Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less [Hardcover]

Guy Claxton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 29, 1999

An original approach to well-being, cognition, and problem solving that flies in the face of traditional, highly structured behavior and learning. Ours is an accelerated age, and thought has to keep up with the rush. Decisive and businesslike, our customary ways of thinking serve us well when confronted with the expected questions. But when faced with complexity, we become impatient. Our "hare brains" are utterly unprepared for ambiguity, paradox, and "sleeping on it." We usually assume that the "hare brain" will beat out the intuition of the "tortoise mind." However, new research in cognitive science is changing our understanding of thought. It suggests that patience and confusion, rather than rigor and certainty, are the vital precursors to wisdom. In Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind, psychologist Guy Claxton describes the mind's three processing speeds. The first speed is instinctive and faster-than-thought; this mode could be called our "wits." The middle speed is used for logical thought and involves weighing the pros and cons and solving problems; this mode could be called "intellect." The third mode of thinking is the undermind, the slowest, most contemplative-and the most undervalued. According to Claxton, whether we're considering the origin of the universe of marital mishaps, we must learn the patience not to force the issues, the readiness to mull things over, and the humility to allow our unconscious mind to do the thinking. The tortoise cannot fail to win when it has intuition and inspiration on its side.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Even though we all learned that "slow and steady wins the race" back in grade school, most of us tackle problems with the brute force of logic. Cognitive scientist Guy Claxton wrote Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind to show us another way. As he says, "voices of philosophy, poetry and imagery are relatively weak in a world that largely assumes that only science and reason speak with true authority." Yet that very authority suggests that there are many problems better served by slower, more intuitive thinking, rather than the linear, logical process Claxton calls the "d-mind."

Laboratory studies of subliminal perception, problem solving, and creativity point to a cacophony of intelligent voices murmuring just below our conscious levels of awareness yet influencing our behavior in subtle ways we are only just beginning to understand. Claxton argues persuasively that this unconscious intelligence is just what we need to handle complex situations, and that our culture's misplaced emphasis on logic and reason to the exclusion of all else is foolish, and even hypocritical, as most scientists will readily admit to abandoning their left-brains on occasion for bursts of nonlinear, inspired thinking. But his prose is never preachy; in fact, he sounds as warm and wise as the Buddhist monks he has studied with. If you're looking for a new way of thinking about thinking, you'll find it in Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly

In a counterintuitive, often provocative assault on our everyday view of how our minds work, Claxton labels rational, ordinary, purposeful thinking the "d-mode" (deliberation mode or default mode). Modern Western culture, he maintains, overvalues the practical, conscious cogitation of the d-mode, which is diagnostic rather than playful, analytical and impatient instead of intuitive and relaxed. An Oxford-educated psychologist and visiting professor at Bristol University in England, Claxton draws heavily on recent research in cognitive science and studies of the human brain to argue that an "undermind" or intelligent unconscious works quietly below?and in some cases ahead of?conscious apprehension, helping us to register events, recognize patterns, make connections and be creative. A former pupil of Buddhist teachers Sogyal Rinpoche and Thich Nhat Hanh, Claxton uses descriptions of the creative process by Einstein, Mozart, Wordsworth, Ted Hughes, Henry Moore and many others to support his theory of the undermind. He includes deceptively simple puzzles and exercises, as well as anecdotes drawn from daily life, to bolster his thesis that we need to adopt slower, more meditative modes of knowing. While Claxton speaks the language of cognitive science, his ideas resonate with Freud's description of the unconscious, Buddhist concepts of the divine ground of existence and the great Romantic poets' notions of the fount of creativity.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; 1st Ecco ed edition (July 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880016221
• ISBN-13: 978-0880016223
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #193,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How We Really Think, January 14, 2000

By 

Peter Farrell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less (Paperback)

This book is an excellent, clearly-written presentation about how we really think, learn and know. Claxton challenges our cultural assumption that real thinking involves effort, strain, and our verbal self. Claxton shows that we unconsciously register patterns, and the patterns guide our action. I've read enough psychology to agree that most patterns never reach verbal consciousness, but our verbal self is great at "filling in the details" after the fact. For years I've regarded "logical, rational" thought as a comforting myth. I'm a mathematician, so I know a little about logic, and in my opinion it's just hindsight. In my experience as a student and a teacher, I know we use our well-trained intuition to solve a problem, then we look back and say, "My, wasn't that logical?" Well, it wasn't.Claxton's book is filled with psychological studies that prove that we are conscious of very little of our real thought processes. It's inspired me to trust my unconscious to learn its own way, from experience, without letting my conscious mind interfere.

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lafontaine was right all along. You need the turtle., May 30, 2003

By 

Gaetan Lion - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less (Paperback)

The author takes gutsy stands. He considers the "Left brain Right brain" concept obsolete. According to his research, the mind's skill set is a lot more fluid than that. Everything the left brain can do, the right brain can do to, and vice versa.
His theory focuses on two main thinking modes:
1) intellect (d-mode); and
2) intuition (undermind).
He believes that optimal cognition is reached through a balance between these two modes of thinking. One is not better than the other. Thinking modes can be used in effective sequences.
He indicates that many challenging problem solving situations can be tackled through four stages of thinking:
1) Preparation in D-Mode,
2) Incubation in intuitive mode,
3) Illumination in intuitive mode, and
4) Verification in the D-mode.
The above is a good description of the scientific method from a psychological framework. This approach will help you out in both school, and business situations.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep Thoughts with Solid Research and New Ideas, April 13, 2006

By 

Simeon Hein "Planetary Intelligence author" (www.OpeningMinds.info, Boulder, CO, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less (Paperback)

In this wide-ranging, scholarly study, Guy Claxton does a superb job of showing the reader how complex consciousness is, and why, in our awareness, things aren't what they seem to be. You might think from the book's title that this is largely a metaphysical or philosophical discussion. That's hardly the case. Claxton presents numerous results from psychology experiments that show, unequivocally, that we are not primarily rational beings, but rationalizing ones. In other words, we invent reasons to justify doing the things that we do, but these ideas are more likely to be intellectual alibis than the real motivations for our behavior.

You may think that you consciously make moment to moment decisions about your life. But Claxton convincingly shows us that the mysterious "undermind," as he calls it, has more to do with who we are and what we do than our conscious, logical, linear mind. The "d-mode", our deliberate thinking style--the one we perfect in our years of schooling-- is the most commonly accepted model of how our minds work. However, the experimental evidence suggests that d-mode thinking has relatively little to do with how we make most of the decisions in our lives. The d-mode actually comes up with plausible reasons that justify our actions, but it isn't the source of those actions. The conscious mind's job is to focus a lot of attention on a particular problem and maintain a coherent sense of ourselves: but these processes all come after the fact of our inner decision-making. In fact, people often seem happier with their decisions in the long run, if they think less about them from the outset. It is in this sense, that "think less" makes one more intelligent.

Contrary to our training, Claxton shows us that in many situations, our slower mind is much more effective at running our lives than our more efficient fast mind. The undermind is especially good in ambiguous situations, where information is undefined and uncertain. In our fast-paced lives, we often demand instant results based on objective, linear data-production systems. But Claxton argues that we would often be better off to slow down and let the subconscious solve our problems more spontaneously. This idea is not just a values-based belief: it is backed by empirical studies such as subliminal research experiments and small-group studies.

HARE BRAIN, TORTOISE MIND will get you to re-evaluate a lot of assumptions you have about yourself. Who is really in charge of your life? Who are you? These are the sorts of questions that this book evokes and once Claxton gets your attention, he doesn't let go. After presenting the empirical evidence Claxton goes onto to explain their significance in religious thought and social history. But the main point throughout is that we need to respect, cultivate, and develop our intuitive, whole-brain thinking processes. And that wisdom, in the largest sense of the word, is a lot more than bits and bytes that flow through our PDAs and laptop computers. Because what makes for really profound thinking isn't only a profusion of data and information: it is also an awareness of the uncertainty and totality of relationships that sustain life in all its forms.

This book is like a bottle of good wine. It just gets better as you keep reading. Claxton encourages us to follow our intuitions and develop ourselves into complete beings rather than logical, numbed, rational robots. Readers who enjoy this book may also appreciate Tor Norretrander's THE USER ILLUSION and Carl Honore's IN PRAISE OF SLOWNESS.

(Dr. Simeon Hein is the author of OPENING MINDS and PLANETARY INTELLIGENCE and composer of the CDs EARTH DREAMING and OPENING SKIES.)