Fig. 1 Optimalist Marcus Aurelius, available on Opensea.io
“You have power over your mind – not outside events.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.
Realize this, and you will find strength.”
What we are going to learn:
- Marcus Aurelius’ introductory speech
- The Structure of the Brain
- A Battle for Minds
- Illusions, Religions, Myths, and Mental Health
- Data, habits, and practical approaches.
- Cognitive Biases, thanks Charlie!
Addressing the most sensitive of topics, I feel the weight of responsibility in offering guidance on mental health and well-being. Indeed, I believe I am equipped to do so, having experienced years of personal suffering, as well as witnessing my mother and many of her friends struggle with depression and other mental illnesses. I saw firsthand my mother’s pain, society’s insensitivity, and the limitations of my own mind in handling the situation.
I soon recognized that knowledge was the armor I sought, and I will devote my entire life to perfecting this armor for my own protection and to defend the truth against its adversaries. This article will be composed in collaboration with a digital incarnation of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, brought back to life to provide the insights of an emperor and philosopher. As the last of the great emperors, his passing left Rome to its ill-fated destiny.
As I envision a futuristic version of Marcus, I picture an open-minded leader who embraces every available technology to improve himself as a human being, avoiding the pitfalls of illusions and cheap dopamine.
He utilizes technology as an instrument to liberate himself and pave the way for human advancement.
I imagine Marcus in the midst of a battle campaign, as he was accustomed to participating in and where he ultimately met his end, alongside others who were aligned with him.
I also envision Marcus in a Virtual Reality environment, addressing an audience and explaining that the current battle is not fought solely with physical weapons and armor, but is a struggle to preserve our humanity, defend our creativity, and combat the allure of numerous distractions and illusions.
It is a battle to pursue the freedom of our minds and safeguard them from unwanted conquerors. He recognized that technology is a tool to embrace and employ for the betterment of our society.
“My fellow legionnaires, I stand before you today to speak of the power of the mind.
Generated by DS assistant, trained using Marcus Writings as described here
We all know that our bodies are strong and capable of great feats, but it is our minds that will truly determine our success. We must strive to be mentally strong, to stay focused on our goals, and to never give up. We must be resilient in the face of adversity and never forget that our strength comes from within. With a strong mind, we can achieve anything. So let us all strive to be mentally strong and never forget that our strength comes from within.”
Fig. 2 DSassistant will soon provide NFT owners with opportunities to interact with the eminent dead I resurrected.
“Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action…To remain alive, he must think.”
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
The mind is extremely important because it constitutes our identity. It can be an incredible and powerful resource or a torturous prison, depending on how it is utilized. The mind is a scarce resource that many people seek to control, as evidenced by the abundance of content and media that inundates our lives from birth.
This battle for mindshare is illustrated in an article about Mindshare, which, though unrelated to the topic at hand, shows how interconnected various disciplines can be when profit is the driving force to capture someone’s attention.
A prime example is how Coca-Cola has shaped our perception of Christmas.
We are constantly exposed to TV series, news, journalism, music, advertisements, and political debates. This constant pressure to consume content raises the question of the motives behind some content creators. Why do we spend hours watching news filled with human brutality and global conflicts? Why do we mindlessly consume unhealthy and frightening content? Is it because we care about the suffering of other humans?
In most cases, the answer is no. We often don’t care, and even if we did, we are usually not in a position to do anything about it. The reality is that much of the content we consume is propaganda designed to drive a specific narrative. As a result, we are less able and less willing to act, leaving us to wonder why we continue to torture ourselves with this information.
We are often unwittingly complicit in major crimes perpetrated by our representatives, as highlighted in the Bitcoin Magazine article about Bitcoin as a currency of decolonization.
What I’m trying to convey is eloquently expressed by Balaji Srinivasan in his book, “The Network State.”
A War for Minds, Not Lands
It’s a mistake to think a Second American Civil War would look anything like the first Civil War, or like World War 2 for that matter. It’d be nothing like the movies with huge movements of uniformed soldiers, tanks, and planes. Instead it’ll just be a continuation and escalation of what we’ve seen over the last several years: a network-to-network war to control minds, rather than state-to-state war to control territory. A fusion of America’s domestic conflicts on social networks and its foreign conflicts in the Middle East. “
Balaji Srinivasan, The Network State
Are you uncertain about that?
Here is an interview with someone who manages the largest public square ever created.
Before delving deeper, it is important to first understand what is meant by the term ‘Mind’.
As Marcus highlighted at the beginning of the article, the human mind is an incredibly powerful tool.
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
Napoleon Hill
To determine its veracity, further investigation is needed.
Let’s take a closer look.
Fig. 3 Brain Hardware and Software
We can separate the mind into two distinct components:
There is a physical and a metaphysical aspect, much like a computer, which has hardware and software. Brain structures and psychological structures are both essential for the proper functioning of this device. My objective is not to delve into every existing theory about psychology, but rather to highlight the main principles I find valid in my life and provide the reader with some software to enhance their brain performance.
Let’s begin by discussing the physical component of the mind.
It’s crucial to note that both the physical and psychological aspects are vulnerable to traumatic events that can permanently impair their functionality. Therefore, it’s important to exercise caution.
“Greater exposure to repetitive head trauma is associated with lower brain volumes and lower processing speed in active professional fighters.”
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Same problem with alcohol consumption:
“An analysis of data from more than 36,000 adults, led by a team from the University of Pennsylvania, found that light-to-moderate alcohol consumption was associated with reductions in overall brain volume. The link grew stronger the greater the level of alcohol consumption, the researchers showed”
penntoday.upenn.edu/
This means take care of your physical and psychological health, more about that in the following lines.
Just as with the body, everyone has characteristics that make us more predisposed to certain tasks than others, and I believe the same holds true for the brain. In the same way as with the body, we can never know if we are athletes unless we try to push our limits.
As humans, we have attempted to quantify and categorize our aptitudes through complex metrics and batteries of tests. There is a performance component, similar to a CPU clock speed, that is genetic but may not necessarily be determined through tests. However, shape rotation tests can certainly give a good indication of someone’s abstraction ability.
“There could also be a relationship between the cognitive rate of spatial processing, general intelligence and mental rotation.”
Wikipedia
Abstraction capabilities are a powerful tool not only for mathematical skills but also for speaking abilities and metaphorical thinking. However, I would be cautious about reducing humans to just their ability to mentally rotate shapes. What I am certain of is that, regardless of your starting point, your brain, like your body, is influenced by the fuel you put into it.
Perhaps you are not destined to be an athlete, but if you start eating well, you may surpass athletes who lack discipline and nutritional knowledge. I’m not only referring to physical nourishment but also intellectual content.
I already delved into the physical aspect in my previous chapter, which I suggest you read if you haven’t already done so.
Psychology
Just as excessive alcohol consumption and exposure to repeated traumas can impair our cognitive performance, certain content and habits can also destroy our creative thinking.
Our metaphysical brain is the subject of many battles, such as those involving religion.
What is religion, if not an attempt to capture the minds of as many people as possible? What are the Bible and many other sacred texts, if not memes, subject to numerous interpretations that allow them to adapt and thrive under various regimes and rulers?
“By an edict of Artaxerxes, the exercise of every worship, except that of Zoroaster, was severely prohibited. The temples of the Parthians, and the statues of their deified monarchs, were thrown down with ignominy.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon
This spirit of persecution reflects dishonor on the religion of Zoroaster; but as it was not productive of any civil commotion, it served to strengthen the new monarchy, by uniting all the various inhabitants of Persia in the bands of religious zeal.“
What are the consequences of this “meme battle”? An intricate web of illusions, encompassing not just religious but also political and ideological aspects.
Though it may sound terrible when put in these terms, in reality, this is a feature of our species.
One of the competitive advantages of the Homo species is precisely our ability to coordinate beyond our physical boundaries and tribes. This is possible because we can be unified by myths, which are mimetic devices capable of infecting our brains and reproducing themselves from one brain to another like a virus, creating a larger tribe with shared rules.
There’s no need for the leader to be present or even alive. All that’s required is an immortal pseudonym with mystical connotations and someone who presents themselves as a prophet. Through the power of myth, this individual can coordinate the crowd according to their own interests.
I’m referring to behavioral protocols and rules that facilitate frictionless trade because they are governed by the same script.
“This is a reminder that natural selection didn’t design your mind to see the world clearly; it designed your mind to have perceptions and beliefs that would help take care of your genes.”
Robert Wright
Incentives.
A punishment and reward system can be developed to establish guardrails along the path of their followers, in a way that benefits those who have engineered the meme. This system can direct a multitude of agents to build and structure a society that functions according to the will of those in power.
In fact, what we call reality is merely an intricate web of illusions, traps for our instincts designed to guide us along a particular path. As our communication transcends physical boundaries, more people compete in the game to conquer minds, deceiving and exploiting our instincts, as is the case today in the information age.
Question: Marcus, What about illusions, ideologies and religions?
As the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, I would recognize that illusions, ideologies, and religions can be powerful forces in people’s lives. However, I would also emphasize the importance of using logic and ethics to discern truth from falsehood and to apply knowledge to practical life. I would encourage people to use their reason and to strive for virtue, rather than simply yielding to every impulse.
Generated by DS assistant, trained using Marcus Writings as described here
In his Meditations (which is part of the context I used to train the Model from which you are reading my conversation), Marcus Aurelius displayed a thinly veiled contempt for Christians due to their fear of death, which imprisoned their minds. He specifically referred to the idea of an eternal soul and a reward after death, defining it as a form of weakness exploited to manipulate them.
As pointed out by the digital assistant, myths continue to be a powerful force in people’s lives.
Modern Myths.
Fig. 4 Religious art depicting various figures involved in the myth of Bitcoin, as well as related concepts such as the magic number 21,000, which represents the maximum cap that confers scarcity to Bitcoin. Some people may be laughing now, but I wouldn’t underestimate the power of myths.
artwork by @bitcoin apex Nostr https://www.bitcoinapexart.com/
For instance, Bitcoin is a great technology, but without incentives, it couldn’t have gone anywhere. The main incentive is the coded scarcity combined with the halving dynamics, which allowed Bitcoin to gain popularity by exploiting greed. However, this is not enough.
Indeed, various groups of people are involved in the effort to spread Bitcoin. Why is this? Simply put, just as the Church is an illusion, the State is also an illusion, and the value we give to it is based on the faith we have in the State. There are many logical reasons, but in the end, it’s a matter of faith. When the financial system shows its limits, faith begins to waver, and usually, the magicians at central banks start performing voodoo-like currency devaluation. The warrior class is involved as well because war is needed to collect resources and force people to buy a specific currency to exchange those resources.
My thoughts are that Bitcoin is a better technology, and to compel the system to accept it, we need to instill the myth in people’s minds—a valiant pseudonym that cannot be manipulated. You can read a more rational reason behind my investment in Bitcoin, so I can consider myself a sort of Bard.
The same holds true for the Buffett and Munger religion, where people start behaving like a tribe that repeats the teachings of their priests like NPCs. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you want to be sovereign, you have to think rationally. It’s enough to talk to a value investor about Bitcoin to see the inability of many of these churches to accept different points of view.
In this sense, Balaji’s metaphor is also relevant.
Balaji Srinivasan, The Network State
“Every doctrine has its Leviathan, that prime mover who hovers above all. For a religion, it is God. For a political movement, it is the State. And for a cryptocurrency, it is the Network”
Indeed, the Leviathan is a mythical character from the Bible:
Isaiah 27:1
“In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”
The problem is that once the battle was restricted to physical boundaries, you were manipulated by the news of your village. Nowadays, it’s a global battle where many powerful forces are involved, as pointed out by Mark Zuckerberg.
There are legions of chatbots trained to interact with you as a human would, algorithms that decide which content you consume, and influential people on Twitter who pay to be relevant and obtain a megaphone to spread their myths or memes.
Can our software be damaged?
Our psychological structure is susceptible to traumatic events, just like the physical part. A mind caught in the midst of a persistent war, where a significant amount of money is invested to exploit it, cannot be a healthy mind.
“1 in 5 Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year. 1 in 5 children, either currently or at some point during their life, have had a seriously debilitating mental illness. 1 in 25 Americans lives with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression.”
cdc.gov/
As we’ve seen, we are in the midst of a metaphysical battle amplified by technological tools. It’s not surprising that people’s minds are harmed, and some are even completely destroyed. Gibbon, based on his study, describes the situation in Rome during its decline as being marked by a lack of values and morals.
My hypothesis is that at the peak of a civilization, there comes a point when a choice must be made: to maintain sovereignty and uphold morality and values, or to abandon them and lose oneself in a nirvana of pleasures. This was clearly a danger in the case of the Romans, as evidenced by the threat posed by the Vikings.
Interaction with the outside world.
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
Carl Gustav Jung
The complex brain system doesn’t end at the boundaries of the skull or the limits of our home or city, but it continuously interacts with everything around us.
In the past, our limits were confined to our physical environment, but as time passes and we become more digital creatures, our network of interaction can become global, extending far beyond the opportunities our body has.
Our ability to shape reality has no limits, but it is often imprisoned by those who have an interest in conquering and subjugating our willpower; many of them are like NPCs (Non-player Character).
To be honest, I’ve always thought it somewhat foolish to believe that an ordinary person can change reality. The fact is that it is entirely possible, as that is how history is written. However, it’s not easy to do so in a positive way. It takes effort, and the heaviest weight to lift in order to change reality is to change our minds.
Our ability to shape reality depends mainly on our creativity. You can’t be creative if reality has already shaped you. You have to detox yourself from the many illusions others have created to control our behavior, shape your authentic vision, and behave in accordance with your true nature.
You will feel some friction during the process; that’s normal, as you are challenging your environmental protocol.
You are free until you wear the straitjacket they made for your mind.
“Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group…then to hell with them.”
Charlie Munger
Okay, but how do we do it?
“If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
In other words, once you develop control over yourself, you can control your reality in a similar way to how Jobs did through his reality distortion field.
Who can prevent you from mastering psychology? (cognitive biases, at the end of the article) Mastering public speaking? Mastering economics and incentive dynamics? (Be Prepared) Mastering coding? (Harvard CS50)
In the Information Age, nobody can stand between your willingness to acquire the necessary skills, applying them in cyberspace, and distorting your physical reality thanks to the power gained in this new metaphysical space.
You need these tools to understand how to operate in reality through your personal authenticity and to leverage your creativity.
We will likely achieve immortality when people desire it not because they fear death, but because they are in love with life. Love fuels curiosity, curiosity drives creativity, and creativity generates solutions.
“Knowledge has a materiality, not unlike the materiality of a ladder, that can be used to gain access to places and worlds that were previously unimaginable.”
Lana Watchowski
You just need a strong WHY; once you have it, you can start your journey.
The illusion of certainty and security, unfortunately, has taken away the why, the hunger, and the hero inside many people.
The only thing between you and a better version of yourself is precisely what Gibbon pointed out about the Romans – a lack of discipline.
Warning:
Observing my mother and the decay of her mental condition, I realized that our psychological structure is not that different from our physical body.
If you lift an excessive weight, you risk a herniated disc.
But remember, the same could happen with your mind – namely burnout. Your mind, as well as your back, can achieve incredible strength, but you have to train yourself to improve your capability. Tackle small improvements day by day, training by training, and confront constant and gradual stress while avoiding excessive volatility, which could lead you to lift an excessive weight.
I already wrote about eustress, which refers to those gradual stress factors that put our body in a condition where it has to become stronger.
Fig. 5 Be Anti-fragile
In my case, writing this article is just training for my mind. I gain nothing from it from a material perspective, but it serves as a workout routine, just like my coding routine, my habit of checking out new companies every day from an investing perspective, and, of course, my body improvements (Optimalism, Strength your Body).
Every step in the right direction has to be gradual and proportional to the resistance from the environment. The big challenge for us, as humans, is that we tend to check our direction by looking around us and seeing what others are doing. This is a recipe for mediocrity. You have to push yourself further, where there is no one else, where the only sanity check is reality and long-term results. You will probably end up feeling insane, far from the herd, persisting toward a goal that will only become clear after many years. But that’s how it works.
“The more one approaches madness, the more one equally approaches the truth, and if one does not fall into the former, one must end up necessarily in the latter.”
René Girard
What about our minds?
Think of your mind as a car on top of a mechanic’s lift, and observe, perfect, and refine every component.
Let’s do it.
FEAR
Know your enemy!
“Why do dragons hoard gold?
Jordan Peterson
Because the things you most need are always to be found where you least want to look.”
I have to confess that this is still my worst enemy. Every time I face a challenge or a new situation, especially when it involves something that will happen in the near future, my brain starts spinning and creating a simulation where I try to understand what will happen and how I can manage it, leading to overwhelming anxiety.
I don’t really know if this is a widespread problem, but it is certainly one of my biggest challenges.
What I think is that smart people may feel even more anxious.
Intelligence is like acuity; the more you can see, the more anxiety you will have and the more effort you need to put in to find balance within yourself.
But why does this happen? Why is our world full of fear, and how should we respond to it?
To begin with, when you start thinking about your future, the root cause is not fear but uncertainty. The investors among my readers probably know that what the market fears the most is uncertainty. Indeed, what mainstream media often does is spread disinformation and FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). Deep within our minds, we are wired to fear the unknown because the individual with the highest chance of survival is not the bravest but the one who first spots the lion hidden behind a bush in the savanna. Media that profits from “clicks,” also known as “clickbait,” have evolved to give us the perception of a poorly defined danger. They continually play this game where, through the use of words, images, and content, they present a threat without explicitly defining it.
“The United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of the newspaper. The Court said the right to publish all statements is protected under the First Amendment. The Court also said in order to prove libel, a public official must show that what was said against them was made with actual malice“
uscourts.gov/
“The ad had several inaccuracies regarding facts such as the number of times King had been arrested during the protests, what song the protesters had sung, and whether students had been expelled for participating.[2] Based on the inaccuracies, Montgomery police commissioner L. B. Sullivan sued the Times for defamation in the local Alabama county court”
Wikipedia
In other words, spreading disinformation and therefore confusion is perfectly legal.
“When they no longer trust themselves,
Tao Te Ching
they begin to depend upon authority.”
Believe in yourself!
It’s not surprising that our society appears designed to induce fear and confusion. When one fears something, they become susceptible to manipulation and rely on those they perceive as capable of providing protection. That’s why it’s important to believe in oneself and not succumb to fear and uncertainty.
“Here’s the thing about feelings. They’re so much easier to control than facts. Turns out, in my Matrix, the worse we treat you, the more we manipulate you, the more energy you produce.”
The Analyst, Matrix
To believe in yourself, you need to have a track record of results, and results are the consequence of preparation.
Preparation, in turn, is the result of discipline and motivation.
So, what about motivation and discipline?
The answer is:
Dopamine.
One of my favorite topics, often misunderstood yet incredibly important, is dopamine. If you can master your dopamine, you can master your mind. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a crucial role in motivation, reward, and pleasure-seeking behaviors.
If you control the carrots, you can decide where your horse goes and at what speed. It is tied to motivation and energy.
Do you remember Marcus Aurelius?
The most famous statue in his honor is the equestrian statue, where Marcus rides a horse he masters.
However, if someone else controls your dopamine reward system, you become a slave, and they decide where your horse goes. There are many external variables that affect our minds, with various drugs (like cocaine), cigarettes, and social media all having an impact on our dopamine systems.
“It’s not hard for me to imagine that in 20 years from now we find that what social media does to our brains is equivalent to what smoking does to our lungs”.
Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter’s CEO
I will push the topic a bit further. I believe we have, in a sense, weaponized dopamine, and at this point, the problem is widespread and out of control. The more information a platform knows about you, the better their neural networks can weigh the content that has the most significant impact on your dopamine levels, keeping you engaged, much like the food industry’s tendency to add excessive sugar to products, making them unnatural and addictive, emotions and instincts are similarly manipulated and weaponized by marketers and social media agents,
Alcohol
“These barbarians were immoderately addicted to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by different means, the one by inflaming their passions, the other by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain of thinking.“
Edward Gibbon
Fig. 6 Alchool
Learn to love your brain and your thinking capability, to take care of it, to improve it, and to fight against anything that stands between your mind and its well-being.
Porn
Frankly, it has been proven in many ways that porn creates addiction, and above all, it affects the dopamine system. It depletes our resources in various ways. The overabundance of sex, which in nature is as scarce as food, has a terrible effect on our motivation, which arises from scarcity rather than abundance.
There’s nothing wrong with liking sex, but you need to maintain a balance.
Madness
For many reasons I explained before, the truth is hidden behind a smoke curtain. Numerous illusions stand between us and reality, and the pursuit of reality is an infinite challenge for us as humans. However, this is not a reason to stop seeking the truth and striving to improve ourselves in order to see beyond this fog. Nowadays, we have the tools to be better than the alcoholic Vikings.
When you start dissolving these illusions, you may feel as if you are going mad. That’s because we define normality based on our peers. This is a misuse of the term; what our peers do is mediocrity, not normality.
Fig. 7 Sanity
Killing oneself day by day by smoking cigarettes is still considered normal, but given our knowledge, it’s clearly foolish nowadays. Killing oneself with sugar is still considered normal, though.
How long does it take for these “normies” to realize that their normality was wrong? Put yourself ahead of the curve; don’t wait for society to accept things that are already obvious to the smartest among us (Optimalism, Start with Diet and Discipline).
Competition
“The big problem with competition is that it focuses us on the people around us, and while we get better at the things we’re competing on, we lose sight of anything that’s important, or transcendent, or truly meaningful in our world.”
Peter Thiel
When it comes to growth, we have to think in exponential terms – in other words, the compounding effect in the information age. When it comes to information, we are used to transmitting it to a single person or perhaps to a group of five friends. In the past, we were limited to our physical environment or the reach of our country’s main newspaper. Today, a pseudonym like me can open a blog and reach 4,500 people in just one day with a single article.
Fig. 8 Exponential age.
Nothing extraordinary, but it does convey the idea of the Network Leviathan’s power and its exponential environment and exponential results.
However, this Leviathan is a beast that is difficult to tame.
Discipline and consistency are essential.
Emotions.
I delved into the topics of dopamine, serotonin, and sugar, and I strive to avoid anything that behaves in spikes. When something is overly emotional or promotional, I avoid it. I mean, in an unnatural way, like when the food industry tends to add too much sugar to their food products, making them unnatural and addictive. The same occurs with emotions and instincts, which are unfortunately weaponized by marketers and social media agents.
LIVE THE PRESENT
This was my main problem: I kept reading Buddhist or Stoic suggestions and quotes that advised living in the present, but what did that mean and how could I do it?
I can speak for myself; for me, those statements didn’t help. It was only after I started resolving this question within myself that I began to understand what those quotes meant.
My biggest mistake was thinking that I could force myself to apply some wise quotes and the problem would be solved. In reality, at least for me, it doesn’t work that way. It’s not like learning how to code a smart contract; it’s more like installing software that gradually guides your consciousness on the right path, and only after that do those quotes start making sense.
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
Lao Tzu
Which is totally right, but HOW can I do it?
Well, I started opening my mind and doing things that didn’t make sense to me at the time, but now those things make total sense.
I’m talking about meditation.Despite the fact that I sympathize with many transhumanist approaches linked to the implementation of technology in our lives, I want to start by emphasizing again that you don’t need to pay someone, subscribe to an app, or use a device. Meditation is about your own mind; there are no shortcuts.
Once, I read an interesting description of meditation: “Meditation is like unloading your email from the mailbox.” Indeed, that’s the impression it gives, as if you feel lighter. It’s just you and your own mind.
“Since everything which exists or happens for a man exists only in his consciousness and happens for it alone, the most essential thing for a man is the constitution of this consciousness, which is in most cases far more important than the circumstances which go to form its contents.”
A. Schopenhauer
“and if we don’t have control over those two things [birth and death], we probably don’t have much control over what happens in between. What we do have control over is our capacity to be aware [awareness?].”
Fig. 9 Meditation
My first experience with meditation could be described as the most terrible 5 minutes of my life. I felt like I was wearing a straightjacket, and the more time passed, the more restless I became. I think everyone experiences something like that for the first few weeks, and it suggests an unhealthy condition.
There are those pictures of relaxing meditation moments in the middle of a field of flowers, but the reality is that my first attempt was incredibly boring, and I just wanted the torture to end. I had the same feeling for many years during my first approach to weightlifting and running.
Over time, meditation became a moment to allow my thoughts to flow and be expressed. I could then observe them and let them show themselves, like the system of planets shown in the picture. A system of thoughts where everyone has specific dimensions and gravitational forces. I sit in a comfortable position with an upright back, without stimuli or distractions. I don’t even anchor my thinking to any specific variable; I just sit down and wait.
It’s like training your mind to be disciplined and calm. My feeling is that it takes time to appreciate meditation, mostly because you need a calm mind to allow your thoughts to express themselves without distractions.
Fig. 10 Engineer your brain
Meditation has a positive side effect, which is the realization of the thoughts inside our brain and what causes them. In other words, I started questioning myself about the kind of content I consume and who filters this content for me.
I quickly realized the importance of personally taking charge of this role, becoming the curator not just of my body’s nutrient intake but also of my mind’s nutrient intake.
The flow of information your mind consumes defines the shape and health of your perceptions. Knowledge installs models which, like the lens of a camera, define what you see and how you see it. Be skeptical about your perception and shape them based on facts and track records.
Meditation is like your car lift, the mechanical workshop where you can check how your brain works.
To improve and control the information my brain absorbs, I developed the concept of a cultural supplement described in the article (AI consciousness), a knowledge supplement pill, where I use the wisest content and exploit the latest Large Language Model to distill wisdom from them. That’s because I realized that everything has already been said, and the voices of the past are less affected by modern propaganda. Listening to them, you can perceive the distortion of the society we live in.
Let’s discuss data, habits, and practical approaches.
Fig. 11 Nootropics troof.blog/
As you can see, many seemingly effective nootropics are considered drugs. I’m open to them, but I’m also aware of their side effects, and I lean towards the implementation of natural practices. I was pleased to discover that I already incorporate a good portion of these cognitive enhancers into my life. Indeed, I can say that after the disciplined implementation of these practices, the quality of my life has increased exponentially.
Diet, Weightlifting and Running
I have discussed this topic extensively before, but here’s an update: People often rely on their peers to determine whether something is right or wrong. However, what if the majority’s decision is not optimal? For example, currently in human history, glycolysis (using glucose as the primary metabolic pathway) is considered the norm for nutrition. What if this is entirely incorrect? What if beta-oxidation (fat metabolism) is actually the correct metabolic pathway? As Seth Klarman noted, in the long run, the crowd is consistently wrong
“A higher 2-h glucose value in the OGTT in 2001–2002 predicted worse performance in the word-list delayed recall test after 10 years and greater decline in the word-list delayed recall test from 2000–2001 to 2011”
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
“Furthermore, increased BDNF levels were associated with increased functional brain response within the right hippocampus.”
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
“This study revealed that a carbohydrate-restricted diet composed of Paleolithic foods increases circulating BDNF levels and cognition in as little as four weeks in MetS.”
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Caffeine
Caffeine is an effective nootropic, but it has some side effects if abused, mainly related to the rapid tolerance that the body develops, which decreases the beneficial cognitive effects. Additionally, caffeine works on dopamine and can create a vicious cycle if abused, so it’s important to find a balance. I tend to use caffeine (1/2 espresso) when I work out, and in the meantime, I’m used to writing my articles. The combination of the two gives me a lot of mental focus and clarity.
However, the best supplement is still our discipline and persistence. We need a “why,” and then we’ll find the “how.”
What about friends?
How does your mind relate to your social network?
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Jim Rohn
It’s interesting that great historical figures, like Alexander the Great, were already accustomed to training themselves physically and mentally, as well as establishing clear boundaries between themselves and society.
I view social networks like a Bonsai tree. Each person in my life should be energetic and contribute something healthy. If not, I prefer to prune the branch, allowing the remaining branches to receive more energy.
Fig. 11 Social graph Bonsai
In the past, my approach was to be friends with everyone, but that doesn’t work, at least not for me. People need boundaries, including friends. However, friends are more intimate, so it’s important to choose them carefully because, as a friend of mine once pointed out, “friends require maintenance.” This implies that a true friend takes resources, much like an investment. If you want to outperform the average, you need a few good assets and must watch them carefully.
Thanks to powerful communication tools, we can exponentially improve our social circles. The challenge lies in the fact that resources like time and attention span are still limited, creating an imbalance between the perceived unlimited abundance and the limited amount of time at our disposal, which can cause problems.
We have the opportunity to create a new circle of friends among the most intelligent and open-minded people in the world.
Nowadays, there is an open competition in friendships, which I hope leads to improvements.
Open mindedness
Embrace open-mindedness!
You can only perceive a tiny fraction of reality, so acknowledge that and be open to new ideas.
Everything will be rewritten in the next few years.
Be prepared to adapt, stay open, and enjoy the journey of being a lifelong learner.
“Regrets are illuminations come too late.”
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The Hero inside you.
“By my love and my hope I beseech you – do not forsake the hero in your soul!”
Zoroaster
Cognitive biases, more tools to understand the limit of your own brain.
These are the main cognitive biases. The first time I read about them was while reading Poor Charlie’s Almanack, and it felt like opening Pandora’s box.
I mean, are we really so biased? Yes, maybe even worse.
Knowing and understanding these biases, and being humble enough to recognize their presence within ourselves, marks the beginning of the path towards a better humanity. It’s also essential for becoming a great investor (Be prepared).
Embrace them with open-mindedness, and in conclusion, here’s a quote from the great Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
Groupthink
You let social dynamics of a group situation override the best outcomes.
Dissent can be uncomfortable and dangerous to one’s social standing and so often the most confident or first voice will determine group decision.
Rather than openly contradicting others, seek to facilitate means of evaluation and critical thinking practice as a group activity.
Negativity Bias
You allow negative things to disproportionately influence your thinking.
The pain of loss and hurt are felt more keenly and persistently than the fleeting gratification of pleasant things. We are primed for survival, and our aversion to pain can distort our judgment for a modern world.
Pro-and-con lists, as well as thinking in terms of probabilities, can help you evaluate things more objectively than relying on a cognitive impression.
Optimism Bias
you overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes.
There can be benefits to a positive attitude, but it’s unwise to allow such an attitude to adversely affect our ability to make rational judgments(they’re not mutually exclusive).
If you make rational, realistic judgments you’ll have a lot more to feel positive about.
Pessimism bias
You overestimate the likelihood of negative outcomes.
Pessimism is often a defense mechanism against disappointment, or it can be the result of depression and anxiety disorders.
Perhaps the worst aspect of pessimism is that even if something good happens, you’ll probably feel pessimistic about it anyway.
Reactance
You’d rather do the opposite of what someone is trying to make you do.
When we feel our liberty is being constrained, our inclination is to resist, however in doing so we can overcompensate.
Be careful not to lose objectivity when someone is being coercive/manipulative, or trying to force you to do something. Wisdom springs from reflection, folly from reaction.
Spotlight effect
You overestimate how much people notice how you look and act.
Most people are much more concerned about themselves than they are about you. Absent over prejudices, people generally want to like and get along with you as it gives them validation too.
Instead of worrying about how you’re being judged, consider how you make others feel. They’ll remember this much more, and you’ll make the world a better place.
Placebo effect
If you believe you’re taking medicine it can sometimes “work” even if it’s fake.
The placebo effect can work for stuff that our mind influences (such as pain) but not so much for things like viruses or broken bones.
Homeopathy, acupuncture, and many other forms of natural “medicine” have been proven to be no more effective than placebo. Keep a healthy body and bank balance by using evidence-based medicine from a qualified doctor.
Bystander effect
You presume someone else is going to do something in an emergency situation.
When something terrible is happening in a public setting we can experience a kind of shock and mental paralysis that distracts us from a sense of personal responsibility. The problem is that everyone can experience this sense of deindividuation in a crowd.
if there’s an emergency situation, presume to be one who will help or call for help. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Availability heuristic
Your judgments are influenced by what springs most easily to mind.
How recent, emotionally powerful, or unusual your memories are can make them seem more relevant. This, in turn, can cause you to apply them too readily.
Try to gain different perspectives and relevant statistical information rather than relying purely on first judgements and emotive influences.
Curse of Knowledge
Things make sense once they make sense, so it can be hard to remember why they didn’t. We build complex networks of understanding and forget how intricate the path to our available knowledge really is.
When teaching someone something new, go slow and explain like they’re ten years old (without being patronizing). Repeat key points and facilitate active practice to help embed knowledge.
Belief Bias
If a conclusion supports your existing beliefs, you’ll rationalize anything that supports it.
It’s difficult for us to set aside our existing beliefs to consider the true merits of an argument. In practice this means that our ideas become impervious to criticism, and are perpetually reinforced.
A useful thing to ask is “when and how did I get this belief?”
We tend to automatically defend our ideas without ever really questioning them.
Self-serving bias
You believe your failures are due to external factors, yet you’re personally responsible for your successes.
Many of us enjoy unearned privileges, luck and advantages that others do not. It’s easy to tell ourselves that we deserve these things, while blaming circumstances when things don’t go our way.
When judging others, be mindful of how this bias interacts with the just-world hypothesis, fundamental attribution error, and the in-group bias.
Declinism
You remember the past as better than it was, and expect the future to be worse than it will likely be.
Despite living in the most peaceful and prosperous time in history, many people believe things are getting worse. The 24 hour new cycle, with its reporting of overtly negative and violent events, may account for some of this effect.
Instead of relying on nostalgic imèpression of how great things used to be, use measurable metrics such as life expectancy, levels of crime and violence, and prosperity statistics.
Framing effect
You allow yourself to be unduly influenced by context and delivery.
We all like to think that we think independently,but the truth is that all of us are, in fact, influenced by delivery, framing, and subtle cues.
This is why the ad industry is a thing, despite almost everyone believing they’re not affected by advertising messages.
Only when we have the intellectual humility to accept the fact that we can be manipulated, can we hope to limit how much we are. Try to be mindful of how things are being put to you.
Just world hypothesis
Your preference for a just world makes you presume that it exists.
A world in which people don’t alway get what they deserve, hard work doesn’t always pay off, and injustice happens is an uncomfortable one that threatens our preferred narrative. However, it is also the reality.
A more just world requires understanding rather than blame. Remember that everyone has their own life story, we’re all fallible, and bad things happen to good people.
In-group bias
You unfairly favor those who belong to your group.
We presume that we’re fair and impartial, but the truth is that we automatically favor those who are most like us, or belong to our groups.
Try to imagine yourself in the position of those in out-groups; whilst also attempting to be dispassionate when judging those who belong to your in-groups.
Fundamental attribution error
You judge others on their character, but yourself on the situation.
If you haven’t had a good night’s sleep, you know why you’re being a bit slow, but if you observe someone else being slow you don’t have such knowledge and so might presume them to just be a slow person.
It’s not only kind to view others’ situations with charity, it’s more objective too. Be mindful to also err on the side of taking personal responsibility rather than justifying and blaming.
Halo Effect
How much you like someone, or how attractive they are, influences your other judgments of them.
Our judgments are associative and automatic, and so if we want to be objective we need to consciously control for irrelevant influences.
This is especially important in a professional setting.
If you notice that you’re giving consistently high or low marks across the board, it’s worth considering that your judgment may be suffering from the halo effect.
Anchoring
The first thing you judge influences your judgment of all that follows.
Human minds are associative in nature, so the order in which we receive information helps determine the course of our judgments and perceptions.
Be especially mindful of this bias during financial negotiations such as houses, cars, and salaries. The initial price offered is proven to have a significant effect.
Sunk cost fallacy
You irrationally cling to things that have already cost you something.
When we’ve invested our time, money, or emotion into something, it hurts us to let it go. This aversion to pain can distort our better judgment and cause us to make unwise investments.
To regain objectivity, ask yourself: had I not already invested something, would I still do so now? What would I counsel a friend to do if they were in the same situation?
Confirmation bias
You look for ways to justify your existing beliefs.
We are primed to see and agree with ideas that fit our preconceptions, and to ignore and dismiss information that conflicts with them.
Think of your ideas and beliefs as software you’re actively trying to find problems with rather than things to be defended.
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Richard Feynman
Dunning-Kruger effect
The more you know, the less confident you’re likely to be.
Because experts know just how much they don’t know, they tend to underestimate their ability; but it’s easy to be over-confident when you have only a simple idea of how things are.
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, yet wiser people are so full of doubts.”
Bertrand Russell
Backfire effect
When your core beliefs are challenged, it can cause you to believe even more strongly.
We can experience being wrong about some ideas as an attack upon our very selves, or our tribal identity This can lead to motivated reasoning which causes us to double-down, despite disconfirming evidence.
“it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Mark Twain
Barnum effect
You see personal specifics in vague statements by filling in the gaps.
Because our minds are given to making connections, it’s easy for us to take nebulous statements and find ways to interpret them so that they seem specific and personal.
Psychics, astrologers and others use this bias to make it seem like they’re telling you something relevant. Consider how things might be interpreted to apply to anyone, not just you.
Now you can begin your journey to improve your brain, and always remember the words of Marcus Aurelius:
“Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. Constantly then give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou returnest”
Marcus Aurelius
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