training the monkey [10/31/2006 02:53:21]

Minds and brains are different things. You might believe your sense of self comes from being a spirit inhabiting your body, and I might believe my sense of self is just an emergent property of having a brain, but I think we can all agree that there is at least a sense that minds and brains are separate entities.

For one thing, they seem to have different motivations. If they didn't, we'd all behave like happy, healthy, and rational beings. But no, the hardware does its own thing. So we get caught up in the moment, lose our temper, eat too much junk food, and stray from our goals.

It just seems to me that it ought to be easier to get our brains to do what we want. If we can train dolphins and monkeys to act the way we want, we should be able to train our own brains. And I guess that's nothing new, since there are a zillion books and tapes and courses on how to do just that.

The trouble is, if you don't make an effort to train the monkey, it trains itself. Or rather it just operates out of whatever random neural associations it picked up from genes and experience.

I bet you could work out a little generic training system and then program it into something like a palm pilot. Then every so often it alerts you that it's time for a brain-training session, and it walks you through a little conditioning exercise based on whatever your goals are.

I'd buy one of those.