SciAm Mind - Why Is it Impossible to Stop Thinking, to Render the Mind a Complete Blank?

Anyone who has spent any time trying to meditate knows about the endless babble of the human mind, what has been termed monkey mind in Buddhist circles. It seems impossible to turn off the endless monologue, but it's not - it can be done. In this brief article from Scientific American Mind, Professor of Neurology, Barry Gordon.  

Why Is it Impossible to Stop Thinking, to Render the Mind a Complete Blank?

 

Image: JAMIE CARROLL iStockphoto

Why is it impossible to stop thinking, to render the mind a complete blank?
—John Hendrickson, via email

Barry Gordon, professor of neurology and cognitive science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, replies:

Forgive your mind this minor annoyance because it has worked to save your life—or more accurately, the lives of your ancestors. Most likely you have not needed to worry whether the rustling in the underbrush is a rabbit or a leopard, or had to identify the best escape route on a walk by the lake, or to wonder whether the funny pattern in the grass is a snake or dead branch. Yet these were life-or-death decisions to our ancestors. Optimal moment-to-moment readiness requires a brain that is working constantly, an effort that takes a great deal of energy. (To put this in context, the modern human brain is only 2 percent of our body weight, but it uses 20 percent of our resting energy.) Such an energy-hungry brain, one that is constantly seeking clues, connections and mechanisms, is only possible with a mammalian metabolism tuned to a constant high rate.

Constant thinking is what propelled us from being a favorite food on the savanna—and a species that nearly went extinct—to becoming the most accomplished life-form on this planet.

Read the whole response.