I've pondered the same thing. However, personally from meditation I feel I have greater focus, a clearer mind, and less stress (or a much better handle on stress), which I couldn't imagine being without today. Concerning shower-insights -- I find myself having less mind wandering in the shower, and instead more deliberate focused insights.
Then what evolutionary purpose do you think mind-wandering serves? We clearly tend to think about various current problems of ours (whether technical, social, or other) when our mind wanders; it's not an accident.
What you describe is rumination. Rumination has been demonstrated to be beneficial in resolving problems. Depressed people ruminate a lot, and I remember seeing at least one article (don't ask for a reference - I don't remember where) that claimed that this was because rumination worked as a tool to get us to focus on resolving a problem.
Rumination is an indication of focus, not of a wandering mind, even though it might superficially seem like wandering because we turn to rumination all the time whenever we have "spare cycles" and there is something important on our mind.
Meditation might also affect rumination in that it changes your mindset and a lot of the things that you previously thought was massively important and worth ruminating about start turning into inconsequential non-events to you, but that's entirely separate from reducing "wandering", and meditation won't stop you from ruminating on things you really care about (though it might train you to be more focused on when you do it and not let it cut into your relaxation, for example).
But what I at least think of as the mind wandering is the type of random chatter that leads you to go check Hackernews one second because it popped into your head that you hadn't checked it for five minutes, and leads you to grab a snack the next because you suddenly felt an urge for sugar, and have you sit and blankly dream about that vacation you'd wanted to book a few minutes later.
> Then what evolutionary purpose do you think mind-wandering serves? We clearly tend to think about various current problems of ours (whether technical, social, or other) when our mind wanders; it's not an accident.
It well might be an accident. It might just be a byproduct of consciousness without any benefit on its own.
http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&... This seems to bear on the implied point here: that mental focus on a problem -- perhaps unconsciously -- can be reflected in our neurobiology. (Or vice versa? Not sure whether this should be a response to P or GP)
Perhaps a wandering mind was good enough for early hunter-gathers and only now do modern humans have specialized roles that require extreme focus? A hunter might benefit from a "wider" sense of awareness, whereas recent studies show that multitasking is counterproductive for mental tasks that require extreme focus.
I think we might be discussing two different phenomenon. It seems pretty obvious to me that the ability to focus is important. What's not clear is whether the ability to wander is also important (although I suspect it is). The claim of the article is not just that meditators are able to focus better when they try, it's that the natural, default mode for their brain is changed to reduce wandering.
I think this understanding of meditation is somewhat mistaken. The techniques of single-pointed focusing are there to help us learn how to keep our minds still, not to narrow down our field of awareness (although one might do so during a practice session).
In fact, in most Buddhist traditions, the development of stillness (shamatha) goes hand-in-hand with the development of a widening awareness (vipashyana). Modern traditions like the mindfulness movement also seem to incorporate this tandem approach.
I'd say we're half evolved. We have this facility and don't know how to properly control it. It's a byproduct of some other facility (the ability to communicate).
I think we're always "half evolved". Our minds and bodies are an amalgam of "good enough" traits for overcoming yesteryear's evolutionary challenges, not entirely suited for today's challenges.
I don't see any link between (1) communication and (2) my mind wandering away from my immediate surroundings and settling on an outstanding problem I have. My mind could (and occasionally does) wander over a million other things in my brain (e.g. past memories, imagining the future, or the feel of my clothes on my body) but predominantly focuses on outstanding problems, so I tend to think this is a highly purposeful adaptation.
It may indeed serve a useful purpose to have a wandering mind, but as the article points out "the hallmarks of many forms of mental illness is a preoccupation with one's own thoughts", i.e. perhaps the issue is the extent to which one's mind wanders. Not all minds wander equally.
Personally, my wandering mind has been my greatest strength and my greatest weakness (anxiety, worry, jumping to conclusions, all or nothing thinking, etc.). I spend too much time in my head and not enough time grounding myself in reality to the point where there is serious disconnect in my awareness and mindfulness of situations (which has caused all kinds of serious grief in my life). Meditation has been recommended to me numerous times, and based on this article it looks like it's something I want to explore.
The ability to communicate as we humans do requires the ability to abstract, be removed from reality and ponder over it, so you can articulate your problems to others. The stories in your head are just that, except you haven't verbalized them yet.
