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Not only that, but if meditation has taught me anything, it's that your "conscious rational thought" isn't really conscious. ...like, basically at all. The de

Not only that, but if meditation has taught me anything, it's that your "conscious rational thought" isn't really conscious. ...like, basically at all. The decisions are getting made unconsciously and then kicked up to your conscious attention, already made.

mirekrusin 5y ago
There is a proof for this - when you're dreaming and hear some noise that wakes you up, in many cases the plot of your dream in last second or so will be constructed around that sound - in other words, your brain would have to know the future if it was all realtime, it leaks out faking reality perception.
mistermann 5y ago
For additional insight, try floating this idea when the topic of discussion is something other than psychology. Better, test it on a variety of demographics (education level, etc) and see if you detect substantial differences in reaction.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  This seems leading enough that I'm curious if you have more to add on the subject? In general, I've found this idea was quite natural to me, but always seems quite foreign to others except those with a background in neurology, meditation, sometimes physics, and Buddhist circles. People seem especially hostile to this when you start talking about the criminal justice system.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    Oh, I was discussing this phenomenon whereby intelligent people can have substantial knowledge of the various complexities involved in human perception, bias, etc, and discuss it freely and competently. However, if you take the same people and (at some other point in time) change the topic of conversation to some object level issue, they then behave as if they have no knowledge whatsoever. And if you remind them, it isn't just that they get angry (as would be expected), but they seem literally unable to recall the knowledge that they do possess. I genuinely believe that to some degree, the default human mind can't really multi-task abstract and object level thinking, so if you throw a bit of emotion and cognitive quirks [1] into the mix, add it all together [2] into one big system, you have a half decent model for explaining why the world is the way it is. I'm leaving a ton of stuff out of course, but this is one of the more fundamental ideas in my hypothesis. > In general, I've found this idea was quite natural to me, but always seems quite foreign to others except those with a background in neurology, meditation, sometimes physics, and Buddhist circles. Agree....I truly think its possible that things like Buddhism are an important aspect: if a person can't "get" Buddhism (or can't take it seriously), I suspect they will also not be able to properly understand this topic. > People seem especially hostile to this when you start talking about the criminal justice system. Oh, can you expand on this? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-dependent_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-dependent_memory [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
andrei_says_ 5y ago
Yes, my meditation experience is similar, and he states it in the same lecture. The belief that we are rational beings making informed calculated decisions is outdated and proven to be wrong. Yet, we continue to think of ourselves this way, at our peril.

mirekrusin 5y ago

There is a proof for this - when you're dreaming and hear some noise that wakes you up, in many cases the plot of your dream in last second or so will be constructed around that sound - in other words, your brain would have to know the future if it was all realtime, it leaks out faking reality perception.

mistermann 5y ago

For additional insight, try floating this idea when the topic of discussion is something other than psychology. Better, test it on a variety of demographics (education level, etc) and see if you detect substantial differences in reaction.

Enginerrrd 5y ago
This seems leading enough that I'm curious if you have more to add on the subject? In general, I've found this idea was quite natural to me, but always seems quite foreign to others except those with a background in neurology, meditation, sometimes physics, and Buddhist circles. People seem especially hostile to this when you start talking about the criminal justice system.
- mistermann 5y ago
  Oh, I was discussing this phenomenon whereby intelligent people can have substantial knowledge of the various complexities involved in human perception, bias, etc, and discuss it freely and competently. However, if you take the same people and (at some other point in time) change the topic of conversation to some object level issue, they then behave as if they have no knowledge whatsoever. And if you remind them, it isn't just that they get angry (as would be expected), but they seem literally unable to recall the knowledge that they do possess. I genuinely believe that to some degree, the default human mind can't really multi-task abstract and object level thinking, so if you throw a bit of emotion and cognitive quirks [1] into the mix, add it all together [2] into one big system, you have a half decent model for explaining why the world is the way it is. I'm leaving a ton of stuff out of course, but this is one of the more fundamental ideas in my hypothesis. > In general, I've found this idea was quite natural to me, but always seems quite foreign to others except those with a background in neurology, meditation, sometimes physics, and Buddhist circles. Agree....I truly think its possible that things like Buddhism are an important aspect: if a person can't "get" Buddhism (or can't take it seriously), I suspect they will also not be able to properly understand this topic. > People seem especially hostile to this when you start talking about the criminal justice system. Oh, can you expand on this? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-dependent_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-dependent_memory [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

andrei_says_ 5y ago

Yes, my meditation experience is similar, and he states it in the same lecture. The belief that we are rational beings making informed calculated decisions is outdated and proven to be wrong. Yet, we continue to think of ourselves this way, at our peril.