We usually see only the things we are looking for - so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
- Eric Hoffer
More like this
The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind.
- Eric Hoffer
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
- Eric Hoffer
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
- Eric Hoffer
This post is part of a Nature Blog Focus on hallucinogenic drugs in medicine and mental health, inspired by a recent Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper, The neurobiology of psyc
There's an electronic analog to this: search for a signal with a tuned resonator. But these can go into pathological self-resonance and produce output for no input. I hypothesize there are equivalent neurological pattern resonance circuits with similar problems.
Then there is this old joke:
Drunk loses his keys in a dark spot of the road. Buddy asks him why is he looking for them under the street light. "Because I can see better there".
Exercise for the reader: can you think of a current real-world example of this behavior?