Scientific Brain Model Chapter XII

 CHAPTER XII - Let us think of the society's educated elite as the conscious knowledge and thought of a human being, in order to get a better understanding of how does our sense of consciousness emerge, what is our conscious thought really about and how our brain's conscious knowledge complements our brain's unconscious wisdom.

 The analogy between the leadership of a human society and the brain of a person likewise provides excellent insight on the specific roles of intuition and conscious thought,as well as how they relate to each other, in order to steer a person's actions through life. Indeed, - albeit notcompletely exact - there is a striking parallelism between the interplay among the modern societys educated elite and the common citizenship, and the interplay among intuition and conscious thought. Evidently, the educated elite of a society is made up of those individuals with the best command of scientific knowledge. Now, to the degree that scientific knowledge provides very useful insight on how things work and how it may be possible to achieve some very important and powerful stuff, it is obviously of much interest and use to be on top of the most advanced theories. Would you not love to know, for instance, what is the magical trick to win any argument?? However, it is important to keep in mind that scientific knowledge is not always correct, nor does it have answers for everything. Rather, it just represents the widest held ideas. on any given subject at any given time. For example, we know how to disinfect a wound; but we do no longer believe we Will live longer, if we eat a whole lot of yogurt. Similarly, we have deciphered all the secrets on how to produce ice, how to build flying vehicles (even send stuff to outter space) or how to transmit, in the fraction of a second, audio and video from one corner of the globe to another; but we really have a very vague and often rather misguided idea on what is the best method to parent a child. Furthermore, does anybody have any clue how to find out if someone is lying, how to get someone to fall in love or what is the magical recipe to be happy? Importantly, since scientific knowledge is meant to explain how things work and how stuff can be achieved, it only consists of the kind of information that can be expressed in some language. Clearly, a theory which cannot be spelled out in words is of no use. For instance, whatever knowledge each of us may have on how to tell between a woman's voice and a man's voice does not constitute any scientific knowledge so long it cannot be expressed in some language.

Now,, as discussed in earlier sections, this kind of language-coded knowledge is the sheer source of our conscious thought. Indeed, - exactly as scientific knowledge - our conscious knowledge is where we code in natural language, everything we have learned about the world, that we are able to spell out with words. As a matter of fact, as it was reasoned in earlier sections, the whole purpose of our conscious knowledge is that it constitutes the source from which we can elaborate complex plans for the achievement of our goals. This stands in contrast with our unconscious wisdom: namely, whereas the associations of our unconscious wisdom only establish a direct connection between two patterns; our conscious knowledge provides the building blocks of the kind of sequences of actions, that define a path through which it is possible to attain a desired goal from a given starting point. If this would not be cool enough, since - not unlike scientific theories - these recipes and plans of action are coded in natural language, they can be effortlessly and conveniently transmitted from one person to another. However, as powerful as this feature is, it likewise represents a critical security threat. In computer systems terms, now anybody may be able to install a trojan in your mind. You Will think that you just acquired the magical trick to achieve your wildest dreams; but, in actuality, you Will only be playing the fool for your new master. You will think you are moving forward; but, in actuality, the only one who is moving forward is your new master.

This caveat has become a major concern nowadays, that humankind's knowledge has grown to such colossal levels. To the extend that we spend the first 10 -20 years of our lives absorbing everything that is taught to us, only a tiny fraction of our knowledge comes from our very particular experiences and reasonings. Our understanding and conceptual framework of the world is consequently completely shaped by the information that has been transmitted to us; but we never have any chance - for one thing, it is basically impossible - to verify, if such information is at all correct or not. For instance, we are time and time again reminded that our so-called Democracy may not be perfect; but it is better than nothing. Yet, is a fake better than nothing at all? Regrettably, the reasoning is repeated to us by so many eminent people, that we eventually end up believing it is true. But, unavoidably, we cannot help feeling something odd about the logic of the whole concept. It goes against everything we have previously experienced and we therefore feel some conflict between the so-called reason and our own instinct. Indeed, it definitely contradicts our intuition of things. Clearly, a little bit of something will be better than nothing at all, if we assume that the thing is something positive. But, what if the thing is actually something bad? Then we would obviously rather prefer not to have any of it at all. For instance, a little piece of information will not necessarily be better than no information at all; if said piece of information happens to be a fake.

Indeed, some of the most fundamental things in our lives are not as they were explained to us. When we are little children we are taught in a civilized society like ours, we should never take the Law into our own hands. If we ever have a dispute with anybody; - as much as we may feel like twisting the other guy's neck off - we should keep it cool, bring the matter to a court of law and have an educated, honorable judge review all the evidence and resolve the whole conflict in an objective, sensible, civilized and just manner. However, when the day comes that you are abused or wronged in some way, and take the matter to court, as the rules require; you find in horror that - unless the case has somehow caught the public's attention and then it becomes necessary to keep the fake-democracy charade - regardless of all what the facts and evidence may indicate, Your Honor the Crook will adjudicate the matter in accordance to the wealthy litigant's powerful attorney's dictate. 

Yes, some of the most fundamental concepts in our lives are not as they are explained to us. We are told that we live in a civilized society and we ought to respect everybody; but then we get stuck in traffic, and wake up to the reality, that it really does not seem there is anybody thinking about anything other than himself or herself. We so get into an agonizing conflict between what our instinct diagnoses and what reason prescribes. That is when we start honking like mad; because, when push comes to shove, we trust our instinct far more than the recipes we have been taught.

Definitely, if we follow the associations of our unconscious wisdom,there is no risk that they may do anything different from what they stand for and so lead to any undesired consequence. Clearly, since this wisdom cannot be expressed in words, it is only possible to learn it through extended personal experience. Furthermore, just because our instinct's associations represent a one-shot, direct connection, it does not mean they may not constitute a colossal leap forward in one's standing in the world. You may, for example, have slowly developed a prodigious talent to tell when someone is lying. 

Cultural burning is an excellent example of how the most amazing discoveries come out of intuition. Indeed, for thousands of years indigenous folks have been accomplishing a feat as complex and sophisticated as maintaining the good balance and health of their ecosystems, without the need for any scientist's intelligent agent to reason things out. In all likelihood they were never aware of all the effects and ramifications of their practices. In fact, it only seems logical that it all started with a simple attempt to clear up some space in the forest, in order to satisfy some very specific, basic need, such as, for example, opening a path through all the vegetation. However, since it worked out well for them, they kept doing it. Moreover, since their environment flourished as a result, those who performed such practices flourished as well.

It all comes to show that, as a matter of fact, most often intuition is nothing but the precursor of the realization. In other words, we generally realize and become aware of something, after we felt some intuition. We do not just randomly try out stuff; but we make educated guesses based on our intuition. Indeed, throughout experience our unconscious wisdom learns associations between patterns. Thus, whenever we next encounter one of them, we will feel a reminiscence of the related patterns. If any of these associations is interesting enough, we will want to confirm our intution: does Y result when action A is applied on X? Not unlike in the scientific method, a model is so hypothesized. Not unlike in a scientific experiment, we then put the inference to a test and, if the outcome is as predicted, we become aware of it and incorporate it into our conscious knowledge (as a matter of fact, in the same way a scientific theory enters our scientific knowledge after its predictive power has been confirmed).

As it happens, an intuition can sometimes stay as such for a very long time. In the case of cultural burnings, it is only after thousands of years that we are beginning to recognize and become aware of all the consequences and the whole logic of the method. On the other hand, in the case of human domestication (i.e. the art of getting a human being to accept your guidance and do as you say), the practice remains so far an intuition. Indeed, throughout human history, for thousands of years, many people have been very successful at getting folks to accept their guidance and do as they said; yet, as to this day nobody has spell out in words what is the magical recipe to accomplish such a formidable feat. We know, however, that in ancient times successful men enjoy to throw great feasts and, incidentely enough, gained a solid and loyal following as a result. It stands to reason to think that the people had come together to celebrate a great hunt. Probably they got a whole lot of meat and it must have seemed a good idea to share it with other less fortunate folks, rather than to let it go to waste. For sure these less successful folks appreciated the great hunters' lovely and generous gesture. It is also likely that, In a way, they unavoidably would forever feel to be a bit in debt with their revered benefactors. As a matter of fact, it was not long before these events got some religious connotation. If the Gods were in control of everything, it only made sense that we expressed our gratitude for all the food they had blessed us with. In fact, our benefactor was no longer a hunter; but the kind of holy man who could employ His special connection with the Divine to obtain Its favor. Only He knew to perform the right sacrifices and rituals as it pleased to the Gods. Needless to say, we likewise revered our holy shepherd for His divine service and were consequently always eager to listen to His wise words of advice. After all, if He loved us and took care of all our needs, as the old, great hunter used to do, it should not come to anybody's surprise that we would perceive and follow Him in the very same way. Indeed, when Martin Luther became aware of the Papacy's corruption, he understood he needed to educate the people on the true word of the Lord, or the world would come to an end. It then did not take a rocket scientist for the French and British North American wealthy revolutionaries to understand that, if they needed to chop the king's head off in order to avoid paying taxes; their best strategy was to educate the people in His Majesty's evil ways and take the lead instead to the new Land of Freedom and Wealth. Indeed, the Press may no longer provide for all our nutritional and material needs; but who would dare to doubt that not only does it seek the common good and the nation's prosperity, but - not unlike the old holymen - it shows the utmost care for our wellbeing. Furthermore, the Press may no longer have a connection with the Divine; but it undeniably represents a wealth of knowledge and wisdom like no other, and so constitutes our most reliable source of information and guidance. To make a long story short, from all this precedents it all seems like the most educated humans have long felt a strong intuition, that, in order for the people to follow their guidance and do as they say, all what it takes is to exhibit a profound knowledge and express the utmost appreciation for one's flock. It has been an intuition; but it would be way too convoluted to think, that all these blessed or good-fortune people had such acute understanding of human psychology, were fully aware of how folks would perceive and react to their expressions of care and gestures of generosity, and it had all been consciously planned with the expectation of gaining sway. Anyone - today or in the past - who finds himself with more meat than his family could consume, would be happy to throw a party, invite folks over and have a blast, sharing food with his new friends. The same can be said about religious leaders: for example, it is well known that the number of Christians grew significantly during the III century BC. This was a very difficult period for the Roman Empire, during which Christian church people did a fantastic labor, helping and providing support to the local communities through excruciating times of devastating plague as well as social and political upheaval. It would certainly be really mean to suggest that the Church's charity was only a strategic plan to gain the power it would eventually reach centuries later. Admittedly, it would be more reasonable to doubt the sincerity of the Press' expressions of care and concern for the people's wellbeing. Obviously, if you want someone to follow you, at the very least show some care. However, as we all know, love alone is not enough to sway the people; something more is needed. Some well-versed figures have suggested that it is a matter of repeating a thousand times a series of well-chosen statements; but that does not seem to always work. It is definitely doubtful that Homer Simpson would ever have any success trying to convince or sway anybody in any way, regardless of how many times he repeats himself. Clearly, some people is able to cause an impression on folks, and some others are not. Perhaps, if humans, since prehistoric times, have always been keen of making exhibition of wealth and exotic goods; it is because we feel that folks will then be more likely to follow us. Similarly, if only intuitively, it should make a difference if you are able to convince folks about your superior knowledge (assuming, of course, it is at all possible to accomplish such a herculian feat). In summary, it all seems like prominent people have long felt the intuition that - whenever they were perceived as stronger, more knowledgeable or, all in all, more powerful - folks would be likely to accept their guidance and do as they said, so long they (convincingly) expressed some care and affection. However, this hypothesis has so far only been an intuition and will remain as such, until the day we put it to a test, confirm it works as predicted and so finally become aware of and accept its validity. In fact, since I have hereby spell it out in words, it from now on becomes public domain and anyone is free to test it. Thus, as with any other scientific theory, it will remain valid so long nobody finds a counterexample.

It all comes to say that - contrary to what is generally believed - our instinct and unconscious wisdom represents a formidable asset and tremendously powerful tool, more than fit to guide us through the most complex problems and scenarios as well as the most ambitious objectives. However, to the degree that our unconscious wisdom's associations only form after extensive practice, for the majority of the situations in which we do not have that much experience, our intuition Will not be able to offer any strong insight, and then it will become necessary to follow some recipe we may have learned from someone else.  

Obviously, at the end of the day, in any given situation a choice Will have to be made, between what our intuition indicates and what our conscious knowledge prescribes. To the extent that our conscious thought controls most of our muscles, our conscious perception, whereby our conscious thought is in charge of everything, makes a lot of sense. Certainly, there are always situations, where an immediate response is required (say, a blow has to be fended off), and our instinct takes the freedom to intervene. However, it seems logical to think that, whenever there is sufficient time available, our conscious thought should be in the most favorable position to reason out the best course of action. Yet, fact of the matter is there is no such intelligent agent making choices, nor is it accurate to say that our conscious thought is in charge of everything, or try to have your intelligent agent thing resist to love. You may be most absolutely aware of how much your love is hurting you; but you will just not be able to help it. It is usually said that love is blind; but we most certainly do not fall in love just because. Of course there are reasons why we fall in love; but we are not aware of them, because they are not accessible to our conscious thought. We fall in love with somebody because we feel a strong intuition, that our life with that person will be significantly better than with anyone else; but we do not follow any kind of language-coded )rational) procedure (of the sort our brain's reasoning and planning mechanism can run) to figure such a thing out. It does not seem too far-fetched that sometime in the future the most educated in the society will come up with a formal recipe, whereby we will be able to identify who is the right person for us (dating websites and mobile apps are in fact already working hard on the question); but, thankfully, matters have not got that bad yet. Rather, the intuition on who is the person that will make our life wonderful comes from a set of unconscious associations, such as her looks, the love in his words, the sincerity of a smile, etc.. It seems reasonable to think that some of these associations have slowly been learned throughout Evolution and come already wired up in our brain when we are borned. For example, we will generally find physically attractive those folks who look healthy and strong. On the other hand, in many other cases throughout life we (unconsciously) learn to associate some gestures or conducts to certain qualities that we find appealing. For instance, the look in his or her eyes is generally a good indication of the sincerity of the other person's love: but if a leader is what drives you wild, a bit of aggressivity may also be a plus. Of course, in some occasions, particularly as we get older and become more cynical and less idealistic, we may start making certain rational calculations, in oreder to determine who may be a good catch; but these rational factors will certainly never be nearly as overpowering as instinctive factors. Now, once a (strong) intuition forms and gets established on who is meant to be our soulmate, all our actions will be conditioned to the achievement of such a paramount objective, and we will be ready to make any sacrifice for it. If our instinct indicates a given move will bring us a step closer to our love; no reasoning will stand a chance to have us to act otherwise. That is when folks will say you are not thinking what you are doing; but, actually, your brain most definitely is.

Indeed, not unlike in our dear old froggy pal's brain, at all times there is a competition among all the alternative courses of action. Whichever of these is more likely to lead us to our most significant objectives will determine our next moves. Our conscious thought is so only the reflection image of the outcome of such competition. Our conscious thought is not the agent, but only the voice. In other words, it is only the expression of the execution of the current course of action. In computer programming terms, it may be comporable to the sensation experienced by a CPU, as it goes through the instructions of a program; but the CPU does not make any choice on what program instruction should be run next; rather, it only executes the instructions which it is fed with.

The critical question is then how does the brain conduct this competition for the next course of action,and what criteria is followed. As a matter of fact, contrary to what we would intuitively find logical, we trust our intuition more than our conscious knowledge. This is for the very simple reason that our conscious thought is not any intelligent agent thinking stuff out. Rather, as stated above, its whole purpose is strictly to provide recipes and plans of action on how to resolve very specific task. If you think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense: you just trust your very own experience. It is not really a disjunctive between your instinct and reason; but you just go by what has worked for you in the past. In fact, there will never be any misgiving to follow a conscious-knowledge recipe you have reasoned out by yourself; since your reason will obviously be speaking for nothing but your very own experience. The caveat is evidently if the fabulous magical recipe is someone else's. A very illustrative example of this capital brain principle takes place when we learn a foreign language. We may take lectures and have somebody explain to us the meaning of words and expressions; but until we actually get the experience, it will not really sink in. If, for instance, I look up the word 'bullshit' in the English-Spanish dictionary, the translation I get is 'tonterias'. But 'tonterias' is something like non-sense, which any native English speaker knows is not exactly the same as 'bullshit'. Fact of the matter is there is not really a good Spanish translation for the word 'bullshit'. Therefore, a native Spanish speaker will never have a precise idea of the exact meaning of 'bullshit', until he goes through the experience of an English speaker spitting out "bullshit!" to some deceitful or pretentious non-sense he may have said. Clearly, the scenarios in which the word bullshit is used are not exactly the same as the scenarios in which non-sense is used. In fact, our understanding of the meaning of a word is not defined by our (conscious) memory of the dictionary's definition; but by our (unconscious) remembrance of the collection of scenarios, in which we experienced said word. 

This example also reveals another drawback of the information represented in our conscious knowledge: whereas our unconscious wisdom allows for a continuous spectrum of shades of grey, the language-coded concepts in our conscious knowledge have a clear-cut shape. As discussed in earlier sections, our brain formed concepts by stereotyping things, in order to be able to efficiently explore alternative courses of action. Clearly, it is just not feasible to consider what will happen for every single shade of grey. Since the (sharply defined) concepts of our conscious knowledge are coded in natural language, we are then able to spell out in words all our plans of action; however, the fine detail and nuance are obviously lost. If, for example, you need to explain to someone, what is the weather at your location; you can describe how does the sky look, by saying it is cloudy, mostly cloudy, partly cloudy, mostly sunny or sunny. However, it would obviously be much more clarifying, if you just show a picture of the sky. In summary, since everything in our conscious knowledge is all coded in natural language and nothing but natural language; the information kept therein is only of the kind that can be expressed in words. In contrast, the associations of our unconscious wisdom link together images, sounds, haptic sensations, tastes, smells, as well as all sorts of emotions and feelings we have experienced in the past. Thus, you will be better able to remember something, the more patterns it is associated with. In other words, as we have all always intuitively known, the more experience we have with something, the better able we will be to remember it; since every little thing will constantly remind us of it.  

We can then start to see why theoretical study and memorization is not only so dreadfully strenuous, but also frustratingly ineffective. You will clearly remember everything so much more vividly, if you had some hands-on experience. For obvious good reasons our brain is really eager to learn all the kind of information, which affect us in some significant fashion. If it does not move you, why would you care to waste brain resources to remember it? To the degree that passively reading some text or listening to some lecture does not come associated with any emotion, our brain will not have any indication of the relevance of the information contained therein. For instance, someone who has grown up outside of a monetary economy, will never be able to understand the meaning of money, no matter how much you may try to explain it to him. Rather, he will need to go through the life-changing experience of the magical conversion of money into a very much valued good, before he can start feeling any appreciation for those weird pieces of paper. Anybody who has tried to learn a foreign language knows well how much of a difference it makes to go through a real-life experience. One can study hard and put a lot of effort in memorizing the dictionary definitions of words and expressions; but nothing will be as effective to forever remember the meaning of a given word, than running into a situation, where the misunderstanding of said word causes some serious embarrassment.

The emotional charge of an episode is definitely the most reliable indication of its relevance; however, if the actual cause or trigger of the whole development roots back deep into the past, our instinct - unable as it is of tracing one's steps back - will be at a lost on what exactly should such intense and significant outcome be associated with. As a matter of fact, going through multi-link sequences of events is precisely our reason's forte and whole purpose; whereas our instinct only understands one-shot associations.

Our passion for the lottery is very illustrative of the shortcomings of our instinct. If it were up to our instinct, we could non-stop play the lottery, time and time again, until we would eventually gamble all our money away. Yes, why would we not play? There is nothing to lose. OK, there is a price to pay for the lottery ticket; but what is that compared to the chance of winning a fortune? True, it is a really tiny chance; but, by the time we realize it, the memory of the money we paid is lost way back in the past, that our instinct is not able to tie things together and associate the disappointment with the long forgotten money. Our reason, on the other hand, will most absolutely be able to link everything together and unequivocally understand that it was a ruinous and unwise investment. This is when Papa comes to sentence: "You were not thinking things over...".

Indeed, if only psychologically, there is a formidable benefit in reasoning things out: namely, if you can spell out your reasoning and explain all the steps you follow to reach your conclusion; you will sound far more convincing. Even if they do not quite understand all the points you make along the way, they will get a very strong idea that you know what you are talking about. Of course, you may as well allow your guts to talk for you and express how much you like or dislike something; but do not expect anybody to listen to you, let alone buy it and follow you. For instance, given what I think about our so-called Democracy, I could go on forever saying how aweful it is and how much I dislike it; but nobody will care to listen anything, I will need to spell out the reasons for my disgust. As a matter of fact, I do think that democracy should be the best form of political system, and the reason why I am so critical of our current system is simply because it is not a true democracy, but is only fake. The obvious problem with this is that, assuming democracy is the best system, then the worst system will be the one that successfully fakes to be a democracy; for the very same reason that the most malign illness should be the one that does not produce symptoms. Basically, a piece of information is not necessarily better than no information at all; since there is not any more harmful piece of information than a fake.

Clearly, reasonings are a tricky thing, since they get corrupted very easily. Obviously, it is not feasible to begin our reasonings with the creation of the Universe; but it becomes necessary to accept certain premises, from which we can draw inferences. We generally lightly assume that these premises are undisputable truths; but more often than we realize they are not. Then, when the assumptions are incorrect, the reasonings will very quickly grow grotesquely non-sensical; but, since it all happened little by little, we will still take them. Nowadays journalists and public-opinion leaders alike are very critical of our politicians. In fact, we often hear the complaint: "the political class is hurting our Democracy". The assumption here is obviously that our so-called Democracy is the best thing since peanut butter, and therefore we should care for its wellbeing and do our best to preserve it. However, given that we all share such a negative view of the conductors of our political system, it stands to reason to call such assumption into question. Indeed, if fake-Democracy does not work for anybody but our despicable politicians and the most wealthy families, then we should probably enthusiastically celebrate that they are doing their very best to bring the freaking monster down. In fact, if there is a good thing about fake-Democracy, it is that it only takes to ignore Mass-Media encouragement to vote on Election Day and the whole nightmare will be over. 

At the end of the day, it is not very productive to wonder whether it is better to follow our instinct or we should listen to our reason. As natural as it is, it is generally a mistake to establish disjunctives between competition or cooperation, between decentralization or centralization, or between instinct or reason. We have it really deeply installed in our brain, that, when all is said and done, we will have to pick the one idea, which best matches our interests, and follow the corresponding leader accordingly. However, systems reach their optimal performance at the point of perfect equilibrium between the system's two polar, counter-balancing forces. Our instinct is bonafide, true blue and reliable; but our reason is likewise a formidable asset. If you have come to know a magical recipe to achieve your wildest dreams, why would you not want to use it, and instead purely act based on your gut. The tricky issue is, however, when the magical recipe has been taught to you by someone else. The real problem is, certainly, when the magical recipes are controlled by just a tiny elite of wealthy families.

Since the advent of Civilization, as an elite of an extended family rose over everybody else, the notion that some people is more intelligent than other, has been very deeply drilled in the human mind. Indeed, some individuals are more intelligent, nobler, and - all in all - better. Perhaps it is because they had been touched by God, because they have more neurons than the rest, because they were gifted with premium neurons or because of some other unknown reason. Fact of the matter is, however, not only there is absolutely no scientific basis to sustain that some people is born with a privileged brain, but all the scientific evidence speaks against the non-sensical, magical-thinking intelligent-agent myth. Yet, depressingly enough, undeniably everybody is most absolutely convinced of it. Consequently, assuming that some individuals are more intelligent than others, then it is only reasonable that the society becomes stratified. Obviously, those blessed with a more privileged brain belong at the top, whereas those with a more lacking, run of the mill thing should remain at the bottom, taking orders from the chosen ones. By definition, it was those great geniuses of the past, who came up with the kind of magical recipes and prodigious ideas, thanks to which humankind has achieved such miraculous scientific and technological advancement. If one is gifted with a beautiful mind, it is only noble, honourable and praiseworthy that one is so generously willing to share one's knowledge and offer one's guidance and help to those less unfortunate folks, who find it more challenging and struggle a bit with the most basic concepts. It is then only inconceivable there can be so many bull-headed dumbheads, who refuse to listen and accept wise advice.

The picture is, however, dramatically different if we dare to question the baseless, magical-thinking intelligent-agent mantra. Indeed, if God or Nature randomly hands out privileged brains, why is it that those at the bottom of the society are always left out. On the other hand, if we are all born with the same brain, given that all living beings are selfish by nature, it is most absolutely reasonable to question the benevolance of your social-better's guidance and advice.

   

To begin with, contrary to what we so adamantly believe, our brains is not equipped with any sort of logic inference engine, with which we could verify the logical correctness of a given reasoning's logical inferences. As discussed in earlier sections, our brains do not follow the laws of Pure Logic. Rather, it is far more useful and powerful to learn - based on our own experience - an estimate of the probability that Y will follow X. Thus, when someone tells us that X leads to Y, the only way we could confirm the correctness of such proposition, is if our own experience is consistent with it. However, if we already have our own experience with the phenomenon, then we will obviously not need someone else's lecture. It could be argued that, even if we lack experience with the thing, we could still be able to verify the validity of an inference from some recipe we may have learned. But, obviously, if we lack the experience, then we could have never reasoned out said recipe ourselves, but it would have to be someone else's. We will therefore run into the same problem: if we do not have experience with a given subject, we will have no other choice than to trust or not our lecturer's advice. It then makes a whole lot of sense that we would only take advice from those stronger, more knowledgeable or - all in all - more powerful individuals, who we feel care for us.

The system worked wonderfully until some families rise over the rest. Then, our social betters will only need to express some love and affection, and we will all fall for anything they may say. Now, if you discovered a magical recipe to get folks to do as you say, what fool would not want to exploit it. In fact, all the myths we have fallen for and continue falling for is the most glaring evidence, that there is no logic-processing intelligent agent inside our brains. For instance, what is the logic in the "our so-called Democracy is not perfect, but it is better than nothing" sham? Is a fake perhaps better than no fake at all? Yet, evidently, we have all fallen hook, line and sinker for it. Indeed, - contrary to what Graeber and Wengrow, as well as many other of our best thinkers seem to suggest - the upper class reinforces old myths and fabricates new ones at a faster pace than they are debunked. Absolutely, the deceptive call for freedom may have originated in the night of time; but it suffices to read "The Dawn Of Everything" to see that the Freedom myth is stronger today than ever before. It is certainly awesome to be free to do as one fancies; but for some really lamentable reason, the upper class always conceals the rather stubborn reality, that freedom is not a limitless, universal good. Namely, my freedom ends where your freedom starts. Consequently, if all restrictions on individual freedoms are removed, and everybody becomes free to do as he or she pleases, so long he or she owns enough money to pay for it; then we are back to the law of the jungle, where the strong is free to abuse and exploit the weak. The social betters have taught us Civilization is humanity's most marvelous achievement and now the jungle turns out to be our ideal world. Of course, there is the Law; but as much as the social betters have taught us we are all equal to the Law, the social betters' attorney is always going to make sure the Law is not applied equally to everybody; but in accordance to how much money is paid in attorney fees. It is the crooked logic of the "right to an attorney as the guarantor of a fair legal system" sham. No wonder the social betters have instructed us to never take the Law into our own hands; but, if we ever have any conflict with someone else, we should always bring it to the legal system. We have been taught that as civilized people we must refrain from acting instinctively. We have been indoctrinated into the belief that our instinct is given to violent responses. However, this notion is only based on the violence exhibited by barbarian warriors of the past. Civilization has always had it that barbarians - much unlike civilized humans - were not rational beings, and their savage behaviors were due to the fact, that they could only follow their instinct. The rationale has always been that when we act out of instinct, we do not regard what consequences may result; whereas rational people use their reason to analyze the long-term implications of their actions. If we only consider that we are all selfish by nature, it makes sense to believe that our instinct is not going to contemplate how our actions will affect other folks. However, the most knowledgeable in the society - pathologically obsessed with wealth as they have always been - has never understood that human beings need to feel loved in order to be happy. Thus, while reason has always missed this fact, our instinct has always felt the intuition. Indeed, as children we (instinctively) learned that mom will never felt more proud of us than when we were nice. If we ever helped someone or did some good deed, mom came to give us a big hug, kiss us and express her dearest love and affection. Those were the most wonderful moments in our lives. Clearly, if humans love to help, it is not because we make any kind of careful, rational calculation of what would be our benefit down the road. Rather, we only instinctively follow our eternal quest in pursuit of love. We just feel an intuition that we will feel in Heaven after doing a good deed. If, as I suggest, the interaction of the social animal with the other members of the group is defined by the basic pattern of competition and cooperation; then it would be reasonable to argued that our pursuit of love is nothing but the sheer expression of our cooperation strategy, and its ultimate motivation is thus the help we will receive in return down the road, whenever we win the love of another person. However, we are certainly not conscious of it, as it is not done out of reason. Still, it all comes to show that, contrary to what the most knowledgeable in the society has always believed and adamantly sustained, our instinct is not only not given to selfish conducts or violent responses, but it is concerned with the long-term consequences of our actions, as much as with the short-term. In fact, it is not hard to see, that selfish conducts and violent responses are in general the worst strategy to accomplish anything good in the long run, and it is so only natural that our instinctive behaviors are friendly, gentle and generous in all but the most rare circumstances. We can therefore conclude that the main difference between reason and our instinct is that, while reason provides a detailed list of steps and milestones to be traversed in order to attain a certain objective, our instinct only indicates a certain direction in which to move.

  Things have never quite worked that way, however, for those born at the top of the society, with any real option to ever achieve supreme power. Competition has always been fierce at the top levels of the society, and any expression of love has always been perceived as a sign of weakness. In a world where the fight for the inheritance of the family's wealth, power and prestige made of your siblings the most dangerous of your enemies, as Machiavelli - the master of political scientists - explained, it is better to be feared than to be loved. To the degree that love played a role in an upper-class person's life, it was in order to gain a strong following. In fact, the rise of Civilization marks the time, where knowledge finally replaces physical strenght as the primordial factor in the fight for power. Indeed, whoever had the best command of technological, scientific and ideological knowledge would come out on top. While technological and scientific knowledge represented the decisive last straw that would break your enemy's back on the day of the final showdown on the battlefield, scientific and ideological knowledge became fundamental in order to assemble a strong following. On one hand, a good scientific idea gave your folks a good reason to believe in you. On the other hand, a powerful ideology actually got the folks to believe in you. Clearly, whoever knew how to bring his people together and lead them to the land of wine and roses would be invincible. However, let us get real, to the extent that the concern of those at the top of the society has always been their personal advancement, rather then their flock's wellbeing, if they ever did anything for the advancement of the whole, it has only been as a circuitous means to achieve a more sinister self-centered end. 

Yes, while ideally the most knowledgeable in the society would function as the brain of the whole, for the sake of drawing a simplified description of the functions carried out by our instinct and conscious thought, that could in turn help us get a better understanding of the origin of the dysfunctionalities of human societies past and present, it would be useful to conceive the educated elite as a person's conscious knowledge and thought, whereas the populace represents her unconscious wisdom and intuition. Definitely, it is not that the educated elite is "more intelligent" or has a better brain than the populace. Rather, everyone knows very well the kind of stuff he or she does on a daily basis. However, to the degree that the kind of work performed by the populace is not intellectual, the knowledge required develops through practice and experience. In contrast, the educated elite's expertise is based on knowledge, which comes expressed in words. The crucial difference is that the knowledge employed by the educated elite has been developed, improved and refined throughout millennia. In other words, it results from the effort, study and research that many other people in the past have devoted to the subject. Obviously, it takes many years of study to learn; but once you graduate you are sitting on top of a formidable mountain of information. Fact of the matter is you will have a better understanding of things than the brightest people in History. For instance any Physics graduate will know more than Isaac Newton, any graduate in Economics will know more than Adam Smith and any graduate in Philosophy will know more than Aristotle and all other great philosophers of the past put together. Obviously, the same could not be said of a fisherman, an athlete or a folk singer. Moreover, since only a very selected group of individuals have access to the leading elite schools, it is only a very selected educated elite of people, who master the most advanced human knowledge. In other words, the educated elite have the best command of the most profound and leading knowledge on how things work and how to accomplish the most advanced and powerful stuff. For instance, regardless of how much work experience a professional firefighter may have accumulated over the years, if he has never attended school, he will never be as knowledgeable in forest management as a Ph.D. in forestry.

Obviously, all this is rooted in how our knowledge is divided in unconscious wisdom and conscious knowledge. Namely, in order to ride a bicycle, fine-tune a piano, identify the sex of a newly hatched chick or perform any kind of accurate wine tasting you rely on your unconscious wisdom. Whereas, if you want to become a rocket scientist, an economist, an artificial intelligence engineer or a master chef, you will first need to develop a profound and detail conscious knowledge on the field in question, by studying all the relevant concepts, recipes and methods. For example, how do you put a satellite in outter space?, how do you calculate the standard deviation of a distribution, how do you solve a differential equation?, how do you make puff pastry crust?, etc.. However, evidently, there are very significant differences in how the educated elite steer human societies, and how in the brain our conscious thought and conscious knowledge work together with our intuition and unconscious wisdom. First and foremost, while the brain exhibits a stunning perfect harmony; human societies, not only have never worked very well, but are getting worse by the day.