The Thinker, Emoter, and the Robot - Can you Hack your Brain?

The Thinker, Emoter, and the Robot - Can you Hack your Brain?

It's been 1 Year since I started studying Psychology. By profession, I am a Computer Science Engineer. This fascination with Psychology originated from my curiosity to find out how my brain works. If I can learn how my brain works then I can have a better understanding of myself and the world around me. It will also help me come up with better answers to the greatest existential questions that have bestowed upon mankind. Do we have free will? What is the meaning of life? etc. Not just that, if I understood how it works, then maybe I can learn how to..... HACK IT. xD

How the brain works is a question humans have been trying to solve for hundreds and thousands of years. I am in no way arrogant enough to say that this is the absolute truth and this is how the brain works. This interpretation of the working of the brain has several abstractions. These stem from me observing myself over the last year from a third-person view. I have only read what makes up maybe 1% of the literature that is ever written neuroscience. All this was is me following my own intellectual curiosity and seeing where it takes me. Even if we never find a real answer to any of these complex questions, I believe that the answer is always in the attempt. By no means am I married to this theory if tomorrow I can find a better explanation, I will throw all of this away in a heartbeat.

Over the course of one year, I read a collection of the most complex books I had ever read in my life. I will drop links to some of them in the end. I cannot stress enough how much they have influenced me. I look back at them as wings of a butterfly that triggered a paradigm shift in my life. Enough with the hocus pocus, so what did I learn?

I will be using abstract terms instead of their biological names for the sake of simplicity. Our brain comprises three main components. The Thinker, Emoter, and the Robot.

The Thinker is the voice at the back of our head that is constantly talking to us. It is that voice in our head that never shuts up. It is the ultimate critic, it knows every good, bad, embarrassing, over-the-top crazy thing we have done in our life. It makes a living out of constantly reminding us of these as well. It is the same voice that tries to stop us when we grab another slice of pizza or a cone of ice cream even when we know they are not good for us. What you call free will, is nothing but the influence of the Thinker on our decision-making. The thinker is also what makes us different from animals. It is what you call in technical terms - Human consciousness.

The Emoter is nothing but the combination of all the hormones in our body. Dopamine, Seratonin, Adrenaline, Cortisol, Testosterone, Oxytocin, Estrogen. They make up one-half of the limbic system that we inherited from our animal ancestors.

Now for the Robot, this is where it gets a bit crazy. Think of the robot as a collection of computer algorithms. These algorithms have one goal, to make the Emoter happy. So what are these algorithms?

Reciprocity

Social Proof

Authority

Scarcity

Likability

Consistency and Commitment

I did not come up with these by myself. These are the 6 principles of Persuasion from the book Influence: Science and Practice. These algorithms help us simplify the world around us. This is what helps us survive as a species. The world around us is infinitely complex. We need to simplify this so that we can live without blowing our brains off.

Why is it that when someone does us a favor we immediately feel like repaying them in some way? (Answer: Reciprocity)

Why is it that we look for the highest reviews when buying a product on Amazon? (Answer: Social Proof)

Why is it that we prefer Apple over Xiaomi? (Answer: Authority)

Why is it that we always fall for the "50% DISCOUNT, ENDS IN 24 HOURS" scams? (Answer: Scarcity)

Why is it that we choose to go to the supermarket where the cashier always smiles at us while billing over the one closest to our home? (Answer: Likability)

How is it that we form habits, both good and bad? How do we learn to play an instrument, ride a bicycle, or in general build muscle memory (Answer: Consistency and Commitment)

These algorithms are what marketers abuse to sell us products. It is the reason why 7 Day free trials exist. It is the reason why people offer you a free ebook online. It is the reason why we pay 10x for a phone with a logo of an apple or a shoe with a white tick mark on it.

It is these algorithms that make us ape-like, sheep-like, herd-like. The madness of crowds is the result of these algorithms. Rene Girard calls this Mimetic Theory. But it's not all bad. These algorithms are the core foundation of our species.

Did you know that Humans or the so-called "Homo sapiens" were not the only species of Human Beings that used to live on Earth? There were reportedly 5 other Human-like species with "Neanderthals" being the most well-known version of us. Neanderthals were physically stronger than us. They had muscles that would make modern-day pro wrestlers look like a kindergarten child. What made Neanderthals so strong was that all the food they ate went into powering their muscles. But in the case of Humans, most of our nutrition goes to powering our Brain. That made all the difference.

There are different theories on how they got extinct, one being that we killed them all and the other being that nature took them out. The only evidence that stands out is the tools they used. Throughout their life on this planet, their tools remained the same. All they had were stone tools that showed no trace of evolution.

With our larger brains, our tools became even stronger. Combine that with our natural tendency to imitate we were unstoppable. A whole community can learn from watching one human rubbing two stones to create fire. This made us a force to reckon with. Our greatest invention was not fire, it was Stories. Stories are the single reason why we are still on this planet. Neanderthals as far as we know couldn't cooperate with each other. They were not communal creatures, where on the other hand billions of Humans can live without killing each other as long they believe in the same stories. Think about it, all our greatest wars were fought because we couldn't find ourselves to agree with a common story. The greatest battle of the 20th century was between the people who believed in the story of Communism vs. the story of Capitalism.

To connect this back to the brain, what we call reality is nothing more than a story created by our brain about the world around us. That is why the first principles way of thinking is so popular among the best entrepreneurs. All you are doing with first principles thinking is re-evaluating whether the story inside our head aligns with the laws of nature known to us.

So can you hack your brain? More importantly, do we have Free Will?

The Answer: Yes, but it's complicated. As long as your Thinker is making your decision making, you have complete control over your body. But here's the mind-blowing part more than 90% of our actions are controlled by the Emoter and the Robot. So you can say you have free will when you are not hungry, thirsty, horny, angry, or in general not under the control of the Emoter.

What I have come to realize is that knowing that this is how our brain works and how little control we have over our perceptions can help us use it in a more productive way. Every time I feel like reacting to a situation in an emotional way I can ask myself, should the Emoter handle this or the Thinker? Obviously, it doesn't work 100% of the time. The more you use the Thinker, the more exhausted it gets. Sleep is what recharges the Thinker.

Another thing to remember is that the Thinker is not all good. If you had to think every time before making every small action then we won't get out of our beds. We want most of our tasks to be automated. But it is always good to use the time when you have access to your Thinker to reprogram your Robot and Emoter. You can rewire your habits so that Robot and Emoter work on activities that take your life in a positive direction. You can change the dopamine receptors from reacting to the number of likes you have on Instagram to reacting when you finish reading a page of a complex book or writing an article like this one. Also, this has certainly helped me in my interactions with people. I can look at overreactions of people as them being controlled by their Emoter and have more humility for them instead of reacting back in an emotional way which only makes things worse.

I can go on and on about this in more detail but this probably is a good place to wrap up the article. Feel free to drop by in the comments section or DM me if you want to talk more about this in detail.

Here are some book recommendations:

[Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_Hidden_Since_the_Foundation_of_the_World#:~:text=Things%20Hidden%20Since%20the%20Foundation%20of%20the%20World%20(French%3A%20Des,Michel%20Oughourlian%20and%20Guy%20Lefort.)

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Never Enough Nation: Managing Your Health, Wealth, and Stress

Influence: Science and Practice