Your world model is a navigation tool

Your world model is a navigation tool.

Every thought you have, action you perform, and word you say derives from your model of reality.

Today we're exploring this concept and covering how to act accordingly.

Why is it a navigational tool?

Your model of reality is not objective, and you shouldn't operate as if it is. It's a survival and replication strategy the human brain uses to function.

The only basis for including information in this model is its relevance and usefulness, not necessarily truth.

It was adaptive for humans to evolve jealousy. For example, males who are jealous over their female partners know with more certainty the baby is their own.

In that way, male jealousy and aggression was adaptive because the paternal father will care for the child if he knows it's his own. If this didn't evolve the probability of infidelity could cause fathers to not help raise children, similar to other species such as grizzly bears.

This to say, the base hard-wiring in our brains is designed to keep the species going. Much of the world model you have isn't based on reality or truth.

What you see with your eyes isn't objective either. Human vision is delayed by around 100ms behind the real world. Your brain infers more than many people realize about your visual field.

Your eyes don't even see color as the actual wavelengths of light. Color is an inference the brain makes about the object. If the brain objectively measured wavelengths red wouldn't appear red when bathed in blue light.

That's the basis of the famous white & gold vs. black & blue dress debate:

Color is a guess the brain makes, so people's brains infer different colors. (It's thought the difference in perception is due to the brain's assumptions about the lighting in the image)

Another example is this image of strawberries. There is no red in this image: the pixels are only gray or cyan, yet the strawberries still appear red.

The primary sense humans use, vision, doesn't supply objective information about the environment to the brain.

With this in mind, you must admit your model of the universe is not a direct description of it, despite it being what allows you to function.

For example, getting pushed out of your tribe as a hunter-gatherer would lead to your death. Being anxious about social rejection is entirely warranted if that's the situation you live in.

Anxiety was functional considering that dynamic.

However, presently the cost of social rejection is magnitudes lower, yet the rate of anxiety in humans is higher.

The world model (navigational tool) human's use to function doesn't reflect reality.

Your thoughts paint your reality. This is the reason there are so many examples of human bias, irrationality, and acting against self-interest.

The best possible way to navigate is personal. The optimal model of the world for a fighter is massively different from that of an investor.

Mike Tyson saying he's “the best fighter in the world” serves his goals. Massive self belief garners better results.

Warren Buffett on the other hand wouldn't be served by that. Hubris in investing leads to faulty judgement.

Having the right thoughts will gear you towards achieving your goals, while the wrong ones will single-handedly subvert them.

The fundamental Buddhist insight is that you aren't your thoughts you're the observer of them, the consciousness.

When you divorce yourself from your thoughts it strips them of agency. You observe thoughts that derive from addiction, fear, or anxiety, but you're not compelled to act on it.

Your thoughts often lead you astray. Modern society is plagued with diseases of abundance. Your mind was evolved for scarcity, but lives in abundance.

You have too much access to sugar, calories, humans, clickbait news, porn, information, and society.

We're not wired to handle the most devastating news from every inch of the globe 24/7.

The antidote is being an ascetic. Pulling away from what your biology desires. Constantly saying no, when your body says yes.

Heuristics

Your brain presents you with its best guess at reality. Given there's always a delta between what you perceive and reality, what should you trust?

Find people and ideas which have stood the test of time. Old books or ideas that remain relevant are a richer source of knowledge compared to new ones.

Most modern books aren't made as a legacy, or to educate. People have recognized the potential for gaining status and money by getting published and optimize for that.

Most modern books are shit. Hundreds of thousands of books and ideas were drowned out by time. What's left is only the most robust ideas.

Accept reality as it is, and seek truth. Trite but you can observe that most human suffering is the delta between expectation and reality. The more you expect from others and the world, the more vectors for disappointment.

Don't get socialized into desires. Often people want something because society tells them to.

Have desires, but not too many. Choose your 1 overwhelming desire and pursue that.

Having tons of desires is a recipe for unhappiness and low performance. You have finite resources to dedicate to a desire, but unlimited potential for how many desires you can have at once.

Stoicism can be distilled down to the following idea: Focus only on the variables within your control, everything else is irrelevant.

Having desires outside your control is a bad idea. It's like expecting the weather to obey you.

Don't get angry it rained, ask yourself how to react.