Embracing The Irrational Mind

How much of our decision making process is a function of the unconscious mind? How many of our choices are rationally justified after the fact? Join me for an investigation into the workings of the mind and consider if we are fated to do as we do.

Transcript

Welcome to the Reality Check Podcast.

I'm Zachary Phillips.

In today's episode,

I talk about rationality versus irrationality,

Choice,

And the ability for us to make something of our lives.

If you enjoy this episode,

Please give it a rate and review and tell someone about it.

Stick around to the end of the episode because I'll be playing you a piece from the book,

Bound to the Wings of a Butterfly.

Enjoy.

What are the chances that what we feel to be rationality,

What we feel to be choice,

Or free will,

Is in fact a visage,

A fiction,

Just something overlaid on top of unconscious drivers or instinct?

I have this thought a lot.

Imagine a super intelligent alien or an AI or a god,

Something that far exceeds our cognitive capacities.

Would they look at us,

Humans,

Humans in the same way we do animals?

You see animals acting and they act based on certain patterns and impulses and instincts.

We can easily map what they'll do and we can easily manipulate what they will do.

You see birds and a bird's job is to or a bird's actions are to do certain things.

They find food,

They have sex,

They sit on the eggs,

They make the nest,

They do certain behaviors over and over again and their cognitive ability to sort of dissect why doesn't seem to be present.

That's the same thing with most animals but we feel that we're different because we have this overlay of consciousness,

This layer of rationality that sort of we know why we're doing things we can choose.

The more I sit and meditate,

The more I observe my mental state,

The more I sort of contemplate the way that my mind works,

It becomes at least to me more and more apparent that I post-justify my actions.

It's like I have thought,

Then I act,

Then I justify the why backwards upon that,

Going okay this is why I did that thing.

So like let's say I decide to quit my job.

Oftentimes that thought seems to come out of the blue and I do it and then I think back and go okay well this person's treating me badly or you know I really wanted to follow this other job,

That's why I thought to quit the job and that's why I did quit the job,

But the reality of it feels almost backwards.

I read a book by the author of Dilbert called Win Bigly and this was a book breaking down Donald Trump's rise to power and he,

The author,

Highlighted or through his training as a hypnotist,

Highlighted this idea that most humans believe that we're mainly rational,

You know 90% rational,

10% irrational,

Conscious and subconscious,

But he and hypnotists believe that it's the other way around.

We're 90% unconscious or irrational with 10% of rationality and what a master manipulator or a hypnotist or you know a politician like Trump was able to do was to appeal to that 90% rationality because if you get a person's irrationality on board,

90% of them,

Then they'll easily justify after the fact why,

Thus they can be manipulated.

You know and you know this isn't,

This is true for advertisements,

For PR campaigns,

For attracting a mate,

You know all these things.

There's so much psychology that you can look into that seems to suggest that we have innate drivers.

You know the idea that the studies that if you put kids in two different colored tops,

They're exactly the same kids,

You're just normal normal friends,

Normal friends and then one day you're like okay kids half the class split up randomly is going to wear yellow tops,

The other half of the class is going to wear blue tops.

By the end of the day the yellow tops are friends with the yellow tops and they're ostracizing the blue tops and vice versa.

Nothing else has to be said,

Nothing.

We just do that right.

There's so many cases of these sort of behaviors,

We believe that we're going to be lucky that we will win the lotto or that we won't suffer the disease right,

Despite the fact that if we look at chance,

Chance will occur but we don't believe it'll happen badly to us but everyone's doing that.

On average we think we are better looking than average.

You know if you ask a person to rank themselves out of 10 they'll say that there are seven on intelligence,

Personality,

Athletic ability,

Everything.

We think we're better than average but on average we are average obviously and you know half the people are below average.

If someone is an authority figure and they tell you to do something,

You're more likely to follow them based on the fact they're an authority figure.

We despise saying no right.

All of these things and there's so so so many more but all of these these sort of tests sort of correlate with what I'm saying here that we don't have as much choice over our behaviors as we'd like to think but it feels like we do.

There's this illusion of control and I've been thinking about this a lot because I look back at my life and I go okay my choices led me here but how much of my choice was actually my choice?

And on top of that the darker side of me goes how can I use this knowledge to get what I want but then the meta side of me goes but isn't what I want still just a function of my unconscious right?

There's something to be said about all of this this idea of control versus choice versus free will versus faith.

I'm not saying like there's scientific suggestions that we don't even have free will that you know the way that the atoms in the brain and the you know the choices land suggests that there isn't free will but it still feels like we do.

I guess all of those sort of arguments aside I like to look at it and go what is this information functional?

Is it actionable?

Does it give me anything to do with?

And the sort of metaphysical discussions the the deep physics discussions of free will it doesn't doesn't help but this idea of observing the irrationality of my own mind and realizing that I might be making decisions and then post justifying them and sort of backwards justifying helps.

It allows me to see the process in action.

I've looked people in my life and in life in general make snap irrational decisions just in the moment like they're doing one thing all of a sudden something happens and they're making another decision or they're making a decision and it and it it's telling because you can see them stuck in this rut and whether or not they act upon it today or tomorrow or the next day they do.

You know it's like this compulsion.

Wouldn't it be good to know that?

Wouldn't it be good to know and be able to control that?

I just wonder are we just self-aggrandizing animals that believe themselves to be amazing but you know this super intelligent alien this AI this thing that's above us might look at us and be able to predict our behavior just as we can predict the behaviors of animals.

Wouldn't that be funny?

You know and the thing is over the the macro you know looking at collective humans we sort of can predict what they will do.

We from our own limited perspective can.

Now obviously the feats of humanity are incomparable to that of an animal.

Look at what we've built.

Look what we've done.

But like compare what we've built and done to an ant or a termite you know that's building their their dens or their mounds right.

Termite mounds can survive in the desert by a complex sort of um web of uh holes and things that sort of cool the top half by you know circulating air down to the bottom half and stuff.

Now you can argue that that behavior is evolutionarily innate.

Fair enough.

And that like you know we've gone to space how is that evolutionarily um warranted and you know on the surface level it's not.

But if you step outside ourselves far enough and look at sort of like the whole planet from a detached perspective you could look at humanity as sort of like a meta animal a collective animal.

It feels like we're all individual because in a way we are but collectively we do our greatness right.

We build cities we create we invent we do right together and alone what can a what can a human do alone just like what can ant do alone it would wither and die most of the time.

It's just that we feel like we have this control we feel like we have this sort of choice this individuality and we do.

I'm free to choose any course in a sense but if I want to live if I want to function if I want to thrive I'm forced to follow social norms I'm forced to go to work I'm forced to buy in to the society that I've been born into and this just happens to be the society that I've been born into right that values what it values and puts forth what it puts forth and has the technology capability what it has right.

But you know like the effort for me to be able to step outside this and still just even live is astronomical and yes some people do choose to do that but even like every individual's behavior can be mapped to this overarching thing you know the uh the alien sociologist investigating humanity would be like yes there's a you know 0.

01 percent chance that your chosen human will choose to leave society and become a hermit right but if you look at the human on a global perspective we live you know on average 80 years or whatever we tend to to desire more and more social contact we build up structures that help facilitate communication and education and and hospital and all of that sort of stuff what am I driving at I don't even know I mean I'll put it this way the meta discussion of this podcast is I was sitting outside meditating and then this thought came to me I've had this thought again but I'm like you know what I want to explore this and investigate this I'll put it onto a podcast and now I'm here talking about it I didn't really plan what I was going to say in this podcast it just comes so how much of it was my choice I could have chosen not to record but then I would have been outside or inside or whatever doing my day thinking about the fact that I didn't do this what I've missed what I've missed sharing so I either had the choice to post to record and post or to not and sort of lament in the fact that I didn't or did I even have a choice for that you know I came inside and I was able to record and now we're here I mean this this then goes into this this this issues space this dark space this problematic space of criminality of illegality you know someone commits a crime were they are they responsible well based on what I'm saying in a way no but does that mean they shouldn't be locked up and punished well they probably should be right because if a person's innate animalistic instinctual deterministic desires cause them to commit harm and crime they probably shouldn't be free to commit those crimes or they should be punished for those crimes to dissuade others because there's that functional use of that behavior but even so the the response of society to those behaviors could itself be a function of this same concept the same concept we if you if you study history you said I get this idea of trends and forces there's two ways you look at history trends and forces of the great person thing of history the idea being with a great person thing of history is that you know it takes a great person to lead a society down a certain path but eventually and inevitably the forces take over like how far into the first world war build up or mobilization could anyone have stopped what happened or the civil war or you know the pandemic or you know any anything that has happened in history right it comes to a stage where no one person could have stopped what they started so you can argue that we're sort of being pulled along by the forces of history the trends the environmental factors the technology right we know neither you nor I have the ability to impact technology we can either get on board and buy the new phone you know and engage with society as we choose to engage you know online spaces or we don't just like back in the day you could choose to read the newspaper or you could choose to attend the the city square you know a city itself is a form of technology right writing itself is technology you could argue even that communication the ability to use language speaking with words is itself a technology right so you can choose to engage with the technology or you don't and that leads to a lot of questions of even if you have the free choice it's like okay you have the choice but you have the choice to choose what to do within this box by the time you even understand the concepts that i'm saying here you've been conditioned you've been taught you know how to speak and read in your language in the context of your time so you're now irreparably changed from the baby that you were you know you put the same baby as you in a pre-language society you are certainly not the same person as you are now you put the same baby in a language that operates completely differently you know it doesn't use the same structures that we use but it sort of you know has has um free word order or it um i mean there's there's different ways to structure language that goes beyond my ability to explain because i'm not uh linguist but suffice to say there's different ways that we can talk that are sort of alien in the same way that you know you'll have a different operating system on a computer you know linux versus windows versus apple whatever apple use sorry apple people um it's a completely different way of looking you know and imagine if a alien had made a computer but would it operating system be right they still might be able to do and access the same sort of level of functionality but the back-end coding would be different and that back-end coding will result in different ways to interpret and look at data i.

E how we see the world my son had a dream and in his dream he he said to me he's like i paused the dream then i fast forwarded it and then i played it and what happened in the dream really isn't important for this point but the fact that he was using words like pause and play and fast forward said something to me it's like if he was born in a time before television before smartphones before pausing playing what would he have interpreted that he was doing you know let's imagine he had that same dream in the 1600s or you know the 100s right he would be doing the same thing to his dream pausing playing fast forwarding rewinding whatever rewinding whatever but he wouldn't be able to explain it with those words so his ability to interface with reality is in fact dictated by the reality that he's interfacing with does that sort of make sense it leads to some interesting things interesting um contemplations it sort of leads me down this path of say inebriation right you know when you've been drinking or you're getting high in some capacity and you're like you're trying to judge whether you are or are not able to drive are you under the limit the reason you can't judge the reason you should use maybe some sort of device to measure or failing that a sober person is because the thing that is judging sobriety is itself inebriated right you're trying to judge your own sobriety through the lens of insubriety if you're at 0.

05 0.

08 or whatever your legal limit is 0.

1 you are not you are not sober and the thing that is judging your sobriety is is self compromised thus how do you know you can't you can't be certain now in that mode you will think that you're fine and you will provide rationalizations as to why you are fine and why you know you are fine but the thing is those rationalizations are tweaked via the logic of the drunk mind so you still don't know but it feels like you do and the same thing is true for emotionality for this irrationality i'm making these decisions because of xyz but the thing is if you're emotionally compromised you don't know you don't know that you are compromised right you just simply don't but it will feel like that you are fine it will feel like that you're quote sober into quote right you know if you've just broken up with someone you've just been fired something emotional has just happened it will feel like you are making rational decisions that day because the thing making the decisions is itself compromised but it might not realize that it's compromised or not as much this is why i always suggest the idea of sleeping on it you should sleep on your decisions because how do you know that they are the right decisions how do you know that you are making a choice that is rational now upon coming back to that decision you still don't know if you're rational but at least you know that you are not in the same state as the the thing that was initially making that decision there's been so many times that i've tried to make a decision i've slept on it and then chose not to you know how many thoughts have you had with your partner of you know flash moments of thoughts of like why am i with this person or at your job of like i just don't want to work here you know or your home you've been you know i should just move right i should punch this person in the face i should cut them off i should scream i should kill this person right these thoughts come up and you'd be lying to say that they don't come up for you but most of the time hopefully you don't act upon them instantly you will think about it you'll pause and you'll decide well actually i need to make a rational decision here i guess that's why premeditated murder is far more punished because you've thought about it and in cold blood you've taken that action right whereas if you flash rage do it there's a there's a difference and fair enough i'm not advocating any of that sort of behavior obviously um but most of the time if you sleep on it if you detach from it if you give yourself a long view you will see more of of what you what you were trying to accomplish that said when i step back when i pause when i consider i feel trapped by the irrationality of my own mind why am i doing what am i doing you know why am i doing what i'm doing here why am i why do i write why do i share what do i create i've recently well not recently but in the last couple of months started another podcast the kinky conversations podcast and i'll try to link into the pop into the show notes on this one but it's about sex sexuality it's quite adult and put it that way if you haven't checked it out check it out but part of me wonders why what is my back-end reasoning for doing doing that podcast right because it's confronting you know sometimes i'll find myself getting stoned and um it's always interesting that either unlocks what i should do next or it highlights what i am doing and and i uh look at what i'm doing and i'm like you know you realize you're putting yourself online you realize that people know you in a way that's very vulnerable that's very true that's very real right and it's confronting and i don't know i i just didn't look back and go well i don't really have a choice you know i don't seem to have a choice as to what i'm doing here it doesn't feel like i feel compelled i struggle to work full time i don't think that's possible for me i end up going insane i end up getting depressed and suicidal so then i try and work part-time part-time doesn't earn me enough income so then it's like okay maybe i can make something at this online space so i write i post and i share but then it's like do i have a choice in that you know i feel i feel pushed into this space but then it also seems to suit my mental space and if it was working you know i think great and this idea that crazy or erratic people only see in that way until they're successful and then they seem visionary am i crazy or irrational perhaps but that depends on what your version of success is right i don't know i i i wonder but then i also recognize my inability to choose you know when i'm writing a lot of the time the words just come it's like here this is a poem and it just comes do i have a choice in that well maybe but if i try to force it the result seems less pure seems less true people don't connect to it as much but when i just let it flow and then share and be brave and just put myself out there people seem to appreciate people seem to connect to it it's like i'm speaking a truth it's like i've got out of my own way it's like i've embraced the irrationality and just put it out there and it's just got to convince that 10 of my rational brain to be like yeah put this out there it's fine and on that on this idea of memory on this idea of what i will leave i'm aware of this rational thought of you know i'm going to die eventually we all are what does it matter if you know me what does it matter if i'm exposed to the world what does it matter if you know my inner demons maybe you know like what what does that even it means nothing really it just so why not why not share why not try and help heal some pain that everyone's going through maybe that will cause people's rational decisions to to to be a little bit more positive towards others maybe that'll help the world but once again is any of this even my choice i don't know but i ask you if you have some choice to um consider rating and reviewing this podcast consider checking out my work grabbing a copy of my books and consider sticking around because i'm gonna play you a piece from one of those books enjoy and have a great day back to scrolling mindless scrolling looking for validation online filling the time filling the void someone just liked my post fleeting happiness back to scrolling changing apps scrolling again changing apps back another like but not from someone i like another like but not from someone i like i'm offended comment i'm offended share i wonder what she's doing damn she's still happy with him food as art bodies as art life as art how unattainable i'm jealous you have memories from seven years ago cringe 10 things you won't believe 10 times they got it wrong 10 posts to distract you from your own existence screen time report usage up from last week porn porn porn shame close or open tabs delete the last hour half-formed thought tweet omg a retweet just a bot bad news more bad news memes about the news memes about memes sharing 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