The Whittling Part Of the Brain (opens in new tab)

"I have found that, in general, our brains our smarter than we are. They want what they want, and if my brain wants to spend a while in front of a computer screen stabbing orcs, who am I to tell it it shouldn’t?"

I have several problems with this statement, starting with the fact that it was derived from a rationalization of the author's own habits, not a meaningful empirical observation.

Further, this is a formula for addiction. Games, porn, gambling, food cravings and drugs are all similar in that they self-enforce a habit through perceived short-term rewards.

Self-discipline is what allows one to accomplish goals. And, it means adapting your brain so that it can supress these hormone driven urges and take action that measurably moves your progress towards a rationally derived goal.

I'm all about some R&R, and fun / entertainment / addictions all have their place. Personally, I become a gamer for about 1 month every 2 years. I even think this author probably has more self-disciplne than he lets on judging by his writing and the history of games he has created. However, the message this article conveys is destructive.

Rationality and self-discipline use a different part of your brain than cravings for short-term rewards. Before you rationalize a time wasting habit, make sure you have adapted your mind to have the self-discipline to switch back and forth. Some people with particularly addition-oriented genetics really should fully abstain from mind-whittling activities if they want to accomplish anything in their life.

My point of view also assumes you are someone who wants to accomplish some substantial goal(s) in your lifetime. If you choose to live a lifestyle of fun / bliss, by all means, whittle away..

The argument that "the brain knows better" seems very weak. The brain also wants people to over consume fast food, reward itself with alcohol and drugs, and several other things which obviously aren't rewarding in the context of modern society.

Im always puzzled by the superiority complex people harbour about their 'traditional' pasttimes, especially reading newspapers, watching the 6 o'clock news as if it's important, watching wildlife documentaries, going for runs, etc.

Anyway, in one of those half asleep dazes the other day, I swear I caught my brain 'compiling' or 'defragging' or something. I could feel my eyes doing REM, and I could see or sense a whole lot of information I'd been studying being chunked, parsed and filed away in a more appropriate part of memory. Of course, that itself was probably just a dream...

I resent the suggestion that whittling is not productive. I've made utensils in the past while in the mountains when I forgot my fork or spoon.

Related: http://www.tlb.org/busywork.html

Whittling sounds like an evolutionary advantage. Imagine if humans hated to whittle; they would hate spending time collecting little things for a big reward. This could be as simple as collecting root vegetables to feed a stoneage family or creating a arrowhead. To me it seems whittling was an important part of evolving to where we are today. Small progress/steps to lead up to something great.

I don't buy it. As far as I can tell the this thing Jeff calls Whittling is simply energy preservation behavior. Brains take up 30% of your overall energy consumption. Thinking has a relatively high energy cost to it and people are hardwired to prefer limiting their energy expenditure that does not generate a return (wage, food, etc).