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The Unbearable Slowness of Being: How to Get Rid of Our Thinking
Bottleneck
2025 Jan 04
Recently, I stumbled upon a paper titled
“The Unbearable Slowness of Being: Why Do We Live at 10 Bits/s?”
. The premise is thought-provoking: humans think at a painfully slow
rate of 10 bits per second. When we compare the mere 10 bits to the
billions of bits of data our bodies gather each second, we can only
stay with an uncomfotarble feeling of curiosity. This vast disparity
begs the question—what would life be like if we could think faster?
Could we somehow stretch the narrow pipeline through which our
thoughts flow? And more importantly, is there a way to achieve it?
Imagine it. We’ve evolved to think one thing at a time, to process and
communicate in single-threaded streams of thought. Yet, the world
around us surges with a deluge of data, much of which is either
discarded or compressed into simplified versions our minds can manage.
Even our perception of the world is a finely crafted illusion. Take
vision as an example: our eyes capture a tremendous amount of sensory
data, yet the sharp, vibrant world we "see" is
mostly a mental fabrication. Outside of a laser-thin area of focus, everything else we see is in
reality blurred out.
Could this bottleneck—the disparity between the flood of sensory input
and the drip of conscious thought—be why life often feels unbearably
slow? Perhaps is what drives our collective obsession with short
videos, fast-paced games, and other dopamine-laced distractions. These
pursuits might be an unconscious attempt to cram more "bits" into our
subjective experience, compensating for the agonizing slowness of our
inner monologue. But is there a better way to bridge the gap?
Breaking the Bottleneck: A Future Beyond Slow Thought
The good news (maybe?) is, we’ve already started expanding our
bandwidth in unexpected ways. Take communication. For most of history,
our thoughts had to travel through sound waves—words spoken into the
air, lost if not immediately heard. Today, we transmit ideas almost
instantly across the globe via binary signals. Knowledge storage, once
dependent on memorization or physical texts, has been outsourced to
the cloud. Even memories themselves are increasingly offloaded to
photos, videos, and digital records.
The next frontier might be even more ambitious: outsourcing our input
and output systems. Companies like Neuralink are already developing
high-bandwidth interfaces that could bypass our natural sensory and
motor channels. Instead of relying solely on slow, linear streams of
language or vision, such technology could enable direct, rapid data
exchange between humans and machines—or even between humans
themselves,
@waitbutwhy calls it
The Wizard Era.
But why stop there? If we can enhance how we gather and express
information, could we eventually transcend the bottleneck of internal
thought? Imagine a world where we no longer think in sequential
streams, but in parallel networks—our minds processing ideas as
swiftly as computers calculate equations.
Outsourcing Ourselves: The Final Leap?
Such advancements raise profound questions. If we externalize not just
our communication and memory but also our very thinking, would we
still be human? Or would we transcend our current state, becoming
something entirely new—perhaps something better? What would
civilization look like if every individual could process the billions
of bits of data they perceive every second? I believe this leap will
define the next era of our evolution, and I can’t help but feel
optimistic about it.
Yes, there’s fear. A subtle, nagging worry about disconnection, about
flying too close to the sun, about losing the core of what makes us
human. But isn't this fear always there, whispering in the background
of every monumental change? I can’t help but think this is the voice
of my "old man" consciousness, hesitant about the unknown, clinging to
the comfort of what has always been. History reminds us how often this
voice is wrong. Being wary of this leap is akin to doubting the
internet in the 1990s, fearing it would isolate us rather than connect
us. And yet, look at what it achieved—it fueled globalization, enabled
instant communication, and brought the collective knowledge of
humanity to our fingertips.
Imagining a World Beyond the Bottleneck
I don’t know exactly how the world would look when we unlock the
ability to think beyond our current limitations, but just consider the
transformations we’ve already seen. Outsourcing communication through
telegraphs, phones, and now instant messaging revolutionized how ideas
spread. Externalizing memory and information through books, computers,
and the internet exponentially accelerated progress. Each of these
shifts didn’t just change how we interact with the world—they
redefined what the world could be.
So, imagine this next leap. What happens when we shatter the
bottleneck of thought? When ideas, calculations, and decisions flow
with the speed of our sensory input? It’s exhilarating to think of the
possibilities. Perhaps creativity will no longer be constrained by the
slow dance of deliberation, and breakthroughs in science, art, and
philosophy will happen in moments rather than decades. Maybe empathy
and understanding will deepen as we process and share experiences in
real-time, beyond the barriers of language or culture.
If the past is any indication, the world that emerges will be richer,
more connected, and more vibrant than we can imagine. And for all its
risks, I’d rather embrace the uncertainty of progress than settle for
the unbearable slowness of being.
Back to home
Back to home
The Unbearable Slowness of Being: How to Get Rid of Our Thinking Bottleneck
2025 Jan 04
Recently, I stumbled upon a paper titled “The Unbearable Slowness of Being: Why Do We Live at 10 Bits/s?” . The premise is thought-provoking: humans think at a painfully slow rate of 10 bits per second. When we compare the mere 10 bits to the billions of bits of data our bodies gather each second, we can only stay with an uncomfotarble feeling of curiosity. This vast disparity begs the question—what would life be like if we could think faster? Could we somehow stretch the narrow pipeline through which our thoughts flow? And more importantly, is there a way to achieve it?
Imagine it. We’ve evolved to think one thing at a time, to process and communicate in single-threaded streams of thought. Yet, the world around us surges with a deluge of data, much of which is either discarded or compressed into simplified versions our minds can manage. Even our perception of the world is a finely crafted illusion. Take vision as an example: our eyes capture a tremendous amount of sensory data, yet the sharp, vibrant world we "see" is mostly a mental fabrication. Outside of a laser-thin area of focus, everything else we see is in reality blurred out.
Could this bottleneck—the disparity between the flood of sensory input and the drip of conscious thought—be why life often feels unbearably slow? Perhaps is what drives our collective obsession with short videos, fast-paced games, and other dopamine-laced distractions. These pursuits might be an unconscious attempt to cram more "bits" into our subjective experience, compensating for the agonizing slowness of our inner monologue. But is there a better way to bridge the gap?
Breaking the Bottleneck: A Future Beyond Slow Thought
The good news (maybe?) is, we’ve already started expanding our bandwidth in unexpected ways. Take communication. For most of history, our thoughts had to travel through sound waves—words spoken into the air, lost if not immediately heard. Today, we transmit ideas almost instantly across the globe via binary signals. Knowledge storage, once dependent on memorization or physical texts, has been outsourced to the cloud. Even memories themselves are increasingly offloaded to photos, videos, and digital records.
The next frontier might be even more ambitious: outsourcing our input and output systems. Companies like Neuralink are already developing high-bandwidth interfaces that could bypass our natural sensory and motor channels. Instead of relying solely on slow, linear streams of language or vision, such technology could enable direct, rapid data exchange between humans and machines—or even between humans themselves, @waitbutwhy calls it The Wizard Era.
But why stop there? If we can enhance how we gather and express information, could we eventually transcend the bottleneck of internal thought? Imagine a world where we no longer think in sequential streams, but in parallel networks—our minds processing ideas as swiftly as computers calculate equations.
Outsourcing Ourselves: The Final Leap?
Such advancements raise profound questions. If we externalize not just our communication and memory but also our very thinking, would we still be human? Or would we transcend our current state, becoming something entirely new—perhaps something better? What would civilization look like if every individual could process the billions of bits of data they perceive every second? I believe this leap will define the next era of our evolution, and I can’t help but feel optimistic about it.
Yes, there’s fear. A subtle, nagging worry about disconnection, about flying too close to the sun, about losing the core of what makes us human. But isn't this fear always there, whispering in the background of every monumental change? I can’t help but think this is the voice of my "old man" consciousness, hesitant about the unknown, clinging to the comfort of what has always been. History reminds us how often this voice is wrong. Being wary of this leap is akin to doubting the internet in the 1990s, fearing it would isolate us rather than connect us. And yet, look at what it achieved—it fueled globalization, enabled instant communication, and brought the collective knowledge of humanity to our fingertips.
Imagining a World Beyond the Bottleneck
I don’t know exactly how the world would look when we unlock the ability to think beyond our current limitations, but just consider the transformations we’ve already seen. Outsourcing communication through telegraphs, phones, and now instant messaging revolutionized how ideas spread. Externalizing memory and information through books, computers, and the internet exponentially accelerated progress. Each of these shifts didn’t just change how we interact with the world—they redefined what the world could be.
So, imagine this next leap. What happens when we shatter the bottleneck of thought? When ideas, calculations, and decisions flow with the speed of our sensory input? It’s exhilarating to think of the possibilities. Perhaps creativity will no longer be constrained by the slow dance of deliberation, and breakthroughs in science, art, and philosophy will happen in moments rather than decades. Maybe empathy and understanding will deepen as we process and share experiences in real-time, beyond the barriers of language or culture.
If the past is any indication, the world that emerges will be richer, more connected, and more vibrant than we can imagine. And for all its risks, I’d rather embrace the uncertainty of progress than settle for the unbearable slowness of being.
Back to home