Reality Is Singular
At any instant, there is one Reality value, not many competing realities. It is tempting to imagine attention as a competition. The phone buzzes.The tooth hurts.The room is cold.The email is late.The memory returns.The sunset
Category: Attention
Attention Is Not Time
Human attention is the scarce conscious surface through which the future becomes history. We often speak as if attention and time are the same thing. We say, “Give me five minutes.”We say, “I need your
Do Different; Make Better History
If you want different attention, you must make different history. That is the practical instruction. Not think different. Not believe different. Not promise different. Do different. The reason is simple: Expectation is built from history.
Absorption: Why the Work Remains After Attention Disappears
Absorption is the unconscious transfer of attention. It explains why familiar routes, mature products, stable customers, practiced skills, and even parts of ourselves can keep working while disappearing from conscious awareness. DOWNLOAD the book for
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Attention Is the First Human Function
What We Do After Reality Appears Human beings do not create Reality from nothing. Reality appears. Then we attend. That is the first human function. This point is easy to miss because attention feels so
AI Is Not Degrading Your Cognition. You Just Misunderstand What Cognition Is.
This essay draws on ideas from my book Attention Thief, available free at the end of this post. The anxiety is everywhere. AI is making us dumber. We’re losing our ability to think, to write,
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You Are Only Conscious Where You Don’t Already Know
A note before you read: this essay draws on ideas from my new book, Attention Thief, which is available free at the end of this post. But the argument here goes further than the book
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From Prediction to Pain
The Ladder from the Subconscious Denominator to Subjective Felt Experience The advanced student must be very careful with the right-hand side of the reality equation. Reality = Actual / Expectation The right-hand side of the
The Attention Thief
Surprise, Conscious Awareness, and Subjective Felt Experience Attention is not given. Attention is stolen. This is why the ordinary language around attention is so misleading. We say, “Pay attention.” We say, “Give me your full
Reality Exists Where the Unknown Becomes Known
Reality Is Not the World The most important move in the Reality Equation is also the one people resist the longest: reality is not the world itself. Reality is the experience of the world. That
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