Freedomain Radio is wrecking my development.

[Mole]

I'm going through a critical time in my maturity. I am 19 years old. I'm experiencing things I've never done before. I'm finding out how to interact with the world and what is appropriate. I found this show much earlier. I started listening when I was 16 years old. Iv'e listened to at least a 1000 shows by now. I am an anarchocapitalist, I am an atheist, I have no unchosen obligations, and I'm very happy with the people around me. Am I happier now? No, I'm more depressed. How should this be possible?

 

I think I made a grave mistake... I have a bunch of different emotions running through my head. It's these emotions that reflect my desires, that is, the true self. Rather than accepting that I have no free will over these emotions, I tried to rationalise them using logic. I tried to justify my behaviour. Should I kiss her? Is that in line with monogamy? What should my career be? Is that in line with UPB? Can white lies be justified? Do I have a moral responsibility to inform others about philosophy? The list could keep going on...

 

I believe what I have done is conflate morality with the true self. When Stefan speaks, it is kind of assumed that you are a functioning human being who knows what makes you happy. For example, if someone calls in with a very particular topic about something happening recently in their life, it's unlikely that they will delve into self-knowledge, because if that was the problem, then they would most likely bring that up. Topics such as, how many times a week should you have sex or is it okay to drink alcohol don't come up. These are, catagorically speaking, aesthetic questions, and only now do I realise that these aesthetics are completely uncontrollable and subject to the true self.

 

Morality attempts to dissolve what impedes upon the true self, rather than justifying the true self. It is impossible to escape the true self. If you try to rationalise your behaviour, you will inevitably rationalise your emotions, and when you start rationalising your emotions you will fail because emotions aren't subject to being universal. So you will create these theories which will try to attempt to explain your behaviour and feel intuitive. For example, men make bigger risks in gambling when a woman who is on her period is standing next to them rather than a woman who is not on her period. This level of behaviour is far below anything the conscious mind can percieve. The man might justify his behaviour with these complex theories such as it is moral to bet more when a woman is nearby because it makes her feel good and that is an exchange of value, or some other weird theory like that. He won't ever understand why he really is behaving the way he is.

 

(Please pay attention to this example, it summarises my whole points ^)

I believe it's my wanting to justify my behaviour that lead me to this show in the first place. I have always been obssesed with philosophy. Albeit, it has not made me happier. I feel I am becoming more detached from my true self as these rationalisations start overwhelming my pure emotions. This insight into myself is huge. Please don't mistake this as a criticism of any sort. From an intellectual standpoint, I am grateful to learn what I have learned. Even if I have used philosophy to bury my true self, I know it is also a part of my true self and a part of my inquisitive nature. That part will stay with me, and I'm sure that it will prevent myself from coming in contact with toxic, manipulative people in the future.

 

So what now? I have a number of big opportunities ahead of me. I believe these opportunities have actually driven me to come to this realisation about myself and write this post. A way of my unconscious mind sort of saying, "Hey, these decisions are important. Are you sure you know what you are doing?". Thanks, unconscious mind. I will go head first into these opportunities, and I will allow my emotions to guide me. I have learned that it is perfectly safe (and necessary) to do so as long as I follow my moral principles on a very strictly, moral level. Forget applying it to the aesthetics. I am very, very lucky meet the people I have met, and have the opportunities that I've been given. It should not be squandered. It is not a coincidence that I am where I am. It is not a coincidence that I have befriended the people I have befriended. It isn't a coincidence that I'm doing the course I am doing. My true self was nudging me the entire time and I have just made it a struggle for myself. This is how I know I am on the right path, and it's okay to let go.

[aviet]

Mo' thoughts, mo' problems.

Look at all the philosophers, thinkers and commentators out there. They are typically among the most glum. Then look at those whose worlds revolve around ready meals, TV and nights out.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Do you mean philosophy is doing it or FreedomainRadio?

[DaVinci]

I'm not convinced philosophy alone can make you happy. Maybe if the human brain was a philosophy computer and a happiness center hooked to the processing of philosophy then philosophy would make you happy, but that isn't the case. 

[Anuojat]

I HIGHLY recommend looking stefans podcasts series on emotions especially "true self false self" podcasts and in regard to rationalization:

http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/963/screw-the-rules-part-1

 

To NOT make philosofy into a bully.

[Wuzzums]

Stefan has explained on many occasions FDR is not for everyone and is not a sure way to happiness. Philosophy is not a vaccine or the like, it's chemotherapy. There's a good chance it's gonna kill off the cancer but there' also an equally good chance it's gonna kill you off sooner.

[Jot]

Have not seen a thread this interesting for at least the whole past year or so...thank you for putting in the time to create it.

 

For starters, I would like you to clarify this.

 

"Topics such as, how many times a week should you have sex or is it okay to drink alcohol don't come up. These are, catagorically speaking, aesthetic questions" 

 

Why would be these aesthetics questions? Why would the frequency of sex even be a question with any moral dimension at all?

 

"The man might justify his behaviour with these complex theories such as it is moral to bet more when a woman is nearby because it makes her feel good and that is an exchange of value, or some other weird theory like that."

 

Again, why do you think this has anything to do with morality? 

[Will Torbald]

Forget your true self. Your inner animal is what is troubling you. The man sits on top of the tamed beast that lies within him. You're a teenager with still years before reaching brain maturity. What about sex? It seems very unsatisfied. What about hunting? Do you know what it takes to live off the death of others? Have you ever gotten into a fist fight? When your reason and your emotions go haywire, it's the instincts beneath them that are in turmoil.

[neeeel]

I think you are getting too hung up on the concept of "true self". 

I think you are also misapplying or misunderstanding various other concepts.

You seem to be pretty lost and floundering about in your own head. I would recommend therapy, as it is very useful to have someone else listen to your thoughts and ideas and help you out of your maze.

[AccuTron]

“I think I made a grave mistake.”

I don’t think so.

 

 

As to your gambling/woman example, you clearly already understand the concept of sources of behavior, will probably continue to learn, and I sense that your moral code is strong enough to be used as a successful reference.  Just to mention in passing.  As to your reference to a true self, I should think that if there was a thing, it would be constantly morphing.

 

 

 

“I’m going through a critical time in my maturity. ”

 

More than you know.  Our brains at about age two, and in late teens, are piling on the neurons, taking in our learning of the world.  Think about the “terrible twos.”  It’s very confusing, and the following two years or so our brains do lots of sorting and trimming.  

 

Thus, you are now in the temporal place where your brain is the most overloaded and confused, just anyway.  You feel Freak Out, yet you might try to feel Faith, that if you don’t mortally screw up, your brain, on it’s own, will sort out much and you should feel better over many months or a few years.  Feeling great is not guaranteed, the world is really screwed up.  But you will be feeling clearer.  I’ve never heard of anyone who has opened their mind later wanting to go back to ignorance.  Maybe they might miss the cozy feeling if they had that.

 

 

 

I grew up with a family swimming pool.  I noticed that Nature came up with lots of water beetles and frogs, yet to my knowledge not one other species developed “the Australian Crawl.”  I thought, the heck with that, I’m going to be an underwater swimmer.  In recent (senior citizen!) years I had a 25-meter swimming pool almost all to myself, and I tried to see how far I could go underwater on one breath.  Taking my time, on the third try, I did the full length. 

 

A few meters shy, I developed that feeling some of you may know: “If you don’t go up for air right now, you are going to die!”  Logically, I knew that wasn’t true, it was only more seconds that I needed, my blood O2 could do that, so I consciously, willfully, almost without effort, instructed myself to ignore the alarm.  The alarm disappeared. (First time I tried that, it surprised me how easy it was.)  It was only an alarm, like a flashing light, not the thing itself.  (I’m pointing out a delay between alarm and actual disaster, what alarms are supposed to do, I’m not saying that alarms are to be ignored.)

 

Notice this:  If the “you are going to die right now, for real” alarm can be turned off, what could you do with the alarm for “I’m feeling very, very, uncomfortable”?  

The alarm is not the thing itself.

 

 

As you deal with…good luck to all of us…life on the outside, and your internal evaluations, it’s good to know something of the wiring you are working with.  A control room operator is going to be much more effective if the operator has looked at wiring diagrams and opened a few equipment panels.

 

You as operator of your own brain now know, from the swimming example, that it is possible to turn off the darned alarm horn while the lights on the panel get figured out.  Just turning off the horn makes things feel better.  

 

 

 

Here’s another thing that might help.  Stick with it, it seems to wander at first—

 

If you look at our brains in rough cross section from the side, you will see an evolutionary hierarchy, of stacked brain layers:  

 

—Fishy brain-stem wiggles, eats, evades, perhaps builds, mates.

 

—Amphibian/reptilian brain grows on top.  A very successful additional set of executable codes towards the same basic goals as fish.

 

—Proto-mammal to mammal.  Here’s the fun part.  Being nocturnal, our tiny ancestors further developed olfactory circuits, yet another set of code — again, towards the same basic goals of life — which would eventually become what we call the limbic system.  Mammals developed what we call feelings.  

 

If we smell fresh coffee or bread or fudge brownies or whatever does it for you, you feel good, you are drawn towards this life necessity.  It could also apply to other necessities such as good shelter, flora, water, etc.  Plus one extra feeling…Fear.  Otherwise our ancestors would have been eaten while gloating in feel-good (political metaphor begging it’s own thread).  Fear has evasive neuro-wiring, plus maybe some hormones, that are slightly faster than already good reptile lunges.  Fear is meant to keep us alive.

 

After that, we get the cortex stuff, values and what not.  These are very generalized statements, all layers interconnect all over the place with other layers.  The layers that got there first have the strongest connections vs layers that came later.  Thus, we have the common situation where logic and values say don’t do something, yet we have this huge urge to do the thing.  It makes no sense, this ancient neuro-wiring meant to keep us alive will be destructive in our modern, non-natural world.  The conflict we feel is the result of that wiring imbalance.

 

The enlightened control room operator will understand that, and if real danger is not present, will practice, practice, practice, the art of turning off the alarm horn.  It can be done.

 

 

Having considered the above, do you still feel as strongly that this is true?:

“It's these emotions that reflect my desires, that is, the true self.”

 

Are you maybe less sure that this is true?  (Remember, I could free will override the urge to breathe!):   “Rather than accepting that I have no free will over these emotions,”

 

 

Good luck on your flight deck.

[Mole]

It's not uncommon for people to look for a series of rules to adopt to avoid making personal decisions - and thus to avoid being at fault should they fail.

 

Based off the title of this post, I'd start mulling the topic of personal responsibility, which not surprisingly, is one of the core topics discussed on the show.

 

It sounds like you're having a fairly stressful time - have you thought about going to therapy now or previously?

Recently, I have been thinking about visiting a mental health youth centre. I would go through a 1 hour interview, and they would show me their services. Some of those services are free. I definately have some emotional problems. Thanks Mike.

[Mole]

I HIGHLY recommend looking stefans podcasts series on emotions especially "true self false self" podcasts and in regard to rationalization:

http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/963/screw-the-rules-part-1

 

To NOT make philosofy into a bully.

Wow. That's exactly it.