VI.23.2019 - Habits, Algorithms & Dataism
I tried to do a short version of my motivational presentation, ABCs of Wellness, to municipal staff as part of a soft launch to a service delivery review (SDR) that we will be conducting over the next four or five months. It was a bust. I lost track of the narrative that connects the critical datapoints and what came out of my mouth was a convoluted mess. But the audience was kind and invited me to join the them for a lunch that included some of the best BBQ ribs this side of Calgary.
The ABCs is a popular piece that I have been updating over the years to reflect emerging research in evolutionary psychology, neuro-psychology and economics. Since 
Sigmund Freud left the house several decades ago (a great writer but a lousy scientist), my motivational presentation relies on familiar examples about how our habitual thought patterns lead to the way that we behave — what we say and do — and ultimately to the way that we feel. The “A” stands for an antecedent to behaviour or an activating event in our lives that we experience through our five senses. That’s how we perceive “reality.” The “B” is our belief about the stuff that happens in our world while the “C” are the consequences in how we feel about what we see, hear, touch, smell or taste. The kicker is that those habitual thoughts are the product of internal algorithms whose outcomes are as predictable as which leg goes first when you put on your underwear in the morning.
Since I was an “activating event” for the municipal staff, my intention was to establish a neutral zone for how they felt about me so we could establish mutual trust and cooperation for the service delivery review, e.g., the process was not a threat to their jobs. I tried to explain that their reaction to me and the SDR is actually driven by algorithms that have been wired into their brains through genetics and their life experiences to date. Humans have over 37 trillion cells in their bodies and 100+ billion neutrons in our brains. Sapiens brain mass is less than our Neanderthal cousins and, yet, evolution selected our species as the best bet for survival. Charles Darwin put a marker down with his 1859 book, On The Origin of Species, and God (of any faith) didn’t appear to have a role.
The amygdala is the emotional command centre for our actions and one of the reasons that, during the past 70,000 years, we have evolved to the top of the global biomass. Our built-in algorithm that has ensured our dominance also produces the flight or fight response that we all know about. But there are a range of reactions along the fight/flight spectrum based upon our learned experience, education and training. It’s the difference between the reaction of passengers on an airplane that loses an engine and how the pilot perceives the situation. If we can think about what we are thinking about, we can also override our algorithmic amygdala — our emotional reaction — and make decisions or take actions that are not pre-programmed reactions to the stuff we encounter. That change requires a rewiring of the synapses our neural network will oblige but only if we reinforce the new algorithm through behavioural change, consistency and repetition.
In his recent book, Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari — an Israeli historian and philosopher — argues that Dataism is the latest, emerging religion that will lead to the displacement of Sapiens (his previous book) as the dominant species on the planet. Humanity is riding on a bullet train of technology that may very well be heading for a cliff but, definitely, to a destination that we have not charted and far beyond our control. Harari even challenges our perception of reality using a famous experiment by the 2011 Nobel Prize laureate, Daniel Kanheman. In the experiment, Kanhem an provides evidence that humans will accept longer durations of pain in exchange for the smallest reward. In fact, our perception of time is distorted and generally unreliable when compared to the factual record.
But whose reality are we talking about? As of April 2019, there were 7.7 billion people on our planet. Do we have a shared perception of reality? Harari points out the source of research that is cited the most when talking about the human experience is WEIRD — western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic. And a big chunk of that research is based upon scientists using university students in their experiments. Statistically, the subset sample of WEIRD is neither valid nor reliable when making conclusions about how the global population reacts to activating events.
How did I feel about my botched presentation to the municipal staff who were gathered together outside to enjoy a BBQ on the first day of summer — and a perfect, sunny day at that? I’m glad that it was short and I’m appreciative that the staff provided me with the time to test my new material, learn from the experience and make the necessary changes. Most of all, the ribs were amazing.