Recognizing Patterns of Causality vs Simple Correlation

Ever notice patterns in your life that you then interpret as truth? Here’s an example: let’s say that whenever you’re sick you drink celery juice and listen to classical music to help you sleep, neither of which you normally do. Afterwards, you get well. What happens then is your brain links those things together, because as Judson Brewer, who is an American psychiatrist and neuroscientist, points out, our brains love to link things together. The problem with this is that it’s a statement of true, true and correlated rather than true, true and causation. As human beings, we try so hard to construct meaning and purpose from experience. A noble pursuit especially as artists. However, in doing so, we must constantly remind ourselves that our understanding is always going to be limited. One of the biggest reasons is because we can only ever see something through the lens of our perspective, which leaves out a lot of other perspectives. This is what I (Phil Svitek) explore in this lesson. I show you how to stop making assumptions and to really dig towards the truth. After the episode, I encourage you go ahead and write down two true statements that you’ve observed in your life. If you feel inclined, you can go ahead and try to defend those statements as being causal instead of just correlated. But if you don’t do that, no worries. The point of the exercise is to write down the patterns we notice in our lives and to begin to explore that. What I’d love to see happen is we all respond to each other’s posts and learn together. So go ahead and comment.  TRANSCRIPT: https://philsvitek.com/recognizing-patterns-of-causality-vs-simple-correlation  SELECTED LINKS FROM EPISODE: Judson Brewer Interview on The goop Podcast: https://goop.com/the-goop-podcast/why-we-crave/  Not Twice T-Shirt Campaign: http://nottwice.org  A Very LA Birthday Short Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9SHJaepE0c  FOLLOW THE PODCAST TEAM: Phil’s Instagram: http://instagram.com/philsvitek  Juliet’s Instagram: http://instagram.com/bonjourjuliet  SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/philsvitek  Merchandise: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/phil-svitek---360-creative-coach/ Adorama Affiliate Link: https://www.adorama.com/?utm_source=rflaid914115