The Agent Theory Of The Mind

Hungry is the man who finds salvation in a cookie..:)

2011-10-13T02:32:00.000-07:00

Bia Costa on Gaps and Internal Debate on 10/12/11

"An agent inside a brilliant mind can be much more brilliant, cunning than its external reflection and vice-versa." Ok, but an idiot agent inside a brilliant mind would be less idiot or more idiot? Sorry, but I really had to ask you that :)

This is a great question!!

I will answer this question and another related one that belongs to the realm of secularism and religion.

I always asked myself how can someone intelligent, otherwise rational, would choose to be driven by faith, that is, unquestioning following someone's else dogmas, directions (in most case, this someone is also a man, or something written in an old or not to old book).

We all have standard answers to this: the person is stupid, or any other simple minded explanation. This is oftentimes incorrect. The answer to the conundrum is that the internal agent gets stronger as one tries to answer intellectual challenges by creating internally satisfactory answers. The internal logic doesn't have to be Logical, that is, Faith in itself eliminates the need for logic - it is just acceptance, so half-breed arguments are enough. Normally the faithful will shut himself/herself out of an argument before facing a paradox. An agent will make a Paradox awfully painful to bear, so the discussion will end it right where the paradoxes begin.

Pattern recognition is the standard protocol the religious agents uses for building itself up, thus the cookie (fortune) reference...:)

We see that on the signs that the time is near - which happens every fifty or hundred years, or every time there is a comet or a full moon..:)

There is a stable point of equilibrium, which is the one we should strive to achieve. I don't take the position that Logic should prevail at all cost. Certainly not, knowing that externallities are represented by powerful (capable of creating emotional pain and bliss) and logic is only understood by the clueless Self.

This position would be the one I would take if I were driven absolutely by my internal secular, rational agent. This mistake I already made in the past...:)

It is illogical to think that everyone is like yourself..:)

I "believe" that there is an equilibrium at the:

Leaving people believe whatever they want to believe
Constraining the manipulation of irrationality in the realm of reality (separation of Church and State)

Other places (Nations, Communities) might be luckier and have a stronger rational Ethos, which will always allow for better governance, better choices, better future.

Now answering your specific question;
The level of complexity of the agent depends upon training, that is, how close to you the idiot is..:) How many challenges this relationship faces. At each challenge, the relationship gets stronger (if it survives, of course).

Many times, you might think that the external idiot would react in one complex manner while all the time, the only possible reaction is a simple-minded one...:)

So, since you are bright, you will always face stronger internal opponents, debaters than the ones you face in real life.

Thanks for the wonderful question.

Cheers,

MP

Gaps and Internal Debate

2011-09-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

Bia Costa has left a new comment on your post "The Matrix":

No worries, I'll keep scarying you and your readers, just because it's fun :) Matrix is a good example, specially because it uses de code/language as the one thing that structures the "dream" world. I wouldn't say that the world showed at Matrix is a dream, it's more an complex constructed by language that creates an image that is a projection of the code itself - at phenomenology the "real world" is none of them but the language itself. I would say that "Alice in wonderland" is a dream, at both impossible things occurs, but at Alice they are more unlikely to make sense and it's more colorfull :) ### One interesting thing about the agents that are simulated, I guess that if someone could see the simulated agent of themselves at someonelses mind, possibily they wouldn't recognize themselves as being that agent. I would say that many arguments are atemptives to do adjustments to the gap that is between the agent and the "real" person...

From this comment we can easily see how an electronic engineer (me) and a real philosopher sees the world...:)

I barely have time to solder the green wire and avoid electrocution by an non grounded frame...:) Bia can think about the subtleties, language-code interplay on the Matrix. No wonder I am no match to real philosophers..:)

I think about agents in the same way we think about each other. One can never knows really another person. Well, it doesn't help that any person doesn't really know what moves themselves, so QED.

In that sense, when I tell you something, you don't know my motivations. The same ways the internal arguments raised with agents are more than meets the eye. Not unlike DNA, what matters is the final result. The Selfish DNA or the Selfish Agent has only itself (and sometimes the Vase) in mind.

If I were to see my agent representation in someone else's mind, it would be either a very positive or very negative version of what I think I am. Both Love and Hate will keep an agent alive and that supports that statement that between love and hate there is very little difference...:)

What I wouldn't ever see is the thinking behind the continuation of that Love or Hate internal relationship. If I could I would know that the agent is not myself. It has its own agenda and its own level of sophistication. An agent inside a brilliant mind can be much more brilliant, cunning than its external reflection and vice-versa.

I would say that many arguments are atemptives to do adjustments to the gap that is between the agent and the "real" person..

I think internal arguments can be motivated by this Gap in perception but in general it is much more simplistic, that is, any thing (association) that can bring the agent to the foreground of your consciousness will be valid to agent reinforcement. A Gap, a fight, the perception of a future argument ...all those events will bring the agent to the foreground.

I tackled the Superluminal Neutrino in my other blog. Have fun.

Cheers,

Marco

The Matrix

2011-09-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Matrix

Bia Costa has left a new comment on your post "Nihilism and Precise Communication":

Thank you for the answer, I will do my best to not scare you and your readers with my philosophical/linguistic comments :) I sometimes forget that other people are not inside my head... when I wrote this note, was more a reference that phenomenology supports better your theories... you did justice to it :)

It is really harsh to understand (and explain) how reality and objective/subjective distinctions are elaborated in a phenomenological view. But it's not so different from the thinking that chairs and tables are made of atoms who are constantly moving through space... our vision/mind structure the form of a table or chair standing still, but the reality of it is different... it's a bit more complex than table and chairs when we talk about ideas inside our head and language... shortly, reality is not what it seems to be... let's say that we cannot access the reality itself(like seing the moving atoms), but we can say that this thing we call "reality" happens beyond our thoughts, by experiencing our senses we know that the reality is not "inside us" mostly because we are able to fell it trough our bodies and also because we are not able to control it by telepathy. Things we control by telepathy are inside our heads, hopefully :) (not sure if this helps to understand or just make things more unclear) ##########

No..:) don't do that. I should gear up to our conversation and hopefully eventually the two of us will be able to clarify each and every statement and word connotation. Your comments make this blog infinitely more interesting. When I wrote that, I was hedging...:) I didn't know if I could understand the question..:)

By now we are writing the blog together. In my case, I know that the goal is to make people understand the subtleties of the model. This takes argument preparation and in my case, some rewriting if necessary. It is my duty to clarify things. Sometimes, like now, many of the references are frozen in my brain since my teenager years and were put there by our friend Condesmar. Little by little I am remembering how I understood phenomenology and your comment makes perfect sense.

The Matrix

I picked up this knockoff of The Matrix advertising exactly for this reason. In The Matrix, reality was something one couldn't feel or see because life was nothing but a dream...:)

In the Agent Model of the Mind, mind is something you cannot see because you are always in the midst of a multitude of pulls and pushes and cannot see yourself SELF. You end up thinking that you are the ones talking to yourself. So the Self construct extrapolated from experience has an underlying more complex structure, not unlike the internal atomic structure of a chair.

Similar internal complexities occur all the time in scientific models. The passage of time is one example. Our observed, subjective or not, passage of time is expanded by an the experimental verification of an objective passage of time that depends upon the velocity of the referential frame (in Strict Relativity).

I mentioned that in The Hypergeometrical Universe one has to see the fourth spatial dimension with the eye of the mind. The hypergeometrical model for matter is inherently immeasurable since the nature of the particles switch back and fourth as they spin (rotate in a four dimensional manifold) and transmutate (tunnel from positive to negative, large to small) between states of deformation of the local metric. This brings about the Stroboscopic Light Speed Expanding Hyperspherical Shockwave Universe - a lengthy but descriptive description of the Universe I see and it looks like the figure above..:)

The proposed model for a particle is not a state of deformation. It is instead a coherence between states, something dynamic from which we only see or can probe two phases on a continuous cycle, leading to the pseudo time-quantization.

In fact, my Hypergeometrical Universe theory has one extra level of phenomenological insight. The passage of time depends upon the model you choose to describe interaction. Newtonian Models (with a pole at zero distance) within the framework of classical mechanics have an asymptotic behavior at the speed of light that needs to be explained by twisting time and space (Lorentz transformation is a rotation of spacetime).
This is already been seen by the eye of the mind...:) but that is not enough. One has to do extra work to see that the constructs (time and space) depend upon the equations themselves...:)

In the Hypergeometrical Universe, this means that time flows uniformly, the equations of motion effect ourselves at atomic level such as to perceive it slowing down when we reach the speed of light. Here you see time using the eye of the mind with 20/20 vision and a microscope..:)

Back to the mind theory "All the agents are created phenomenologically through interactions. In fact, I take it back. Abstraction (say String Theory) is an agent created on the top of another agent (the result of tremendous mathematical training). I wrote about the falling in love with an idea. That is not any different than falling in love with the subject of your desire...:)"

I got a bit confused here... I would say that even when an agent is created on the top of another agent must occur an interaction among them so they are created. About falling in love, it's not different only if the idea is the subject of your desire, if is another idea, it seems to me that it would be something different... or not?

There are degrees of love, there are degree of Agency strength. Algebra and String Theory support each other, have an internal alliance which strengthen them. There is a subtle difference between the language in which an Algebra Agent and Your Mother's Agent would communicate.

The Algebra Agent would give you bliss when you solve an equation and would speak in mathematical abstract constructs. It is not different from another language agent. You might learn Italian and feel a strong need to practice..:) or to stay in Italy for that matter...Here the persuasion by the agent is to create an environment where it can be exercised.

In the case of an person's intrajection, due to simulation, the agent can be much more complex, much more capable and much more powerful.

So, I try to say that Nature's Paradigm is to use over and over again a simple protocol to create complex behavior or varied outcomes.

One could make a distinction but I believe the similarities are larger than the dissimilarities and since I am in love with my own idea and this concept of Nature's Economic Behavior..:) I will try to keep it pure..:)

Cheers,

MP

PS- Just partially kidding about my falling in love with the idea. I do believe that the paradigm is the same, falling in love with an idea or one person. The difference is a matter of degree, although many people gave their lives for ideas or ideals in the same way many people lost or gave their lives for love.

It is difficult for us to consider love for an idea or ideal to be corrupted by selfish agents or the selfish process but they should be. They are part of the emotional framework we live in. In this theory anything in your brain has to have an agent representation. In fact, there are physiological components which are part of the brain's framework, like inherent grammar processor, inherent abstraction processor. Those are the actionable building blocks on which a language agent can be constructed or a String Theory agent can revel...:)

You might want to think about the duality between Suffering due to Losing Someone and Suffering because the Self is selfishly trying to erase that someone from your mind..:) The larger the footprint, the larger the Ontological War, the larger the emotional pain. This is a paradox that arises in this theory. How a beautiful human emotion could be modeled by a not so beautiful selfish process.

Nihilism and Precise Communication

2011-09-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

Bia Costa has left a new comment on your post "Psychoanalysis":

"This is a standard nihilist idea. The argument states that the objective reality is not objective at all." Note: saying that the reality is not objective does not means that it´s subjective or - between our ears :) -nihilism states that but I enjoy more the phenomenology view as we cannot have access to the objectivity of the world but also we can´t reach our own senses as a direct experience - since we are always thinking trough language (or signs if you prefer) this way... what we call world/life/etc is understood as something that happens/is created between our brain and the world itself, always with mediation, it´s always something that is happening through relations... not sure if this is clear enough since I´m just recalling phenomenology as I remember from reading thousands of years ago (yes, I´m that old) ... anyways... Merleau-Ponty can explain it better... :)

but I´m saying all that, not only because I prefer phenomenological view personally, but it seems to me that it fits better at your theory (both blogs) the agent are not created only by the self, they seem to be result of certain kinds of relations that have enough significance to the self, otherwise, the self will just ignore it...

I am out of my depth when speaking with someone who has a brain designed for philosophical, linguistic thinking. My strength is on dense reading (equations) or abstractions (physical paradigms).

The really complex communication of really complex reasoning is not my forte. Mine is to simplify it and convey simple-minded ideas..:).

I am sure that myself and some of my readers will struggle to understand this part of our discussion..:)

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After reading a little more of your comment, I realized that somewhere there in the midst of that dense paragraph there was something I could help you understand.

I confess that I tried to use Objective and Subjective as antonyms. They are if one overlook the nuanced shades in between. Here Subjective is really something between the ears, imaginary, figment of your imagination or malleable by will, magic, mental powers...:)

If I consider the Universe to be a figment of my imagination and modifiable by will (some kind of willing), it can still be an observable that many people can perceive. So many people could have an objective view of a figment of our collective imagination. I would never conjure up anything that complicated.

This is another version of this Subjective Universe where everyone else is also subjective figments of my imagination. That eliminates the need of collective observation of a figment of a collective imagination. I guess, that this is what I was aiming at. I would never consider such possibility as possible, although it is. We could be just a dream of a God. The Universe is wondrous enough, large enough and will last trillions of trillions of years or more...:) so there is plenty of things that are beyond our personal experience. That said, I still choose one reality to believe in. If I believed that I am a dream inside the mind of a God, I might have a hard time justifying living life normally, consequentially. There is a matter of believe when we choose what to become, although most people don't veer into this kind of philosophical consideration.

This is a difficult thing to say, that after all the reasoning, modeling, etc, one still have to take a stake on reality based only on believe, but I think this is how it has to be.

After I wrote this, I read it and disagree a little. Whatever choice of reality you choose, its validity can and should be continuously tested. If I could will the future, I would will to win the lottery tomorrow. Since that never happened, I cannot will the future.

Justification for me to call "The Willing of Reality" names (Nihilist):

I have a petty peeve which is the idea that we can will reality. That concept comes from:

The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Change reality by prayer, spirits, voodoo, black magic, white magic, etc.
Because reality is a figment of my imagination.

I called them Nihilist because if reality is a figment of my imagination there are no consequences for my acts nor there are any reason to do anything because in principle I can choose to imagine another construct, I am most likely just calling those concepts names because I don't like them... My agents are driven by the reality I choose it to be. I always say, you have to play the hand you are dealt with.

I learned that when I was four years old or thereabouts. I started thinking how nice it would be to be a Prince in England instead of a poor kid. I thought and thought and them I realized that if I were that Prince, I would not be myself. I also thought that if I could replicate my mind onto a robot, I would still be the same. There would be no benefit from replicating myself into a cybernetic machine.

I never sought solace in daydreaming about magic, time travel... although I made my share of errors in life, I could never find a reasonable support for time travel. That said, I would love to travel back and change a few things.

In The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, the Wavefunction of the Universe splits in different World Lines at any given time spinning out different Universe.

Since mind, observation, supposedly modifies the World Wavefunction, in principle, we can choose our Universe Line by will.

This is a standard nihilist idea. The argument states that the objective reality is not objective at all." Note: saying that the reality is not objective does not means that it´s subjective or - between our ears :) -

This is tough...;) Saying that a reality is subjective, means that it cannot be objective..,. but the converse is not always true...:) I suspect I am wrong here again...:) I said before that even if I imagine the Universe, other people could objectively sense them. On the other hand, if one needs senses to perceive reality then it might not be objective...:) This makes me very confused.. That is why I only think about contributing to philosophical musings by presenting a different paradigm. People with better minds will visit it and conclude the nature of the implications. I am concerned with the immediate physical implications to our energy production, environment, space travel...

This was a simple rambling peripheral to my arguments about the nature of the mind. It speak volumes about my own agents, but not about the theory..;)

Let start with the definition:

Nihilism states that but I enjoy more the phenomenology view as we cannot have access to the objectivity of the world but also we can´t reach our own senses as a direct experience - since we are always thinking trough language (or signs if you prefer) this way...

What we call world/life/etc is understood as something that happens/is created between our brain and the world itself, always with mediation, it´s always something that is happening through relations... not sure if this is clear enough since I´m just recalling phenomenology as I remember from reading thousands of years ago (yes, I´m that old) ... anyways... Merleau-Ponty can explain it better... :)

I am extremely happy that my reference to Nihilism within the framework of this Willing the Universe (that I abhor) Paradigm is vaguely close to the actual correct reference.

Now that you mentioned I remember a little more about the mediation by the senses, language on our perception of the supposedly objective Universe. I missed that reference. I forgot phenomenologic considerations. I only remembered the Nihil means null...:) and that challenging the objectivity of reality leads to behavior that might lead you to nullification of your life. Nullification in the sense of being an uninterested observer of events as opposed to the actor of those events. Just a petty peeve against people who are lazy and prefer to await for divine providence or to positive thinking your success. People who will listen to what they want to listen.

The petty peeves is because those philosophical and theological musings allow people to take positions that I wouldn't take....:) I am just defending my own agent..:)

Now let's talk about the part where I can help a little.

but I´m saying all that, not only because I prefer phenomenological view personally, but it seems to me that it fits better at your theory (both blogs) the agent are not created only by the self, they seem to be result of certain kinds of relations that have enough significance to the self, otherwise, the self will just ignore it...

This is an wonderful observation. Even in my Objective Universe, I interact with everyone else phenomenologically, mediated by senses, physical touch, vision. The significance to the self is achieve by the extension of the neural network. Each agent extension expands every night when new connections are created during our dreams. I barely dream if at all..:) So that might be lost on myself, but most people still dreams and in their dreams new realities (phenomenologically speaking) are created.

The dreams are interactions between agents and their resulting Novel Memories are alliances. After a dream, when you interact with agent A, you might also interact with agent B. A and B form a vector space in our neural network where the connecting weights change through external experience or internal manipulation or dreams).

Normally, the neural network is the array composed of each and every vector (eigenvector or otherwise) representing our own experience.

Normally these eigenvectors represent memories (passive memories), but their activation might activate the agent by physical proximity.

Agents are never created by the self. The educated self, might be able to reinforce an specific agent or make peace with another agent or decide to cry over beer for another.

All the agents are created phenomenologically through interactions. In fact, I take it back. Abstraction (say String Theory) is an agent created on the top of another agent (the result of tremendous mathematical training). I wrote about the falling in love with an idea. That is not any different than falling in love with the subject of your desire...:)

So you are correct in stating that agent creation is modulated by our senses, mental skills (ability to abstraction) etc. The extension of the agents and its alliances define its ability to inflict pain or bliss. Both are used by the agent to get stronger. The self is the least active agent, because it doesn't know its own existence..>:) Currently our view of ourselves is the sum of all. A change in paradigm can change that.

If you don't have this concept of self, the internal influences, humors will drive you around by the nose. Which influence will affect you at any given time might be a random process.

In college I toyed with the idea of an Universal Neural Network, where random vectors were created by the electroencephalogram pulses. Each pulse generates a random vector activating the agents associated with them. The agents immediately randomly connect themselves to whatever is in the cache..:) possibly generating a novel thought.

This is the simplistic model for innovative thinking.

At the time, I used the Universe as a God Thought where every so often God's electroencephalogram would produce a new state vector....:) The pulses were like the Pendulum of Bhrama always bring the Universe into a new state.

With the Hypergeometrical Universe Theory, that Pendulum of Bhrama came back as the de Broglie stepwise expansion of the Hyperspherical Shockwave Universe.

I am a romantic at heart..:) I think that this is because I have a brain capable of easily creating abtractions. Romanticism and Abstract Reasoning goes hand in hand. Nobody can be Romantic and Realist at the same time...:) and I guess one can only fall in love with an abstraction...:) Reality is never that appealing..:)

Cheers,

MP

PS- I wrote and wrote and after all I didn't do justice to your comment. I hope people will read it carefully and learn the most from it. I hope the final part referring to agents and how they are derived from phenomenological interactions with the surroundings (other people, etc) and not by the self will answer your question. If not, let me know and I will do my best...:)

This phenomenological view of Nihilism reminds me the Aleph... no.. the Aleph was about a close view of the Whole Universe... what I was trying to remember was a chapter from the Despertar dos Magicos (Louis Pauls and Jacques Bergier), a chapter about some change in the way we perceive reality.... There some ritual would bring about the objective reality into view and the end results was madness..:)... those were the discussions on the objectivity of reality as we perceive it which I used to have with Condesmar...:) during high school...:) Those conversations were scary and used to shake my perception of reality..:)

In fact, Ideas are not irrelevant in the Ontological War

2011-09-02T04:39:00.000-07:00

Bia Costa said...
"The wise ideas are irrelevant..:)" not really, because they shall direct the peace flag to the correct agent at the ontological war... (if my reading blog agent got right what you´ve wrote so far)...they might not have the importance we tend to give them, but they do not seem to be irrelevant to me... if not "what", the "how" is relevant... of course, I read your blog through theories who are familiar to me... the idea of simulation of someone/agent is very similar to some of the concepts used at french semiotics...
Yes, sometimes beer can be much more effective than wise ideas at an ontological war :)

Thank God for criticism. As Bia pointed out, I wasn't precise when I mentioned within the context of the inception of the Ontological War, that ideas were irrelevant. I really meant to say that most people go through the Ontological War without any support or guidance,they just cry over Beer....:)

Crying over Beers is an idiom that expresses just that. The catharsis associated with a loss takes place in a Bar...:) and the salty tears falls on the beer...:) This is unstructured processing which indicates that wise ideas are not strictly necessary. They are great to minimize suffering and to permit people to survive the losses they couldn't otherwise withstand.

I went back in time are restated what I said about Ideas are Irrelevant. Hopefully this is a good way to lead readers into their best understanding of what I write here.

I wouldn't expect that the process of intrajection through external construct simulation to be unique. Even the effecting of Wise Ideas are similar to Neural Linguistics, Religion, etc. My theory only distinguishes from anything out there by giving life to the agents. A life of their own..:)

This theory introduces the paradigm of Life (and the need for survival) to the space between our ears...)

Normally we struggle to understand how someone else cannot understand simple things, despite of being very intelligent. It just happens that the agents have in addition to all that intelligence to counter argument, the power of inflicting emotional pain or delivering emotional bliss.

We, external interlocutors, have none of that, so our arguments will fail many times, despite of hard core evidence. Just think about intelligent people who smoke or act self-destructively in another manner. Simple inspection would indicate that the protocol is incorrect, but they fail to abide by that.

That is why, a review of what is the self would be good. If you could distinguish yourself from the mumble jumble of internal interests, life would be easier and more manageable (at least during the times you manage to do that).

Under difficult situations, my brain kicks into high gear and I use everything I know to follow my own advice.

Religion and God

I would be remiss if I didn't write about the effect of religion on the coping process. I will write about the intrajection of God and the structure of a good religion later (without taking sides.. of course..:)

God's concept is an extra-mental (live inside your mind as an Agent and outside your mind in the common consciousness). Notice I avoid Cosmic Consciousness since there is no telepathic link between us. Media, proselytizing is the process that propagates the external God, the same way, Harry Potter propagates the idea of magic or Twilight propagates vampire agents.

The internal God Agent will come quite handy in situations of extreme suffering.

The basis for a good religion is this statement:
" God will give me the power to affect situations I can affect, be resigned on situations where there is no hope and give me the wisdom to distinguish one from the other"

A good religion should never over promise if it wants to have a long life. Short scams can promise anything, like you give me a hundred bucks, God will give you a million soon...:)

The distinction between situations where I can affect and have not effect are not as difficult to understand normally. Agency makes that distinction not so clear.

This is written in a hurry, some of the concepts might require clarification. Please feel free to comment, correct...:)

I always believe nothing can improve without criticism.

Cheers,

MP

PS- I don't believe in any religion administrated by man. Despite of that, a comprehensive view of how the Universe works indicates a flame...:) (or eternal uncertainty) that propagated this Universe into existence. If I had to point to God, I would point my finger to that eternal uncertainty, but I would never interpret its thoughts or designs...:)

Psychoanalysis

2011-08-29T18:11:00.000-07:00

What would be the Psychoanalytical Process?

Within the framework of this theory, Psychoanalysis would be the same as a mind game with agents. Mostly useless or pernicious since it plays in the hands of the agent, but sometimes useful. I can envision an educational process imposed onto agents that could have positive effect.

The basis for such educational process is that agents live within human beings. There are limits to agents silliness. Too much Agent's ignorance and the Human Vase can be endangered. No Human Vase, No Agent.

I mentioned that the Ontological War starts with a natural process initiated by the self. This process is vaguely called "To Put Things In Perspective". Normally, this means review human frailty of former lovers, the reassurance that death is the natural path to all of us, the thought that someone might be in a better place, or that a departed someone will always be in our hearts. All those procedures (intellectual actions) are really the external views of a more subtle process, that is, when someone hears those statements and process them mentally, they are also doing something more subtle. Depending upon the intellectual action, a different event might be triggered internally.

The underlying process is a catharsis (immediate catharsis and tremendous emotional pain or delayed catharsis followed by agent decay and then lower emotional pain) which we process as one of the above arguments.

The Reality is that the process is not rational. It is subtle and we can only feel the pain or the elimination of the pain when we put things in perspective. We rationalize that as being the effect of one of the previous "wise" ideas. These wise ideas are either a reflection (rationalization) of the underlying process or a support for postponing the "Putting Things in Perspective/disarming the agent"..:)

As I mentioned, postponing the "Putting Things in Perspective/disarming the agent" is the correct choice when the processing leads to a very strong Ontological War that endangers the person.

Normally people do not have any guidance and go through the Ontological War by the Crying Over Beer Methodology...:) Just by going through the Ontological War without knowing what they are doing.

DREAMS

What are dreams?

William Shakespeare - To be, or not to be (from Hamlet 3/1)
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

I cannot imitate such beautiful level of expression...:) although my own view of Death sounds really like his...:)

I see dreams as just a mumble jumble of agents (not that poetic). Normally pushing their own agenda.... creating their neural network connections.. An agent gets stronger if it gets other agents as allies through associations...

Do we live in a Dream?

This is a standard nihilist idea. The argument states that the objective reality is not objective at all. Well, this is the correct in the extreme cases of agent sophistication. In those cases, the diagnosis is psycotic, delusional, hallucinating etc... Agents are all powerful within our Brains, better saying, they are as powerful as we make them to be.

If you ever had to present an argument to someone you care about, a closer inspection of that process you will show that you tried to predict his/her rebuttals. This simulation process is what creates our strongest agents. We simulate their personality within ourselves, making all possible associations. This process is how one creates our strongest agents.

Notice that I mentioned arguments. That is why Love, Strife and Simulation goes hand in hand. Two people who never fought will never go through this process and will never have a strong intrajection of each other. For me, a person who abhors unnecessary disagreements, this is a painful conclusion.

My part of failing in Love is done without being prodded into simulating someone due to arguments. I naturally simulate everything in my mind (just check my other blog about the Universe...:)
http://hypergeometricaluniverse.blogspot.com

Cross-selling at its best...:)

Of course, this will normally lead to one-sided relationships, which might be the reason why I discovered this theory..:)

Love Hate Relationships..:)

This is the Corollary of the intrajection process: You will never know you are in love until there is a chance to lose the one you love. That is when the agent assert itself.

As you can see, I have a very harsh view of life...:)

First we are born to suffer (all losses we can ever suffer ... including the final loss of ourselves..:) chosen by natural selection to be that way
Second, we are certainly not born (or selected) to be happy...:) again the result of natural selection
Third, our most cherished emotion (LOVE), only exists where there is Strife (or HATE... in some cases..:)

not a trivial life.

That said, I still believe the third condition might not be strictly necessary (I am romantic at heart)..:)

Cheers,

MP

Comments

2011-08-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

We really should debate this over beer... always nice to procrastine my work reading your blogs... by the way... can you get an agent drunk? or it´s the self who gets drunk? or both?

By Bia Costa on The End at 4:22 PM

This is a very good question. Oftentimes, we allow ourselves to get drunk to achieve some feat of alcoholic courage...:)

Normally that plays in the hands of an agent, so we can see that getting drunk itself is already part of an agent's move. Since alcohol would affect the whole brain..both would be drunken… but reality is more tenuous to the self who doesn't normally knows who he is..:)

The agent knows better. To realize that you are the self is such a departure to the idea that we are the sum of ourselves that the self is always at disadvantage.

That is why this theory is difficult to write about (I would rather having someone being the purveyor of the "BAD" news..:)

The theory faces both opposition of the agent that we have about ourselves (we are great, unique, God's Image, etc) and of any agent sophisticated enough to understand the ramifications of this line of reasoning..:)

Cheers,

The End

2011-08-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

This is a very short description of the Human Mind as I see it, written in a telegraphic, terse manner. It is short enough one should be able to read it in a single subway trip somewhere..:)

It might take longer to really understand it.

Please read it in the correct order. It makes more sense in that way. This is the last posting of the series...:)

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It took me 12 years to post it again. I tried it once.

Questions, material corrections, criticism and spelling corrections are more than welcome.

I would never be arrogant enough to try to defend it within the scope of Psychology, Sociology, Ontology...:) etc.. I only offer it as a thought that is might be novel. I certainly never heard anything that comes close to this so I am putting it forward to discussion.

All my simple-minded arguments are here..:) Hopefully they will be enough. If invited to debate the Human Mind over beer, I might accept. Any more serious debates, I will leave to the people who are professionals in this or that field.

I wrote it this morning from memory...:) , so it might be missing a few commas here and there and have some misspelling.

I also left some reconstruction out of the postings. I think we are vain enough...:)

Cheers,

MP

The Busy Mind

2011-08-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

The busy mind is the opposite to the Empty Mind.

When we are born, we assemble a few agents. Education, loving parents will impact us with compassion, etc.. (if we are lucky and have a working Emotional Pain Pathway -EPP).

Some of us don't have such luck and will develop pathological agents. Now-a-days, a culture of game players are developing agents of the worse kinds. They are playing roles in violence across the planet.

Of course, this criticism is based on my theory. Some people might disagree...:)

Some of our most notorious crimes were committed by people who stated that they were told to do so by voices in their heads...:)

Different views of ethics, religion always placed free-will on our shoulders. One can hear your bad instincts or your good instincts and behave accordingly to your best nature. You are always in charge and responsible for the final decision.

My theory identifies with tremendous clarity who/what those voices are and identify the self as the decision maker and places the responsibility where it should be.

The identification of what an inner voice is can be extremely helpful if one is overwhelmed by the constant chatter of agents...:)

It might help. If someone tells you to do something it makes it easier to say no if you know that this is really a figment of your imagination and not something else the agent might tell you...:) I am sure, he/she (the agent) will always start the conversation with...:) Had I ever told you a lie..:)

Cheers,

MP

The Empty Mind

2011-08-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

One should ask what happens when the mind goes blank (Alzheimers) or bunkers (due to extreme isolation).

This theory provides a different view of mental processes. Let's talk about the effect of isolation on one's mind.

An isolated person only has one's agents to talk with. Who are you talking to when you talk to yourself or your buttons??? :)

The answer is whoever agent comes to mind at a given time. We have scary agents from our primitive minds. Fear of the Dark, Fear of Being in Stopped Elevators, Spiders, Falling from a Plane, Being Naked Outside Your House...:) etc...just to name a few...

When you are by yourself in any circumstances that resemble those fears, they might be elevated, cultivated and eventually they will demand each and every second of your conscious mind. The self will be diminish in relevance as one don't know what reality is anymore and what is ME.

Inside a mind, a very evolved agent could have total power.

I see the isolation driven madness as the evanescence of the Self and other benevolent agents and the sole survival of one's most self feeding back agents. If you are in the dark and you have a little fear of dark, eventually fear of dark will all you will be.

The other extreme is the empty minds of someone with Alzheimers. As we grow old, micro strokes will eliminate the thing we think, remember the most...:) As we think, blood flow increases around the used neural networks. If there are periodic breaches on the lining of your arteries, eventually they will erase those cherished memories (agents). This is a nasty aspect of life. The things we try the harder to remember will be forgotten the earliest...:)

Of course, if one knows that, one might try to lessen your recall effort and keep yourself whole the longest.

As you can see, the theory has a potential to provide good guidance and ameliorate some of our troubles. That is the reason, I wrote these few postings..:)

Cheers,

MP

Controlling the Ontological War

2011-08-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

The Ontological War is always initiated by the SELF.

By now, you should have grasped how a myriad of simple-minded selfish processes group together to create a caring, compassionate human being.

The same processes can create an uncaring (mostly uncaring), nasty human being. The final personality depends upon variations on the effectiveness of the emotional pain pathway (EPP), but also depends upon the nature of the agents you or society chooses to intraject on you.

If viciousness, religious hatred, racist ideology etc. is your bread and butter, you will reflect that. The agents will not defend a person or group of people. They will defend an intrajected ideology or idea.

Under this light, it becomes clear that agents have a life of their own outside our little human brains. So we reach a point in which human selection involves not only genes but soft-coded information with lives of their own.

Every-so-often we read about this concept in the media. A new party was born, Communism is Dead, God is Dead... As usual, their demise is normally wishful thinking and the reports of their demise were greatly exaggerated...:)

We never consider the fact that these constructs also live inside us. We certainly never consider them to live inside us and have a will of their own..:)

The question on how not to start or postpone an Ontological War hinges on understanding that we can control it.

If you understand that the process can be controlled, one just can try not to think about it and see if the emotional pain goes away. If you do it right, it will go away.

This theory provides the logical framework for this phrase to be conveyed.

This is my little contribution to the discourse. I believe that this idea should be part of the discussion because I can see some GOOD it might bring to our difficult lives.

Cheers,

MP

PS- Psychoanalysis, under the light of my theory is just a mind game to be played with agents. It never weakens the agent but might allow the patient to Put-Things-In-Perspective and eliminate the agent or transform it into something less damaging. I wouldn't consider it to be the best path. The reason is that without the framework of my theory, one doesn't really know what is happening, who are you communicating with to when you listen to someone else's dreams, thoughts.

Agents and the Ontological War

2011-08-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

The Agent Paradigm implies that all our interactions, thoughts will leave an imprint in our minds. Up to now, these imprints were considered to be memories, something we just recall every so often. This would be efficient.

If we were in this way, we would be like our computers...:) Harmless recalls of memory positions in the Heap or in the Stack would bring about the information we crave.

In my model, the mind is more like a multithreded computer program where the threads have a lifetime and fight to become the foreground thread, such as to build more Agency Information Base.

The amount and quality (due to connections to other thread Agency Information Bases) will define how long (how dear) that thread (Agent) is. Which will define how long they will live.

One shouldn't be surprised that LIFE Paradign is present in our soft-coded agents. Nature will use and reused its best paradigms.

As we know, neural networks lifespans is constrained by the lifespan of long term potentiation. Long-Term Potentiation is a process in which a neuron become polarized. I will spare you from my loose recollection of physiology and just state that long therm potentiation is the same as the existence of the neural network. The potentiaion modulates how a neuron responds to an stimuli. The agent and how its neural network responds to an stimuli is the same construct, that is, if the information on this neuron polarization is lost, so it is the agent.

Death within the neural network is not as dramatic as death in real life. The Ontological War that precedes it is tremendous and much more dramatic than anything we live through.

The reason I say that, is that all suffering (emotional) we ever face happens during these Ontological Wars. Human Suffering always happens inside our brains. Physical Suffering is important but normally last little (one dies before too long or never occurs due to brains response to danger and the release of endorphins).

What is Ontology?

Ontology is the study of the State of Being....opr What is Being..

Some might say An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization, but I wouldn't go there...:)

I coined the word Ontological War to describe the process under which the Self initiates the Putting In Perspective Process (the restoring the Agent's neural network to inactive state).

When the Self starts the process (it always starts the process), the Agent fights back with neurotransmitter induced emotional pain. I remember suffering. When I thought about the imagery in my mind, I couldn't really find any connection to the amount of emotional pain I was going through and the images themselves. There was a disconnect between the anxiety I was going through and what I was recollecting.

Eventually, I realized that there was an underlying process which I wasn't aware. Somehow I was subtly doing something to the Agent and pain was the response.

I paid attention and figure out what I was doing and stopped doing it. The emotional pain immediately disappeared.

It is not that I gave up eliminating that agent. I've just postponed the fight. Normal Agent decay due to lack of stimuli would weaken it and a later Ontological War wouldn't be as painful.

We often do that without knowing we are doing it. When my father passed away, I didn't offered a lesson on Ontology to my relatives. I tried to minimize their pain. I told them - "He will always be in our minds, prayers, thoughts and physical surroundings" Like references to the angels who supposedly look after us.

I understand that statement as providing guidance to their SELFs to postpone the recall of my Father's Agent Neural Network.

Postponing suffering is always the best way in many cases. Males had to fight or flight and couldn't readily work on restoring their minds to a nicer state so males normally postpone reactions to emotional losses. Females on the other hand, might had the luxury to get rid of prior agents, so they normally suffer a little and move on. That is my take of the reasons behind Male Stoicism and Female Emotionalism. Not good nor bad, just different reactions under different realities selected both behaviors. Of course, this is a blanket statement and doing apply to each and every individual..:) Different people are different... we are still being selected and there is still a natural experiment going on.

Up to now, I covered the Agents, its Neural Network Representation, The Need for Refreshing of the Neural Network Long-Term Potentiation (Existence), and how an agent dies.

Why the SELF put up with agents?

The answer is that agents are both the source of happiness and suffering. In our simple minds, we cannot create our own happiness (we are not natural oxytocin self-commanded endo-secretors).

The reason why we don't control our happiness is obvious... If we could we would be happy all the time, a saber tooth tiger would had us for lunch some time ago...:) as a Happy Meal..:)

We are not designed to be happy... We are designed to be unhappy.. every so often at least. We are supposed to suffer all the losses we will eventually suffer.

Knowing that might give you some peace of mind. It gives me some peace of mind. I always try to do the best for the people while they are around. I try to minimize my suffering afterwards.

How to control the Ontological War?

That is a subtle subject. Not unlike the Zen Masters, I will have to hint at the answer and tell you a little about how I managed it in the first time.

This will come next.

Cheers,

MP

PS- There is a mapping between a SELFISH process, that is, a process targeting dead agents (agents without an external source of feedback) and the suffering of the loss of the externality. The larger the imprint by an external link (Girlfriend, Family) the larger the neural footprint, the larger the Ontological War (amount of peptide-P or something else to be secreted by the agent to stop the Putting_Things_in_Perspective process).

On one view, one can see a SELFISH process doing its work. On another one can see a sad amount of human suffering. Both views are consistent.

The creation of Artificial Personalities with similar nature depends upon the creation of a decaying process on the Artificial Intelligence Neural Network and the ability to inflict cybernetic pain. The cybernetic pain problem is something I didn't try to solve. Might not have a solution.

Agents and Bonds

2011-08-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

As anyone else, I suffered losses in life. Throughout life, I asked why... why me..:) as anyone else..

At some point, I asked a different question. WHO?

I could had asked also WHOM. The answer to the second question will recreate the meaning of I (the being).

Let's focus on the question WHO?

Normally WHO is someone else that left you or died or both... some human tragedy that we all lived at a time in our lives. I always try to make my blog fun to read... despite of talking about human tragedy..:)

I think that this starts to seem possible when one realizes how puny our lives are in the great history of the Universe. We are star dust who cries in the darkness of the night under a sky (which we cannot really see in New York City)... illuminated by the whole Universe. I wouldn't see the suffering if I could see the whole Universe. We, as individuals, shall pass without disturbing a single atom of the Universe... hopefully our soft-code will remain in the form of knowledge, sense of beauty, honor or anything that will help us and the future generations to enjoy our short journey.

Let's get back to WHO and my petty suffering. I was suffering for one reason or another... well, the loss of a relationship. I asked the question WHO in between my cries..:) (I didn't really cry...:) just using poetic license to make a point... sniff, sniff..:)

Normally one answers - She...:) or He... is making me suffer...

Due to a lifelong suffering, this time I asked WHO and the answer was SOMETHING INSIDE MY BRAIN...

There was no physical or visible reasons for suffering.. I wasn't being physically beaten... Something inside myself was making me suffer!..

Since I was on my MBA...:) nothing more academic that remembering the Agency Theory of Finance. This is the theory used to excuse the horrendously big salaries given to CEOs. Give them enough money ... get them hoked into it and they will keep the company doing well...

Agents are "people" whose interests needs to be aligned with ours. They normally provide some management work (e.g. CEO, football player manager,etc) which we cannot do ourselves.

Sometimes (many times), their interests are not aligned with ours and we get the short stick.

In the answer to WHO, as a good MBA student, I concluded that it wasn't me. I would make myself suffer. It doesn't make any sense. I am very logical...:)

If it wasn't me, it has to be someone else. It is certainly inside my Brain, so one has to conclude that there might be more than one single thread in my Brain process...:)

I was an electronic engineer in my early days... The idea that the Brain contains parallel process is the basis for its appreciation. The number of neuronial connections is astronomical due to the many dendrites each neuron extends to other neurons to accumulate knowledge.

Hence, a parallel process causing me pain wasn't a leap from the current view. What was a leap was that this agent had to have a motive and a weapon.

At the time, I looked around for neurotransmitters that could carry pain. Dopamine is normally associated with leadership, decision making etc... There was some references to PEPTIDE P in the literature as a emotional pain carrier (as opposed to physical pain carrier). Physical pain has a very good evolutionary reason for existing. If we couldn't feel physical pain we wouldn't run from harm.

Emotional pain is a self-inflicted wound that agents use to keep themselves and emotional bonds alive.

Well, I jumped the gun...:) Let's go back.

I was answering my question WHO?

If it wasn't me and it was someone else inside my brain, I would have to readdress the question of what is ME....(The WHOM question).

It was easy to find out who wasn't ME. Of course, any process that inflicts me with pain cannot be ME. For simplicity, I defined ME as the SELF. or a very selfish main process.

A little thinking provided the rest of the model. Let's consider that anthropomorphization of the US Senate. The Senate as well as the House of Representatives or the Chamber of Commons are all composed of agents to different States or provinces (Senators, Representatives, Elected Officials, etc).

These agents push their interests (self-interests and people's interests) through laws.

The anthropomorphic view of the US Senate is of a Religious Booze /Milk Drinking, Industrial Farmer/Texan Oilman who loves firearms and retribution... Cannot add or balance a checkbook or plan for the future... Consider how much the retribution to AlQaida cost to US coffers. The total damage was say 10 billion dollars, which was mostly covered by insurance and it was a cost to Silverstein Properties and not to the US. The retribution cost some three trillion dollars, some of the democracy in this country and some of the well-being of future generations.

The Human Cost was high but society would survive it without losing a heart beat. We are all unique, valuable (to ourselves) and a small contribution to the whole.

This anthromorphization of the Senate paradigm can be readily imposed into the MIND to describe our personality. Let's think. How Nature would create bonds. Some billions of years ago, a brain was complex enough to contain agents, some neuropeptide internal secretion pattern was kidnapped by these internal agents and the emotional bond was created. This is soft-coded but the physiological internal secretion pathway is hard-coded. One cannot have emotional pain if there is a missing or defective neuropeptide receptor, or if the neuropeptide itself has mutated into some ineffective variant. I believe this is the physiology of psychopaths. Different degrees of effectiveness of this emotional pain pathways will lead to different degrees of compassion, ability to love, ability to abstract reasoning, ability to create or enjoy art...

Notice that I extended the Agent scope to defend abilities in general as well as the simple and pure intrajection of our relatives and loved ones.

This is what I mean about Nature's usage of a single paradigm over and over again. Of course, this agent for abstract thinking will be selected when Theoretical Physicists became genetic donors to the masses..:) They could never do that on their own...:) not after some hunk tossed sand on their eyes on their beach outings...:)

So not all soft-coded agents will be naturally selective. There is one that has been to a high degree. The agent for God...:) Like other agents, this is suprapersonal, that is, it is a construct that exists outside the single individual mind. Its intrajection will be inside our minds and modulated by the different varieties of indoctrination.

There might be another that eventually will be global.. (e.g. representative democracy,etc)...

Let's go back to the simplest form of Agent. Let's consider the case where your girlfriend/boyfriend has left you. The agent inside (intrajection of the external stimuli) will decay as a neural network is not refreshed. The process of refreshing depends upon new information from the physical girlfriend/boyfriend.

The standard process is for the agent to inflict pain and whisper on your ears to get some flowers and grovel back into good terms with the beloved..:)

This might not be sufficient since the external being has its own motivations and agents. Whatever the result, emotional pain is very likely.

In summary, Agency and Agents is a necessary condition for the creation of emotional bonds.
Agency/Agents and a physiological pathway for the secretion of emotional pain (emotional pain neurotransmitter/receptor) is a necessary and sufficient condition for the creation of emotional bonds.

From the examples of the Senate, Intrajected Girlfriend/Boyfriend, Intrajected String Theory etc...:) it should become clear that one's personality is viewed as a confusing thug-of-war among many agents. These process run in your mind and you are not aware of their existences or motivation.

Up to now, we all considered ourselves to be the sum of all that you hear inside your brain.

My view is that we should consider ourselves just the Self. The rest enrich us and should be kept (mostly) and listened to (every so often). They make us HUMAN.

This theory is supposed to provide the grounds for some GOOD. So later we will focus on how this paradigm could help people that have highly developed agents and how this simple change in paradigm could provide the correct light under which one could cope with the voices inside your brain..:)

I laugh because everyone hears voices on their brains.. normally they consider them as a materialization of a thought or something that happens when a thought is framed to our conscious mind. Of course, with our simplistic view of ourselves, that materialization is considered to be driven always by us.

This view is problematic when one has to explain complex agents that do not necessarily have the SELF interest in mind. We all read about self-destructive behavior... Those are examples of misalignment between Agents' and the SELF's interests. This is also the case of schizophrenic people...:) I believe they could cope with whatever influence they are receiving if they didn't consider that influence to be created by themselves or something real, tangible... I most cases, the influence does not benefit the SELF.

Next we will present the description of the Ontological Wars within your mind.

Cheers,

MP

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Bond, Emotional Bonds and Human Suffering

2011-08-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

Bonds are the stuff that keeps us together or tied down to a place or behavior.

Notice that I barely started to talk about emotional bonds and am already extending the concept to be inclusive of different attachments.

The elegance of Nature and Natural Selection is not lost in this theory. Nature, whenever possible, uses a single paradigm in the largest number of possible applications. This is due to how natural selection processes. At each instant of evolution - the creation of a single nucleotide mutation - single nucleotide polymorphism SNP - all possible survival advantages provides by that mutation are tested - in reality, each single nucleotide mutation is tested in an quasi infinite number of competitive environments.

If that mutation provides a competitive advantage in more than one circumstance and or environment, then further natural selection will diverge the two DNA patterns. For example, proton pumps have similar structures to bacterial secretion mechanisms. Genes performing different functions in different species may have a large sections of their DNA sequence conserved.

Now lets, return to the Elegance of Natural Selection. Here I introduce a new kind of trait. It is genetic, but not unlike a program in a computer, it is soft-coded.

Let's focus on the now declared soft-coded (although with basis on physiology) capability of emotional bond trait.

In the previous posting I mentioned that Emotional Bonding was a leg up on the competition when considering natural selection. Education, language, group hunting etc, they all depend on the maintenance of cohesive groups of individuals throughout many generations.

We all know that bonds are the reasons for our happiness and suffering. Some religion advocate the abolition of bonds altogether (Budhism) to reach a Nirvana state of Happiness... I am paraphrasing it of course...:)

I myself believe that one cannot have one without the other and don't want a self-imposed state of autism...:)

Despite of considering the good and the bad of bonds as a net good, this theory aims at providing the logical framework for saving people from their suffering and restoring sanity when Hell breaks loose..:)

This means that this theory could provide GOOD, if used to treat the most dangerous cases of human suffering and clear the minds of troubled souls.

It will become clear when Agency (A Business Theory) is applied to Psychology to create my theory...:)
Agency Theory will finally deliver the GOODS...:)

Next I will ask the question: Why am I suffering ?
in the correct framework as proposed by this theory.

Cheers,

MP

The Natural Selection of The Agency Traits

2011-08-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

We are agree with the value of the family in our survival history. Maybe it wasn't a formal family as we know now but nevertheless it was always a close-knit group of bald monkeys survivalists that brought us here on our two feet, writing blogs and carrying cell phones...:)

People with much better knowledge of evolution, would tell you the details and how important bonds were to primitive tribes. Sometimes uncertainty on the biological father is used to keep a group together. Nature has many tricks in its sleeves.

Normally one speak of bonds. I want to move a little further and call them emotional bonds. One will never know what bond people together in our more primitive history but I want to write my theory using current patterns which will make it easier to understand.

Emotional bonds are, as we all know, the ethereal construct that makes us suffer when we loose a loved one, gain a new one (crying of happiness with a new baby) etc... We already dissected those experiences in terms of oxytocin, peptide p etc.

This theory will go beyond just finding the vector or arrow associated with the emotional events, but will pinpoint who threw it in the first place.

This is a moot point, the one that states that natural selection benefited the ones who were able to create emotional bonds with their close DNA-related relatives.

Later we will talk about what is a bond and more specifically what is an emotional bond.

Cheers,

MP

The Agent Theory of the Mind

2011-08-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

This is a subtle theory of the Human Nature or Personality. It describes personality formation, the nature of human suffering and provides a new paradigm for the treatment of mental and emotional distresses.

It is written by a very busy amateur observer of human nature and it is solely meant to provide some fodder for discussion, perhaps a new lighting onto old problems.

It is never to be construed as the result of a lengthy academic and authoritative research. Hopefully the introduction of this theory will eventually elicit a lengthy academic and authoritative research on the subject.

I will not be the one doing it.

The theory is well intended but author is also well aware of the seriousness of the subject.

The Beginning

Well, this theory is not a Los Alamos Censored Theory of the Mind, but the three Monkeys are a great motivation for talking about a theory I created many years ago (1998). I kept it under wraps, but as usual, given the opportunity I would blabber about it to any human in my surroundings. I can't help. I can't keep a secret.

The theory is not really about the mind, well, not under the current understanding of the mind. Normally, one has a theory about functionality, which lobe or region of the brain that controls individual I/O (e.g. isual corte), stimuli responses , abilities (e.g. cerebellum - motor control....pleasures..etc)... This is easy to get.. One just have to shut down different regions and see what happens.

This approach gives us an anatomical description of the mind. There are theories about cognition, where knowledge is stored, which neural networks are associated with innate language skills (natural grammar, etc).

My theory talks about what makes us HUMAN and it is a deconstructionalist theory, in the sense that it creates a mechanistic view of the human nature. For many years, I fretted about having myself as the person who would introduce such a view. We all cherish our sense of self and our distance from machines. There is a sense of superiority that is threatened now-a-days both by the discovery that animals have some intellectual skills that surpass ours (I saw a video of a chimp playing a short-term memory game in ways that would beat most humans if not all), and by achievements of artificial intelligence (Watson inJeopardy).

It is understandable my concerns about introducing anything that would disturb even more the sense of superiority of man. I am not religious but I dread having some of the capital sins (Sloth, Gluttony, Vanity and others to different degrees)... Vanity is the worse. Through vanity we are sold a bill of goods that placed us at the Center of the Universe (Religion), Beautiful, Successful, Brilliant (Madison Avenue) etc. They all appeal to our weakest points and the weakest one will always be vanity.

This theory will challenge your vanity as it was never done before. I will try to reconstruct you at the end.

Yesterday, I tried again persuade a psychologist to play my sordid role in introducing this theory. At the end of the conversation he asked me to publish it if I thought it could help people. I certainly do believe it would help people and so I am jotting down the theory.

It explains how we are what we superficially think we are, that is, it provides a new description of what comprises the being's personality. This is a theory about personality and its composition.

Cheers,

MP