About the main developer tool, analyst and manager

    I think everyone was interviewed and asked the question “what tools do you use in your work,” everyone has an answer about languages, libraries, development environments, databases, etc. etc. In a pinch, someone might have a joke about a rake and a file. Well, everyone valiantly lists all sorts of Spring'and Hibernate'y thinking that they list an incredibly important development tools that they are well-versed in. But the truth is that the only important development tool is your brain. And you know absolutely nothing about how it works.


    This article is based on the book by Andrei Kurpatov Halls of Reason. Andrei Kurpatov is a Russian psychotherapist, television producer, author of books on psychology, scientific monographs on psychotherapy and philosophy.

    You think what you think.


    Let's first understand the main thing: your mind and your brain are two different things. There are a lot of studies on this topic, which we will not dwell on (if you are interested in someone with proof links - the name of the book is known to you) let us outline the thesis conclusions of these studies:

    • your consciousness is delayed by 1-2 (and according to some studies up to 7) seconds. those. when your brain has already made a decision, you (your consciousness) still do not know about it.
    • your brain is much smarter than consciousness, but you don't notice it. The brain reveals patterns and gives correct predictions, but the mind is unable to explain it. And this happens in the head of one person!
    • you (your consciousness) will justify the decision of your brain. In this case, the arguments that you will give in words - it is not at all a fact that they coincide with the arguments that your brain took into account when making a decision.

    It all sounds like there is no free will and you are only a hostage of the neural network that you have in the skull box. In a sense, it is. Your consciousness is only a derivative of your brain. Andrei Kurpatov uses the analogy of cow and milk. Your brain is a cow, and your consciousness is milk. Milk can not control a cow. And it is impossible to change the properties of a cow by acting on milk.

    You cannot control your brain. But this does not mean that you can not do anything.
    First, you must understand why evolution created the brain exactly the way it is and how it works.
    Secondly, you may be interested in the brain in solving the problems that are important to you.

    What is the brain for?


    To begin with, it is necessary to realize the obvious, but therefore no less exciting thought: evolution did not create us to write code. All the intellectual power that allowed the creation of the theory of relativity to fly into space and come up with Instagram was created by evolution clearly not for Instagram.

    Also, let's agree that the brain is not a monolithic indivisible structure. There are at least two methods for brain mapping:

    • anatomical (frontal, temporal lobes, parietal region, thalamus, etc.)
    • functional (significance identification network, central executive network, passive mode network)

    I think there are not a lot of pathologists among us, so we will be primarily interested in the functional, rather than the anatomical structure of the brain.

    Evolutionarily, any animal (including man), had to consciously solve rather unintelligent tasks: to see the prey and give a command to the pursuit, recognize the predator and make the decision to run or hide.

    Responsible network is responsible for making conscious decisions. Studies show that we can consciously solve a problem, taking into account no more than 3 factors and our conscious thought lasts no more than 3 seconds. “Conscious” here means exactly what you used to feel as your personality, your thoughts, your mood. Its "I" in other words. The value revealing network is what you multiply 38 by 62.

    And it is precisely because of the small computing power that, when consciously solving problems, all these “went to mind” appeared, which, as you understand, did not go to any mind, but were written down on a piece of paper.

    Much more complex decisions that take into account much more factors have to be taken when it comes to relationships in a pack. Yes, in the usual primitive human flock. One got into a fight with the second, the second shared a meal with the third, the fifth tenth podsizhivaet, the tenth with the twentieth in strained relations and other "Santa Barbara". The processing of all this information is handled by the network of the passive mode or, in other words, the default brain system.

    Studies show that our default system can handle relationships in packs of 130 to 200 individuals and the duration of “one thought” can reach 10 seconds. Compare this to the power of a network to reveal significance.

    The bad news


    While you are not happy that you have such enormous computing resources in your head, I will immediately grieve: you cannot “consciously” manage them. The default system always thinks about what it sees fit without asking your consciousness. You cannot order her to “think” over the database architecture, she will think about how to pick up the boss if she is interested, but about the database - no. The cow does not ask the milk on which meadow to graze.

    Further it will be very similar to the Old Priest grumble, but this is a fact: it is not entirely clear how this happened, but studies on the fMRI apparatus clearly indicate that you can only do one of the three :

    • assimilate information
    • solve a conscious problem
    • analyze the situation of the default system.

    The brain is not multitasking. This is easy to see: try to read this article at the same time and write multiplication table by 2 on paper. You will not try to do something physiologically impossible: you can easily write by looking at the monitor. But here to write and read at the same time will not work.

    So when you scroll through Facebook, you are in the state of assimilating information, the central executive network works. The default system is not active at this time, it does not think.

    Another bad news is that in the modern world, your default system cannot really think about it, even if you “decided” to give it time to it. You are surrounded by things that distract the default system. From mail you switch to Skype, from Skype to a colleague, then someone called, then posted something on Facebook and so on. The state of permanent connectivity does not allow the default system even to “read from the database” the components of the problem, not to mention analyzing it. In all likelihood, that only for “reading from the base” we need no less than 20 minutes of constant concentration on the problem . But only letters come on average every 10 minutes, not to mention Skype, facebook and so on. What kind of concentration can we talk about?

    Good news


    Have you ever had such a state when they talk to you about something, but you don’t hear? In fact, the sound is loud enough to be heard, but you seem to be “turned off”. You may not even know what you were just thinking about, as if “about nothing”, “thinking about your own.” So this state of “wandering” is the work of the default system. At such times, as a rule, you think about relationships with other people. One you nakhamil, the second set up, the third did not support and went-gone.

    Another good news is that the default system does not see much difference between analyzing the interactions of people in the pack and analyzing aspects of the problem, for example, the database architecture. She seems to be “building a map” of the situation, regardless of what the situation is “about”.

    Have you heard about how they invented the periodic system of chemical elements? She just dreamed of Mendeleev! Do you know the circumstances of the discovery of the law of the world? Newton's apple fell on his head! That is, people in these moments deliberately did not think about the problem. One slept, the second ate apples. But their default system was really puzzled and thought to the fullest!

    Henri Poincaré, the most brilliant mathematician who invented a concept in his head that was strictly possible to prove only after 100 years, also told that he was making discoveries unconsciously. He believed that he had “entrusted” some problem to his subconscious, and he could do other things (at the expense of doing other things, as we know today, the error came out, but then there was no facebook).

    Yes, and you yourself probably experienced the feeling of “Eureka!” When the task, which for a long time did not find a beautiful solution, “suddenly” took shape. What unites such cases? Of course, the default system!

    And the best news is that we can still create conditions in which our default system will give up rubbing some of its dregs about a saleswoman who has come to your senses and will still be interested in the problem of the database architecture.

    Programming default system.


    When “everything is clear” to your default system, it simply twists one and the same plate: C ++ is good, PHP is bad, 1C is generally carcass light. If you are accustomed to thinking by stereotypes, to return again and again to the conclusions already made once - your default system goes along already trodden paths and will inform your consciousness all the more and more exactly the same answers. And your consciousness, by the way, will try hard to “fit the theoretical base” to these answers. They say that it suits everyone, it works for everyone - and here it will do, what is there to think about ?!

    The most ambush is that with each next time you will be more and more convincing yourself of the decision that was made once. It will become “more accurate” and “more accurate” with each circle, despite the fact that you don’t have any new facts - this is just a feature of the brain. Needless to say, the risk is very great, that such a decision will sooner or later be very painful about reality.

    The default system does so not because she is too lazy to think, but to save. The fact is that our brain, making up only 2% of the mass of our body, consumes 20% of resources. And the less it strains - the more it will save resources. And why waste resources, if “everything is clear”?

    It is very important to understand that consciousness follows the brain, and not the brain after consciousness. If the brain has decided - consciousness will justify and defend with foaming at the mouth, formulating ornate linguistic constructions that are not a fact that they are generally relevant. And if suddenly you notice that you “understand everything” - it means the brain saves resources.
    The customer puts forward conflicting requirements - because all customers are fools.
    On all projects, such an architecture works - and that means it will work.

    Whenever you are inclined to give a “simple” solution or explanation, you should know: your brain has once again decided to fool around.

    In order for the default system to start working, you need to show it the contradictions of the situation. Making her see that the model of reality she built is essentially flawed, does not take into account significant aspects of the situation, is outdated. The plan is simple:

    1. Read from the database all that you have on the subject of interest.
    2. Download all this in the default system
    3. ...
    4. Profit!

    And seeing the contradictions, the default system itself will become interested in details and start thinking. You need to act like this:

    1. We close the mail, turn off the phone, computer, anything that can distract you. "Connectivity" - in the trash!
    2. Take a sheet of paper. More desirable, A3 will be just right.
    3. In the center of the sheet we write the wording of the problem or the title of the situation.
    4. Next, we recall all aspects of the task. Write them on the sheet. Close to each other aspects are located nearby. It is worth writing as much as possible and in no case should you try to write to a column, line, table, or other structure. The default system does not know how to think so.
    5. Further, the related aspects of the problem (we wrote them close to each other) are connected with lines. Thus, it is worthwhile to ensure that the map of everything that you know about this problem is in front of you.
    6. Further, you will probably feel a strange state of "congestion." It's time to give the default system to think. You can go for a walk (but only along a well-known route), you can just sit back and stare out the window.
    7. Your default system will collect the situation, identify internal connections between aspects of the problem and build its map.

    Moreover, I managed to reproduce this algorithm in the form of brainstorming: a scheme on the board, load data into the default systems of all participants and disagree with “do nothing”. You probably already guess what the error of the “traditional” brainstorming is: everyone is trying to come to some result right there, on the spot. The expression "talked and separated" even became abusive. While the default systems of the participants only had time to become puzzled by the problem under discussion - some effective manager begins to demand a solution. Not so fast!

    It is also important to understand this point: you cannot load a question into the default system. You can only download the situation, whether it is the relationship of people in a team, the user requirements for the system or the landscape of information systems. Next, your brain will assemble a model of this situation, analyze all the connections and build its map. He will not give you an answer to the question “how should I act”, but the situation itself will become clearer for you and the answers will become self-evident . It is equally important to understand that the default system will not tell you why it collected the situation in such a way and not otherwise, and how it was guided in the first place, and which aspects it considered irrelevant. You (your consciousness) will be forced to trust its conclusions and find a “logical” explanation on your own, but this will be quite simple, we can justify ourselves.

    Instead of conclusion


    I did not set myself the goal of rehashing years of research in the field of neuroscience and psychiatry in one article. I just opened the door. I hope you opened the picture of interest. Even more I hope that she is interested in your default system. Take a walk, let him think about it.

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