Psychological Knowledge vs Practical Knowledge

We are comfortable with familiar words, thoughts, assurances, certainties, promises. Why aren’t we disturbed, alarmed, by our willingness, our eagerness, to be comforted? Why is reassurance comforting when our desperate demand for it is greater than any other reason to accept it?

Autopilot often gets the job done just fine.

Particularly if ‘well-being’ means experiencing pleasure.

Especially by the presence of fear.

I would call this automatic/habitual attention, which doesn’t really jive well with what I think K might call it, namely: inattention

What are the consequences of not paying attention, of living on autopilot?

We mistake the map for the actual terrain.

Which is okay when flying planes until we suddenly come across a mountain in the fog. :crazy_face:

When on autopilot things just seem to happen, there’s no sense of agency, at least not at the micro-level. It’s like riding a bike, you intend to ride, but the riding itself just happens.

Some consequences of this at the subjective level: a feeling of effortlessness, of unblocked flow, of naturalness, also of lost-ness, adrift-ness, a sense of being a spectator in one’s own life.

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Sounds healthy to me - apart from the bit about being a spectator

Living consciously, living unconsciously …

Conscious living requires more work, is more challenging, less ego-driven, affords more learning and discovery. Unconscious living is easier and cozier, more ego-centric, reinforces old patterns of thought and behavior.

Each has benefits and liabilities. Move fluently between them, as the situation demands?

Seeing that the ‘house is on fire’ will dictate a different action than not seeing that it is burning.:face_with_monocle:

Driving my car without thinking about what I’m doing doesn’t seem particularly ego-centric - however if I was driving my car whilst checking myself (or being a spectator), this would just be more self-centred confusion

Seeing a house on fire won’t do much unless one truly cares about the well-being of the house and its inhabitants. And, unless people feel the house is theirs or their tribe’s, they probably won’t care urgently.

I was thinking more of unconscious psychological living. If you are not actively unraveling your psyche, you are probably strengthening it. The delusion of the ego-self seems pretty universal for homo sapiens, we all seem to fall prey to it, mistaking thought/memory for actuality.

Probably not…

They would be mistaken, there being only one house, this one.

Are you the right person for the job (unraveling psyches)? Do you know whether you know what you’re doing? And why.

And the result: Earth, 2022.

The psyche (thought/memory/ego) can unravel itself to a certain extent I think. But it will always have blindspots, things it can’t (or refuses to) see and understand about itself. I mostly think I know what I’m doing, but again, I’m probably missing a bunch.

Kinda like putting our brain in the hands of the one eyed surgeon with the confident demeanor who didn’t attend all the classes

Because he’s the only surgeon in town … and a friend since junior high school. :wink:

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So there’s only one surgeon, he’s a nice guy, but obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he’s told you that you need surgery. What to do?

nb. Obviously, you are regularly suffering from some sharp pains in the nether (or higher) regions

If I was convinced the surgeon didn’t know what he was talking about, I’d hit the Internet and find a reputable surgeon. That’s assuming it was a mechanical issue surgery is able to fix. If otoh it was a psychological ailment, unless I was utterly paralyzed with fear/anxiety/depression I would probably either let it slide or try to fix it myself.