How the human mind works

The workings of the human mind are less complex once we find the right perspective on them.

Yes, I have studied psychology. And no, I haven’t learned too much about the human mind. It’s another case of a science that got stuck in internal methodological debates and found all the wrong answers to the wrong questions.

From 1999-2003, I conducted a series of research projects that followed an innovative thinking approach that blended logical visual engineering with subjective empirics and intense observation. It took place at the psychological institute at Humboldt University, Berlin with over 60 students and in 3 different departments.

We never published the results, because they were considered “unscientific” and too far-reaching. I believe they are the answer to most questions in modern psychology. One of the most important outcomes is a basic operation model of the human mind that proved to be very useful – here it is:

Basically, the human mind is build on a pretty straightforward architecture: it consists of energy sources that I call “emotions” (a), a cognitive space that utilizes logical rules to connect mental objects with emotions and each other (b), the sense that represent the interfaces to the outside world (including the body) and provide an ongoing stream of information (c), and the entire body that turns emotional impulses into behavior and creates effects in the outside world.

The entire system is a highly advanced survival system that is designed to utilize data processing to come up with the best possible behavior. Humans receive information, assess them, give emotional responses to them, and turn these responses into behavior based on their previous experiences and the derived logical consequences.

In details, the most interesting components are the cognitive and emotional space of the human mind: each emotion has a certain activation pattern, and – if activated – reacts with a certain action energy impulse. This impulse is not directly converted into behavior, but represents a diffuse cognitive impulse that is then further processed inside the cognitive space.

The ingenuity of the human psyche is that it is hardwired with all the important basic impulses and activation patterns, but combines this hardwired framework with a highly flexible cognitive space.

Love, Hate, Desire, Fear, Greed, Caution and all other basic emotions are always the same in their very basic core – but they can be triggered by totally different events, and can lead to totally different reactions depending on the logics of our cognitive space.

People’s personalities differ in two respects: first, of course, in what is contained in their cognitive space. And second, what their hardwired emotional structure exactly looks like. Both the kind of emotions – the activation patterns and action impulses – can be slightly different (even though the basic set of emotions seems to be located in a pretty narrow window for all humans), and – more important – the intensity of the action impulses can differ.

This model of the human psyche is pretty powerful and has significant implications on the theory of progress and knowledge. It makes clear that knowledge – maps of cause and effect, or the logical matrix within our cognitive space – is basically the only thing that matters: it’s the only component that we naturally can change within us or others, the only component that can improve our behavior and personality, and the only component that allows us to grow.

By understanding the rules of the human cognitive space, and engineering the knowledge technologies that induce the most effective change within it, we can change the human universe both inside and outside ourselves.

It is probably the most ingenious and thrilling aspect of our existence: that in applying our cognitive space to improve itself lies the key lever of all personal and civilizational progress.