The Brain Behaves Like An Egg
That is a big problem
Once a sperm has fertilized an egg, it prevents other sperms from penetration.
This complex mix of processes results in the hardening of the egg’s outer layer. However, the whole sperm doesn’t get in. The tail barely gets a piece of the pie.
This level of detail is crucial to dissect my issue with the future generation of dependents on AI.
By now, you should have intuited that the egg and the brain are synonymous, while the sperm is an idea getting into the brain.
Once a single potent idea gets into the brain, it seals off the others equally as important.
The other sperms have the same physiological makeup. However, the random mix of genetic makeup could have resulted in a different outcome. In the same vein, what looks like the same idea could have sprouted a different insight. But with a brain as limited as ours, we are bound to screen off valuable ideas.
It will worsen once so much of our mental capacities are dumped into AI.
Sensitivity to small sample sizes
The egg-sperm problem is the problem of insensitivity to sample size.
Narration is more persuasive than using numbers. If I were to tell you a convincing story about a man who decided to take control of his life and rise through the ranks to inspire a whole nation, you would be interested in knowing more about this icon.
You might even want to learn his core features and whether they were replicable for anyone intent on becoming a leader.
But if I told you it was Adolf Hitler, your perception would change.
That’s the power of narration. It swings both ways and it’s powerful enough to persuade as much as rebuke.
This may be obvious but a more subtle one is our sensitivity to small sample sizes.
Say you’re in a line waiting to try new samples of coffee from a brand-new company.
The two individuals at the start of the line can barely keep a poker face. The first one takes a sip and cringes. So does the second one.
That is enough to deter any other person in the line from tasting the sample. They could have been paid to act but the impact would have been the same.
This is equivalent to the single sperm that penetrates the egg.
The other members in the line wouldn’t want to try it. They will hardly be convinced the first two were actors.
A brain trained in considering other alternative options would entertain these possibilities. Getting there might not be simple. The current sole reason is that distraction is the biggest booming business.
Filler Material
Our brains are heavy with filler material.
You think you understand a concept until you expose it to the world.
It’s the same brain that takes in a concept and stops the rest from fertilizing it.
Distraction makes it difficult — nay, it makes it practically impossible— to nurture a brain competent enough to challenge the first sperm, the first idea.
But for the sake of objectivity, let’s assume the first sperm is the best. The brain should then have a good understanding of the phenomena the idea explains. Good ideas explain the bulk of the mystery they are formulated to solve.
However, without separating the idea from the filler material, the idea remains unrefined.
You might think you understand the concept basically because you can intuit its explanation inside your head but the ultimate test is writing it down.
Writing exposes you. Writing is the best way I know to visualize the filler material in your thinking or thought process. Writing is how you expose your ideas to the world.
Once it’s out there, before you, having taken shape in the form of words, it’s subject to changes we often see similar to a product released into the market.
Writing takes a unique standpoint where the process is the product.
Writing is divided into four stages: ideation, writing, editing, and publishing.
Ideas will hit you whenever they do. For instance, you can develop the idea that the coffee is bitter from the first two tasters. But that is the first sperm. It needs exploration. This can best be done through writing.
Writing explores the idea as well as paints the picture for anyone who wasn’t present at the site. Different stripes of writers will explore the same event differently. One will give a vivid description while another questions the tasting. You can never tell upfront what one writer will note. Writing is an explorative process.
Rappers of great calibre write before they release their songs. They might be phenomenal battle rappers, unbeaten in many ciphers but before they release an album, they have to write. Writing is explorative but the next step is much more important.
Rappers need to edit their work. Authors need to edit their work. Producers of movies and series have to edit their work. Songwriters have to edit their work. After exploration comes refinement. Editing refines.
Consider a coder. They have the task of writing instructions greatly simplified for seamless execution by a machine that would only execute what you feed it.
There is little room for messing up. I consider coding one of the highest tests of one’s lucid thinking.
A bug can keep a coder up the whole night. This would have been difficult to identify if one had not written down the code and then edited it.
But, it refines from one point of view.
Publishing gives it a different set of eyes. Different filters. Different perspectives. Different lenses.
A brain that writes is a brain that surmounts its biggest challenge — confirmation bias.
Our brains like to confirm, not disconfirm.
I don’t want you to think about a helicopter — but you’ve already thought about it. That’s how it operates. When one idea sets in, we can’t help but validate it. One sperm locks out the rest.
Writing frees us of this prison.
The more we continue to dump this ability to AI, the more imprisoned we become, because thinking you’re thinking without writing is not thinking.
Scientists and mathematicians need to write their equations on a board or paper to make their ideas materialize before them. What follows is editing to refine it.
AI will rob many of this quality. We may get ideas. The exploration of these ideas might be stumped. Its refinement might be all but forgotten. And when so much is produced by AI, it will be difficult to exercise this explorative skill if we don’t nurture it.
AI can also hallucinate. In a world of writes and write-nots, few will have the ability to think. Think clearly. The rest of the world will be trapped in their filler material and AI-amplified hallucination.
This outcome can be reverted through the simple habit of writing.
What I’m trying to say is…
AI revolution is inevitable, but with it comes the consequence of thinking decadence.
As a result, Paul Graham foresees a world of thinks and think-nots.
J. Cole sings:
Hoping my pen lays my name down
Until that day’s found
This is my playground
Now more than ever, humanity needs writers.
Let’s not leave this writing playground.
This song inspired some of the lines used in this article. Source — YouTube