Responsibility

What is responsibility and when does it apply?

A common understanding of what “responsibility” refers to, might be; the perceived obligation to perform a task. 1 technical definition is; “the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something.” These definitions seem fairly similar and understandable, but under which situations that this should apply, is a more complicated question to answer. 

This concept seems similar to the concept of “deserving”, which I questioned in more detail, in a post from over a yr ago; Served, but not Deserved. It seems similar in the way that it seems that the concept should be applicable, if there has been an agreement between the individual appointed for “responsibility” or Deserving”, and someone else. These situations, involving an obvious agreement, could be considered contextual responsibilities. But in a situation without that agreement, it is more difficult to say, and questionable whether applicability is opinionated and subjective, or if there is any objective responsibilities, by default, for some life situations. 

If there were default responsibilities, it seems likely that these obligations would be fairly well known and agreed upon by almost everyone, otherwise the person being “responsible” would be unaware of it. If someone is unaware of something that they should do, it makes the concept irrational in effectivity. An idealism of an insinuation that someone should do something (based on the situation), which is well known and agreed upon, is basically the concept of ethics or morals. I explained what seems to make up the components of morals, in a post from about 8 months ago; Mutual Morality. This would be different from contextual responsibilities, since applicability of responsibility in this case, involves potential opinion and disagreement, so could be considered “moral responsibilities”. These are more vague in determining, and have a significant degree of variability, in a multitude of circumstances involving many potential differing factors in life. Moral responsibilities could possibly fit into the category of contextual, if someone has stated agreement to a certain aspect of morals, but likely in a lot of situations, agreement won't be so clear. 

For either type of responsibility, awareness should be relevant, to apply rationally fair accountability. Besides awareness of a particular responsibility itself, awareness of all the effects of the individual’s actions should be relevant. If someone was not aware that their actions caused certain effects of a situation, then it seems rational that accountability for responsibility would not be fair. Specific awareness of effects caused by actions, is a complex concept in itself, which makes it difficult to accurately determine potential accountability, as I further explained in a post from 1+ yr ago; Blame by Consciousness. But despite the difficulty of calculation, and assuming an approximate awareness of effects from actions, it seems someone could be responsible, if they were aware of effects, even if they were side-effects. If someone had an alternate main intention by their actions, yet knowingly caused effects regarding something else, it seems they would still be responsible. 

Whether it’s more technical, specifically agreed upon, and contextual, or more potentially subjective, idealistic, and moral, awareness of the effects (even if not the main intention) that your actions cause, seems to be key, for; Responsibility.

Conscious Emotion

How do emotions affect conscious thought?

Combinations of neurochemicals, caused by reinforcement triggers (retriggers for short), seem to have a useful effect on subconscious reactions, as a benefit of instinct for each species, based on various development. I explained more about how neurochemical combinations seem to affect subconscious reactions, in my last post; Emotional Effect. In humans, the neurochemical combos which are typically the strongest and longest lasting, as an influence to cause persisting reactions, are what we call emotions. Besides the effect on subconscious reactions, how do emotions affect conscious thoughts?

Retriggers likely have an effect on conscious thought, and influence how we access 1 memory of a factor to the next, as I further mentioned in a post from last week; Conscious Reinforcement. But emotions would influence conscious thought in a different way, as emotions are much stronger and longer lasting effects of retriggers. Since emotions are based on causing an ongoing influence to pursue or avoid something which is likely highly significant for the benefit of a species, this influence may have the potential to overpower influences of more minor retriggers connected with any given memory of factor. If an emotion has been triggered by someone's previous circumstances, then in the present circumstances, a new factor is perceived, the persisting emotion may have stronger influence than what the regular influence of retrigger connected to that factor in memory, might be. This emotion could then influence conscious thought to access memory of an alternate factor, to what would have normally been accessed. This influence could then set the direction for any decision made through conscious thought.

If emotions cause someone to avoid or pursue something, depending on the emotion, it would tend to influence conscious thought and decisions in that direction, of avoiding or pursuing whatever factors are relevant to that emotion. For eg, the emotion of admiration towards your neighbors accomplishments, is an effect of a positive retrigger causing pursuance of also achieving those accomplishments. If you were feeling this emotion strongly after talking to your neighbor an hour ago, it might influence you to consciously think about steps you can take to achieve the same things, then influence your decision to take 1 of those steps. Without this emotion’s influence, you would have been thinking about something else at this time, and would have decided to do something else. 

An ongoing emotion can also influence individual factors in memory access, during conscious thought. If someone is thinking through a problem for instance, and memory of a certain factor comes to mind which is relevant to the problem, a previously enacted, ongoing emotion might trigger them to think of an alternate factor, which is perhaps connected in memory to that factor, but also connected to the emotion. For eg, if you are trying to think of which method of transportation to take to work tomorrow, but you are still feeling the emotion of anger because you had a heated argument with your roommate 15 mins ago, the anger might trigger you to think of someone who cut you off in traffic yesterday, when the consideration of driving comes to mind. If you had alternatively been feeling happy, the thought of driving might trigger a positive memory of freely driving fast down the highway. 

There is likely a huge variance, and range of degree that any emotion would influence which conscious thought to access next, in any given situation. That, combined with minor influences of retriggers subconsciously connected to any factor within memory, would make the direction of conscious thought very complex. It should be plausible to intentionally manipulate emotions to some degree, based on focus of factors and aspects, as I further hypothesized in a post from over 6 months ago; Motivation Direction. So it should be potentially beneficial, keeping the effects of these influences in mind, as; Conscious Emotion.

Emotional Effect

What effects do emotions cause?

By “emotions”, I’m referring basically to the technical definition; a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. I talked about more details of my interpretted description of emotions, and potentials to alter them, in a post from almost 1 yr ago; The Notion of Emotion. I also hypothesized how all emotions seem like they could be the effect caused by 2 basic categories of reinforcement triggers (positive, for pursuance, and negative, for avoidance), in my last post; Emotion Reinforcement. Assuming emotions are an after effect of reinforcement triggers (retriggers for short), for the function of subconscious reactions (based on instinct), how do these emotions affect our reactions and decisions?

Emotions seem to tend to have a prolonged effect on our reactions. The various categories of emotions seem to be basically, the most common tendencies for the stronger, longer lasting, concoctions of neurochemical influencers. Throughout any person's life, there could be many other variances of combinations of neurochemicals, and many instances of lower degrees of the retriggers, but we’ve labelled and categorized (even if obscurely) the strongest emotions. Since these emotions have earned a label, they must have proven to be beneficial, from a tendency of circumstances occurring, which would benefit the individual to have the effects of those neurochemicals. Since these emotions are prolonged (in effect) enough to earn a label, the circumstances which cause them, likely require a type of reaction, which would be beneficial over a longer time period.

With typical subconscious reactions, there may be many circumstances which only require a quick, short term reaction. These situations would cause retriggers to a weaker degree of influence, for a shorter time, such as a small prick of pain, as a retrigger for avoidance in the future, caused by a minor scrape from a branch, or the 20th mouthful of grass for a deer, as a weak retrigger for pursuance, for beneficial nutrition. Typical temporary subconscious memory for an animal is short term, such as a deer remembering what it saw 10 mins ago, so perhaps certain retrigger combinations developed to be longer lasting, when necessary to continue causing certain reactions. 

A neurochemical concoction of fear, for eg, would benefit that deer, to cause the effect of making it keep running, and keep being alert, if it saw a wolf 20 mins ago. The retriggers which cause what we might call anticipation, for an elephant in Africa to pursue finding a water source, requires longer lasting neurochemicals, to cause the elephant to keep searching for hours. Love could be considered a very long lasting and very strong form of admiration or enjoyment of being with another individual, as an effect of retriggers to cause them to pursue another, which is beneficial for their own, or species’ as a whole, survival. 

These longer lasting effects of retriggers would be developed as a unique combination for each species benefit, over many generations. As humans have exited a natural environment for which these retriggers were intended for the benefit of, perhaps a lot of emotions are triggered unnecessarily in our modern artificial lifestyles. Beyond technological and societal advancements creating a very different environment, artificial selection of our breeding would have an additional skew of genetic compositions of these neurochemical retriggers causing emotions. Perhaps our ability to consciously analyse the causes and effects, and focus on the enjoyment and sense of meaning of circumstances causing after effects from reinforcement which is positive, is a positive, of; Emotional Effect.  

Emotion Reinforcement

How do Reinforcement triggers affect an individual, as emotion?

If reinforcement triggers (retriggers for short) have an overall basic function of causing an individual to avoid or pursue factors, then perhaps all emotions can be categorized into those 2 groups. A technical definition of “emotion”, is “a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.” This seems to insinuate the mindfulness caused by retriggers. I further explained retriggers, and their significance to the mind, in a post from 3 days ago; Reinforcement Mechanisms. 

Retriggers which cause pursuance, would be positive reinforcement, which could be categorized as enjoyment. Retriggers which cause avoidance, would be negative reinforcement, which could be categorized as dislike. All other emotions could hypothetically fit into these 2 categories, each emotion with its own variance of neurochemicals to cause the individual to react in a certain way. There seems to be a common approximate acceptance of a list of 8 basic emotions. Half of which could be considered to fit the category of enjoyment: joy, admiration, amazement, anticipation. 

The other half could be considered to fit dislike; fear, sadness, loathing, anger. 

Joy would basically be a feeling of happiness, as a reinforcement to pursue factors present, which cause this positive emotion.
Admiration would include an awareness of the positive aspects which another individual possesses. These positive aspects would cause an element of enjoyment for the person feeling admiration, if the 1 they feel admiration towards, has qualities which will benefit others that they are around (which could be gained through them aiding, teaching, or sharing physical resources). 

Amazement would be similar to admiration, except typically refers to any factors, rather than specifically another individual. Amazement would cause an element of enjoyment and positive reinforcement, as the factors which they are amazed by, include the prospect of gaining those beneficial factors.

Anticipation is an aspect of being constantly mindful of something which the individual considers a beneficial factor. This is mindfulness of factors which caused positive reinforcement. (Anticipation can be considered being mindful of something negative, but further description of my reference, includes “interest”, suggesting positivity. The negative aspect could fit into the category of fear, anyhow)

Fear is an aspect of avoiding something, usually for the individuals well being. This is a decent basic example of negative reinforcement to avoid factors. Perhaps fear is more of a subconscious portrayal of disliking something which may cause harm. 

Sadness is perhaps an emotion which is more prolonged than fear, which often regards an individual's ongoing circumstances, rather than a specific factor to be avoided. Sadness is an element of a negative retrigger, which seems to cause the individual to avoid the circumstances which cause the sadness.

Loathing is basically a strong feeling of dislike, to cause negative reinforcement and avoidance of a factor which is unbeneficial to the individual.

Anger is usually caused by annoyance of a repeating factor which is disliked by the individual. Anger often causes an action which can counteract the disliked factor. It negatively reinforces them to either avoid the factors, or prevent those factors from occurring again. 

It seems plausible that all emotions are the resulting mindfulness of 2 general categories of retriggers, with the basic function of causing avoidance or pursuance for any individual, based on a developed formula of probability of benefit. The benefit of; Emotion Reinforcement. 

Conscious Reinforcement

How do reinforcement triggers effect conscious thought?

By “conscious thought”, I'm referring to a thought process which is more awareful and detailed in thought, that the brain is involving during the process. For a more detailed explanation, including my hypothesis (yet obviously correct :) of the function of conscious thought, see a summary post from almost 2 yrs ago; Conscious Comprehension. Basically, conscious thought involves accessing more memories relevant to any given factor. At minimum, 1 factor, plus it’s interaction with another factor. 

By “reinforcement triggers”, I’m referring to neurochemical reactions in the brain, which causes an animal or person to avoid or pursue something. I hypothesized much more detail in how reinforcement triggers (retriggers for short) function as a component of the function of subconscious memory, in my last post; Reinforcement Mechanisms. Since retriggers seem to be a major component of subconscious memory, and directly influence most interactions of any animal throughout its life, how would this influence the, even more complex, workings of conscious thought?

It seems that subconscious memory processes are the initial driver of the direction of the beginning of any conscious thought, since subconscious works faster, and is active constantly at any time someone is awake. After conscious thought has begun, subconsciousness may lose its influence, but any time a conscious thought process finishes, or a new stimulant occurs in someone's environment, subconsciousness is likely the 1st to react (as I further explored in a post from 2 months ago; Mind Driver). Assuming this is true, this means initial direction of any conscious thought is steered by subconsciousness, and therefore, retriggers guide the start of conscious thought, in the same way that they drive subconsciousness. 

Basically, retriggers would influence someone to avoid or pursue any given circumstances, based on the strongest influencing retrigger connected to the factors involved (which is also in connection with recurrence of neural pathways which have been used). If there is more negative retriggers connected to the circumstances, it will cause the person to be influenced to avoid the situation and or think negatively of the situation, or with positive retriggers, it should influence pursuance, and or thinking positively. 

After this initial influence, if further conscious thought occurs, then more factors and interactions which are saved in memory, will likely cause varying degrees of influence. In the process of conscious thought accessing more accurate details of memory, this gives the potential for conscious thought to overrule the initial subconscious retriggers influence. In the complexities of continued conscious memory access, it seems that retriggers would still cause the direction of the outcome of the thought process. Each factor and interaction of factors, which is accessed in memory, would have some degree of retrigger connected to it. Out of all previous experiences for that person, with each factor and or interaction, there should be some degree of influence, caused by retriggers, which reinforce that factor positively or negatively (and all variances within). So when someone is consciously thinking about something, each memory of factor or interaction would likely contribute some degree of positive or negative influence for that person. Some degrees of influence may be very minimal, with either few significant experiences with that factor, or conflicting experiences. 

Another significant influence of continued conscious thought, would be repetition of use of neural pathway, from 1 memory of factor of interaction, to another. The more that any memory pathway is used, the more likely it is to be used again. This would be a significant cause of conscious memory access, leading from 1 factor, to another. But, in order for neural pathways (which lead to memories of factors) to become well used, retriggers are likely the influence which created that well used pathway in the 1st place. If a factor within an environment is beneficial for the individual to avoid or pursue, during the 1st experiences with that factor, some degree of retrigger will cause the person to then connect to a memory of that same factor, next time it is encountered. As long as the influence of the retrigger, repeatedly proves useful, subconsciousness will keep accessing that memory, and build a well used pathway. 

Besides the conscious memory access of detailed factors and interactions, there can be larger combinations of factors and interactions, which include concepts or idealisms. Concepts and ideas including more broad categories of many factors, or complicated interactions of many factors, can be saved as a large combination in memory, and have an additional positive or negative influence connected to them, from retriggers. 

Between; retriggers causing subconscious memory access to steer the direction of initial conscious thought, and further conscious memory access being influenced by connection of retriggers and each factor or interaction involved (as well as overarching concepts and idealisms), the effects of retriggers seem to have a complex, yet significant interconnection with; Conscious Reinforcement.

Reinforcement Mechanisms

How does the mind utilize reinforcement mechanisms?

By “reinforcement mechanism”, I mean the trigger that the brain uses to reinforce habits of an animal. There seems to be 2 basic categories of reinforcement; positive or negative. Positive would cause the animal or person to pursue something, where negative would cause them to avoid it. I explored how reinforcement triggers (I’ll call them retriggers for short) affect the different functions of mental processes, such as instinct, subconscious and conscious reactions, in a post from about 10 months ago; The Notion of Emotion. Typically the word “emotion” refers, more so, to the mental effects resulting from retriggers, which arguably mostly regards humans, since it insinuates a state of mind relative to the retriggers. Besides how retriggers play out (for a good portrayal of these effects, see another post, from just before that 1; Subconscious Subjection) and affect mental reaction and decision processes, there seems to be more to question about the step by step mechanism itself.

Overall, retriggers seem to be a default mechanism for most basic functions of the brain. Default in a way, that all 3 mind functions; instinct, subconscious and conscious reactions seem to utilize it, including anything on Earth which has a brain. Its a default trigger to cause the animal (etc) to basically either avoid or pursue factors which it encounters. Instinct is basically a pre-established set of programming of retriggers (through DNA and genetics), to cause the animal to avoid or pursue necessities. 

Instinctual reactions, such as reflexes keep the animal alive long enough to then be able to use subconscious reaction, which then utilizes retriggers, combined with memory, allowing more accurate and effective avoidance or pursuance, depending on the animals environment. Instinct of each species does not necessarily use retriggers for its function, but is more of a developed, unique set of factors combined with retriggers. This set of factors will be perceived by the animals’ senses, to then use the retriggers to make the animal avoid or pursue whatever is most beneficial for that particular species. This unique set of factors, then drives the direction of subconsciousness, and guides the use of memory, to trigger each individual animal to avoid or pursue more accurate factors in the future, which become unique to that individual, based on its environment. 

The 1st step of the function of retriggers, is (as I mentioned) when that species’ unique set of factors connected to retriggers (based on their instinct), are perceived by the animals senses. The 2nd step is when the brain records in memory, which factors the animal perceived at the time of sensual perception, based on whether positive or negative reinforcement was triggered. Whichever factors were perceived by the senses, are saved in memory, creating a new subset of factors to be avoided or pursued, depending on whether the default retrigger was positive or negative. This is saved as subconscious memory. 

The 3rd step of retriggers being used, is reacting based on retriggers, saved in subconscious memory. This causes the animal to physically react by avoiding or pursuing the circumstances, relative to whether the retrigger was negative or positive.

This 3rd step only occurs in circumstances when the factors within pre-saved subconscious subsets, are perceived again (given, this is by far the majority of interactions any animal encounters, once its been alive for a short period). This overrides the instinctual sets of factor-retrigger sets, when an animal sensually perceives factors within a subconscious subset. In this case, differing factors can activate the retrigger connected in memory, to cause the animal to avoid or pursue the factors, accordingly. Throughout the lifespan of an animal, these 3 steps recur regularly with virtually any significant interaction of the animal. Each time the 3 steps recur, it fine tunes the subconscious subset of factors connected with retriggers, to cause the animal to more likely react for its own benefit, based on more accurate factors to be perceived. 

When consciousness comes into play, perhaps this is another question of how retriggers cause reaction, and which factor subsets are prioritized. Retriggers seem to be a basic default mechanism to cause an animal to redo, or not redo, actions which result in circumstances involving factors which are beneficial or harmful. Instinct is basically a preprogrammed set of retriggers combined with factors which are sensually perceived. Subconscious memory then uses these retriggers to fine tune which factors to pursue or avoid. Overall, an efficient method of function for a processing system (such as a brain), which in all, seems like a simple mechanism used in a complex system, seem to have developed, by utilizing these; Reinforcement Mechanisms. 

Intelligence Advancement

What are some likely potentials for intelligence to advance in the future?

It seems likely that the function of human intelligence has has been influenced by the environment of humanity throughout the past. The demand of the environment would cause different variations of human intelligence to be more effective than others, depending on the stage of development of human society and technology. I categorized 2 types of human intelligence, based on their function, and further explained the differences in a post from 2 days ago; General vs Memory Intelligence. I also hypothesized which of these functions would have been more prevalent, based on effectivity, relative to 3 categorized stages of human history, in my last post; Intelligence Development. There seems to be 2 major aspects which would likely affect which type of intelligence is more effective for the environment; 1) Demand of independent learning from lifestyle tasks, 2) Total variety of factors and concepts. Considering how human intelligence has developed in the past, how is intelligence likely to advance from this point on?

This will likely be even less accurate hypothesizing than my regular posts, since the general future is very difficult to predict. But, I can make some best guesses, based on the current stage of society and technology. Perhaps the potential future of humanity can be categorized into 2 likely scenarios of outcome, being either a significant world disaster, or continuation of advancement of society and technology. 

A world disaster could play out in many possible scenarios, such as climate change, extreme disease outbreak, a 3rd world war, or a super volcano or asteroid, etc. Assuming that in whichever case of a significant disaster, some humans, infrastructure, and technology survives, but 95%+ is destroyed, this would leave the remaining humans in an environment different than ever before. It could be comparable to the past, when there were far less people, but there could be the difference of information and technology, sustained from what we’ve built up to this point. 

Considering the 2 aspects of environment that affect which type of intelligence is more suitable, there would be a much higher demand for independent learning and adaptation, than there is now. This would seem to prioritize general intelligence (GI), similarly to the Agriculture Age (in the past), and much more than GI is currently prioritized by a typical human environment. But, there could still be a lot of information retained from before the disaster. This available information about factors and concepts in life, would allow memory intelligence (MI) to still have a relevant advantage for surviving in the environment. There would be less priority for MI than currently, but still more than in the agriculture age, since they didn’t have sufficient information to be utilized and memorized. GI would likely still be of more advantage than MI, since after a disaster, factors would be so different than before, demanding people to independently adapt.

In the 2nd potential scenario of the continuation of advancement of society and technology, the outcome of environment which is relevant to intelligence would have a few likely possibilities, based on technology. Since technology is advancing so quickly at this time, and has such a significant effect on human lifestyle, it would likely be the most significant influence. On 1 hand, with humans continuing to advance scientific understanding and sharing that information on a global scale, this would have an effect of MI’s applicable effectivity, progressing. Individuals would continue to specialize in 1 area of task, and have significant aid of technology for any given task, reducing the requirement for GI, with fewer varying circumstances for anyone in particular. Additionally, with information being shared more effectively, everyone would learn mainly through communication from others, rather than problem solving on their own (which is the 2nd component of GI; “carrying concepts”). 

On the other hand, if all work and job tasks are accomplished through production and computer control, people would be opened up to an expanse of freedom. With the change of most daily time, being free for someone to choose their own interests, this may slightly increase the applicability of GI, as each person could change their circumstances more often, subjecting them to scenarios of new combinations of factors. But with extensive information available, MI would likely still hold priority, since any new circumstances chosen to be pursued out of interest, would still mostly be learned through communication (rather than independently carrying concepts).

With the continuation of humanity, the environment is likely to change drastically, whether a world disaster occurs or not. A world disaster may cause an increase of GI, compared to now, but still perhaps less than the agriculture age, as long as information persists. Whereas continued advancement of humanity, seems likely to continue to cause MI to be more prevalent. As unpredictable as the future is, the changing environment will likely have a relevant impact on; Intelligence Advancement.