PDF Summary:Deviate, by Beau Lotto

How do you know the world you see around you is real? According to neuroscientist and entrepreneur Beau Lotto, it’s not. In Deviate, Lotto explains that our brains don’t simply record the world as it is, but actively construct reality based on past experiences and evolutionary adaptations. Through visual experiments and neuroscientific research, he demonstrates that what we perceive as “reality” is actually a personal, subjective construction. His work reveals how our perceptions, experiences, and assumptions shape everything from our daily decisions to our most profound beliefs, and how we can use this knowledge to change the way we think.

In our guide, we’ll explain how our perceptual abilities don’t give us access to objective reality, as well as the evolutionary reasons why this is true. Then, we’ll outline how you can use this understanding of your brain’s abilities to change the way you think and foster innovation. Our commentary will add research and tips to supplement Lotto’s ideas.

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We develop these assumptions in infancy in response to our caregivers, and as we age we generalize them to apply to our other relationships. However, when a loved one dies, we can no longer locate them. This mismatch between the brain’s established pattern of assumptions and the reality we experience forces us to update our assumptions to account for the missing loved one, which is a difficult process that results in grief.

Why Not Seeing Reality Can Be Beneficial

Lotto describes our inability to see objective reality as a strength rather than a deficiency. This is because, while it may prevent us from seeing things that exist, our disconnect from objective reality lets us see things that don’t exist. In other words, this perceptual malleability provides us with a unique ability that other animals don’t have: The power to imagine. Lotto explains that we can mentally simulate false realities, allowing us to explore ideas that we could otherwise never conceive of. This power also lets us hold more than one idea of reality in our minds simultaneously.

(Shortform note: Research suggests that our imagination doesn’t just open us up to new ideas: It can literally change how we perceive the world. A Swedish study found that imagining a certain sound can change what we see or change the words we perceive another person saying, and imagining a certain image can change what we hear. This has implications for the study of conditions like schizophrenia which impair a person’s ability to differentiate between imagination and reality. In the context of Lotto’s argument, this suggests that imagination is strong enough to completely override strict sensory inputs.)

Space of Possibility

As mentioned previously, our assumptions form the basis of what we’re capable of thinking and doing, which Lotto refers to as our “space of possibility.” All our new ideas come from this space, which means new ideas are determined by our past experiences, perceptions, and interpretations. While we often think of new ideas as great leaps of logic, they actually consist of small steps that take place within this space. Everyone has a unique space of possibility, which is why one person might come up with an idea that’s perfectly logical to them but seems unfathomable to another—the two are operating from different foundations of understanding, so the steps one person takes to get to a great idea are invisible to others.

(Shortform note: In Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson also describes the origin of new ideas, noting that they come not only from our personal experiences but also from society’s current available information, resources, and abilities. He describes this space as the adjacent possible and says that in order to be developed, ideas must occur within this space. So while your own space of possibility may directly constrain your generation of ideas, society’s “space of possibility” (or adjacent possible) constrains the development of ideas. In both cases, we can extend the limits of these constraints by communicating and collaborating with others to expand our personal spaces of possibility and society’s adjacent possible.)

Imagination and generating ideas within our spaces of possibility does more than prepare us for future scenarios or come up with exciting new ideas; it also literally changes our brains. The activity that occurs in your brain when you imagine something is almost the same as the activity that occurs when you actually perceive or do something. Lotto explains that this forms and strengthens pathways between neurons in your brain. Athletes often use visualization to improve their performance, for example, and some therapies use similar imaginative techniques to treat phobias by habituating the patient to the object of their fear.

(Shortform note: Research suggests that how you visualize something can influence how effective it is in improving your performance. Internal imagery (when you visualize yourself performing the actions from a first-person perspective) is more effective than external imagery (when you visualize yourself performing the actions from a third-person perspective). Visualization’s effectiveness also depends on your motivation and level of self-efficacy, suggesting that the more intrinsically motivated and confident you are, the more useful visualization will be.)

No Such Thing As Illusions

This imaginative ability—the ability to see things that don’t really exist—often leads to what we term “illusions.” These are instances in which our perceptions appear to create something that’s not really there. However, Lotto argues that there’s actually no such thing as illusions, unless we decide to categorize everything we perceive as an illusion. This is because our brains function as connectionist systems that create relationships between information in order to make sense of it. Due to the limitations of perception outlined earlier, when no relationship is apparent, the brain fills in the blanks to create a relationship.

Lotto illustrates this using the color wheel: Colors exist on a linear spectrum, but our brains connect the two ends of the spectrum to form a circle. This causes us to see colors at opposite ends of the spectrum (red and violet) as being close to each other.

(Shortform note: Not only does the brain inaccurately connect the ends of the color spectrum to form a circle—in the case of magenta, it literally makes a color up. While the colors we perceive generally correspond to certain electromagnetic wavelengths, there’s no wavelength that corresponds to magenta. The reason we see magenta in our daily lives is that our brains are used to “averaging” the colors we see into a blend. Green and red, when seen together, become yellow because yellow light is the average wavelength between them. When red and purple appear together, we should see green—it’s the average wavelength between the two—but it doesn’t “make sense” for red and purple to mix into green, so our brains substitute “magenta.”)

Another example of a so-called “illusion” that Lotto gives is pain. Pain doesn’t exist outside the realm of perception—there’s no objective way to measure it, and it occurs exclusively in the brain. Pain is very real to us, but it’s completely independent of objective reality: Without a brain to perceive it, it wouldn’t exist at all (as opposed to things like visual perceptions, which are at least based on objective phenomena like light waves).

(Shortform note: While pain exists solely in our brains, it’s usually in response to an external stimulus—but not always. Sometimes the brain perceives pain in a body part that’s not there, a phenomenon known as phantom pain. While it’s even further removed from objective reality, phantom pain feels just as real as regular pain. Other senses that occur solely in the brain include the vestibular sense (your sense of balance), interoception (your body’s internal sensations like hunger), and proprioception (your ability to sense your body’s movements and physical position).)

Since our brains engage in this fill-in-the-blanks process for everything we perceive, Lotto argues that if we label subjective perceptions as illusions, we have to label all perceptions as illusions. “Illusion,” in a sense, comprises the entirety of our sensory experience.

Types of Illusions

Though Lotto argues that “illusion” is a meaningless term, researchers categorize types of illusions according to which senses they impact. For example, an auditory illusion is when the brain fails to accurately interpret sounds. This can include things like using stereophony, where multiple sound channels (such as movie theater speakers) make it seem like the sound is coming from different places in the space that you’re in. Auditory illusions also include phantom sounds like tinnitus—a constant ringing in the ear with no source.

Additionally, some experts distinguish between different types of illusions that affect what we see: Visual illusions occur as a result of the limitations in our perceptual abilities and the brain’s fill-in-the-blanks interpretation process. In contrast, optical illusions occur as a result of the way light interacts with physical objects.

For example, our perception of the color spectrum as a wheel and our brain’s invention of the color magenta are both visual illusions. On the other hand, a mirage is an optical illusion because it’s caused by a refraction of light as it passes through air with changing temperature and density. The existence of both visual and optical illusions reinforces Lotto’s argument that our perception is limited by our senses themselves and ambiguous stimuli.

How to Think Differently

Lotto explains that understanding how your brain works—and that it doesn’t accurately reflect reality—is a powerful tool in coming up with new ideas and new ways of thinking. By identifying the constraints in your thinking, you can access new perspectives and modes of thought that give way to greater creativity and innovation. We’ll explain some ways you can do this next.

Three Steps to Thinking Differently

First, Lotto provides a three-step process for changing how you think: 1) Acknowledge that you’re unaware, 2) identify your assumptions, and 3) complexify your assumptions.

Step 1: Acknowledge That You’re Unaware

According to Lotto, the first step in changing how you think is to understand and acknowledge that you aren’t truly aware of reality. Instead, your understanding of the world consists of assumptions your brain constructed from sensory input based on context and your past experiences. By acknowledging this fact, you open yourself up to testing and overcoming the limits of your perceptions. This will lead you to a stronger understanding of the world and greater access to the true potential of your brain, helping you make better decisions, come up with better ideas, and perceive things you’ve never perceived before.

(Shortform note: Experts suggest that one of the biggest benefits of acknowledging that you’re unaware is that it reduces tribalism and increases understanding between people of different belief systems. Our belief that we see the world objectively is called naive realism, and it leads us to view people who disagree with us as ignorant or unintelligent. However, one study showed that simply reading about the naive realism bias led people to be more open to the opposing argument (this effect was even more pronounced among people who were initially more opposed to the other side’s argument). This supports Lotto’s claim that acknowledging our own unawareness opens us up to greater awareness.)

Step 2: Identify Assumptions

Because we base so much of our thinking on assumptions we aren’t even aware of, we often reject ideas automatically without considering them—simply because they contradict our invisible biases. To change how you think, Lotto recommends identifying and challenging the assumptions you hold. He suggests examining your emotional responses to identify what your assumptions really are.

Use Emotions to Identify Assumptions

Lotto explains that we approach every new experience with a set of expectations. When our expectations are met, that means we successfully predicted what would happen, and we feel positive emotions, such as a sense of satisfaction. However, when our predictions aren’t successful, we experience negative emotions like anger and frustration. Lotto recommends examining these emotional responses and using them to determine which of your expectations weren’t met and what assumptions those expectations were based on.

(Shortform note: The process of identifying and examining your emotions can be difficult, especially for people with alexithymia—an impairment in your ability to recognize and describe your emotions. To improve your ability to be aware of and name your emotions, experts recommend improving your emotional granularity, or your ability to identify your precise emotions (such as anger, fear, excitement, or contentment) rather than describing them in broad terms (good or bad). To enhance your emotional granularity, practice expressing your specific emotions verbally, linking them to the experiences that evoked them.)

For example, if you’re having a discussion with a friend who expresses a different opinion than you, you might feel surprised, confused, offended, or even angry. Examining these emotions, you determine that they happened because you expected your friend to agree with you on this topic. If you ask yourself what assumption underlay this expectation, you might realize you assume that everyone agrees with you on this topic. Digging deeper, you may determine that this assumption comes from another assumption: that your opinion on this topic was objective and entirely fact-based. Having identified your assumptions, you can begin to educate yourself on alternate views on the topic and open your mind up to new perspectives.

(Shortform note: This example demonstrates the narrative fallacy—our tendency to concoct a story about the world around us and then cling to that narrative even when we see it being proven false. In Think Like a Rocket Scientist, Ozan Varol explains that the narrative fallacy can lead us to reject ideas automatically. Our opinions can even become a part of our identity, and when this happens, a threat to our opinions feels like a threat to our self-image. To avoid becoming overly attached to your opinions, Varol recommends viewing your opinions as hypotheses rather than facts. This perspective allows for the possibility that your opinions may be proven wrong so you don’t fall into the trap of believing your views are universal.)

Step 3: Challenge Your Assumptions

Since your perceptions are based on your assumptions, Lotto explains, the next step to learning to think differently is to challenge the assumptions underlying your perceptions by expanding your space of possibility. This means exposing yourself to new experiences, especially those that make you uncomfortable.

One way to do this is to expose yourself to other cultures. This will not only challenge your assumptions but also add diversity and variety to your experiences, which will expand the range of what you’re capable of perceiving. You can expose yourself to other cultures by traveling or living abroad, but not everyone has the resources to do this. However, since the brain responds to simulated experiences just as it does to real ones, you can use the power of your imagination by reading travel writing and books about life in other countries.

The Contact Hypothesis: How Social Contact Challenges Assumptions

The contact hypothesis discussed earlier in this guide supports the idea that exposing yourself to other cultures can help you challenge your underlying assumptions, especially when people expose themselves to those they may be prejudiced against. This is because when people have positive interactions with groups they think of negatively, they experience cognitive dissonance—a mismatch between their beliefs and their experience. To resolve this dissonance, people often change their beliefs and behavior, resulting in treating other groups more fairly.

For example, one study focusing on prejudice against transgender people found that those who had more contact with trans people had increased knowledge about and decreased prejudice toward them. However, these effects depended partially on the quantity and quality of contact, as well as the participants’ prior knowledge about trans people. This suggests that merely interacting with other cultures may not be enough to fully challenge your existing assumptions: Instead, you may need to make a conscious effort to learn about the people you’re interacting with.

Techniques

In addition to his three-step process, Lotto provides some specific techniques you can use to expand your perception and change the way you think.

Reinterpret the Past

Lotto explains that since your past experiences form your assumptions, the past determines what you can perceive in the future. However, this doesn’t mean it’s unchangeable—in fact, you can change your future by reexamining your past. Specifically, he suggests reviewing your past experiences and assigning new meanings to them so that you have to reconsider your assumptions. The way to do this is to ask “why”: Why did you perceive something in one way and not another? Why do you do things one way and not a different way? Why is the status quo one thing and not another thing?

Lotto explains that all of your assumptions exist in an interconnected web, so when one shifts, they all shift. This expands your space of possibility and is what leads to creative breakthroughs and novel ideas. These can be on a large scale, like great inventions or social revolutions, or an individual scale like personal relationships.

For example, imagine your significant other asks you to attend their musical performance, but you decline because you’re tired. Your partner is hurt by this and a fight ensues. You’re left confused as to why they’re upset over something you see as trivial. You might feel they’re being unreasonable and blame them—you may even break up. However, you review your past to see what assumptions informed your behavior: Why did you assume it wasn’t a big deal to miss the performance? Maybe your parents didn’t attend your performances when you were a child, so you assumed that such things weren’t important. This stayed with you and now prevents you from seeing how attending this performance would be important to your significant other.

By questioning your assumptions, you open yourself up to this new perception, which gives you a better understanding of your conflict—and hopefully, helps you resolve it.

(Shortform note: In Lateral Thinking, Edward de Bono also recommends that you use “why” questions to challenge your underlying assumptions. In particular, he recommends choosing one belief or piece of information and repeatedly asking “why” it’s the case, never letting yourself default to saying “Because it’s true.” This can be especially useful in evaluating what you think you know, as experts note that our definition of “fact” is not as universal or concrete as we might think. We might consider a fact to be something that can be proven, but many “facts” are personal interpretations or beliefs. Re-examining your beliefs with “why” questions can help you expand your space of possibility, change your future, and come up with better ideas.)

Embrace Uncertainty

As explained earlier, humans have an inherent aversion to uncertainty as it can represent a threat to our survival. However, Lotto argues that we need to seek out and embrace uncertainty in order to perceive more and think differently. Research shows that species that evolve in environments with a lot of uncertainty show more complex processing and greater diversity, both of which improve animals’ ability to perceive stimuli and solve problems.

(Shortform note: While uncertain environments can be evolutionarily beneficial, some experts contend that the world we evolved in was much less uncertain than our world today. Our brains weren’t designed for the modern world’s chaos, so we spend an excessive amount of time in a state of “fight-or-flight,” which impairs our motivation, sense of purpose, and general health. To better adapt to our uncertain modern world, experts recommend practicing big-picture thinking, honest communication, and realistic optimism—the belief that things will turn out OK, but that it might be difficult to power through.)

Lotto recommends that you put yourself in uncertain situations and environments. When you find yourself facing something you don’t understand, refrain from rejecting it at face value, and be willing to admit that you don’t understand, despite the discomfort this produces. When you face conflict, view it as an opportunity instead of a threat. Approach it from a place of truly trying to understand it instead of just seeking out ways to defend your current point of view. You’ll find that conflict becomes productive instead of destructive, which will improve your relationships with others.

Furthermore, when you find yourself having a negative emotional reaction to some stimulus, do the following: Stop, then divert your attention from that stimulus to something else. Your instinct is to focus on whatever seems to present an obvious threat, but you only view it as a threat because of your current assumptions. Focusing your attention on something else entirely provides a different stimulus, which activates different assumptions and expands your perception. The more you do this, the less you’ll feel the knee-jerk reaction to uncertainty that prevents you from breaking out of established ways of thinking.

Additional Tips for Embracing Uncertainty

In Think Like a Rocket Scientist, Ozan Varol echoes Lotto’s argument that embracing uncertainty leads to greater understanding and breaking out of established thinking patterns. He provides some tips for embracing uncertainty that you can use to supplement Lotto’s advice: First, identify what you do and don’t know about a problem you’re considering. You’re likely to find that you know more than you thought you did. Once you’ve identified your level of understanding, ask yourself what the worst-case and best-case scenarios are, and how likely each one is. This will give you a better sense of what might happen in the future, which may not reduce your uncertainty, but it will help you contain it.

Other experts recommend a similar practice to Lotto’s attention diversion technique: When you find yourself having a negative emotional reaction caused by a fear of uncertainty, pause, then replace that fear with curiosity. This will help you train your brain to automatically react to difficult situations with curiosity, allowing you to consciously direct your attention and take greater control over your reactions.

How to Foster Innovation

Lotto also explains how thinking and perceiving differently can foster greater innovation in businesses and organizations. This involves combining play with intention, prioritizing creativity over efficiency, promoting diversity, and leading well.

Play Plus Intention

Lotto explains that innovation requires a combination of play and intention. “Play” means approaching everything with a playful mindset. This involves embracing uncertainty and remaining open to many different possibilities, as well as collaborating with others and having intrinsic motivation (in that you should play for the sake of playing).

(Shortform note: Experts define play according to five characteristics: 1) It’s an activity chosen and directed by the person playing, 2) it’s done for its own sake, 3) it has established but flexible rules, 4) it involves imagination, and 5) it requires an alert mind but doesn’t involve intense stress. Play has many benefits beyond being fun. In fact, play is essential for children’s development—it teaches them about the world and how to interact with others. It also stimulates neural growth, enabling them to build skills such as self-regulation, impulse control, empathy, and motor control. And play isn’t just a human phenomenon: Animals also learn about their world and how to interact with others through play.)

However, only when combined with intention does play become innovation. Intention involves a conscious directing of play toward a specific goal, with a focus on exploration and answering an essential “why” question. This combination is perhaps best encapsulated by the entire field of science, which explores uncertainty with an openness to possibilities, often in collaborative settings, both for the sake of science and with the intention of answering “why.”

(Shortform note: Other experts support Lotto’s argument linking play and intention to innovation, especially in science. In Think Like a Rocket Scientist, Varol describes how scientists often play with thought experiments to intentionally work through a problem or explore an idea. To play like a scientist, Varol recommends that you imagine yourself as a small child and just imagine, seeing what thoughts come up. He also recommends combinatory play, or the act of combining different things, by engaging with as many different fields as possible. These practices can help you put Lotto’s ideas into action and increase your innovative capabilities.)

Creativity and Efficiency

Creativity and efficiency are both necessary for innovation. According to Lotto, we can see the balance between creativity and efficiency in the way our brains develop. Our brains constantly create new connections between neurons and prune away old ones that we no longer need. If either of these processes stopped, our brains wouldn’t function well—without creation, we’d never grow, and without pruning, our brains would be inefficient. However, with these processes combined, the brain develops and grows, allowing it to think, create, and innovate.

Just as the brain needs both of these processes to innovate, so do businesses. However, they often neglect the creative process, to their own detriment. Lotto notes that many businesses have a single-minded focus on efficiency. While this fosters competition and eliminates waste, it also stifles innovation. If employees are judged solely on their efficiency, the work culture will be characterized by a fear of being fired, which prevents the creation of new ideas and puts inordinate stress on workers. Instead, Lotto says that organizations should encourage the creation of new ideas before trimming for efficiency.

Using AI to Boost Innovation

Artificial intelligence (AI) can add a new dimension to our understanding of the balance between creativity and efficiency and how they contribute to innovation. AI is, in many ways, based on how the human brain works—including the process of neural pruning. This means it mirrors the brain’s use of both creativity and efficiency.

Some experts recommend using AI as a tool to increase human efficiency in areas such as education and content creation. However, they also caution against letting AI’s efficiency supersede human creativity. They recommend using AI for tasks like ideation, editing, and data analysis, while reserving tasks like crafting a brand, creating emotional appeal, and strategizing for humans. While AI can’t (yet) innovate on its own, using AI tools to boost creativity and efficiency could lead to greater innovation by humans in the way that Lotto describes.

Diversity

Lotto also emphasizes the role of diversity (in thought and groups) in innovation. Diversity helps complexify an environment, which increases the collective space of possibility and allows for more creative and innovative ideas. In particular, he advocates an environment that combines both experts and novices: Experts have the knowledge needed to work efficiently in their environment, but this same knowledge can lead to tunnel vision that inhibits their creativity. Novices, on the other hand, lack the knowledge needed for efficiency but are unconstrained in their thinking about new possibilities.

(Shortform note: Similar to Lotto’s advice to use diversity of experience to enhance innovation, research also suggests that teams with diverse ranges of expertise perform better research and development (R&D) than teams without. In particular, R&D teams benefit from having both specialists (people with deep knowledge of one field or topic) and generalists (people with shallower knowledge in many fields). Generalists are particularly good at identifying opportunities for innovation, while specialists are necessary for exploring and executing these opportunities. This suggests that you should consider not only the lack of knowledge versus its presence when creating a diverse team, but also the depth of knowledge versus its breadth.)

Leadership

Finally, Lotto explains how good leadership enhances innovation. While uncertainty is vital for creativity and innovation, it’s still frightening. This fear can manifest through negative emotions like anger, but it can also be molded into productive feelings like bravery. A leader’s role is to guide their team through uncertainty. Research shows that the best leaders model what they want to see in others, are willing to acknowledge when they’re wrong, and notice other people’s positive traits. Lotto suggests that great leaders understand the principles of perception explained throughout this guide, and that they embody principles like combining play with intention, balancing creativity and efficiency, and promoting diversity.

Mindsets for Good Leadership

In addition to the traits Lotto outlines, research suggests that good leaders embody four mindsets: 1) a growth mindset, which is the belief that people’s abilities aren’t fixed and can be improved; 2) a learning mindset, which is motivated by the desire to become more competent rather than to win others’ approval; 3) a deliberative mindset, which is highly receptive to input and ideas rather than simply putting ideas into action; and 4) a promotion mindset, which is focused on achieving a specific goal rather than on preventing losses.

These mindsets can both supplement Lotto’s advice and help you put it into action—for example, a deliberative mindset can make you more open to everything you perceive, and demonstrating a promotion mindset can help your team trust you to guide them through uncertainty toward a specific goal.