It's All In The Mind
Inventing reality for my brain’s convenience
By Tom Williams

I'd almost made it. Thanks to a lucky single quarter late the night before, I was a grand total of three dollars up on Vegas when we headed back to the airport.

A theory developed in my brain: "Surely," said my brain, basking in its super-comfy a priori armchair, "surely the slots in the airport are easier. That way the people arriving get used to the idea of throwing money into the slots and the people departing leave with a win fresh in their memory. Yes. It must be that way. Hey Tom, go ahead and throw some more money into the slot machine. You’re bound to win, it’s only logical."

My brain has offered up similar theories before. Like the time I was driving all night in Alaska, transporting a truck of canoes from the Copper River to Anchorage. I was very tired. The kind of tired where the window open, heater up and stereo blasting still isn't enough. "I bet," said my brain, seductively, coyly, slyly, "I bet you can't close your eyes for 5 seconds without falling asleep. You know Tom, you talk a lot of talk about your great neuro-evolutionary expanded self-control, lemme see you walk the walk, coz I don't think you can do it."

"Oh yeah?" I said. Watch this. Zonk. Crash. Well nearly. The adrenaline rush of driving off the road did go some way to keeping me awake for the rest of the night, but yet again, my brain had got its way by tricking me.

Same thing in Vegas. My brain wanted to gamble so it came up with all the right reasons to make me do it. And do it I did. Only my brain's theory fell through, I put in the three dollars from my profit pocket, got the jerk of satisfaction as I won a couple times, then lost it all. "Not enough time," hissed my brain (some people give their brains nicknames, but we're past that now), "put in more."

So I did. And I lost four more dollars.

Now the thing I have that my brain lacks is the ability to tell the future. I know that putting in more money will result in me losing more money, and then feeling stupid and miserable all the way back to Portland, counting the three dollars that should have been in my pocket and toying with all the ways I could have spent it once I got home.

So I fought back.

Ever since Freud et al. we all know that the brain is actually running the show, and that it's only with intense concentration that you can actually get a word in edgewise to the decision making process: I told my brain "damn you to hell" and I refused to play anymore.

But what I've learned is it's not rational versus emotional or any other division of a unitary object. No, there are two of us in here. 

How often do I actually make the decisions, and who is this brain inventing fantastic scenarios for me to swallow?

And more important, how can you know when you're just being fed a line by your brain, which after all gets to determine what you see, hear, and even feel by way of releasing various chemicals into your nervous system?

The answer is …. You can't. There are little hints, like wondering what would Jesus do, or questioning if your girlfriend (or other person whose non-biased / non-internal brain opinion you value ) would have any problem hearing about it afterwards; i.e. using your ability to predict the future beyond the immediate gratification that your brain craves.

Or you can stick to rules that you make up when your brain isn't paying attention and then just ignore what your senses are telling you the rest of the time. But they'd better be some pretty good rules, because in general your brain just wants to feel good and, in the short term at least, it usually has the right idea, honed through millions of years of evolution.

So what have we learned?

1. The slots at Vegas Airport are not looser
2. Your brain only cares about immediate gratification, and as such any suggestions it offers should be checked for post- gratification consequences
3. The next quarter would have hit the jackpot. I know it.

PS: A real invention for you to consider: SUVs cause all sorts of damage when they hit regular cars yet because of the size differential, usually allowing the SUV owner to sail away without even noticing they've crushed another car. I think this leads to driving without consideration of the other guy.

So we install metal plates in SUVs that cut of the legs of the driver whenever the bumper detects it's hit another car, kind of like a giant sharp airbag aimed at your knees. These plates would be carefully designed to match the damage caused to the other driver. I guarantee the roads would be safer, and we'd probably all get better gas mileage.