You See What You’re Wired To See

Long before synapses could be named or measured, people noticed that repetition shaped character.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit

This video explains the idea in biological terms. It is worth watching once, then forgetting the terminology and keeping the mechanism in mind.

The neocortex - literally the “new covering” - sits on top of older brain systems that handle emotion, instinct, and automatic behaviour. It is where conscious thought happens. It gathers information, compares it to past experience, and updates an internal model of the world.

When you learn something new, neurons that were previously separate begin to communicate. That communication forms a synaptic connection. At first, the signal is weak. Without repetition, it fades.

With repeated use, the connection strengthens. Learning is not metaphorical. The brain changes shape at a microscopic level.

Memory is simply the persistence of these connections. Neurons that fire together repeatedly become more tightly linked and form stable networks. The term neural network describes a physical process, not an idea.

New patterns compete with old ones. Circuits reinforced over years carry more weight than those formed recently. Most new thoughts lose this competition and disappear unless attention is applied consistently.

Because resources are limited, strengthening one pathway comes at the expense of others. As some circuits are reinforced, others are weakened or removed. This pruning process runs throughout life.

Connections that improve prediction, control, or skill are preserved. Connections that are rarely used are trimmed away. Over time, the brain becomes increasingly specialised around what it practices.

This is the physical basis behind sayings like “practice makes perfect”. The improvement is not abstract. It reflects which circuits have survived repeated use.

The brain does not passively reflect the world. What comes through depends on how its circuits are tuned.

The red car effect makes this visible. After buying a particular model, it can feel as if that car suddenly appears everywhere. Nothing external changed. The filter did.

The same process applies more broadly. A solution that is obvious to someone with experience can be invisible to someone without it. The patterns required to recognise it have not yet been built. When those patterns transfer across domains, the result can look like insight or originality. Often, it is recognition.

This is also why rereading a book years later can feel different. The text is the same. The reader is not. New structure allows different meaning to register.

Opportunity tends to appear this way as well. It is noticed as a deviation from something familiar. Repeated exposure builds a reference pattern, teaching the brain what to ignore. Without that filter, everything looks equally important - there is nothing for opportunity to stand out against.