, providing conditions but not directly manufacturing the idea. This process cannot be rushed or fully controlled.

Conditions for incubation. Fostering creative intuition requires:

• Curiosity: Openness to new or puzzling details (the seed).
• Rich Experience: A well-informed mind, but not so fixed that it prevents fresh perception.
• Patience & Receptivity: Willingness to tolerate uncertainty and let ideas form slowly.
• Safe Environment: Freedom from threat, pressure, or excessive incentives, which cause tunnel vision.
• Gentle Attentiveness: The ability to observe the emergence of ideas without forcing them into words (like mental fishing).

The process unfolds. Incubation allows the undermind to make non-obvious connections between disparate elements of knowledge. It can also help by allowing unpromising approaches or assumptions to fade, freeing the mind for a fresh look. Studies show that delays improve problem-solving, even if the conscious mind is occupied elsewhere, suggesting active unconscious processing.

6. Perception Extends Far Beyond Conscious Awareness.

We are more in touch with, and more influenced by, the world around us than we know.

Unconscious awareness is ubiquitous. We constantly register and react to stimuli that do not enter conscious awareness. This "unconscious awareness" influences our behavior, choices, and even physical responses without us knowing why.

• Subliminal exposure to faces/words influences job applicant choice.
• Automatic pilot allows driving while conscious mind is elsewhere.
• Faint night noises can wake us while familiar sounds do not.

The undermind monitors. The unconscious mind continuously checks incoming information, detecting what might be important or dangerous, and decides when to alert consciousness. This process is fallible but essential for navigating the world.

Expectations shape perception. We react based on unconscious expectations, which can lead to errors when situations deviate from the norm (e.g., stationary escalator, Edinburgh room). Conscious perception is a filtered, constructed reality, not a direct window onto the world. The undermind makes adjustments before information reaches consciousness, often for our benefit, but sometimes leading to misinterpretations.

7. Self-Consciousness and Threat Constrict the Mind's Capacity.

The more self-conscious we are – the more fragile our identity – the more we shut down the undermind.

Threat raises the conscious threshold. Information that is perceived as threatening, either to self-esteem or core beliefs, can be gated out of consciousness, even if registered unconsciously. This "perceptual defence" protects the conscious self but impoverishes awareness.

• Masling's clients fidgeting at insightful remarks.
• Perceptual defence studies with taboo words.

Safety lowers the threshold. Conversely, feeling relaxed and safe increases access to faint or ephemeral information from the undermind. When not under pressure or being judged, people are more sensitive to subtle cues and more willing to trust tentative promptings.

• Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc's preference for previously seen shapes.
• Marcel's light detection study (blinking vs verbal report, guessing).

Self-consciousness hinders performance. Being overly self-aware, especially under pressure, disrupts both physical and mental fluency. It leads to clumsiness, "going blank," and a constriction of attention ("tunnel vision"). This prevents the broad, diffuse attention needed for slow knowing.

• Masters' golf putting study (explicit learners choke under pressure).
• Hospital patients showing stereotyped responses under stress.
• Blindsight patients' ability to respond unconsciously but not consciously.

8. The Brain Supports Both Fast and Slow Modes of Knowing.

The brain – is wider than the Sky - / For – put them side by side - / The one the other will contain / With ease – and You – beside -

Neural basis of knowing. The brain, composed of billions of interconnected neurons, is the physical substrate for all forms of intelligence. Learning involves strengthening connections between neurons (LTP), forming functional clusters or "assemblies" that represent concepts and patterns. These assemblies are distributed across the brain, not localized.

Brainscape and wordscape. Experience carves "hollows" in the brainscape, representing concepts with varying degrees of interconnectedness (depth, steepness). Language creates a "wordscape" overlay, linking concepts to verbal labels. Activity flows through these networks, guided by connection strength and temporary priming.

Simulating slow knowing. Neural networks, simplified computer models of neurons, can simulate implicit learning, demonstrating how complex patterns can be detected and used without explicit rules (e.g., rocks vs. mines). This shows that the brain's intrinsic properties support sophisticated unconscious processing.

Neuromodulation affects dynamics. Brain stem activity and chemicals (amines) modulate neural dynamics, affecting:

• Priming: Making neurons more sensitive.
• Focus: Narrowing or broadening activation spread (high arousal = narrow focus).
• Competition: Increasing competition between neural centers (high arousal = faster thought train, less mingling).

These mechanisms allow the brain to shift between focused, conscious modes and diffuse, unconscious ones, supporting both fast and slow knowing.

9. Consciousness: Not the Executive, But a Symptom of Questioning.

When a link is made between the mental representation of self and the mental representation of some object or event, then the percept, memory or thought enters into consciousness; when this link fails to be made, it does not.

Conditions for consciousness. Consciousness is associated with certain states of brain activity, not specific locations. Key factors include:

• Intensity: Strong stimuli are more likely to become conscious.
• Persistence: Neural activity must reverberate for a minimum duration (approx. 0.5 seconds) to become conscious (Libet's studies).
• Self-involvement: Linking a stimulus to the "self" seems crucial for it to enter consciousness.

Consciousness follows, not leads. Libet's experiments show that the unconscious brain initiates voluntary actions before the conscious intention appears. Consciousness seems to receive notification of decisions already set in motion, acting as a "corrollary discharge" rather than the executive command.

Function of consciousness. If not the executive, what is consciousness for? It appears to be primarily associated with states of disruption, uncertainty, or potential threat. It emerges when the brain arrests ongoing action to investigate, detect, and resolve a puzzle. Consciousness is for self-protection, allowing for vetoing actions or editing experiences deemed risky. It is a symptom of the brain's process of questioning and checking, not the source of action itself.

10. Cultivating Slow Attention: Mindfulness, Focusing, and Poetic Sensibility.

Attention means attention.

Beyond diagnostic perception. D-mode uses perception diagnostically, quickly categorizing stimuli. Slow knowing requires different ways of paying attention, allowing the world to speak more fully. These can be cultivated:

• Detection: Patiently attending to tiny, seemingly insignificant details (like a hunter or detective) to allow meaning to emerge unconsciously.
• Focusing: Directing attention inward to the body's "felt sense" – a hazy, physical sense of a problem that is wiser than conscious thought (Gendlin's method).

Poetic sensibility. This involves losing oneself in present experience without seeking or grasping, allowing the "soul of things" (beauty) to reveal itself. It's a dispassionate yet intimate way of knowing that transcends categories and can reveal aspects of life and self normally obscured. It requires "negative capability" – tolerating uncertainty without irritable reaching for reason.

Mindfulness. This is observing one's own experience (sensations, thoughts, feelings) without judgment or elaboration, seeing mental contents as transient events rather than absolute truths. It helps see through unconscious assumptions dissolved in perception and prevents self-destructive thought patterns.

• Mindfulness training reduces stress, pain, and depressive relapse
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Last updated: May 15, 2025