Anil Rajput
Some books just happen to me, this is one of those. It found me. I really liked the framing – cognitive fitness. An analogy based on physical fitness. If I had to sum it all up, I’d say this is a scientific (with a little bit of philosophy) take on mindfulness. Though I am not sure that word is even used once, in the book. In the author’s words, “cognitive fitness is the leadership that holds perceptions, thoughts, emotions, actions, motivations, imagination, and illusory intelligence in such a way that suffering is minimal and happiness is possible.“
Indeed, as with the Buddha, Anil Rajput is also of the opinion that pain is inevitable. As the second part of the title states, the idea is to alleviate it, and even use it to our advantage. It is interesting that an obsessive desire for pleasure, or an inability to endure pain, are both conducive to pain, not pleasure. Also, the absence of pain is not enough for happiness.
The book has seven chapters which goes into several related areas. In the first chapter, the author points out the purpose of pain and pleasure – both pain and pleasure are feedback mechanisms, and they aren’t really our end goals, though we don’t always perceive it that way. In general pain motivates you to think, act, and solve a problem, while pleasure tells you that you’re on the right path. This feedback can be flawed too, for instance, the instant pleasure of drug abuse actually creates long term pain! This chapter also brings up the complexity of individual, social, and natural aspects of life, as well as nihilism and its inherent contradiction.
The second chapter shifts focus to our bounded brain and its component parts, pitched against the world of infinite information it can never completely grasp. And thus, the inevitability of illusions and ignorance, including ones in perception, cognition, and emotion that emerge from the imperfect information processing of the neural circuits. We fill in details where we don’t have any, and our ignorance also makes us overconfident. He points out how animals never commit suicide. Our evolution beyond survival seems to have given us this unique concept.
The third chapter is about the psychology of pain and pleasure, the deception of our own emotions, and how pain can be actually used to get clarity. This chapter has a very interesting portion on the life cycle of pleasure – desire (wanting) that might lead to happiness (if we end up liking what we desired – we need not), and how that happiness decreases over time due to habituation and might even disappear, which then leads to the next desire. The hedonistic treadmill. “Desire is wanting, not liking, and that makes all the difference.“
Psychological pain is an indication that our subjective map of the world needs a revision. The good news is that the brain does have a powerful cognitive immune system, which reduces the effects of suffering – self-affirmation, self-deception, positive illusions, dissonance reduction and defence mechanisms. But it is interesting that the brain focuses more on negatives than positives -because it was essential to save us in the early days of humanity, as compared to say, the pleasure of say, a better mate. We could always have the latter later!
The important point raised in this chapter is how the ability to endure pain is a requirement to minimise it! Think of it exactly like the muscle you exercise, so as to strengthen it. Except, you wouldn’t go looking for pain, but enduring it and learning from it when it appears is important. The key antidotes to pain are hope, equanimity and courage, which take us away from the fear and panic that lies behind the pain. When we think coolly, we realise that from a survival perspective, the latter is needed only in a physical fight or flight. The rest is emotional, and we can learn to manage it.
Chapter 4 is about how the brain can be its own worst enemy, and we need to be able to control it to some extent to flourish. This chapter has an interesting portion on conditioning – classic, which is a response to a stimulus (a soldier who returns from war has anxiety when hearing a helicopter even within a safe city) and operant, which is learned by punishment and reward (kid being rewarded for good behaviour). We also learn from observation, and it can be implicit or explicit.
This chapter also points out how the sub-conscious brain is built for speed and is therefore also prone to wrong judgment. Interesting that our memory can be implicit or explicit. The former is the collection of procedural memory (cognitive and motor skills) and priming (perception enhanced by stimulus). Explicit memory is divided into episodic memory (your experiences) and semantic memory (your knowledge). We make our maps of the world early – a subjective, simple and limited map of the objective, complex and infinite universe. A map critical to make sense of the world. But many times, we find it difficult to change in the face of a challenge, and facts supporting it.
The next chapter is about the psychology of physical action, the efficiency of cognitive action, and the importance of a subjective purpose and meaning, which motivates us to face the chaos and uncertainties. This also prevents our emotions being hijacked by fear and panic. In this context, it is interesting that rewards are of two kinds – consummatory (moment) and incentive (better future). It is also interesting that when mechanical skills are required, thinking about the reward betters performance, whereas when cognitive skills are required, that thinking might derail us. This is especially so because in many cases, the rewards are not completely in our hands. Only the effort is.
Chapter 6 is about the importance of focus and how meditation can help. And the final chapter is about how knowledge acquisition on a regular basis is the first step to taking some amount of control over all this.
As he rightly points out, “we live in a socioeconomic world with a biological body, among other known and unknown things, and problem in our life can be because of multiple factors in multiple domains, many of which may or may not be in our direct or indirect control.” And that is why cognitive fitness is important.
I really liked ‘the book Cognitive Fitness for the material and perspectives it contains. However, I do think, it could have done with a better editor. That doesn’t take away from the content though. It’s in my long list of 2023’s favourite reads.
