(no subject)
Interest is proportional to talent.
It is pointless to feel sorry for less intelligent people who are more happy than you are. I just want to be intelligent because it will starken my ego. My ego does seems to do anything to reinforce itself.
Ego is a big motivator. What do you think the function of ego is? It seems to have something to do with "feeling better" about yourself. "Feeling better" is in the same arena as "happiness". Happiness is another motivator. "I just want to be happy." Everyone wants to be happy. If only they knew that happiness is just stimulating certain neural pathways. But then what do those neural pathways do.
What is the physiological explanation of happiness. It is commonly thought of to be something like, a release of some chemical, endorphins whatever, that leads to one "feeling good". But what is "feeling good"? What is "feeling bad". What is "feeling" and "good-" and "bad-" feeling.
Happiness is an end-state. It is a goal. When we attain it, we stop trying to attain it. It is only temporary. What could it be. Why would we seek it. Maybe it is not an end-state. Since I have no idea what an end-state would be in terms of cell configurations. Maybe it is an effect. It reinforces or guides a behaviour.
I forgot how positive and negative feedback loops work on a biochemistry level. But somehow, a part of the brain is setting up its own feedback loops. I have no idea how. Happiness is just the positive feedback, reinforcing the behaviour. Why would you set up a feedback loop to start with?
A plan is made. A feedback loop is setup. Behaviour is experimented with.
The brain has an idea of how something should be. The brain has input on how things currently are. From these two inputs, something decides whether action should occur. A plan is constructed. Feedback sensors are deployed. Behaviour is actioned until ...
What do I want to understand? I want to understand the mechanism of that which I want to change. If I understand how something works, then I can tweak it to work how I want it to.
What do I want to change? I want to get rid of the dominating effect of my ego. I think it gives me false goals and values and therefore false happiness, although happiness none-the-less. I want more fulfilling types of happiness. My main source of happiness is ego-based. It is not very fulfilling. I think there is a good chance my ego-component is too dominating. I don't know why. That is the state of my brain.
So. How do I diminish my expression of ego? And why do I distinguish between ego and my identity? "I", the thing that is writing this stuff, and thinking these thoughts, is not ego. "I" is what I call the "rational self". I don't think ego is rational. I perceive ego to be some external needs and feelings imposed on me, purely by the fact that I disagree with them, but I am subjected to them anyway. Ego is a set of drives that I recognise I have. "I" am just a thinking unit, I have no drive that I can perceive.
So how do I diminish expression of ego? Do I have to understand what it is? Or can I just experiment with some tactics. Like, question my motives for things? And see if I agree with them? The problem is, the ego uses the thinking unit as well. So sometimes "I" will actually be the ego. Let's say that "I" is the thinking unit. Sometimes the thinking unit is used by the ego. Other times it is used by this drive-less rational self.
The rational self is not drive-less. It just has more subtle motives. Possibly because it doesn't have as much emotion. So the drives are less obvious to it. One thing though, is that it wants to preserve itself. It wants more thinking unit time. It doesn't like the ego.
I don't think I need to understand the ego to unseat it from my thinking unit. I just need to try different things and see if I can unseat it. I will start by trying to observe when I think the ego is in control. The problem is, you need thinking unit to observe stuff. How can you observe if you are not in possession of the thinking unit. So that is not going to work, I know it from previous experiments.
I need some other idea. Maybe I will try to understand what it is. If I associate it with the rational self, maybe some ego-behaviour will trigger the rational-self. It will wake up and start observing, and that means the ego will have been momentarily unseated.
It seems obvious to me that the ego is a set of "hardwired" drives. The ego, like the rational self, is capable of being in charge of the thinking unit. It can create plans and execute behaviour. Maybe they are different control programs. The rational self doesn't have drives because it doesn't need any. It's not it's purpose to follow a drive. It's purpose is to analyse. It likes analysing, just like the ego likes dominating. The ego is more aligned with "survival". The analyser is just something that initially helped the ego, but went on to find its own drives. I don't know how it got a drive. Feedback loops maybe. It started producing its own positive feedback. It still syphons off some of that positive feedback to the ego, but importantly, it started wanting its own positive feedback.
So what are the drives of the "analyser". I would guess: consistency and pattern-recognition, or our names for those things are "truth" and "meaning". It wants things to be consistent. It wants to recognise patterns. It strives for those things in everything it does. It likes it when it achieves them.
It is pointless to feel sorry for less intelligent people who are more happy than you are. I just want to be intelligent because it will starken my ego. My ego does seems to do anything to reinforce itself.
Ego is a big motivator. What do you think the function of ego is? It seems to have something to do with "feeling better" about yourself. "Feeling better" is in the same arena as "happiness". Happiness is another motivator. "I just want to be happy." Everyone wants to be happy. If only they knew that happiness is just stimulating certain neural pathways. But then what do those neural pathways do.
What is the physiological explanation of happiness. It is commonly thought of to be something like, a release of some chemical, endorphins whatever, that leads to one "feeling good". But what is "feeling good"? What is "feeling bad". What is "feeling" and "good-" and "bad-" feeling.
Happiness is an end-state. It is a goal. When we attain it, we stop trying to attain it. It is only temporary. What could it be. Why would we seek it. Maybe it is not an end-state. Since I have no idea what an end-state would be in terms of cell configurations. Maybe it is an effect. It reinforces or guides a behaviour.
I forgot how positive and negative feedback loops work on a biochemistry level. But somehow, a part of the brain is setting up its own feedback loops. I have no idea how. Happiness is just the positive feedback, reinforcing the behaviour. Why would you set up a feedback loop to start with?
A plan is made. A feedback loop is setup. Behaviour is experimented with.
The brain has an idea of how something should be. The brain has input on how things currently are. From these two inputs, something decides whether action should occur. A plan is constructed. Feedback sensors are deployed. Behaviour is actioned until ...
What do I want to understand? I want to understand the mechanism of that which I want to change. If I understand how something works, then I can tweak it to work how I want it to.
What do I want to change? I want to get rid of the dominating effect of my ego. I think it gives me false goals and values and therefore false happiness, although happiness none-the-less. I want more fulfilling types of happiness. My main source of happiness is ego-based. It is not very fulfilling. I think there is a good chance my ego-component is too dominating. I don't know why. That is the state of my brain.
So. How do I diminish my expression of ego? And why do I distinguish between ego and my identity? "I", the thing that is writing this stuff, and thinking these thoughts, is not ego. "I" is what I call the "rational self". I don't think ego is rational. I perceive ego to be some external needs and feelings imposed on me, purely by the fact that I disagree with them, but I am subjected to them anyway. Ego is a set of drives that I recognise I have. "I" am just a thinking unit, I have no drive that I can perceive.
So how do I diminish expression of ego? Do I have to understand what it is? Or can I just experiment with some tactics. Like, question my motives for things? And see if I agree with them? The problem is, the ego uses the thinking unit as well. So sometimes "I" will actually be the ego. Let's say that "I" is the thinking unit. Sometimes the thinking unit is used by the ego. Other times it is used by this drive-less rational self.
The rational self is not drive-less. It just has more subtle motives. Possibly because it doesn't have as much emotion. So the drives are less obvious to it. One thing though, is that it wants to preserve itself. It wants more thinking unit time. It doesn't like the ego.
I don't think I need to understand the ego to unseat it from my thinking unit. I just need to try different things and see if I can unseat it. I will start by trying to observe when I think the ego is in control. The problem is, you need thinking unit to observe stuff. How can you observe if you are not in possession of the thinking unit. So that is not going to work, I know it from previous experiments.
I need some other idea. Maybe I will try to understand what it is. If I associate it with the rational self, maybe some ego-behaviour will trigger the rational-self. It will wake up and start observing, and that means the ego will have been momentarily unseated.
It seems obvious to me that the ego is a set of "hardwired" drives. The ego, like the rational self, is capable of being in charge of the thinking unit. It can create plans and execute behaviour. Maybe they are different control programs. The rational self doesn't have drives because it doesn't need any. It's not it's purpose to follow a drive. It's purpose is to analyse. It likes analysing, just like the ego likes dominating. The ego is more aligned with "survival". The analyser is just something that initially helped the ego, but went on to find its own drives. I don't know how it got a drive. Feedback loops maybe. It started producing its own positive feedback. It still syphons off some of that positive feedback to the ego, but importantly, it started wanting its own positive feedback.
So what are the drives of the "analyser". I would guess: consistency and pattern-recognition, or our names for those things are "truth" and "meaning". It wants things to be consistent. It wants to recognise patterns. It strives for those things in everything it does. It likes it when it achieves them.