How what we pay attention to shapes our collective experiences, and the growing importance of autonomous attention, cognitive security, and self-sovereignty.

Part 1: Human attention & cognition

Another way of describing human attention is as an interface that filters and streams information into our cognition, which is the act of processing and absorbing that information, and using it to update our map of the world.

Our attention, cognition, and memory combine together to form a sort of information processing system, that filters, processes and stores information in an adaptive feedback loop, with the result of this process having a huge impact upon our conscious experience.

In other words, what you pay attention to literally changes your mind and shapes your experience, with attention as a sort of filter (or query), and cognition as a sort of processing.

The information that you consume costs you energy to process, and your ability to process it is a finite resource. In the book “Thinking Fast and Slow”, Daniel Kahneman outlines two modes of thought:

1. **"intuitive", automatic, heuristic ("System 1") thinking:
   **low energy and always available, but - except where paired with deep expertise - is often inaccurate and vulnerable to manipulation.

2. **"analytical", effortful, deliberate ("System 2") thinking:
   **high energy and more accurate, but costs an extraordinary amount of energy to do, and so we have a finite capacity for it.

The clincher here is that it's difficult for us to tell which kind of thinking that we are using, and we will unconsciously substitute intuitive thinking for analytical thinking when the latter becomes too hard.

Another way of thinking about this, is that we use analysis and critical reasoning to shape how we think, and intuitive reasoning to automate it. Analysis is a bit like quality control, or error correction, that allows us to make intentional changes to our cognition.

Part 2: Distributed human cognition

Perhaps because of all of this, humans borrow processing models from each other, taking processing developed in other minds and running it in our own. This is what happens when we read a book or share ideas, and it is the mechanism by which memes work.

In short, the way in which we share processing with each other is a feature, not a bug. It may be that this shared capacity for information processing is humanity’s greatest strength, but it may also be our greatest vulnerability.

Lets recap my arguments so far:

1. What we pay attention to runs rent free in our minds and shapes our experience

2. Our default, intuitive thinking and cognition is vulnerable to manipulation

3. Critical reasoning is how we preserve our cognitive security

4. Critical reasoning is effortful and we have a renewable, but finite capacity for it

5. We borrow models of reasoning from each other, which is a feature, not a bug.

Throughout the history of humanity, these dynamics of distributed human cognition have produced clusters of equilibrium in our collective reasoning, more commonly referred to as "culture". These clusters are driven, in-part, by the adaptive instability of the distributed, autonomous information processing performed collectively and adaptively within many human minds.

Part 3: The automation of distributed human cognition

However, distributed human cognition is changing, driven by technology.

We are now entering an era where we have technology tools that can convincingly automate the production of human reasoning. Blunt at first but improving rapidly, these tools allow the mass-production of reasoning, because it no longer required to be performed at great cost, exclusively within a human mind.

What has not substantially changed, however, is the way that our minds process this information. Not only is it now possible to automate the production and distribution of information that manipulates our attention and cognition, but it is possible to do so efficiently enough to overwhelm our limited faculties of critical reasoning; a sort of distributed, cognitive denial of service attack that propagates, human to human, like a computer worm -- a mimetic worm, if you will.

If you put all of this together, our current approach to human information distribution (attention) seems dangerously reckless, akin to allowing anyone we communicate with to automatically run whatever software they like to on the computer where we keep all of our most sensitive data.

Part 4: Self-sovereign technology & cognitive security

Thus we reach the subjects of distributed autonomy, attention self-sovereignty, and cognitive security.

It seems necessary to me that we move towards a world where individuals are able to regain a greater degree of autonomy & control over how their attention is spent, and the information that effects their cognition.

I do not think that we can do this without the support of technology.

If we are to harness humanities greatest strength for our individual & collective benefit, and avoid enslavement by our own machines, then it is vital that we build technology that supports each of us to protect the self-sovereignty of our own minds, our cognitive security, and our individual autonomy.

In practice, I think that this looks like distributed, self-sovereign technologies which put each of us in charge of our own data and algorithms. These should not only help us to self-determine how our attention is spent and what information affects our cognition, but also help us to automate that on our own terms.

This will see us shift away from public broadcast networks that distribute unfiltered information and memetic worms into our attention and consciousness, and overwhelm our collective reasoning. Instead, I believe that we will move towards distributed, self-sovereign networks that help to each preserve our individual autonomy and cognitive integrity.

Part 5: Predictions & what next?

In this new world, I predict that we must reduce our reliance upon the rigid uniformity of large, centralised control structures, which benefit from defensibility and economies of scale, but make us vulnerable to coercion and manipulation.

I predict that we will be driven towards more adaptive, distributed networks, that benefit from momentum and network effects, and rely upon autonomous, individuated, self-sovereign coordination by alignment. This will make each of us more resistant to coercion, and help give each of us greater control over our attention, our cognition, and ultimately, how we experience the world.

If I am right, then we stand upon the precipice before a profound transformation, and what comes next - either way - will be a shift that radically transforms human society and many aspects of how we live.

That may sound scary because it is, but have heart, for there is hope. It will be no small undertaking, but I believe that we have a great opportunity to come together and build a world that will simultaneously be more humane, whilst making us wiser and more resilient as a species.

Regardless of whether you agree with me in that regard, I think that it is undeniable that we face some great challenges, and attention, cognition, autonomy, self-sovereignty, and distributed networks, will all be immensely topical themes.