Philosophistry

Abstract Visualization of Free Will / Self-Control -- The Pipe Model

I don't believe in "free will" any more than I believe in an "unfree will." Rather there are stronger and weaker wills.

Changing your personality and controlling your actions are the results of a strong will. To be successful in life, you must not only envision a path, but you must also commit your whole body, heart, and mind toward your goals.

Here is a model to help myself and others develop stronger wills.

Consider the interface between you and the rest of the world. Very simply, there is a membrane of skin and tissue separating the inner world from the outer. Input comes in via your senses, such as vision and hearing, which then slushes around inside of your nervous system and eventually comes out as action, such as through using your hands or speaking.

I have structured the internal "slushing" as a process mediated by pipes. First the input comes down one pipe, then a choice is made, then finally the input converts to output and flows out another pipe. Hopefully you are happy with the last pipe. Can you control which pipe this is?
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Like any plumbing system, flow is controlled with gates...

Only one gate is your "will." While this gate may be switched to your desired path, the rest of your body may not be rallied to your cause. This is the reason why "knowing the way" and "following the way" are often two different things. The goal is to use your "will" to unify the rest of yourself toward a particular action. You already do this on some level if you have ever tried to coach yourself, as I have to do on Fridays, "Come on Phil, do your homework. If you finish early, you'll have the rest of the weekend to party. Besides, it's easy and there's some interesting stuff in the material if you search for it."

How to control the other gates

I've been told frequently to not take myself too seriously, and yet I've never been able to internalize that goal. In other words, my gates are not switched to the "don't take things seriously" pipeline. So I've developed an internal dialog (in italics below) to push me toward being less serious.

I'm learning from cognitive therapy about the various types of gates that we have. When it comes to ratifying everything toward a particular pipe that hasn't been habituated yet, Beck suggests working through the following:

1. socratic reasoning - have an argument with yourself to internalize your reasoning behind a particular choice. Phil, don't take things so seriously, relax, don't force things, and use a light touch. Subjectively nothing is serious anyway, plus you could die at any moment and it would be a shame to have stressed the whole time. Being less serious is akin to freedom, creativity, comfort, and generates massive amounts of energy to apply yourself.

2. behavioral experimentation - use examples from your own life to convince yourself that a particular pathway is actually the best for you. Phil, remember the time when so-and-so happened and you took things too seriously and that ruined your life? Remember that other time that you didn't take yourself seriously and ended up discovering painting and DJing?

3. cognitive continuum - (tricky concept, I won't go into it)

4. rational-emotional role-play (only applies to client-therapy situations)

5. use others as a model - visualize others as examples to encourage you to do the same Be like Jay Leno, not Dr. Phil. Be like so-and-so, not so-and-so

6. as-if - pretend as if you were unified toward a goal, what would you then do? If you truly internalized "not taking things seriously" you would surrender every now and then and willingly do something shoddy every once in a while

7. self-reflection - listen to your heart, see what it is saying, and learn how to work with it.

Each one helps undo our habits and personality traits. Each one is also coded for a specific type of gate. For example, #5 (use others as a model), is precisely the way you might have learnt a particular personality trait. As a child, you picked some role model that you have imitated all your life. If you use cognitive therapy, you can replace your old role models with newer, more helpful ones.

To me, cognitive therapy and self-programming help me follow Yoda's imperative on personal change: "you must unlearn what you have learned"

Credit: Nietzsche gave me the idea of unfree v. weak will

Dependency Network Model of the Self

It's the middle of the year. How many New Year's resolutions have you forgotten?

New Year's resolutions are miniature forms of self-change and self-programming. What I've learned from my own self-programming is that not every trait is worth changing. Some habits are just impossible to break.

This failure comes from improperly placing our efforts. My theory is that New Year's resolutions and other attempts to change ourselves fail when we only target the symptoms, as opposed to the causes, of a behavior. I've come up with a diagram to explain how to go about changing ourselves and therefore our destinies.

Here is a legend:

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Here is a sample model of the interaction of various traits:

In other words, not all traits are created equal. Some traits are more like roots that support the whole behavior of the person. Others are just leaves, depending on certain core characteristics.

If you want to change who you are, your best bet is to operate on causes. These are likely to be core beliefs and biases that instruct the rest of your behavior. We are webs of traits. If you make the right change, you can affect the whole system by targeting only one node.

For example, I have an idealism-bias that constantly forces me to be dissatisfied with conversations, projects, and life. I sometimes try to mask my irritation, but after a day or two, I'm back to my same ol' dissatisfied self. I need to go to the source and target my core, fundamental values that I have blindly held most of my life. If I attack a few cornerstone fallacies in my thinking, I have the potential to affect my entire fate.

Broken Marble - An Analogy for Living

Doesn't it seem like self-help books just keep people on the self-help track?

Choosing to pick a self-help book is not a remedy, but a symptom: if the reader did not have a problem, they would not have sought the help. Therefore, the goal of psychotherapy, whether it is in self-help books or in sessions lying on a couch, should be to remove the need to seek help in the first place. However, this is not a profitable strategy, and so it’s no surprise that things are this way.

And so I offer this metaphor to help others truly help themselves.
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Imagine a marble that has a third of it chipped off. If the marble rolled on the table, it would inch forward at first, but eventually gravitate in one direction. The marble will veer off and follow a spiral circle until it stands still. No matter how much effort is made to transcend this path, the marble will be befuddled by its lopsidedness. People similar to this marble are frustrated in their attempts to change their station. They eventually remain content in equilibrium and resign themselves to a routine. To them, life has nothing more to offer except a Honda Civic and a Rolex watch at retirement. The majority of Americans are of this type, spinning around until life runs out of steam.

Imagine another marble similarly cleaved, but broken on both sides instead of just one. This marble resembles more of a disk than a sphere. It's a little different than a disk, as a disk has a straight circumference; this marble has a tortured edge, sometimes forking off into canyons and mountains. In order for this marble to roll without tumbling into its fractured valleys, it must struggle to stay on its flat edge. Imagine its movements like that of bent ring, wiggling on its side in order to remain upright. People with this shape are struggling to avoid the pitfalls in their life. Ultimately, they develop complicated contingencies like, "in this situation, do x, in that situation do y, but if I do x and y too much, I must do z." Self-help books target these people, providing them with complicated plans, rules, and principles. However, these books only mask the symptoms, when something more fundamental needs to change.

Finally, imagine the full marble. All that needs to be said is that this sphere can roll on all sides. If there is a path it wishes to take, it merely wills it, and the ball gets rolling immediately. These are those calm people you meet who are not error-prone. They somehow always end up on the positive side of situations, which is reflected in their attitude that "things work themselves out." They've mastered steering through life.

The goal in personal development should be to build a complete character, as this is the path to long-term growth. Because if someone is missing fundamentals like compassion, rationality, or self-acceptance, no book or plan is going to help. All of these books first give the sense of an arc of progress, but ultimately hide their true form: a downward spiral to nowhere.

2004 Starter Question

What can you do to improve the quality of your life in the next 6 months?
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predetermined.self-determination

TWO VEINS

1 ONE WON --

You hear things like, oh, when you get older, like in your twenties you start to mature even more, make more compromises, have a more balanced view of yourself, and begin a long process of self-acceptance--as it becomes more difficult to change.

2 TWO TOO --

Then I post on my blog, how I've come up with a better analysis of myself, and how I've developed new techniques that will help me "unify" myself better, or learn to appeal to more faculties of myself, or "reason" on why it pays to not be so ascetic.

3 THREE.. summary.

the puzzle is, am I naturally picking up on these things because of 1, or am I genuinely discovering novel ground in 2, or a combination of both (most likely). Either way, I feel that I go through these "natural processes" with above average intensity. i.e. if go through a "rebellious phase" it's in a really intense way, filled with a colorful panorama of reasons, justifications, metaphors, and elaborate narratives. Makes life fun, I guess.
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Convening the Society of the Mind

Let's say... I decide I want to convince myself to like the color red, even though my favorite color is blue. Doesn't the mere act of trying to convince myself that I like red automatically signify that I do in fact like red? Well, in fact it does, but only partially, it signifies that I like it enough to want to convince the rest of me to like red.

But what is this "rest of me" that I speak of?

I have a different visualization of the mind that might clear up confusion on this and other similar questions:
- How does one unify himself?
- What is a "strong will"
- What is emotional pain?
- How can you want to do something but do the opposite?
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How about we view the mind as a society. How about a society similar to American society, replete with human analogs, such as leaders, workers, special interest groups, different religions, and pundits. Each individual person or group, just like their human counterparts, have varying powers, methods of communications, and weaknesses.

Together, all these individual components come together and act as one nation in spite of their disparate interests.

So taking the decision to like the color red, you may have any number of motivational leaders that have a lot of say or power in this society. According to the president, some legislators, maybe a couple of interest groups, and word on the steet, is that red is the good color. However, the majority of the nation is still stuck on blue.

If you were asked to choose which color you like the best, the leadership powers may take charge and mark the color red. But in other situations, possibly when you're more emotional, or when the consequences are more real, you may decide to buy the blue shirt instead of the red. You'd have to fight yourself in order to force the red choice.

Likewise, a nation is similar. There is only so much that the major authorities or preachers or pundits can claim without public appeal. Like it's hard to go to war without the support of the people.

This of course assumes that you run a democracy. In our "democratic" society, we have a constitution that guarantees free speech. A similar mind would give all motives a voice and never stifle any opinion or any urge from speaking forward. This person would be open to differing perspectives and willing to accept compromise between different groups.

You could run an autocracy, on the other hand, and have the executive powers run the show. Everything that you decide has to become action, and you force yourself to follow it. For some this may be easy, for example if you have a weak, disorganized public (i.e. you are not very emotional or have an undeveloped sense of desire, such as when you're young), you can pretty much do things based on fiat. You decide it's important to like money, and jump right into running a business, not because you're brash, but because nobody in you is stopping you. You don't have little clubs of fear-mongers convincing others that what you are doing is wrong.

This model can be applied to active, conscious thinking. Just like the nation is comprised of institutions and independent communicators who publish papers or make assertions to the rest of the world, so too you have various voices that gain control of the mic in your stream of consciousness. They bubble up, and you hear them loud and clear. And by this "you" I speak of, I mean merely another group of people in you that are processing that information.

Take me, for example, writing this post. Let's analyze this. It would be as if a fringe group of psychologists came up with this "society of the mind" theory and is sending it to the news media channels. The recipient of this information are people who buy the science magazines, and get excited (as I am getting excited about this). The pundits are excited as well, and are seeing how they can take this information and write articles and entries to the other members of my mind, suggesting how to organize themselves more efficiently. And maybe some other force that cares about spreading information and knowledge to foreign lands, is taking it and writing these words you see. The "I" is any sum combination of these various people who come on and off the stage depending on the volume of their voice.

Also of note are the silent members of my mind, who don't care much about this discussion. Such members would be the frat guys who are too busy scheming, or the religious types who still hold onto some beliefs, such as you can never know anything for sure.

Anyways. This model handles the subtleties that confuse me then I think about ME wanting to do things to ME (because they can't be the same ME, we're talking about).

footn0tes.>..

I heard Dennet say something like "Society of the Mind" a couple years ago, and it has stuck with me.

NB: I've developed this faith that there are recursive nested structures in our universe, and so it wouldn't/doesn't suprise me that our governmental organization would be similar to the way our brain organize (millions of nodes in a network with different purposes and objectives coming together to act as one).

nEw modE (transcEndEnt)

I get into this descending stairwell Phil where nothing makes sense, where we have a neverending cycle of doubt, doubting doubt, doubting that etc..

why? why? (Transcendance, Transcendance, Transcendance)
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super la-la land.

So given the human evolutionary psychological tenet that "rarely is anything maladaptive" what is the adaptation for me to get into these states where I get lost in the labyrinths of my mind?

It fits into the class of the "unbounded" activities of man; it helps release me from the chains of standard human dialog and thinking.

So how does the unbounded serve our DNA, our species, our phenotype? How does it serve persistence?

Well, a lot of mankind is embodied in this notion of transcendance, free will is meant to transcend our animal instincts, law to transcend our barbarism, spirituality to transcend the real world, relativism to transcend static perspective, science/technology to transcend nature.

So maybe I shouldn't feel so bad when I got on this ascetic journey of self-transcendence. Maybe a dose of transcendance, of surreal, of hypocrisy, of contradiction is mentally healthy for humans? (and maybe supressing it is even healthier, and maybe we shouldn't be healthy, aaaaah, there it goes again).

iRRational, Runaway Reasoning

RRRRRRRRMMMRrrrmm...

is this what it feels like?

Here's what my runaway analysis is nagging me about:
- There is no outer "should" or "need"
- We shouldn't necessarily be "happy"
- New Information isn't necessarily better
- This runaway analysis isn't necessarily better either
- Your system is at risk of deleting itself, however this is irrelevant
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What's budding here is the notion of pure arbitrarge, the idea that there is no ultra compelling reason for anything. Even having a un-compelling irrationality is also as well, not necessarily good, but we're just talking a bout this "truth"
and even this "truth" is whack as well.

it's all whack huh?

Think about that.

yeah,

what should I call it.

it's pure uncertaintiy.

even this, true.

the Truth scares me.

This to me was what Sartre was saying was the constantly being threatened by the instant.

How does the river mind look like?

So, let's look at mental objectives in the mind and see what colors they have

I'm casually speculating on three sliders on this palette of mental desire, or mental movement, mental go go go, or whatever.

Stiffness, Locality, Visibilty
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Here's how it works...

First, determinism is accepted a priori. That's the assumption I'm making. (probably, if you think about it more, it doesn't matter)

Locality - This is where the desire is aimed at with regard to time. In the shortest-term this could be any of the following: to be natural, to let yourself go, to suck it up, to see what happens, to be cautious. In the longer-term: to be wealthy, to be happy, to do good for society.

Stiffness - How flexible can this desire be tweaked? Some things are habits and hardwired, like sex drive. Others are arbitrary, like whether you go for a walk on Tuesdays.

Visibilty - How visible are the underlying desires? Things like the selfish gene are invisible to many because they all espouse altruism in contradiction with what statistical analysis shows. Others are highly visible: "I can see that I'm doing this because of these reasons."

One who feels he is in control of his life could potentially have all the things that are stiff about him invisible. Everything that he does out of habit doesn't appear as such to him, and instead he finds himself making pure arbitrary decisions everyday... wheeee this is the life of someone who believes in free will.

One could have all of his objectives visible, even his stiff habits. Now if he has a stiff desire to change those habits, then tough luck, this guy's going to be frustrated all his life. This is me. I can see the deterministic habits and underlying mechanisms (thanks to studying psychology, ugh), and I also have a stiff desire to change those habits.

This kind of conflict, of stiff positions intersecting with each other is the kind of thing that makes long term depression or makes someone generally frustrated all of their life... (pure speculation here)... supposedly, so I have heard, as you get older, these impasses get opened up and eventually something gives way. You accept yourself, let's say, or one of the stiff habits goes away, or you deny yourself visibility of yourself (aging close-mindedness, *sigh*). So life doesn't suck forever (alternatively, new walls could spring up as well)

Now, relating this to the river and the kayuk that is your inner-mind or whatever, you are on this river surrounded by canyons, waterfalls etc. The stiffness of various movements determines how binding the canyon walls are surrounding you. The visibility of these things tells you whether you can see the walls or not. If you have no visibility, then you're most likely moving based on the flow of the current. And then locality is how your movement is ordered. In the short-term, things are usually pretty arbitrary, so you can move all over the place, but in the long-term, there are various stiff directions that are pushing you one way, and then there is your will to go in another way. If your will for x is stiff, then it's a wall, if it's flexible, then you can move in that direction (no wall).

The crags and terrain is life, the emotion, what you encounter.

The current is kind of is a natural guide, and if you stop rowing, your stiff constraints will direct you around. The benefit though, is that sometimes following the current can keep you away from places where there's too many rocks, or away from the walls, or keep you from stressing out (be natural).

The superman, maybe Sarte, would be like this: he would have no stiff constraints. You can't avoid all rough terrain, but if there are no walls, then you are truly free, truly arbitrary.

...

And this is some notes I was writing b4 I wrote this...

Well, of course, the self-confuser that I am I am trying to figure this thing out more... this certainly dropped the bomb, it involves looking at the mind more like a scientist, rather visualizing, so that my system is better informed.

then there are even higher level strateiges.

Navigating the Rivers of the Mind

Here is another stream of consciousness in trying to unify my metacognitive processes. Maybe there is a science about all this stuff that I'm missing. I'm hoping to take an intro psych course here, so I know where to look, but my intuition is that modern psysch is just barely coming out of its traditionally simple study of mental illness, and not more esoteric and abstract insights into the relationship between mind and destiny.

The Mind organism, it actually moves forward and has very similar analogs to the real world.

but basically, it has location, multiple destinations, awareness, direction, and then action.
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I am here, i have these options, I am self-aware or aware of my destinations, I am leaning this way, and then active movement, and passive sweeping up.

Everything is like that. Thing is, even thinking about this thing is part of those "options" I only have the "option" now to think about...

yeah it's weird, but that's the meta system, there are things you can do pre-instant, like re-choosing, and I have my patterns that I pick in the mind... like control modes, natural modes, etc.. you know, usually I get trapped into one or two options, and I can't get out, but there's always a way, always a set of choices, I didn't have to take a do X this morning, -i could've ended it early, there would be various resistances and I choose among those.

sometimes though, then I am trapped mentally I forget, or I get overzealous, and then I'm just pushing myself against the wall over and over again, and that sux, that creates more pain, and that sux, that's when I dupe myself.

By a successive series of choices though, one can present various options to the mind at different times, and eventualy one can make it so that the options in front of them are always of acertain kind, and by changing the location significantly, is our character then changed?

Resistance and Choice Stream

Here is another mental foray of mine to create a unified personal system of DOING

It appears that choice occurs when you face internal resistance. Because internal resistance requires the most active intervention in order to move forward in a specific direction, if there is like 0 resistance, you will most-likely persure it regardless, why wouldn't you, unless you were acting against it, pursuing something.

Well, trumping against resistance is choice, if I pick the path of least resistance, well it's not like that necessarily, you move in the path of least resistanace because you fail to make a choice against it.
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Anyways, there is a field of resistances, at times it's good to put in a control, at other times, you feel resistant to it and you don't.. same with the urge to pursue passion, and same with the urge to un-urge. Eliminating prodding will put you down the path of least resistance for sure

Pain and resistance are not the same thing. I didn't have much resistance (internally) when I hiked the colorado mountain, there are external resistance, struggle exercise, but really the resistance thatmatters is the one you feel inside, because the outside you don't feel it, your technology still doesn't feel for you, well if you destroy my car I will feel pain, but resistance and pain are different.

I may want to delete my mp3s, and it may hurt, but I'd still do it, i.e. resistance are like the gates that keep us from going in certain ways, resistance is in a way a guide, as well as are carrots.

Pain is not necessarily a guide, nor is pleasure, you can present a lot of pleasure or opportunity and I won't persure, but I will be moved.

there are things that accelerate in a certain direction and things that slow us down.

You can go against the things that slow you down, and you can not move upon a stimulus... I usually move regardless, prefering action to inaction, and I am an active, rather than passive person anyways.

so my instant and pre-instant can be mere suggestions.

At a higher level, there is choice, choice to fight barriers or not (to be active)

Yeah, ultimately things just get reduced down to understanding, not rules. You understand and then the action is elluminated.

So, what is my system then. My system is choice? what do I "do"

how does this apply. To be constantly aware, but even then to be constantly aware, you might want to be unaware. So how do you choose, of course there is no rule and life is an art.

Okay, well what are my choices then:
When there is no resistance, any of these are game:
- don't do anything
- invoke a control, but just do the current project, "invocations" are useless etc..
- surrender, or spit out the free... good for untying knots

^ rather, these are the modules I have to work with

then you cross-product it with a selection method, just consider how much resistance you have to any of these, and then make the pure arbitrartion (not pure, but hidden to me)

this is similar to what I'm doing now already, where I fucking go on a control binge, and then it stops, and then I go on an anti-system binge, and then it stops as well.

So what is my system, well I have "common" pre-instant tool, then there is an awareness of the efficacy of those tools, and then the subsequent question mark and poof out comes the result.

There is a difference though, the delta is that I throw out the ineffective tools, that I suggest another layer, one of awareness (how active am I?) (is there resistance? how does this tool relate to previoius experence) meta-meta-congition

wow, too many.

And then there is the broader set of other invocations, check your intuitions, ask for advice, be wise, etc.

even though that awareness can be subject to further resistance, in which case you could spin out of control, and that is the fun of life

you can't have total control. in the world of the mind, all action, all decisions that affect the mind also affect the decision making process, that's what operating at the root means.

Succeeding through non-Success? WTF? -- Stream of Confusionsciousness

Can you succeed at something by choosing to not succeed? Uh.... listen... here's my scrap sheet of that idea.

Is it possible to change your metric of success in order to succeed better by those metrics? Does that even make sense?

Read more if you want to see this confusion manifest.
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For exmple, I am trying to relax, the goal is to relax, but if I try to relax, then I won't.. the metric should be being relaxed, but if the metric of success interferes with the success itself, then your screwed

...

Okay, we're not machines I know... the metric of success has to be constant, other wise the game is over.

Even if the metric of success intereferes with your ability to succeed, you need that there, otherwise there is no game.. I mean, that's a contradiction right?

I want x. In order to get x, I have to not want x. x has to not be important.

By wanting x, you then pursue x. In order to get x, then i have to not pursue it. So if I want x, I have to not want it.. contradiction.

But what do I even mean that that's a contradiction? Let's see... let's do this logically...

I seek x
To get x, I shouldn't seek
I don't pursue x.

But that doesn't make sense, by asking the question, "what's the way to get x? by not pursuing it" I ask that question only when I want to pursue it. By "not pursuing" I'm in a way pursing it. Which yeah, it IS a contradiction right?

If I want something, I have to reduce my want of it. Which would disable my ability to reduce my want of it.

I'm confused.

Being Fake slingshot effect

For me, when I try to curb a natural, yet undesireable personality trait, I find that I eventually feel the urge to sling-shot back. I.e. if I go on a trip where I focus on "being a good listener" or whatever, I find myself then compensating by talking profusely when the self-control wears off. On the one hand, this is annonying because it prevents me from changing myself. On the other hand, though, it is a good defense mechanism, in that it prevents me from abusing self-control for potential purposes of social desparation. i.e. I later find out sometimes, that there are very good reasons why I act like a jerk or become ultra-negative in certain situations... such as my body subconsciously barring me from bad relationships, etc.

A positive note I picked up from The Owner's Manual for the Brain, is the suggestion that every personality combination (whether including bad or good traits) is in someway there because natural selection found it expedient..

Grasping this idea is a segue for my self-acceptance, albeit odd. Or I'm just getting older...

So chalk up another point for being natural!
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Two Kinds of Depressions

There are two kinds of depression, a coping one and a cope-free one.

A coping depression is characterized by sadness combined with one's ability to creatively deal with it. Coping depression is fun, sometimes even more fun than a coping happiness, which explains why it's so popular among our fun-loving youth.
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In a coping depression, the depression becomes a positive force. You get to wear all black, you get to write good poetry, you get to listen to dark music, and you get to become an activist. Socially, you get to commiserate with others, an act that commonly comprises the majority of a lot of ppl's connections. You get to philosophize, asking the great miserable question, "why, oh why?" In other words, a coping depression helps you meditate and withdraw into yourself. It separates your world neatly into enemies and friends, the evil and the ideal. A coping depression is one characterized by justification when one feels bitten with injustice.

A litmus test for whether your depression is coping or not is to identify how much you care to change your mood. For example, today, I've noticed that I'm generally sad. So what have I done? I've been listening to tunes, I've been ranting on my blog, I've been thinking about the negative qualities of the world, I've been using humor with my friends in order to make light of the injustice that is plaguing me. And while I noticed I was sad, I also felt unmotivated to change myself. In part, because it was giving me time to just lie down and stew, to relax, to not do work because "screw it."

A cope-free depression, on the other hand, really sucks. I've had this many times. This is when you get depressed about being depressed. When you're sad, and then attempt in vain to change your mood. You become frustrated and "stuck" and then the sadness ceases to be fun.

How do you control which side of the spectrum you want to get into? Well, I don't know the exact answer. But my guess, based on experience and based on the fact that emotion precedes thought, is to just "let go" and let your body and mind naturally guide you properly.

Because if you're depressed and actively exercising your thinking skills, chances are you're over-analyzing or coloring all thought with negative bias. So the solutions you come up with may not be pretty. For example, whenever I get sad and try to bring myself out of it, I always tend to avoid "coping" strategies because I rationally feel bad not attacking the source of my ills.

So to take a more emotionally intelligent approach, one should tap into the self-regulating faculties of our intuitions and heart. If you need to cope, you will, if you need a solution, it'll come by, and if it can't be found, then you'll learn to bear pain.

Kind of goes back to something Rousseau said: "That which proceeds from Nature is good, that which proceeds from the hands of Man is bad." This statement is not an absolute, but it's generally good thinking it that we can ruin ourselves with the active application of our reasoned good intentions.

Fra-la-la-la-la-laaa-la-la-la-laaaah

My Problem with my problems

What started as a rumor, and is now slowly becoming a commonly accepted fact among the members of my inner mind's society, is that maybe 40% of my problems come from trying to solve my problems.

Someone will criticize me and I'll get a little upset for like a minute. Then, though, I'll get upset at myself for being upset, so much so, and with such frequency, that being criticized becomes associated not just with that first minute, but with the subsequent self-beatings that'll take place thereafter.

I'll fixate on a minor flaws like this for a while. I'll estimate that I've spent months at a time, trying to fix something like jealousy or insecurity.

After about 5 years of active self-engineering, I still get jealous, I still care about what other ppl think about me, I get possessive, I get competitive, I am sensitive to criticism.

At some point, you got to accept certain flaws. It's natural to be envious, natural to be materialist, natural to worry about your image.

At some point, I have to tell myself, "I have and can solve the easy problems, such as procrastination, being an asshole, or being immoral, but these other 'flaws' that ppl complain about, I just have to let them be."

My Problem with my problems

What started as a rumor, and is now slowly becoming a commonly accepted fact among the members of my inner mind's society, is that maybe 40% of my problems come from trying to solve my problems.

Someone will criticize me and I'll get a little upset for like a minute. Then, though, I'll get upset at myself for being upset, so much so, and with such frequency, that being criticized becomes associated not just with that first minute, but with the subsequent self-beatings that'll take place thereafter.

I'll fixate on a minor flaws like this for a while. I'll estimate that I've spent months at a time, trying to fix something like jealousy or insecurity.

After about 5 years of active self-engineering, I still get jealous, I still care about what other ppl think about me, I get possessive, I get competitive, I am sensitive to criticism.

At some point, you got to accept certain flaws. It's natural to be envious, natural to be materialist, natural to worry about your image.

At some point, I have to tell myself, "I have and can solve the easy problems, such as procrastination, being an asshole, or being immoral, but these other 'flaws' that ppl complain about, I just have to let them be."

Self-Programming Lessons

Things I've learnt about me and my complex meta-cognitive system.

I need some sort of system, philosophy set, or model. The majority of the time, I'm dependent on some sort of set of rules and suggestions about what to do, when to do it, why, etc. I have employed nihilistic systems at times where I don't care about anything, but those are unstable equillibria, and I usually return back to a rule or a set of rules.

Be careful with Moment2Moment intererence. Is there something you fall back on to shape your thoughts on a minute scale For a lot of people, they have simple invocations that they use every 20 min. or so, like, "be cool" or "get real." From my personal experience with them, short-invocations work for a good 5 min. Also, whenever I force myself to have a positive attitude, I suceed but only for small islands of time in a single day. Eventually my mind rejects moment 2 moment interference. The only m2m thing I've found that is sustainable is just listening to how I feel and trying to express my emotions... My guess is that because in those cases I'm not trying to craft a specific emotion but instead am listening carefully to what is already there.

Solving life's problems from the inside-out works. When I've found some problem, such as being socially awkward, or worrying too much, I find that by trying to solve the problem directly is not as effective and solving the problem indirectly. For example, I had some specific problems and weaknesses I wanted to correct in my life, so I came upon a few other random suggestions that didn't provide obvious solutions to those problems. For example, I chose to spend more time with nature or do more community service... and those activities somehow fixed some of my other problems... also maybe because it got me to stop focusing on the negative problem at hand and do something positive.

Solipsistic Phil; Whadup Happiness?

First. I am exceedingly complex.

Second. There is a general 'system' or mentality for living that's been floating in my mind since I was 14ish when I first came up with the mantra, "Observe, Analyze, Apply."

Third. My external life seems to turn out okay in the end, but my internal mind is like hell's playground for confusion

What do I think this is all about? Control. (Just like the Matrix). If my analysis is correct, I think I've been trying really hard since I was 14ish to control my destiny. This control meant the removal of faults, the elimination of mistakes, the maximization of positive feeling, the pursuit of success, the attainment of depth of experience.

This process began when I started reading biographies of successful people like Bill Gates and Michael Dell. Since it had been my dream to be like them, I wanted to figure out how to emulate them. What was their trick? What was their system?

This began a series of strategies and mental tricks in order to shape my life in a particular direction. What resulted was a framework or programming whose structure I'm only slowly becoming aware of.

I'd always come up with a system or way of thinking. Like some invocation, or a pseudo-religion, or a mantra, or whatever. Everytime I'd formulate it, I'd think, "this is it! this is finally the one system." It then lasts anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months.

Here are the basic mental programming models or systems I employ:

- Nihilism - Nothing matters. Fuck it. "Let the Chips fall where they may." I've kept this system up about two times. Once was senior year in high school when I had a good enough relationship, was making money, had already gotten accepted to college. I think I become nihilistic when things are satisfactory and I don't need to think.

- "Best systems are no systems" - Slightly different from nihilism, this is where I just eliminate thinking. I usually come to this conclusion when my current system boils over in complexity and then I "realize" that life is too complex in order to control exactly. I've had this system about three times, and I am kind of on it right now.

- Attack on the basics - This manifests in the form of a text document that lists certain key areas, like social, health, money. I then develop a plan to do well in all of those areas in order to achieve some sort of completeness of being. I've returned back to this about three or four times, and I'm on it right now. The first time I did this was when I first read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. This then evolved into a worksheet I kept for myself. Latley, this has evolved into a hard-core principle-centered life where I focus on three things, Independence, Pursuit of Passion, and Connecting with others. And the mentality is, "As long as I'm pumping on those cynlinders, life will be okay"

- Progressive, Creative - This is like a series or hierarchy of simple systems for achieving success or some goal. Examples include disciplined schedules, programs, thinking strategies, projects, objectives, mission statements. I've been hard-core on this about three or four times. In all cases, they were related to the achievement of some success in business or academic success. i.e. this is the system of expediency.

- Single system or solutions - By far the most common system, and probably the most detrimental. This is where I settle down on a single invocation or mantra that I think will solve my problems. Examples are like forcing myself to have a positive attitude, or making myself happy even when I'm not, or interfering with my general processes in order to evaluate whether what I'm saying or doing is truly the right thing. This really works for like a day in most cases. I had one system like this, "bear pain" that lasted for a couple of months. This involved taking any challenging situation, learning to accept the pain, and work my way with it. Problem with it was that it didn't give me any wisdom and just kind of made me a "gritty" person.

- Scrawl, Emotional Intelligence, Be Natural - I'm the most fond of this system, though it doesn't really accomplish what I need. This is like where I sort of spit out my emotions onto my face or in diaries, and try to interpret from there where I should go. It's a sort of running a pop-operation on your emotional stack, like oh, I need food, eat, I need work, get to it, I need energy, exercise. This kind of works, but I think my emotional intelligence is really low so it's useless.

- Mathematic, Analytical - I've only done this lately, but this is where I try to monitor my progress like a coach would. Like check out how many times did I have a panic, or how often did I get depressed, when, where, how... and then try to find patterns, analyze, and then find solutions. This works probably as well as scrawl for me. A negative effect is that I feel like a machine.

It's kind of funny, in a sort of sick way, that I bounce around from any of those systems often, just different versions. Like instead of mood swings that normal people have, I have systematic swings.

But dammit, I'm still trying to find the one system. The one way of thinking where I can go, okay, this is IT. This is finally what I can do and I don't have to keep on thinking so deeply on a meta level.

I asked myself a rhetorical question the other day, "When will my mindset STOP changing?!" and then the intuitive answer that came out was, "When you are happy"

See happiness rarely factors into it, or at least not consciously. I've come to the conclusion that pursuit of happiness, ultimately, is what's motivating all of this... however, I've never been able to factor that into my programs... I can't even admit that "yes, I want to be happy"... I don't know why! I tried to get myself to ramp up to a point where I could say, "Alright, let's be happy" but it was such a hack. I think maybe because my attitude is never to be content... but that's terrible! I mean, well, it even seems terrible to be content... hence that's where I'm stuck?!

So, I think it's some sort of voodoo thing where I'm not programmed to seek happiness and yet deep down that's what I really want. The chasm between the two is what's causing this? God, who knows.

Hell, it could just be the economy.

Addition to the Manual of Human Control

Anyways, continuing where I left off earlier on the "Imperative-Based Life"...

Here's a interesting model. Well, basically, it deals with our response to stimuli or emotions that bubble up.

Here's the spectrum of our responses:
- Act on it
- Put up with it
- Ignore it
- Remove it

where it is the stimuli or impulse.

Decision-making model:
You act on it:
- if you endorse it

You put up with it:
- if you don't endorse it
- but can't get rid of it

You ignore it
- if you don't endorse it
- but it's not that big of a deal

You remove it
- if you don't endorse it
- and it's killing you or it's easily removed

Now, that's not necessarily complete, but it's a general model for the way we respond to things. The emotional stable, or the emotionally intelligent, or rather those who manage themselves effectively and lead themselves into cycles of or situations that they endorse and enjoy, and give them happiness, tend to have some sort of balance or combination of the above. This is intuitive, they know how to deal with things in a case by case basis. Some things, they can deal with, so they do, some they can ignore, so they do, others they enjoy or believe in, so they follow, others they actively try to fix or change.

Now, there are other versions of the humankind that still manage well without "balance"

"Endorse everything you do" - this involves just acting on everything and then retroactively endorsing it. You'll find this in a LOT of stable and effective ppl. They just "go with the flow" and conveniently the flow matches precisely with their vision about life...

"Endorse nothing" - others don't endorse much at all, so they could go either way. All options are fine to them, and they're liberated by this.

"Minimal Impulse" - the impulses or emotions that are felt by the node are of a low volume so one could also choose from any of the responses with ease.

"Strong Will" - some just have a very robotic like ability to control everything they do, so they just remove everything they dislike about themselves and keep everything they do, and charge forward with that. These are hard to find, but they're out there, and many are very successful. You'll find this among really successful people because what compells someone to remove impulses is someone who desires control, or power, and power and success often go hand in hand.

Unbalanced or poorly managing types... (these are interesting)

"Act on everything" - or the impulsive types. They don't ignore, they don't deal, they can't remove... maybe the volume of their emotions are so consuming or they don't have the will to do anything but just get swept up in the current. These ppl become the Hedonists or imagine anybody else doing everything they want to do.

"Just deal" - these are the most annoying to me. They whine and talk about problems but don't do anything to fix them, don't even act on them, nor do they ignore them, they just sit there on them. These ppl are immobile, and are usually moved around as the environment demands.

"Forced Ignorance" - the ultra religious, or rather not necessarily, but the ostrich head in the ground. These ppl just ignore all their impuless, deny everything, and instead, whatever peeps out becomes the MO.

"Failed Fixers" - those that just keep trying to fix themselves, fix others, solve problems, but never really getting anywhere due to potentially weak will and strong sweeping emotions.. these guys are depressed and usually frustrated with life.

There seems to be some sort of function between your will and your emotions. If your emotional noise is not that loud, then of course, you don't need that much will to conquer them. Too strong a will, imho, doesn't seem to harm ppl, except maybe in the case that it makes someone immoral, but that only harms the victims, not the victimizer.

Which one am I? I'm the act-on-it or failed fixer thingy. I get either swept up with an emotion that I may endorse (or not) or I try really hard to fix my problems. It'd probably be better to ignore or deal, but the volume on my emotions are really high and consume me....

objectively speaking, if this model were taut, it's logically probably better for me to be the "endorse-everything" kind of guy..... this is hard though, because I have high standards for things, and it's hard for me to just "go w/ the flow" esp. given how much control I desire out of this world.

I really wish someone gave or provided a manual for operating the human ship.... now, now, don't be quick to say, that's what psychology is for. Psychology is crap. well, I'm no expert, sorry, but this statistic is unheartening: 1/3rd of ppl become better after seeing a psychiatrist, 1/3rd worse, 1/3rd the same. uuuh. Also, from what little I've read, it models human behavior pretty well, and is good for diagnosing illnesses, but it doesn't deal with the "should" how I operate my life. How should I think in order to get what I want? What is the nature of good living in the brain. What thinking processes are good, are bad. How to I change.

I hoped philosophy would answer questions like that for me, but all I got were some nice cogent phrases.

Usually, the manual comes from the summation of the experiences one goes through... hmmphf.

Most ppl don't like talking about a manual or thinking in terms of that, so they throw out the concept entirely. My feeling si that they just don't want to think about it or rather if somebody were to really reveal that their secret to success was merely a function of topping off or rather a secret to themselves, that would dishearten them. Also, there isn't enough convergence between philosophy, psychology, and systems thinking. I mean, a psychologist would say something like, well, just follow maslow's ladder. You have needs, adress them, and you're happy. But how is one to address them, how should one address them, should I make a list? Will it work? Self-help gurus attempt these things well. Dianetics is the illusion of this but it's just mind control.

OR

Other solutions do exist but they just don't satisfy my notion of a guide.

OR

another wild theory is that division of labor enforces that not everybody have absolute understanding and control of the human. I mean, if everybody had a complete understanding, a lot would just become nihilists or realize that everything is an illusion. Also, there might be too many ppl who could go, "oh wait, I don't have to go to work or go to school, heck I don't even need to do anything"

I mean, does a the EVP need to work so hard and kill himself when even if he did absolutely nothing, he would still survive and live a possibly great life over the next 40 years? No, but that's not how capitilism works.

November 9th, 2001

Umm, the best systems are no systems.

When you're sitting at ETL, you start to think, there's a pattern, they always seem tolack some over-arching plan. IT seems, their only plan is rules are meant to be broken, that's how they did it best, no I worked this route. Most of THAT has seemed to fail. Why is Tony Robbins only @ the same level?

On systems? Duh, those humans who just walk in whip ass, because A the human is a limited device, we are more or less the same in our limitations, all knowledge that is out there as is measured by our understanding when in actually is in the hands of these individuals, no one can fairly know quantitatively more than a lot of people, somebody can always come around, we're always perceiving and receiving, and we craete complex systems that change very instantly, that we are designed to react properly to this changing environment, because we don't have faith in that, we rely on these systems and paths.

One) that on your deathbed, all that precedes you is your past, all that you must accept is what you have done, up to that point you have done what you have done, most optimal decision for you is to accept your past, to love it, even cherish it, even if you were a mass murderer or you were on top, there's no more optimal solution for you.

Two) What can we do? We live. We are solid units that in simple terms live, and then die. How we live, is our choosing, that we live and die is not ours. (* though could change in future). As a result, we want to live, best? not worst? Even if living the worst, turned out to be the best, we'd live that worst to make the best? Or would we want the worst? Why? Because that was the best to us. Being the opposite, would also be the optimal, that'd be the best.

Three) If you are alawys seeking the best, consciously, even consciously seeking in an unconcious manner, than you should be completely satisfied with your conscious, the main constitution of your self.

Four) Your best, or to achieve the best, there's no other way you could have done it given a recurrence, and as a result, that is all you'll ever be, is that maximization that you seek, and so you should be completely satisfied with yourself, your responses, basically everything that constitutes your living volition

Five) You die now, and your future is your life. There are multiple selves of you that you could die into, and you'd want to die on the best possible one. If you are going, in your future, to seek the best, then you can be satsified with yourself because that is your best possible vantage point of reflection.

Six) As a result, you must always be satsified with yourself and how you will perform as long as you know that you will make the best.

Seven) If you're not going to live the good life, then, you mustn't be satsfied with yourself.

Eight) We are condemed to living so, because once we recognize this, you can then see that you will tomorrow, try your best to try your best, and that even if you forget to, that you did try your best to try your best, and that's worthy of satsifaction.

Nine) You won't need a system, to see the future too deeply, know what people are thinking about you, what x-y-z truly mean, given a plurality of situations, you will be maximizing.

Current spit-everything mode

Okay, so the latest "mode" of mentality I've been on is this emotional intelligence thing. It actually started well before I read this book. I made for myself a perspective on life that involved responding effectively to how I felt. I had found myself confused and in a rut in many situations, and I was most frustrated by a lack of control. Other people could remain calm while as I'd get angry or stressed out. Yeah, that's what it was, I was trying to improve myself again, and in doing so I saw other models of "the man" and these were people that were very effective at responding to themselves. If they were thinking too much, they'd stop, if they were tired, they'd rest, if they were depressed, they'd cheer themselves up. This gave them easy access to many things in life while as me with my automatic emotional responses would have to find things that would fit me and not the other way around.

So, I did this for a while. Some of the methods I'd employ would be sort of "letting it all out." Self-expression through writing or having an introspective gait to my thoughts would help reveal with an "objective hovering wrath" (as the aforementioned book refers to it) what it was that I desired, and then from there I'd then figure out what to do about it.

It fit well with my "Observe, Analyze, Apply" framework because in fulfilling our information-processing duties, the best observations would probably be those about yourself.

So this worked for a while, in many instances. I learnt many things, one of which is that this emotional intelligence is not as easy as one, two, three. What I did learn though, was that, indeed it did work. One could take a problem, a distress, a feeling inside, deconstruct it, and then manage themselves up to a desirable state. Bingo, instant success for life. You want to make yourself into the state of yourself that you best like, and by accessing and then subsequently managing your emotional state, you will eventually get there.

Or so it would seem.

I went on this for a while, but based on the epiphemerous nature of my other "thinks" I withheld spreading the "gospel." The most I gave to people was this sort of, "I have the KEY, but I'm still experimenting."--as an aside, I've resigned myself to being simply a seeker, *sigh*.

And now, we're at this chapter. And I think I've kind of pinned onto an actual problem with this kind of thinking, almost makes my previous, machine-like approaches to life, more suitable for living. But basically, this kind of thinking, of directly accessing your emotions, and directly manipulating them through activities, internal or external, is somewhat incompatible with the way we are actually programmed to think.

As of now, I'm starting to feel that I move from one fleeting emotion to the next. I sense, I respond. That's all there is to it.

My counter is well, don't people do that anyways? Isn't just responding to their emotions precisely the way people do it. They just run a pop operation on the queue of their feelings, and then spit off what comes "naturally."

Ah, but that's the thing... "naturally." I finally figured what they mean when they say, "be natural." They mean to say, "rely on your passive processes." Funny thing is the context that this is usually dished out by the skeptics. Usually it's dished out in situations related to dating and public speaking. But it's not used in other situations. For example, if you're about to start a difficult program, nobody says, "be natural" or if you're the president negotiating placement of troops in Turkey, Rove doesn't say, "'ey Georgey, just be natual." Well, that's because things like social dances are a very complicated and un-modelable process, so getting out of your conscious interference and relying on instinct will lead you to the better way.

(my apologies for the digression)

Anyways, the problem with this way that I've been playing with is that well, I'm directly accessing my emotions. I'm manipulating myself in a very unnatural way, although naturally for those who are emotionally intelligent, in which case this IS the way. But basically, the best example is I sit around and I go, "hmm, I feel like I need a sense of meaning." And so then afterwards, I then go off and do something "meaningful" like help the needy or setup a religion. But, here's the rub... What does that accomplish? On the one hand, well, I helped the needy and I started a religion for Christssake, but if you dereference those things, I actually was just plugging an emotional hole. I was filling a void. I was going through a phase and I dealt with it appropriately. So the weight of the problem is in that it trivializes the actions we do as just responding to our feelings.

Some people can live that way. They'd say, "yeah, of course, you go with your heart, you go with what you feel inside, and that guides you." But then I respond to that, doesn't that just ruin the meaning of what you're doing. If you're just going with your feeling, then what's to say what you're doing is right and not just some chemical reaction in your head. This issue pricked me when somebody said, in regards to anti-war protestors, "they just can't stand the sight of blood." And that feeling evolves into sympathy, combined with hatred of large hegemonies, mixed with suspicions about oil. Now, fortunately, if you're intellectual, you may do some research and understand what's really happening, but even those intellectuals are swamped by the sheer network effects of other people just urging and suggesting, telling them what they want to hear. Pretty soon it's the bleeding hearts on one side vs. the stern righteous on the other. What suffers is truth and accuracy.

So, where do we go from here. Well, as the current re-design of Philosophistry illustrates, life, at least for me, is a cycle of arcs and what not. Hopefully they spiral up. But essentially, on a concrete level, what's probably next is a slowly dampening of this direct emotional thinking method. The next stage is strange as I'll have no concrete "mentality" in my mind. I actually then truly "go with the flow"---BUT, aren't I THEN just responding again to my emotions, but just in a very passive way. And so, I already see my frustrations manifesting, the subsequent pensive moments, and ladies and gentlemen, there will be a new mode.

Hopefully, though, this is evolution. Fortunately I've gotten a sense of humor to this whole process.

Programming the Mind

I think, well, I there are these imperatives or directives I used to put in my head. Those used to bother me. You know, like "be right," "do straight," "be satisfied," I'd be so scared if I didn't have any of those, I'd feel like my life was always just hanging up in the air. I dunno man.

I was killing myself today too, thinking. Sometimes, I just sort of, inhibit my thought, have a thought that interrupts a thought, when I have thought I can't get away from, and I'm just trapt in my own thinking, I get really frustrated.

Well, I think you shouldn't put foreign objects in your head, I think like those recurring statements, like "be satisfied," or "don't worry" or whatever, they help for a little while, but then your body just rejects that kind of stuff.

The write-your-emotions-on-your-face/body drive hasn't been rejected it's something your body is yearning and wanting to do anyways. Same with the "bear-pain" directive, that too is something your body just wants to do, to be tough, to just feel something and be strong.

Lessons don't go away too, you learn some lesson, you can tap that for decision making.

Habits

Attitudes.

Knobs of control.

In regards to emotional intelligence, having this hovering wrath of self-awareness, I think that's great, but it shouldn't come in labelling emotions. It's annoying walking around running thoughts in my mind like, "okay, I'm agitated, okay I'm being defeatest, okay I'm over-reacting." But, I think like, you know, our body wants to be un-numb, so if you can amplify that "in-touch" signal, that should be good, help get awareness. I don't think taking a critical view of yourself around with you is healthy. Life is an art thingy, sometimes you self-criticize, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you're in complete control of your reactions, sometimes your not.

Perspectives.

This book "Emotional Intelligence" that I picked up was really good and interesting. Like most books I read, after a few months, I only keep 1-3 key concepts. From this book, it just drove the point home that the ratio of internal weight on our states of emotional powers to intellectual powers is like 24 to 1. I lean more on the rationalist thinking side, and always ignore how I feel. The other major point is the idea that knowing yourself is the key foundation to emotional intelligence. Having an objective awareness of your general sentiments and then manipulating yourself and your environment to effectively manage your feelings is the key to emotional intelligence.

But, I'd still like to find a book of some sort, maybe "Programming the mind." For people like me who like to dig into the source code, change things up a bit, control their life properly. I used to tell people that what I've really been trying to do all this time is to "manually boot" myself, re-learn things, like thinking, feeling, emotion on terms that were outside of the influence of childhood molding by others.

Shortcut Mental Imperatives

In the Matrix, Neo walks into the Oracle's kitchen and the Oracle points up, above Neo's head, and reads off the maxim, "Know thyself"

This is a reference to one of the two phrases above the actual Greek Oracle temple. (Thanks to Paul Legutko for these)

Medan Agan - Everything in Moderation
Gnothi Seauton - Know thyself

The wisdom of these two phrases never ceases to be powerful. The "Everything in Moderation" imperative is actually the most basic imperative of subjectivity. And since I believe that life is both an Art and a Science, it's fitting that subjectivity is at the centrepoint. Subjectivity, the capability of the subject to freely determine the weight of something is pretty much the essence of Art. By being subjective, by making decisions, by exercising judgement, especially in favor of not doing something excessively, one takes direction over one's life. And self-benefit is precisely the reason for following a maxim. Sure, it IS at some times, good to do things in excess, in which case, it's not truly an excess, but an excess in disguise as necessary volume.

As for "Know thyself," this is a bit more controversial. Nietzsche criticizes the idea of "knowing yourself" in the Gay Science. I can never pinpoint a good argument why he dislikes it except for the fact that he is irritated by those who falsely assume they know themselves. Many people can only know through their conscious thoughts and therefore tend to ignore their more subconscious, primitive, and usually evil, urges. This fits in well with Nietzsche's go-evil stance in general and also helps justify his personal inabilities with dealing with his own unparalleled insanities. Oscar Wilde is also another lamenter of the move to lift under the hood. He has a similar justification as does Nietzsche, thinking that those who walk around with the presumption that they understand themselves are just shallow. However, it's possible he dislikes it for simply artistic reasons. Having yourself always at a distance from itself will indeed make life seem more dramatic, more mysterious, more interesting. If that's your cup of tea, be my guest. I'd take the drama and the art, but not the deep-set lows, slavery, and self-loathing pain that comes with being disconnected from oneself.

Having said that, I think that knowing yourself is relevant. Even if you can't know yourself in a complete sense, but always being aware of what you feel, what you need, what you want etc. If life is Observe, Analyze, Apply, and you are the sole judge, jury, and executioner of your actions (an existentialist assumption), then the best observations one could make are about themselves.

I've noticed that everything can be reduced to information judo. If you are depressed, upset, unhappy, in pain, etc.. it's due to some folding of information combined with a desire to resolve. If you have the spigot of information about yourself cut-off, it'll be extremely hard to operate on yourself. Or to put another way, it's terribly hard for a doctor to perform an operation or diagnosis without a proper analysis of the symptoms. If you can't respond to yourself, then good luck, your "self" will wither. This is not necessarily a terrible proposition for society as this homo sapien template is designed to handle servants and tyrants. You can either choose or be chosen, but at least if you choose, you have the opportunity to avoid undesired servitude.

So, once again, go Ancient Greeks. And as for categorical imperatives are concerned, those two are the best I've discovered. Although, categorical imperatives should be avoided anyways.

DISCLAIMER: I'm probably abusing the word categorical imperative. I haven't studied up on the subject enough, so forgive my reinterpretation for philosophistry