Subjectivity

Speaker 1: 00:04

Timeless. The human experience through a Quantum Lens. Hello and welcome to Timeless, a podcast with me Isabel Soden.

Speaker: 00:16

And myself, Clive Hyland.

Speaker 1: 00:18

Today we are talking about subjectivity and the human experience.

Speaker: 00:23

Yes, we are. What does that mean to you? Gonna start on you for a change.

Speaker 1: 00:30

You're starting on me.

Speaker: 00:31

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 00:32

Um well subjectivity as the opposite of objectivity. Objectivity is there's something there being an absolute subjectivity is that everything is subject to one's own viewing, that there is no absolute in it. And I'm presuming the relationship to the human experience is that we all live a subjective experience.

Speaker: 00:56

Yeah. So absolutely. It's about, you know, that so much of us goes on on the inside, um, and we've been preoccupied on what we produce in terms of behavior on the outside, and far too often we've limited our understanding of humanity to the objective. And the, you know, the essential paradox is, of course, that intuitively we all know it's what goes on inside of us that really matters. And everything that we do on the outside is a result of all those mixtures of feelings and thoughts and instincts that create a behavioral result. Okay. So that's where we start really on the conversation about the subjective experience. And particularly, you know, let's if we come to neuroscience on that, it's acknowledged in neuroscience and is labeled as the hard problem. Uh, there was a particular guy in the, I think it was in the 80s, David Chalmers, that named it, gave it this label. And it's a recognition in neuroscience that whilst we've made huge strides in terms of understanding the brain and how it works, we cannot pin down the subjective experience. You know, I can, in theory, look into your brain and use scanning devices to sort of give me information about, you know, whether your brain is stressed or not, by which parts of the brain light up. But it cannot tell me anything about the actual experience that you're having, you know, whether whether this stress caused through some sort of you know emotional challenge, or whether it's grief or whatever it might be, or whether it's a positive experience, you know, inspiration or a you know appreciation of beauty. We can't pin that down. So once again, we're stuck with the problem that once we understand the tangible results that we can see, there's all the stuff that we cannot see that is the really important stuff that we can't nail down. And neuroscience is stuck, it's acknowledged that that is a big problem. Now, again, not all some materialists would say, well, we're getting too hung up about this, that you know, again, back to the mind being an output of the brain, and that's all we need to understand. And I'm sorry, for me and a lot of other scientists, that doesn't stand up to closer scrutiny. So that's where we begin, you know, with this discussion of about so why is you know, this link between the subjective and the quantum realm and all that energetic stuff that we really don't understand.

Speaker 1: 03:25

Yeah.

Speaker: 03:26

Okay, it's a starting point. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 03:28

I just want to pick up on that. You say it doesn't stand up to close the scrutiny. Can you give me a top line on why?

Speaker: 03:34

Yeah, yeah. So fundamentally, um, as I said, you know, for people to claim that it's a, you know, and these are neuroscientists that I love, you know, because they've given me so much information to build my knowledge. But to come to the conclusion that the brain produces the mind is just not borne up by any empirical, empirical evidence, you know. They would say, yeah, but when we have certain experiences of consciousness, when we come aware of things, you can see certain parts of the brain light up. But it's back to the comment that the technology doesn't does not have the speed of operation to say what comes first. And yes, we can see that certain parts of the brain light up in terms of particular types of experiences, but it doesn't say where it comes from or what drives it, you know. So is it the the way by which quantum intelligence, if you want to use that phrase, connects with the machinery of the brain and converts it into a human experience? Or is it the other way around? And and nobody again can answer that. We just have a certain amount of science that throws a certain amount of light on it, some of which is contradictory, and then you're back to people's beliefs and what they want to see. And that's the whole point. Everything in life is ultimately about what we want to see, what we feel we need to see in order to survive.

Speaker 1: 04:48

Yes, and that sort of uh the the delineerated we know up until this point doesn't mean that is all there is. No, that is just this is the extent of our knowledge, but the question exceeds that boundary.

Speaker: 05:05

Absolutely, and of course, you know, we'll be back to the previous disciplines, you know, philosophy and more recently psychology is you know absolutely strives to understand the unconscious world, you know, because it's acknowledged and understood. You know, the key breakthrough with the likes of um uh of Jung and and Freud was getting the unconscious on the table. Yeah, up until then, it was mainly about psychiatrists. And one of the statements is like, Jung put the psychology into psychiatry, right? And what that means is that up until that time, there was a very objective approach to people with mental conditions, you know, mental difficulties. They were shoved away into asylums and they were almost like objects to be experimented on. You do you did things to them, you did not do anything to understand their experience. And it was the the uh Jung and Freudian type psychology that came in to sort of say, hold on a minute, you you need to understand the person's experience. Now, I think you know, where people like Jung went wrong, where they tied it, sorry, like Freud in particular went wrong, they tied it to certain very rigid models, you know. But and that doesn't work for me because we now understand more too great a sphere of impact. Yeah, that's right. It was trying to nail it down to just a couple of key factors, sort of thing, you know. But the idea, nevertheless, of saying, look, everybody's story is relevant. To understand the person, you have to understand their story, the story that they're telling themselves, you know. And neuroscience can't do any of that. All it can say is this is how the brain is involved, and that's fantastic, right? And it's going to tell us more and more and more, but it's a long way from being able to explain the subjective experience. And that's not necessarily bad news because one of the uh danger rabbit hole here, but one of the uh benefits of that that I would see is a benefit, it keeps AI out. You know, AI cannot get into this territory because it's not uh available to technology at this stage. Perhaps another discussion, but nevertheless.

Speaker 1: 07:02

Oh, that's a tantalizing. Yeah, it is.

Speaker: 07:04

We probably should come back to that.

Speaker 1: 07:06

Okay. Okay, everyone's seen that white rabbit. Yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: 07:11

Careful. I was running after it for a moment there, yeah.

Speaker 1: 07:16

It's one, okay. I'll put a pin in it.

Speaker: 07:18

Right. So for the moment, let's stick with the whole explanation of the subjective experience. Okay, people I th I think will find this highly relatable. So uh to me, another example of where it's outside of the reach of current science and current neuroscience is let's think about the experience of beauty. Now, the beauty, you know, an experience of beauty and art and inspiration and all that type of thing is is an area that's getting more interesting than neuroscience. So they're sort of thinking about how can we tackle this, but again, it's a declared area of interest rather than something we're nailing down at any at this particular point. But we all know that's very much an internal experience, you know, whether it's a connection with a uh a beautiful you know piece of art or an experience of nature, it's something that's about resonance. Uh and I think most people can relate to that. Something happens inside of our bodies, I think it's very embodied that makes us feel special and makes us feel connected. You know, in those moments, it's back to this feeling that we talked about in spirituality, which we we feel a part of something bigger. Yeah, and I think that's well beyond the boundaries at this stage of uh real scientific understanding. Okay, so again we have illustrations where it's permissible to bring the intuitive to the table as we piece together this m mosaic of understanding and recognize that that information and how we appreciate beauty is a key part of who we are. Yeah? So it's saying that subjective deserves to be at the table, but equally acknowledging we cannot reduce that, we can't have a reductionist approach to that that just takes it into the scientific arena.

Speaker 1: 09:15

Yeah, so the physical effects of the way that beauty resonates with us, whether that's art or nature, but things that are objectively termed beautiful, question mark, in our conversation of subjectivity.

Speaker: 09:31

Well, I mean we do, I guess we use those terms, but I think most people recognize beauty's in the eye of the beholder, as it were, you know, that we're how we can look at the same things, and that's where we can acknowledge that sometimes what a person A will think it's beautiful and somebody else won't. And it's particularly, you know, that's why the challenge, I think, of you know, some of the impressionist art and things like that and sculptings is that it will resonate for some people, it won't resonate for everyone, and even for those for which it resonates, it'll resonate for different reasons.

Speaker 3: 09:60

Right.

Speaker: 09:60

And those explanations are not and are not rational explanations, it's something about a total experience between mind and body where we feel connected and we feel grounded, and I think that's with something bigger.

Speaker 1: 10:13

Yeah, okay, what's the big thing?

Speaker: 10:16

Yeah, well, he links it back to the spiritual thing. I think there's a great analogy for this. So when we experience art, it's a point of connection, okay. Art, beauty, the same thing. Um, and if I link that back to our perceptual systems conversation we had a you know a few sessions ago, it's like for that moment that becomes a point, a focus for our experience. That is a catalyst for us to experience something, okay. When people struggle with the whole idea of so we co-create the universe through our perceptual systems, a way to think about is to think about a blind man walking up a street, okay, with a white stick along the pavement. The beginning is of his perceptual experience, and therefore his his total experience at that time is the point at which the stick meets the pavement. Right? So at that point, it triggers in his or her mind the imagery as to what it's his or her environment is, and therefore how they interact with that. See, and that then spreads across all the conversations we've had, not only about our interaction with the universe, but also with our interaction with things like points of beauty. They become a gateway again, it seems, to something that's going on behind that beauty, if you like, that is created for us that we can interact with and then gives us a particular, you know, um grounding experience. I I don't does that make sense? It's a tricky one.

Speaker 1: 11:52

No, it does make sense. Yeah, okay, cool, cool.

unknown: 11:55

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:55

I'm just I I keep thinking about the universality or when it serves a kind of physiological, neurological function in the body, you know, that that it it it serves us in some deeper way because design is is frugal, and only things that really serve the high functioning of our being is there for any sustained period or any energy put towards it.

Speaker: 12:23

Well, I would come back towards the cumulative thing, okay? So this is where we back into consciousness. And I and I'm good, I'm glad about that because again, it's tying everything together, all right? So, so you know, we talked previously about how consciousness and if you like intelligence is built up through evolution and we just keep on laying more and more levels of sophistication, right? Yeah, it's not something that just arrives with human beings, you know, the that's an exceptional approach. We're talking about more of a cumulative approach, you know. And one model I think that'll help us understand that is when we talk about levels of consciousness. Now, you know, I've said previously that consciousness isn't just about what's going on as in the in the self-aware mind, it's about our whole perceptual system, you know, starting at the bottom with sensory information, which can be sight and taste and smell and all those sorts of things, and then building on that. So I I take you very quickly through those six levels. Yeah, it only takes about a couple of minutes, but and obviously it deserves a lot more explanation, but it just gives people a sense of this, and it's you know, the brain isn't literally organized like this, but it's a very nice way of explaining it. Okay. So level one at the bottom is very much sensory intelligence, you know, it's the stuff that just happens, and we don't need to think about it, we don't need to, you know, consciously make it happen in any way, and that's all the stuff, you know, around the the the key senses, the way we sense our environment, you know, taste, sound, sight, etc. etc.

Speaker 3: 13:53

Yeah.

Speaker: 13:54

So that's level number one. Now, as we evolved, so at that stage, we we, for instance, we would have been reptiles and prior to that, okay. The mammalian phase then was all about taking that level of intelligence to emotional intelligence. Okay, so the key role of emotions is to connect us, to bond us, and to motivate us to act in groups, yeah, because reptiles don't really operate in groups. There's always exceptions, but in general they don't, you know. So fundamentally, we as human beings needed another level of intelligence and the human technology in our brains, such as you know, sensing mechanisms and you know facial recognition, you know, features and all that sort of stuff, that enables us to add to our intelligence the emotional level. Okay, so emotions are another level of information and intelligence. Yeah, and often we don't think of them like that, but they are.

Speaker 1: 14:50

They've had a bad rap. Yeah, they have.

Speaker: 14:53

You know, they haven't been allowed basically in the business world because they're just too difficult to handle. Yeah, you know, it's not it's not only a hard problem for neuroscience, it's a hard problem in the everyday world, right? Dealing with emotions.

Speaker 1: 15:04

I mean, women's suffrage. No, no, no, don't go to the vote. They're emotionally volatile.

Speaker: 15:08

Yeah, exactly. That's right, you know, it's hormones. How dare they, yeah? So, so basically, you've got those first two levels, right? Okay, so mammals, we share all that with mammals. Now, there are four levels as we get into this, which are more specifically human. The third level is more about the interpretation, the cognitive interpretation of those emotions. In other words, the problem with emotions and instincts is that they drive us and we can become hijacked by them, right? So to become human, we had to have a wider intelligence system which allowed us to take information on board at a slower level before we reacted. And that feels counterintuitive, right? But it means that our thoughts are slower than our instincts and our emotions. And what that gave us, evolution and whatever drives that, recognized that would give us the opportunity to have more information, and more information meant choice. Now we have options at the emotional level. It's all about, you know, something's happened, react. Yeah, yeah. But when thinking comes into me, hold on a minute, we've got some choice here. So the first thinking level was about okay, we need to understand our sensory feelings and our emotional feelings at another level so that we can start bringing some choice in. So the interpretation of feelings. Okay?

Speaker 3: 16:35

Yeah.

Speaker: 16:36

Level number three. Then a key step forward was in terms of our thinking capability, was language. So the fourth level is all about our ability to articulate that understanding, to give it a structure and a form that we can share with others. You get me? Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Yeah. Development of language related, I was just thinking of you talking about us as visually led and symbol given. And that to me, uh well that to me, that to me is how information becomes the written word. Yes.

Speaker: 17:15

So I'm often asked, um, you know, or we get into conversations, I usually provoke it, to be honest. But so I'll ask people about thoughts, you know, what is the substance of thoughts? And people usually give me examples of thoughts, uh, or they'd say words like analysis. They say no substance of thoughts. Okay. So, and then people often will talk about language and that type of stuff, but language only comes later. It's later in the brain, because it's part of the thinking brain, and certainly we had to have some means of processing stimuli that didn't involve language when we were mammals and and reptiles. Okay. So the basic level of language is what? What's your guess? You've already said it.

Speaker 1: 17:55

Yeah, symbols.

Speaker: 17:56

Symbols, right? So it's yeah, it's images. Because we had to have a way of representing the external world in our minds so that we could respond to it.

Speaker 3: 18:05

Yeah.

Speaker: 18:05

So we knew what we were dealing with, right? So often when people are stuck in their thought processes, I will say, What do you see? And they will struggle at first because they're so used to not thinking in those terms that they can't see the image that has prompted their the the later thought patterns that come along. But the first level of thought is imagery, symbolism, you know, internal images, because we've in the back of our minds we have this massive um library of billions of pictures that are stored in memory that we've accumulated as through lives. You know, actual experiences and models that help us to make sense of what's going on.

Speaker 3: 18:44

Yeah.

Speaker: 18:45

So the first thought process at the most basic level for the human being and for other species is images that we know translate across the mind and allow us to react. So language comes along then at a later level, you know, a later level in terms of evolution and in terms of brain speeds. So once we've converted an image into a wider form of intelligence, the thinking brain enables us to articulate that through language. Now we've got something we can share. Yeah, when it was just an image, it was a personal image, it's very difficult to share. How do you share an image with somebody if you can't explain it in words? Right? It's art, yeah, as an example, which is another great way because it it takes away the limitations of language, which is beautiful, right? But in normal everyday experiences, like, okay, now we've got words. And that's why language obviously is such a huge differentiator uh between us and other species. Yeah. You know, we know there are controlled noises for other species, but it's nothing like what we can handle, right? Nothing like it at all.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Do other species mark make?

Speaker: 19:53

Do they what? Sorry. I don't know what you mean by that.

Speaker 1: 19:57

Uh make marks.

Speaker: 19:58

Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I thought there were some technicals in it. Mark make Yeah, they can, but I don't know. Yeah, so that's more related to images, I guess, rather than sort of the language. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:12

Communicating.

Speaker: 20:13

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, because clearly that that was their first, you know. So, and not having the ability to share through language, they had to have other mechanisms of sharing, right? But us as human beings, you know, we found this sophistication in terms of language, which means we can explore things and push our level of uh of understand to a much higher level. Yeah, so that's level four in terms of this model. And there are two other models, okay, which are all to do with different levels of thinking. So, level five then is really what I would call complex problem solving. Okay, so it's really using this the stuff that we've understood in terms of interpretation of emotions and sense senses, you know, going through the language to articulate what we're thinking, and then being able to process complex problems. So basically, the way that the human brain has evolved has been the development of the cortex. You know, the cortex just got bigger and bigger, and we squeezed more and more into the skull, created greater connectivity, and it gives us that, I think, that opportunity to really look at all sorts of options before we respond. Yeah. That makes sense, yeah. And then the final level is just another step again, but it's what we let's call it higher thinking, right? So it's different to the complex problem solving, which tends to be more deductive. Again, is taking analysis, breaking it down, and deciding what's the appropriate action. Yeah. And this is more the inductive stuff, and that's where we open up and you know, create that imaginary or sensory experience connection with the world and what's going on around us. So it's the world of i imagination. Yeah. You know, the the it's it's the prior to lobe, it's called. you know, in the the top of the skull, one part of the um uh the uh cortex yeah uh so and that is that allows us to open up our understanding and our imagination because it can call on other parts of the of the intelligence system such as it you know interacts with the emotional system to give it like energy to think outside of the box and all that sort of stuff yeah so it's a place where we can take our thinking to another level you know and we can recognize that in terms again the different parts of the brain that light up with those different experiences yeah so the whole point of explaining that model was to say look here is another example example of how consciousness they're all forms of awareness right yes yeah you know and it it's not about just having something consciously in mind it's about all forms of taking intelligence from our environment and interacting with that environment down from the basic level of using images to process information as a as a base animal yeah up to this highly sophisticated interaction with our environment through through higher thinking processes you know which allow us to really use all the information that's available to us.

Speaker 1: 23:17

And just and another point against that sort of human-centric view of intelligence you're talking about a reptilian and a mammalian brain having that information exchange with its environment.

Speaker: 23:31

Absolutely and that we never leave that behind we just build on top of it yeah you know we we we it's like that we're blowing up the balloon you know the the the basis the capability is always there but we've blown the balloon up so that we're filling it now with more and more intelligence you know so you know other other species animals will have levels of cortical processing you know because that's where we process sight and things like that but it's like nothing like the level that we human beings have so what we've done is we've you know we've learned to utilize that space and therefore to make the most of that potential and to to become higher beings as a result of that. But so the the connection back with consciousness and the subjective subjective experience is therefore to say look it's it's not helpful to think are are the species conscious or not because to me everything says of course they are yeah it's just the level at which they are you know plants are aware of their environment yeah yeah which for some people say what that some sense that a leaf moves towards the sun yeah exactly because they're you they're using sensory information in order to respond you know they need to absorb life uh light in order to survive right chlorophyll and all that and and to transform it into energy and nutrients so everything in life experiences its environment and then it's about what label do you use to put on that and it's perfectly plausible to say that's a form of consciousness. You know it's an extended view of consciousness consciousness by which you do interact with the with your universe ultimately because you know I absolutely believe that animals do you know you can see an animals you know it seems sometimes like they're contemplating the universe I'm not saying they do in the way that we do but they know there's something going on outside of them.

Speaker 1: 25:22

Clive do you think subjectivity sits singularly in the human experience? Absolutely not so that a plant reaching to the light that is a subjective interaction with our it begins with a subjective interaction I think because it's almost the opposite is it's almost like objectivity only sits in the human experience.

Speaker: 25:48

For me you see there's yes there's behavior there's behavioral responses but they're all driven by what's going on at a subjective level. Yeah if you think the basis of you know a large part of so 95% of the information processed in the human brain is experienced at the unconscious level only five percent conscious right and a big slice of that unconscious processing is instinctive and emotional. Okay. So that's always been there. That's the that's why I come back quickly and say no it's absolutely is the subjective experience because that's what other animals have. What they haven't had is the ability to bring that to a level of conscious awareness maybe that's a better term right where we are more intellectually and cognitively aware of these processes of information within us and we can do something more with it. You know animals can't do that they just have sense a sensory input yeah that they convert into action yeah so it's a but it nevertheless it's very much subjectively and unconsciously processed and then gives a behavioral result.

Speaker 1: 26:58

Yeah I want to have a punt at something. Yeah go for it yeah brilliant but just so my feeling of the quantum the connected bit the bit where there is intelligence in in every part of the energetic sphere which encompasses all elements of life that experience of being energetically is more objective than when we humans go into our conscious brain and make sense of our world through the stories that we put the different iconography on our desktop so that and I think going back to that computer analogy if most consciousness lives in the realms of the dots and dashes of computer code and that information we're the ones who live this very subjective experience of the envelope icon on the desktop so could you argue that they have an objective experience and we have a subjective experience?

Speaker: 28:14

No not for me right was I was I diplomatic was I careful that I handle you sensitively then no you just waited me to finish look a lot of it is is the way we look at it and the language that we use okay but it to me it's not an objective experience um it's it's a subjective experience as I've explained the reasons why it depends how you use the word objective I think um you know I don't know whether you're implying that somehow it's more real I'm not sure um I think the the trick for me is that we know that we can there if we move at a subjective objective bit for a moment their experience is very real it's there it's moment to moment and it happens as human beings you know the downside of having all these intellectual levels of understanding is that we can create new worlds and unreal worlds for ourselves in that space you know and that can be the world of denial or delusion you know we start to see the world in the way that we want to see it rather than the way it is. So the subjective objective bit is tricky but for animals but you know it's very real and it's ironic isn't it because you know we've created something at the cognitive level which is unreal in many ways. You know we've we've we've constructed our self-stories yeah um around what we want to believe.

Speaker 1: 29:52

Yeah and I think I'm probably like taking a philosophical definition of it where something objective has an absolute truth behind it and subjectivity is one's individual take on it.

Speaker: 30:03

And so but there's no such thing as an objective proof. Well I don't think there is well that's what we've talked about isn't it really I know I it sounds like I'm being obstinate there but that's what every other con conversation we've had is that everything ultimately is down to perception.

Speaker 3: 30:17

Yeah.

Speaker: 30:18

Perception organizes the way in which we interact with the external world whether we talk in the universe or the the person across the table so that because that will filter the way we take on information and represent that information to ourselves internally. Okay. So there is no argument as far as I'm concerned for an independent reality.

Speaker 1: 30:38

So there's no sliding scale of subjective to objective that just isn't objective.

Speaker: 30:43

No there's nothing that gets us to a point of objectivity. We don't even know what objectivity is it's just the way we've chosen unconsciously to interact with the world. We didn't go out there and sort of say okay I'm going to decide to interact with the world this way you know our genetics started off on that path and then we we collaborate as societies to see things in a certain way. Yeah you know but as we've talked about the danger is that we're all buying into uh an illusion that that isn't real and that's okay except there must be other opportunities that we're choosing to ignore.

Speaker 1: 31:19

Yeah.

Speaker: 31:19

So why not explore those other opportunities?

Speaker 1: 31:21

But also you know we are the stories we tell ourselves this is the story that society has told ourselves you know has reinforced of us.

Speaker: 31:29

Right now so we've got that hugely challenging word self coming back into it. So what's the self?

Speaker 1: 31:36

I thought it had all been a bit light touch.

Speaker: 31:38

Yeah so what's the self to you it's great to get revenge now the self is the story of my identity. Yeah and is that a story you can rely on oh no I'm a totally unreliable narrator but can anyone rely on a story of their selves?

Speaker 1: 32:08

No.

Speaker: 32:09

But also that uh it is you define it and it is defining so it's sort of um iterative yeah yeah so there's a very clear evolutionary purpose for the self you know evolution again this incredibly imaginative and clever mechanism whatever it is um worked out that we needed a sense of self because that gave us agency so a sense of ownership basically that we can do things we can impact what's going on otherwise we are just robots and therefore we've a much a much narrower response to our interaction with the world and therefore we learn more slowly etc etc okay so the sense of agency is really important but from a psychology and neuroscience point of view we can be very confident that when we construct our stories for instance we look back on memory and are hugely influenced by the way we feel now okay so memory doesn't stand up as a reality in its own right we search our memory from a point of view of you know for instance a positive or negative bias okay so we will construct previous experiences in a way that suits the way that we are feeling and looking now. Yeah we put the prompt in the search engine filtered by our current yeah absolutely you know so it's all about so what are we looking for and if instinctively we're already made our mind up that this is going to be a negative experience so we'll look for the negative evidence that presents the same conclusion because we're comfortable with that. Okay. Now you can take that to an overall self-level because it's like we have decided to uh adopt and adapt a story of ourselves as we've gone through life because that's the way that we connect the pattern and information that sits in our memory all right now yeah we need that because without it probably we'd be pretty insane you know we wouldn't make sense of life we need a sense of continuity but on the other hand it can trap us in a state where our story no longer serves us.

Speaker 1: 34:19

Why do we need a state of continuity?

Speaker: 34:21

Why are you putting your hand up? I don't know so because you know our story has to make sense. You know the story exists at a fundamental level right because if it doesn't if there's no sense of continuity it can't make sense. It's like well why was I one thing over there and another thing over here.

Speaker 1: 34:41

And we're sense making animals we're storytelling animals things need to take a shape we have to bundle our sense data into exactly yeah again it's a model you know so the self is a model effectively a psychological model that has an evolutionary purpose that says you know this is who I am now it's there's more than that because you and you in your opening comment you also use the word identity and that's really important.

Speaker: 35:04

So that comes from a deep place right because our sense of identity which is pretty close to the self right is all about the way in which we look for and hope to gain feedback on our value to the group so you know we all need to present ourselves in a way that's sort of right the the group wants us to belong and we want to belong to it. And in order to achieve that I have to offer value to the group and my identity is a representation of that value. And if that works for me and I get feedback that this this value is appreciated, that puts me in a good place. But also when I recognize that identity isn't quite working it's up to me to respond and adjust that identity in a way that still serves the group but I'm saying that we can the downside is we can get trapped in our own stories. And you know the coaching part of my experience often has encountered people who sort of got to a place in a career type sense where they sort of wish they'd never got there. They don't know why they got there. They were driven by other people's agendas you know often well intentioned advice but you know it was about being seen to be successful, having material success rather than really connected with what their passions were. Maybe those things weren't clear at that time but nevertheless you know ultimately sustainability is about working with the stuff that you believe in. It's back to the resilience point. So we could be telling ourselves a story that for instance we have to be externally successful you know we have to have the big house etc etc and all that stuff but actually we may be crying out for an internal experience is totally different. That is about freedom and art and expression and all those things. Yeah but you know if we if we go down that route we can't you know we can't present material success because you can't earn so much money it did. Yeah you know etc. I'm not saying that's right I'm just saying that's the thought process.

Speaker 1: 36:51

Yeah but it's the great example of the sort of uh the floating disconnect between the internal driver and the external motivators you know yeah what you present and what you truly feel yeah and there's a point where they're so out of balance that one of them breaks.

Speaker: 37:10

Yeah no exactly and you know and again with the sort of coaching type experience really that's why I always encourage people to to get more familiar with their body and the sensory intelligence that sits in the body because you can fool yourself up here in your brain in your your intellectual space but the body can't be fooled because it's dealing with the source information you know which is sensing its environment both in an instinctive and in emotional sense and if you can for instance if you are disappointed in your own reactions sometimes and you've mishandled situations and you come away sort of thinking you know that didn't I know you spore then um that that didn't go to plan okay um after you've gone through the phrase of blaming everyone else which is a normal starting point and you come back to yourself it's then it's about so what happened? You know what was the chain of reaction so I help people to understand you know the the differences between instincts and emotions and thoughts and all that stuff. But it all you know what we get is is triggers in the body and we get signals in the body that tells us where the truth is so we may be trying to say to ourselves yeah you know I handle that okay because everyone else was a pillar um you know that's the only way I could deal with it. But our body is saying something different. Yeah yeah yeah you know it's feeling anxiety it's feeling disappointment and we need to deal with that we need to acknowledge that and to sort of say okay so come on you know I didn't get that as uh as right as I could have and if I could have got it better this isn't for other people this is for me it makes me feel good about myself and I know I'm on the right path. If I'm constantly having to shut away my own inner reservations that are held in my body about what I've just done then I'm just building up stress for myself. Yeah you yeah alienating yeah yeah yeah because you shut in you're shutting away the truth yeah yeah you know and it's there's there's a lot more truth I think in the body sometimes than in our the higher parts of our mind.

Speaker 2: 39:10

Amen to that Father Clive yes may we all be grounded in the go from nerd to guru to to a priest figure now is it's only because I say amen do you know what I say God I say that I use religious phrases quite a lot and and as an as an atheist yeah yeah yeah you know so my reaction I I don't like the word atheist um because it shuts people out it says you know it's not because I want you to believe in God I want you to believe in something and too often the word is atheist I think for me so this is my personal experience of that word is that it sort of says you don't believe and I think oh everyone needs to believe in something so I'm scared for you when I hear the word atheist but that's not what I think but I don't believe in brilliant any I don't believe in any of the narratives of organized religion that are I totally agree put in front of me.

Speaker: 40:14

Yeah yeah but that's it's really powerful language isn't it so uh so that's about me spotting my reaction to that and working out eventually well that's my issue actually yeah you know um and I've got to work that through I mean what a brilliant example of the subjectivity of the human experience. Precisely that you know it's when I you know I've mentioned these neurodiverse people before and trying to help them get through their stages of anxiety that they inevitably experience part of the learning um and way forward is to say to people it's not about right or wrong. You know we're always taught from the beginning that everything's about i you're right or are you wrong okay and this there's value in that in terms of in the value space you know what I mean by emotional values and all that we have to have a sense of right or wrong but we're so hung up on are we right and you know we defend the right to be right but nobody's right and nobody's wrong. We're all just collecting information.

Speaker 1: 41:15

And I find it you know my little kid is five and seven and they're sitting at school and their curiosity their hunger hunger to learn.

Speaker: 41:25

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:26

And the questions and the questions and the questions and I just think God you're gonna sit at the back of a class one day and you're gonna put your hand up and want to discuss the work of X and the idea of Y and you'll be told you are wrong because someone has come along and go there has to be a single right answer on this exam paper. Therefore the rest are wrong and it breaks my heart. I agree because curiosity which is the you know source of all confidence in the face of un of the unknown and creativity and innovation and like just just you know it is the place at which we flourish and it gets closed down totally by this kind of it's a great example of linear thinking you know we're trying to challenge because you know I would argue in that case then it's better to be wrong but have really worked out why you're wrong rather than to be right and not understand why you're right. Ah make a case for it.

Speaker: 42:20

Yeah exactly I know when I was at university the the big difference be going through from A levels to university was was to be given the opportunity to argue a case. You know it was all by rote really at A level and I got bored with that you know um yeah I got through it because I had to but it was like yeah just repeated information. But when you're asked to construct a case that was my first experience of hold on I can take ownership of this information and start to put it out in a way that gets a response and that was brilliant. See it's then I had a different relationship with that information.

Speaker 1: 42:55

I I've I feel like we found another rabbit tail and it's true yeah and I think it has an amazing relationship with the other um yeah but that kind of rote learning that like the system process learning like I mean that is dead as a form of thinking that has been outsourced and and this kind of divergent flourishing human thought yeah I mean the idea that you that that is you know extracurricular is just madness. Yeah to me it's you know all we need. Anyway can I just say something close.

Speaker: 43:42

And it's nicely lines up the next conversation we're gonna have which is more about organizations and I so I don't refer to AI in that sense okay because basically anything that's left set say we're learned by route that is repetitive and basic cognitive processing You know, straightforward stuff. AI is going to take all of that. Yeah. So w what we are left with is things like emotions, instincts, and reflections and imagination, all that stuff. That AI, you know, it cannot do. It's a long, long way from being able to do. So the essence of the human species is going to move because of what we created in AI. And that's nothing to be feared, it's something to be understood and dealt with. But more than ever, those non-linear um capabilities that we have to connect things are going to be and to bring all forms of information and intelligence to the table are going to be more and more important to the human species. Because we have outsourced the rational processing stuff. And we're what we're getting left with is the stuff that is uniquely human. That bandwidth of what's uniquely human is now narrower. Or should we talk more about this next time? Next time, I think, yeah. Great. It's always bucket time again now.

Speaker 1: 45:05

Yeah. I'm gonna go and cool down my inner motor, and uh we'll see you again soon for more timers.