Ego syntonic thoughts and values

Ok, but then what?

I mean, this idea sounds about right to me (in general terms) and has direct consequences for my life. I'm in such a conflict right now, so I'm very motivated to find a way to deal with it.

(In case that you're addressing this in an upcoming post soon, feel free to ignore this comment until then.)

I'm currently facing opposition between two different personalities and their associated goals. Roughly speaking, one side has a very stable, mildly entertained, completely withdrawn lifestyle that takes over the whole day, and the other has fairly specific, time-intensive, but exciting ambitions and is seething with hatred over all the wasted potential and seeming incompetence and tyranny of the dominant slacker side. (I'm willing to be arbitrarily explicit, but don't want to derail into my crap unasked.) The situation is quite similar to the heroin addict, though not yet as unstable. Either side makes it look to me and to others as if it were the victim, exactly as you describe.

The conflict is clearly causing me much suffering and is not a satisfactory state of affairs, but it's not clear at all to me what I can do about it. Here's a (probably incomplete) list of things I've unsuccessfully tried over the last years (please note that I'm compressing quite some time and am focusing directly on the conflict, so this sounds probably more intense than it really is):

1. Accept fully the desires of both sides as valid. They are not, strictly speaking, in conflict. I can totally imagine spending, say, working some hours on a long-term goal and some other hours relaxing, or maybe find ways to integrate them. This does nothing. Sure, I don't hate myself for the conflict anymore, but it doesn't resolve it and one side is still utterly dominant for months until the other violently takes over.

2. Try to trace exactly what the conflict is. This was specifically influenced by the Method of Levels and PCT, according to which there must be 2 (or more) control systems that attempt to control for contradictory reference values. I've spent plenty of hours on that, but can't actually identify any direct conflict. I do not get a situation where I can feel both sides pulling in different directions. Rather, I get completely mind-wiped by one side, which takes over, conflict-free, then background suffering builds up, another mind-wipe, the other side rules. If I try to become aware of the background suffering, I just get a completely unfocused, unspecific build-up of pressure in my head and stomach that is intensely painful. I can concentrate on this for hours, but get no further insight or connection to anything whatsoever out of it. (I have found MoL-like analysis useful for other minor issues, though.)

3. Different kinds of meditation. Vipassana. Concentration. Noting. Chanting. Prayer. Trying to be aware of as many internal events as possible. Ditto external. Focusing on rest. All this leads either nowhere or gets the results described in 1) and 2).

4. Drugs. Anti-depressants, uppers, downers, psychedelics, dissociatives, omega 3, whatever. Some make it feel like I'm resolving something (particularly the entheogens), but nothing changes. I always walk away with "oh, that's why I'm suffering, now I got it!" and a few days later, at most, it's all back.

5. Contracts. I've set up multiple contracts with myself, trying to negotiate conditions that are getting closer to resolution, but they hold no power and after a few days I start abandoning them, regardless of how severe the contract was.

6. Finding out what "my purpose" or "my real values" are, by introspection and writing. I don't even get fake results that seem convincing at first, like with the drugs. I have lots and lots of pages of psycho-analytical babble, though.

7. Using CBT and The Work to repair broken or harmful thoughts. Did absolutely nothing for me. Most of the time, I don't even have thoughts. (This wasn't always the case. When I first meditated at 15, I found it hard to sit for 5 minutes and not get overwhelmed by my thoughts. Now I go blank quite often and then get bored.) And the thoughts I found were mostly not about me (but about stuff I read, like what's good about Python, or explaining to myself how spaced repetition works so that I don't forget the explanation). The few worries I could dig out were not really responsive to the approach. If I try investigating my feelings using these techniques, I simply get no results. "What's this anxiety about?", "What does it predict?", "Who would I be without it?", all just gets a mental shrug and "don't know / don't care". I might as well ask what an itch is "about" or "who I would be without it".

8. Using operant conditioning, trivial inconveniences and similar "behaviorist" tools to get rid of one side or keep it in check. (I've tried this with both sides, at different times of course.) No results, except that I changed a few food preferences in the process. Essentially every single akrasia tactic described on LW fails me here.

9. Blatantly and totally picking sides, embracing one personality as the only true one. (Again, did this with each side eventually.) This lead me to actively harm the other, often destroying things, leaving associated communities, the like. Of course, I made my decision public and took full responsibility for the previous conflict and for the new direction I was going to take. This feels great for typically a few weeks (and can trigger quite a manic episode), but then the other side comes back, "willpower" gets drained and I descend into total apathy. There isn't even active opposition anymore; both sides are perfectly willing to commit "suicide" by now and let the other side take over, as long as this damn suffering finally ends, but they don't go anywhere.

10. Give up. I've sat down, stared at a wall and said to myself, "I'm tired of this bullshit and will do nothing anymore! I won't influence anything, won't want anything, prefer nothing, decide nothing, just sit here and stare at this wall. Whatever happens then, I don't care.". I spent a few hours more or less catatonic, then had some kind of peace for a few days, but the background suffering just builds up again and the anxiety, self-hate and pain come back, making it impossible to enjoy anything.

I hope this isn't too incoherent or tl;dr, but I'm frustrated that this looks as if there should be some deep understanding and solution that would actually help me, not just a fancy idea that signals how cynical I am.

By presenting the antidote to Lisa in the form of an external compulsion, he allows Lisa to do what she wanted anyway and avoid feeling guilty.

Wait, what? What on Earth is the purpose of guilt if you can avoid it? Though it does disminish guilt, so it's a mechanism that removes some guilt for actions you're going to continue despite guilt... but what for? It it completely removed guilt, might as well not generate guilt for actions reinforced that strongly. (And if not, why does it exist?) And it's not like you don't continue - so why would it replace guilt as a signal of cooperation?

One of the classic stereotypes of the insane is that they hear voices telling them to kill people.

Two hypotheses: Someone with voices saying "Kill them!" is more likely than someone with voices saying "Let's go fishing!" to be institutionalized. Mental illness is influenced by culture, which propagates this cliché.

Anecdote: Once I had a voice. It told me to do minor random stuff - cross the street at an unusual point, take a parallel street, explore a part of town. I obeyed because why not. Then out of the blue it told me to kill the next person I saw. I laughed at the obvious cliché and pushed the voice away until it was gone.

Socially acceptable ideas present as the conscious mind's own beliefs and desires; unacceptable ones present as compulsions from afar.

I don't believe conscious mind's stated goals can be described as specifically ideas that are socially acceptable, and it doesn't seem like you've made a case for this claim in particular. Arguments from evolutionary psychology are extremely weak, and the data was too scarce to single out this hypothesis. There are all kinds of situations where one would consciously pursue something socially unacceptable.

I think it just so happens that consciously endorsed goals are often socially acceptable, while unconscious drives can go crazy in any number of socially unacceptable ways.

Here, "socially acceptable" plays a role of a broad category that describes many of consciously endorsed goals, and doesn't describe many of the consciously rejected ones. It's easy to find a number of data points that highlight this classification capability, but doing so is not sufficient to suppose close similarity of the categories. There are other familiar categories that fit this requirement, like "non-homicidal", but none of them fit exactly.

Whatever you think of the ethics of their decision, you can't help admire the thought processes.

Tossing a coin would arguably be better. I expect I wouldn't have any kind of trouble with that arrangement if played against someone similar to myself in that respect. With someone sufficiently like myself, I can imagine even discussing the question of whose life should be retained and coming to an agreement (I'm not sure about the potential for a severe psychological backlash from this method of decision-making, but it's probably a less significant consideration than the difference between a better and worse choice for who to save).

(This is an isolated remark unrelated to the topic of the post.)

Other voices would have other messages: maybe that the patient was a horrible person who deserved to die, or that the patient must complete some bizarre ritual or else doom everybody. There were relatively fewer voices saying "Hey, let's go fishing!"

There may be a bit of a selection bias here. If the voices are saying "let's go fishing" or "those shoes are so last season, you really ought to get a new pair" or even "better run disk defragmenter again just to be sure" the person probably does not wind up hospitalized.

There was an article a year or so back in the Times about people with mundane voices in their head forming a support network at it mentioned that this may be much more common than is often thought.

One thing that amazes me is the change over time of this desire/goal divide. Personally, with things like regular exercise, I find that in times of planning my brain will seem in complete coherence - admitting my faults for not exercising and putting forth a plan which seems agreeable to both the consious and unconcious. Once the timefor exercise comes, the tricks start playing.

Maybe the moment of coherence could be somehow captured to be used in the moment of tricks? Also, would those moments be useful to avoid unconscious signalling?

Where do sense end and beliefs begin? Say there are two philosophers who's explanatory styles match their philosophical ideologies. Philosopher A is an idealist. He is also Schizophrenic. When he hears a voice he attributes it to his mind. When he hears his son talk to him he also attributes it to his mind. Philosopher B is an externalist. He also has OCD, predominately obsessional. When he hears a voice it ''echoes'' as thoughts in his mind, sometimes much later than when he heard it. When he hears his daughter talk or her voice echoing in his head he attributes it to the world at large.

Note: auditory hallucinations are distinguished from self-talk by their location in the external world.

"Our ability to talk to ourselves and think in words is a major part of the human experience of consciousness. From an early age, individuals are encouraged by society to introspect carefully, but also to communicate the results of that introspection.[2] Simon Jones and Charles Fernyhough cite research suggesting that our ability to talk to ourselves is very similar to regular speech.[3] This theory originates with the developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who observed that children will often narrate their actions out loud before eventually replacing the habit with the adult equivalent: sub-vocal articulation. During sub-vocal articulation, no sound is made but the mouth still moves. Eventually, adults may learn to inhibit their mouth movements, although they still experience the words as “inner speech”.[3][4]

Jones and Fernyhough cite other evidence for this hypothesis that inner speech is essentially like any other action. They mention that schizophrenics suffering auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) need only open their mouths in order to disrupt the voices in their heads. To try and explain more about how inner speech works, but also what goes wrong with AVH patients, Jones and Fernyhough adapt what is known as the “forward model” of motor control, which uses the idea of “efferent copies”.[3]""

A forward model of motor control. Notice that a prediction of the future state is made just before the movement occurs. Presumably that efference copy is used to establish agency.

In a forward model of motor control, the mind generates movement unconsciously. While information is sent to the necessary body parts, the mind basically faxes a copy of that same information to other areas of the brain. This “efferent” copy could then be used to make predictions about upcoming movements. If the actual sensations match predictions, we experience the feeling of agency. If there is a mismatch between the body and its predicted position, perhaps due to obstructions or other cognitive disruption, no feeling of agency occurs.[3]

Jones and Fernyhough believe that the forward model might explain AVH and inner speech. Perhaps, if inner speech is a normal action, then the malfunction in schizophrenic patients is not the fact that actions (i.e. voices) are occurring at all. Instead, it may be that they are experiencing normal, inner speech, but the generation of the predictive efferent copy is malfunctioning. Without an efferent copy, motor commands are judged as alien (i.e. one does not feel like they caused the action). This could also explain why an open mouth stops the experience of alien voices: When the patient opens their mouth, the inner speech motor movements are not planned in the first place.[3

John, who was much larger than Lisa, decided to hold Lisa down and force the antidote down her throat. Lisa just smirked; she'd replaced the antidote with a lookalike after slipping the real thing into John's drink earlier in the day. [...] Whatever you think of the ethics of their decision, you can't help admire the thought processes.

Presumably this is fiction, so we can't nominate anyone for a Darwin Award.