Whether we are conscious about it or not – we all have it: our model of the world. Inside our heads – our brain, eager for patterns and knowledge, build rules and principles on how the world around us works. For the purpose of this blog entry – let us just call it the “mental model”
Without the mental model, we cannot interpret events. It tells us how to cross the road, which people we like, what we have achieved, how to eat and sleep and it forms the foundation of our values and inner beliefs about what is true. It does not take much imagining to picture how this simulation system helps tremendously on our survival and evolution.
I know it has become fancy to disregard absolute truth. Today’s rhetoric allows stating your personal truth – no facts supporting it - as a viable argument. Even the very idea of facts and the existence of them is contested in some circles. But this is dangerous thinking.
The fact remains, each of us build a mental model that allows us to make decisions – even the simple, everyday ones. What makes a good model of the world? In my perspective – a good model is a model that makes true predictions (that can be validated by others) and which support happiness of myself and others.
Wikipedia has a nice entry about scientific models of the world. Under the section on evaluation of a models we find this fascinating sentence:
“A model is evaluated first and foremost by its consistency to empirical data; any model inconsistent with reproducible observations must be modified or rejected”
A lot is said here – and not all applies to our somewhat more fuzzy “real life” mental model. But one thing in particular strikes me as true, even for mental models: A model should be consistent with empirical data. This is where things get really interesting…
What do YOU do when you discover that your mental model does not match your experiences? When your idea of what another person is like does not match that persons behavior. When you realize that you are not as good at your job as you think. Or if you just discovered that people don’t act as nice and friendly as you believe is the nature of humans. Or what about discovering that he political view you hold to be true simply leads to human suffering. We all carry beliefs about the world – many which are simply not confirmed by facts (if they were, they would have been knowledge – not beliefs).
Recently (as my previous post probably indicates) I have observed that my model does not serve me as well as I would like. My first reaction was to flee from this fact – I tried to reject empirical observation. I am very poor at doing this, it makes me feel sulky and breaks my integrity. The next step my brain took was to use my old mental model to make predictions that are simply not true – or at least have no basis in observation. Is it just me – or does anyone else run strange “worst case” simulations in their head when they lack enough information to guess what other people are thinking?
I know I do!… If there is one thing that drives me up the wall, it is silence and lack of communication – my own and other’s. My brain is so good at obtaining new information that the lack of it drives my frontal lobes crazy with simulating the future. The worst part of it: I KNOW this happens – but yet I cannot help spending time thinking about these guesses (for guesses are what they are) about what other people think about me or how the world “should” be. I have certainly got better at suppressing, even defeating it – but it is not gone yet. Who is really in the drivers seat in my mind here?
When I realize that guessing leads nowhere and just wastes time – I go into denial. This normally includes fleeing into the (nicely predictable) world of computer games, getting drunk or just hanging out with friends that talk about something different. Of course, this has absolutely no effect on the mental model being inconsistent – it just drives the fear of facing it even deeper into the subconscious mind. The final step of this denial is apathy – where I no longer can motivate myself to think. Not only do I loose the ability to think about the inconsistent mental model – I cant think about anything complex at all. This is when it starts affecting my work and my close friends – and this is when I need to take action.
The behavior just described comes naturally, almost instinctively, to me. And I am beginning to understand how religious people remain believers – in spite of the world not living up to their “model”. The silence from the world is where jealousy and stress comes from. The continued unwillingness to admit that you are wrong is where bad science and strange beliefs comes from – it is our way of fleeing into another world. The denial, and the dissonance following it, is how you become an addict and how some people end up depressed or too filled with apathy and self hatred to treat others well.
I am gaining a much deeper appreciation about what it means to be brave – to boldly admit to yourself that you are WRONG and need to change parts of your mental model. While there is comfort in fleeing, simulating and denying – it is short lived and amoral to others. Eventually – holding on to a broken world view will destroy your integrity, leaving you untrustworthy. There is no shame in admitting defeat – but our tiny little brains just don’t like to loose. Staying brave when looking in the mirror is our only defense against ourselves and civilization.
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