[ExI] unconscious

[William Flynn Wallace]

 Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> > So I think making the unconscious conscious is not the way to higher
> > intelligence. Quite the opposite. We might want more layers!
>
>
​People in this group, I have observed, are focused on intelligence and
cognitive biases, and maybe too much so.  There is an ancient battle here
still being played out because of our genetics:  intelligence versus
emotion.

Take a look at Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases and think just which of
them involves emotion.  Quite a few. Take an obvious one:  fundamental
attribution error.  Isn't this about the person manufacturing biases
because of his feelings?  He wants to feel superior and good and attribute
inferior and bad to the other person.  And he does this while unaware that
he is being irrational.

I have in mind a future in which genetic changes allow us to reach further
into our unconscious, not so far as to mess up basic bodily functions, but
enough so that we can have more control over, mostly stopping​, emotions.
Anger can usually veto any thought or reason and produce irrational actions.

Temper means the process that holds our emotions, in check, esp. anger.
Who would not want a better emotion checker?

Schizophrenia is often misconstrued as split personality.  It is a split,
all right, but between the emotions and the will.  It was thought that the
person could not stop hallucinations and delusions, and of course in that
they were right.  Neither can a  normal person exercise good control over
thoughts and especially feelings.  These well up from our unconscious and
intrude upon our conscious mind and are very often unwanted.

Want better purely intellectual workings?  Get control over emotions.  We
are not better off not knowing about the angers, fears, inferiorities, etc.
but we are better off if we can consider and acknowledge them and then put
them out of mind.

Bill W
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