Re: My experience is what I agree to attend to.


"Lance" <LanceGary@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:9d345ba4-4ca3-4bba-a0ca-c7f2b66920b1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
NYT
May 5, 2009
Findings
Ear Plugs to Lasers: The Science of Concentration
By JOHN TIERNEY
Imagine that you have ditched your laptop and turned off your
smartphone. You are beyond the reach of YouTube, Facebook, e-mail,
text messages. You are in a Twitter-free zone, sitting in a taxicab
with a copy of “Rapt,” a guide by Winifred Gallagher to the science of
paying attention.

The book’s theme, which Ms. Gallagher chose after she learned she had
an especially nasty form of cancer, is borrowed from the psychologist
William James: “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” You can
lead a miserable life by obsessing on problems. You can drive yourself
crazy trying to multitask and answer every e-mail message instantly.

Or you can recognize your brain’s finite capacity for processing
information, accentuate the positive and achieve the satisfactions of
what Ms. Gallagher calls the focused life. It can sound wonderfully
appealing, except that as you sit in the cab reading about the science
of paying attention, you realize that ... you’re not paying attention
to a word on the page.

The taxi’s television, which can’t be turned off, is showing a
commercial of a guy in a taxi working on a laptop — and as long as
he’s jabbering about how his new wireless card has made him so
productive during his cab ride, you can’t do anything productive
during yours.

Why can’t you concentrate on anything except your desire to shut him
up? And even if you flee the cab, is there any realistic refuge
anymore from the Age of Distraction?

In my experience you just get used to it. When they introduced automated announcements on buses and trains a few years ago, I found it very distracting if I was trying to read at first but now it doesn't bother me at all.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: My experience is what I agree to attend to.
    ... Ear Plugs to Lasers: The Science of Concentration ... Imagine that you have ditched your laptop and turned off your ... except that as you sit in the cab reading about the science ... I think this process is called habituation. ...
    (uk.philosophy.humanism)
  • Re: Greek Psi
    ... indulge in useless mind games. ... we want claims to be supported by science. ... Your comment about meta-levels is another way of saying, "Why are you discussing whether my discussions are worth paying attention to, instead of just paying attention to them without regard to their value?" ... Is that a meta-level determination that I've made? ...
    (sci.lang)
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    ... Birdblog has not been paying attention. ... Science *has* sorted it out. ... So have the federal courts. ... When you've lost, there's nothing left but a buncha name-calling. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Nobels All Around!
    ... >In case you have not been paying attention, you are fortunate to live in ... >the time of one of the greatest discoveries ever in science, ... > history of science. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: USHCN Temperature Record of the Week: Fort Sumner, New Mexico
    ... David Ball wrote: ... >>such a preference to write about me. ... > science and the research community with your bogus posting practices I ... I have been paying attention. ...
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