City of Lights

Great post! Some thoughts/experience I'd like to add:

1) How I got started. I began using a multiple-sub-agents heuristic for introspection when I stopped thinking of my mind as a point-mass. The brain has physical extent, and there even parts of my brain that I don't much identify with as "me" even though they affect my bodily functioning and behavior. I thought, how might those parts work? How should I treat them? And then, hey, why not treat them like people? They're made of brain, too.

By priors picked up from descriptions of various people trying this, you're reasonably likely to identify one of your sub-agents as "you".

2) "I am my executive system." To avoid losing or constantly changing my sense of self, and to maintain neutrality, I try to identify most strongly with my executive system (theorized by Miller, Cohen and others to operate primarily in the prefontal cortex). I think of "me" as a team leader who can coordinate the efforts of the rest of my various brain functions toward coherent goals that take into account their individual preferences. For example, sometimes I'll tell my entertainment-seeking-distraction function that it's probably in his best interest to let my productive-ambitious function work and build opportunities so life can be more entertaining on average in the future.

3) An honor system with signalling. When I strike a deal like that between conflicting functions or "sub-agents", I find it extremely important to honor the deal so the sub-agents continue to trust my leadership. After committing to this as a policy, I've found it unbelievably easier to negotiate inner conflicts, especially akrasia. For example, when I strike a deal between work and (other) entertainment, I commit to the entertainment agent that I will not procrastinate entertainment indefinitely. Then, I indulge on occasion as a signal that I will honor the deal more as I get older.

I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems to me that this "honor system with signaling" is absolutely essential to maintaining my own "inner order", and my quality of life has increased dramatically since I adopted it. Of course I can't be sure how it'd work for others, but it's an idea.

This post should definitely have mentioned Julian Jaynes. ;)

Other related material includes Virginia Satir's "Parts party" (brief description).

One way I recognize my various parts is that they come out to different extents according to the company I keep. When I'm with people whose thinking is sloppy that bugs the hell out of my inner Spock and he comes out swinging. When I'm hanging out with a bunch of rationalists my inner Mysterian screams at every appearance of a Myth of Pure Reason.

This can lead to some graceful ways to disagree with people, btw. "Part of me wishes you were right, but my inner Tyler Durden finds that wishy-washy and is making rude comments. How do your arguments stand up to what we know of human nature?" This is much more satisfactory than giving Tyler Durden the run of your mouth and accusing your interlocutor of angelism outright.

Plus, it helps to recognize that even if you think your interlocutor is an idiot, they may not be entirely an idiot, just temporarily under the control of an idiotic part.

I don't do this as explicitly as the post suggests (and never to the extent of writing dialogue) but the turn of phrase "part of me agrees/disagree" is familiar, and I suspect it turns up in my thoughts from time to time.

Cross-posted from Seven Shiny Stories

6. Community

Billy has the chance to study abroad in Australia for a year, and he's so mixed up about it, he can barely think straight. He can't decide if he wants to go, or why, or how he feels about the idea of missing it. Eventually, he decides this would be far easier if all the different nagging voices and clusters of desire were given names and allowed to talk to each other. He identifies the major relevant sub-agents as "Clingyness", which wants to stay in known surroundings; "Adventurer", which wants to seek new experiences and learn about the world; "Obedience to Advisor", which wants to do what Prof. So-and-So recommends; "Academic", who wants to do whatever will make Billy's résumé more impressive to future readers; and "Fear of Spiders", which would happily go nearly anywhere but the home of the Sydney funnelweb and is probably responsible for Billy's spooky dreams. When these voices have a chance to compete with each other, they expose questionable motivations: for instance, Academic determines that Prof. So-and-So only recommends staying at Billy's home institution because Billy is her research assistant, not because it would further Billy's intellectual growth, which reduces the comparative power of Obedience to Advisor. Adventurer renders Fear of Spiders irrelevant by pointing out that the black widow is native to the United States. Eventually, Academic and Adventurer, in coalition, beat out Clingyness (whom Billy is not strongly inclined to identify with), and Billy buys the ticket to Down Under.

Another incarnation of this idea is Internal Family Systems Therapy.

My biggest advantage from switching to a multiple selves perspective: Being more accepting of seemingly ignoble desires affecting my behavior.

Gotta please all my "selves", even if I am not proud of them, but simultaneously not let them define who I am.

There seems to be an important point here, but it all seems a little un-rigorous, rather like you just did a post on methods of alchemy or astrology.

In the end, it turned out that the alchemists were on to something (chemistry and nuclear physics) but the astrologers weren't. At this level of speculativeness, how can we tell which kind of pre-science this is? Is there good any peer-reviewed research on the predictive value of these ideas?

Your sub-agents should not outright lie to each other ("should" in the predictive, not normative, sense - let me know if it turns out yours do), but they may threaten, negotiate, hide, and be genuinely ignorant about themselves.

I disagree! Finding out when we are lying to our 'selves' about either beliefs or values is one of the most valuable outcomes of this exercise. Lying to our selves so that we may more effectively lie to each other is a core human (homo hipocritus) skill!

This division seems useful for me, though I only developed it today so I'm not sure of the long-term usefulness. (I have lots of subagents!)

The Accomplisher / The Scientist - Wants to seriously Get Things Done for the sake of the feeling of accomplishment that follows. Also wants to learn new skills, both for their own sake and to understand the world better. One of the driving forces that gets me to work on various self-help schemes, like this one.

The Bon Vivant - Wants to enjoy various pleasures, from computer games to good books to role-playing.

The Artist - Wants to create great art (stories, computer games) for their own sake, and for the pleasure of being immersed in another world that the act of creating them brings with it.

The Visionary - Part Bon Vivant and part Artist, frequently found in the company of both. Likes to dream up vast, unrealistically beautiful visions of utopias and worlds, and laments not being able to actually live in them.

The Prestige-Seeker - Wants appreciation, glory and everlasting fame. Often spends so much time and energy talking and planning how the Artist's works will make them all famous that the Artist gets all stressed out and doesn't actually get anything done.

The Communicator - Wants to take the knowledge accumulated so far and spread it to other people, so that as many as possible could learn and benefit from the information.

The Fuzzy Altruist - Wants to make people's lives better in a personal way, like talking to them about their problems and being able to directly see the effects of that help.

The Lover - Wants to build deep, lasting relationships (whether romantical or not) with people. Seeks soul-bonds of the sort where two people can be completely honest and open with each other, with no need for secrets of any kind. Would want to always have at least one soul-bonded person near.

The Attention Seeker - Wants attention, particularly from friends and loved ones, enjoying things like saying silly but cute stuff and dressing up. Also wants to have lots of physical closeness.

The Nurturer - Wants to act in a parent/big brother/kind uncle role for kids, teaching them various kinds of things they'll find useful in the world and be an extra source of comfort if they need one.

The Strategic Altruist - Wants to make people's lives better in a way that actually maximizes the amount of good done per dollar (or hour, or whatever). Frequently rather dominant.

The Knight - Believes in a personal, somewhat vaguely defined code of honor involving truthfulness, reliability and integrity, and wants to uphold that by whatever the means.

The Baby - Wants to just be spoiled and pampered and be taken care of by someone else without needing to worry about anything.

The Playboy - Wants sex, lots of it. Also wants to look sexy and appealing.

The Sadist - Wants to enjoy the feeling of control over people, unhindered by moral considerations. (Well, for as long as the people in question actually enjoy being dominated or are only imaginary, that is.)

The Submissive - Wants to enjoy the feeling of being controlled by someone else, possibly one who doesn't hesitate to cause some pain. (Though not too much.)

Related: Neuroeconomics, Dennett's The self as a Center of Narrative Gravity

I haven't had my sub-agents talk much in the past few months, so I'm not completely sure this is accurate. I'm going to bring them out to play again soon, so I may come back and edit if I discover things have changed since they last talked. (I started doing this because I had an important decision to make that I couldn't consult others about. The sub-agents talked for hours. So I brought them out only when I had something really big for them to hash over, and they've never been able to resolve things quickly. Is this usual? Any advice for having more frequent conversations that are shorter and/or multitaskable?)

I'd had HP:MOR on my mind when I started doing this, so I started out with the theme of Harry's four house sub-agents, but they deviated a lot from that.

Green ended up the "designated rationalist". It wants to fulfill the others' desires as much as possible, and doesn't really have any of its' own. It's better than the others at reasoning about what will actually happen if we do something, and what's actually true. It doesn't mind saying things that are unpleasant (or else is slow to realize that they're unpleasant - I'm not really sure). It's pretty terrible at being tactful because of that, and because it tends to get mad at the others when they're being self-defeating. Multiple versions of Green will debate with each other to sort out factual/non-normative questions.

Red is my larger-than-life self, I guess. It's trying to focus on what's important, but does so in a naive way. It has big goals (protect everyone, protect friends, and possibly some wannabe-hero-ness), which it's very sure are more important than what the rest of me wants. It tends to forget about practical constraints and fall for logical fallacies, but can correct for that once it's pointed out (usually by Green). It tends to be really shouty and indignant (but that might be because most of my sub-agent conversations happened because Red was frustrated). It does listen to the others, since it's stuck with us.

Yellow is a mix of things, and I'm not completely sure they belong together. Desire for good relationships with the people I know, approval, and having a comfortable life, probably also some other "normal" things. It's pretty good at "empathizing" with the other sub-agents. (Yellow usually translates when Green wants to tell Red something especially uncomfortable.)

Blue was supposed to be a sub-agent, but it rarely participates in conversation. I'm not sure whether the topics we've talked about haven't interested it, or I don't have a Ravenclaw part, or I have one that's not very verbal.

"Phoenix" appeared unexpectedly - basically just a thing in my brain that gets very loud in a nonverbal way when I'm feeling moral horror. This is probably more of a shorthand for describing that feeling, than a sub-agent. Red translates for it, usually just to inform the others of what it's screaming about. It doesn't have a very large role in these conversations.

"Myself" mostly acts as a moderator - introducing the topic of conversation, and then occasionally nudging it. Most of what I have to say after the beginning is just yelling at the other sub agents to "be nice". They don't seem to mind, and they do the same thing to each other pretty often. I think "be nice" is mainly serving as a reminder that cooperation is necessary, not a disendorsement.

An unexpected benefit was realizing that Green gets control of my mouth sometimes, and usually makes a mess of it. A friend is telling me their problems, and I start analyzing the situation and suggesting solutions very bluntly, when that's not what they wanted. I'm better at realizing when this is happening now, and when I notice myself starting to do it, I call in Yellow to translate (if I have the mental energy for that, it's difficult to do in real conversations), or I tell the person I'm talking to that they're talking to Green (but worded in a way that they'd understand) and ask if they want to proceed. I think doing this has helped me avoid making my friends feel uncomfortable or hurt.

data on the usefulness of the practice from more than one outside source

References would have been awfully nice.

If you consciously steer the entire dialogue you will not get as much out of it - then you're just writing self-insert fanfiction about the workings of your brain, not actually learning about it.

That reminds me a bit of PJ Eby's list of ways people sometimes do his RMI technique wrong. (PJ, if you're reading this, would you mind if I posted it? I'm referring to the list from page 55 of TTD. I know RMI isn't exactly the same as what Alicorn is talking about, but I think they're probably invoking related or identical mental processes, and some of your tips on not messing it up seem like they'd be helpful here.)

I'm feel silly that I didn't think of this technique on my own. It's always my facilities that my alternatives come over to. They get free beer, big TV's, fast internet...and they always save bookmarks on my laptop that seem rather strange. I'm not even sure where they go when they leave here, They always like to crack witty jokes about stuff I'm doing, but it's out of respect. When they start bickering among each other, it always ends up in everyone leaving.

If Desire for Cake stages a protest outside the White House equivalent of my brain and manages to get a petition signed by a bunch of other agents that happen to be friends with it such as Desire to visit Cake World with the lovely scenery, Desire not to anger friend who loves to cook, and Desire to fill stomach by avoiding mess food etc., would Desire to stay healthy be entitled to manipulate internal brain politics for it's own end?

I hear Desire for Cake is also a bit of a conspiracy theorist and an excellent litigator. It often gets its way at the expense of all other sub-agents.

I've actually been doing this for a while, and I find it really useful. My list of sub-agents is as follows, ones more likely to be endorsed marked with a (+):

*Me (executive)

*Internal Critic/devil's advocate (2nd executive who takes the opposite position from the first)

*Rationalist/scientist (+)

*Ambition (+)

*Conscience (+)

*Optimist (+)

*Cynic

*Arrogance (frequently rebels against endorsed entities/positions)

*Inner adolescent/sense of humor

*Immediate desires/drives (akrasia, hunger, libido, etc.)

Rather fragmented, but they are hardly ever all there at once. Cynic and Optimist don't show up at the same time, Conscience is often played by one of the executives, and Adolescent rarely has anything to say.

Thanks for the TvTropes warning.

I once had a Self-Insert MC in a book of mine with this system. He had 4 parts:

1) The Kid: Scared, cowardly, wanting peace, friends, love, stealth and stagnation as the now was better than ever before and every step forward meant a possible pitfall that could be avoided

2) The Killer: Essentially what happens when the Kid gets proven right one too many times but the now isn't good enough anymore. Maniacal, violent, selfish, no values or honor, An animal that has stripped all intellect but what it needs to scrape back up to a better place so the Kid can have another chance in the right now, Can only think in Short term impulses and solves for the best outcome in days at best or hours at worst.

3) The King: The one who wishes for progress, improvement, and building. The one ruthlessly looking for long-lasting optimization of everything, who wishes to satisfy the Kid better than ever before, the one who will build the best future even if he has to get his hands dirty, but only if getting his hands dirty won't hamper him a decade down the line

4) The Icon: An imaginary version of the MC, speaking to him from a future of luxury and joy and tribal perfection, where he's loved and respected. He exists mostly to consult the King as every action in the now echoes in the future, and since he's an ideal, he always counts down from perfection, always making it a point to remind him what he just took away from him

Wonderful article. This idea of a "mental chorus" comprised of some combination of descriptive historical components of the self as well as aspirational components seems very rich for examination and experiment. I wonder how thinking in this way can most effectively be combined with mindfulness practice to optimize self-interactions.

I have a fear about this. My fear is that by naming and concentrating on sub-agents I'd exacerbate any tendency I might have towards Dissociative identity disorder.

Does anyone have more data on that, which may allay my fear?

Talk to yourselves aloud or in writing...

This may be out of left field, but I recommend talking to yourself as yourself, rather than as you'd talk to someone else. In other words, cut out any inadvertent signaling in your voice (spoken or imagined). For some this may seem alien or impossible, for others it may be perfectly normal. Still others probably think they do talk to themselves as themselves, but don't.

The reason is just the obvious one that interactions with other people are rarely if ever conducted on a purely rational wavelength, and there's no reason to inadvertently carry those extra distractions over into your own self-talk and contemplation. Maybe no one does this - friendly warning just in case.