Neuroscience

the default network consists of regions that, in the absence of exteroceptive [externally oriented] attention or narrowly focused mental effort, support self-directed concerns, immersion in one’s inner life (e.g., daydreaming) or imagining the inner life of others (Theory of Mind)

Roshi Joan Halifax tells a story about witnessing a conversation in the early 1970s between Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine, and Gregory Bateson, an anthropologist and systems theorist, about the mind. Bateson asked, “Where is the mind?” Salk pointed to his own head. Bateson chuckled, shook his head, and pointed to the space between... See more

neural pathways we don’t use die off over time. What makes our brains hold on to these pathways — and create more — is not simply repeating the same things we’ve learned over and over again, but continually taking on difficult problems.