Modality of Thought

Thoughts, if only they were simple things. Every conversation we have, every book we read and every movie which we watch. Each one produces with it a set of thoughts. The friends we choose and the things we constantly think about. All of this is both the shape and the shaping of our reality.

Thoughts lead to success or failure. The difference between the end result of our thoughts has much to do with what we think about ourselves, others and the universe.

If we trust ourselves, we take risks. If we trust others, we take risks. If we trust the universe we take risks. We take risks because we see opportunity to gain. We see a chance to have more. More security, more friends, more of what we want from life.

To trust in any of these things as an adult requires us to look past evidence to the contrary. If you become an economist about life, you end up seeing things in terms of probabilities based on historical experience, population averages, and availability heuristics.

These tools alter your perspective and do not take the whole picture into account. They are also largely, unavoidable, but we can be pragmatic in selecting their boundaries of operation, if we understand what is best for us to look at (more on this in a moment).

Historical Experience: This is how things went in the past and because the past is what we know, we assume more of the same in the future. If our past was negative, we assume more of the same to follow, unless we change how we think about the past, and how we think about ourselves in relation to the past.

Population Averages: When you look at averages, you can get a good idea of what will happen to the average person. What you do not get is the "Why." You also do not see individuals that repeatedly stand out as good or bad outliers. Because you are not seeing the patterns of behavior over time, you are missing out on rich amounts of information that could impact how you respond to the given average.

Availability Heuristics: This is a technical way to say we only see what is available to our minds. This goes for everything. It is unavoidable. It is also a way to quickly summarize all of the different things that impact our perception.

The Science of Thinking

Thinking, also known as cognition, is perhaps the most complex process of the brain. To paraphrase esteemed neuroscientist, David Eagleman, the more simple a mental process appears, the more is going on under the surface. This is important to understand because your ability to think about things has some big restrictions placed on it by the way your brain is structured.

Consciousness Takes a Lot

Consciousness takes a lot of brain circuitry, lots of brain filtering and sifting through information, and tons of processing power. As an illustration, between 2-5% of brain activity is available to consciousness. Less than that if we go off of moment by moment awareness. More like .02%. Yeah, it is a really low number.

Because of this limitation of awareness, your brain is constantly filtering out information and seeking to confirm its biases. This takes place not only in your opinions and preconceptions, but also in your physical interpretation of reality. Truthfully said, your mental and physical perceptions are so enmeshed that trying to separate them reveals that physical reality and perception of physical reality are linked directly in the brain. Which makes sense from an evolutionary stand point, but we can not digress...

What am I trying to say? I am trying to illustrate that it takes a lot of work to have a single thought and that the brain only has certain thoughts based on its predispositions. Those predispositions are both genetic and experiential. The predispositions create versions of reality for us that shape the results of our lives because our brains, when on autopilot, only see things that conform to those preconceptions and thus we act habitually in virtually all instances.

This is why people tend to re-experience, trauma, or tend to see themselves, others, and the world in particular ways. This is also why things like Google are so deadly to diversification of ideas. It makes money sense to give us what we want in a Google search for information, but in terms of the brain, it leads to entrenching confirmation bias about our opinions and this confirmation bias was a huge warning given to us by John Stuart Mill (1600s) in his work "On Liberty." - He warned Europe in that work not to create a general education system because it would mimic the problems created by what the Chinese created through the same process. -- A lack of diversity.

Science Summary

In summary, our thoughts are limited by our preconceptions and we naturally seek the path of least resistance to further confirm those thoughts. This may act in our favor or it may act against us. To change our thinking, we have to intentionally look for ways we are wrong and we have to forcefully change our beliefs.

Pragmatism

Pragmatic actions, thoughts, and beliefs, these are the essence of the work of William James, an American Philosopher and considered the Father of American Psychology. To be pragmatic is to select for things that serve the end goal. Many argue that facts out weigh such an ideology. However, there is significant evidence to the contrary. It is worthy to note for instance that depressed people are a view point that is reflective of averages and probabilities. There are several conclusions you could draw from that knowledge... But I will leave those with you.

For now, let us stay with the idea of pragmatic selection. Let us select beliefs, actions, and feelings that will lead toward our ideal ends. We could end the conversation at that point but for the sake of scientific validation, your mind is limited by energy constraints associated with the literal capacity of your circuits in your brain and thus you must select for actions, thoughts, and beliefs that will predispose you toward identifying and selecting opportunities that lead toward you end goals.

Pragmatic Beliefs

Consider the following beliefs:

1. I believe in myself
2. I believe in others
3. I believe the universe is abundant

These three beliefs are perhaps the strongest reference points for success and embedded within each is the concept of trust. Trust is bastardized and abused. Trust is also the fabric of of society, nation, company, and religion, just to name a few intersubjective conceptions. In each case, the power of the reified concepts is in direct proportion to the trust placed in them.

If you want the power of these beliefs, you must trust, but to trust, you must enter the unknown or make the unknown known. The first case makes us all squeamish and we all seek to remove uncertainty from our decisions. In the second instance, we must change our perception about the thing in question to limit the uncertainty around that thing.

For instance, you must decide you are worth believing in, if you want to believe in yourself. Or you must decide that others are trustworthy or that the universe is abundant. This process is about as hard as just acting as if. In fact, it is a chicken and egg principle. If you want to trust in yourself. - start doing things that show self-trust. If you want to trust in yourself, start believing you are trustworthy.

Resistance to Change

In this example, I will illustrate the often encountered resistance. The resistance is a cognitive predisposition toward a previously established beliefs about the self. The previously established belief will elicit from your mind all sorts of validations for its continued existence. The fastest way to overwrite the previous belief is to act in contrast to the belief and put effort into identifying evidence that proves the belief wrong. After you accumulate enough information, the belief will start to move and be replaced by the new belief.

The process of replacing beliefs is like going to gym. Many start on the right path but give up because they do not see the results they want right away or they find the change in behavior so discombobulating that they cannot take the stress it places on their psyche. If, however, we were to choose instead to continue down the path of the new belief, new action, and new thought, we would find ourselves in a very different place in no time at all.

The Simple Secret of Thoughts

The simple secret of thoughts, actions and beliefs is repetition. Consciously select for the preferred actions, thoughts, and beliefs. When you do this, over time they alter who you are. Your holding to a previous identity is no longer ideal if it has not provided you with the happiness you seek. Instead, discard that idea and allow a new and authentically powerful you to show up in its place.

How this works is quite simple. Allow yourself to realize that beliefs the limit your progress are in fact false beliefs, limiting beliefs and they can change with effort. This is the concept of a growth mindset. This is the first step.

The second step is to embody the new beliefs. Act here after as the person you want to be. Treat yourself as that person. Recognize that this person is who you really are inside. Doing this causes your brain to look for confirmation of the new beliefs and over time it integrates with who you are at a deep level.

Consider this: If you want to be someone that works out and is strong, you have to go the gym and work out to be strong. But if you want to be strong in your own eyes, you have to decide you are strong.

That may seem odd, but with 17 years of weight lifting under my own belt and a lot of compliments at the gym from people, I still at times do not see myself for how built I am. This is because I am still holding on to an old image of myself. It is amazing how powerful these images are and we need to forcefully replace them if we ever want to be something better. - Remember, I said the process is simple not easy.

I do promise, if you act the part of the person you want to become and you do it long enough, you will find yourself as that person. It is inevitable.