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The mammalian brain which which we are eight or two, has to accomplish two drastically incompatible capabilities at the same time to keep us alive.

One quality is the ability to focus attention very narrowly on accumulating resources, food, so to pick berries, to find things to build shelter. We have to look

through the whole world around us and focus our attention narrowly on just certain things

that we need to acquire, grasp, take with us so that we can stay warm in the winter, food so that we can eat.

And this kind of attention is very narrowly focused,

and it requires a lot of conscious supervision.

But there's another kind of awareness that we have to be capable of,

which is entirely different.

We need to have a broad vigilance for threats and dangers

and for sources of security. Now that kind of attention is very broad, it's not narrow and fixated.

We have to basically be aware of everything around us,

at least for the bulk of our species history and the bulk of the species from which we

evolved, we had to be able to sustain a sort of global awareness without any preconceptions being able to spot anything

that would either enhance or deplete our survival.

So one kind of attention has to be very narrow,

...