Knock knock

The vast majority of rules of human interaction are not written down or even articulated. There is no rule book that tells you when it is appropriate to knock on someone’s door and suggest a drink. When you do it, whom you do it with, and how often you do it all matter. In India, where I grew up, it was perfectly appropriate to knock on a friend’s door without calling ahead. Phoning a close friend or relative to say you were going to come over could be taken as a sign you did not consider the person close enough to show up unannounced. In North America, barging into someone’s house without warning is rude. It doesn’t take long when you transplant someone from India to the United States, or from United States to India, to quickly grasp that the social rules have changed. People adjust to new rules swiftly and automatically, because the hidden brain is highly skilled at orienting itself in new cultural contexts. Healthy people grasp and follow social rules without conscious effort. We do not realize how important these rules are, because we don’t do the work of acquiring and following the rules – our hidden brain does it for us.

If you ask a person why she does not reach across crowded dinner table for dish, or why she leaves the last potato for someone else or how she knows one glance in a bar is meaningful but another is not, she will tell you that she has thought about each question and figured out the answer. It isn’t true. She may consciously claim responsibility for her answers, but it is really her hidden brain that conducts those analyses, and we know this is true because patients with fronto-temporal dementia who do socially inappropriate things have their power of analysis in tact. They can reason their way through life, but it turns out that reason is an inadequate guide in many social situations. It is only when the machinery of hidden brain breaks down that we suddenly recognize its importance.

Much of this book is about errors and biases caused by the hidden brain. The automatic conclusion is that bias is bad and we should do everything we can to rid the brain of unconscious thinking. If we could only think consciously all the time, we would avoid all the mistakes of the hidden brain. That is partially true, but it is also true that the hidden brain can be our friend. It tells us how to navigate the world, it creates the foundation of our lives as social creatures, it enmeshes us in the web of relationships that make life meaningful. Without the hidden brain, we would not be supercomputing machines that everyone envies. We would not be sad creatures, locked out from the very things that make life precious. We would lose the ability to work collegially with others, to form lasting friendships, and to fall in love. Our hidden brain is like the wetness of water that the fish never notices – but can’t live without. ~ Pages 50/51