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The Architecture of the World | How Your Mind Creates Its Truth | Gabriel Ellis, PhD · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

0:01
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Curious Mind
0:05
Podcasts. I'm your host, Gabriel Ellis.
0:07
I'm a psychologist, psychotherapist and philosopher.
0:11
And today I want to zoom out again.
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The last episodes I did about quite practical problems of how
0:19
to understand and how to treat anxiety, for example.
0:23
And today I want to deal with a more philosophical topic again.
0:28
In my writings I often engage with very fundamental principles
0:32
of psychology, and in this context I came across the
0:36
process of crystallization, that is, how a crystal grows.
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The relatively unknown French philosopher Gilbert Simonder, he
0:45
provided important inspiration in this, and it matched quite
0:51
nicely with understandings of the mind that I already had.
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And so I want to present that fit to you today.
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Crystals are fascinating. I don't know how familiar you
1:01
are with them, but they are fascinating because they exist
1:04
between different sciences. There's the field of mineralogy,
1:08
physics and chemistry, of course.
1:11
And on Earth they are among the cleanest and most regular
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structures found in nature at all.
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I remember still in the 1980s when graphical structures like
1:23
fractals or the so-called Mandelbrot set became popular
1:27
and crystals have something similar.
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They have a strict mathematical order, but they're also
1:33
different. They do not follow patterns like
1:36
the golden ratio or the Fibonacci numbers, which we
1:40
often find in nature and especially in living organisms.
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So for example, shells or plant structures.
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These belong to the realm of what we call self referential
1:52
systems and complex biological growth processes.
1:56
Crystals on the other hand, they are much stricter.
1:58
Their growth is a growth without life.
2:01
It's an inorganic growth, inorganic growth.
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What fascinates me the most is how they grow a crystal, and
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this is probably a lesser known feature of crystals.
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Crystal grows in a super saturated solution, so it's a
2:18
liquid is a solution through the attachment of particles to its
2:23
surface layer by layer. What is crucial however, is the
2:28
crystal does not grow out of the entire solution at the moment of
2:33
crystallization. When the crystal actually grows,
2:37
only the part of the solution that is in direct contact with
2:40
the surface plays a role. And this is an extremely thin
2:44
boundary layer between the crystal and the liquid.
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So the liquid, the solution is, so to speak, the world.
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The crystal is the thing that grows.
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But what actually contributes to the growth of the crystal is
3:00
not, so to speak, the the world or the whole liquid.
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It's only the extremely thin layer around it.
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So everything that is 2cm away or five kilometers away of the
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crystal plays no role in the growth process at the moment.
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What matters is only the immediate contact surface.
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And this highlights for me one of the more fundamental
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principles of the mind. How is that?
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Well, we often live under the illusion that our thinking
3:32
extends far out into the world. Our visual and auditory senses
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especially create the impression of the distance.
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When I look out of the window, for example, I can see here the
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mountains of Batumi when I look towards the Turkish border.
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And this gives me the impression that I can see far and I hear
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the chickens and I look down and I know and quotes that they're
4:00
about 50 meters away. But in reality, I do not see
4:04
far. I do not hear far.
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I only see an interpretation of activity on my retina in my eye.
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And I hear an interpretation of molecular vibrations in my
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auditory auditory system. So this is an illusion.
4:24
And this illusion is at least as strong when it comes to
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thinking. When I think about something,
4:30
say my future, it feels as though my thought actually
4:34
reaches into the future. For example, I consider how I
4:39
might achieve financial security.
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So what is actually happening is that I construct a model in my
4:46
mind, a model of what my future might look like, how society
4:52
functions, how markets react, a model, a complex model
4:57
unconsciously. And then I run a simulation with
5:01
that model. Given my understanding of the
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world, what would happen if I quit my job and started my own
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company or if I invested in a certain ETF or a certain
5:15
company? So what I'm actually doing is
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how I ask myself a question in this how does my model of the
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world, this complex unconscious model that I've created, how
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does that model of the world respond to this simulation, to
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this event of quitting my job, becoming an entrepreneur,
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becoming self-employed, investing in a certain way?
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I have my sense of reality. And then I feed this model of
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reality with a question. And then an answer comes out.
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And this answer is, oh, wow, that's a great idea.
5:56
Everything, everything speaks for it.
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Or probably it's nonsense, or it might work under certain
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circumstances. Whatever my model looks like, it
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can only function well if it has a structural similarity to
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reality. Or in other words, my ideas
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about the future only make sense if they have something to do the
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actual future. If that were not the case, my
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model would be completely useless and my thoughts about
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the future would be useless as well.
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So we only have models of, for example, the future.
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We feed the data because we ask ourselves questions what we
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should do next, what should we should decide?
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And then an answer comes out. And the quality of that answer
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obviously depends on the quality of my model.
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If my model has very little to do with actual world, actual
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future, then the answer that I will get will be nonsense.
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So this alone, I hope that you can see that is actually mind
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blowing if you really think about it.
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But up to this point it is still what I want to say, but I want
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to call it a normal cognitive psychology.
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Cognitive psychology is the the part of psychology that deals
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with the processing of information in our mind.
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So this is relatively normal and to psychologists nothing new,
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even though I think the impact is quite mind blowing.
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What this obscures however, is that in reality the same thing
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is happening as in crystal growth, the contact area with
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reality not of our perception only, but also of our thinking.
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This contact area is extremely thin.
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It is a waiver thin reflective layer that we work with.
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This layer creates the impression of being 3
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dimensional or 4 dimensional, that it extends far into the
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world and through time. The place where our models and
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our ideas about reality exists. Where would it be?
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Well, of course it's in the mind.
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And here, not to fall into this misunderstanding that we
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currently have so much, it's not in the brain.
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It's in the mind. Because the brain as a
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construct, as a scientific or medical physiological construct,
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of course, is also only a model, a construct, an idea.
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So these models exist in the mind and they are formed and
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developed directly at the contact surface of our mind with
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well, the sensual impression of sensory impressions that we
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have, with also thoughts, with memory, with feelings, and the
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immediate other sensory perceptions that we have.
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So the models unformed in the immediate, immediate contact
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with these, but not in direct contact with the world out there
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which surrounds us. And I find this fascinating
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because it puts things into perspective.
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It detaches what I do all day from the world.
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It takes it from the far away world, from the future, from,
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you know, this complex idea about society and how people
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think and how what relationships are and how I gamify my work
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environment and so on. And it brings it much closer to
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me. It takes it from what I assumed
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as the world, my projections onto the world.
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Taking my model as reality, understanding it as a model
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brings it closer to me, into my mind.
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To give you another example, when I think about the my
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girlfriend, I'm not thinking about her directly, but about my
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model of her through my exposure to her, through our contact,
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through conversations, seeing her.
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I created in my mind a model. And then when there's a decision
10:00
that needs to be made, should I bring her a gift?
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What should I say? I run this idea through my model
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and I check, unconsciously of course, and I check how she
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reacts in my model. And depending on how she reacts
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in my model, I decide if I should actually say this thing
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or do this thing. So I'm not thinking about, I'm
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not directly into acting with her.
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I'm into acting with my model of her.
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And this model in a sense, is again, paper thin.
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It's layered around my thoughts and my feelings, and the same
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happens when I think about my future.
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I work with a model of my future and not with the future itself,
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not with the reality itself. What is crucial is that these
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models only work because they give us the illusion that what
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we are actually dealing with is the real future.
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The real markets, my actual financial situation, real
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people, my real girlfriend. So what I mean to say is that in
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our normal thought processes, non philosophically, the way
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that I deal with my thoughts, engage with my thoughts in
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everyday life, my thoughts do not tell me that this is just a
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model, This is a construct. They pretend that it's real.
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This is the most normal thing. We don't question the reality of
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our model, or we don't question that between our model and
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reality there is a gap. We don't.
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So our thoughts or normal thought processes do not tell us
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that they're models, constructions or fantasies or
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hallucinations depending on how big the gap is between our
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models and reality. On the one hand, I find this
12:00
insight illuminating because it does make me aware of the
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constructed nature on of my thinking.
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So it allows me to step away from my thoughts, see it as what
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it is, namely thoughts and models and constructs.
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And so I become less attached, I become more flexible, I allow
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myself more mistakes. I allow myself to revise and to
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improve and to update my models. I don't cling so much, I don't
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insist so much on their reality. So this is the good aspect about
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it. But on the other hand, this
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insight is also very sobering because it shows how limited my
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actual access to reality is, and that my models probably contain
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so many assumptions that I'm not even aware of because I'm not
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consciously building those models.
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I'm basically a I'm exposed to my models, in some cases even a
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victim of my models. If those models are very
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dysfunctional, what the what are the conditions of these models?
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My models obviously depend on my upbringing, for example, how my
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parents raised me, the culture that I grew up with in, and my
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individual experiences, or in other words, my subjectivity as
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a whole, my experiences. Yet they present themselves as
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objective. I don't see that my model is
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distorted. It always pretends to be real,
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no matter how distorted it is. It pretends to be truthful.
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They pretend to be real observations and insights, even
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though they are constructed. And so in this sense, every
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thought and every feeling always contains an element of, and here
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I use a strong word of hallucination.
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A part of what I'm seeing, a part of my understanding, a part
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of my understanding of the world, of the people around me
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are hallucinated. And so part of my emotions that
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are consequence of my thoughts, a consequence of my models are
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also illusory. They're based on hallucinations.
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And of course, the further away my models are from reality, the
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more I am hallucinating. And because the human mind
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cannot do anything else, it cannot help but to generate
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models unconsciously that pretend to be real.
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Even someone with very little knowledge will imagine a future
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that feels completely real. Children for example.
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They don't feel that they are thinking something wrong, they
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are deeply insecure. But their mind yet creates a
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model of the world that is completely real and they react
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to the emotions of it. I remember an incident where my
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cousin, we went out to, I don't know, to take a walk or
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something and she had to go back home and get something.
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And her little daughter was staying with us and she started
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to cry when her mother left, fearing that she would not come
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back. And so she had an emotional
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issue with that. So the child had a distorted
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understanding of what is happening.
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Mom is leaving and she might not come back.
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And her emotional reactions were based on that understanding of
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reality. The mind of my cousin's daughter
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did not let it know that it's distorted, that it's just a
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model. It pretended that it's real and
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then it gets problematic. So models always pretend that
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their reality is correct. In fact, it's only a partial
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truth, always. OK, and here's now the kicker.
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Even that might be quite intuitively true for you.
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So some people would say, OK, I don't want to follow for my
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fantasies. I will only rely on objective
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knowledge. I will not be emotional.
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I want to be as sober as possible.
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And so I will. This is my solution for the
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problem, basically. But at least since the
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philosopher Emmanuel Kant of the 18th century, we know that there
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is no direct access to true reality in principle.
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No matter how sober I am, even if I try to be as sober as
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possible, my view is still distorted.
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I cannot look behind the curtain of my model of reality.
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I only have models of reality. No matter what, there is no
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access to the thing in itself. This is what cunt called it, or
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the world itself. We only have constructions.
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We only have models. So how do we deal with the
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problem of reality? We don't want to just
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hallucinate all the time and fantasize and be really off with
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our assumptions. We want to understand reality as
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it is. We want to be our model, to be
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as accurate as possible. So what can we do then if just
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leaving aside emotions and be completely, you know, brainy
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sober? If that is not a true solution,
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then what are we supposed to do? And here with that question, the
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whole topic becomes very relevant to our daily life.
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There is no true solution for the problem.
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We have to understand that, but there is something that we can
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do and what humanity has done for a long time already,
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especially in scientific process progress.
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The best thing we have is to reflect our reality with other
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people. This is the corrective mechanism
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that tries to even out our distortions that our specific
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minds due to our subjectivity, due to our upbringing, our
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cultural biases and so on. We reflect with other people.
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But in order to do that properly, we need a certain
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mindset. We need to be really interested
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in the question, what do you see, what do you hear, what do
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you think, what do you believe? So by opening up to the reality
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of the other, I can truly get into the mindset of reflecting
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on it, reflecting on our differences.
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And we take this differences into account.
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We take the positions of other people into account, we weigh
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the answers, we reflect on it, and this helps us to construct
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an improved and updated version of reality.
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In sociology, this kind of constant communication in a
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society is called the social discourse.
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And when social discourse breaks down, for example, because
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people are no longer interested in other people's perspectives
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or when only a few voices are amplified.
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So when there is a strong power structure in the community and
19:16
the family and society, it means that we end up with worse models
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and produce more errors. Why?
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Because there's no real curiosity about the world view
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of the others. And so I don't have the
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available information in front of me.
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I cannot compare truly my ideas, my models, with other people's
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ideas and models. And so the corrections that I
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can make are limited. They are inferior.
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And this insight, I think, is extremely important.
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It means that it matters so much how people speak to each other
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and what they do and what they do not say and what they do not
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do in brackets. For example, taboos.
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Whenever they are taboos, it limits the possibility to
20:11
upgrade my model. What we exchange directly, the
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people that we surround ourselves with, the words that
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are spoken, the thoughts that I think, the emotions that I allow
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myself to feel. This.
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Coming back to this analogy and the metaphor of the crystal,
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this is the nutrient solution for my crystal growth.
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The immediate contact that me, the crystals, of course, me, my
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personality, what I immediately experience.
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So it's not trivial what I do. It's not trivial what my
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information diet is. And in the broader discourse in
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politics and social media or in traditional media, it therefore
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matters which information I expose myself to, because this
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too becomes the nutrient for my growth.
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It is fundamental. When you think that you just
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kick back and relax everyday and in order to chill out after
21:16
demanding work, you're just consuming YouTube shorts or some
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fluff. This is the immediate nutrient
21:24
for you, for your crystal. And if you're negligent with it,
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without knowing it, this food, this information diet will be
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the foundation for the further development of your thoughts, of
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your idea of what the world is, the emotions that are a result
21:46
of that, and your quality of life.
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This is the external diet, so to speak, the external nutriment
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for my mind, but also what I say, what I do, what I think,
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what I feel. This is also nutrient for the
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crystal. And this is the big difference
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between, you know, the real crystals in nature out there
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because they are determined only through the direct contact with
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its outside factors. With humans it's different, with
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living beings it's different. We are exposed also to what we
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think and say, not just what other people say.
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This principle is quite known in serious self development.
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So for example, in the Buddhist framework is very important to
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us, to our development, what we say, how we act, how we
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communicate, what we believe, because they know that this
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becomes the nutrient, this becomes the basis for my further
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self development. So even more than the external
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nutrient, what I say and do is important.
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Why is it more important? There's exposure to my inner
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world because unlike external sources, I can ask what do I
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actually think? I have access to this in a
23:17
conversation with somebody. Yes, it gives me the corrective
23:20
of what they believe in and we can talk about it.
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But I can go into the details of my thoughts as much as I want
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to, and I take it I can take it into the direction that I'm
23:32
interested in. I can ask myself, are my
23:35
feelings a distortion or do they reinforce A valid insight?
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Is my intuition accurate or biased?
23:45
And again, don't forget, there is no direct access to reality.
23:50
So intuitions are always to a certain extent biased.
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Intuitions, gut feelings, are not a shortcut, are not a short
24:01
path to reality. There is no privileged insight
24:05
into reality. Everything that pertains to the
24:08
mind is subject to a certain distortion.
24:12
And so every now and then it's important to question our gut
24:17
feelings and our intuitions as well.
24:21
Emotions also play a very important role here.
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They obviously make life worth living.
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They give us vitality, joy, life, purpose.
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All of that is connected with emotions, but they come with a
24:35
price. They can also easily distort our
24:38
models of reality. That is just the biological,
24:42
maybe evolutionary baggage that we come with, that our system
24:46
has to deal with. So that's why I find it useful
24:49
to have two different kinds of models when I think about the
24:52
world, when I think about my life.
24:54
One, an emotional model, which is important, as I just
24:58
mentioned, for the quality of life, where we allow ourselves
25:02
honestly and compassionately to think what we think, to feel
25:06
what we feel. This is a model, This is a mode
25:10
where we don't censor ourselves. When we start to censor
25:14
ourselves, when we start to distort what we feel, distort
25:20
what we think, we become less vital.
25:25
We become, we become less alive because we cut off parts of
25:31
ourselves. This is not new to most of you
25:34
who are listening. You know, this kind of process.
25:37
If we suppress emotions, for example, we feel less alive,
25:41
right? So in the emotional model, we
25:46
give ourselves a lot of leeway. We allow ourselves, without
25:49
censorship to think what we think, to feel what we feel.
25:53
In order to keep this contact with our conscious active, we
25:57
want to receive this information.
26:00
And then in contrast to that, a second model, a more sober
26:05
model, a reason oriented model where we try to ask the right
26:09
questions as precisely as possible and become aware as
26:14
much as possible of our distortions, why this is not a
26:18
purpose in itself. We don't want to become
26:21
brainiacs who are kind of trapped in their mind.
26:24
Ultimately what we want to do with this is to upgrade our
26:27
model of reality in order to ultimately provide our emotional
26:33
model with the right nutrient. So our target is our emotional
26:39
model, but in our emotional mode we don't want to be distorted as
26:43
much. So with our differentiated
26:46
thinking, we assess, we try to understand our distortions, we
26:50
get into curious, open minded conversations with the people
26:55
around us, with the society around us.
26:58
And so we shape the nutrient of our mind.
27:03
We create a differentiated, very conscious model of our lives,
27:09
our relationships, the world around us, our ethics and so on.
27:14
And once this is settled, once we are in agreement with our
27:20
model, we have confirmed it. This is the best what I can
27:23
think of today. This will automatically, with
27:27
practice, transition into the unconscious and it will inform
27:33
our emotional life so that we don't have to constantly think
27:36
about it with a lot of costly intellectual processes.
27:42
It will become our intuition, and as our intuition, it will
27:46
have access to our emotions. And ideally, our emotions, our
27:51
love, our sense of purpose and so on will be informed by a as
27:58
correct as possible model of the world, of the people around us,
28:03
of ourselves. OK, let's zoom out again.
28:08
What I tried today is to bring together some fairly complex
28:11
ideas. I hope that you could follow
28:14
that you get the sense of what I tried to express.
28:17
What is a good summary here? It is good to remind ourselves
28:20
from time to time that we always and only work with models.
28:25
As convincing as it may seem that we perceive, perceive
28:28
reality, it's just not true. Secondly, our viewers of reality
28:34
is shaped by what comes into close contact with us, the
28:39
closest contact with us. That is why it matters so much
28:44
which people we surround ourselves with.
28:46
And again, it's important that they should be trustworthy,
28:51
encouraging, curious, non judgmental, safe space, creative
28:57
and so on, because this is what the mind takes us, nourishment,
29:02
these interactions equally what media we consume and our
29:08
internal perspective, how we act, how we think, how we
29:11
communicate, how we feel. Thirdly, life satisfaction is a
29:17
direct expression of the quality of our models.
29:22
If we are dissatisfied, chronically dissatisfied with
29:25
our lives, this is directly related to how we perceive
29:30
reality. Or in other words, it's an
29:31
expression of a wrong model. To have the correct models to
29:36
perceive reality as it is, should always express itself in
29:43
life satisfaction and quality of life.
29:46
When I'm unhappy, when I'm anxious, depressed, burned out,
29:51
bad relationships, this is typically in the very most cases
29:56
a reflection of having wrong models in our life.
30:01
So if life satisfaction is very low and you are suffering
30:06
continuous basis chronically, it is important and essential to
30:11
revise and update your models of yourself, the people around you,
30:17
society, relationships and so on.
30:21
It's of course OK to work on individual thoughts, of course
30:25
it's OK to work on emotions and so on.
30:27
But underlying all of this are the most fundamental models that
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we have, and it's important that you update those.
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And you can do that. Of course you should do that
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with good friends. You can do this with good books,
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philosophical books, good novels.
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They always have this aspect of being a sounding board to
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reflect our own thoughts of our world views.
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And if it's connected with a lot of suffering, if your life is
30:56
connected to a lot of suffering, it is important to be able to do
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this in therapy as well, with experts who understand the
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common biases and pitfalls of the mind.
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I at least do this regularly with my clients in therapy, and
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I'm personally and deeply interested in this kind of work.
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And if you are interested in this and well as well, I can
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only invite you to explore this together, to work on this
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together so that you are enabled to get the best possible models
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of yourself, the people around you, and the world as you can.
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OK, this is for today. I hope you find it interesting
31:37
and encouraging and inspiring to go beyond what daily life
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typically reflects on us, to understand the world in a deeper
31:47
way. Maybe it's also a puzzling
31:50
perspective, but I hope that it was nourishing in the sense that
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I described today. Nonetheless, I hope to see you
31:57
next time. Goodbye.