Derek Thompson

And then keeping the beliefs that serve us and letting go of the ones that hurt us.

That's the big idea.

The deeper idea that people are very uncomfortable with when they learn about what the research literature shows us is that we don't see reality clearly.

And this is very jarring for people because we all think that we perceive reality as it is, that we see it as it is, that we feel it as it is, that we have a grip on what reality actually looks like.

And the truth is that's just not the case, that the brain can't see reality as it is because it's incapable, that we don't see reality.

We predict reality.

Why?

Because right now your brain is absorbing 11 million bits of information.

Your brain is taking in 11 million bits.

That's the equivalent of reading War and Peace every second, twice.

the light entering your eyes, the sound of my voice in your ears, the ambient temperature of the room, 11 million bits of information.

However, your conscious attention can only process 50 bits of information.

That's the equivalent of one sentence per second.

So that means that you are only consciously aware of .000045% of reality entering your brain.

How does the brain filter this out?

How does it make sense of reality when there's just too much information to process?

Well, it predicts reality.

We all live in a simulation inside our own minds.

And so we don't see reality as it is.

We see reality through this tiny pinhole of attention.