What I know about the brain:

The human brain is a complex and remarkable machine that drives our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. At its core, the brain is designed to serve the genetic imperative of survival and reproduction. Every emotion we experience, from fear to love, is ultimately geared towards helping us achieve these primary goals.

The brain learns by a process called reinforcement learning, where it tries different behaviors and receives feedback in the form of positive or negative emotions. Negative emotions, such as fear or pain, are more powerful than positive emotions, such as pleasure or happiness, and are more difficult to forget. This is because negative experiences carry a greater weight in our survival and reproductive success.

However, intelligence gives us the ability to overcome our emotions and act in ways that go against our genetic programming. For example, suicide is a behavior that goes against our natural desire for survival, but it can be the result of complex psychological and social factors.

Our brain generates new ideas through internal dialogue, but most of our ideas are based on previous experiences. We extrapolate from our past experiences to determine whether an idea is good or bad, and we adjust our behavior accordingly.

Our brain constructs a mental model of the world, which we use to test and predict the outcomes of our ideas. The more experience we have in a particular field, the more similar our mental model is to reality in that field, and the better we can predict the success or failure of our ideas.

One way our brain organizes our memories is by associating them with specific places or contexts. When we learn something new, our brain links it to the environment in which we learned it. When we change locations, our brain has to re-adjust and create new associations. This can cause us to momentarily forget what we were just thinking about because our brain is preoccupied with creating new associations with the new environment. This is why we often experience “tip-of-the-tongue” moments when we can’t remember something, but then remember it when we return to the original location where we were thinking about it.