By intentionally constructing mental models of other agents — be they living, dead. deities, or fictional friends — we create 'subminds' we can access, learn from, and draw inspiration through.
I’ve often wondered why this works. I remember I was once doing a team-building exercise at university and I explicitly thought: “what would a really smart person do in this situation?”
And for some reason it worked!
I thought of a solution to a problem that I hadn’t previously thought of, and people looked at me like I had two brains or something... (That’s just one example, and there are many others, although I also act like a really dumb person too sometimes🤭)
I recently joined a D&D group for the first time and realized how difficult it is for me to imagine another specific character that I both do and do not fully control. I waited for this character to reveal himself in my mind clearly and quickly but instead it was a slow, nebulous, and emergent process. Probably good mental exercise for me to work on imagining (mentally embodying) other specific characters/people. (I also perform improv regularly and struggle much less with this then because I physically embody the characters... seems the physicality is important for me)
Bobby- really exciting work you are doing ( yes I have read your wonderful book). I wish like a lone hopeful stock broker waiting for a move that many more people would see the light You are shinning. Thank You.
Fantastic. About 1/3 of the way in, I was like "this is very WWJD" and lo! A few paragraphs later 😏✨
There's a common meme that circulates along the lines of "you can't assume what other people's motives are" and it's always rankled me. Uh, I can! I do. But perhaps we are in the minority of folks who apply that with a spirit of generosity, with deep empathy for collective experiences. May we not exist solely on the fringe...
People are patterns of stardust, it leads to general categorization. We fundamentally need this to make sense of existence- why people use that as a limiting framework is beyond me. (See astrology in every culture, deity representation in polytheistic traditions, MBTI, Enneagram etc) when we intersect these with examples of stellar humans, we have role models, exemplars, mentors.
I have a mentor from my early 20's that even though I haven't regularly communicated with in over a decade, I still "write letters" to in my head. Then she replies, in her flowy script and affirms or challenges me, citing wisdom from other teachers- also in my mind. Writing this out now, it would track if I received an unexpected physical letter very soon. Has happened several times. "manifest" sure. Hokey coincidence or not, the "conversations" I have are vivid and very real (and enormously soul soothing)
Thank you for this work! It's thrilling to have my made up flights of fancy be validated with neuroscience 🙌🏻✨ (and confirmation bias ha)
I'm really fascinated by this stuff, and it's played a significant role in my personal growth journey, it adds to the synpraxis. Have you ever come across Marvin Minsky's "Society of the Mind" or Yogi Bhajan's "The Universal Mind"?
Now, Marvin Minsky had this intriguing concept in the world of artificial intelligence. He suggested that our minds don't function like a single authoritative figure in control; instead, they resemble a group of specialized "agents" working together. Think of it as a society where each member has their unique role, and they collaborate to achieve various tasks. It's these interactions among these mind agents that give rise to our intelligence and consciousness.
And then there's Yogi Bhajan and his perspective on "The Universal Mind." He was a spiritual teacher who emphasized the profound interconnectedness of all living beings. According to him, there exists a cosmic intelligence known as the Universal Mind, the wellspring of all knowledge, wisdom, and consciousness. He believed that through meditation and spiritual practices, anyone could tap into this Universal Mind, gaining profound insights and a deeper understanding of the universe and their own existence. His framework is quite robust and meticulously delineated.
Thanks, Bobby. Mental modeling in Neuromancy provides an approachable framework for a psychological strategy that is often confused with pathology or dismissed as outmoded mysticism. It would be helpful for the psychiatric community to accomodate this framework in the next DSM.
I've been mental modeling since my teen years. It allowed for insights that opened doors for me. It also gave me a view into some prohibitively dark worlds. Curating the viewpoints you're willing to access is not an easy task. I've found that it's helpful to embrace my shadow self because to deny a thought and thus send it into the unconscious creates a myopic weakness in one's analytic capacity.
Tantric practices are a systematic embrace of this shadow aspect of consciousness. Shamanic traditions create a pathway toward an awareness of the shadow self insights which run contrary to the impetus of our established social structure. This will lead an explorer to find the reason that shamans live on the periphery—they push growth that is unattainable without pain.
In her work on trauma, Bonnie Badenoch also has the concept of "internalized others" https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/the-mind-body-interpersonalrelational - the quality of others that we have internalized at the time of a stressful event can determine if we are traumatized by the event or not. Also in her book "Stuck on Pause", Janice Hadlock's "cure" for Parkinson's is precisely to create and constantly talk a "tulpa" which makes the person feel safe enough to come out of freeze https://pdrecovery.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/SOP.pdf
I’ve often wondered why this works. I remember I was once doing a team-building exercise at university and I explicitly thought: “what would a really smart person do in this situation?”
And for some reason it worked!
I thought of a solution to a problem that I hadn’t previously thought of, and people looked at me like I had two brains or something... (That’s just one example, and there are many others, although I also act like a really dumb person too sometimes🤭)
I recently joined a D&D group for the first time and realized how difficult it is for me to imagine another specific character that I both do and do not fully control. I waited for this character to reveal himself in my mind clearly and quickly but instead it was a slow, nebulous, and emergent process. Probably good mental exercise for me to work on imagining (mentally embodying) other specific characters/people. (I also perform improv regularly and struggle much less with this then because I physically embody the characters... seems the physicality is important for me)
Bobby- really exciting work you are doing ( yes I have read your wonderful book). I wish like a lone hopeful stock broker waiting for a move that many more people would see the light You are shinning. Thank You.
Fantastic. About 1/3 of the way in, I was like "this is very WWJD" and lo! A few paragraphs later 😏✨
There's a common meme that circulates along the lines of "you can't assume what other people's motives are" and it's always rankled me. Uh, I can! I do. But perhaps we are in the minority of folks who apply that with a spirit of generosity, with deep empathy for collective experiences. May we not exist solely on the fringe...
People are patterns of stardust, it leads to general categorization. We fundamentally need this to make sense of existence- why people use that as a limiting framework is beyond me. (See astrology in every culture, deity representation in polytheistic traditions, MBTI, Enneagram etc) when we intersect these with examples of stellar humans, we have role models, exemplars, mentors.
I have a mentor from my early 20's that even though I haven't regularly communicated with in over a decade, I still "write letters" to in my head. Then she replies, in her flowy script and affirms or challenges me, citing wisdom from other teachers- also in my mind. Writing this out now, it would track if I received an unexpected physical letter very soon. Has happened several times. "manifest" sure. Hokey coincidence or not, the "conversations" I have are vivid and very real (and enormously soul soothing)
Thank you for this work! It's thrilling to have my made up flights of fancy be validated with neuroscience 🙌🏻✨ (and confirmation bias ha)
I'm really fascinated by this stuff, and it's played a significant role in my personal growth journey, it adds to the synpraxis. Have you ever come across Marvin Minsky's "Society of the Mind" or Yogi Bhajan's "The Universal Mind"?
Now, Marvin Minsky had this intriguing concept in the world of artificial intelligence. He suggested that our minds don't function like a single authoritative figure in control; instead, they resemble a group of specialized "agents" working together. Think of it as a society where each member has their unique role, and they collaborate to achieve various tasks. It's these interactions among these mind agents that give rise to our intelligence and consciousness.
And then there's Yogi Bhajan and his perspective on "The Universal Mind." He was a spiritual teacher who emphasized the profound interconnectedness of all living beings. According to him, there exists a cosmic intelligence known as the Universal Mind, the wellspring of all knowledge, wisdom, and consciousness. He believed that through meditation and spiritual practices, anyone could tap into this Universal Mind, gaining profound insights and a deeper understanding of the universe and their own existence. His framework is quite robust and meticulously delineated.
On the Road...
Like Kerouac and Co
... Togetherland is on that ride..
#BuckyUp!
Thank you Bobby, for your ongoing devotion, creativity and faith, for a reality that works for all.
Thanks, Bobby. Mental modeling in Neuromancy provides an approachable framework for a psychological strategy that is often confused with pathology or dismissed as outmoded mysticism. It would be helpful for the psychiatric community to accomodate this framework in the next DSM.
I've been mental modeling since my teen years. It allowed for insights that opened doors for me. It also gave me a view into some prohibitively dark worlds. Curating the viewpoints you're willing to access is not an easy task. I've found that it's helpful to embrace my shadow self because to deny a thought and thus send it into the unconscious creates a myopic weakness in one's analytic capacity.
Tantric practices are a systematic embrace of this shadow aspect of consciousness. Shamanic traditions create a pathway toward an awareness of the shadow self insights which run contrary to the impetus of our established social structure. This will lead an explorer to find the reason that shamans live on the periphery—they push growth that is unattainable without pain.
In her work on trauma, Bonnie Badenoch also has the concept of "internalized others" https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/the-mind-body-interpersonalrelational - the quality of others that we have internalized at the time of a stressful event can determine if we are traumatized by the event or not. Also in her book "Stuck on Pause", Janice Hadlock's "cure" for Parkinson's is precisely to create and constantly talk a "tulpa" which makes the person feel safe enough to come out of freeze https://pdrecovery.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/SOP.pdf