Saturday, 8 June 2024
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Hello. All is well. God is love.

In chapter two of the secondary book, we look at what happens in the brain before a behavior takes place. The brain is the final destination.

Triune brain is a model to split the brain into three parts. The reptilian brain. The limbic system. The neocortex. Please be advised this is a model. It can be useful to understand the brain if not taken literal or as absolute. Importantly, evolution didn't simply add one layer on top of another. Don't desecrate the brain. It is sacred. I'm joking.

In some of my writing, I embrace the absurdity that comes to my mind. I'd say don't put too much importance on any single thing I say. For example, yesterday, the part about the washing machine possibly possessing me was purely meant as an absurd and humorous conclusion to why my body was moving in circles. I realize one may think I was seriously considering that.

But this doesn't mean I'm not being genuine. In fact, I try to be as authentic as possible, which results in my writing showing many sides of me, including those you'd perhaps label as inauthentic, immature, insane or prideful. At the end of the story, who really is me?

All I can do is ensure my environment nudges me to express my mind fully. For example, if I ever, in any way, make this commercial or a funnel for a following, I have lost my intention.

Also, this writing is tracked in a repository on GitHub, meaning everything is recorded, as in, if I edit something, it'll be recorded to be scrutinized. Currently, my GitHub account is private, as well as the repository, as it'd possibly nudge me to consider any following I have on that account. Its intention was to keep me in check, but I may make the repository public sometime if it makes sense.

Anyway, back to the triune brain model. The reptilian brain, layer 1, is the automatic regulatory stuff. The brainstem is part of this.

The limbic system, layer 2, is the subcortical structures, but the frontal cortex is an honorary member.

The neocortex, layer 3, is the cortex. Interestingly, the word comes from the latin word for tree bark. Even though I like to see it as a walnut, I think this is better because it emphasizes it's the outer layer, and not the whole brain. Yes, this is important.

I believe I made a mistake in a previous writing. I said the lateralization of the brain, the two hemispheres, was limited to the cortex. The subcortical structures are also lateralized.

First, don't get caught up in the lateralization. There's differences but it's not absolute, and I believe emergent functions of the brain occur when the two sides work together.

The left side of the brain is the analytical side. The right side of the brain is the intuitive side. Confusingly, as I wrote earlier, the left hemisphere controls the right side of your body, and the right hemisphere controls the left side of your brain.

I'm not sure what this could mean, but when I look at my head, it's asymmetrical. Well, all of it, but specifically, it looks like my left side is slightly bigger or sticking out a bit more on the side. It's subtle, but it does look funny. And no, it's not a tumour.

From my earlier writing, I know it seems like I'm at war with analytical thinking, logic, and numbers, but that would be a misunderstanding. Math was my favorite subject in school. I'm not a good calculator, but I really enjoyed the part where we would learn proofs and how it simply makes sense.

I dropped out of school before reaching any of the interesting bits, which I think I'll look into at some point. But what I'm saying is that I've been overly analytical my whole life, having realised it has its limitations in practical life. It's clear when you recognize you're a human sense making machine, and not a pure number crunching computer. Especially after reading the introduction to systems thinking book, I've realised the importance of having a holistic approach to making sense.

On my recent personal journey to a loving mind, my right shoulder (left hemisphere) has sort of started to twitch. It's not involuntary like Tourette's syndrome. I just feel a strong urge to do it. I'm not exactly sure what this means, but I do find it interesting.

One thing that just popped to my mind, is that I should look into what exactly attention is. I believe how one's imagination frames perception, plays a role on which sensations we pay attention to, internal and external.

In practice, I'm interested in the interpersonal aspect of how we frame perpetrator and victim in a given situation and how one can reframe that for improved agency with respect to minimizing energy cost or friction to do so.

I decided to meditate for 75 minutes. I was mainly sensing my body and doing some thinking. I think if you focus on your heart, you will experience a swaying motion that is in tune with it.

Anyway, I was also thinking of my intuition, intellect, imagination (III) model for agency maximization and found it can mean many things, so it's still a bit too confusing for me. I still have an idea, but it's not concrete enough. Imagination is the most powerful one for maximizing agency. I'm still not sure what imagination is, but its purest nonsensical form is not something you feel like mental effort, like reasoning with intellect. We usually combine it with intellect and intuition to get something useful and adopt it with our intuition.

I googled what creativity is and liked the idea that creativity is when you can make something out of your imagination. Imagination in itself is pure delusion. Think of how you don't question anything in a dream unless you're lucid. But ultimately, imagination shapes reality because we adopt it together as a shared imaginary reality.

The tricky part for me is that I don't seem to intuitively adopt our shared imaginary world. At least this is how I understand it currently but it's much more nuanced. This forces me to really take imagination into my own hands to create one for me that can somehow account for this. So far this line of thinking has yielded the most results in terms of my own agency in reality.

We'll see if I'll have issues again. Life is the ultimate test. I do think adding a concept of god is pretty overpowered if you can make it make sense. My foundation should, in theory, be unbreakable because it has good context, a prosocial perspective, views life pragmatically in terms of agency maximization (can't go too wrong with that), and a bunch of other goodies compacted into a simple phrase as god is love. You need imagination, intellect, and intuition working together optimally to maximize your agency.

Maximizing your agency doesn't always involve fully embracing others' imaginary realities, but you better be sure you know what you're doing, or reality will smack you in the face. Ouch.