Attention and the Treewalk

注意力与“树木漫步”

December, 2018 Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, had a theory of the brain he called the Reduction Valve. The theory went that the brain learned internal boring mechanisms to desensitize us to the world’s innate interestingness. Animals that focused on food and sex rather than appreciating the world around them survived, and ones that evolved mechanisms to inhibit their senses from ever experiencing the true information around us did even better.

2018年12月 《美丽新世界》的作者奥尔德斯·赫胥黎（Aldous Huxley）曾提出过一种关于大脑的理论，他称之为“还原阀”（Reduction Valve）。该理论认为，大脑学会了某种内在的枯燥机制，以降低我们对世界固有趣味性的感知。那些专注于食物和繁衍而非欣赏周围世界的动物得以生存，而那些进化出抑制感官、使其无法感知周围真实信息的机制的动物，则生存得更好。

Huxley invented this theory after a positive experience with mescaline, a psychoactive chemical akin to LSD or psilocybin producing mushrooms. These chemicals often give their consumers a feeling that the word is more enchanted than they realized before the experience. While it might feel subjectively like there’s an increase the brain’s activity, psychedelics actually decrease blood flow throughout the brain. Hence, the reduction valve theory.

赫胥黎是在体验过麦司卡林（mescaline）后提出这一理论的。麦司卡林是一种类似于 LSD 或裸盖菇素的精神活性化学物质。这些化学物质往往会让使用者感到世界比他们体验前所认知的更加迷人。虽然主观上感觉大脑活动似乎增强了，但实际上致幻剂会降低整个大脑的血流量。因此，便有了“还原阀”理论。

More recently, physicist Donald Hoffman proposed a similar idea called The Interface Theory of Perception after studying reinforcement learning agents and seeing that their learned focused entirely on information needed to reproduce, rather than accurately representing the environment around them.

最近，物理学家唐纳德·霍夫曼（Donald Hoffman）在研究了强化学习智能体后，提出了一个类似的观点，即感知界面理论（The Interface Theory of Perception）。他发现，这些智能体的学习完全集中在繁衍所需的信息上，而不是准确地呈现周围的环境。

I’m not confident that either of these two theories are correct. For instance, if the reduction valve theory is correct, shouldn’t people with brain damage experience LSD-like symptoms? However, even if the theories aren’t quite right, I do think they may be directionally useful in pointing out that our evolved attention might be at-odds with goals we want for ourselves. I think it’s worth thinking concretely about attention as a tool we have access to, and to try to leverage it in positive ways.

我不确定这两个理论是否正确。例如，如果“还原阀”理论是正确的，那么脑损伤患者是否应该产生类似 LSD 的症状？然而，即使这些理论不完全正确，我也认为它们在指出“我们进化的注意力可能与我们自身的目标相悖”这一点上具有方向性的参考价值。我认为，将注意力视为我们所拥有的一种工具，并尝试以积极的方式利用它，是非常值得深思的。

Attention is the best spice

注意力是最好的调味品

A trick to become more deeply engaged with music is to listen to a piece several times, focusing on one instrument at a time. Then listen to all of them together. Most people that I’ve seen try this have been impressed by the qualitative jump in how much they felt they were experiencing the music. Bonus if you keep your eyes closed. For me it’s even easier to appreciate this difference when I compare it to my experience of playing music while in the flow of work, where songs seem to last seconds and I often forget there’s music playing.

深入欣赏音乐的一个技巧是：将一首曲子多听几遍，每次只专注于一种乐器。然后再将所有乐器合在一起听。我见过大多数尝试过这种方法的人，都对他们感受音乐的质量有了质的飞跃而感到震撼。如果闭上眼睛，效果更佳。对我而言，当我将这种体验与工作时播放音乐的经历进行对比时，更容易感受到这种差异——在工作状态下，歌曲似乎转瞬即逝，我甚至经常忘了正在播放音乐。

The same trick works for food, as shown by Remy in Ratatouille. Since trying this at restaurants I’ve been asked twice by waiters if I was a chef, because they’ve noticed that chefs often eat with their eyes closed.

同样的技巧也适用于食物，正如电影《料理鼠王》中雷米（Remy）所展示的那样。自从在餐厅尝试过这种方法后，服务员曾两次问我是否是厨师，因为他们注意到厨师吃饭时经常闭着眼睛。

In fact, I believe this trick may work in many situations. I’ve found that shifting “attention weights” different aspects of a situation can lead to pretty different qualitative experiences. It’s possible that LSD and mescaline do something akin to increasing your total amount of expendable attention.

事实上，我相信这个技巧在许多情况下都适用。我发现，改变注意力的“权重”去关注情况的不同侧面，可以带来截然不同的感官体验。或许 LSD 和麦司卡林的作用类似于增加了你可支配注意力的总量。

Treewalks

树木漫步（Treewalks）

Over the last few months I’ve tried to apply this technique to my daily walk, focusing on one aspect at a time.

在过去的几个月里，我尝试将这种技巧应用到我的日常散步中，每次只专注于一个方面。

My favorite walks are treewalks. I’ve loved trees since I was a kid (and went into the forest daily), and they give me an opportunity to explore my neighborhood in a new way, learning its structure via trees rather than buildings. I try to find at least one new interesting tree each walk, and occasionally post findings to @thetreewalk.

我最喜欢的散步方式是“树木漫步”。我从小就喜欢树（每天都会去森林里），它们让我有机会以一种新的方式探索我的社区，通过树木而不是建筑物来了解它的结构。我尽量在每次散步时至少找到一棵新的有趣的树，并偶尔将发现发布到 @thetreewalk。

Like listening to one instrument at a time, I’ve found that during treewalks my neighborhood feels much greener. The people and cars blend into the background while the trees seem to brighten, and on occasion I’ve even accidentally bumped into people right in front of me because I didn’t notice them. It isn’t always so strong, but it does in a sense feel like you’re diminishing the reduction valve on one aspect of your senses. If total attention is conserved, other senses should weaken in response — and this is what I’ve qualitatively felt to be true.

就像一次只听一种乐器一样，我发现进行“树木漫步”时，我的社区感觉绿意盎然了许多。人和车融入了背景，而树木似乎变得更加明亮。有时我甚至因为没注意到，而意外撞到正前方的人。这种感觉并不总是那么强烈，但在某种意义上，它确实让你感觉像是调低了感官某方面的“还原阀”。如果总注意力是守恒的，那么其他感官应该会相应减弱——而这正是我主观感受到的事实。

We’ve discovered over the past few thousand years that focusing on your breath leads to lasting mostly-positive neurological change. We’ve yet to experiment with focusing on trees, but subjectively my city has started to feel much more alive with plant-life.

过去几千年来，我们发现专注于呼吸会带来持久的、大多是积极的神经学变化。虽然我们还没有尝试过专注于树木，但主观上，我的城市已经开始因为植物的存在而显得更加生机勃勃。

While trees might not be your thing, I would encourage you to think purposefully about your attention. Try experimenting and perhaps you might experience otherwise ordinary situations in new ways.

虽然树木可能不是你的兴趣所在，但我鼓励你有意识地思考你的注意力。尝试进行实验，或许你会以全新的方式体验原本平凡的日常。