Amygdala 🔬🥼
"Perception is reality."
—Republican political operative Lee Atwater
> godspeed | the misery paradox
Scientists say irrational decision-making is forever incubating in our unconscious minds, which plays a star role in driving our behaviors and decisions, not the voice in our heads.
- The intuitive or automatic mind, as the unconscious mind is also known, operates mostly beyond our conscious awareness.
That means we can't easily investigate each of the thousands of decisions our minds make each day for reason and logic.
- That also means we may interpret obviously irrational thinking and behaviors as perfectly rational and reasonable. ðŸ§
This means the conscious mind doesn't usually know what the unconscious mind is doing as it unintentionally betrays us again and again with dozens upon dozens of known cognitive biases, heuristics, and errors.
Famed neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky points to one dark example in a book on human behavior. It's a sobering research finding that's been replicated again and again:
>> "Flash up the face of someone of another race, and in about 75 percent of subjects, there is activation of the amygdala, the brain region central to fear, anxiety, and aggression. In under a tenth of a second."
How many people want to believe this about themselves?
Our failure to understand the true nature of the human mind can also fuel a paradox of misery for families who love an addict or a recovering drunk like me.
They simply can't understand why it's happening.
Despite the tears and smiles and family reunions on the treatment-center commercials, sobriety won't make us into angels, won't lead us to Jesus, and won't educate us about the human mind.
I was spared such misery by a loving family.
For others, it's a different story. I hear those stories at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in my hometown of Tulsa.
- next time "We need abstractions to contemplate our dazzling minds."
- listening The Spits "Lose My Mind"
>> full series | alerts | playlist / social | tip jar