Ideas have people

I try to question anything that walks underneath what is talking to my eyes, ears and skin…

Human perception is constantly shaped by our senses and our hormonal responses yet a lot do not understand this neurogical wiring. There are limitations to our ability to think but not like animals our cortices are more advanced like elephants and most cetaceans. But unfortunately this has proven to be a double edge sword - our ability to create original ideas is knocking us out especially in the realm of critical thinking.

But why the ability to think is a detriment to critical thinking? I might have explained this in a different way in other blogs but what I might focus here is the our limitations as humans to reinforce bad habits and ideas through the dopamine reward system.

We are feeling seeking animals. We exercise this in our social structures. We respond to our needs and satisfy our basic needs for love, sexual interactions, hunger, warmth or cold - we are born to respond to how we feel at a given moment. But as we seek to interact with these needs we also try to use our ability to make it easier to memorize solutions through the hormone dopamine. As we trigger a certain anticipation to the result of an action, this hormone reinforces the habit. The more repetition, the more dopamine gets released to our systems and thus we reinforce a certain habit or way of solving problems.

What if you’re problem is cooking your favorite dish? you first anticipation of the result guides you to get the necessary ingredients and organize the steps you need to follow including how much time you need to spend in each stage. This example is a great thing to target with the dopamine reward system, the better you cook you favorite dish, the more you will enjoy cooking and thus creating a positive feedback loop that results into great effects.

But what if you are bored and you chosed social media as the means out of boredome. This might be the most underrated problem now and will dwarf any mental illness in the recent history. As we get more likes or comments, this triggers the dopaminergic reward system to inject to our bloodstream a constant flow of this hormone. Imagine doing this for four to eight hours everyday…This douses your brain and reinforces the cortisol release in our body and making us more stressed. Repeat the process for a week and you have hacked a person’s way of navigating life.

Unfortunately, there maybe billions of people who has this neurological mode of responding to their smartphones. We are in the brink of risking the modern world to these black mirrors we hold in our hands. Again, this is the most destructive mental activity and we are doing it at scale.

Most people think they have ideas, but the truth is “ideas have people” and the ideas that grip most people are reinforced through this interplay of dopamine and cortisol in our body. The more one do not understand this, the more anyone will be sucked in by the void. The inability to think critically will make anyone vulnerable to the trials that one faces at least a once in their life…

I should edit this blog post again after sometime…