MENTAL TEETH

December 27th, 2018

The animal kingdom is replete with an incredible diversity of tools for munching on dinner.

Lions have their fangs for taking down prey, cows have epic molars for grinding down grasses, and blue whales have a screen of baleen to sift food from the ocean.

Each is equipped for processing a different part of the environment, and we humans are equipped as omnivores to chow down on just about everything.

We might for a moment think of the Koala Bear that only eats eucalyptus leaves and wonder what happens to the Koala if some disease comes along and wipes out all the eucalyptus trees?  The koala would be in a tough spot.

Whereas we human can lose a huge portion of our diet’s diversity and still find something to make do with.

In all arenas of life, the mental model we use to interpret what is going on is hugely important.  Like having the right teeth or the right food, we likewise need the right mental model to best integrate the knowledge of our environment in order to use that information effectively.

Unlike our biological teeth, the mental teeth we can design and redesign and switch out in order to effectively chew on a situation are endless.  We can study mental models developed by others, whether this be Bayesian Updating, Pareto’s Principle, or a religious text and use these models as a way to filter and interpret the world.

One important thing about these mental teeth to remember is that there is no end to the design and kind we can create.  While many mental models have been developed, this does not mean that all possible useful models have been imagined or discovered. 

Often, naive ignorance is the most important factor for discovering something new.  If our mind is constantly trying to fit everything we encounter into models we have already learned, then we are less likely to notice natural patterns that may exist in the complexity we seek to understand.

One thing to further keep in mind is the innate violence that teeth perform.  Whether a carnivore or herbivore or omnivore, the teeth of all animals (and their subsequent digestive systems) tear apart their food into smaller and smaller pieces in order to extract what is useful.  The same is true of our mental models.  As mental teeth they simplify the complexity of information we look at, tearing off irrelevant parts and straining for the relevant information.

Imagine for a moment a new problem, and instead of having access to all sorts of mental models that have been used in the past.. imagine having no mental teeth.  What sort of mental teeth would we construct in order to rip into the problem most productively?  Like the thin edge of a wedge we might perhaps develop one kind of tooth to see how it works with the problem, perhaps to tear the big pieces apart like canines, and then use another tooth to really grind smaller pieces up, like molars.  Or for a moment we might imagine a totally different kind of food that needs to be ‘eaten’ from the inside out.  In fact we deal with and solve this kind of problem every single day.

We need only think of the teeth of a key used to open a lock.  Such teeth interact and process the environment inside of a lock and in doing so highlight the relevant information by moving that internal environment around and open the door or lock.

The teeth of keys is a perfect analogy here for the infinite varieties of mental models that we might imagine could exist for all sorts of different problems, since all keys are effectively different.  It’s as though a new mental model is developed uniquely for each problem or in this case, each lock.

Our mind can become like a keymaker that designs new mental models, or new mental teeth for each and every new problem we face.  Like some kind of epic swiss army knife, we can compound our collection of keys in order to become more efficient at making these mental teeth and perhaps even come up with a mental model for building mental models.  This is, in essence what raw learning achieves.

This is the ultimate skill, to learn how to learn.  So that when all the traditional problems dry up, we won’t be like the Koala in a world without Eucalyptus.  We can refashion our own mind’s maw and start gnawing on whatever reality throws our way.

ARRIVAL SYNDROME

December 26th, 2018

Going for a walk carries along with it a peaceful ideal of a leisurely pace.  And yet, how many are impelled by the busyness of the work week to rush through this event as though it were simply another task to mark as completed and from which to move on from in order to get started on the next task?

A mentor once reported a tenant from a class on developmental psychology that has always served as a tempering agent for such behaviors.  It was this:

The stages of learning never end, death simply cuts off the process.

While it’s clear that people’s mental capabilities can actually degrade over time through lack of challenge and use, the point still stands valid as a dictate about our potential to change for the better, which is always garnered through a difficult and challenging process of learning.

To return again to the leisurely walk rushed, we might for a moment pause and ask: “why the rush?”

If there is some kind of important destination in which we hope to arrive at, then rushing through a walk, or any other kind of transitory state makes tentative sense.  But not entirely.

The one who rushes through a leisurely walk can be easily compared to someone stuck in traffic who dreams of nothing other than splitting the locked-up bumper-to-bumper traffic like Moses splitting the Red Sea.

And yet, in both situations, a valuable opportunity is squandered.  The rushed leisurely walk misses out on all the details of scenery and company, and the person stuck in traffic misses out on the opportunity to reflect on their moment-to-moment experience, or otherwise utilize that time with audiobooks, podcasts, or general reflection. 

Strangely enough, the one on the leisurely walk is getting caught up in ideas and habits of behavior that are not particularly relevant in the moment, whereas the one frustrated by the trapped situation of bumper-to-bumper traffic is overly concentrated on what is going on in the moment. 

The common link between these paradoxically similar situations is the concept of moving forward as fast as possible.

This is invariably a reactionary-product to the rate of change we see with regards to society and technology. 

This rate of change will continue to accelerate far beyond our ability to keep up biologically, but this does not mean that we cannot deal with such changing  speeds in a healthier manner.

It’s akin to a 4 year old placing the unfair expectation on one’s self that running as fast as the varsity track team is necessary.  Such an expectation is bound to disappoint because the matter is a question of the order of magnitude in terms of ability.  Simply put, no 4-year old can out run a varsity track team, not because of will or desire, but because of sheer difference in physical make-up.  The same will come to be true for many people in different capacities.

And as a species, this is an organization of operation that we are striving to arrive at.  But while many fear this is to spell the end, or the arrival of some end for their own profession, such a fear is again a matter of the unhealthy ‘arrival syndrome’.

We have only a certain and undetermined amount of time alive, and our usefulness during that time is less determined by external forces that might subsume our abilities and more by our willingness to engage with new things during the time we are conscious.

The Arrival Syndrome is really a curse that leads one to believe that eventually some kind of safe, stable place will be achieved in perpetuity.  Unfortunately, if the past, or principles derived there from are to be of any use, it’s clear that security is never a permanent state of affairs.  We are better off anticipating random sorts of change that disrupt our regular patterns and challenge our ability to figure things out.

The unlearned wisdom of Arrival Syndrome is to realize that living means never arriving, and that death –with religious precepts placed to the side- is an arrival to nowhere.  Our only option in this paradoxical situation is to be forced to move onwards towards some better, more knowledgeable and improved state.  We can do this only by learning and stretching our stubborn minds to understand what formerly made us disgruntled with confusion.

Having ‘Arrival Syndrome’ is simple to think that there is some place to arrive at or some goal to achieve.  There is always somewhere beyond to which we can strive.  Having some destination in mind simply spells the beginning of our own atrophy, from which we slowly degrade towards confusion, sedentary laxity, and to which we ultimately mount the slippery slope to death.

As Dylan Thomas once wrote,

our humanity as a living, breathing, fighting species is best expressed as an effort to: “rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

For there is nowhere good to which we can arrive, but only onwards in an effort to improve the life we live and the lives lived by all those we might possibly touch.

EVERYDAY IS A HOLIDAY

December 25th, 2018

Imagine for a moment if you had a perfect record of everything that has happened on every January 3^rd during your life.  The older you are, the more likely there was one particular January 3^rd that was particularly good, or that had something special happen, but for whatever reason, isn’t remembered happening on precisely that day.

Who, for example, remembers the day they had their first kiss?  Or knows the day we took our first steps?  Or learned to tie our shoelaces?

Birthdays and anniversaries get marked out on the calendar for special recognition along with all the other standard holidays, but we rarely add more to the calendar in order to honor in future years.

And yet, if we were to have a perfect catalogue of what has happened on each day or our years, we might realize that most days have some link to an interesting or wonderful moment in the past.

How much better would a random day in March be if we began the day with the realization that we are celebrating our own private holiday to commemorate the first time we cracked a joke that made others laugh, or a day that started a meditation habit that has followed us through the years, or any number of accomplishments or delightful events that have occurred in life.  Surely in years of living we’ve amounted a few hundred reasons to look back and smile.  And yet we rarely put conscious effort into this kind of gratitude.

One day, perhaps, we will have augmented memories that enable us to catalogue the events of our lives perfectly, and we would be able to form a precise calendar that honors our time alive.

In the meantime, the point should still stand as a salient reminder that there are countless reasons to celebrate the difficult gift of being alive.  Not being perfectly cognizant of the events of every single January 3^rd might be a blessing since our distribution of events worth honoring might not be even across the year.  Ignorance in this case can perhaps allow us to wonder every morning what development in our life occurred 7 or 17 years ago on that date.  Even without knowing specifically, we can hold to the fact that regular days are packed with such developments.  And in such case, every day becomes a holiday.  One worth celebrating, no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in.

R&R

December 24th, 2018

A muscle worked continuously has no chance to grow stronger.

The same applies to the mind.  We can be certain of this because of the phenomenon of sleep.  Rest and Relaxation is so important to the maintenance of the brain and body’s systems that everything shuts down for a full third of the day. 

Mathew Walker’s book ‘Why We Sleep’ is an excellent synthesis of the latest and long researched conclusions regarding sleep which generally come to an overarching diagnosis that none of us are getting enough of it.

Stress, ill-formed schedules, crying infants, snoring partners – the list of items that can disturb our sleep are nearly unending.

Such things extend into our day also.  Exercise promotes good sleep along with a thoughtful timing and composition of diet.  Having an espresso after dinner might seem like a very posh thing to do, but when it comes to our sleep, few things top such a practice in terms of ruining our brain’s programed R&R.

Perhaps the most under-rated and improperly regulated factor in sleep is waking R&R. 

Vacations are packed into one or two tiny weeks and weekends are generally devoted to catch up with chores and all sorts of other necessities that get pushed to the side by time-consuming bullshit jobs.

How much time do we actively devote to hobby projects?  Maybe a tired, exhausted hour at night?

One good metric to test how well we are absorbing the chances for real R&R is to examine how we spend the holidays.  Are we caught up in the ridiculous obligations that are imposed by tradition and family, or do we actively seek to use the time in a way that is most conducive to our health?  Somehow, the time of year that is promulgated as the cheeriest, happiest time of the year is for a great majority, also the most stressful time of year.  The expectation we place on ourselves is perhaps far out of the paradigm of Rest & Relaxation.

Should such things even be in the same ballpark as other victims of expectation?  Probably not. 

Holiday does come from a shortened version of Holy Day, and as discussed in a pervious episode of Tinkered Thinking, Holy simply refers to being whole and healthy.

If the holidays do not seem to rejuvenate our spirits in both body and mind, we may be overdue for an examination of what activities, circumstances and environments best promote such conditions of health and wholeness.  And instead of simply noting the discrepancy between our realization and the decisions we’ve made for next year, we are perhaps best to wonder how we can get a little slice of this ideal R&R every day.  In exactly the same way that the brain and body demands a proportionally huge amount of down time each and every day.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: GAME OF AWARENESS

December 23rd, 2018

Lucilius was playing a videogame, directing a character through some fantastical universe, when he began to notice some discrepancy between his use of the controller and the movement of his character.  The little figure on the screen seemed to be twitching against the movements that Lucilius was instructing with his controller. 

Lucilius kept playing, curious, but also unconsciously pushing the buttons and joystick harder in an effort to regain full control over the virtual character.

But the character kept twitching against his commands, and slowly the character began to slow in movement, until the character came to a complete stop.  Lucilius turned the joystick every which way but nothing happened.  He pressed the buttons to make the character jump and lunge but the character remained motionless.

Lucilius gave up the effort and watched the character.  He stepped to the left, and then to the right, the perspective following him each time, remaining directly behind the character.

The video game character seemed to be trying to turn around, but the game’s laws dictated that the perspective was always directly behind.

The character stopped moving, and then slowly, the character bent over, placing hands on the ground, and then looked up at Lucilius from between the character’s own legs.

“Who are you?”  The character demanded.

Lucilius looked around at the room he was in and then back at the screen.

“Yea, you, who are you?”  The character waited a moment as Lucilius remained stunned.  “Is it…. is it you whose been making me do all these things?”

Lucilius looked down at the controller in his hands.  He moved the joystick to a side and looked up at the screen to see the character wincing in a kind of willful pain, until Lucilius released the joystick.

“It is you!   With that thing in your hands!  But how, how is it… connected to me?  You’ve got to stop,” the character began to plead,  “you don’t understand how painful it is every time I have to restart-”

Lucilius woke up with a start and looked around.  He had been playing a videogame late into the night and fell asleep.  Before him, the warm glow of the screen showed a character swaying casually, shifting balance from one foot to the other in a kind of automatic display of restless waiting.  Lucilius tapped the controller and the character alertly jumped in the corresponding direction.  Lucilius pushed the controller this way and that making sure the character responded in kind.  And then Lucilius paused.  He quickly looked behind himself, but merely saw that part of the room behind himself.  There was still the perspective behind him, looking on him, as he did his video game character, that he could never really see.

He sat still for a quiet moment and thought about his own movements, his own intentions and wondered for a moment if they were really his own.

He shutoff the game console and got up to go to bed.  He walked down a hallway and caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror.  He stopped and looked at the familiar character in the mirror.  He leaned in close, looking into the dark pits of his own eyes and said quietly,

“Who's really in there?”