Bottleneck: Our human interface with reality: The disturbing and exciting implications of its true nature

Description

Bottleneck reveals startling insights into how we learn at the most fundamental level, challenging many of our assumptions about our ability to directly experience the world around us. It reveals that what we experience now is not a direct experience of reality but is almost all a construct of our imagination: We inhabit an entire universe no bigger than the space between our ears. In any one second, we can only absorb a few bits of new information, so our mind must rely on predictions from our past experiences to create the detail we experience in the present moment. Here is the paradox: Although the world we inhabit and experience through our senses appears incredibly detailed and rich in information, there is no scientific evidence that we are able to absorb more than a tiny trickle of fresh information. This book reveals the evidence and investigates the implications of the narrow constraint on the rate at which we can learn something new - our bottleneck.From this starting point, it scientifically explains why we can only develop a skill by making mistakes, and offers a scientific insight into the very process of prejudice inviting us to peer beyond our cosy moral judgements.Looking to the future, the book explores how our learning bottleneck fundamentally limits humanity's ability to conceive ever greater ideas and considers where we might go from here.This book is aimed at anyone who is interested in the science behind our everyday human experience, and how we learn about the world around us. It takes you on the author's own journey of discovery, revealing insights that will forever change your perspective on the world around you, and your insight into other people.