Have you ever wondered WHY or HOW you think? Have you ever wondered about WHAT you think? Do you think that your opinions contain more fact than fiction? This pearl, based on the “Genetic Human Personality TOOL”, can help answer these questions and may be worth pondering.
WHY we Think:
We think in order to appropriately react to physically and socially survive. Our physical survival is controlled by our four amygdala-controlled emotions, when our sensory input triggers emotional memories that trigger an emotional alert of anger, fear, joy or sorrow. Our social survival is controlled by our rational analyzer, director, relator and socializer style’s attributes (programming) and their rational memories.
The mammalian (physical survival) brain emerged about 200 million years ago. About 150 million years later our primate (social survival) brain emerged because we wouldn’t have survived without it, being a relatively weak species. Our physical survival (emotional) takes precedence over social survival (rational) since we can’t socially survive if we’re dead—also, nature wouldn’t throw away a perfectly good physical survival mechanism. To survive at all, our emotional and rational thinking must support each in other. The four rational styles interact with the four-amygdala emotions: Anger with the Director style, Fear with the Analyzer style, Sorrow with the Relator style and Joy with the Socializer.
HOW we Think:
All thinking is triggered by sensory input—we think emotionally when we get an emotional alert and we think rationally when we get a social alert. We also have “gut reaction” thinking when our pineal gland senses the positive or negative emotional energy of others.
How we Emotionally Think:
Our senses trigger our sensory memories, which trigger our emotional memories, which take control of our PFC (Pre-Frontal Cortex) until related rational memories (also triggered by those sensory memories) can sort out the reason for that emotional outburst and how to appropriately react.
First the Emotional Reaction:
1 The thalamus receives sensory data from the senses.
2 In 20 milliseconds Scant sensory data preconditions an emotional memory (in the amygdala) and also triggers related sensory memories.
3 Within 60 milliseconds, this sensory data also excites sensory memories that either produces NO emotional alert OR triggers the pre-conditioned emotional memory, creating an emotional alert that sends pulses of emotional chemicals throughout the body and brain.
4 The emotional alert wipes the Pre-Frontal Cortex (PFC) clear and holds it captive until the emotional alert is quelled by related rational memories.
Next the Rational Reaction:
A Related sensory memories trigger related rational memories..
B The PFC uses the related rational memories to sort out the cause of the emotional alert.
C Once rationally sorted out, the PFC quells the amygdala’s emotional alert. If not sorted out the amygdala re-triggers the emotion (rationalizing) as we rationalize with other related rational memories until sorted out or we get bored with over-reacting.
D Once the emotion is quelled, the entire experience is stored as a new rational experiential memory for future use.
We express our basic (amygdala-triggered) emotions of anger, fear, joy and sorrow all day long; they are what they are, a fact of life. But the extreme versions of those emotions—for example, elevating anger to hatred/rage or elevating fear to paralyzing terror/panic—require related rational memories to elevate them, which can be devastating. They are very difficult to quell as we rationalize (flood our PFC with related rational memories) to justify our right to express and elevate that extreme emotion with each rationalization memory.
HOW we Rationally Think:
Basically, our senses trigger our sensory memories, which trigger our rational memories, which the PFC uses to make decisions. We also ruminate with rational memories when initiated by sensory data.
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STRUCTURE of the Rational Brain:
1) We all have four symbiotic emotional-rational pairs: anger-director, fear-analyzer, joy-socializer and sorrow-relator that are either strong, moderate or weak based on daily usage, which is determined by our genetics and nurturing. When distressed, we use our genetically strongest emotion, which we probably overuse when not distressed.
2) Styles come in opposite pairs: Director & Relator are opposite; Analyzer & Socializer are opposite. These opposite pairs moderate each other's usage so that we can react more appropriately to socially survive. Thus, when strong in a style and weak in its opposite style we are doubly strong (overuse) the strong style and doubly weak (rarely use) the opposite weak style.
3) Each rational style has its own set of attributes that define their special way of thinking and reacting. We have no choice but to think/react that way—it’s wired into our right and left frontal cortices.
4) We think in details when using the Left brain and think interactively when using our right brain.
The chart below applies to every human being and is worth perusing for your edification—you might just discover your strongest and weakest styles and emotions; or maybe not.
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Detailed Thinking vs. Interactive Thinking:
Our left frontal cortex has dense groups of neurons connected by short axons—these are detailed memories about a specific subject. Our right frontal cortex has sparse groups of neurons with long connecting axons to many other sparse groups of neurons—these are interactive memories about many subjects. When using our detail-thinking left-brain we sequentially think with one memory at a time in a step-by-step serial manner. We also think in a “binary” manner in black & white terms, ignoring of the gray area in between. Strong left-brain analyzers avoid making a decision unless it is 100% right for them, rejecting everything else—and since they typically identify what’s wrong with a situation they are indecisive. Strong left-brain relators only consider whether there is a disconnection or not and how to react to maintain that important connection.
When using our right brain we think interactively by searching through related rational memories—thinking in a parallel manner. We also think in an “inclusive” manner, considering everything from an opinion’s truths to its falsities, using whatever works to make a quick decision. Strong right-brain directors make quick decisions to get things done and strong right-brain socializers make quick decisions to decide whether a connection is positive or negative and how to react.
Since both facts and falsities are included in inclusive interactive right-brain trial and error thinking we make mistake after mistake until we uncover most of the facts. Detailed binary left-brain thinking takes a very long time, if not forever until we discover all of the factual details—all projects are “a work in progress”. Inclusive interactive thinking is more creative than binary detailed thinking and is the basis for most of the advances made in this world. Thus, the best way to bring an innovation into fruition is to initiate it using right brain inclusive interactive thinking and finalize it using binary detailed left-brain thinking.
Socializer style thinking is people-oriented and thus provides people-oriented innovations while relator style thinking fills in the missing details that make those people-oriented innovations more acceptable. Director style thinking is task-oriented and thus provides task-oriented innovations while analyzer style thinking fills in the missing details that make that innovation more plausible.
Refer to the pearl: “Why, How and What we Think” for a complete understanding of human thinking.
The SPEED at which we think: The speed at which our brain works is dependent on the level of nor-epinephrine in our brains. The more nor-epinephrine the faster we think and time seems to slow down into slow motion. The less nor-epinephrine in our brain the slower we think and time seems to speed up. As we age the level of nor-epinephrine in our brains decreases, affecting how we think. To understand this, refer to the: “Our Varying Perception of Time” pearl.
WHAT we Think:
We think mostly usingthe memories of our strongest style(s), but our nurturing can modify our genetics depending on the environment we are nurtured in. Strong angry directors are sensitive to being confronted or inhibited and automatically collect many angry experiential memories throughout life that support being angry. But if strong directors are nurtured to believe that their angry outbursts are hurtful, they will collect many experiential memories that they can use to quell or avoid an angry outburst. To better understand WHAT strong directors think, refer to the pearl: “Mindfulness, Understanding Strong Directors”. If you were wondering what kind of people straighten out pictures and align objects on surfaces, it is strong right-brain visual directors. If something is not straight or aligned it is an unfinished task and needs to be finished.
Strong fearful analyzers are sensitive to danger and risk and collect many fearful experiential memories throughout life that support being afraid. But if strong analyzer is nurtured to truly believe that the world is not that dangerous or risky a place, they will also collect many experiential memories that they can use to quell or avoid that fear. To better understand WHAT strong analyzers think, refer to the pearl: “Mindfulness, Understanding Strong Analyzers”.
Strong sorrowful relators are sensitive to disconnection and indifference and collect many sorrowful experiential memories throughout life that support being sad. But if they are nurtured to truly believe that they are always connected to the ones they love and that the indifference they think exists, doesn’t, they will also collect many experiential memories that they can use to quell or avoid that sorrow. To better understand WHAT strong relators think, refer to the pearl: “Mindfulness, Understanding Strong Relators”.
Strong joyful socializers are sensitive to any possible connection and collect many experiential memories, about possible positive or negative connections. This is a necessary part of social survival and if those connections are extremely positive or negative, socializers can become manic about them. But if they are nurtured to avoid or quell that mania they will collect many experiential memories to use in their stead. To better understand WHAT strong socializers think, refer to the pearl: “Mindfulness, Understanding Strong Socializers”.
Opinion and Rationalization:
Definition of an Opinion: a confident belief/conclusion that is not totally supported by factual knowledge
Opinions are the memories we use for most of our thinking. We are ALL opinionated and there is nothing wrong with that. Opinions are memories that shape most of what we think and contain both factual and false memories. When we understand a subject very well (for example knowing how to do our job), our opinion-memories are probably 80% fact and 20% fiction—the reverse is also true for subjects that we know little about. Basically, subjects we deal with daily will contain many factual memories while subjects we rarely deal with won’t. A funny thing is that even when we don’t understand a subject, we assume that our opinions on that subject are factual. The fact is, most people don’t realize how little they know about a subject until they understand all of the facts.
Definition of Rationalization: To devise self-satisfying, yet incorrect reasons for one's behavior
When our sensory input triggers a strong emotional response it also triggers related rational opinion-memories. If those memories are mostly factual we feel self-righteous about our emotional outburst, which quells the outburst. But if those opinions are mostly false it causes rationalization, which prolongs that outburst with more false-opinion memories. Rationalization can occur immediately after an emotional outburst or much later. Task-oriented directors and analyzers immediately rationalize after an outburst, while relators internally rationalize until something related triggers an outburst.
When we are distressed, emotionally false rationalization can be very destructive as we become stubbornly argumentative. We tend to react by: 1) demanding that our false opinion are true, and 2) bringing up an unrelated subjects to divert the discussion away from their false opinion—some people even make degrading remarks about the quality of the other person’s character. It is easy to identify when someone rationalizes this way: they repeat their same false or unrelated opinion louder and louder, over and over again until you depart, disgusted. They do this because they can’t accept that their opinions or narratives are false—basically, they are severely distressed and drown you out so that they can’t hear what you have to say. Distressed strong right-brain directors mostly utilize these methods when they cannot accept any opinion that challenges theirs. For Example, when someone disagrees with the mostly factual news commentator Bill O’Riley's opinions, Bill overuses these two tactics to demand that he is right. POTUS-47 famously overuses these methods to avoid discussing any issue that exposes his false opinions or lack of control.
We also see a lot of “deflective thinking” by people being interviewed, especially politicians who pass off falsehoods as fact in order to survive the interview or to maintain their level of integrity—“a steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code”. Unfortunately, someone’s moral code is based fact and fallacy, and when used as a distraction from the interviewer’s questions it is probably based more on fallacy than on fact.
We can make our opinions more factual by reducing the fallacy part—the reverse is also true. When our social survival (financial, position, etc.) is at stake we might ignore the facts and dwell on the fallacies to survive. This type of thinking is also prevalent in people who are looking for someone or something to blame for their failures—most obviously, business managers and politicians who are more concerned with “covering their butt” than supporting the people they represent. The best way to avoid blaming others for our failures is to replace obviously false opinion memories with factual memories and thus react more appropriately. Our opinions are just that, our opinions, and other people’s opinions are just that, their opinions, and opinions are difficult to change. But if we open ourselves up to the possible truths in other people’s opinions, our opinion memories will become more factual, less false. If you would like to do this, refer to the pearl “Mindfulness: Part-1, Gaining Wisdom through Understanding”.
When and Where we Think:
Our thinking is sensorially triggered, depending on where we are, the time of day or day of week, whom we are with and recent experiences. If our strongest style is the task-oriented analyzer or director style we mostly think about the tasks we need to do and when and where we are able to do them. If our strongest style is the people-oriented relator or socializer style we mostly think about seeking out and supporting or interacting with others. When we are at work, work-related memories are triggered, when we are at home, home-related memories are triggered, and when on holiday hopefully positive joy-related memories are triggered. We rationally and emotionally think differently when we are with a friend than when we are with a foe. I’m sure that you can think of many daily situations that trigger what you think and when and where you think it.
What Others Think:
When we teach others, which we all do all day long, it is important to remember that we are teaching with our memories and that they are learning with their memories. Therefore, when we need to ascertain whether they learned what we taught, we should ask them if they understand and maybe even ask them to tell you in their own words (which is it only thing they can do) what you said. And if their response is sufficient, move on. Don't forget, they will use their experiential memories—so consider that as an important aspect of your analysis.
For a more complete understanding of how we think, see the attached nPDF, the "Genetic Human Personality TOOL".
I hope that this pearl on why, how, what we think has helped you to better understand your own thought processes so that you can better emotionally and socially survive.