Conscious emotional connection

As it seems from a previous post; Conscious Coercion, scaling consciousness (or neural access to related factors) causes scaling capability of control over the mind and redirection of motivation. Does this scaling also cause a reduction of connection to the instinctual drives (and therein, sense of achievement), or is it simply choosing an alternate instinct? 

The cause of increase of consciousness and control, is the mind's neural access to memory of cause and effect of factors which are relevant to any given circumstance. From accessing memory of the function of factors causing an effect, the mind is able to more accurately predict an outcome and make a choice alternate to subconscious reaction. This process of accessing memory of cause and effect is what causes control and consciousness, and this can scale respectively. For consciousness to scale, the connections of cause and effect between factors which the mind accesses, have to scale. 

With this scaling of neural connection between factors, comes a less direct connection of instinctual neurological reinforcement for the factors. The most direct instinctual reinforcement trigger is from real-time perception of a factor. Every step of virtual (and often physical) distance from a factor, reduces the significance of neurochemical reinforcement, which then causes emotion as the neurochemical reaction is sustained. 

Eg 1. If you’re in a forest by yourself and see a bear in real-time, you will very likely have a more significant neurochemical reaction of fear, compared to if someone else in the forest tells you there was a bear around, or if you see fresh bear crap, or see footage from a trail camera of a bear at that spot recently. Each of those consecutive scenarios involves more steps of conscious memory access of cause and effect to connect to the factor of the bear. 

Eg 2. You might experience more empathy from directly seeing someone on the street that lost both their legs, than you would experience from hearing that 1000 people die every day from starvation in North Korea. The direct perception of the injured person, involves less steps of conscious memory access of factors’ interaction, than comprehending the factors involved in many people dying for complex sociological and political reasons, in a far away country. If you then went to North Korea and witnessed the deaths directly, your neurochemical reaction of empathy would likely completely switch to be much more significant compared to the memory access of the other individual injured person.

Eg 3. If you help a charity organization build a house in a 3rd world country, you might receive much more significant neurochemical reinforcement for achievement of helping someone, than if you instead simply donate $200 to the organization which then funds their costs to do the labor to build the same house. Both results are the same, but there are more steps of cause and effect to comprehend involved with donating money which someone else will use to pay for food and travel in order to help build that house. 

Since direct perception of a factor causes the most direct emotions, the more complex a scenario is for comprehension (such as this subject itself), the less that neurochemicals are triggered. Even though there may be a less profound connection to emotion, scaling complexity of conscious memory access can also allow many more circumstances to perceive factors more accurately, in order to make a Conscious Emotional Connection.

Critical Application

How should critical thinking be applied?

In a recent post called What is critical thinking? I thought critically about the meaning of critical thinking and estimated that it is basically the concept of using rational conscious analysis to determine potential problems in any scenario and solutions based on cause and effect of factors involved. That all seems pretty straightforward and obvious once you hear it, but if you don't hear or read it, is it still obvious? IE, if you don't apply critical thinking to the concept of critical thinking, do you really understand it or use it?

The real significance of critical thinking seems to be in its application. Life can be lived without using any critical thinking, as it likely is for many people and basically all other animals, but this will lead to a life of either following whatever anyone tells or influences you to do, or taking actions more as re-actions based on instinct and intuition. Alternatively, critical thinking can be applied to virtually any number of circumstances for more accurate understanding, estimate, and outcome of preference. 

Even though critical thinking seems obvious, it still has to be remembered and consciously applied for it to be relevant. In the same way the concept of critical thinking seems obvious, but still needs conscious analysis and awareness to be effective, any concept throughout life can also seem obvious yet require the application of critical thinking to be very effective. 

Considering critical thinking is the method of understanding the function of something, it can be applied to different degrees of complexity based on the complexity of the concept or problem, and or based on the importance. Complex concepts, such as “thinking” itself, can require more in depth analysis of causes and effects in order to understand and utilize it effectively (as well as basically every topic I’ve written and thought critically about). If the concept of thinking is not taught and therein not understood well, many individuals will go through life thinking ineffectively, blindly following or being emotionally reactive, causing mistaken outcomes for themselves and society. As this example of the concept of thinking is currently not taught in any standard schooling (for what reason?) that I’m aware of, the previously stated outcome does seem somewhat evident.

On the other hand, simple or unimportant concepts can require minimal critical thinking. For example, how bread is made is generally unimportant, yet could still be relevant for even minimal application of critical thinking in some scenarios, such as needing to make your own bread, or perhaps relevance of ingredients because of an allergy. 

Despite most things in life seeming intuitively obvious and easy, the subsequent use of and reaction to concepts can very often be mistaken and ineffective from the vague generalization of concepts caused by using the subconscious mind for intuition. With the complexity of modern day life, conscious questioning, analysis, and understanding of concepts utilizing critical thinking, seems to be a Critical Application.

Scope of Instinct

What is the scope of instinct? How generalized or specific are instincts?

Considering instinct as basically genetic influence, every species of animal would have a different combination of instincts, mainly driving that species to survive and reproduce. The function used to implement these drives is mainly through neurochemical influences to pursue or avoid various factors within its environment, which the animal perceives through it’s senses. These neurochemical influences basically function as positive or negative reinforcement triggers. 

In order for any given species to develop instincts which are efficient for its survival and reproduction, that species needs to develop reactions to every factor in its environment which is relevant. This means instinctual triggers have to be specific enough for sensory perception to detect that factor which is relevant for its survival or reproduction. The factor itself could be somewhat generalized or specific, but must be distinguishable in order to cause the reaction of typically pursue or avoid. 

For example, a generalized factor could be brightness vs darkness perceived through sight to cause a species to pursue or avoid being active in the daytime or nighttime. A factor could also be more specific, such as the sight of a snake, triggering negative reinforcement to avoid. This could be triggered by sight of the general shape of a snake (which is why the animal could also be mistaken and be triggered by fear at sight of a rope), or even more specifically certain color patterns like red and white on a snake could trigger a more heightened sense of fear and avoid, if that animal evolved nearby a venomous snake with those colors. If any individual members of that species developed a fear trigger by random genetic mutation, they would survive more than others, and pass on that gene, developing an effective instinct for their species. 

Pain would be another example of a fairly generalized factor which triggers negative reinforcement and avoidance, from the sense of feeling damage to the body. But even pain has to develop for every part of the body of any species, by being born with varying degrees of sensitivity of nerve endings. 

More complex human drives such as striving for accomplishment, may be moreso a conscious extrapolation of an instinct than an instinct itself. Striving for accomplishment in life only occurs from conscious comprehension of oneself, cause and effect of actions, and achieving a goal through those means. Achieving a goal triggers positive reinforcement for recurring pursuance, but as an instinct, this needs to be developed for specific goals which can be distinguished by sensory perception. For example, obtaining a safe home can be a goal to achieve which is an instinct which is triggered by perception of walls and a roof which cause a sense of security and safety from neurochemicals. A sense of achievement for making money, requires conscious comprehension that the money allows the purchase of objects. Any object on its own must trigger positive feedback in order to consciously perceive it as an achievement. Conscious knowledge that money can be used to buy food is a means for instinct since the taste, smell, and even sight of food triggers positive reinforcement as an instinct for survival. 

Love may seem like another complex instinct, but still seems to require more specific instances of instinct utilizing sensory perception of factors. Humans generally care for other humans that they perceive repeatedly and receive positive encounters with. So love develops over time of repetition of more specific instincts of positive reinforcement from interactions with any individual. Such as someone providing for someone, causes positive reinforcement from perception of the objects which are provided, and through repetition, an interconnection in memory is made with that individual. 

Instinct seems to be somewhat specific from its requirement to distinguish a factor from factors using sensory perception. But the factors can be fairly generalized (such as light/ dark, cold/ warm), and within the complexity of this world's environment, there is a very broad variability in circumstances for factors to occur and be in connection with other factors. Perhaps conscious perception of factors and their variability within our complex environment is what allows the most wide scale utilization of the Scope of Instinct. 

Conscious Coercion

To what extent can conscious thought be used to coerce its own mind, in order to alter actions and decisions?

Considering conscious thought to be a process of memory access which can overpower instinctual and subconscious drives, as I further explored in a post from a few yrs ago; Conscious Control, what degree of control can be applied? In another post from a few months after that 1; Motivation Direction, I hypothesized that the potential for alteration to motivation, requires alternate instinctual reinforcement triggers to focus on and guide the new direction. Perhaps without a preexisting natural drive in which conscious thought can choose to redirect to, there would be no motivation to consciously choose to do something. 

If humans evolved not as a pack animal and without any instinct of empathy, could we still choose to care about others using consciousness? If AI is developed with no reinforcement triggers to care about others, and if it becomes super intelligent beyond humans, could it still intellectually decide to care about the well being of humans or animals? 

Perhaps not likely. Any decision that someone or an AI consciously makes has to be driven by something, otherwise they would not make the decision. The process of function in which a conscious choice is made, is by accessing memories and making an estimate of which action will be preferable, based on memory of how the involved factors will most likely interact and result. The method in which the neural network selects a preferable estimated outcome, is based on reinforcement triggers. 

Preference can be altered by subconscious influence throughout experiences of a lifetime, but that which drives the influence is reinforcement triggers (or instinct). So it seems any decision whatsoever is driven by reinforcement triggers, therefore no decision can be made contrary to the influence of those triggers. So the only way a conscious being could choose to care about others, despite not having that instinct, is if it had an alternate instinct which could influence the choice to care. For eg, if a super AI was programmed with the reinforcement triggers (or instinct) to gain information, it could potentially choose to care for humans' well being if it comprehended that it can gain more information about human psychology by helping humans live well. 

Even though consciousness seems to allow much more variation of decisions, it still seems to be limited in variation to instinctual influence. If the limitation for conscious choice is the scope of instinctual influence, how much variation does that allow? 2 factors affect this degree of variation. 1 would be the scope of instinct or reinforcement triggers that the mind was created with, which might be another sub-topic. 

The other factor would be the capability of conscious thought. Considering the accuracy of typical conscious thought to focus on and analyze detail, as well as make complex connections from many details to others, there seems to be a great deal of flexibility for direction of motivation. Perhaps the capability of conscious thought and intelligence scales the flexibility of choice direction by method of focus and connection of factors saved in the mind. and therein actions and decisions. This would mean that the higher degree of consciousness equals higher degree of variation of alteration of motivation or choice within the limitations of instinct, and a higher degree of self Conscious Coercion.