Metacognition snowball effect

[fluffy]

@Hadoblado suggestion had me look into zone of proximal development (ZPD) and after I looked at main videos about it I found this video on metacognition about the original person who came up with the term.

The Definition of Metacognition and John Flavell​

The end of the video gave me the ah-ha moment.

Usually on IQ tests they only look at where a child currently is at and cannot measure the rate of progress they can make by that one data point (this came from a image on google I saw on ZPD). So I thought that what if self regulation as mentioned in the metacognition video and the ZPD rate of growth had something in common. What if the faster a child or adult can learn to self regulate the better they could get at some IQ tests questions?

Piaget said stages exist but I am not sure about his view on self regulation. The faster one developed the better one does on the figure weights task similar to Piaget's balance beams. Tests are normed for age but rate of progress is not and doing good on the tests is more heritable with age. Development somehow stops as an adult and we become worse as adults in fluid intelligence. But what if that could be reversed. Adults do better on these tasks than kids up to a point (the age norming) leveling off. This could be because self regulation does not increase. What if it could increase?

What I am thinking is that it take years, over a decade for advanced meditators to become proficient in creating gamma waves but with neurofeedback I hear that some can do that in less than a year (I don't have a source on it but I remember it from somewhere). Metacognition then as adults could become more fluid by training in some way close to that. I haven't looked into ways to increase metacognition yet but I would assume research has been done and that there are ways to do it depending on the ZPD of the adult or kids self regulation process.

 

[Hadoblado]

You had me nodding along until you start talking about gamma waves. I think you disorient yourself by going to levels of complexity beyond yourself, beyond me, and beyond where the field is at. Deciphering the mechanistic relationship between metacognition and gamma waves beyond vaguely gesturing to a correlation is years beyond us.

IMO the best way to train metacognition is to learn how people learn and how people teach, then treat yourself as both your teacher and your student. By learning about the ZPD you have likely taken another step in a metacognition journey that is lifelong.
No Bruce Banner gamma waves required.

 

[fluffy]

No not gamma rays, gamma brain waves.

Meditation has been shown to increase self regulation and if metacognition is connected to self regulation then meditation should increase metacognition.

if a to b
and if b to c
then a to c

Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditators | Daniel Goleman | Big Think​

These studies have been going on for years and years, National geographic even had shown this since the 1990's in a 2005 magazine cover.

• Google says:
• The Dalai Lama's encouragement Richard Davidson's decades-long collaboration with the Dalai Lama began in the 1990s. The Dalai Lama encouraged Davidson to use modern scientific tools to study the effects of meditation, which jump-started this research.

Neurofeedback I speculate can help make meditation happen faster.

It might just be simpler for me to say that meditation increases emotional intelligence and that links to better metacognition but I am not sure I am wrong about scientists studying it for such a long time would not know something.

There could be research that is advanced we just don't know about because the general public is not into that stuff anymore. I don't know because I don't buy magazines at the store for a long time but I do know computers can do alot more today that 20 years ago and they have the money to spend on the brightest people and equipment at major research centers. QEEG and fNIRS and 7 Tesla (7T) MRI scanners.

 

[Hadoblado]

I'm aware, I was informally bringing your attention to the level of complexity you jumped to.

Yes, scientists study this for years, it's the difficulty of the problem, not the novelty, that matters in this case. Physicists do great work putting together these machines to measure the brain, but the task is harder than we are smart.

I'm not saying there's no relationship, I'm saying we don't really understand enough to make use of it. You are looking at how to increase metacognition. There are far more accessible ways to do this than neurofeedback and a year of meditation. All it takes is insight and a mind open enough to acknowledge bias. You don't have to leap to the most complicated, time-consuming, expensive solution. Neuroscience is far more about empiricism than it is about logic or speculation.

 

[fluffy]

What is a bias exactly?

I just read something about how there is a way to have more equanimity where we have a threshold to what we can become aware of. If a person is not aware of the cognitive processes going on inside themselves then they lack self knowledge and cannot acknowledge bias.

I think I haven't had enough self awareness in the past to understand myself as best I could. I had too much attachment to negative feelings that would not go away. I found that I am better now that I can self monitor what is happening inside me so that I am not overwhelmed as I was before and this did give me more awareness.

I thought is was a good idea to explore that in some way but I guess I still don't know what is too complex for most people to understand and not understand in how I present information. I don't think I knew how my intentions look to others. I wasn't trying to say complicated solutions are the answer. I just had lots of ideas which pop into my head and wasn't supposed to be taken as the main point or as serious as it was. I did not say it was the one and only answer. I wanted to know how cognitive enhancement could happen, I wasn't saying that is how it had to happen. It was a small part of what should be about other things I said but I need to add less to what I say in the future I suppose?

 

[Hadoblado]

Hmmmm.

Maybe it's just communication/misunderstanding.

You describe it as an aha moment and then proceed with "What I'm thinking is", this implies what follows is the conclusion that ties together the rest of your post. i.e. this is your point, not a tangential speculation/exploration, but what you've been building to and what you want people to address.

If I go back to your OP I see the structure thusly:

1) background
2) defining terms (video)
3) 1.1 (Broad development and IQ)
4) 1.2 (Piagetian development mapping onto IQ and self-regulation)
5) 1.3 (Self-regulation, meditation with neural feedback, metacognition, ZPD).

So structurally you're linking and deepening and leading up to something, this seems like a coherent and focused communication similar to an essay. Like I said, I was nodding along. But it sounds like I'm imposing order on your thoughts that isn't there?

 

[fluffy]

What I am thinking is that it take years, over a decade for advanced meditators to become proficient in creating gamma waves but with neurofeedback I hear that some can do that in less than a year (I don't have a source on it but I remember it from somewhere). Metacognition then as adults could become more fluid by training in some way close to that. I haven't looked into ways to increase metacognition yet but I would assume research has been done and that there are ways to do it depending on the ZPD of the adult or kids self regulation process.

However metacognition can be increased then it can be that way is what I meant.

You (@Hadoblado ) said that you got lost at where I mentioned gamma waves so I cannot tell if I was at fault to mention them.

Its a possibility that self regulation gets increased by other ways than mediation.

I don't know what those could be as I don't know the studies done, if they were done?

School training with ZPD or something else, anything is on the table.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

What I am thinking is that it take years, over a decade for advanced meditators to become proficient in creating gamma waves but with neurofeedback I hear that some can do that in less than a year (I don't have a source on it but I remember it from somewhere). Metacognition then as adults could become more fluid by training in some way close to that. I haven't looked into ways to increase metacognition yet but I would assume research has been done and that there are ways to do it depending on the ZPD of the adult or kids self regulation process.

However metacognition can be increased then it can be that way is what I meant.

You (@Hadoblado ) said that you got lost at where I mentioned gamma waves so I cannot tell if I was at fault to mention them.

Its a possibility that self regulation gets increased by other ways than mediation.

I don't know what those could be as I don't know the studies done, if they were done?

School training with ZPD or something else, anything is on the table.

Lots of internal locus of control think going on.

Personally it's overrated.

Embracing that you are part of something much larger than you, in the world and in your own mind, I think is key in ideal to having a healthy mindset however painful realizing it might initially be.

You are but a canoe in a tsunami of experience and events, so I don't really see the appeal in trying to acquire something like intelligence, which always contextual and subject to dedicating hours to whatever practice or study and so on.

We are so small as individuals and picking a narrow field of things to persue is I think appartive to feel like you have direction in life.

Spend hours transforming, and generating information repeatedly and you'll "appear" smart. Whatever that means.

But that's just your brain adapting, it might as well be the an arrangement of rocks that is slightly different to another arrangement of rocks.

 

[Hadoblado]

That's just an expression of metacognition bro.

You can't escape it.

 

[fluffy]

Lots of internal locus of control think going on.

Personally it's overrated.

Embracing that you are part of something much larger than you, in the world and in your own mind, I think is key in ideal to having a healthy mindset however painful realizing it might initially be.

Is that what happened to you?

Something about being in control then letting something bigger take over?

You are but a canoe in a tsunami of experience and events, so I don't really see the appeal in trying to acquire something like intelligence, which always contextual and subject to dedicating hours to whatever practice or study and so on.

We are so small as individuals and picking a narrow field of things to persue is I think appartive to feel like you have direction in life.

The growth mindset.

This does not mean though that everyone has the same cognitive ability.

I tried to do a practice SAT test, I am just not able to do it because I lack the verbal working memory to complete all the items on time. Context is not going to give me genius level verbal working memory anytime soon. So intelligence is on some level higher or lower in certain ways I would say is objective in the people who have it.

View attachment 8998

Spend hours transforming, and generating information repeatedly and you'll "appear" smart. Whatever that means.

But that's just your brain adapting, it might as well be the an arrangement of rocks that is slightly different to another arrangement of rocks.

Comparing ourselves to others is what caused us to see that differences exist in what we can do. Just working hard at something has limits to the progress that can be made. It might be a biological limitation. If I was able to do certain things easy I would look for harder things to do. But most things can be seen as hard if enough complexity is there in the accommodating system.

Self control is just something we have that would be able to lesson or increase the burden of the mismatch between environment and what we can do. That is to say to be able to regulate oneself emotionally can let us overcome certain problems by having a less reactive and detached approach. The body can be trained to do things on its own that would be too extraordinary for people to think possible. The mind with some kind of experience can increase perceptions and maybe expand what is possible with itself as well.

As an analogy: people can be trained to go from stick figures to the Monalisa in a matter of months. If they go to certain schools. Or if you are the karate kid you can learn how to do backflips because of Mr. Miyagi or Jackie chan.

Self-awareness is a hard thing to learn by yourself.

What my point is I guess is that you need a threshold of emotional regulation to become an autodidact. Yet once that threshold is reached it makes things easier to learn anything. Its not going to make you superhuman at everything but it will help get you where you need to be regarding something about having good life satisfaction and all that.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Is that what happened to you?

Something about being in control then letting something bigger take over?

It's something I've accepted. We are like an insect on top of a much larger creature that was here long before us and will be long after us.

It is something I intentionally try to think about.

The growth mindset.

This does not mean though that everyone has the same cognitive ability.

I tried to do a practice SAT test, I am just not able to do it because I lack the verbal working memory to complete all the items on time. Context is not going to give me genius level verbal working memory anytime soon. So intelligence is on some level higher or lower in certain ways I would say is objective in the people who have it.

Context determines the quality of a decision.

If you go outside to plow snow on a sunny beach while otherwise in a snowy tundra, what would be an intelligent decision is absurd.

A kid of 15 years old building a nuclear reactor in his back yard says something about his intelligence I suppose. But its a bad decision if you ask me.

You want to talk about cognitive ability, that is brain numbing subject to contemplate when you try to take into account all the factors that are involved.

Nevermind our philosophical assumption or theories.



Sapolsky is such an interesting person to learn from. Really an expert in his field.

 

[fluffy]

Context determines the quality of a decision.

If you go outside to plow snow on a sunny beach while otherwise in a snowy tundra, what would be an intelligent decision is absurd.

A kid of 15 years old building a nuclear reactor in his back yard says something about his intelligence I suppose. But its a bad decision if you ask me.

You want to talk about cognitive ability, that is brain numbing subject to contemplate when you try to take into account all the factors that are involved.

Nevermind our philosophical assumption or theories.



Sapolsky is such an interesting person to learn from. Really an expert in his field.

Sometimes I make wrong decisions but there is a reason for that.

1) I never had the right experience or all the information required
2) I was unable to think of the consequences by connecting the dots at the time
3) the problem was too big to solve given my metal capacity

The first one is where the context comes from but the second is putting it together so if my ability to put it together is weak then I have a poor decision process. The third one is intelligence because some things are bigger putting them together or not.

All three should work together.

Making decisions should come from having control of our internal processes because if we have high metacognition we see what would be good or bad decisions beforehand. That could be why adults can be able to take care of themselves because at a bare minimum they need to understand reality good enough to have kids that reach adulthood themselves.

Those internal processes then become super important to the development of higher cognitive ability. I was thinking about internal and external attention. If I can make myself more aware of things I'd be able to put more together. But I'd need to be aware of myself. Often I am stuck in a narrow band of perception. I cannot sustain focused attention to get things done. The reason is that it is uncomfortable for me sometimes having blank spots in my mind where I don't know what to do. So I get distracted by smaller dopamine hits of internet addictions. I have a limited capacity to get things done. I have too many side projects left unfinished. It could be the willpower to deal with frustration is low. So I am working on increasing that willpower.