THE OPPOSITE OF A CONCLUSION

November 24th, 2018

Conclusion comes from the word ‘conclude’, this word comes from Latin and means “completely” + “shut”.

The word ‘shut’ implies some kind of barrier with an opening.   We might visualize a container or a physical border like a fence or the walls of a house.  In such a visualization, a ‘conclusion’ would be like locking up the house for the night.  Closing the door, and ensuring that it stays that way. 

But the word – conclusion - as we use it primarily refers to concepts.  The container here is our mind and the ideas that propagate as thoughts and ultimately give rise to actions and behaviors.  To conclude is to shut off one’s mind from other ideas that are different from the ones that already have their home made in our head.

We’re all familiar with how arrestingly difficult it can be to change such a person who has already come to a conclusion.  Unless the hinges on their mental door are well oiled and they keep an open door policy, chances are we need a talented locksmith, or worse, and more commonly, we try to use brute-force to knock the door down.

Why do we lock the doors to our homes at night?  It’s a silly question, we do so in order to keep ourselves safe.  We imagine and fear intruders who would walk right in and do all sorts of terrible things. While physical violence here is at the top of the list for potentially good reasons to keep the door locked at night, we might want to wonder why such fear and locked conclusiveness extends to our mental world.  Does a new idea really present the risk of doing some kind of physical violence to our mind?  The answer is yes.  We can mentally swallow an idea so bad that it has ramifications in our behavior that could lead to our own harm.  This is a very scary thing, but it has an important stipulation.  That idea has to become a conclusion, meaning, once that idea is through the door, the door gets locked and now we are somewhat trapped in the house of our mind with the bad idea.  As many scary movies like to remind us, the only thing worse than having an intruder in the house is being trapped in the house with such an intruder.  But that stipulation is our saving grace in such a situation.  Just as the open-door policy creates the risk of potentially bad ideas coming into the mind’s field, having no lock and well oiled hinges means that we are never trapped in our own mind with a bad idea.

 The mental habit of coming to conclusions, to shutting the door and locking it feels like a safe idea, but just as in a real world situation, it can turn out that we create our own trap.

In this framework it seems like there are two options:

Either we shut the door and pray that we don’t find ourselves trapped with a bad idea that has found some way to get in.

or

we keep an open door policy and experience a much greater diversity of concepts, both good and bad.

But is there an inbetween here?  Might it be better to have temporary conclusions, as though shutting the door for some time, but not locking it and throwing away the key?

Interestingly, there aren’t really any conclusions in science.  There are theories, which are similar.  They are ideas, but they constantly keep the door open for new evidence that might disprove the theory.  This process of science seems innately devoid of fear, but this open-door policy is what ultimately makes it so effective.  If a theory does not break down under new evidence, then it remains useful.  More importantly however, new evidence that does break a theory always leads us to a greater understanding of reality.  The process of discovering evidence to disprove a theory is literally dispelling illusions, giving rise to ideas that are more useful and more faithful to the nature of reality.

And isn’t this what we should want in an idea?  Usefulness?

What does it mean to cling to a useless idea or an illusion?  Are we perhaps forfeiting a better life and a higher state of well-being for ourselves and others by holding onto a useless idea that we keep safeguarded from new evidence that might adversely effect it?

Perhaps the monster that is trying to break in is doing so because it is desperate to help us.

To conclude, it smells as though all conclusions are temporary, or should be.  Such a conclusion, however, is probably also temporary, and serves here as an organizing principle for testing strategies. 

We come to a certain conclusion about a set of ideas that form a strategy, shut the door on more influences and test the strategy. 

If it works out, then great, and if it doesn’t, we’d naturally want to do the opposite of a conclusion and open the door again, to more and potentially better ideas.  Best to keep the hinges well oiled.

MONKEY WORK

November 23rd, 2018

Everything becomes monkey work,

After you’ve figured it out.

The only way to stay fresh, keep the brain growing, is to keep finding new things to do and figure out.

This is one of the best ways to get out of a slump.

It’s often touted as such limp and quaint statements as “take up a hobby!” after say, a particularly grueling break up or after retirement.

Often though there’s a lot of truth to this.  After a bad break up, one might rebound well.  Feeling new freedom and invigorated to try all sorts of new things.  (Though the more interesting question is probably why such a person didn’t go out and try these things while still in the relationship? 

Point being: we only hold ourselves back.  Unless you are literally in a cage, blaming someone else of that is a form of laziness.  A lack of courage really. 

What can be learned from this little pocket of human experience?

Say there is no big break up, or retirement or sudden empty nest.

Can something still be garnered from knowing of this phenomenon?

Yes.

Continually seek to do things that feel difficult.

The process requires figuring things out, rewiring neurons, flexing the brain.  Other areas seem to import the flexibility.   Courage in one area might spur courage in another area.  Virtuous cycles are born spinning off other virtuous cycles. 

So occurs that feeling when everything seems to be ‘clicking’.

What’s the key to the slump?  Climbing a mountain.  Figuring out something new; anything to get away from monkey work.  Or at least augment it with something the brain can chew on.

Sure, this can be a new hobby,

Why limit though?  Think bigger. Harder.  more.  difficult.

Raise the stakes and the payout just might be better than you could have hoped.

COFFEE AND GENIES

November 22nd, 2018

Anyone who is presented with a question such as “would you like it if you were a more effective communicator?” would answer in the affirmative.

And yet, just as with much human behavior, our words do not reflect our actions and efforts.   We clearly do not act in our best interest during a vast amount of the time we have the opportunity to do so.

Where is the disconnect? 

One way of looking at this may be that such people who claim to desire progress forward don’t realize that they are currently moving backward. And that all previous attempts to make progress have been a step forward while failing to realize that such a step was made while moving backwards at a much faster rate.

Visually, this is like taking a step north while on a train that is speeding south, and not realizing one is on such a train. Becoming frustrated when the realization that indeed no progress north has been made has to do with a lack of perspective, it would not be a genuine assessment of effort, because a step north was indeed made. 

If one fails to realize the reality of the train, all such small and inconsistent attempts at progress will contribute to the phenomenon known as ‘Learned Helplessness’.  In this visual analogy it’s one thing to try and take a step north.  It’s quite another to see the train by zooming out, figure out how to slow it down, then turn it around and get it going again in the right direction. 

There is a vast difference between wanting to change and figuring out how to change. 

The decision is clearly not at all like the decision to pick up a cup of coffee and take a sip.  We think such an act and our arm and hand act accordingly with the quickest and most elusive of mental twitches.  But to become a better communicator?  The decision is not succeeded by some quick mental twitch that makes it so. 

It’s curious to wonder if the mythology of the Genie was created out of the confusion this disconnect creates. 

The brain figures out very early that it can achieve a high degree of control over it’s immediate surroundings by using the hands to move things, and the feet to carry the body around, and these changes are nearly instantaneous.  Want coffee?  The mug is at your lips before we even realize we were thinking about wanting coffee.

The mental distance of such an action and the actual time between such decisions and their successful execution are infinitesimally miniscule.  Whereas the mental distance and actual time between the decision to become wealthy or become a better communicator, and the successful execution of such a decision is truly gargantuan, and in most cases a few failed attempts can create emotions that make this distance infinite. 

The quantum leap from understanding reality on the first task (taking a sip of coffee) to understanding reality on the second task (becoming wealthy or becoming a better communicator) is so perplexing and taxing that it might have given rise to an imaginary form of reality where there is no gargantuan distance between such decisions and tasks, that no quantum leap is required.  Such an imaginary form of reality where the decision to pick up a cup of coffee and its execution is equivalent in terms of time and effort to the decision to be wealthy or becoming a better communicator.  We are all acquainted with this reality because we can imagine alternative versions of our past and present and we can project desirable versions of the future in our mind’s eye.  This is how we achieve progress: by imagining something better and working towards it.  But we can become more focused on this succulent vision than reality itself, which in turn may undermine our efforts to achieve this vision since we spend so much time away from reality.

It is perhaps even more interesting considering Julian Jaynes theory of the Bicameral Mind, which wonders if the origin of God and gods is that people assumed the voice they heard in their head was such a god, and they as mere mortals existed to listen.  Oh the irony.

Indeed every day people ask their own variety of genie for things they can’t get as easily as a sip of coffee, whether it be wealth, or a better body or the ideal spouse.   Case and point: no one with functioning arms and a mouth and a cup of coffee prays for a sip of coffee.  .  . they just take the damn sip of coffee. 

But wealth, health and happiness?  The distance between wishing for these things and achieving these things seems supernaturally vast. 

Hence, the deployment of supernatural tactics. 

And yet few would disagree that a better, more accurate interpretation of reality can lead to better informed actions that one may take, which in turn raises the probability of achieving one’s goals. 

More thinking and –particularly- DOING  is usually what is needed.

Not daydreaming.

Actionable thoughts that can manipulate our physical reality.

The time and resources to clearly think through new strategies is often very difficult to come by, never mind the time and resources to implement all these new thoughts but such is part of the difficulty that creates that vast space between taking a sip of coffee and inventing the concept of a Genie.

WILL IT

November 21st, 2018

Occasionally, during particularly dramatic parts of movies, or even books, we will witness a character who is so full of confidence, and often anger, and self-assured ability, they will declare some kind of divine influence over events.  They’ll say something ridiculous like,

“I will it to happen.”

As though they are endowed with such an intimate tie to the core of reality that their mere thoughts seem to have an effect on the way things go.

Of course, the word ‘will’ as discussed in a previous episode of Tinkered Thinking, Episode 184, entitled ‘Will Power’, will derives from a much less impressive sounding word.  Will comes from wish.

Imagine for a moment swapping out that powerful-sounding line ‘I will it’, with  I wish.

Generally, when we say, ‘I wish’, is when we are being pessimistically facetious about something we’d love to see happen but feel certain will never materialize.

The attitudes of each situation match the connotations perfectly, and yet – etymologically speaking – both words derive from the same meaning.

What else might we say about these two diametrically opposed attitudes?  The first one who is full of fire in the movies, gritting teeth and saying “I will it to happen!”.  Would we call such a posture… lazy?

Certainly not.  Such a person is practically on fire with drive, while the person who swings a limp hand at the non-possibility of some better reality and says “I wish”…. how would we characterize such a person?  Would we say that such an attitude has the same amount of drive as the first?  Certainly not.  The second is an attitude marked my stagnation.

There’s simply no forward momentum with such a person, just a sense of being dragged through time.

These two attitudes or postures towards the things we can dream up indicate how we view the source of change for reality.  One of them is external, meaning, when we merely wish for something to happen, we expect it to happen for us.  But when we will something into existence.  That posture is placing the responsibility square on our own shoulders to figure out how to make it happen.

Instead of making a wish and tossing a coin into a fountain, we’d do best to realize there are two sides to the coin we wish upon.  We can have a nice thought about a possible future and toss that possibility to the whims of fate as we toss a coin into that fountain.  Or we can flip that coin, and realize there is another way to wish.  We can will something into existence.

But the posture here is different.  There is no leaving things to the whims of fate.  There is drive, there is determination, there is energy, all of which contribute to our ability to work towards something.

We can realize that we do not simply will things into existence like some magical genie.

We will things into existence by working them into existence.  By working with reality, pulling the levers of reality, rearranging it’s parts, sculpting them, deconstructing them, repairing them, until what we had the will and wish to see happen, is done.

This episode references Episode 184: Will Power.

NEVER LOST

November 20th, 2018

What separates those who are driven from those who feel lost?  Very few people haven’t felt lost at some point in their lives, and so this end of the spectrum is perhaps an easier one to start at, not to mention the fact no one is looking for this end as a destination.  Driven individuals are generally not looking to feel lost in life. 

Someone who feels lost, however, might latch on to some of the quaint aphorisms that float around in culture, such as:

All those who wander are not lost.

It’s the journey not the destination that counts.

A person who generally feels lost might feel momentary comfort in such phrases, feeling comfort in redefining the situation as a wandering journey.

Of course, in order to wander and be on a journey, one generally has to move.  And going to and from work everyday does not necessarily cut the cake here, nor does merely existing through time.

The feeling of being lost is not really being clueless about what destination to shoot for, it’s the feeling of stagnation.  It’s the feeling of standing still and not moving in any direction at all.  This might be at the core of the concept of FOMO, the acronym for ‘fear of missing out’.  Those who are too involved in what they are doing or exploring, don’t really have the mental space to concentrate on what they might be missing out on.   Standing still and doing nothing, however, or lacking concentration and attention on what is going on in the moment gives rise to the space and mental stagnation necessary for thoughts of FOMO to intervene.

Driven people have a hypothesis about the near future, and they are hunting around in order to find out if reality will prove their hypothesis right or wrong.  An important distinction, however, is that if reality pokes back in a way that seems to indicate that a hypothesis is wrong, a driven individual will not necessarily give up, but probe reality further, taking feedback from reality as an indication to pivot and try a different strategy in order to test the hypothesis.  If you erase the concept of ‘hypothesis’ from this situation and merely look at the behavior of such a person without their goal in mind...  It simply looks like they are wandering.  You might even say they look lost.

We can switch tracks and imagine being on a trail through the woods.  Many people who actually get lost in the woods are rarely very far from the trail they are seeking, and unfortunately many perish this way.

We can imagine ourselves in such a situation.  Feeling overwhelmed, afraid to move because we might become more lost and more separated from the path we wish we were on.  Where lies the first step in this situation?

Organization is the key.

Even with no equipment, we could begin by walking in a straight line and breaking branches on trees as we walk.  We might even be thoughtful enough to make this line extend from the direction where the sun rises to where the sun sets, thereby establishing a rough east/west axis.  Even without the sun this exercise creates orientation out of nowhere.  It might not be orientation relative to where we’d like to be, but it orients ourselves relative to where we have been.  We might even use such branches to create letters and numbers on the ground next to a tree and slowly build a grid system.  By doing so, we can slowly expand the part of the environment that we have organized and mapped.  We can do this continuously until our organized system grows to touch some other familiar organization, like a trail, and then boom, we’ve found where we were hoping to go.

A driven individual is simply attempting to wander in an organized way.  Ensuring that the same mistake isn’t made, i.e. blindly taking the same path to nowhere productive

Our ability to plan what will happen tomorrow is relegated to a very small pixel of the universe.  But relative to ourselves and the portion of reality that we get to wander around in, it’s everything, and our ability to wander productively ultimately is the biggest factor in determining just how much success we are likely to encounter.

This episode references Episode 72: Persevere vs. Pivot, Episode 165: Set Sail, and Episode 57: Compass.