Evolution and Revolution
The human mind evolved two types of mental processes to help our ancestors survive in a harsh and threatening environment: one unconscious, the other conscious. The unconscious, habitual mind is a cognitive strategy hardwired into humans as an evolutionary survival mechanism. Habit is the mind’s way of handling routine decisions to free the newer, revolutionary, conscious mind for other tasks.
The habitual mind makes us cognitively efficient. It is meant to work with the executive mind, not in opposition to it. However, it is worth noting that habit literally has a mind of its own—habits are processed and stored in the brain separately from explicitly processed information. The executive mind cannot access the workings ...
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