Filters in the Age of Information Overload

One of my colleagues has advanced a compelling theory to explain why a palpable madness seems to be gripping our society and more and more people seem to be going off the rails.

So much information is available now we are constantly bombarded with, that it has exceeded the processing capacity of the human mind. That is making a lot of people destabilize inside, and as the information glut increases, this problem will continue to worsen.

Recently I wrote an article describing my thought process on navigating controversial topics with a high degree of ambiguity. It specifically focused on how critical it is to avoid getting attached to any specific interpretation you have of what is occurring. This is both because, due to the ambiguity present, it is challenging to be sure of any interpretation (so becoming attached to a specific one becomes a barrier to seeing the truth) and because it is not healthy for your mind or spirit to covet and treasure some rare idea it has become in possession of. Since this has been a common issue I’ve observed with the nanotech in vaccines issue, I chose to use it to illustrate the point, but this same thing applies to countless other subjects too.

When I reviewed that article, I realized there was a critical point I forgot to mention—how do we, as human beings, effectively deal with an overwhelming volume of information? This issue is a variant of a common issue meditation schools have dealt with throughout history, and they can provide some insights on both the topic at hand and the practice of medicine in general.

The Forgotten Side of Medicine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Focusing on Value

In many environments you are in, a massive amount of data is present that the conscious mind cannot keep track of. However, to a large extent, the subconsciousness does and directs your focus to what in the environment has “value” for your conscious mind to be aware of.

One classic example is the “Cocktail party effect,” where you can be in a room where many people are having conversations that blur together. Still, for some reason, you can immediately zero in on the one conversation where your name was mentioned. Most of you have probably experienced this numerous times, and the same principle holds in many other instances as well.

I have seen various explanations put forward to explain why the “Cocktail party effect” occurs, and from all of them, it’s clear some part of the brain is evolved to make this possible. One region that has been put forward as being responsible for this is the “reticular activating system.” At this point, I don’t know if the RAS is the region of the brain ultimately responsible for this effect, but going forward, I will state that it is to help convey the central points of this essay.

R&I -TP

John Keefe

Article URL : https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/filters-in-the-age-of-information