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🤭)
Nice! Yeah, it might really be that easy, and we are probably doing it already more than we think. But when you become conscious of it, you do it better, I imagine. Thanks for the story!
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)
Somehow I've never played D&D but I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of fun. Sounds like neuromancy is a part of the game, since you basically have to create a mental model of every character you acquire. Interesting that it was a slow process — which means it takes cognitive resources and mental effort. So yes, I think it probably is a good mental exercise for "mental embodiment." Thanks for the story Lee!
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)
Lovely story! I am going to start trying that with my mentor who passed away years ago, whose work inspired my book.
Yes, we are always trying to predict people and understand their motives on a subconscious level anyway, so better to be conscious about it and do it with an awareness that checks your biases. The exercise of "perspective taking" can make us better at understanding the true intentions of others, which we often get wrong.
This concept of an enneagram keeps popping up on my radar so I will explore that more. Thanks for the food for thought!
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.
I've actually been meaning to read Society of the Mind, and will probably do that soon — others have mentioned that to me since writing this. Minsky was brilliant and it'll be good to incorporate that work into this. I haven't heard of The Universal Mind and don't typically read the work of yogis, though I'm not opposed to it. I'm just always reading academic work. Will check that out as well -- I'm really interested in existing spiritual practices that align with these scientific ideas. Thanks for the suggestions!
Yogi Bahjan held a Ph.D. in the field of Communication Psychology. His community involvement was not without controversy, yet I firmly believe in the importance of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Particularly, I would like to highlight his work, "The Mind, Its Projections, and Multiple Facets."
While there is a tendency to prioritize academic achievements, it's crucial not to overlook the spiritual aspect, which plays a significant role in the synpraxis of the human experience. My own academic focus revolves around the integration of qualitative, lived experiences, which are pivotal in shaping the development of new systems while the current crumble under the weight of deconstruction.
I used 'Transmedium' Production and Fractal Impact Entertainment to describe those past, present and future who I work with directly.. we're usually on the same sentence, let alone page, differing in jargon only!
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.
HologramHead, thank you for the thoughtful feedback. I agree it's important to de-pathologize people who do these practices, and to bring some scientific rigor to them so that they are appreciated outside of the esoteric scene. I will turn this into a Psychology Today article this month, and hopefully a more rigorous paper or essay in the coming months.
I appreciate the interesting perspective. I don't much about shamanic traditions or tantric practices, but it sounds like they work to bridge the conscious mind with the subconscious mind (the 'shadow self' I'm assuming refers to this).
The new article is great, Bobby! Thanks for the heads up. Please let us know if/when you release an extended version as a paper or essay. I think "shadow self" as you and I understand it are merging via dialogue. You're description of mind 1, mind 2, and meta mind are helping me modify my own conception of the shadow self and other aspects/levels of consciousness. I need to think and read more before I figure out the specifics. One thing I'll say for now is that my understanding of shamanism is quite fluid and particular to my experience in our culture. So I appreciate how your new article provides nuance regarding the limits of mental modeling. We can't precisely know much of anything, but we can imagine anything.
Thanks for thoughts Holograhead. Glad to hear that the multiple-mind model resonates and supports similar concepts you've found to be right or useful. I need to read more Jung — do you suggest anything in particular? I'm really interested in the shadow self concept and also his ideas about synchronicity (I'm particularly interested in his work with Pauli).
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
Wow, yes "internalized others" seems to be the same concept. I enjoyed your blog on the topic, and am interested to check out Badenoch firsthand.
The Hadlock book looks interesting, and it's fascinating idea that I'd love to see tested. However, I would think that it would work better for ailments that are more mental, and not so muscular, because I don't see how Tulpa creation could help when the "stuck" state is due to degraded white matter tracts. It would make more intuitive sense to apply this for people in locked-in states.
Super interesting stuff, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
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🤭)
Nice! Yeah, it might really be that easy, and we are probably doing it already more than we think. But when you become conscious of it, you do it better, I imagine. Thanks for the story!
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)
Somehow I've never played D&D but I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of fun. Sounds like neuromancy is a part of the game, since you basically have to create a mental model of every character you acquire. Interesting that it was a slow process — which means it takes cognitive resources and mental effort. So yes, I think it probably is a good mental exercise for "mental embodiment." Thanks for the story Lee!
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.
Haha, thanks so much Jim — really appreciate the support!
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)
Lovely story! I am going to start trying that with my mentor who passed away years ago, whose work inspired my book.
Yes, we are always trying to predict people and understand their motives on a subconscious level anyway, so better to be conscious about it and do it with an awareness that checks your biases. The exercise of "perspective taking" can make us better at understanding the true intentions of others, which we often get wrong.
This concept of an enneagram keeps popping up on my radar so I will explore that more. Thanks for the food for thought!
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.
I've actually been meaning to read Society of the Mind, and will probably do that soon — others have mentioned that to me since writing this. Minsky was brilliant and it'll be good to incorporate that work into this. I haven't heard of The Universal Mind and don't typically read the work of yogis, though I'm not opposed to it. I'm just always reading academic work. Will check that out as well -- I'm really interested in existing spiritual practices that align with these scientific ideas. Thanks for the suggestions!
Yogi Bahjan held a Ph.D. in the field of Communication Psychology. His community involvement was not without controversy, yet I firmly believe in the importance of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Particularly, I would like to highlight his work, "The Mind, Its Projections, and Multiple Facets."
While there is a tendency to prioritize academic achievements, it's crucial not to overlook the spiritual aspect, which plays a significant role in the synpraxis of the human experience. My own academic focus revolves around the integration of qualitative, lived experiences, which are pivotal in shaping the development of new systems while the current crumble under the weight of deconstruction.
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.
I used 'Transmedium' Production and Fractal Impact Entertainment to describe those past, present and future who I work with directly.. we're usually on the same sentence, let alone page, differing in jargon only!
Thank you meme-master general!
Whoah.. me likey-- Thank you Me(me) Brotherman
I always deliver, when pushing the envelope of evolution
Over promise, Over Deliver!
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.
HologramHead, thank you for the thoughtful feedback. I agree it's important to de-pathologize people who do these practices, and to bring some scientific rigor to them so that they are appreciated outside of the esoteric scene. I will turn this into a Psychology Today article this month, and hopefully a more rigorous paper or essay in the coming months.
I appreciate the interesting perspective. I don't much about shamanic traditions or tantric practices, but it sounds like they work to bridge the conscious mind with the subconscious mind (the 'shadow self' I'm assuming refers to this).
The new article is great, Bobby! Thanks for the heads up. Please let us know if/when you release an extended version as a paper or essay. I think "shadow self" as you and I understand it are merging via dialogue. You're description of mind 1, mind 2, and meta mind are helping me modify my own conception of the shadow self and other aspects/levels of consciousness. I need to think and read more before I figure out the specifics. One thing I'll say for now is that my understanding of shamanism is quite fluid and particular to my experience in our culture. So I appreciate how your new article provides nuance regarding the limits of mental modeling. We can't precisely know much of anything, but we can imagine anything.
Thanks for thoughts Holograhead. Glad to hear that the multiple-mind model resonates and supports similar concepts you've found to be right or useful. I need to read more Jung — do you suggest anything in particular? I'm really interested in the shadow self concept and also his ideas about synchronicity (I'm particularly interested in his work with Pauli).
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
Wow, yes "internalized others" seems to be the same concept. I enjoyed your blog on the topic, and am interested to check out Badenoch firsthand.
The Hadlock book looks interesting, and it's fascinating idea that I'd love to see tested. However, I would think that it would work better for ailments that are more mental, and not so muscular, because I don't see how Tulpa creation could help when the "stuck" state is due to degraded white matter tracts. It would make more intuitive sense to apply this for people in locked-in states.
Super interesting stuff, thanks for bringing it to my attention.