![]() ![]() ![]() Similarly, if I grew up in America and never met anyone from the Middle East if my only exposure to Middle Eastern folks was in news of terrorism, I might well develop the schema that “Middle Eastern people are terrorists.” It would take many conversations with Middle Eastern people, perhaps even a journey to experience the Middle East through my own eyes, before my brain would take the risk of altering that schema. (This sounds silly, but I squirm when I think of how many times a day I make similar, if more subtle, errors!) I would have to be exposed to many different quiet dogs before my brain could be persuaded to adapt my schema to include both loud and quiet animals into the schema “dog”. Dogs are loud, this animal is not loud, therefore this animal is not a dog. If I were to meet a dog that did not bark I would be likely, at first, to assume that this animal is not a dog. So, imagine I had a loud dog as a child, and had therefore developed the schema that “dogs are loud animals”. We would rather believe our schemas than integrate information that disproves them. So we’ll cram new information into our old schemas any which way, however awkward the results: “oh, lacrosse? That’s kind of like soccer, but with squishy tennis rackets!” “Oh, a moose? That’s basically a big cow, with antlers.” We try to relate any new information to old information we already have, because those circuits are already there, greased with myelin for speedy processing. We really, really don’t want to have to create new schemas. The language I learned in later counseling classes for this process, when we got into Piaget and development, was that all of us have “schemas”-ideas about how the world works-and any time we receive new information, we try to plug it into an existing schema. She hasn’t yet developed the critical mass of internal or external discomfort to create a new pathway in her brain, one that would enable her to see the information that has been there all along. This is how a person can continue to hold on to a worldview that is utterly disproved by information all around her-her brain just can’t “see” it yet, because it doesn’t match her prior experience. It is only when this information reaches a critical mass, or induces a certain level of emotional discomfort, that our brain is willing to even “see” it at all. We do this for efficient and speedy processing of information.īut thereafter, whenever we take in information that doesn’t fit our previous experience, the brain simply disregards it. ![]() He explained that the brain “prunes”, hugely, when we are very young a vast amount of neural circuitry is deemed unnecessary and mercilessly cut from the brain. I sat in a huge arena-style classroom and listened as the tiny professor, audible only through the speakers behind me, expounded upon the development of the human brain. Long ago, back in California, I attended UCLA evening classes to obtain psychology prerequisites. Recently my sweetheart let me borrow his book on neurochemicals and it jumpstarted a whole new way of thinking about this permaculture principle. And that means I can change it.īear with me here: I am going to take a brief field trip away from permaculture and into neurology. For the first time, I can see there is something wrong. How can a problem be a solution? Because discomfort engages the awareness. When events grow uncomfortable enough to permeate the boundaries of what I know to be true when the discomfort of encountering a perspective that doesn’t quite fit my current worldview encroaches upon my awareness, I have a choice: I can view the new information as a problem, or I can view it as a solution. ![]()
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