Reddit reviews Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind

I think you are simply not thinking about consciousness correctly. There is no such thing as a single consciousness that could be called "you." You are correct that the subconscious motivations driving your actions could be considered "consciousness" from another area of your brain that you are not aware of, but this simply demonstrates the uselessness of the term for anything other than differentiating between autonomic/metabolic functions and "conscious" decisions. Your behaviors are governed by a complex series of systems/modules/programs/whatever you want to call them, and each of these provides a different amount of input depending on circumstances. There is no conscious "pilot" controlling your actions.

Behavioral science and evolutionary psychology have a lot to say about the conscious mind, if you are interested in learning more, Why Everyone (else) is a Hypocrite by Robert Kurzban has some good basic information about this.

Eg. Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind.

Just a quick comment. Your post reminded me of this book:

> Robert Kurzban shows us that the key to understanding our behavioral inconsistencies lies in understanding the mind's design. The human mind consists of many specialized units designed by the process of evolution by natural selection. While these modules sometimes work together seamlessly, they don't always, resulting in impossibly contradictory beliefs, vacillations between patience and impulsiveness, violations of our supposed moral principles, and overinflated views of ourselves.

> This modular, evolutionary psychological view of the mind undermines deeply held intuitions about ourselves, as well as a range of scientific theories that require a "self" with consistent beliefs and preferences. Modularity suggests that there is no "I." Instead, each of us is a contentious "we"--a collection of discrete but interacting systems whose constant conflicts shape our interactions with one another and our experience of the world.

> In clear language, full of wit and rich in examples, Kurzban explains the roots and implications of our inconsistent minds, and why it is perfectly natural to believe that everyone else is a hypocrite.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Everyone-Else-Hypocrite-Evolution/dp/0691154392

>>Rather, there is a bias to publish positive results.

>This is a big problem in psychology journals. One of the impediments to psychology being actual science imo is the lack of negative results or falsifiable hypotheses.

As someone with a psychology degree, I agree 100%. Psychology has become very atheoretical. What passes are statistically significant results and some handwaving about how your results is evidence of your initial hypothesis.

Never mind trying to design experiments in a way that would falsify your position; screw replication; we just want sexy research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on psi powers and "feeling the future" because quantum mechanics.

Much of social psychology is utterly useless. I am sympathetic to those, like Robert Kurzban and Gregg Henriques, who are trying to interject some theoretical foundations into psychology.

EDIT: links

I think you're missing the point here.

Many don't like Obama, but is anybody really excited enough about Romney to post pro-Romney stuff? Apparently this guy is . . .

Also: The caricature you described fits Romney supporters quite well. Visit a trailer park sometime.

Obama is a politician; they are all hypocrites for some very interesting reasons. A good book to check out was written by a colleague of mine.

>Instead they give humanity all the freedom to do whatever they like. Culture AI seems to be mostly minding its own business, enjoying the complexity of galactic evolution and civilizations. Some of them like direct interaction with humans, and even the larger Minds are usually glad to help out with many of the citizens' requests.

I've read the books numerous times - I know all that.

>It isn't like Kurzweilian AI which gives priority to reshaping/destroying the whole galaxy (followed by all other galaxies) and reforming it into optimum computronium to calculate whatever such an AI would want to calculate.

At this point speculating about the nature of future AI's is a bit like thinking about guided anti-tank missiles after the introduction of steam power..

>Since an AI that's good at that doing such a job would probably have self awareness and drives too.

That is a baseless assertion. Most of the brain that thinks for 'you' is nonconscious, and consciousness itself, which is a sort of 'press secretary' evolved to make you look good in the eyes of others is as likely to be a hindrance as it is likely to be a boon.

Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind totally changed the way I see myself and others, and our interactions with one another. It's not a hard or particularly long read (the Kindle version is something like 272 pages and the last 70-ish are citations so it's about 200 pages of actual reading) and it's one of those books that I think EVERYONE needs to read, even if you have zero interest in psychology or biology, because it will dramatically change the way you view your life.

I initially followed the principles of Stoicism, which is a philosophy that's very close to the principles of CBT. So my first resource was /r/Stoicism, where you can find things like this and this that have direct correlation with CBT principles. Greek and Roman literature might be hard to get into, but there are very readable translations and the principles are applicable.

Of course, not everyone is interested in philosophy, so my recommendation would be to find something along the lines of Judith Beck's Cognitive Therapy, or other similar resources that are based on research. I can't really recommend else because I haven't read much from other authors.

But in general I would recommend reading about cognitive biases in general, along the lines of this, this, this, or this. Being conscious of how everybody thinks might help you see some negative spirals in your life, and can help you change the environment that might lead you to that negativity.

But again, professional help can be very useful, so definitely consult a professional who is maybe better for you. Good luck!

I think Grey may know this, but we're more like 50 or 200 on a neurological level, rather than two. Quite a lot of our brain systems don't talk to each other, not just the right and left hemisphere in corpus callosotomy patients. Robert Kurzban has a great book about this: Evolution and the modular mind

Edit - Should have mentioned, but he makes a pretty convincing case (moreso than Grey imo) that one's coherent sense of self is mostly an illusion.