The brain revises, lies, and glosses over to reinforce its existing models and theories.

Fits things into “rules of thumb”, in support of the framework it’s built.rA2 Wants to match well-understood patterns rather than encovering the truth. This is in part necessary to separate noise from details in perception.


  1. Sönke Ahrens, How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking: For Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers (North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2017). (See notes.)