Equal Dice

This is a pair of dice wich are showing the same symbol on any of their sides. Therefore, after each toss, the result will be the same. The actual purpose of dice or playing cards is, that they present different symbols, assigning each side or card a certain value. That is, what makes them exciting and interesting to play with. If this feature is taken away, are they not becoming highly boring?

If the outcome of an event is predictable, we are very likely to stop being interested. When we are constrained to continue focusing on that action, we are getting bored. The results of an experiment showed that, in the moment we start feeling bored, our brain shuts off partly:

When the focus of the volunteers did begin to waver, Weissman and his collaborators noticed that areas of the brain closely related to self-control, vision and language processing seemed not to communicate with one another. They discovered that, as concentration ebbs, the intensity with which nerve centres link up also fades. "This is equivalent to those regions disconnecting" claimed Weissman, which seems to be linked with the feeling of boredom. What was particularly interesting about the experiment was that when the cranial crosstalk died down, particular regions of the cortex "lit up".

Toohey, Peter: Boredom: A lively history, 2011

Nowadays we are scarcely set out to situations that are foreseeable or pointless. If we are, we just reach for our mobile phone and distract ourselves. But may that continuous escapism change the way of paying attention. Is there eventually something as a threshold, rising higher and higher, only letting things catch our attention that appear new, thrilling, diverse or noisy?

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