“What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”
– Herbert Simon
Input ___, information. What is the answer?
Input ___, output attention. What is the answer?
There is an input/output chain here. If this quote is right, attention must be protected from information.
But this assumes attention is a finite resource. Is that true?
Of course, these words are weasel words. What does “information” mean? What does “attention” mean?
This may be a fatuous, midwit quote with no there there. After all, I found it on Twitter. The initial assumption must be that everything is fatuous, everything has a purpose: “Look at me! I am very smart!”
But I’m still interested in the idea that attention can get tiny and laser-focused or instantly expand to enormous with infinite capacity, can deflect or absorb at will.