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[04] Does my brain have its own conscience?
24th Mar 2024
I like to think. Not because I'm smart, but because it makes me feel smart. Particularly,
I like to consider why things are the way they are on a low-level basis.
More particularly, I like to wonder why humans come to the conclusions they come to. If you
asked a friend why they're friends with you, they'd probably say something like "because I
like you as a person" or something, but WHY is that?
I believe that we as humans choose to do things because we believe it would be in our best
interests. It's why we eat dinner, why we drink water, and why we make friends. Even when
we're being generous to someone seemingly at our own expense, we do so because we think
that act of kindness will result in our benefit somewhere down the line. For example, you
might think that me choosing to help someone with their homework is a random act of kindness,
but in reality, I performed that act in hopes that they'll return the favour whenever I need
it.
This realization of why we do things has shifted my perspective on friendship. I believe that
friendship is a mutual exchange of service; each friend expects something from the other, in
one form or another. For instance, one of my friends frequently ask me to come to their place
and help them with coursework, and in return, they'll entertain me for the day and cook me
lunch.
If I were to ask my friends why they're friends with me, I'd hope for an answer that fits
the above description; an explicit idea of what I do for them that they find valuable enough
to consider us friends.
Of course, one could argue that this idea of friendship is slightly
inhuman or two-dimensional, but it's worth considering that the majority of human psychology
sounds like that whenever you deconstruct it down into its lowest level, like the machine code
of the human brain. Plus, sometimes the reason of friendship isn't always because each person
explicitly does something for the other; it could be for a reason that isn't fully understood
or interpretable, like "this person makes me feel like X" or "this person makes life more
interesting for me". We're not always aware of our own reasoning.
On the topic of self-awareness, I'd like to talk about another interesting idea; the human
sub-conscience. More times than otherwise, we act the way we do because of a reason we're not
even aware of. I think if you want to understand more about yourself, you should pay attention
to the things you do innately and consider why you do such things.
It's very hard to provide an example of this because it's usually too personal
even for a blog on fridg3.org, but I guess the best thing I could talk about is emotional
suppression. I wouldn't argue my memory is terrible, but whenever I think about bad memories
like being bullied in school, I realize that I actually remember little to nothing about what
specifically was happening during that time, especially when it comes to how I was feeling
emotionally. It seems that, whenever these bad things happen, my brain just... forgets about it
on its own, seemingly without any intervention or input from me, like my brain is its own person
protecting me from my own memories.
I've noticed this trend in some particular friends who have gone through some crazy things themselves,
they'll tell me stories about traumatic events and then proceed to say "I can barely remember
anything about it though". It's fascinating to me that we aren't in control of everything we do,
and that our brain, seemingly as if it it has a mind of its own, has an interest of protecting us almost on
its own instinct.
Maybe I like to think because I'm deeply fascinated with understanding more about what my brain does
on its own accord, and I think that becoming aware of our sub-conscious doings helps us understand
ourselves more. It also makes me think how many people are just unaware of why they do things, but it's
not particularly a bad thing by any stretch. If anything, it makes us far more interesting.
If you have any similar thoughts on the matter and/or wanna talk about your brain, shoot an email!
contact@fridg3.org