Our Precocious and Problematic Minds - Part 2

Our untutored Minds                     (Vivace)         

[I would like to apologize “up front” for my not being up to par the last several days, and for leaving what follows a little unpolished. - In a sense, though, this may be serendipitous, because what I want to lead up to today is just how hard we have to work at making our minds work in the ways that we tend to think that they were “made” to work.]

In a future posting, I want to explore further an idea that has already come up several times, and that has to do with how there are aspects of our selves that are, or tend to be, of an either/or nature—such as for example, being optimistic or pessimistic (and there are others that it may be very instructive to go over). 

Today, though, I would like to note that the idea that there is an ideal personality, and the idea that someone should be, or needs to be, consistent and predictable all the time, have no basis in fact, and have no basis in our healthy (by which I mean the state of being able to carry out our day-to-day activities and pursue our longer-term projects in a positive and progressive, or at least maintaining, way, with relatively few and relatively minor dis-eases) functioning as individuals. 

For today, let us note that these prescriptions (and many of our other prescriptions about life as well), and the idea that they are real and valid, are born primarily from our untutored minds.

Left to themselves, our untutored minds are very self-centered and narcissistic (as you would expect from our evolutionary path, which saw us engaged in a biological realm that reflected a long history of development in a “hunter-prey” environment [we might speak in terms of an evolutionary “arms race”], on top of shifting or hard climatic and terrain environments).  Being vulnerable for as long as we are vulnerable when we are young, and taking as long as it takes for us to “grow up”, we have to be a center of attention for those who nurture us, and, well, we kind of like that.  Until we’re adolescents, at least.

For life to progress in the kind of environments that we evolved in, especially conscious life, the inner drives and habits, including a sense of personal capacity and ability, that would be needed in order to survive would have to have been quite strong—if I am faced with a situation that is dangerous, but one that I must face, I had better be armed with a pretty firm sense of self and confidence (even if possibly misplaced) in my abilities to handle the situation, or at least make a good try at it.  Whether this is where Ego got its start, I can’t really say, but I can certainly see how it would had to have led to its strengthening.

So those are two things (possibly different aspects of one) about our untutored minds: Ego and narcissism, or a possibly (or probably, as it turns out in most cases) exaggerated sense of my abilities and importance, and love of myself and what pertains to me.   

Another important factor is the very large amount of energy required for our brains to process all of the incoming stimuli, maintain our bodies and selves, and move them along; they (our brains) are serious “energy hogs”.  And it is not just the use of energy, but also the frustrations and uncertainties that always arise, which can be psychologically daunting and wearing.  Consequently, our minds are also prone to making quick, categorical assessments based on perhaps just a few salient (and often irrelevant, as in superstitious thinking) observable characteristics or features—or, in many cases, based on predispositions and preconceptions, typically those that others have taught us, or we have learned from them.

So, in addition to being egocentric and narcissistic, our minds are also prone to wanting things to be simple, homogeneous (everything in a class is like everything else in that class, with “class” meaning just about anything, up to and including all humans), whole or coherent, harmonious (everything “plays nicely” with each other), persisting (the way things are will remain that way) or regular, and, to the extent possible, enjoyable, pleasant, or “nice”. 

These all go towards reducing anxiety and work by the brain.

Nor can we overlook our minds’ liking to “play”, to be stimulated and to enjoy functioning to no particular instrumental end related to survival or maintenance.  Given a choice, it is to be playing that our minds more and more would rather be doing than almost anything else, and this only reinforces all of the tendencies noted just above (simplicity, homogeneity, etc.).  I am fairly confident that you are able to recognize societal developments that leave our minds with more and more time and energy to play. 

And I suspect that I do not need to describe in detail how susceptible our brains--and therefore our minds--are to chemical imbalances and “addictions” of various kinds.

In other words, in terms of “seeing the invisible”, I believe that it is important for us to see that our minds are not built to be “rational”, per se, but to process, integrate, smooth, and economize, while keeping the body (its body, some philosophers or thinkers like to say about the mind) alive and functioning. 

It seems to me that to be rational is to try to train the mind to go beyond its intrinsic desires for simplicity, homogeneity, wholeness, harmony, regularity, persistence, and pleasure, or “nice”ness, its narcissism, and its tendency towards fictitious linkages (superstitions), all of which work against seeing what is really at work in a given situation and figuring out how to best cope with it, improve it, or fix it,  under the circumstances. That’s all.  Piece of cake.  But, like the good cakes we remember, it took someone a lot of work and practice to make it seem like something that they “just threw together”.  Thinking well is a lot like that.  But that is another subject.

 

Comments

[Guido]

The balance between conscious reason and unconscious emotion is what defines human nature. The philosophers of the Enlightenment advocated the primacy of reason, and the Romantics favored emotion. Hume stated that reason is and ought to be, the slave of emotion, without it there would not be goal-oriented behavior. Emotions are not necessarily bad, they contribute to our survival.
The basic life-sustaining mechanisms include breathing, hunger, thirst, maintaining body temperature, circulation, respiration, chemical balance and fighting disease and physical agents. In humans most of these regulatory mechanisms are located in the brain stem. Another regulatory site is the hypothalamus, an area where the activity of the endocrine glands and the autonomic nervous system are integrated with inputs from other areas.
Nature has instilled into us a threat-detection system to contend with the type of threats our ancestors faced. We have instincts to separate animate from inanimate objects, to identify faces and to infer the internal states of others. Stereotyping evolved originally to help us spot potential prey or predators, it may be the reason for our prejudice and xenophobia. The limbic system, or the reptilian brain, is the site of emotions. A typical emotion is fear, it protects the organism by initiating the flight or fight response.
All group-living animals, including ourselves, create social hierarchies. After we make the initial friend or foe distinction, we automatically gauge the status of others, especially their competence to engage their goals. Comparisons inform and protect us and help us to know were we fit and how we stand in relation to others in the group. These comparisons originate certain emotions such as respect, envy, disgust, pity or scorn, that help us navigate the social world.
Competitive as well as cooperative behaviors evolved to establish the status of the individual in the group and affiliations with family and friends. Cooperative instincts have been shaped by natural selection because they enhance the survival of the individual and the species. It would have been difficult for our ancestors to survive without a network of family and friends. In addition to helping us to affiliate with family and friends, they also help us to adapt to group living, and eventually to find and keep mates.
After assuring its survival, everything an animal does is motivated by the need to promote inclusive fitness, the success of passing its genes to the next generation. Men are attracted to physical characteristics like symmetrical faces, smooth skin and a particular waist to hip ratio in their potential mates, probably because they may be signs of health and fertility. Women are choosier about potential mates, mainly because they have a relatively higher involvement in raising the offspring. They prefer men with status and resources, There is no question that we are egocentric,and seek status, mates and resouces. Fortunately, we also exhibit some measure of altruism and a feeling of empathy for others. Altruism includes a kin recognition system that helps us forego our selfish behaviors in support of genetically-related individuals. Reciprocal altruism is the exchange of benefits by unrelated individuals that result in mutual gains.
It took several million years for the brain of our ancestors to expand from five hundred to fifteen hundred cubic centimeters. During this period, the brain grew progressively, and this change was associated with the development of language, intelligence and consciousness. Most of the growth took place in the cerebral cortex; the factors responsible for this rapid growth have not been clearly established. Together with cultural change and transmission, the increase in brain size and connectivity has been responsible for our spectacular success as a species. The growth of the cerebral cortex is responsible for our higher cognitive functions. These include perception, memory, language, attention and problem-solving, which involve neural transactions between and within cognitive networks in the cerebral cortex.

In spite of the growth of our cognitive networks and our creative capabilities, the unconscious part of our minds, including previous knowledge kept in our memory banks and the emotions, intuitions, drives and biases that we experience, continues to influence the way we feel, think and behave. We tend to find patterns and forms beliefs about reality in the context of our social and cultural environment. We maintain these beliefs through the use of cognitive biases such as only taking the advice of experts that agree with us or ignoring disconfirming evidence.

Posted by: Guido