How to hack the human nature

Qmeri

I have had this problem with the human nature for a very long time... I think it's mostly stupid. And I don't want to be its bitch. I want to be whatever I decide to be within the limits of my skills without having to be emotionally unsatisfied.

Five years ago I came up with a solution to control my nature and emotions and I have tested it ever since and it seems to work surprisingly well, so here it is:

Human nature clearly doesn't care too much about our consciously chosen goals and we seem to be emotionally interested in evolutionary goals like social status, resources and sex irregardless of what we think. But our emotions do seem to care what we think about how to achieve our goals. If one is logically convinced that he will die if he doesn't get a particular medicine, he will get an emotional need to have that medicine irregardless of whether he is right or not. Therefore our emotions can be influenced indirectly by our conscious conclusions of how to achieve our natural goals.

And the important bit I realized is that our emotions are very much influenced by thoughts that are intuitive and "make sense" even if our logical thinking disagrees with them. And the repetition of these ideas that make intuitive sense usually through visualization and other not very logical ways of thinking actually makes ones intuition and emotions accept almost whatever one comes up with as a fact. Our logic seems to be so irrelevant compared to this technique that I can be consciously humored with the naivety of my emotional system while doing this technique and it still works.

So, with this technique one can keep ones logical world view intact while at the same time he fools his intuition and emotions to feel pretty much whatever he wants. If your emotions want to live in magical world where everything is the very best in a magically perfect way - just make your emotions believe that that is true and go on and concentrate on something you actually chose to concentrate on.

ps. I have found out that the "emotional worldview" is most easily fooled by things that are very close to what one thinks logically already, but by changing the details like "an unknown" to be a magical force that "make sense" one can change all the conclusions of our "emotional worldview" quite easily. So, just come up with an intuitively convincing lore that is loosely based on your logical worldview. It's actually quite fun.

Baden

↪Qmeri

For example?

Qwex

In relation to the OP.

I think your idea is good but a bit immature for a philosophy forum in it's current state.

You can hack your emotions by... (immature, incomplete theory bit).

I prefer hacking sense, by using regular motion and registry to generate a field.

I move my eye, I register that movement, and I have created a fabricated lane in memory(of how that action is sensed).

When I have learned enough lanes from my own sense manipulation, in my memory will exist a map.

I look left. I register the degrading of the end of that action, where my eyes fall loose of the left, and my head reverts to forward position.

Given the map of lanes in memory, the degrade of any action has a suppresion.

More and more complex lanes emerge and soon I have created my own solipsistic energy shell of some strange hacked sense.

A method to hack human nature.

Qmeri

↪Baden

For example: I have logically thought conclusions about the world with quantum mechanics, our perception and the multiverse I'm serious about.

Then I simply came up with an idea which makes intuitive sense loosely based on these thoughts that one can travel through timelines with his mind which I somewhat often go through in my mind. My intuition and emotions have accepted this idea of magically travelling to different timelines if I just concentrate enough as a fact and it changes majorly how my emotional system works... mostly by making it think that I always have a trump card that solves everything I come across.

I don't have to accept this as a logical fact and it doesn't influence any big life decisions of mine... it just keeps my human nature from interfering with other things I choose to do.

Isaac

Human nature clearly doesn't care too much about our consciously chosen goals and we seem to be emotionally interested in evolutionary goals like social status, resources and sex irregardless of what we think. — Qmeri

Who's the 'we' doing the thinking, that isn't the 'human' in human nature?

But our emotions do seem to care what we think about how to achieve our goals. — Qmeri

Emotions don't really 'care' about anything, they're most often conceived as states of the brain (and body) which facilitate different response patterns. You'll have to explain this new use of the term.

Therefore our emotions can be influenced indirectly by our conscious conclusions of how to achieve our natural goals. — Qmeri

This is not indirect. Eric Corchesne demonstrated that even 2 year old children run decisions through the cerebral cortex prior to emotional changes. It's quite the normal pattern.

So, with this technique one can keep ones logical world view intact while at the same time he fools his intuition and emotions to feel pretty much whatever he wants. If your emotions want to live in magical world where everything is the very best in a magically perfect way - just make your emotions believe that that is true and go on and concentrate on something you actually chose to concentrate on. — Qmeri

This seems to just be Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, am I missing some distinction?

Isaac

using regular motion and registry to generate a field... I have created a lane in memory. My hack is to create many lanes, so that a field is generated of motion registry....My own solipsistic energy shell. — Qwex

Uh huh. A much more 'mature' idea, I'm sure, although it does sound like it's done much of its 'maturing' inside the digestive system of breeding male cattle.

Qwex

↪Isaac

I was only equalizing the OP.

Isaac

I was only equalizing the OP. — Qwex

I think you surpassed it. Well done.

Qmeri

↪Isaac

Emotions don't really 'care' about anything, they're most often conceived as states of the brain (and body) which facilitate different response patterns. You'll have to explain this new use of the term. — Isaac

I pretty much use "emotion" as anything "that feels like something" in ones experience in this context. As there is no universally accepted technical definition for emotional experiences, I did not use a technical definition since it's not the point of the text.

This is not indirect. Eric Corchesne demonstrated that even 2 year old children run decisions through the cerebral cortex prior to emotional changes. It's quite the normal pattern. — Isaac

With direct I meant direct control where one could simply consciously choose what to feel whenever. And the method I described was indirect by that standard.

This seems to just be Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, am I missing some distinction? — Isaac

I'm not an expert on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, so I can't say. Perhaps? Not claiming this to be a completely new invention... just haven't stumbled upon it myself before.

Qwex

↪Isaac

fabricating a memory, or writing a bit of lore for yourself to confuse your emotions? I thought mine was more mature, but guessing now that's a personal joy. I'll leave this idea then...

Isaac

I pretty much use "emotion" as anything "that feels like something" in ones experience in this context. — Qmeri

OK, got it.

With direct I meant direct control where one could simply consciously choose what to feel whenever. — Qmeri

This depends on the timescale. One definitely can consciously choose to feel whatever, but the process of enacting that choice takes time, is it this timescale that you're referring to by direct/indirect, perhaps? What's interesting about the Corchesne results is that if we were to translate them into thoughts it would go something like

"Someone's taken my toy away, what would be the best emotional state to go about solving that problem in?"

"mmm, I think anger might do the job best" - turns on anger

The remaining thoughts then get processed in a state of anger.

That's an extremely simplified and slightly speculative interpretation, but that's the sort of thing the results showed. We used to think emotional states were prior to rational thought.

'm not an expert on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, so I can't say. Perhaps? — Qmeri

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a collective term for a group of therapies developed from the work of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck. Basically, it works on the premises you've outlined, that one can rationalise thoughts (ie critically appraise them) and eventually the new rational analysis will replace the old. The other half is the realisation that your emotions and thought processes develop from your behaviour (as well as cause it in the traditional manner), so if you simply behave in the way you've rationally concluded you ought to, your emotions and thoughts 'catch up' with this new approach. It's very successful, but nowadays far less emphasis is placed on the rationalising, just to get quicker results at the expense of a narrowing of the patient base for whom it is effective. But still, enough politics, good luck with your technique.

Qmeri

↪Isaac

so if you simply behave in the way you've rationally concluded you ought to, your emotions and thoughts 'catch up' with this new approach — Isaac

This I disagree with and it is also pretty much in disagreement with the OP since the whole premise of the OP was that I have found it very hard to change certain emotions of mine irregardless of how I think or behave. And the solution was to fool the emotions in a way where they don't have to agree with my thinking or behavior.

Although I do agree that with simple repetition many behaviors and emotions can be changed, this was about certain emotions that are so natural to humans that they seem to be somewhat impossible to change with simple rational thinking and repetitive behavior. Some fooling of the system is needed.

Isaac

This I disagree with and it is also pretty much in disagreement with the OP since the whole premise of the OP was that I have found it very hard to change certain emotions of mine irregardless of how I think or behave. And the solution was to fool the emotions in a way where they don't have to agree with my thinking or behavior. — Qmeri

I'm glad you found an alternative solution which worked for you, but this is not the sort of thing you can just disagree with. It's a fact of psychology. Not a fact like gravity - we don't have that kind of replicability in psychology - but fact enough that it's not reasonable to reject it without evidence to the contrary. CBT helps thousands every year, it has one of the highest success rates of any therapy. Either it works, or that success is by chance. If you think the latter, you'd really need some reason to think so other than your sample of one.

Qmeri

↪Isaac

I'm glad you found an alternative solution which worked for you, but this is not the sort of thing you can just disagree with. It's a fact of psychology. Not a fact like gravity - we don't have that kind of replicability in psychology - but fact enough that it's not reasonable to reject it without evidence to the contrary. CBT helps thousands every year, it has one of the highest success rates of any therapy. Either it works, or that success is by chance. If you think the latter, you'd really need some reason to think so other than your sample of one. — Isaac

Not really claiming that CBT doesn't generally work. To me it sounds like it's one of the best methods currently used. But I'm dubious that it could for example turn any straight person to a true asexual if they wanted to or something else highly linked to human nature like that. So, I'm just saying that this technique works if one wants to change the more outrageous things like that. Sample size one, of course.

Isaac

But I'm dubious that it could for example turn any straight person to a true asexual if they wanted to or something else highly linked to human nature like that. — Qmeri

Sure. I forgot the particular definition of emotion you were using. Much broader than the one I usually work with. So yeah, CBT is not going to change anything like basic sexuality.

How to hack the human nature

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