Updating beliefs by obtaining feedback from reality

[Rudolph Mondal]

Hello wonderful people of the world and beyond.

I have this issue which I think a fair many others do too. The issue is as follows, say you repeatedly make the same mistake or repeatedly vacillate between interests. The problem here is that you do not update your beliefs or actions based on whatever feedback you get from the real world. So you keep making the same mistakes or go back to entertaining an interest that disappointed you. Maybe the latter's alright but the former certainly isn't.

So...if you have managed to successfully update your actions and beliefs many number of times, how exactly does this whole process look like? What is involved in terms of cognitive processes?

All inputs are highly welcome. Thank you.

 

[nanook]

you have priorities. you achieve one thing (or hold on to one achievement) by fucking up another. you experience one reality by avoiding another. you can't see how you could have the capacity to handle both at the same time. perhaps you really can't. you don't honestly feel that the second reality is important enough to sacrifice the first one. and your life is about as good as it could possibly be, as miserable as that may be. or maybe you overestimate the importance of your first priority. it's possible that a specialisation is like a habit, that can grow or stay strong, regardless of how useful or important it really is.

i can see this happening in every brain.

i can analyse how the conflict appears in my own life (feeling attitudes vs logical strategies), but there is no reason to assume that it's similar in your case.

 

[Brontosaurie]

maybe you are lonely?

to get input you need friends who know you. otherwise you will have input that gets filtered through your own worldview, the one you need to change. that's why you don't adapt to input; it can't become authentic input. it's your own model of the world grinding away ceaselessly, confirming itself and stagnating. am i right? i don't intend for any of the assumptions to be offensive.

maybe a good start could be to engage in some discussions on this forum. i think you need to "jump into" some kind of interaction, something more spontaneous than asking for straight-up advice like this. i've seen you make many similar threads.

it's amazing how it can help if someone just listens... but good listeners aren't easy to find.

 

[Yellow]

It depends on the thought process involved.

You may just be doing what's familiar. This could be because you are playing it safe (uncertain about trying something new) or you are falling into habits.

You may be feeding a confirmation bias, wherein you are only accepting information that feeds into your perception and rejecting anything that doesn't fit. But normally, people who do this have little insight into their own bias and probably wouldn't be asking.

You may have a preoccupation with something or a stressor, and so you find yourself gravitating toward the only source(s) of relief available to you.

Or, like Brontosuarie said, maybe you need input, discussion, support, or fresh ideas.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Um... I never even considered this might be a real problem. Just... change what you do. I mean, you come at us with the "I don't change", so "then change" is insufficient. You've identified the problem... take the next step. I'm a far different person than I was twenty, or even ten, years ago, because altering your beliefs and actions based on evidence is just how I work. I presumed it worked that way for basically everyone.

Could you elucidate? Is it about one specific thing, in general? How often? Why do you deny the lesson reality has provided? How do you deny it?

 

[Rudolph Mondal]

Could you elucidate? Is it about one specific thing, in general? How often? Why do you deny the lesson reality has provided? How do you deny it?

It's a bit embarrassing, really. For example, someone might not reply to me because he/she is busy but instead I think that the person hates me or something. As in I really get paranoid about it. However, this has happened many times whereby the person will reply after some time. So I never learn.

And it's pretty much rampant throughout my life. I haven't declared my major yet but I change my decision as to what to major in pretty much everyday and every time I do so I think that it's going to my final decision. I never learn from past experiences that I'll actually change my decision the next day or something.

Even though right now I'm aware of all of this, the emotional counterpart to all of these thoughts is too strong to overwhelm the logical basis for changing them. I think this might be hard for most people to relate to. I think that I'm actually more of an INFP than an INTP but typed myself wrongly due to my more or less intellectual interests.

 

[nanook]

Yeah, sounds at least similar to how disconnected my occasional thinking conclusions are from how my motivation moves.

I can easily relate to that.

There is a strong desire for closure in introverted judgement and closure works based on probabilities but also priorities. For example: would it be worse if you were too optimistic or too pessimistic? Clearly optimism can be dangerous, from a feeling perspective. If you are going to be hurt, it will hurt much less when you expect it. You will need time to adapt emotionally to the worst case scenario, so you better start right now. So the the mind dwells on the negative interpretation, even though it knows that it's just a vague possibility, until data arrives that proves the positive interpretation once and for all.

I think the best we can do is utilize action to bring about new data, instead of just waiting for things to reveal themselves.

Perhaps to an ISTP sort of thinking that likes to stay in control of concrete events, it's favorable to dwell on the optimistic interpretation until proven wrong. Thinking will require time to exploit the situation in the most effective manner, so it ought to start dwelling on the interpretation of a situation that will be usable. Dwelling on a case scenario that is so bad that it crosses all plans is pointless to a tactic Ti mind.

But this theory about FiNe being more pessimistic than TiSe can only be applied to some situations, perhaps very practical situations, such as dealing with another person.

Fi can also be extremely invested in a positive outcome and ignore interpretations of data that imply a negative outcome. For instance "I want to believe" (fox mulder) "that dedicating all of my mental resources to typology and shit will pay out somehow, some day" ... clearly delusional

FiNe is clearly optimistic in it's own realm of valued possibilities.

And sometimes there may be the possibility to reconsider how invested we are in a particular scenario, but sometimes there isn't.

My original desire was to understand people better, so i can learn to relate to them. But while a tiny hand full of people appreciates me for how understanding i am, in most cases my understanding is clearly getting in between me and humanity, it constitutes mutual alienation.

I didn't know that figuring a system out means that you transcend and leave it behind, that you can no longer be a part of it. You don't become a good player, you become at best referee and nobody likes them. But now i know. And i hate it, but i can't stop being what i have become.

It's an example for how i simply can't update my believe system in favor of my original strategy (wanting to find my place in the world and getting along with people).

 

[SpaceYeti]

The problem is that you're worried about doors getting shut. You have to realize they're already shut. You have to put effort into getting some of them open. Like with your major, choose something you'd be okay doing for money. People tell you to aim for the moon and reach for your dreams, and it's all bullshit. College is a means to an end, the end being a job that pays money. Major in what you could do for money without growing to hate. The stuff you enjoy... you can do that shit on your own time. Nobody's going to pay you for that shit.

 

[Brontosaurie]

^ i second that bit about majors and career. you have to take it for what it is. and how beautiful is a dream that fits into the boxes of academia/employment anyway?

for me it helps to think that by confronting the truth of the alienation of labour, i will reallocate all of my stray anxiety/pressure/discomfort into the predictable tedium of work, relieving the dreamy part of me so i can become more alive in my free time. it may sound obvious but it took a while until i arrived at this view or even began thinking about the issue for real.

 

[Architect]

So...if you have managed to successfully update your actions and beliefs many number of times, how exactly does this whole process look like? What is involved in terms of cognitive processes?

I don't know what the cognitive processes are. For me it's simply a matter of desire and getting, or not getting what I wanted. I've changed my behaviors and mindset drastically over my life as my desires changed. I wanted to be a physicist, musician, engineer ... each one involved vastly different habits and thought processes. I would simply keep trying, and if I didn't get results I'd keep working at it until I found what the block was.

Happened recently. I was given carte blanche on a project. Basically come up with the solution front to back. For nine months though I struggled, I kept waiting for marketing to come in and tell me what their research told them was important. Finally I realized, I was locked into previous behavior because during my career I'm so used to marketing doing their homework. In this case it's all mine, and marketing has no fucking clue what to do.

So once I unwedged my thinking - simply by realizing that I was frustrated and not making progress - it was clear that it was my habit. And in fact coming up with the entire solution is something like INTP heaven. Ti-Ne-Fe playground, Fe - find a solution people need, Ne - look at all possible ideas, Ti - find a solution. So now I'm having a ball and getting paid for it.

Just an example. In my experience it just takes time and failure. Keep doing that and eventually you'll find what is making you fail. So I guess the key point is to not give up.