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The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
133. Maps of Meaning 5: Story and Metastory 1
Aug 23, 2020
03:07:36
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Quick takeaways
- Inhabited stories reflect our values and desired outcomes, guiding our actions towards a purposeful future.
- Complex responses stem from a mix of innate reflexes and learned behaviors, shaping our cognitive processes.
- Internal models of the world influence our perceptions and behaviors, highlighting the intricate nature of cognition.
- Perceiving the world accurately is challenging due to external influences like lighting changes and subjective interpretations.
- Value systems from stories help structure societies, offering moral guidance and shaping acceptable behaviors.
Deep dives
The Importance of Simplifying the World for Action
Solving the challenge of perceiving the complex world involves simplifying the world not just for perception but as a base for action. This distinction is crucial, often overlooked in understanding the tension between scientific claims and religious beliefs. Stories and meta-stories play a key role in processing information for action and perception.
The Role of Simplified Models in Processing Information
Historically, there was a belief that individuals create a comprehensive mental model of the world for interaction, comparing it to reality. Russian research on physiological responses highlighted the complexity of how humans habituate to stimuli. The example of reflexes, including habituation in simple organisms like snails, underlines the relationship between innate responses and learned behaviors.
Impact of Models on Perception and Behavior
Studies on orienting reflexes and perception reveal the intricate nature of how individuals construct internal models of the world for comparison with external stimuli, significantly impacting behaviors. Complex responses, such as emotional reactions to betrayal, showcase the fusion of reflexive and learned behaviors in intricate cognitive processes.
Perception and Reality Discrepancy in Cognition
In cognition, a theory once assumed that the brain created an internal model of the world, with the senses producing an external model. This theory suggested that the hippocampus compared the two models for discrepancies, triggering an orienting reflex. This reflex prepared the body for required actions. However, attempts to create artificially intelligent systems based on this theory failed because of the complexity of modeling the world, highlighting the challenges in perceiving the environment.
Complexity of Perception and Interpretation
Perceiving the world accurately is far more intricate than initially presumed. Factors like changes in lighting can significantly alter the perceived object's colors. This complexity extends to interpreting literary works, where meanings vary based on authorial intent, reader perspectives, and cultural influences. Postmodernism emerged partly from grappling with the intricacies of perceiving texts and objects in various contexts, emphasizing the subjective nature of interpretations.
Value Systems and Stories as Guidance
Value systems, essential for emotional and social functioning, play a crucial role in structuring behavior and interactions. Human fascination with stories reflects a deep-seated need to understand proper conduct through moral exemplars in narratives. Stories, like Shakespeare's plays, offer insights into how individuals should and should not act, serving as ethical guides. The shared value structures embedded in stories help organize society by delineating acceptable behaviors and characterizing roles.
Complexity Problem and Mental Illness
The podcast discusses how complexity in life can lead to psychological challenges. When overwhelmed by complex situations like financial collapse, job loss, and personal loss, individuals may experience mental health issues. The speaker suggests that most people seek psychological help not due to mental illness but because life becomes unmanageably complex, leading to symptoms like anxiety, depression, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Thought Processing and Brain Functions
Exploring the role of the brain in simplifying the world, the podcast delves into the connection between thinking and actions. It highlights how different parts of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, sensory cortex, and hippocampus, contribute to planning motor actions and memory retrieval. The discussion emphasizes the practical nature of memory, focusing on extracting past experiences to guide future behavior. Additionally, the hypothalamus is highlighted as a vital brain region for regulating basic functions and forming psychological frames for everyday functioning.
Understanding Cellular Chromosomes
Chromosomes play a vital role in organizing and regulating DNA within each cell. These structures, consisting of bundled DNA wrapped around proteins, are essential for maintaining genetic information and ensuring proper cell function. The complexity of chromosomes, with each strand of DNA being millions of nanometers long, highlights their significance in cellular processes like division and replication.
The Role of Hypothalamus in Motivation and Emotions
The hypothalamus, a diverse brain region, influences various motivations and emotional responses. It sets basic frames for motivations, such as hunger, thirst, and pain, while also affecting emotions like joy and sadness. However, the distinction between motivations and emotions is not always clear-cut, with the hypothalamus containing different structures that contribute to these processes. Understanding the complex interplay of motivations, emotions, and physiological substructures in the brain can offer insights into human behavior and decision-making.
In this lecture, I make the case that we each inhabit a story, describing where we are, where we are going, and the actions we must undertake to get from the former to the latter. These inhabited stories are predicated on an underlying value system (as we must want to be where we are going more than we value where we are). In addition, they are frames of reference, allowing us to perceive (things that move us along; things that get in our way), make most of the world irrelevant (things that have no bearing
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