Our brain as a primitive neural network

    In the past few months, my observations of myself have been reinforcing more and more the model whose idea came to my mind in the spring. I decided to share these considerations with people.

    Our psyche is an extremely complex aggregate. There are many different mechanisms in the head, both in the realm of the conscious and the unconscious. There is a logical mind that we all use every minute in almost all situations in our lives. But besides this, there are very simple basic mechanisms.

    In particular, the things that often happen in my head remind me of the work of a simple neural network, which is primitively trained through feedback. If something happens to us that pleases us, then the “rating” of all the decisions we made before this and all the circumstances that happened before this automatically rise. And vice versa, if something unpleasant happens, then these “ratings” are lowered.

    For instance. I go home from the store and choose one of several possible routes. They are all roughly equivalent in time and convenience. But today I went along one of them and met a friend there whom I had not seen for a long time, and was incredibly glad to meet. What do I notice now? The next time I go home, I will want to again go along the route that I followed then. It involuntarily seems to me more pleasant, although I do not specifically aspire to this meeting, and logically I understand that the probability of meeting her in any other place is almost the same.

    Another example. I play poker and I get two aces. I put a lot of chips into the pot, but in the end I lose the hand to the opponent who collected three eights, and I fly out of the tournament, which was important to me. I am upset and disappointed, and from now on I can notice that now I don’t like the hand with two aces. And for some reason I don’t feel like putting on my sunglasses anymore and sitting on that chair at the table. I logically understand that all this has no direct connection with potential loss. After all, mathematically, two aces are a profitable hand, and sunglasses and the chosen chair do not have much influence on the game. But an unpleasant event happened, and my brain automatically lowered everything in the rating that preceded it.

    Or take a sore subject - procrastination. In fact, what do we do when we put off some business? We put off not necessarily an unpleasant business. But still today we postponed it for later and decided to watch a cool movie. And tomorrow they postponed it again and decided to wash all the dishes and clean up the room. Every time we do this, we get positive feedback from the choice made. We watched the film - got pleasant emotions, - "did everything right," thought the subconscious. We put things in order in the house, we got satisfaction from it ourselves, and again we encouraged the choice made. The shelving rating of our business is growing and growing. What turns out? On the third day, when we try to tackle that most important matter, we will automatically want to postpone it a little more.

    On the one hand, this basic mechanism helps us to learn in a new environment. On the other hand, his great tendency to generalize can really interfere.

    What conclusion can be drawn?

    First of all, as with any unconscious mechanism of our psyche (as with complexes, for example), the most important point is to realize that it is. Watch how it works. There is no point in getting rid of it, because it is not only harmful, but also useful. Yes, and it’s unlikely to get rid of such a basic mechanism. But you can use it for your own purposes. And in general, to realize that because of him our “preferences” can be far from objectivity and even absurd, and treat them accordingly.

    For example, think carefully next time when you decide to postpone some business, in return having received satisfaction from another. Be aware of the consequences. :)

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