Not to mention the fatigue and frustration caused when we find something we think is automatic (logging onto a computer program) is no longer automatic because a "smart" program was created that forces us to change our password (and not use anything like the previous 10 passwords, for our new password).
I proposed we should do our best to reserve our higher brain functions for constructive thought - learning new things and connecting those learned things to what we already know, rather than committing to memory and then recalling random alphanumeric sequences that must be at least 8 characters and may be case sensitive. I've seen some password rules now that require including non-alpha numeric characters. Let's see was my password (*&polbBT%$ or !@#bln#TbL9?
Looking forward to the day when we use our intelligence to to make computer access secure and easy. Two competing goals, but I have faith in the bright people working on this kind of thing will come up with retinal scans, voice recognition, fingerprint recognition, subcutaneous chip implants (just kidding I think) that will do away with our having to spend time on passwords.
In that discussion I mentioned the 19th Century Teacher/Doctor/Philosopher William James. I think this quote from
Classics in the History of Psychology -- James (1890) Chapter 4
touches on the concept -
"The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one of my readers, let him begin this very hour to set the matter right."
Some quotes from William James on Habit.
And a funny sort of equation where lowering our expectations can increase our self esteem (or something like that) William James and Bill Watterson
A quote on genius...William James--Wisdom
All these quotes, and a wealth of other material can be found at this Emory University page on William James.
