Baseless intuition: human minds (and possibly other systems with general intelligence) maintain a lightweight gestalt representation of the entire system that you might call the "self-shape"
When we're doing a first-pass assessment of whether something is false/painful/dissonant/misaligned, we do a rapid (multi-millisecond) scan of the self-shape to see whether it is getting deformed in any way. This corresponds to the phenomenology of running "a gut check" or "intuition." If nothing is wrong, things just feel "smooth"
When we have the intuition that *something* is wrong but we don't know *what*:
that's because the self-shape is a highly-compressed model of the entire system. It's there to tell you QUICKLY that something is wrong so you can stop and react. A more detailed model would be too computationally intensive & slow you down
Unfortunately, many ppl (esp highly intellectual types) invent a *separate* shape to represent themselves. So now they're referencing an archetype of a person instead of themselves:
a. Rational Self: The idea of a reasonable person
b. Biological Self: Their fav evo psych theory
c. Good Self: an "ethical" person
d. Enlightened Self: an "awakened" person
or, worst of all:
e. Broken Self: the idea that they are a broken person with [this specific set] of psychological problems
(The reason Broken Self is particularly bad: If you invent a self-shape based on the model that you are broken, then healthy behavior will cause DEFORMATIONS in the shape. You'll get a sense of wrongness every time you're feeling or doing things that are dissonant with your Broken Self model)
I've done this to myself. I came to mistake the *invented* self-shape for my "actual" self-shape. And then I was checking the *invented* self-shape for deformations rather than the natural one
Meanwhile, the natural self-shape was racking up all sorts of deformations. These went undetected until they could no longer be ignored (because the underlying bodymind that the natural self-shape represents was entering big time dysfunction)
Some implications:
a. I think this is also why some of the biggest changes you see in people are do to a change in self-concept. (eg "I am now a Christian." "I am now a postrationalist.") The new self-shape forms a new landscape of rapid "wrongness" and "rightness" signals
b. It's also why you see a lot of healthy people have very poor explicit self-knowledge – they haven't had many deformations of their self-shape to investigate, and so they don't consciously know what shape they are
c. Probably humans can model other things using compressed models like "shapes." So that's why you get physicists and mathematicians with rapid intuitions about whether a new theory is true or false
My guess is that if "natural self-shapes" exist, then they would tend to give a more accurate representation of the system. They've been incorporating context our whole lives. They're also probably shaped by millions of years of cognitive evolution to increase organism fitness
If that's the case, we should think about these questions:
• How can I tell when I'm referencing my natural self-shape rather than an artificial one? (Preliminary answer: artificial ones will tend to leave out major components – eg invented "hippie" ones won't reference your conceptual world. "Rationalist" ones won't reference emotions or bodily sensations)
• Given that self-shapes are likely to include some bias due to early worldview indoctrination & trauma, how can I error-correct this bias without accidentally inventing a separate artificial self-shape?
No idea if any of this correct, it's just what my subconscious spat out. Thoughts?
When we're doing a first-pass assessment of whether something is false/painful/dissonant/misaligned, we do a rapid (multi-millisecond) scan of the self-shape to see whether it is getting deformed in any way. This corresponds to the phenomenology of running "a gut check" or "intuition." If nothing is wrong, things just feel "smooth"
When we have the intuition that *something* is wrong but we don't know *what*:
that's because the self-shape is a highly-compressed model of the entire system. It's there to tell you QUICKLY that something is wrong so you can stop and react. A more detailed model would be too computationally intensive & slow you down
Unfortunately, many ppl (esp highly intellectual types) invent a *separate* shape to represent themselves. So now they're referencing an archetype of a person instead of themselves:
a. Rational Self: The idea of a reasonable person
b. Biological Self: Their fav evo psych theory
c. Good Self: an "ethical" person
d. Enlightened Self: an "awakened" person
or, worst of all:
e. Broken Self: the idea that they are a broken person with [this specific set] of psychological problems
(The reason Broken Self is particularly bad: If you invent a self-shape based on the model that you are broken, then healthy behavior will cause DEFORMATIONS in the shape. You'll get a sense of wrongness every time you're feeling or doing things that are dissonant with your Broken Self model)
I've done this to myself. I came to mistake the *invented* self-shape for my "actual" self-shape. And then I was checking the *invented* self-shape for deformations rather than the natural one
Meanwhile, the natural self-shape was racking up all sorts of deformations. These went undetected until they could no longer be ignored (because the underlying bodymind that the natural self-shape represents was entering big time dysfunction)
Some implications:
a. I think this is also why some of the biggest changes you see in people are do to a change in self-concept. (eg "I am now a Christian." "I am now a postrationalist.") The new self-shape forms a new landscape of rapid "wrongness" and "rightness" signals
b. It's also why you see a lot of healthy people have very poor explicit self-knowledge – they haven't had many deformations of their self-shape to investigate, and so they don't consciously know what shape they are
c. Probably humans can model other things using compressed models like "shapes." So that's why you get physicists and mathematicians with rapid intuitions about whether a new theory is true or false
My guess is that if "natural self-shapes" exist, then they would tend to give a more accurate representation of the system. They've been incorporating context our whole lives. They're also probably shaped by millions of years of cognitive evolution to increase organism fitness
If that's the case, we should think about these questions:
• How can I tell when I'm referencing my natural self-shape rather than an artificial one? (Preliminary answer: artificial ones will tend to leave out major components – eg invented "hippie" ones won't reference your conceptual world. "Rationalist" ones won't reference emotions or bodily sensations)
• Given that self-shapes are likely to include some bias due to early worldview indoctrination & trauma, how can I error-correct this bias without accidentally inventing a separate artificial self-shape?
No idea if any of this correct, it's just what my subconscious spat out. Thoughts?