How unconscious predictions update

🚧 November 14: Currently revising/replacing this post 🚧

You will feel, act, and be how you want as long as you integrate every block in your system. And I really do mean every block: If you integrate only some, your issue will eventually return. It only takes one!

(What are blocks? They are mental predictions, c.f. Predictive Processing.¹ 🚧)

So the first step to resolving a mental issue is finding the associated predictions in your system.

Example

This section has been moved, see this post:

Integrate self-rejection, gain self-acceptance

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Related:

Integrating the fear of being disliked

I created muscle tension to avoid my feelings

Yes, even self-loathing has a payoff

Depression was useful?

what becoming more secure does to a mfer

Feel secure — Pay only for results

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Appendix: What other approaches miss

Many attempts at causing growth predictably fall short.

Most commonly, they fail to recognize how ‘issues’ are often locally optimal. For example, social anxiety might be protecting you from perceived rejection, even if it’s limiting your experiences.

I’ve also seen these other common failure modes:

• They only target your conscious mind, while the real drivers of your behavior are unconscious. For instance, consciously telling yourself to “just say Hi” at a party often fails because it doesn't address the underlying unconscious predictions creating your hesitation.

• They attempt to tell you what to believe, which is usually ineffective when dealing with deeply unconscious predictions. 

• They target only visible symptoms, not realizing it's supported by a web of hidden predictions. For example, addressing only the visible anxiety ignores the underlying beliefs about social interactions.

• They focus on negative symptoms, instead of focusing on what you do want and working backwards. 

The unconscious is essentially a massive parallel computer, constantly making predictions across trillions of neural connections. It’s not one thing, but a billion. In order to improve an unconscious-driven issue, you must first find the associated predictions in your nervous system.

This is why simply trying to change our behavior through internal coercion (aka “willpower”) often fails — these efforts are almost never aimed properly.

Thanks to Stag Lynn, Kaj Sotala, Damon Sasi, Brian Toomey, Epistea Residency, CFAR, Anna Salamon, Alex Zhu, and Nolan Kent for mentorship and financial support.

See what I’m up to now.

1. References I like: Book Review: Surfing Uncertainty | Slate Star Codex and Kaj Sotala’s Multiagent Models of Mind series. Kaj mentors me.