The Physics of Thought

“Nothing will kill you more than weight of your own thoughts.” -- Anonymous

We all know what we mean by “heavy” thoughts. Thoughts with a lot of “weight.” “Massive” thoughts, even.

“Mass” and “weight” are related — think back to your high school physics. Recall also that mass is closely related to inertia and momentum.

We generally don’t think of thoughts as having actual physical mass, but we can use the metaphor.

Inertia is “the inherent property of a body that makes it oppose any force that would cause a change in its motion.”

Momentum is “a property… of a moving body that the body has by virtue of its mass… and motion and that is equal to the product of the body's mass and velocity.”

If you’ve ever tried to push a stalled car out of an intersection, you’ll remember how it’s very difficult to get it moving, less difficult to keep it moving, and then once again difficult to stop it (without the brakes, that is). The car has a lot of mass, and a lot of momentum even when it’s moving relatively slowly.

On the flip side, imagine a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle. Not much mass, but a lot of speed. It can be accelerated to great speed in an instant, but because of its speed, it, too, has a great deal of momentum and is difficult to stop once it’s moving at speed.

Now, imagine a thought as having a “mass” of sorts. Cognitive Mass.

A complex, weighty thought is like that stalled car. The bullet is like a fresh, brilliant idea.

We can think of a thought as having Cognitive Inertia and Cognitive Momentum.

(heavy, right?)

Cognitive Inertia

Cognitive inertia is the tendency for a particular orientation in how an individual thinks about an issue, belief, or strategy to resist change.

What this means in a practical sense is that we make up our minds easily, and change them laboriously.

It means that we draw sweeping, generalized conclusions and form broad, unspecific opinions based on remarkably little verifiable evidence or direct experience, and, once we get there, we require a preponderance of indisputable evidence, personal experience, and social confirmation to change our minds.

We make up our minds easily, and we change them laboriously.

Cognitive Momentum

Similarly, the notion that an idea, once conceived, is hard to stop is called Cognitive Momentum. If you watch a lot of courtroom dramas on TV, or you’re in sales, you may have heard of a thing called the “Yes Train.” It’s a way of generating repeated autonomic responses.. That’s Cognitive Momentum.

“Mr. Johnson, did you see the defendant entering the building?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“And he was holding a large bag?”

“Yes.”

“And it appeared heavy?”

“Yes.”

“And, moments later, you heard a large explosion?”

“Yes.”

“And you ran away as fast as you could?”

“Yes.”

“So you were convinced the defendant was carrying a bomb?”

“Yes — wait! NO!”

Once we start thinking a certain way, it can be difficult to think in a different way.

By now, most of us are familiar with biases. There are many forms of cognitive bias. One of the better-known kinds of bias is confirmation bias. Cognitive Inertia and Momentum include confirmation bias, but are deeper, broader, and even more pernicious

At the risk of stretching the mass analogy too far, Cognitive Mass draws other thoughts to it, actually changing what we look for in the first place. It can cause us to form opinions and draw conclusions heuristically instead of mindfully. It can lead to prejudice and to systematic, almost self-imposed misinformation. It can lead to active, seemingly purposeful misunderstanding.

All in the name of what we “believe.”

Beliefs have the most mass of any kind of thought. In fact, beliefs are the epitome of not thinking. The strongest beliefs are a form of cognitive black hole, with so much mass that you can’t see inside them, and no thoughts can escape at all.