Daily pages - July 31, 2021

I had hopes of writing today but I got up so late and felt so crappy that it didn’t happen. I had thought that maybe I could use this writing to try and write a coherent outline for personal universe. Maybe I could try that.

The idea of improving ourselves is a tricky one. What are we improving, exactly? The answer is complex and cognitive scientists are constantly learning new details about how our minds work.

If we look at what your mind does comprehensively, it helps you operate in the physical world by creating an internal model of physical universe. We use that model, or simulation, to predict what might happen as we interact with physical objects and other life on the planet. We can use our simulated universe to imagine scenarios and let them play out. I think it’s even possible for us to run multiple simulations at the same time, one of the physical universe, but also many other imagined universes. There are a number of cinematic and fictional universes that many of us share, including J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, The magical/muggle world of J.K. Rowling, and many more.

Our internal model is built from our experience. Buckminster Fuller borrowed an idea from Sir Arthur Eddington that given the fact that we cannot prove that the universe exists outside our senses, we can properly define Universe as the aggregate of all human experience of Universe. To be a bit more clear, we can say that the aggregate of all human experiences is Humanity’s universe, and as members of humanity, each of us is responsible for our little piece of the whole. We are each keepers of our own personal universe, and that personal universe and our internal model are one and the same.

So it seems crazy that we’re not working harder to take care of and improve this personal universe. To be effective acting in the universe, it’s important that our personal universe be as similar as possible to the physical universe. That way, we can predict things accurately and create things that will actually work in the real world.

To be most effective, we need to move along four change vectors to improve our personal universe: - from inaccurate toward accurate - from disconnected toward integrated - from specialized toward comprehensive - from rigid to flexible (or from certainty toward acknowledging uncertainty)

Much of what we call self-help falls under one of these change vectors, from taking classes to make our understanding more comprehensive and integrated, to being a critical thinker so we can make sure the interpretation of our experiences or the experiences of others are accurate. It’s helpful, I think, to be able to look at all of it as part of a larger system of strengthening your personal universe.

Strengthening your personal universe is always an additive process. We only add to our knowledge, including knowledge about how one bit of knowledge connects with another (integration). An understanding of how little we know allows us to keep our minds open so that new information–new challenges to our personal universe–can be perceived, processed and integrated.

We need to be actively challenging our personal universe as a way of getting more effective. In some ways, asking “what can I do to make my personal universe better” is not that different than the question this book is based on: “what can I do to help create a better world?” The two processes are best attempted together. The stronger your personal universe is, the more effective you’ll be at solving the kinds of problems we need solved to build a better world. Solving those problems will make your personal universe stronger in turn, and before you know it you’ll be in a virtuous cycle in which both you and the world are getting better and stronger.