Note the difference between saying (A) “the idea of going to the zoo is positive-valence, a.k.a. motivating”, versus (B) “I want to go to the zoo”. (A) is allowed, but (B) is forbidden in my framework, since (B) involves the homunculus.
This sounds like the opposite of the psychological advice to make “I statements”.
I guess the idea of going to the zoo can have a positive valence in one brain, and negative valence in another, so as long as we include another people in the picture, it makes sense to specify which brain’s valence are we talking about. And “I” is a shortcut for “this is how things are in the brain of the person that is thinking these thoughts”.
This post is about science. How can we think about psychology and neuroscience in a clear and correct way? “What’s really going on” in the brain and mind?
By contrast, nothing in this post (or the rest of this series), is practical advice about how to be mentally healthy, or how to carry on a conversation, etc. (Related: §1.3.3.)
OK, that makes sense. I forgot about that part, and probably underestimated its meaning when I read it.
Seems to me that a large part of this all is about how modeling how other people model me is… on one hand, necessary for social interactions with other people… on the other hand, it seems to create some illusions that prevent us from understanding what’s really going on.
Huh, funny you think that. From my perspective, “modeling how other people model me” is not relevant to this post. I don’t see anywhere that I even mentioned it. It hardly comes up anywhere else in the series either.
This sounds like the opposite of the psychological advice to make “I statements”.
I guess the idea of going to the zoo can have a positive valence in one brain, and negative valence in another, so as long as we include another people in the picture, it makes sense to specify which brain’s valence are we talking about. And “I” is a shortcut for “this is how things are in the brain of the person that is thinking these thoughts”.
This post is about science. How can we think about psychology and neuroscience in a clear and correct way? “What’s really going on” in the brain and mind?
By contrast, nothing in this post (or the rest of this series), is practical advice about how to be mentally healthy, or how to carry on a conversation, etc. (Related: §1.3.3.)
Does that help? Sorry if that was unclear.
OK, that makes sense. I forgot about that part, and probably underestimated its meaning when I read it.
Seems to me that a large part of this all is about how modeling how other people model me is… on one hand, necessary for social interactions with other people… on the other hand, it seems to create some illusions that prevent us from understanding what’s really going on.
Huh, funny you think that. From my perspective, “modeling how other people model me” is not relevant to this post. I don’t see anywhere that I even mentioned it. It hardly comes up anywhere else in the series either.