
Is the Default Mode of the Brain to Suffer? - prostoalex
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/why-your-mind-is-always-wandering.html?mid=facebook_scienceofus
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thinkloop
Yes. Dissatisfaction is the source of productivity, and that's all our bodies
care about. If someone were 100% satisfied with everything around them, there
would be no reason for them to move or change anything. The ideal state for
survival is just above depression. Happiness and pleasure are directional
guides, "purposely" ephemeral so that we can get back to work distancing
ourselves from death. Max Buddha would mean sitting until death, with no
dissatisfaction for lack of nutrients or air or self actualization. Still the
pursuit of this peace is extremely worthwhile because left unchecked, our
dissatisfaction grows out of control, over-optimizing ruthless survival in
place of contentment. Don't feel guilty for not being in a constant state of
euphoria (looking at you west-coasters :-D), this is our lot as humans.

That's how I see it.

~~~
johnchristopher
That's quite a work and protestant oriented point of view.

> Yes. Dissatisfaction is the source of productivity, and that's all our
> bodies care about. If someone were 100% satisfied with everything around
> them, there would be no reason for them to move or change anything.

No, because you could be 90% satisfied with everything around you and decide
it's enough. Of course it doesn't hold for a definition of 'satisfied' that
aligns with 'I consider it done/enough'.

~~~
reflexive
> it doesn't hold for a definition of 'satisfied' that aligns with 'I consider
> it done/enough'.

Which is literally what satisfied means (Latin _satis_ "enough")

~~~
johnchristopher
emphasis on `done`

~~~
taneq
If you're satisfied that 90% is enough, then you stop. Does that not qualify
as 'done'?

~~~
johnchristopher
I'd say it's not because `done` would mean 100% of your objectives are
fulfilled.

------
sharkweek
"In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare
the everliving shit out of itself."

-DFW, Infinte Jest

I feel like my brain is always looking for a threat, a very valuable skill
when whacking around in the brush, less so when sitting safely in an office,
at home on the couch, or otherwise. I'm not convinced we've evolved fast
enough for our brains to recognize the massive decrease in need for this
anxiety.

~~~
amelius
The skill could be helpful if you're a security researcher, or a programmer
trying to prevent segmentation faults from happening.

------
kevin_thibedeau
Discomfort is the motivational impetus for most animal/human behavior:

    
    
      Hungry -> Seek food
      Body hurting -> Seek palliative
      Cold -> Seek warmth
      Threatend -> Fight back
      Afraid -> Seek safety
      Aroused -> Seek mate
    

Suffering is just a more advanced state of discomfort.

Notably, in the case of pain, our receptors are triggered before the threshold
where actual damage occurs owing to the uncertainty of when various parts of
us will break. Many things cause us pain that are harmless (stubbed toe, etc.)
and can safely be ignored provided you dispel the drive the avoid that
discomfort. The same can be applied to other sources of discomfort.

~~~
anbende
We have a set of positive motivation systems as well. Achieve, acquire
resources that are not currently critical. Sex-drive. Caring system. Fun-
seeking. Etc.

See Jaak Panksepp's affective neuroscience.

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encoderer
I think people overlook how much time they spend with their body in
discomfort. Too hot, too cold, legs asleep, chair is too hard, back aches,
hungry, full, itchy sweater, dry skin, rash, sickness, disease, injury. I
think, if you let yourself focus on it, it's rare to truly be comfortable in
your body.

It's why it's so important to be comfortable in your mind.

~~~
brian-armstrong
Reading this comment made me itchy. You've implemented remote scratching over
HTTP.

~~~
skummetmaelk
Just wait until he makes you breathe manually.

~~~
o_____________o
Ok, but now you can feel your tongue in your mouth

------
keyboardhitter
I like the description of types of daydreaming. I find myself to be more
productive when my daydreaming is, as they put it, "positive constructive"
daydreaming. e.g. imagining my goals for the future and what fun I could have,
thinking about how I'll grow as a person and how I might reflect on myself
after having grown each year. The more I think about these things the
'lighter' I feel.

I suffer from PTSD. When I first started allowing myself to think about my
dreams in a positive light, I would distract myself or cut myself off mentally
with the excuse that 'Those daydreams aren't real enough. There's no point.'
And I would quickly divulge back into negativity.

Because of trauma it can be easy to feel that negativity is what I 'deserve',
which leaves a sense of futility that I desperately want to overcome. In
searching for some balance, I discovered the same is true about (again, using
their term) "guilty-dysphoric" daydreaming: it's not necessarily
representative of facts or absolute truth in my life, even if it does _feel_
more real. By reminding myself of this and practicing mindfulness (focusing on
the present moment) I'm able to pull out of bad daydreams and flashbacks a lot
faster.

Anyways, I don't know if there is one answer for the title of this article - I
think that it is just clickbait. But to humor it, I know personally my
'default mode' might gravitate towards suffering because of trauma. But I also
know I have a lot of room to change if I am patient enough, while new neural
pathways/networks are formed.

~~~
tudorw
Thanks for sharing your perspective on PTSD and mindfulness, I share your
feelings on negativity, at times I can find it perversely 'attractive' yet I
know it's effect will be disruptive to my mental well-being. It helps to
practise a regular news blackout, as while being conscious of world events and
culture is a certainly a positive, the day to day news feed seems a divisive
and dis-empowering font of dubious value.

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kordless
It is my philosophy all of existence depends on suffering and is directly
related to two unique types of causality I call _public_ and _private_. The
old, familiar public causality occurs along a timeline consisting of
observation, discrimination and decision, in that order on the timeline. This
can correspond to a computer in the cloud receiving data, computing on the
data, and then sending it back out. The "cost" of this causality is observed
as a technical limit on the growth of network rates as compared to the growth
of compute rates in the market, again over a timeline. These two growth rates,
or accelerations, are _not_ equivalent as far as we know or have observed.

If private causality is viewed as _internal suffering_ , one could postulate
that suffering creates dissonance between the entity doing the rendering of
future events and the entities who are involuntarily "caught up" inside that
first entity's rendering. For example, I've observed some on the Internet seem
very eager to tell others what they think will happen in the future, including
how the others "felt" when the "observer" saw them suffering in their own
_internal rendering_ of reality. When the observer attempts to make their
rendering a reality, such as by telling another entity how it feels, it turns
their internal suffering into external suffering, at which point others then
experience it directly.

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gukov
In that case, can things like universal basic income and safe spaces lead the
humanity to extinction?

~~~
quickben
Probably not. There are always the crazy few percent of us that want to work.
The rest are just forced to work to survive.

Overall, the humanity may be happier.

~~~
xapata
As far as I can tell, most people are unhappy if they're not feeling
productive. Sure, it's nice to relax and do nothing for a bit, but not for
very long. Retirees need to find a hobby or they quickly become sad and
lonely.

One of the best ways to be happy is to spend time in a foreign country where
you don't speak the language (or not well). You'll feel productive and
accomplished for basic tasks like ordering your preference for dinner or
figuring out how to work the laundry machine even though the instructions
don't have any pictures. Yet there's very little consequence for failure. Once
you get the hang of basic things, you can always focus on learning the
language, but that takes actual work.

~~~
lucasmullens
> As far as I can tell, most people are unhappy if they're not feeling
> productive. That's the hypothesis that these basic income trials are hoping
> to prove. Do people suddenly start working, even if they don't have to?

~~~
tluyben2
Many will, many will not. I feel the question is what the w/nw ratio is.

~~~
mbrock
I think it's also a matter of community. If you suddenly get a basic income
and your friends don't, you might get pretty lonely and bored. Whereas if you
had lived for a longer time with a larger community of people who don't have
to sell their labor, you might find yourself engaged in projects you wouldn't
have invented yourself.

------
owly
Suffering exists. Suffering arises from attachment to desires. Suffering
ceases when attachment to desire ceases. Freedom from suffering is possible by
practicing the Eightfold Path.

~~~
Toine
Your desires come from other people desires, because of mirror neurons. What
we call "Me", our entire personality, our "Self", is 100% made of many other
people "Self" (explains "You are the average of the five people you spend the
most time with"). Rather than suffer from your attachment to desires, we can
indeed control what we desire.

------
kaycebasques
Yes.

