Built to Brain

I want to start off by saying watch this video since everything I talk about will hedge in around this video and exploit it to unreasonable ends. For those of you who aren't developers, some of this will be outright nonsense, but, I'm telling you of the freakin' gold that's in this elegant and personal keynote.

"Testify!"

First, mad respect for Kathy Sierra. I don't know her at all, but this little presentation gives me enough to say that she's definitely "one of the good ones". BriAnna brought this to my attention and I have been referring to it more and more often because, well, of things I'll get into later.

When I was growing up, I was fascinated with the concept of Computer Science and Psychology. Computer Science because I was fascinated by computers and wanted to know how they worked, well, actually, because I wanted to make games. Lots and lots of games.

And, as a somewhat disparate path, Psychology was something I wanted to get into to understand myself. I felt broken and I didn't know exactly why. I find, lately, that everyone feels this to some degree. Feeling like an imposter or incredibly alone or being far too different to be normal.

Sure, this is when people say, "Well, you're special."

"Well, Thanks. But I don't really want to be special."

I went through a battery of ADHD tests and they put me on Ritalin, but then they realized it made things worse. Honestly, there wasn't a chemical imbalance, I was just that way.

"By they way, this means I have more fun than other people. Lots!"

My approach to both paths was eventually to unify them; I wanted to marry Psychology and Computer Science into a single experience. I will say that I was before my time on this, because they've since come out with courses for Human Factors Engineers which could have been my dream job.

So, with Psychology, I wanted to see where I was broken so I could fix it. In a manner of speaking, I lost interest in just myself—well, that's a stretch—and started reaching out to others and using the things I learned from studying myself to gain insight into others. I used a tool called The Luscher Color Test to dig into people's current situations and experiences. It was something that my Uncle Billy, I believe, showed me and fascinated me. It's since out of print, but you can still find it... both online and in the book form.

I could pull some crazy stuff from people with this... it was like I was a freakin' fortune teller and it helped me dig in and reveal more about the core person I was talking to. I had no idea how I would do it, either. But the practice and feedback mattered immensely.

"There's no basement in the Alamo! Oh, color test, I know your ways."

What in the hell does any of this have to do with this above video? Let's talk about that.

No... wait. Not yet. There is more pontificating to do!

The concept of limited cognitive resources, I hadn't heard about, even if I could understand the concept. The way that Kathy presents this idea is beautiful. She approaches it with "you probably already know this, but..." to make sure that, even if you heard a slice of it in the past you could still say, "Yeah, I knew about that." She gives you the ability to pat yourself on the back while she fleshes out this idea without going through the barrier of annoyance from being slapped in the face with something you thought you already knew. You can tell that she's used to talking to know-it-alls. (a.k.a. Developers.) Again, mad props.

Stress on your cognitive resources will damage your ability to direct those resources for more important tasks. And, oh my god... hold on to your hats. Because the depth of this concept will blow your mind. Well, it blew my mind. Maybe I'm just easily impressed...

For as old as The Doctor is, I'd say he's easily impressed.

What's an introvert? What's an extrovert? I hate these either or definitions because it creates further divisions in a world of needless, nay senseless, dichotomy. How about this?

Does it take (energy/self-control/effort) for you to be around others?

Do you find being around others (recharging/refreshing/revitalizing)?

You could say that an "extrovert" is someone who does not burn cognitive resources when around others, but actually finds those situations stimulating and even enjoyable. These social situations are easy for them. Where "introverts" are constantly trying to put up a persona that's difficult for them to wear, playing nice to expectations, which is inordinately draining.

I guarantee that about 20% of the population still finds social activities very draining. You have to play nice with everyone or else you run the risk of conflict which is considerably more taxing than simple social engagements. That is... unless you both enjoy awkward social settings and conflict. To each their own, but, if I were a betting man, I'd wager that you suck to be around.

This is one of many, many modes of thought that can apply to this same situation. The Cognitive Resources you expend maintaining self control are downright painful. In the Making Badass Programmers video, if you watched it like good boys and girls, you would see that being in a situation that requires self-control will burn off so much effort (unless you're particularly good at this kind of self-control, mind you) that you end up not being your stunning self and accomplishing Earth changing things.

"Yes, this is actually a representation of you. Unable to change the world."

Can I bring religion into this? Shoo... why not. I bring in a religious bent to everything I've posted to far.

Religion begets rules, morality, and lots and lots of self-control. You could say that religious makes you a pro at self-control. Or, perhaps, awesome at pretending to have self control. Critical piety always worried me because you saw a darkness lurking just below the surface.

But, if you're doing it for you... or perhaps your parents, it makes you very good at patience and long-suffering, as they say. I grew up religious and I can honestly ssay that I'm a better person for it, if only for the practice at being all of the above.

And, as a side note, I wonder if I should be asserting this kind of activity with my kids, putting them in a rule laden social setting and having them beef up on these important skills of patience, tolerance, and self-control.

Naw. They're good. In fact, they're totally awesome.

Some other examples around burning cognitive resources was the difference between individuals in the same situation. In talking with BriAnna about this last night, her self awareness prompted by this video allowed her to express, out loud, the things that she resisted while in a meeting with many other people. Then she heard one of her co-workers say, "I couldn't believe how much I burned in self-control to avoid picking up my phone." She was surprised because she was thinking to herself, "I am burning so much self-control to not interrupt the speaker to express my opinion."

"Practice self-control... practice self-control... practice..."

I find this hilarious. BriAnna has such an awesomely strong personality and her thought didn't surprise me in the least. The key to the example, though, was how very different the two of them approached the same situation. And how the burned their respective Cognitive Resources in their effort to maintain self-control.

If the co-worker didn't bring his cell phone, he wouldn't have had a choice to check his phone. I'm sure there would have been another thing he'd think of. And, uh, if you taped BriAnna's mouth shut, she wouldn't have had an option to speak...? Not likely, she'd rip that crap off and punch me in the face. Win!

If I were in a meeting, what would be these points of disruption that would have me thinking about the distraction and not what I should be paying attention to? Unfortunately, with a head full of distractions, it's not easy to narrow one particular distraction down in order to eliminate it.

A bit of topic jump, but I promise it is related. Remember Freud? Remember Libido? His thoughts around Libido as sexual energy is, to me, a bunch of crap, but, without the sexual overtones, the concept is interestingly similar to Cognitive Resources.

"Yes, for Freud, it really was all about his mother."

Directly from the video, if you are in a state of constant stress, you will not have enough energy to progress or develop good skills. Yes, you'll have plenty of half-assed skills that are poor at best. And, now I'm talking about coping skills. While the video above focused in on specific development practices, it can be expanded to any life skill, including interpersonal skills.

Unlike fixations, which you just generally hope to make a breakthrough using psychoanalysis, there are way to revisit those skills pull them back to the forefront and make them into good versions of those skills. The idea is that you learned it in a particular way and that's the way you've done it from then on out.

Again, this is all conjecture... I'm not a psychologist, but I am a Broad Spectrum Pattern Matcher™. It's all connected, baby.

(That's not actually trademarked, but it should be.)

And there's my segue, boom!

Kathy's assertion that your brain is a black box that does far more for you than you'd expect. And that information is based upon deep and credible research—of course, I'm assuming because she's like that. I can tell, I recognize a deep researcher. Also, it feels very right.

As an aside, relying "The Feels" or "Your Gut" is dangerous, by the way. Your pattern matching might have responded to the nugget of truth in a pile of poop and your pattern matching might have some very bad examples it is using as reference material.

"First one's free, kids!"

That aside now being part of the conversation. Having a wealth of good examples gives you, and your brain, a mountain of correct pattern matching criterias that you can rely on. The more exposure you have to a certain set of problems and their solutions, the better you can emulate and relate to it. And after enough examples, you detect the nuances and can course correct in order to hit your target.

Here's another perfect example of exposure to many correct examples. How do you teaching Bank tellers to spot a counterfeit? Expose them to the real thing, gratuitously. The pattern matching gets enough good examples that they can automatically detect the fake when they see it and/or touch it.

The funny thing is, in all of these situations, these people can't even describe how they know or why they are awesome at it. It's now inherent in their skill set. In fact, that pattern matching is now always active in some subprocess of the brain, acting on its own without your help. Yes, it deteriorates over time with limited exposure, but it's because you need fresh examples to sharpen the saw.

Let's focus on me for a moment, because I'm more than a little conceited. Heh, I'm practically infatuated with myself.

"Oh stop, you. You're the handsome one."

I never finished college. That CS and Psych degree? As soon as I found out how useless the degree for Psych was—because you need a Masters to get anywhere in it—I all but abandoned it.

As for CS? My math doesn't brain well. I would say that's my highest drain of cognitive resources, ever. Math. I know why, too, as I work on math with my kids, I still find myself stumbling over subtraction and wanting to slap my inner child for being unable to fix it. I should... go back and get myself all robust on early math again and see if I can perfect the things I learned poorly early on.

I'm not feeling it, though. Which is why I'm a good example of a bad example. I learn on the job. As long as I get a good reference to get into the job in the first place, I can prove myself beyond that.

For instance, I had very little experience before my previous job, but they took a chance on me because of my track record. I came in and sizzled in the frying pan, getting asked questions I didn't know, taking copious notes, doing research, and finding solutions. Wash, rinse, repeat. I created a bank of my own good examples to work from and, in the process, deepening my understanding the software stack associated with it.

At 6 months, I felt good. At 2 years, I felt like a god. At 4 years, I was bored, bored, bored. As it should be, right?

I tried training others on this stuff. I crafted material to expose people to both the questions and the information and found that it just didn't work. I have trained call centers with the information that I researched out for myself.

THIS CAN'T BE DONE EASILY

Suddenly, I realized why I didn't like school the way it is. You are taught to memorize, not to think. Critical thinking, which is part of the conscious side of pattern matching, was part of my childhood. It was part of my life outside of school, except for trade skill-like classes. Wood shop. Ceramics. Metalworking.

Mike Rowe, a great and wholly genuine guy, pointed out the coming trade skills gap.

He's right. You know what apprenticeships are? On the job learning by both doing and being exposed to many good examples from someone who "can't explain why they're so good at their jobs".

"Training through examples worked very well. Why has it been replaced it with memorization and testing?"

So, right now, back to me, I'm struggling with being a technical resource that is also technical sales. I could be both a Pre-sales and Post-sales Engineer, but I want to stick on the Pre-sales side of things to maintain my home life in proper order. Plus, Post-sales can become a black hole that you—and your soul—could get lost in.

Because I learned much of my job through live fire exercises, as I mentioned above, I have learned this particular sales skill in one way. I am incredible at my job when I can listen to the customer, ask them appropriate questions, and feel them through the phone, catching the nuance of both speech and attitude. In person, I can do the same thing, and it's amazing.

"How to get a concussion at 30 yards. Do not try this at home kids."

But, for the life of me, I can't prepare sales material appropriate to the situation without having some touch with them. I also have a terrible time selling something that they don't need, even if it would ultimately help them. I have spent so much time in the frame of mind that I could do just about anything with duct tape and baling twine. So much so, that I have shorted myself in large deals where they don't want to do everything manually. They want hands-off automation because there's far too many spinning plates to maintain.

The hardest part about the job I have now—while there are aspects of this job I feel that I have mastered—it's these little gaps in experience and examples that make me stumble, where I feel like I'm very very far away from being good, or even competent, at what I do.

Whew... while I hope that someone from work would see this and go "oh, so that's how he works", I don't want anyone from work to read this and say, "oh, so that's how he works".

While I collect my thoughts after that ... unmitigated emotional upheaval I just splayed out there—which I needed, so thanks for being there—there was this fun little wholly-not-safe-for-work-and-please-don't-watch-it-if-you-don't-like-the-f-word video. I'll cover the topic fully below and you don't need to watch it. This means you, my immediate family that still thinks I have a shred of dignity.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

So, now that you likely watched it anyway—and I'm very, very sorry—this does actually apply to the next part of our magical pattern matching black-box of a brain. And when I say black-box, it's a term I learned in Quality Assurance. You don't know the inner workings of a program, so you throw stuff at it to see if it comes back with an unexpected result, then you write a bug up. That being said, white-box testing is knowing the inner workings, meaning that you are partially a programmer who can see the code and get how it works.

Our brains are wholly black-boxes to us. We may think we know what's going on in there, but we've only scratched the itsy-bitsy surface of the cavernous wonder that's in there. I always thought it'd be better to have biological computers than stupid silicon based ones. But, you know, there's a time and a place. And the future will let us use "people" genetics to totally screw ourselves up in other ways. I guarantee I'll get to see this in my lifetime. Hee!

Where was I going. Black-box, yes. We often mistake the results from the black-box as divine. Yes, THE UNIVERSE (thus the not safe for work video above), God, Xenu, the Earth Mother, your higher self, or ... whatever form of the divine you want to believe in ... could actually be your brain sparking on a series of patterns you had inadvertently been collecting data on.

Newton: "Is that you, God?"

Again, I don't want to take inspiration entirely away from Theism, because, like I've said in the past, I still have hope that this is out there, but, remember, hope is not an actionable strategy.

So, exerting some self control around being a sane and rational being working from hard, measurable facts, I will admit that our brains are overwhelmingly awesome at putting two and two together on a very abstract level. Thus, when profound inspiration strikes, this is likely and purely the result of your brain making a fantastic connection.

Let's say, for instance, you've got a bad feeling about someone. In Kathy's video, she mentions code "smelling bad", which is hilarious, but then you can see it, can't you? You get this eeriness about a situation or people. Something doesn't feel right.

BriAnna shared with me a thought about a boy she knew who ended up being a really bad guy. I won't share much detail other than she got that sickly, oily feeling of someone who isn't ... right.

I was able to think of a similar situation. There was a woman I worked with whom I immediately recognized as dangerous and/or toxic. Strangely, I promptly "made friends" with her as an effort to remain in good standing with her. As a defense for when things went South—AND SOUTH THEY DID GO. But my earlier instinct to connect actually protected me from bad things happening.

Years later, she ended up on the news after killing her children and then herself.

What... the... hell...

But I knew it. I knew it. I recognized it immediately. But to that extent? Should I take the blame because I didn't do anything? Do I choose to be devastated by it because it was something I could have prevented?  How would I have ever known that it'd come to that?

So, why should believe that I had control over something that was never in my hands in the first place? Am I that conceited? (Sometimes, yes. But this time? No.)

Then there's a second stark realization ... "Uh oh, who were my plentiful good examples that allow for that kind of pattern matching? Are some of these examples inherent? Are they learned through experience or ... can we actually recognize them with less information?"

No, really, I mean it. These are interesting questions that I don't know the answers to.

The other aspect of this to be aware of, as I had mentioned earlier, THE FEELS and THE GUT can be wrong if you have bad examples that end up in that black-box. You have given that precious little hunk of neural tissue that is performing billions upon billions of pattern matches against bad information.

Let's consider abject racism as bad pattern matching. I clarified abject because, as Louis C.K. points out, there is a sliding scale to racism. Probably another video that I should call out as ... don't watch it, but it was on Saturday Night Live, which should allow for a certain lateral edginess. Oh, and yes, he also talks about pedophilia as objectively as I've seen anyone talk about it. You're allowed to be offended, but realize that he's also correct. He talks about the symptom, though, and not the actual problem.

I consider Louis C.K. a Broad Spectrum Pattern Matcher™, because he finds the threads of cross-relevance in unrelated things. And that makes those things even more humorous.

Racism can be among other examples of bad pattern matching that equates to "bad feels". The key is to go back and rewrite those situations about individuals and not use overarching stereotypes to define a class or race according to an individual's actions. But, inherently, there's always a bit of residue... it's about being aware of that residue and not letting it become a chronic problem. Living in Utah, I end up being something else altogether, ignorantly racist. Sorry!

Back to Broad Spectrum Pattern Matching™... Kathy's Making Badass Developers video on the seemingly unrelated topic broke a barrier for me and I could see it apply to every aspect of my life. In stark and terrifying—as well as awesomely cool—detail. I'm sure that she, herself, sees the same patterns or she wouldn't have used non-programming examples to elaborate on her points. And... probably because there aren't a lot of good related examples that are easy to demonstrate. I mean, how totally and extremely dry would that be?

I'm going to consolidate my thoughts, because, for some reason, I have bullets in these kinds of posts. Bullets. Damn, I'm so corporate. So, the thoughts distilled from this little adventure. You can even call these take-aways if you want to keep up with the corporate theme:

• Pattern Matching:
• Your brain is better than you, but you're also better with your brain. Don't fight it, work with it.
• Surround yourself with good examples. Your brain needs fantastic source material to create fantastic results with pattern matching.
• When "The Universe" is telling you something, you've got enough data on a particular topic or area of interest that your black-box gave you an alert to check your inbox.
• There is such a thing as bad pattern matching.
• Broad Spectrum Pattern Matching™, as defined, is the ability to draw threads through seemingly unrelated topics and find pertinent examples across various dispositions. And, no, it is not actually trademarked.
  
• Cognitive Resources:
• It's all coming out of one bucket, as Kathy says, work becomes personal and vice versa.
• Things you aren't good at will drain those resources. Depending on your level of proficiency at certain tasks, you could drain your reserves more or less quickly.
• Patience is not just a virtue, it's a practiced skill. I added this for BriAnna. I called it tolerance, she called it patience. I'm still not sure which is more applicable. :)
• Things that require "decompression" after are high drains on your Cognitive Resources.
• Basic Criteria: Attempting to do things or solve problems you are not good at.
• Examples: Meetings. Impersonal social settings. Tests. Math, for me. Worrying. Monumental tasks.
• Things that you are good at, or are considered meditative, are cognitive resource maintaining or building solutions.
• Basic Criteria: Things you're very good at which takes little to no effort.
• Examples: Games, Puzzles, "Brain food", personal/fun social settings, "Making", hobbies, working with your hands, meditation, hiking, being awesome.

I didn't really touch on the renewing of Cognitive Resources, but making this little bullet list brought that back to mind.

"I prefer this over that, but maybe doing either of these naked might work out better."

Meditation is key. We all have our meditative forms. Actual meditation, to me, is a resource drain . But it's because I haven't trained it as a practiced ability. I prefer the meditative things of hiking, gaming, and writing. I remember, as a kid, exploration, biking, and imagination were important aspects of withdrawing to recharge.

I just asked myself, "What's a kid need to escape for?" But I realized how important those times were for me. I spent a lot of time in my head and... my writing reflects that. The characters I write through are sometimes exclusively in their heads for pages upon pages at a time. It's a bit much, but I like to explore that inner monologue because it reflects my own thought processes.

Remember, I'm infatuated with myself.

I'll wrap this with a reflection back to my experience with The Luscher Color Test and being a freakin' fortune teller. I gave my brain enough good examples to figure out how to observe and take in specific cues to gain insight into others. In a sense, I made my black-box pattern matching engine into a purpose-built, fully conscious psychological testing system that I could apply at will.

Now I want to take this a step further, with your GUT and your FEELS about the people around you. I mean, I've talked about the bad people that we should be aware of. I've even referred to some absolutely amazing, genuine people in this post. The short list: Kathy Sierra, Louis C.K., Bill Nye, Mike Rowe.

"Srsly."

Yes, there's plenty of off-color examples in this short list which may reveal the people I'd prefer to hang with. I believe all of the above are genuinely amazing people, even if I haven't met them directly.

So, let's talk about Love and first sight ... in conjunction with our amazing Pattern Matching system of awesome? Part of this discussion last night with Bri was how involved our is brain when it comes to LAFS. (I even acronymized it, keeping with the corporate theme.) Is it purely chemistry? Is it Astrology? Is it fate? Is it compatible personalities? Or, perhaps, it's all of the above?

Our brain find a match in someone. You see True Love across the room and you know because your pattern matching criterias lit you up with lightning and fire.

The idea is that your brain, as long as it has had good examples, is already doing that matching for you. People say it's your heart... but, really? Let's not get doey eyed romantic here, we all know it's your brain. Remember... good examples of people with whom you want to be.

I had a whole section here on astrology, but ... peh, I'll skip it. Besides sounding like an awesome system for determining Non-Player Character personalities, Astrology's systemization of all human life makes coarse, primal love to our pattern matching black-box of a brain. No wonder it's both complex and fascinating, however, something like that will be wholly unable to be explained by science... far too many variables.

And, seriously, if you think about Astrology, how meta is that? We really do look at the world as if we live in The Matrix.

"What's the point of a singularity if you're already part of it?"

Whoah, wrapping this up ended up being an event in itself. You have an amazing tool that needs plentiful good examples in order to work most effectively. Those good examples can be both painful and positive experiences, as long as they reflect the true nature of the thing you are seeking.

So, seek on. Seeker.

*rolls eyes*

Heh, I can't even end this bizarre brain dump of a blog properly.