Born to do Math 124 – Will and Willpower: Proto-Sensory Event Prediction
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Born To Do Math
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/06/15
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If you consider more, you have a richer decision tree. Each node will have more detail on the decision tree, in terms of the more thought out things, more thought out decisions. What about those ones that are more well-formed?
Rick Rosner: We were talking about this before we started taping. You were talking about the “I meant to do that reaction.” It is kind of part of the confirmatory will, I guess. You forget all of the other things that you may have done and then agree with what you did, and then forge that you were of more than one mind.
That goes along with the “I knew that was going to happen” reaction. Where, sometimes, I will be doing something. I will drop a cup. I will do some sort of bobble. I am pouring something, then something goes wrong.
I think, “You a-hole. You asshole. You knew that was going to happen.” So, you are of more than one mind when you’re picturing what is going to happen. When you’re anticipating what happens, you forget; you only remember the half-formed thought, “This was going to happen.”
You forget a number of different semi-pictured possibilities and only remember the one that happened. Part of your brain may realize what happened and is telling the rest of your brain what happened before you get more sensory information.
Another part of your brain may tell another part before your senses say it. That’s a goofy kind of explanation. You’re picturing what might happen and what happened before you’re fully aware of what happened.
That could lead to the reaction, “You knew that would have happened. Why the hell did you let that happen?” It is two things. Your brain anticipating what will happen. Your brain perceiving what happened at different rates.
One job of consciousness or the main job of consciousness is to consider holistically – that is, using all easily available means of thought to consider – problems that cannot be considered unconsciously. The stuff that gets tossed into the conscious arena to be made aware of.
And once it is in the conscious arena, you have all these analytic tools including words, dynamical analysis, what’s likely going to happen, and all sorts of dynamics including interpersonal dynamics and physical dynamics. “What is going to happen if I lose my shit and punch this person?”
Depending on the person, you may anticipate that they fall over or that they don’t fall over. That they sue you. That they hit you back. That they call the cops. This is all based on physics, on perspective. If you throw a punch at somebody 40 feet away, nothing will happen because your fist won’t reach.
So, you use all your analytical subsystems to analyze the current situation and your actions in that current situation when those actions in your current situation require higher level analysis. We can do another session as to why consciousness takes the form of a narrative in our minds.
Jacobsen: We are our stories.
Rosner: But what is helpful to us in feeling like we’re living a story that can be pictured as a movie or a novel, or a linear recounting of thoughts and actions and incidents? Why do we have to weave everything into a story? What is helpful about that?
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