Another very interesting talk from Luca Dellanna, this time about the adaptive brain. I think I need to listen to the talk again (this is my first bash, a few days after listening), but essentially we start off by realising that minimising one risk is not necessarily enough – nor even helpful. In fact, minimising one risk could even prompt a more severe risk by inadvertantly bring it into play.
A good example is the ABS braking system. The innovative braking system positively lowered the risk of small accidents, but, due to a false sense of security, actually increased major accidents because people were driving faster and the ABS had no extra benefit at higher speeds. Why were people driving faster? Firstly because they felt safer (an adaption), but typically because they were trying to minimise another risk – such as the risk of losing a job from being late!
There are at any give time, many risks at play (losing employment, shelter, friendship etc). In this case, the risk of losing a job might feel more prescient than the risk of severe injury (due to the false sense of security).
So instead of minimising one individual risk, ideally, we want to minimise overall risk. We can do that by controlling the risks.
Controlling risks and the adaptive brain
The physical body can adapt to stressors by becoming stronger (or more flexible) as required to become antifragile. But what does a system like the brain do? Where would the stressor / harm come from to cause this adaption? And how can the brain react accordingly? The brain itself cannot become stronger in the same way a muscle can. Instead the brain can only adapt the outcomes of the system: the behaviours.
The behaviour is the adaption – and the brain reacts according to the neurochemicals that are released in response to events (affecting behaviour).
In a risk trade-off, the risk which has a greater affect from the neurochemicals will be the more prescient.
This explains why – if we go back to our example of the eager driver – the risk of losing a job is actually more influential. Thus the adaption is based on what feels like the greater risk.
So any (antifragile) behavioural change requires the release of neurochemicals to what feels like survival (particularly how it would’ve felt to our ancestors).