With the threat of the coronavirus hanging over our heads, and the way that it has forced us to change— well, literally abso-fucking-lutely everything— you could argue that elastic thinking is more important than ever.
So what is elastic thinking?
The author describes it as the opposite of “analytical” (also called “top down” or linear) thinking. Computers and human brains are both proficient at analytical thinking. A + B = C. This kind of thinking involves executive structures dictating the approach.
But unlike computers, brains can also do “bottom up” processes— creative, nonlinear thinking, where individual neurons fire somewhat chaotically. This kind of thinking is closely tied to the brain’s emotional center.
In particular, the left hemisphere of the brain is adept at analytic thinking and the right hemisphere at elastic thinking. There’s a brain structure called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which lies just above the corpus callosum (the structure that connects the two brain hemispheres). It acts as a judge, deciding whose voice (left or right brain) gets “shouted” more loudly to the person’s consciousness. So, when confronted with a problem, the ACC first directs your awareness towards your left brain (the analytical brain), which sorts through the problem and offers literal, logical, linear possible responses to the problem. If that doesn’t lead to the answer, your ACC broads then scope of focus and lets the oddball, imaginative ideas from the right brain take center stage.
I’ve heard/read about what happens when you sever the corpus callosum (thereby severing the communication between the two hemispheres) but this book really brings it home just how separate the hemispheres are. Each has its own memory, learning ability, and mental processes. What one half of the brain learns (for instance, teaching only the right part of the brain to do a task, by covering the opposite eye), the other brain won’t be aware of.
In one SUPER cool example, a patient was asked how many seizures she had. Her right hand held up two fingers. The left hand grabbed that hand and pulled it down, then held up just one finger. The hands fought each other like children. The patient referred to her left hand as a “maverick.” Why did she identify the left hand as a “maverick” and the right hand as “normal?” Because the left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere… which has no speech. The left hemisphere controls speech. So the “person” that was talking was the left hemisphere. Of course it would prefer itself and call the opposite the “maverick”! It’s so disconcerting to think you have two competing personalities in your head.
“The truth is that, within all of us, there exist the neural networks of both a mischievous, imaginative child and a rational, self-censoring adult.”
And that’s pretty much the author’s purpose in this book— to persuade us that that mischievous child is valuable and underrated, and we would do well to pay attention to it and allow it time to play.
For instance, a study in 2014 found that mortality rates among high-risk, acute-care patients was 30% lower when the top doctors at the hospital were out of town. So you might be better off getting a resident than the chief of surgery, because the chief is likely to form opinions quickly based on their extensive past experience rather than approaching each case as novel.
Another study took a group of patients at a nursing home, who took, on average, 7 medications. With careful monitoring, the researchers took half of those patients off of about half of their medications. None suffered serious side effects, and almost all reported improved health (and in fact, the death rate among them was far lower than the other half of the patients who served as the control group). Basically, doctors prescribe medications on autopilot, the textbook approach to patients, when they’d have done better to use their creative, novel-thinking right brain.
My personal favourite section, though, was “Thinking When You’re Not Thinking.” Daydreaming, or “default mode” of thought, is possessed by all mammals (even rodents). It’s also the origin of most of our best, most original thoughts. (The example of my all-time great Mary Shelley is given— she labored for days trying to come up with a story that would be on par with her friends,’ only to have the idea for Frankenstein come to her the one time she wasn’t trying to think of a story.)
When you allow your mind to go “empty,” it is actually a frenzy of activity in three parts of your brain, together called the “default network.” The default network also governs our internal mental life, the dialogue we have with ourselves (conscious & unconscious). When we “empty our minds” and turn off our attention to the world around us and thoughts thereof, it allows our internal world to flourish, and for our default network to combine ideas and make associations in frenzied, productive ways.
So when your mind is “at rest,” it’s really bouncing thoughts back and forth, making associations in the background, free to roam. This is why being plugged into our phones is so damaging to our creative minds— if we’re constantly checking it, reading texts, getting notifications and emails, that takes up the time we might otherwise spend daydreaming.
I also really enjoyed the explanation of “concept neurons.” Previously, scientists had derisively called them “grandmother cells” because they were skeptical of the idea that you have a network of cells reserved for your grandmother, but they wer proven wrong when those cells were discovered in 2005. Essentially, we have networks of these neuros for all the people, places, things, or ideas (like winning or losing) that we’re familiar with. The network representing your grandmother, for instance, would fire when you see her, see her name written out in text, hear her name spoken, or are otherwise reminded of some aspect of her. They’re the reason you can recognize your grandmother in a variety of scenarios— in different places, wearing different clothes, with different hair colours.
Finally, like any fun pop sci book, it has plenty of Cosmo-style quizzes (I learned that I’m off the charts on neophilia, reward motivation, and schizotypal thinking, but below average in mindfulness).
Overall, it’s a fantastic book, incredibly interesting and easy to get lost in.