Focused attention necessarily amputates awareness of other stimuli

Evidence

The great William James understood how important is the ability to ignore, when in 1890, he wrote that attention “is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought” and that it “implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1154 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Let us note first that no matter how absorbed I am in my reading, I do not for all that cease making the world come into being. Better yet, my reading is an act which implies in its very nature the existence of the world as a necessary ground. This certainly does not mean that I have a weaker consciousness of the world but that I am conscious of it as a ground. … To be conscious is always to be conscious of the world, and the world and body are always present to my consciousness although in different ways. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 881 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

This may be the greatest challenge for our attention echology: how can we adapt our way of looking at backgrounds so as to see new aspects in them that had not yet been perceived as aspects. The whole of the work that is concluding here has been directed towards this end: how can we hear the echo chamber that nurtures the voice of the soloist? How can we perceive the resonating vault behind the media buzz? How can I do justice to the joint attention that gives me the confidence I need to speak? In other words, when all of our sensory and academic education has taught us to notice prominent figures, how can we see and hear the – inextricably communal and environmental – ground that supports our existence? How can we communicate with the commons? — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 547 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Distraction enables perception that focused attention forecloses — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 338; Attention’s task is learning to perceive its own background — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 547; Attention necessarily requires ignoring competing stimuli to select one focus — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1154 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Attention necessarily requires ignoring competing stimuli to select one focus #corroborates (0.95) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1154
• Directed attention does not weaken world-consciousness but relegates the world to ground #contradicts (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 881
• Attention’s task is learning to perceive its own background #expands (0.75) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 547