Mind & Brain (Psychology)

[Pete Jones]

What is deja vu?

[Wile E. Coyote]

In the show "Astrid et Raphaëlle" (also known as "Astrid: Murder in Paris"), Astrid always seems to be twiddling her fingers before solving puzzles, murders. I also noticed that many top chess players often do this, only they constantly twiddle by placing a pawn in their hands and constantly turning it over. Which seems to stimulate the fingers in a similar way.

Ortho describes this as self-soothing behaviour.

Bollox to that, if it results in me becoming a genius, I am trying it.

So far so good.

Post up if you notice my problem solving is improving. Or getting worse......

Why does it work?

[Mick Harper]

The palava over Shedeur Sanders is all about him 'twiddling with the ball' before throwing it.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Dubov is a chess genius. It clearly works. Unless proven otherwise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9h1hRKTTQo

[Mick Harper]

I'm a polymathic genius and have fists of stone. But that may be because I've come out the other side of common-or-garden hand-wringing genius. Unless holding a vape twenty-four hours a day counts.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Wile E. Coyote]

It is well known that leaving a problem and coming back to it with a "fresh pair of eyes" can be a valuable problem solving strategy but "twiddling" appears to be little understood, unless you are a Dubov or an Astrid.

Maybe that's because up to a few months ago I did not twiddle and, even when I started, I was afraid to twiddle in public for fear of ridicule.

These days I do it everywhere. Maybe it improves self-confidence and that in itself improves performance.

[Mick Harper]

What about a mind/brain interface?

Twiddling is on the cusp between deliberative and autonomic. Let's suppose that that engages the brain in some special way that allows the mind to be triggered into action.

In the case of Shedeur Sanders, he is standing in the pocket, holding the ball (orthodox) but twiddling it (Shedeurite), going through his rotation of receivers (brain) but contemplating a different action (running with the ball, dumping it off, waiting for somebody to come free). These too are brain actions--a matter of training and habit--but the twiddling removes his greatest fear, a lineback bursting through into the pocket and sacking him, from interfering, thus giving him time to engage his mind.

Now translate this into the action across the chess board.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I noticed that table tennis players were twiddling, but that is due to deception (there are diffenent rubbers on each side, pimple/non pimple) so you are concealing different spins (that's just devious). Then I started noticing that tennis players are now also twiddling, and that is nothing to do with racket design......A number of tennis stars defo twiddle.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

No, but his opponent is planning to attack him. He is well-versed in the orthodox lines of attack but he is afraid, the enemy being a grandmaster and all, that there may be unorthodox lines to worry about. There usually aren't, and even if there are he is unlikely to spot them, but meanwhile his brain is paralysed looking for them.

Unless it is soothed by twiddling.

[Mick Harper]

Britain's leading intellectual, Mathew Syed, is a former table tennis champeen and has a lot to say about bat twiddling.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Is there an AE type issue, or am I now prostrate in the canyon, still twiddling, waiting to be run over by a train?

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

The vagus nerve is the route (routes, there are two of them, one each side of the neck) by which the brain controls the autonomic functions of the body. In 1988 the boffins discovered it can get out of kilter and stimulating it with electrical implants under the skin led to measurable improvements in mental and physical health.

They are now available for external use--clipped onto the ear lobe, worn round the neck etc--over the internet. Better than a copper bracelet.