Beautiful to hear you both speaking to each other.
This episode lands well on the mechanics of attention, but it stays on the surface of what attention is.
The conversation frames distraction as structural and trainable, which is useful, but it never touches the deeper layer: the fact that attention sits on top of systems we don’t fully understand, from subjective experience to developmental neurobiology.
I would also love a richer discussion acknowledging Chalmers’ hard problem, the gap between neural activity and felt experience, and how any attempt to “reclaim attention” depends on whether we’re talking about functional control or the phenomenology of awareness. It also would have benefited from Dennett’s “competence without comprehension,” because so much of our attentional life is driven by sub-personal processes that know how to act long before we consciously understand anything. That’s the real battleground with technology: it targets the layers beneath comprehension.
And then there’s emergence. Human attention doesn’t appear fully formed; it develops through scaffolding, co-regulation, and the slow construction of executive function.
Understanding when and how attention becomes something we can actually reclaim would have grounded the conversation in neuroscience and human development.
The episode is a great listen, but it’s missing the philosophical and developmental architecture that makes attention more than a set of habits.
After reading Anil Seth’s book and Anaka Harris, yes I agree. More direct comparison and discussion about awareness and how it is measured. Sleeping, brain diseases, a newborn, someone in altered states or comatose…this where the line is blurred. And of course separation of the hard problem of consciousness.
I appreciate the reminder about presence. I’ve also found that not all wandering is distraction — sometimes it’s where the most original ideas show up. Discernment feels like the key.
I'm such a phone addict that I actually took up meditation purely in order to stop picking the damn thing up all the time. You and Joseph were a huge part in helping me understand the practice, and I'll be forever grateful.
(I should say, I'm a TV producer working in the attention economy, so definitely speaking as part of the problem.)
You hear so much about using friction, elastic bands and the like, to cut down phone use. I'd love to hear more about mindfulness meditation as an anti-phone tactic.
I'm following a training regime on my commute for the last few weeks and it's been transformative. From my own experience, only by teaching the mind to hear the Mara-like voice in our head inviting us to constantly and pointlessly refresh apps can we deal with our otherwise entirely automatic impulse to pick up the phone.
And only a training to value the present can undo the damage these things do in shattering our focus.
Beautiful to hear you both speaking to each other.
This episode lands well on the mechanics of attention, but it stays on the surface of what attention is.
The conversation frames distraction as structural and trainable, which is useful, but it never touches the deeper layer: the fact that attention sits on top of systems we don’t fully understand, from subjective experience to developmental neurobiology.
I would also love a richer discussion acknowledging Chalmers’ hard problem, the gap between neural activity and felt experience, and how any attempt to “reclaim attention” depends on whether we’re talking about functional control or the phenomenology of awareness. It also would have benefited from Dennett’s “competence without comprehension,” because so much of our attentional life is driven by sub-personal processes that know how to act long before we consciously understand anything. That’s the real battleground with technology: it targets the layers beneath comprehension.
And then there’s emergence. Human attention doesn’t appear fully formed; it develops through scaffolding, co-regulation, and the slow construction of executive function.
Understanding when and how attention becomes something we can actually reclaim would have grounded the conversation in neuroscience and human development.
The episode is a great listen, but it’s missing the philosophical and developmental architecture that makes attention more than a set of habits.
Maybe a part 2, please?
You guys are great, thank you!
—Johan
After reading Anil Seth’s book and Anaka Harris, yes I agree. More direct comparison and discussion about awareness and how it is measured. Sleeping, brain diseases, a newborn, someone in altered states or comatose…this where the line is blurred. And of course separation of the hard problem of consciousness.
More!
This is such an impressive line-up!
I appreciate the reminder about presence. I’ve also found that not all wandering is distraction — sometimes it’s where the most original ideas show up. Discernment feels like the key.
Couldn't agree more with the sentiment here.
I'm such a phone addict that I actually took up meditation purely in order to stop picking the damn thing up all the time. You and Joseph were a huge part in helping me understand the practice, and I'll be forever grateful.
(I should say, I'm a TV producer working in the attention economy, so definitely speaking as part of the problem.)
You hear so much about using friction, elastic bands and the like, to cut down phone use. I'd love to hear more about mindfulness meditation as an anti-phone tactic.
I'm following a training regime on my commute for the last few weeks and it's been transformative. From my own experience, only by teaching the mind to hear the Mara-like voice in our head inviting us to constantly and pointlessly refresh apps can we deal with our otherwise entirely automatic impulse to pick up the phone.
And only a training to value the present can undo the damage these things do in shattering our focus.