But the flipside of focus is a vast blindness. You can’t have one without the other. Which might explain a lot. It’s a strong argument for widespread use of drugs like weed and shrooms.
You have convinced me sir and im out to get some weed and shrooms.
Seems like you’ve combined two ideas for no reason.
I can agree with “focus on one thing, miss the rest” but I don’t think it’s inherently human. If one of my cats has found something to stalk, they become hyper focused and pretty much oblivious to anything else happening around them. Other animals’ ears will perk up as they try to find the source of a sound and determine if it is predator or prey.
We’re certainly smarter than other animals, but is it really because of focus or just more mental ability?
You don’t focus blindly on your feet and invent stuff. You watch someone else do things and you copy what they do. You are standing on a very large pyramid of hobbits. The big brain is mainly to remember what everyone else has figured out years ago.
You can have many shower thoughts, and most of them will not work out. But don’t stop having them, because eventually you will stumble upon something of value. Then you get to tell your grand-children, and they will listen and copy what you did.
Oh right back at you
It might actually be the oposite. An ancient human trying to dig a hole with their hands got bored or frustrated by the task and started using a stick to make it easier. Whereas something like a dog will keep focused on digging that hole until its exhausted or got what it was after.
So you’re thinking that boredom, and possibly abandonment of the project, is what delivered the insight? And too much focus would inhibit this revelation.
Hmm. Interesting point.
Not boredom or project abandonment, but our ability to actively think of ways to improve the way we do things. Figuring out tools is a huge deal.
But also, the ability to sweat is a large part of why we’re the dominant species. We literally jogged animals to death. That, and the ability to use fire and cook our food which makes the nutrients more bioavailable so we didn’t have to work so hard to stay fed, and could devote extra energy to things other than survival.
Generally, too much focus on something is not a great thing. For example, have you ever spent a lot of time figuring out a problem, only for someone to come along and point out the solution that’s been staring you in the face the whole time?
We literally jogged animals to death.
My PE teacher tried to do that to me once or twice. Guess I showed him. The kid with the bad leg was the weakest herd member.
