If intense focus is a state of “flow”, the distinct state in which you’re most defocused and open to ideas (which I think is very similar to the state you’re in right before falling asleep) is more of a “drift”. You’re kind of being “carried along” on the tide of your subconscious mind.
There is an analogue of the locus of control applicable to morality: there are some who look externally for their values, seeking them in shared communal experiences, culture, economics, politics, or religion. There are others who seek to develop their values internally, through integration of their senses, individual experiences, thoughts, and feelings. The different characteristics of these sources of morality lead to different behaviors, life priorities, social associations (and identities), and leisure activities. Externally derived morality concerns itself with collecting and integrating social perspectives, while internally derived morality emphasizes introspection and expression of the self.
There is a trait which must be coupled to self-actualization: self-*realization*. It is not enough to see what one’s full potential is – one must also find an effective means of expression and self-transformation to see that potential accomplished. This is very hard, and is probably necessary for an actualized state to remain stable.
…Because otherwise the world will pwn you 🙂
While self-actualization sits at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as the ideal to be achieved, even within the model it is not the pinnacle of human development: self-actualized individuals are prone to what Maslow refers to as “peak experiences”, which in a very simplified way can be described as feelings of overwhelming possibility and interconnectedness in which new ideas and values form.
A deeply disturbing realization came my way today: the process by which both Hitler and the Unabomber came to their deranged beliefs is strikingly similar to the generally positive peak experience. These “shadow peaks” provoke the same reevaluations of worldview, yet the result is something twisted and inhumane. I believe that the risk of this is accentuated with a highly negative environment, despite the fact that a negative environment can also provoke more stable individuals at a high level of development to positive peaks.
Humanity’s primary selective advantage is not intelligence, but our social structure and intellectual *variance*. Every individual does not replicate every other individual’s discoveries; rather, one unusually bright person discovers something novel and shares it, enabling everyone else to benefit as well. This is part of our evolutionary heritage.
This explains a huge amount of human behavior which appears irrational under the assumption that intelligence is humanity’s primary selective mechanism. This is both why people tend to have an altruistic streak and why stupidity still exists. It is why tradition still exists, and thus why religion was naturally selected for and culture evolves. It is why war is made on a *group* rather than individuals – it is why genocide is practiced. It is why capitalism works (it provides an individual incentive to further foster this behavior). It is why the masses behave not like sheep, but like dogs, and why a very large number of people can be persuaded by individual demagogues and movements.
Lacking science, people had no way to explain the laws of nature or why certain consequences were associated with certain actions – nevertheless, the causes and effects themselves were understood (as I said earlier, science explains cause+effect+mechanism; mysticism explains cause+effect). It was an advantage to codify the actions that allowed people to stay alive and to integrate this deep into the psyche and the theology came along for the ride as a plausible explanation, if not a particularly grounded one. The result: religious people stayed alive, non-religious people died out. This not only created a selective pressure for religion, but convinced the religious that *the unbelievers really were being punished*, strengthening the belief in the religious population as well. (So this is a trait that’s both genetically and memetically reinforced).
There are two types of traits which people refer to as “intelligence”, and two regions of the brain with their storage infrastructure: there’s the ability to draw new insights from disparate data, mediated by inductive long-term retrieval (hippocampus) and there’s the ability to draw formal and rapid mathematical/logical conclusions from existing theorems, mediated by working memory (anterior cingulate cortex).
“Strength in numbers” indeed: I had posted an observation in the past that a key component of social identity was finding a “scapegoat” group which was in some way similar to one’s own and trying one’s best to put that group down or set it as the “lesser” group. (As an aside, because this sort of similarity is kind of like a Hamming distance – number of things that need to change to transform one into the other – which is a symmetric measure, such things tend to be reciprocal: “A thinks B is less and B thinks A is less”. Who is right? Probably neither; both are equally petty).
Well, that would imply that social identity is built on top of a deep-rooted sense of insecurity, which is countered by gathering many people with the same characteristics. Having others who think like us makes us feel Secure. Confident. Right.
An interesting corollary of this is that people who tend to feel confident/secure/right enough on their own have no need for social identity. This would seem to link self-confidence to traits ranging from individuality to creativity or an entrepreneurial mindset.
Here’s a fun and revealing thought experiment: What would you do if stranded on a deserted island (no other people on it) with all of your basic needs (hunger, water, shelter, …) completely provided for as long as you remained?
Upon examining several “psychosomatic” conditions, noting their hypothesized causes, observable signs (and lack thereof), and suffering through some of them myself over the years from time to time (as someone prone to somatization disorder but self-aware enough to recognize it for what it is), I’ve come to the conclusion that these disorders are largely neurological rather than psychiatric in origin. That’s not to say that stress or other psychiatric factors can’t provoke these diseases; they very often do. However, the predisposition to these conditions appears to be largely innate, with lower pain thresholds and increased visceral sensitivity prevalent in a number of conditions, as well as objectively observed differences in the levels and balance of neurotransmitters (particularly serotonin). And then there’s the resistance of somatization to psychiatric treatment (probably exaggerated; one study found that CBT worked well), suggesting a neurally-grounded cause.
All this is to say that we should be paying more attention to the neurological basis for these diseases. I haven’t run across any good fMRI studies of patients with somatiform disorders, both at rest and when suffering from the disorder. It’d be an interesting direction to explore.