1 00:00:00,427 --> 00:00:04,312 Your brain hides ten million bits of reality from you every second. 2 00:00:04,666 --> 00:00:07,152 Let me start with a real experiment. 3 00:00:07,506 --> 00:00:08,586 In 1999, 4 00:00:08,586 --> 00:00:11,471 the Harvard Psychology Department conducted a video test. 5 00:00:11,707 --> 00:00:14,432 A group of students were passing basketballs in a room. 6 00:00:14,627 --> 00:00:18,111 Researchers asked you to count the passes made by the team in white. 7 00:00:18,466 --> 00:00:19,632 Halfway through the video, 8 00:00:19,707 --> 00:00:23,551 a person in a gorilla suit walked right through the frame. 9 00:00:23,586 --> 00:00:24,852 They stopped in the middle, 10 00:00:25,106 --> 00:00:26,711 thumped their chest at the camera, 11 00:00:26,746 --> 00:00:28,472 stayed for nine full seconds, 12 00:00:28,547 --> 00:00:30,512 and then slowly walked out. 13 00:00:30,827 --> 00:00:31,652 After the video ended, 14 00:00:31,907 --> 00:00:33,265 researchers asked the audience, 15 00:00:33,267 --> 00:00:34,491 "Did you see the gorilla?" 16 00:00:34,947 --> 00:00:36,811 Nearly half of them earnestly replied, 17 00:00:37,146 --> 00:00:37,665 "No." 18 00:00:37,667 --> 00:00:38,712 "There was no gorilla." 19 00:00:38,826 --> 00:00:41,072 When researchers played the video back, 20 00:00:41,106 --> 00:00:42,706 those people were stunned. 21 00:00:42,707 --> 00:00:45,572 In the same video, they saw that massive gorilla 22 00:00:45,746 --> 00:00:47,951 thumping its chest right at them. 23 00:00:48,146 --> 00:00:49,991 They truly hadn't seen it before. 24 00:00:50,226 --> 00:00:50,531 Hello, 25 00:00:50,906 --> 00:00:51,411 everyone. 26 00:00:51,826 --> 00:00:52,871 I'm Wang Lijie. 27 00:00:53,267 --> 00:00:55,937 Today, we'll unpack a chilling topic. 28 00:00:55,947 --> 00:00:58,712 You think you're perceiving reality, 29 00:00:58,906 --> 00:01:01,692 but you're actually reading an internal briefing written by your brain, 30 00:01:01,987 --> 00:01:04,111 one that is heavily redacted. 31 00:01:04,507 --> 00:01:09,272 This briefing deletes over ten million bits of data every second. 32 00:01:09,427 --> 00:01:11,111 That's about one megabyte, 33 00:01:11,307 --> 00:01:16,432 roughly the size of a photo or half an MP3 song. 34 00:01:16,546 --> 00:01:20,712 It then presents less than fifty bits to you, 35 00:01:20,826 --> 00:01:21,331 telling you, 36 00:01:21,546 --> 00:01:22,371 "This is the truth." 37 00:01:22,746 --> 00:01:24,031 "This is the world." 38 00:01:24,346 --> 00:01:26,111 Let's look at the hard data first. 39 00:01:26,346 --> 00:01:29,992 Neuroscience and information theory have already calculated this. 40 00:01:30,227 --> 00:01:31,871 All your senses— 41 00:01:31,947 --> 00:01:35,512 eyes, ears, skin, nose, and tongue— 42 00:01:35,546 --> 00:01:38,585 send a raw stream of information to your brain every second 43 00:01:38,587 --> 00:01:40,792 of about eleven million bits. 44 00:01:41,106 --> 00:01:42,626 This isn't a guess. 45 00:01:42,626 --> 00:01:45,371 It's calculated from the nerve impulses fired by the retina, 46 00:01:45,746 --> 00:01:48,251 the vibration frequencies of tens of thousands of cilia in the cochlea, 47 00:01:48,587 --> 00:01:53,105 and the thousands of touch receptors in every square inch of skin. 48 00:01:53,106 --> 00:01:54,671 It's the sum of all these parts. 49 00:01:54,986 --> 00:01:56,346 Of that, the eyes alone 50 00:01:56,346 --> 00:01:58,506 send ten million bits per second. 51 00:01:58,507 --> 00:01:59,792 They are the primary source. 52 00:02:00,507 --> 00:02:00,891 However, 53 00:02:01,227 --> 00:02:02,186 your consciousness— 54 00:02:02,186 --> 00:02:04,371 the part you feel, reflect on, 55 00:02:04,626 --> 00:02:06,751 and can describe with language— 56 00:02:06,826 --> 00:02:08,586 can only process 57 00:02:08,586 --> 00:02:09,951 a maximum of fifty bits per second. 58 00:02:10,387 --> 00:02:12,831 A Caltech study from recent years 59 00:02:12,986 --> 00:02:15,752 even estimated this number to be as low as ten bits. 60 00:02:16,146 --> 00:02:17,512 Think about that ratio. 61 00:02:17,706 --> 00:02:19,671 From eleven million down to fifty— 62 00:02:19,787 --> 00:02:22,491 it means your brain performs a massive delete operation 63 00:02:22,546 --> 00:02:24,312 every single second. 64 00:02:24,507 --> 00:02:27,391 Over 99.999% of information is deleted. 65 00:02:27,826 --> 00:02:29,705 The remaining fraction of a percent 66 00:02:29,706 --> 00:02:32,352 is what you call "seeing the world." 67 00:02:32,826 --> 00:02:34,211 Where did the rest go? 68 00:02:34,706 --> 00:02:35,632 Nowhere. 69 00:02:35,787 --> 00:02:37,906 It was imaged by your eyes, 70 00:02:37,907 --> 00:02:39,586 it vibrated on your eardrums, 71 00:02:39,586 --> 00:02:41,472 it brushed against your skin, 72 00:02:41,507 --> 00:02:43,792 but your brain hit the delete key. 73 00:02:43,826 --> 00:02:45,632 It never entered your consciousness. 74 00:02:45,826 --> 00:02:48,825 You have never seen the world in its entirety, 75 00:02:48,826 --> 00:02:50,231 not even for a single second. 76 00:02:50,706 --> 00:02:51,972 At this point, you might think, 77 00:02:52,347 --> 00:02:53,412 "Isn't this a flaw?" 78 00:02:53,907 --> 00:02:55,532 "Isn't this just a lack of brain bandwidth?" 79 00:02:56,067 --> 00:02:56,611 Let me tell you, 80 00:02:56,947 --> 00:02:57,771 it's not a flaw. 81 00:02:58,106 --> 00:02:59,111 It's a design. 82 00:02:59,227 --> 00:03:02,032 It's the optimal solution filtered through millions of years of evolution. 83 00:03:02,467 --> 00:03:05,312 Imagine you're a primitive human tens of thousands of years ago, 84 00:03:05,387 --> 00:03:07,431 squatting by bushes picking wild fruit. 85 00:03:07,627 --> 00:03:10,096 Over a hundred pieces of information flood your field of vision simultaneously: 86 00:03:10,106 --> 00:03:13,852 distant clouds, nearby insects, the sound of wind rustling leaves, 87 00:03:14,026 --> 00:03:16,171 the humidity of the soil, your own breathing rhythm, 88 00:03:16,426 --> 00:03:19,831 the rumbling of your stomach, the path of an ant to your left. 89 00:03:20,266 --> 00:03:24,385 If your brain honestly presented all hundred-plus pieces of information to you 90 00:03:24,387 --> 00:03:26,425 and let you slowly decide which was most important, 91 00:03:26,426 --> 00:03:27,665 then within three seconds, 92 00:03:27,667 --> 00:03:30,991 the saber-toothed tiger hiding in the bushes to your right would have pounced on you. 93 00:03:31,227 --> 00:03:32,705 The ancestors who survived 94 00:03:32,706 --> 00:03:36,192 were those whose brains deleted information quickly and ruthlessly. 95 00:03:36,627 --> 00:03:37,545 After the deletion, 96 00:03:37,546 --> 00:03:40,312 only one or two critical signals remain in consciousness: 97 00:03:40,546 --> 00:03:43,792 the wind shifted, there's a low growl, that shadow looks wrong. 98 00:03:44,187 --> 00:03:46,105 This extremely blunt deletion ability 99 00:03:46,106 --> 00:03:48,872 was inherited intact by your brain today. 100 00:03:49,106 --> 00:03:50,186 It's not a defect; 101 00:03:50,187 --> 00:03:52,431 it's the fundamental reason you’re alive today. 102 00:03:52,947 --> 00:03:55,972 So how does the brain decide what to delete and what to keep? 103 00:03:56,467 --> 00:03:59,171 This brings us to the most important theoretical framework 104 00:03:59,187 --> 00:04:00,792 in neuroscience over the last twenty years, 105 00:04:00,826 --> 00:04:02,192 called Predictive Coding. 106 00:04:02,385 --> 00:04:03,186 Simply put, 107 00:04:03,187 --> 00:04:06,592 your brain isn't a video recorder passively receiving information; 108 00:04:06,747 --> 00:04:09,032 it's an active generator of predictions. 109 00:04:09,187 --> 00:04:12,425 Every moment, based on all your past experiences, 110 00:04:12,426 --> 00:04:16,906 it predicts what you should see, hear, or feel 111 00:04:16,906 --> 00:04:17,992 in the next second. 112 00:04:18,507 --> 00:04:21,391 When the actual sensory signals arrive, 113 00:04:21,427 --> 00:04:25,932 the brain only cares about one thing: Is there a difference between the signal and my prediction? 114 00:04:26,547 --> 00:04:27,831 The parts with no difference— 115 00:04:27,906 --> 00:04:31,151 which are the vast majority of correctly predicted signals— 116 00:04:31,226 --> 00:04:32,132 are suppressed immediately. 117 00:04:32,507 --> 00:04:33,752 They don't enter your consciousness. 118 00:04:33,987 --> 00:04:35,471 Only the differences— 119 00:04:35,507 --> 00:04:38,391 that handful of mispredicted 'surprises'— 120 00:04:38,427 --> 00:04:40,411 are upgraded into signals sent to you, 121 00:04:40,747 --> 00:04:41,752 allowing you to perceive them. 122 00:04:42,026 --> 00:04:42,651 For example, 123 00:04:42,987 --> 00:04:45,065 the brain is like a seasoned editor. 124 00:04:45,067 --> 00:04:48,432 It already has a draft for tomorrow's newspaper. 125 00:04:48,786 --> 00:04:49,826 Every morning, 126 00:04:49,826 --> 00:04:54,552 reporters send news from every corner of the city to the editorial office. 127 00:04:54,786 --> 00:04:56,391 The editor does only one thing: 128 00:04:56,466 --> 00:04:58,831 compares the live reports with the draft. 129 00:04:58,906 --> 00:05:01,271 Everything that matches goes straight into the shredder. 130 00:05:01,346 --> 00:05:04,192 Only the mismatches make it to tomorrow's front page. 131 00:05:04,706 --> 00:05:06,625 The newspaper you open in the morning 132 00:05:06,627 --> 00:05:09,312 is never a full account of what actually happened in the city; 133 00:05:09,387 --> 00:05:12,752 it's only the handful of surprises the editor found unexpected. 134 00:05:13,146 --> 00:05:15,497 There's a more precise description of this process in the brain: 135 00:05:15,507 --> 00:05:19,531 top-down predictions and bottom-up sensory signals 136 00:05:19,747 --> 00:05:21,672 meet in each layer of the cortex. 137 00:05:21,786 --> 00:05:22,812 Differences are passed up; 138 00:05:23,187 --> 00:05:24,591 predictions are pushed down. 139 00:05:25,266 --> 00:05:26,052 The smaller the difference, 140 00:05:26,346 --> 00:05:27,372 the quieter the consciousness. 141 00:05:27,987 --> 00:05:28,732 The larger the difference, 142 00:05:29,026 --> 00:05:30,072 the louder the consciousness. 143 00:05:30,706 --> 00:05:33,120 This is why you don't notice any details in the hallway 144 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:35,271 of your home after walking through it ten thousand times, 145 00:05:35,307 --> 00:05:39,031 but if there's an extra pair of shoes in the entryway, you notice instantly. 146 00:05:39,146 --> 00:05:41,632 The parts that match the prediction are muted; 147 00:05:41,786 --> 00:05:44,471 the mismatching shoe jumps out at you. 148 00:05:44,666 --> 00:05:46,266 You think you're seeing the world, 149 00:05:46,266 --> 00:05:49,992 but you're actually seeing the error between your prediction and reality. 150 00:05:50,427 --> 00:05:51,252 The world itself 151 00:05:51,666 --> 00:05:53,791 has never been fully seen by you. 152 00:05:54,187 --> 00:05:57,132 This is essentially the continuous process of training and inference 153 00:05:57,266 --> 00:05:59,672 of our carbon-based AI model. 154 00:06:00,187 --> 00:06:01,752 Back to the gorilla experiment: 155 00:06:02,507 --> 00:06:04,651 Why did half the people not see the gorilla? 156 00:06:05,187 --> 00:06:08,112 Because the brain's task was to count passes by people in white shirts. 157 00:06:08,266 --> 00:06:12,312 It launched a prediction: there should be white shirts moving in this frame. 158 00:06:12,547 --> 00:06:16,752 A black, giant, slowly walking object wasn't in the prediction. 159 00:06:16,906 --> 00:06:19,012 Since it was irrelevant to the goal of counting balls, 160 00:06:19,346 --> 00:06:19,992 it was deleted. 161 00:06:20,507 --> 00:06:21,786 It was deleted so thoroughly 162 00:06:21,786 --> 00:06:24,391 that it never even entered conscious awareness. 163 00:06:24,507 --> 00:06:26,992 It's like a file thrown into the recycle bin, 164 00:06:27,067 --> 00:06:29,752 without staying on your desktop for even a second. 165 00:06:30,266 --> 00:06:32,225 The truly frightening thing about this 166 00:06:32,226 --> 00:06:33,386 isn't found in a laboratory, 167 00:06:33,387 --> 00:06:34,432 but out on the streets. 168 00:06:34,666 --> 00:06:36,105 In the 1990s, 169 00:06:36,107 --> 00:06:39,632 there was a famous case in the Boston Police Department. 170 00:06:39,666 --> 00:06:42,232 A young officer was chasing a suspect at night. 171 00:06:42,307 --> 00:06:43,665 During the pursuit, 172 00:06:43,666 --> 00:06:46,112 he ran past a group of people fighting. 173 00:06:46,187 --> 00:06:47,471 Later, video footage proved 174 00:06:47,586 --> 00:06:50,192 that the group was beating a fallen fellow officer. 175 00:06:50,427 --> 00:06:53,151 But the pursuing officer insisted he saw nothing. 176 00:06:53,466 --> 00:06:54,692 He was charged with perjury 177 00:06:55,026 --> 00:06:56,312 and nearly fired. 178 00:06:56,627 --> 00:06:58,711 Later, psychologists did a full reconstruction 179 00:06:58,786 --> 00:07:02,872 proving his brain's prediction was focused on catching the suspect. 180 00:07:03,067 --> 00:07:05,591 All signals outside of that mission path, 181 00:07:05,627 --> 00:07:08,391 even a violent scene less than three meters away, 182 00:07:08,466 --> 00:07:10,951 were completely cleared by his predictive system. 183 00:07:11,387 --> 00:07:13,386 Legally, he was later acquitted 184 00:07:13,387 --> 00:07:16,312 because science proved he truly didn't see it. 185 00:07:16,826 --> 00:07:18,872 But think about what this means. 186 00:07:18,947 --> 00:07:20,185 Whether or not you see something 187 00:07:20,187 --> 00:07:23,432 doesn't depend on whether it happened in front of you, 188 00:07:23,627 --> 00:07:26,665 but on whether your brain's predictive script at that moment 189 00:07:26,666 --> 00:07:28,312 left a space for it. 190 00:07:28,826 --> 00:07:32,305 There is a term in cognitive psychology for this phenomenon: 191 00:07:32,307 --> 00:07:33,951 Inattentional Blindness. 192 00:07:34,346 --> 00:07:37,031 There is also a sister phenomenon called Change Blindness. 193 00:07:37,187 --> 00:07:40,331 Around 2000, Canadian psychologist Ronald Rensink 194 00:07:40,507 --> 00:07:41,889 conducted a very famous experiment. 195 00:07:41,899 --> 00:07:44,232 He showed an image to participants, 196 00:07:44,346 --> 00:07:46,012 flashed a black screen in the middle, 197 00:07:46,266 --> 00:07:47,232 and then switched back. 198 00:07:47,387 --> 00:07:48,706 Between the two images, 199 00:07:48,706 --> 00:07:50,625 he would secretly change a core object— 200 00:07:50,627 --> 00:07:54,826 a cup on the table, a painting, or the color of someone's clothes— 201 00:07:54,826 --> 00:07:56,432 to something completely different. 202 00:07:56,786 --> 00:08:00,471 Most people took dozens of seconds to notice the change. 203 00:08:00,507 --> 00:08:02,632 Some didn't notice it at all. 204 00:08:02,867 --> 00:08:05,872 The most absurd variant of this experiment is the real-life version. 205 00:08:06,146 --> 00:08:09,312 A researcher stops a stranger on the street to ask for directions. 206 00:08:09,547 --> 00:08:10,711 Mid-conversation, 207 00:08:10,747 --> 00:08:14,512 several workers walk between them carrying a large door, 208 00:08:14,547 --> 00:08:15,791 briefly blocking their view. 209 00:08:16,107 --> 00:08:17,312 In that split second, 210 00:08:17,346 --> 00:08:20,192 the person asking for directions is swapped for someone else. 211 00:08:20,307 --> 00:08:24,552 Different height, clothes, hair, voice, and even gender. 212 00:08:24,786 --> 00:08:25,531 The door moves away, 213 00:08:25,747 --> 00:08:26,791 and the conversation continues. 214 00:08:27,226 --> 00:08:28,346 The study recorded that 215 00:08:28,346 --> 00:08:30,920 over half of the participants didn't realize 216 00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:32,432 they were now talking to a different person. 217 00:08:32,826 --> 00:08:35,631 They just kept giving directions to the stranger. 218 00:08:36,067 --> 00:08:38,792 Your vision is not a high-definition camera; 219 00:08:38,907 --> 00:08:40,432 it's more like a painter. 220 00:08:40,547 --> 00:08:44,111 It only paints carefully at the exact point you are staring at; 221 00:08:44,226 --> 00:08:46,792 everything else is filled in by memory and prediction. 222 00:08:47,187 --> 00:08:51,672 The clear area in the center of your vision is only about two degrees— 223 00:08:51,746 --> 00:08:55,312 roughly the size of your thumbnail at arm's length. 224 00:08:55,586 --> 00:08:57,111 Everything else is blurry. 225 00:08:57,466 --> 00:09:00,265 The reason the whole world feels clear 226 00:09:00,267 --> 00:09:03,392 is simply because your eyes jump several times per second, 227 00:09:03,466 --> 00:09:08,312 giving the brain enough material to composite a clear-looking image. 228 00:09:08,626 --> 00:09:09,511 At this point, 229 00:09:09,547 --> 00:09:12,432 everyone listening should feel a bit uneasy. 230 00:09:12,826 --> 00:09:16,912 This reality is far more serious than just 'making a mistake.' 231 00:09:17,307 --> 00:09:17,971 It means that 232 00:09:18,267 --> 00:09:19,865 the objective world you perceive 233 00:09:19,866 --> 00:09:25,025 is a personalized, second-hand report customized by your brain 234 00:09:25,027 --> 00:09:28,032 based on past experiences, biases, habits, and emotions. 235 00:09:28,586 --> 00:09:30,672 Everyone's report is different. 236 00:09:30,986 --> 00:09:32,785 Two people standing in the same room 237 00:09:32,787 --> 00:09:35,072 are not seeing the same world at all. 238 00:09:35,667 --> 00:09:36,831 So here's the question: 239 00:09:37,187 --> 00:09:38,711 How does this filtering mechanism 240 00:09:38,746 --> 00:09:41,932 decide what to delete and what to keep? 241 00:09:42,586 --> 00:09:43,131 The answer is: 242 00:09:43,626 --> 00:09:45,871 The sum of all your past experiences. 243 00:09:46,586 --> 00:09:48,511 From the very first day you were born, 244 00:09:48,626 --> 00:09:50,131 every time you learned this is edible, 245 00:09:50,466 --> 00:09:51,392 that causes pain, 246 00:09:51,626 --> 00:09:53,951 or this expression means Mom is angry, 247 00:09:54,106 --> 00:09:57,912 you were quietly rewriting your brain's thick dictionary of predictions. 248 00:09:58,226 --> 00:10:01,105 In terms of your carbon-based AI model, 249 00:10:01,106 --> 00:10:04,312 these are the parameters of a neural network being constantly retrained. 250 00:10:05,106 --> 00:10:08,211 Where you grew up, the language you speak, the books you read, 251 00:10:08,547 --> 00:10:12,312 who you deal with, the money you've lost, the things that made you proud— 252 00:10:12,626 --> 00:10:13,792 all of this 253 00:10:13,947 --> 00:10:16,912 eventually condenses into a set of deletion rules 254 00:10:17,027 --> 00:10:18,392 etched into your brain. 255 00:10:18,826 --> 00:10:21,666 This set of rules has a particularly terrifying characteristic: 256 00:10:21,667 --> 00:10:23,152 it is self-reinforcing. 257 00:10:23,787 --> 00:10:27,011 Your deletion rules lean toward letting you see only 258 00:10:27,226 --> 00:10:29,351 signals that confirm your existing beliefs, 259 00:10:29,386 --> 00:10:31,471 while quietly deleting contradictory signals. 260 00:10:31,706 --> 00:10:33,672 Psychology calls this confirmation bias. 261 00:10:34,027 --> 00:10:36,591 But it's not actually a psychological preference; 262 00:10:36,667 --> 00:10:39,240 it's a deletion command automatically executed 263 00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:41,711 by predictive coding without your knowledge. 264 00:10:42,267 --> 00:10:45,032 You think you are observing the world objectively, 265 00:10:45,187 --> 00:10:48,251 but you are actually constantly collecting evidence 266 00:10:48,307 --> 00:10:50,751 to prove that what you already believe is right. 267 00:10:51,147 --> 00:10:52,066 After ten years of this, 268 00:10:52,067 --> 00:10:54,711 you become more convinced than ever that what you see is the truth. 269 00:10:55,267 --> 00:10:56,471 So, could this mechanism 270 00:10:56,547 --> 00:10:59,451 be ruining the most important decisions of your life? 271 00:11:00,106 --> 00:11:01,951 I've been in early-stage investing for over twenty years, 272 00:11:02,067 --> 00:11:04,711 and I can tell you a heart-wrenching observation: 273 00:11:04,986 --> 00:11:08,032 People who make big money in investing over the long term 274 00:11:08,106 --> 00:11:09,951 don't do it because they are smarter 275 00:11:09,986 --> 00:11:12,111 or better informed. 276 00:11:12,267 --> 00:11:14,871 It's because their brain's deletion rules 277 00:11:14,907 --> 00:11:16,792 are different from those of the vast majority. 278 00:11:17,267 --> 00:11:19,912 There is a Warren Buffett quote that's been cited ten thousand times: 279 00:11:20,147 --> 00:11:21,905 "Be fearful when others are greedy, 280 00:11:21,907 --> 00:11:23,631 and greedy when others are fearful." 281 00:11:23,947 --> 00:11:25,371 This sounds like pure cliché, 282 00:11:25,706 --> 00:11:26,052 doesn't it? 283 00:11:26,667 --> 00:11:27,772 Everyone knows the logic. 284 00:11:28,226 --> 00:11:31,572 But at the peak of the 2000 dot-com bubble, 285 00:11:32,027 --> 00:11:33,932 on the eve of the 2007 subprime crisis, 286 00:11:34,307 --> 00:11:37,751 or during the months of crypto madness in 2021, 287 00:11:37,947 --> 00:11:40,706 90% of the market was greedy. 288 00:11:40,706 --> 00:11:41,831 They couldn't be fearful. 289 00:11:42,106 --> 00:11:42,892 Why? 290 00:11:43,346 --> 00:11:47,711 Because their brains had already deleted all the danger signals for them. 291 00:11:48,067 --> 00:11:49,511 Think about this mechanism. 292 00:11:49,986 --> 00:11:52,111 When everyone is making money, 293 00:11:52,187 --> 00:11:53,351 you open your phone 294 00:11:53,466 --> 00:11:55,792 and see screenshots of other people's gains. 295 00:11:55,947 --> 00:11:58,552 You hear friends talk about stocks doubling; 296 00:11:58,746 --> 00:12:01,711 you scroll through arguments for why "this time is different." 297 00:12:01,866 --> 00:12:04,826 These signals repeat and are predicted correctly over and over, 298 00:12:04,826 --> 00:12:07,131 so the brain judges: This is the norm. 299 00:12:07,386 --> 00:12:08,432 No need to pay attention. 300 00:12:08,826 --> 00:12:12,371 Meanwhile, record-high P/E ratios, off-the-charts leverage, 301 00:12:12,626 --> 00:12:15,666 and contrary signals that a business model isn't profitable— 302 00:12:15,667 --> 00:12:18,991 because they appear rarely and don't match your experience of profit— 303 00:12:19,067 --> 00:12:22,072 are deleted by the prediction system as noise. 304 00:12:22,626 --> 00:12:23,652 On the day of the crash, 305 00:12:24,027 --> 00:12:26,572 most people say the same thing: "Why was it so sudden?" 306 00:12:27,187 --> 00:12:27,851 It wasn't sudden. 307 00:12:28,226 --> 00:12:29,991 Those signals were always there; 308 00:12:30,067 --> 00:12:31,951 your brain just deleted them for you. 309 00:12:32,547 --> 00:12:34,552 I personally witnessed a friend's story. 310 00:12:34,866 --> 00:12:36,072 In late 2017, 311 00:12:36,106 --> 00:12:39,152 before Bitcoin hit its then-record high of nearly $20,000, 312 00:12:39,187 --> 00:12:40,552 he took a heavy position. 313 00:12:40,746 --> 00:12:43,392 I talked to him almost once a week during that time. 314 00:12:43,506 --> 00:12:45,951 Every time, he showed me articles he'd saved: 315 00:12:46,067 --> 00:12:47,851 An analyst saying it would reach $100,000, 316 00:12:48,226 --> 00:12:51,792 a miner's cost calculation, news of another fund adding to its position. 317 00:12:51,907 --> 00:12:52,371 I asked him, 318 00:12:52,706 --> 00:12:54,292 "Do you read the bearish reports?" 319 00:12:54,947 --> 00:12:55,292 He said, 320 00:12:55,667 --> 00:12:55,851 "I do." 321 00:12:56,226 --> 00:12:57,292 "But they're worthless; 322 00:12:57,506 --> 00:12:58,192 I ignore them." 323 00:12:58,547 --> 00:13:01,591 Later, he gave back almost all his gains in that cycle. 324 00:13:02,027 --> 00:13:03,672 When he reflected on it later, 325 00:13:03,706 --> 00:13:05,471 he said something I'll always remember: 326 00:13:05,667 --> 00:13:08,192 "It wasn't that I didn't read the bearish reports, 327 00:13:08,226 --> 00:13:10,231 it's that after reading them, they didn't sink in." 328 00:13:10,346 --> 00:13:11,331 His eyes saw them, 329 00:13:11,506 --> 00:13:12,511 but his brain didn't register them. 330 00:13:12,706 --> 00:13:13,792 It's not that he was stupid; 331 00:13:13,866 --> 00:13:16,672 it's that his prediction system was filtering out signals for him. 332 00:13:16,866 --> 00:13:20,672 His brain was already occupied by the prediction that it would rise. 333 00:13:20,787 --> 00:13:24,392 All opposing signals were crushed into noise and discarded. 334 00:13:24,787 --> 00:13:27,346 Buffett can be fearful when others are greedy, 335 00:13:27,346 --> 00:13:29,066 not because he is braver than you, 336 00:13:29,067 --> 00:13:33,432 but because he trained a different set of deletion rules over decades. 337 00:13:33,866 --> 00:13:36,491 His brain weights P/E ratios, safety margins, 338 00:13:36,787 --> 00:13:40,511 and discounted cash flows very heavily, 339 00:13:40,626 --> 00:13:44,711 while weighting market sentiment and short-term volatility very low. 340 00:13:45,027 --> 00:13:49,192 When the same market data flows through his optic nerve and yours, 341 00:13:49,226 --> 00:13:51,186 what he sees and what you see 342 00:13:51,187 --> 00:13:52,871 are simply not the same thing. 343 00:13:53,547 --> 00:13:56,192 He didn't see opportunities that others missed; 344 00:13:56,307 --> 00:13:59,312 he just didn't delete the signals that others did. 345 00:13:59,947 --> 00:14:01,331 So the essence of attention 346 00:14:01,667 --> 00:14:03,192 is never about focusing. 347 00:14:03,706 --> 00:14:05,991 The essence of attention is deletion. 348 00:14:06,386 --> 00:14:08,225 Where you direct your attention 349 00:14:08,226 --> 00:14:09,946 is effectively telling your brain: 350 00:14:09,947 --> 00:14:11,572 "Don't delete signals from this channel; 351 00:14:11,947 --> 00:14:12,792 keep them." 352 00:14:13,147 --> 00:14:13,692 As for everything else, 353 00:14:13,986 --> 00:14:14,912 "do as you see fit." 354 00:14:15,267 --> 00:14:16,265 Over time, 355 00:14:16,267 --> 00:14:19,111 you become someone who can only see certain types of info. 356 00:14:19,267 --> 00:14:21,272 And the information you can't see 357 00:14:21,346 --> 00:14:24,032 determines what walls you'll hit in life. 358 00:14:24,386 --> 00:14:28,652 Essentially, the parameters of their carbon-based AI models are different. 359 00:14:29,187 --> 00:14:29,731 In plain terms, 360 00:14:30,027 --> 00:14:32,152 their cognitive models are different. 361 00:14:32,547 --> 00:14:35,011 This happens quietly in investing, in relationships, 362 00:14:35,386 --> 00:14:38,586 in social interactions, and in every judgment you make. 363 00:14:38,586 --> 00:14:40,032 It's happening all the time. 364 00:14:40,346 --> 00:14:43,025 A person who only sees their partner's flaws for years 365 00:14:43,027 --> 00:14:45,192 isn't because the partner truly has no virtues; 366 00:14:45,346 --> 00:14:48,000 it's because the switch in their brain that labels virtues 367 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,991 as irrelevant signals has been on for too long. 368 00:14:51,346 --> 00:14:53,826 A person who feels the world is unfair to them 369 00:14:53,826 --> 00:14:56,032 isn't because the world is actually out to get them; 370 00:14:56,147 --> 00:14:59,145 it's because their prediction system filters kindness into the background 371 00:14:59,147 --> 00:15:01,192 and magnifies hostility into headlines. 372 00:15:01,626 --> 00:15:03,672 You think you're making objective judgments, 373 00:15:03,706 --> 00:15:07,912 but you're actually executing a deletion list written years ago. 374 00:15:08,346 --> 00:15:08,652 So, 375 00:15:08,986 --> 00:15:10,432 here comes the critical question: 376 00:15:10,626 --> 00:15:13,011 If the reality everyone holds is a version customized 377 00:15:13,027 --> 00:15:15,312 by their own prediction system, 378 00:15:15,427 --> 00:15:17,331 does objective truth even exist? 379 00:15:17,746 --> 00:15:19,152 Let me be clear: 380 00:15:19,226 --> 00:15:21,152 I'm not saying reality doesn't exist. 381 00:15:21,547 --> 00:15:22,812 The physical world exists. 382 00:15:23,067 --> 00:15:24,312 Tables are hard, 383 00:15:24,386 --> 00:15:25,451 hot water burns, 384 00:15:25,746 --> 00:15:27,912 and a red light is a red light. 385 00:15:28,149 --> 00:15:28,948 However, 386 00:15:29,027 --> 00:15:33,426 pure, raw reality untouched by a cognitive system 387 00:15:33,427 --> 00:15:35,471 is something you will never experience. 388 00:15:36,187 --> 00:15:37,552 What you experience 389 00:15:37,586 --> 00:15:41,471 is always just the compressed file your brain processed for you. 390 00:15:41,986 --> 00:15:42,912 This fact 391 00:15:42,986 --> 00:15:45,631 was discovered by some people 2,500 years ago. 392 00:15:46,027 --> 00:15:46,892 The line from Buddhist scriptures, 393 00:15:47,147 --> 00:15:48,346 "All that takes form 394 00:15:48,346 --> 00:15:49,172 is move and illusion." 395 00:15:49,547 --> 00:15:51,111 I used to think it was poetry; 396 00:15:51,226 --> 00:15:54,471 now I think it's more like a neuroscience report. 397 00:15:54,626 --> 00:15:56,066 Everything you see 398 00:15:56,067 --> 00:15:57,772 is a product of your brain's predictions, 399 00:15:57,986 --> 00:15:59,351 not the thing itself. 400 00:15:59,986 --> 00:16:00,412 Zhuangzi said, 401 00:16:00,787 --> 00:16:02,745 "You cannot speak of the ocean to a frog in a well," 402 00:16:02,746 --> 00:16:03,912 "for it is limited by its space." 403 00:16:04,027 --> 00:16:06,186 The frog in the well doesn't fail to see because of poor eyesight; 404 00:16:06,187 --> 00:16:09,631 it's because the 'ocean' channel doesn't exist in its prediction system. 405 00:16:10,226 --> 00:16:11,985 The deepest path of spiritual practice— 406 00:16:11,986 --> 00:16:16,231 whether Zen, meditation, or rigorous scientific training— 407 00:16:16,346 --> 00:16:18,231 is likely doing the same thing. 408 00:16:18,506 --> 00:16:21,991 It attempts to pause the brain's automatic deletion rules, 409 00:16:22,067 --> 00:16:24,385 allowing information that was previously suppressed 410 00:16:24,386 --> 00:16:25,792 to surface for the first time. 411 00:16:26,106 --> 00:16:27,865 This isn't about making you see more, 412 00:16:27,866 --> 00:16:29,625 but making you realize for the first time 413 00:16:29,626 --> 00:16:31,371 exactly what it is 414 00:16:31,586 --> 00:16:32,711 that you have been missing all along. 415 00:16:33,307 --> 00:16:35,672 During meditation, you might notice your breath— 416 00:16:35,826 --> 00:16:37,711 the breath that has been with you your entire life, 417 00:16:37,826 --> 00:16:40,211 yet you hadn't truly felt it for a single second. 418 00:16:40,787 --> 00:16:44,711 While writing, you might notice the subtle vibration of the pen on paper, 419 00:16:44,866 --> 00:16:47,231 something you never truly touched before. 420 00:16:47,547 --> 00:16:49,625 These things aren't new; 421 00:16:49,626 --> 00:16:51,346 they have always been there. 422 00:16:51,346 --> 00:16:55,751 They were just suppressed as background noise by your deletion rules. 423 00:16:56,506 --> 00:16:57,532 To use another analogy, 424 00:16:57,866 --> 00:16:58,985 the process of practice 425 00:16:58,986 --> 00:17:03,631 is like closing high-CPU background programs in the brain, 426 00:17:03,706 --> 00:17:04,571 such as greed, anger, and ignorance, 427 00:17:04,906 --> 00:17:06,231 or the ego and self-attachment. 428 00:17:06,346 --> 00:17:08,852 This frees up computing power for real information 429 00:17:08,906 --> 00:17:10,711 to enter your conscious processing, 430 00:17:10,826 --> 00:17:14,592 rendering a world that is richer and closer to reality. 431 00:17:14,625 --> 00:17:15,346 Of course, 432 00:17:15,346 --> 00:17:18,066 turning off all deletion rules is impossible, 433 00:17:18,067 --> 00:17:18,991 nor should you. 434 00:17:19,346 --> 00:17:21,711 Without deletion, you would collapse in three seconds, 435 00:17:21,747 --> 00:17:25,071 as consciousness cannot handle a flood of 11 million bits. 436 00:17:25,467 --> 00:17:27,465 The goal of practice is not to turn it off, 437 00:17:27,467 --> 00:17:29,031 but to make it visible to you. 438 00:17:29,067 --> 00:17:31,271 To see your deletion rules at work, 439 00:17:31,346 --> 00:17:33,346 to see what they are deleting for you, 440 00:17:33,346 --> 00:17:36,271 and to see if what's being deleted truly should be. 441 00:17:36,507 --> 00:17:37,832 I have no final conclusion for you. 442 00:17:37,987 --> 00:17:40,872 In this episode, I just want to present you with a fact: 443 00:17:40,987 --> 00:17:44,071 Your brain performs a censorship every single second. 444 00:17:44,267 --> 00:17:46,872 It deletes 99.999% of input, 445 00:17:46,906 --> 00:17:49,905 and hands you the remaining fraction of a percent, 446 00:17:49,906 --> 00:17:51,632 telling you, "This is the world." 447 00:17:52,547 --> 00:17:55,912 This censorship began the moment you were born 448 00:17:55,946 --> 00:17:57,705 and continues to this day, 449 00:17:57,707 --> 00:17:58,951 never stopping for a moment. 450 00:17:59,186 --> 00:18:00,945 What's interesting is that today, 451 00:18:00,946 --> 00:18:01,892 as you listen to this, 452 00:18:02,106 --> 00:18:03,832 that censorship is still at work. 453 00:18:03,866 --> 00:18:06,852 It is deciding for you which parts of this talk are worth remembering 454 00:18:07,067 --> 00:18:08,311 and which can be discarded. 455 00:18:08,386 --> 00:18:09,905 By the time you turn off this video, 456 00:18:09,906 --> 00:18:11,432 it will have already finished the job. 457 00:18:11,707 --> 00:18:13,071 Finally, I want to ask you: 458 00:18:13,106 --> 00:18:17,071 When was the last time you noticed something 459 00:18:17,227 --> 00:18:17,892 that you had been overlooking for a long time? 460 00:18:18,626 --> 00:18:21,119 Maybe you suddenly realized a family member's 461 00:18:21,119 --> 00:18:23,392 expression has been different for a long time. 462 00:18:23,507 --> 00:18:26,539 Maybe in a review, you found that signs of an investment loss 463 00:18:26,539 --> 00:18:29,112 had actually been there all along. 464 00:18:29,186 --> 00:18:31,531 Or maybe while reading, you suddenly 465 00:18:31,586 --> 00:18:34,711 heard that voice in your head that is always talking. 466 00:18:35,386 --> 00:18:37,546 Share that moment in the comments, 467 00:18:37,547 --> 00:18:39,026 and let's compare 468 00:18:39,027 --> 00:18:42,152 to see just how different everyone's deletion rules are. 469 00:18:42,586 --> 00:18:45,751 The most interesting thing was never what we saw, 470 00:18:45,787 --> 00:18:49,392 but what exactly it is that we have missed our entire lives. 471 00:18:49,626 --> 00:18:50,251 I am Wang Lijie. 472 00:18:50,586 --> 00:18:51,692 See you next time.