A Guide To Mental Self-Mastery - Ryan Bush | Modern Wisdom Podcast 302

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   I think you should…

   1. RBRyan Bush0:00

      I think you should work towards a life that embodies your values, whatever that is. So if that involves close relationships and altruism and th- and that kind of thing, then that's the kind of life you should lead. But, but you shouldn't do it because you need those things to make you happy and you're unable to enjoy your life without them. (wind blows)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:21

      You start your book off with this quote from Harari which says, "In the past, we humans learned to control the world outside us, but we had very little control over the world inside us." Does this highlight a blind spot that lots of people have?

   3. RBRyan Bush0:38

      I definitely think so. I, I think we're naturally wired to pay attention to what's outside of us, and I think there are, uh, potentially good biological reasons for this, right? We, we have desires specifically to motivate us to, uh, go out there and try to achieve them. Uh, but a lot of thinkers, uh, sort of within practical philosophy, the Stoics, the Buddhists, right? These, these thinkers have suggested that a better path to satisfaction and wellbeing is to work on what's going on inside your mind rather than just trying to get what you want, right? So trying to, uh, manipulate and master your own desires rather than just gratifying them, right? Trying to make the changes in your own mind so that you don't suffer, so that you don't have the, these, uh, biases, so that you're, you can restructure your actions and your behavior. Um, so this book is, is really sort of meant to take that idea and sort of provide the nuts and bolts, uh, 21st century manual for it. Uh, and, and sort of expanding on this idea (laughs) , um, in, in a very modern sort of way.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:47

      Yeah, 'cause the Stoicism and the Buddhism stuff's lovely, but if all it took was Confucius quotes to get yourself to enlightenment, we wouldn't need CBT, we wouldn't need to have, uh, neuroscientists and all of the weird and wonderful sciences that we've developed over the last few hundred years.

   5. RBRyan Bush2:04

      Sure. And- and what I kind of realized was that the... these ancient words of these thinkers, um, really haven't, uh... their ideas, the reason they've stuck around is because they're really based on a lot of science that they just didn't have access to yet. So these ancient ideas are kind of these snippets of open source cognitive code, uh, that there's actually starting to be a neuroscience basis for. Um, but, uh, you know, human nature, uh, e- existed pretty much as it does today, uh, many years ago. So, so we can study these ancient ideas and sort of combine them with the modern ideas to, to get to, uh, something like a science for modifying and, and improving your own mind.

   6. CWChris Williamson2:50

      Yeah. What were the main influences for you? What were the bodies of work that you drew upon to write this?

   7. RBRyan Bush2:57

      So in the ancient side, Stoicism is pretty huge. Uh, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, these thinkers. Uh, there's also a lot of Buddhism and Taoism that shows up. And then sort of, sort of gradually working chronologically up and arriving to a lot of the, the modern science, like cognitive behavioral therapy, um, and- and other proven methods of, of change, uh, in, in terms of your mind. Um, so some neuroscience in there and, uh, a lot of affective, behavioral, cognitive science all mixed in (laughs) .

   8. CWChris Williamson3:36

      You say that there's a gap between skill and wisdom. What do you mean?

   9. RBRyan Bush3:42

      So essentially, our culture really trains us to be good at, uh, developing knowledge and, um, implementing it in ways that are good for, uh, industry, basically. I mean, the education system is all about learning the knowledge that, that they want you to have and learning how to, uh, kind of be obedient and, and, uh, be employable, right? Uh, but it doesn't teach you how to be happy. It doesn't focus on, uh, how to actually organize your mind or develop these psychological skills, right? We- we've got therapy for people who are, you know, so far below the level of psy- psychological adequacy that it can kind of lift them up. Uh, but we don't have that kind of institution for taking you higher than that. The, the closest thing that we have is the, the world of self-help, which has some gems in it and a lot of fluff and, and inspirational nonsense, right? So, um, so really, I've, I've, I've really kind of made it my mission to create that, that body of information on a systematic level for how you, how you cultivate wisdom, how you actually get better at, at programming yourself for life, not just for work, not just for, uh, knowledge or skills.

   10. CWChris Williamson5:04

       What's the goal with psychitecture then, which is the term that you've coined in your book?

   11. RBRyan Bush5:11

       So the, the ultimate goal of psychitecture is to get closer and closer to your ideal self and, and to embodying those values and ideals. So I really kind of leave it as sort of a blank canvas. I don't tell you exactly where you need to go, because that depends on your own individual values. So initially when I started writing, I, I sort of thought that, uh, we wanted to get rid of all of the, you know, negative emotion and disturbance, uh, kind of like you see in Stoicism, right? Uh, and that's very much a, a big part of it. I, I think, you know, the, the negative emotions are a big part of what stand in our way of really living a life to our potential and living a, a good life. But I also don't think that's necessarily the ultimate end is, is just to get rid of bad feelings, right? I, I think you could live a better life w-... by, you know, working towards becoming your ideal self. If you reflected on your life at the end, I don't think you would necessarily believe that the life where you suffered the absolute least was the best possible life.

   12. CWChris Williamson6:21

       (laughs)

   13. RBRyan Bush6:21

       Right? (laughs) So, so really, you know, there- there's sort of three realms that I examine in the book. There's the cognitive realm, the emotional realm, and the behavioral realm. So you're, you're looking at developing better views, more accurate views of the world, getting rid of your biases and the distortions in judgment that sort of plague your perception. You're looking at getting rid of emotions that are maladaptive or that stand in your way of living what you believe to be a great life. And then you're looking at behaviors and habits and actions. So, so really, all of these take a, a very systematic view and say, "Look, the things that are happening in your mind, they're not just single events. They're all ultimately interconnected." I call it psychological software. You've got this series of algorithms that all connect together, and this is really what all these different types of science show in their own particular realms. Whether you're looking at habit change or you're looking at cognitive therapy, we find that our thoughts and our actions and our emotions are intricately but intimately tied together, uh, and, and triggering one another. And in order to actually make changes to them, we have to really understand these connections between them.

   14. CWChris Williamson7:43

       Why did you give them the particular order that you do? Because although they are separate, they are almost hierarchical.

   15. RBRyan Bush7:51

       So one of the biggest reasons for this is that, for example, if you look at, uh, emotions and the reason why we have these negative emotions, in many cases, it's because we have these biases, these cognitive distortions that trigger them. So the, the cognitive realm comes first because it's sort of foundational to the later realms, right? If you can get good at identifying distorted beliefs in your own mind and, and actually countering them and replacing them with better beliefs, you'll have the, the basic skills that you need to be able to build on them and, and master your emotions and change your habits and all of these. So they, they do sort of build on one another, um, like you said.

   16. CWChris Williamson8:36

       Is that why ... Do you think Eliezer Yudkowsky's just got, like, the, the fattest foundation of the pyramid ever?

   17. RBRyan Bush8:42

       (laughs) Yes, yes, I think so. Um, I've always loved, uh, LessWrong and that whole community. Uh, it's, it's always sort of been one of the, the components of my vision for Designing the Mind, to sort of take that type of community that's so focused on optimization of, of beliefs and biases and apply it to more than just beliefs. Apply it to behaviors and, and particularly, I think, emotions, because the same kind of logic applies there.

   18. CWChris Williamson9:16

       Why do you think it is that we don't have a lesswrong.com for the other two sections? Have you thought about that?

   19. RBRyan Bush9:27

       I think, I think there are sort of similar things for behavior. Uh, there's a lot of talk about habit change out there. I mean, James Clear, you know, his ... All of his work and his book Atomic Habits very much examines the, uh, that side of it. But it, it's s- kind of something I've always wondered. I, I don't know exactly why there is that gap. Because I look at, like, the, the community centered around biohacking, for example. Uh, people taking all these chemicals and psychedelics and injecting themselves with gene-altering materials and microchips. Uh, and there's something really cool about it, (laughs) you know, even though it's, uh ... there's a bit r- uh, some, some risk there. But, uh, I've always wondered, why does that community, uh, uh, on ... centered around optimizing your whole psychological software not exist?

   20. CWChris Williamson10:22

       Yeah.

   21. RBRyan Bush10:22

       Um, and, and that's kind of, that's kind of where I'm trying to, to come in there.

   22. CWChris Williamson10:26

       I get it, man. I mean, for anyone that is uninitiated, uh, lesswrong.com and, uh, was it overcomingbias.com as well? Was that another one?

   23. RBRyan Bush10:35

       Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   24. CWChris Williamson10:36

       Uh, and then Slate Star Codex, which is now Astral Codex 10 or something?

   25. RBRyan Bush10:42

       10, yeah. (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson10:43

       Yeah. (laughs) Um, so all of these different websites are borne out of this sort of rationality movement. And if you want to go down a fantastic blog hole, just go and have a little bit of a look, because I've, I've had ... I've read some of the best work I've ever, ever seen. Robin Hanson, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Scott Alexander are titans, absolute titans.

   27. RBRyan Bush11:06

       Mm-hmm.

   28. CWChris Williamson11:06

       And this stuff's just out there. They just do it because they, they, they need to write some words on, on a page-

   29. RBRyan Bush11:11

       (laughs)

   30. CWChris Williamson11:12

       ... which is unbelievable. But yeah, I would be interested to work out why it is that we don't have that same level of community and, and passion around stuff that isn't just rationality. I wonder whether, um, it's a bias toward the personality type of the people that go onto those websites, whether they tend to be quite rational, utilitarian, scientific, sort of praying at the altar of science themselves, and that fits in quite easily with their worldview. Whereas if you were to say, "Okay, now let's talk about how you're actually acting in the real world," or, "Okay, let's actually talk about how your emotions are feeling and, uh, doing the metacognizant sort of self-look," um, I wonder whether that might make ... be a step in, uh, an uncomfortable direction for, for people.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. I think if…

   1. CWChris Williamson15:00

      than I used to, I'm gonna consider it a win. Um, so you mentioned that sitting meditation, also walking meditation, which is kind of just introspection and looking at the texture of your own mind, how do people take their metacognition off the cushion, so to speak? How do we get it from the walking session, "Within that, oh, I feel real mindful. Um, texture of my mind is very, very plain and easy to me." How do I get that expanded out into, "My boss has just shouted at me," or, "I'm stuck in traffic"?

   2. RBRyan Bush15:32

      Right. I think if you can really build the habit of keeping a log of what's going on in your mind, instead of just noticing it when you're on the cushion, like you said, if you can get to where you're trying to notice as quickly as possible and actually write down, uh, the, the mental experiences that you're having, this will cause you to start seeing these patterns all over the place, right? A lot of people don't know what's, what's actually causing the majority of their daily suffering, right? And you may start writing these things down and realize, "Oh my God, like, like 90% of the times that I'm getting upset, I'm waiting in traffic," right? And it's this specific thought chain that is triggering all this. So if I can focus on that and program it out, and I can notice when it's happening, then I can eliminate that huge, huge emotional category that I- that isn't serving me and that I don't want. So if you can do this habit of actually writing down and sort of categorizing, uh, and clustering these, these different experiences, writing down the event that triggered it, the, uh, the thought or belief that is sort of catalyzing it, and the emotion you felt, um, and then you can even get more advanced, and this is a, a CBT method of actually identifying the distortion in that thought and the correct belief that you wanna replace it with, right? If you can just keep this log, you'll start noticing these patterns, and, and even just noticing, uh, can often be enough to get rid of these things.

   3. CWChris Williamson17:07

      That's a good point, that one of the things... anyone that's done a Headspace's Take 10, like, the most basic thing that Andy Puddicombe, lovely baldy Andy Puddicombe with his nice soft voice.

   4. RBRyan Bush17:16

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson17:17

      Um, the first thing that he gets you to do is he just wants you to note, just note what it is, there is something happening in the texture of your mind. And as Sam Harris says, "Being lost in thought while you're awake is like dreaming without knowing that you're dreaming." That's the-

   6. RBRyan Bush17:33

      Absolutely.

   7. CWChris Williamson17:34

      That's the danger, and as soon as you step through that and think, "Right, okay, I can step into my programming. I'm not at the mercy of the next thought that comes careening into view," remembering that not only are you not your thoughts, you're also not the creator of your thoughts either. You're the person that sees or hears them.

   8. RBRyan Bush17:54

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson17:54

      So you're... It's, it's the same as letting somebody else constantly talk at you if you don't give that mindfulness gap. So yeah, uh, dude, I, um, I think it's a, a great way to kind of set that foundation. So you start off in this cognitive section. How can people rewire their cognitive biases?

   10. RBRyan Bush18:13

       So the short answer is it's really hard to do. (laughs) Um, you know ...

   11. CWChris Williamson18:18

       (laughs)

   12. RBRyan Bush18:19

       This is what the research suggests, and I do think the research is a little bit limited on this. But, um, a lot of people think that if they just learn the names of all the biases, that it'll kind of just magically make them go away. And in some cases, that's true. Uh, uh, that's why I recommend before you do anything, learn to identify these pretty much universal biases that cause us to make these mistakes and hold false beliefs. If you can just do that as a first step, it will help improve things.

   13. CWChris Williamson18:47

       What are your top three, top five?

   14. RBRyan Bush18:51

       Okay. Confirmation bias is a, a huge one. Um, it's hard to even call that just one bias. It's more like a, a cluster of them. But, (laughs) uh, the whole tendency to want to seek out information that reaffirms your existing beliefs, that, that's huge. I mean, if you can get to where when you're researching an issue 'cause you're arguing with a friend, you can at least notice, "Okay, I'm, I'm tailoring my Google search a little bit towards showing me what I want to see. I'm clicking on certain links and not others," right? This can, can help work towards getting rid of that one. Uh, another is this whole mess of social biases, right? We want to fit in. We want to be a part of a group. Uh, and this has a tendency to, to cause us to skip over a lot of the logical steps and arguments and to sort of, uh, find a way to believe what will allow us to fit in. Um, so, th- this is sort of a fundamental desire between, uh, behind a lot of our beliefs. And then another sort of fundamental one is our tendency to, to want to absolve ourselves of blame and blame others. So the fundamental attribution error-

   15. CWChris Williamson20:04

       Fundamental attribution error. That was my one, man.

   16. RBRyan Bush20:05

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson20:05

       That was the one I was gonna give you. That gets me-

   18. RBRyan Bush20:07

       Yeah. It's a good one.

   19. CWChris Williamson20:07

       ... every time.

   20. RBRyan Bush20:08

       Yeah. So, so we, we just constantly tend to say, "Well, the reason I was late, the reason why I made this mistake is because the world was out to get me. I got in traffic," right? The reason why someone else is late is because they're just a bad person. (laughs) That's, uh, a bit o- bit of an extreme exaggeration, but that's essentially what we do. We, we want so badly to preserve this positive view of ourselves that we'll, we'll tell ourselves just about anything. And, uh, I'm not saying that you should go against that to the point of, uh, having terrible low self-esteem, right? The point is to develop an accurate view of yourself so that you can actually work towards improving yourself.

   21. CWChris Williamson20:50

       Okay. So we've got some understanding, little glossary of mental models that are commonly gonna come up. How do we then go about rewiring our cognitive biases?

   22. RBRyan Bush21:00

       Um, what I say on this is that it's, it's sort of a process, uh, it's sort of a creative design process for every individual bias. And I go through a few of them. Uh, but one of them as an example is, uh, the planning fallacy, right? We, we have a tendency to think we can get something done in a much shorter time than we actually can. All right? You can look at, y- you know, studies have been done on, on classrooms where they ask people like, "Okay, this is the due date for this paper. What are you, what day are you 90% done you're gonna have it, have it done by, 90% sure you're gonna have it completed by? When are you 50% sure?" And inevitably, they're, they're so much more ambitious than they actually end up doing, right? Um, so Daniel Kahneman, who's, who's generally kind of cynical about (laughs) the ability to rewire biases, he even says you can actually rewire this one. And the way to do it is to look to distributional information, objective information. So, basically stop trusting your intuitions about how long it will take to get this thing done and start asking yourself, "How long has it taken in the past? How long has it taken me? How long does it generally take other people?" It's, it's likely gonna be a few times longer than you estimate, right? I mean, my natural, my natural thinking was that I was gonna be able to finish my book in six months. In reality, I, it took me close to two years, right? (laughs) So, uh, but I knew at the time when I was setting that goal, like, "I'm probably not gonna hit this, but, uh, so I'm not gonna, like, go promoting that it's gonna be ready in six months." Uh, so you just have to keep that in mind that, that it is, uh, it is more about how long it generally takes, uh, than how long you feel like it's going to take at the time.

   23. CWChris Williamson22:49

       Did you see Daniel Kahneman with Sam Harris, that live event that they did? And Sam asks this Nobel Prize-winning psychologist of, like, 50 years or 40 years or something, just a t- total monster in the psychology world.

   24. RBRyan Bush23:05

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson23:05

       And he says, "So after all of this time, Daniel, researching cognitive biases and understanding how our minds work, have you actually got yourself any closer to rationality?" And he just goes, "No, not really." (laughs)

   26. RBRyan Bush23:17

       (laughs) Yeah. I did, I did hear that.

   27. CWChris Williamson23:20

       It's so funny. (laughs)

   28. RBRyan Bush23:21

       (laughs) It is. Um, and, and that's enough to, uh, lead most people to think, "Well, you just can't do this." Uh, what gives me optimism is that in a lot of these studies, pretty much all of these studies, they're, they're finding people who are volunteering to be in the study to get rid of a bias, and they're, they're doing it for class credit or to get paid or whatever it is, right? Most people aren't that deeply motivated to get rid of anchoring bias or whatever it is. They're kind of just going along with the study. If you look at cognitive therapy, which is essentially the process of getting rid of biases for emotional purposes, right? Where people are often meeting with a therapist once a week, uh, on these issues, they're doing these homework assignments, they really want to improve their own minds, we find, uh, a totally different finding. It's not impossible to change these, these beliefs. It's actually pretty common. It's very effective, uh, to work on these beliefs and, and-... then get rid of the negative emotions and mood disorders that were propagated by the beliefs. So to me, that tells me that the, the motivation of the person working on themselves plays a really big role, and I, I think that's missing from a lot of the studies that suggest we can't change our biases.

   29. CWChris Williamson24:37

       Some skin in the game as well, right? You know?

   30. RBRyan Bush24:39

       Right.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   So right, man. I…

   1. RBRyan Bush30:00

      by genetics, by, you know, observing our parents, all these different early experiences, right? But that's just your default setting, right? The, the experiences that you have and the memories associated with them-... serve to reprogram your anxieties and your fears, right? So the only way to actually get past these things is to get out of your comfort zone, do this thing that you've been telling yourself you're not capable of, and it, it sort of, it sort of ... The, the output retrains the input, right? The result gives you new reference experiences so you can actually observe, you can learn from your own behavior and say, "Oh, I can do this," and refactor that belief an- and get rid of your, your fears, uh, centered around it.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:43

      So right, man. I ruptured an Achilles last year, thought that my mental makeup would be really bad for that sort of an injury, and I'd get super depressed. And it was, I was so much better than even in my wildest dreams I could have thought. Th- I, I didn't realize how much resilience w- was there for me to tap into, and then when I needed it, i- it just arrived. So, I- I- I really do think that was, that was quite shocking to see and it made me question a lot of my assumptions around my, my own self-limiting beliefs as well, which I wouldn't advise rupturing an Achilles as a personal development strategy.

   3. RBRyan Bush31:20

      (laughs) Right.

   4. CWChris Williamson31:22

      But, um, it's, it's, (laughs) at least the outcomes were okay. So moving on, we've got, we, we've got our cognitive biases, we've got rid of our self-limiting beliefs as best we can, we've improved our introspection, then we need to cultivate self-mastery and wisdom. How do they even ... How do people even start with doing that?

   5. RBRyan Bush31:38

      Yeah, I think wisdom is one of those words that gets used for just about everything, um, and it's ... You have to make sure you're on the same page when you're talking about it. To me, it- it's what you get when you combine rationality with that introspective clarity. 'Cause there are a lot of people out there who are, who have gotten good at understanding and getting what they want, uh, but there's something still missing, right? I mean, you know, you were just talking about these, um, you know, these setbacks like tearing your Achilles, right? You, you can look at lottery winners and, and quadriplegics or paraplegics and ask, you know, how happy are they actually a short while after, and the answer is, like, they're generally the same. It doesn't matter.

   6. CWChris Williamson32:22

      Exactly the same, yeah. A lottery winner and someone who's disabled, made disabled in a car crash, reset to the same level of happiness after 12 months.

   7. RBRyan Bush32:31

      Right. So, so you have to question at that point whether just being rationally good at getting what you want is actually a good strategy for happiness, right? I think wisdom is being able to combine that rational sort of strategic side with the introspective clarity, with the knowledge about yourself that, "Okay, this is how my mind works, this is how I think things are going to go, and how I'm going to feel when this happens. Uh, this is why that may not be true." Right? If you, if you take the classic example of whether, you know, you should (laughs) take a, a wallet that you find or return it to the owner. It's got a bunch of money in it, right? Uh, strategically you could say that of course you should keep it, right? In, in, in a purely rational, like, short-term sense, right? But I think, uh, if you've got this introspective clarity combined with it, meaning you've got wisdom, you know that there are, there are other psychological outcomes that could come from that, that, that these things that seem like they would make you happy very often, uh, don't make you happy. And, and we have to s- we seem to have to keep relearning these things over and over, so actually, actually remembering the next time you're in one of these cases, remembering that your new car didn't actually, uh, result in greater wellbeing. That's, that's what it means to be wise, I think, is, is to hold those ideas in your head the next time instead of just forgetting again.

   8. CWChris Williamson33:54

      So that's Bayesian updating, in a way.

   9. RBRyan Bush33:56

      Absolutely. It- it's just a more holistic, uh, version of it applied to your whole life and your mind.

   10. CWChris Williamson34:04

       Did you take your section on dukkha bias from Robert Wright's Why Buddhism Is True?

   11. RBRyan Bush34:11

       A big part of it, yeah. I mean, I quoted him in it.

   12. CWChris Williamson34:13

       Yeah, yeah.

   13. RBRyan Bush34:14

       And, uh ...

   14. CWChris Williamson34:14

       So I, I got absolutely torn to pieces on YouTube for using the word unsatisfactoriness.

   15. RBRyan Bush34:21

       Really?

   16. CWChris Williamson34:22

       Because someone was like, "Uh, duh, it's dissatisfaction." And somehow half of the internet decide on a- an episode that went massive with Douglas Murray. Half of the internet decided that that was the comment that they were going to upvote.

   17. RBRyan Bush34:33

       (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson34:33

       I was like, "I'm quote- I'm quoting (laughs) someone else's, not my ... It wasn't my fault, it wasn't my word, I promise." Can you just-

   19. RBRyan Bush34:41

       (laughs)

   20. CWChris Williamson34:41

       'Cause I absolutely love this story, man. Can you explain what the dukkha bias is?

   21. RBRyan Bush34:46

       Right. So (laughs) dukkha i- is a Buddhist term, and it, it's essentially the term for the problem with the human condition, uh, and it's been translated roughly as life is suffering, but that's not a very good translation. Uh, unsatisfactoriness (laughs) is, uh, is the best-

   22. CWChris Williamson35:02

       Comment, comment, and give h-

   23. RBRyan Bush35:04

       ... kind of a good read on. (laughs)

   24. CWChris Williamson35:04

       Comment and give Brian shit, please. Thank you, internet.

   25. RBRyan Bush35:07

       (laughs) Yeah. So unsatisfactory, uh, is the way the Buddha sort of, uh, described, uh, life and, and the, the human condition and what's wrong with it, is essentially that even when we get what we want, uh, there is, there is this longing that just never goes away, and, and from a modern perspective you could call it hedonic adaptation. We don't actually get happier when we get what we want. Um, so the Buddha's solution to this was to look at, uh, this process of craving or thirsting and, and try to completely unplug it, right? He, he said, you know, "If we can just eliminate our desires completely, then that's, that's sort of the way to end, uh, this constant cycle of unhappiness." My approach is a little bit different. I say that, that if you can learn to manipulate and, and master your desires, you can use them to fuel you towards your goals rather than, than just preventing them from, um, causing you to suffer. But you can do both, essentially.

   26. CWChris Williamson36:09

       What's an example of that?

   27. RBRyan Bush36:12

       So with the-... kind of splitting two different sections, so, um, an example with, for desire modulation, um, so if you have a desire for comfort and you, you basically have this need to be comfortable all the time, you're not capable of enjoying, um, you know, a camping trip, you're not capable of being content if the, the temperature in your house isn't set to the right, uh, degree, right? And you recognize that this is not really, this doesn't really matter. This is, this is basically an addiction that I've developed, right? You can basically do the opposite using something called asceticism. Uh, the stoics called it voluntary discomfort, right? You can go through this process of putting yourself through something uncomfortable so that you build up your resilience, you build up your ability to, uh, adjust these desires. So if you can say, like, "Actually, the life that I want to live, uh, will cause me to take risks. It'll cause me to step outside of my comfort zone. This need for comfort is holding me back." You can sort of counteract that desire, uh, using a number of different methods that I talk about. Uh, and then you can use, uh, different desires to fuel you towards your goals.

   28. CWChris Williamson37:33

       The dukkha bias, as you've called it, is, um, ever since I read that man in Robert Wright's book, it's been one of those ground shake moments, I think, for the way that I view the world. Um, and the example, I'm not sure if it's him that uses it or if it's one that I've come up with, he talks about, imagine that you're planning a holiday and you can't wait for this holiday. You and your partner have been planning it for ages, you're gonna be somewhere hot and you- you've researched all the bars near the hotel and you know, you even know the cocktail menu, you know what cocktail you're going to have, and the sun's gonna set there and, "Oh, that's the actual table that I want to sit at." And for ages and ages, you're thinking about how beautiful it's going to be. And then you get there and you go away on a holiday and it's the first night and you've booked your table and it's the exact table that you want and the sun's just setting and you've got your cocktail in your hand. But then you notice that there's some grains of sand between your toes-

   29. RBRyan Bush38:25

       (laughs)

   30. CWChris Williamson38:25

       ... and you think, "Oh, well, that's a bit irritating and I wish, I wish actually there was a little bit less ice in my cocktail. And I wonder whether I should have had it, um, shaken instead of blended."
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   How do people achieve…

   1. RBRyan Bush45:00

      mean you aren't going to do anything. I didn't write this book out of a desire to escape all the bad feelings that I had from not having written a book, (laughs) right? You, we have these intrinsic motivations that push us to do things, and if you want to be able to tap into those intrinsic drives, I think you do need to develop a certain level of stability into your own mind. You need to get to where your conflicting emotions and drives aren't pulling you in all different directions, so that you can actually focus on the things that you really value and, and the, the direction you really want to go in, uh, rather than just what you feel like at any given time.

   2. CWChris Williamson45:36

      How do people achieve equanimity? How do we turn down the volume of those different pulls and emotions?

   3. RBRyan Bush45:43

      So a lot of philosophies have, have suggested that there is this one core problem at the root of our minds, right? Whether it's our ego or whatever it may be. I kind of take a different approach based on evolutionary psychology, and I say, look, all of these different forms of suffering exist in our mind for different reasons, right? Diff- because they caused us to ... We get jealous because, you know, it helps us to retain mates from a biological perspective. We get angry 'cause it helps us preserve our status. You know, we have all of these different things that aren't necessarily that relevant to us today, and I think we have to look at each of them a la carte, and we say, "How do I, how does this work? What is the structure of the algorithm causing me to get angry or jealous, and how can I rework it?" So it, so it's very much a creative design process that you have to apply to every different struggle. Like I said, you, you may find when you really observe your emotions, that 90% comes from the same mental process. So you have to look at what it is that is, that is preventing you from, from tranquility, and you have to work on that specific issue a- and really figure out how it works so you can rework it.

   4. CWChris Williamson46:57

      Similar to the way that you advise people to go about the cognitive biases at the start.

   5. RBRyan Bush47:02

      Absolutely. That, that's kind of the idea behind psychitecture, and the reason that's the word for it, because it is a creative design process com- comparable to architecture or something. You are, you are looking at each psychological issue as its own creative problem-solving challenge to tackle.

   6. CWChris Williamson47:22

      Evolutionary psychology, for me, is the emotional equivalent of learning mental models.

   7. RBRyan Bush47:30

      Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson47:30

      Do you know what I mean? Like, as you're reading, "Well, this is why you have envy. This is why friendship exists. This is what reciprocal altruism means. This is what kinship is. This is why men are attracted to women that are younger than them, and women are attracted to men that have V-shaped bodies, and why we like good teeth, and why we like good hair, and why we have an aversion to things that are colored blue and that we try and eat them and no one will do it." Like, all of this stuff, um ... Yeah, it, it really is peering into the source code in a way that, uh, I don't think many other, many other subject areas allow us to do.

   9. RBRyan Bush48:04

      Uh, you're right. I mean, most, if you just search, like, "Why do people get jealous?" you're, you're not gonna find a lot of results actually telling you why we biologically have these tendencies, right? They often start way later than that. But to me, this is, this is where you have to start. You have to look at why we're wired the way we are so you know what function these things are meant to serve, not necessarily for us, 'cause very often, it isn't good for us, but for our genes and, and for our ability to, to propagate our genes, essentially.

   10. CWChris Williamson48:33

       So we've got cognitive, we've got emotional. That's done. And then the third section is behavioral. So what are the impediments to self-direction?

   11. RBRyan Bush48:42

       So I list four major impediments, right? You've got, uh, you've got corruption, you've got compliance, which is our tendency to go along with what everyone else is doing, right? You've got craving, which is the most obvious, right? Our addiction to, to different chemicals. And you've got comfort, which is a, a huge one. So I, I examine each of these and, and the basic obstacles that they pose and how you can work around them, right? I talk a lot about, um, how our, our cravings are amplified by the modern world. How modern food, for example, kind of hijacks our, our evolutionary, you know, desire for certain nutrients. How modern social media hijacks our social drive. Uh, so a lot of these forces work against us, um, and, and preventing us from living the life that we really choose to live. Um, but I think the best solution still rests in self-mastery, I call it, and the ability to, um, develop more control over your mind. Um, so in the whole behavioral section, I talk about these different creative strategies to rework your behaviors and your habits rather than just kind of trying to brute force suppress the things you don't want to do and, and work up the motivation to do the things that you do.

   12. CWChris Williamson50:08

       What are some of your favorite strategies from that?

   13. RBRyan Bush50:12

       So if you look at the classic marshmallow, uh, test by Walter Mischel, uh, which found that self-control is, is pretty much the greatest determinant of success in life out of any other metric, uh, even like intelligence and SAT scores, a lot of people assume that means that people who have more willpower are, are just gonna be better at things in life. And the reality is, I think the people who, uh, have a lot of self-control aren't necessarily gritting their teeth and using a lot of willpower. They're using these strategies. So even in that example with the m- the marshmallow test, the kids who were able to not eat the marshmallow for longer that was sitting in front of them, they weren't the ones who were staring the marshmallow down and trying to fight back the urges. They were the ones who were either directing their attention somewhere else, playing with a toy, doing something besides staring at the marshmallow, or they were altering their evaluation, right? Their, their, uh, interpretation. They were thinking about the marshmallow as a cloud or something instead of as a delicious treat. Um, and, and really, you can, you can take a lot of ideas from this and apply it to your own life. Um, in terms of designing the consequences of your actions, right? You can, you can use the desires that you already have to channel the behavior that you want. So a lot of us have heard of, of the idea of, you know, writing a check to a friend and having them deposit it if we don't meet our goals, right? This is using our desire to, uh, maintain our money and, and accumulate, uh, things financially, right? You can also use your social drive, right? So everything from, uh, you know, having a workout buddy or a personal trainer if you want to exercise. Um, I personally have used a tool that I love called Focusmate. Um, I used this in the process of writing the book, where basically you, you meet with people virtually. You have these hour-long, roughly, calls, and then it calls itself a virtual coworking tool. You basically just check in at the beginning, tell the person what you want to accomplish over the next hour, and they tell you theirs, and then you check back in at the end to see how you, you do. And every time I've done this, I have ended up meeting my goal of word count or whatever it is that I was trying to do. It is a surprisingly powerful tool, and it's because we're not just trying to, to push through and get it done. We're using desires that are already inside of us, uh, to make it a lot easier and, and sort of turn it into the path of least resistance.

   14. CWChris Williamson52:50

       What's the opposite of self-mastery?

   15. RBRyan Bush52:54

       So I call it self-slavery, and it's essentially, uh, what I argue is not only, uh, responsible for, you know, being unhappy and, and not having self-control or clarity, right? But it really, I think, explains a lot of the evil in the world, um, or what we tend to call evil. Um, so, you know, a lot of the people who do some of the worst things I think are unable to control their desires or they're unable to get the clarity needed, um, to work towards, uh, what they really value. So, I mean, you can apply this anywhere from, like, dictators who believe they're doing something good for the world, but they've got this bias and, and this lack of wisdom, um, to, you know, something like school shooters who, who simply, uh, haven't developed the mastery over, uh, admittedly difficult emotions that they're o- often going through. Uh, so if we started looking at things like this and we started saying, "How can we, uh, give people the tools they need to, to restructure their minds and, and ignite their interest in restructuring their minds?" I think it would reduce a lot of the, the bad actors that we see in society that we often just blame on this, uh, enigmatic evil inside of them.

   16. CWChris Williamson54:11

       Yeah. Y- you're very correct. I think it's odd in a meritocracy that we don't believe that people can have redemption with that. Do you understand what I mean?

   17. RBRyan Bush54:23

       Mm-hmm.

   18. CWChris Williamson54:23

       There's kind of a bit of a juxtaposition there. If you are... if anyone can become anything that they want and hard work can get you anywhere, the winners at the top are worthy of their successes and the losers at the bottom are worthy of their failures-It does seem odd that we're not empowering people to take control of their own mental architecture more with stuff like this.

   19. RBRyan Bush54:44

       I, I agree. I, I totally agree. The whole justice sy- system is kind of centered around just deciding who the good guys and the bad guys are and making sure the bad guys suffer, uh, rather than figuring out how we can cultivate these better qualities in people.

   20. CWChris Williamson54:59

       Have you heard Sam Harris's most recent free will, the final word on free will podcast that he put out last week? Uh-

   21. RBRyan Bush55:06

       I have not heard it yet.

   22. CWChris Williamson55:07

       Dude, you will love it. Anybody that's listening, after this, go and have a listen to that. Um, so Sam's been big into s- determinism, kind of one of the, the public-facing, um, forefronts of that, I suppose, and he just does an hour and a half monologue talking about every single different element of it. It's so beautiful. He really is-

   23. RBRyan Bush55:28

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CWChris Williamson55:28

       ... he's wonderful to listen to. Uh, I know that hi- his, um, views on Trump have annoyed some people over the last year or so, but man, when you get him in his wheelhouse for stuff like that, uh, he's unbeatable. There was this quote actually in the book where you say that, "If losing all of your possessions, circumstances, social standing, and relationships would deprive you of all your happiness, what you have cannot be called happiness in the first place." Do you think that that's a desirable state to get to where we're so detached from our externalities, from our external world that we're kind of, um, totally floating through in this oddly Diogenes sort of piss pot of-

   25. RBRyan Bush56:14

       (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson56:14

       ... uh, uh, uh, of self-

   27. RBRyan Bush56:16

       (laughs)

   28. CWChris Williamson56:16

       ... sort of, uh, discare about the world?

   29. RBRyan Bush56:19

       I don't think that's a, a desirable kind of life, no. And, and I really am not referring to, uh, to that kind of lifestyle where you, you want to get rid of your, um, relationships and possessions and all that, right? But what I'm, I'm really getting at there is that if you haven't built the, the psychological wellbeing into your mind, then you're essentially gonna be hopeless if you don't have all these things that you have come to require. Um, you know, I think, I think you should work towards a life that embodies your values, whatever that is. So if that involves, you know, close relationships and altruism and that, and that kind of thing, which I assume it does for, for just about everyone, uh, then that's the kind of life you should lead. But, but you shouldn't do it because you need those things to make you happy and you're, you're unable to, uh, enjoy your life without them, right? You should do it because that's the life you wanna have, that's the person you want to be. Um, you know, I don't, I don't talk about how you can algorithmically program joy and love into your mind so you don't need to have (laughs) anyone else in your life, right? I haven't found a way to do that. I'm mostly focused on (laughs) how to get rid of the obstacles in your own mind, uh, preventing you from enjoying this world and, and, and fully diving into those positive things.

   30. CWChris Williamson57:41

       Yeah, it's, it's interesting thinking about... I know you've read The Happiness Hypothesis by John Haidt, and he talks about happiness doesn't just come from within, it comes from within and without. And there's a, uh, a quote from Naval that's floating around online. My buddy Vizzy has just done a, a drawing for him which is beautiful. Um, if you go on @NAVAL on Instagram, you can see the drawing-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:03:26

   (laughs) …

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00:00

      feeling to yourself because you are moving toward a goal. Not having goals isn't an option. You're always gonna have goals. Even if the goal is to not have goals, you're constantly going to be checking-

   2. RBRyan Bush1:00:09

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson1:00:09

      ... teleologically against whether or not you're achieving that. Have I not achieved a goal today? No. Right. Yes. Well, no, dude, that's a goal. Like (laughs) -

   4. RBRyan Bush1:00:16

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson1:00:16

      ... it's kind of, um, falsifiable (laughs) in that way.

   6. RBRyan Bush1:00:19

      (laughs) Oh, no.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:00:21

      But yeah, man, uh, the, the devil really is in the details with this, and I think you've done... For anybody that wants... that enjoyed what we've gone through today, Designing the Mind: The Principles of Psychitecture will be linked in the show notes below. You've done a, like a, a really, really awesome job with it, dude. Um, as a sort of a parting note, how can people continue to optimize their mental software moving forward?

   8. RBRyan Bush1:00:44

      Awesome. Yeah, uh, so what I would tell you is that if you wanna follow what Designing the Mind is doing, you can go to designingthemind.org. I'm gonna be sharing, uh, a lot of ideas related to psychotecture and all this, uh, to anyone who joins the email list. Um, but, um, but I also want to do a lot of big things, uh, in the near future. And to help me do that, I've created a survey, uh, where I'm essentially trying to figure out what people's psychological struggles and aspirations are, what comes up the most, so I know what to focus in depth on. Um, and I'm also doing a giveaway centered around that. So I'm giving away signed copies of the book. Uh, I'm giving away a few other psychological tools. Uh, so if you go to designingthemind.org/survey, you can fill that out. You'll be entered into the giveaway and added to the email list. You can unsubscribe anytime. Uh, but I would- I would love to be able to, uh, welcome you to a- a really cool community in the near future.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:01:48

      I love it, man. Thank you. Uh, final thing. What is a underground hero book that you stumbled upon whilst researching, uh, Designing the Mind-

   10. RBRyan Bush1:02:00

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:02:00

       ... that you think more people should know about?

   12. RBRyan Bush1:02:03

       Good question. Um, so one thing that comes to mind, uh, I don't know how underground it is, but, uh, a couple books by Maslow beyond just, um, you know, the hierarchy of needs that everyone's familiar with. Uh, you know, uh, the farther reaches of human nature, just an incredible vision of what, uh, the human mind is capable of. So, uh, I would- I would highly recommend that or- or Towards a Psychology of Being by Maslow. Um, there's, uh, one really underground thing that- that isn't even technically a book. It's like a document floating (laughs) on the internet, um, called, uh, The Nine Levels of Increasing Embrace by Suzanne Cook-Greuter. And, uh, this doesn't show up in this book, but it's a very interesting perspective on the mind and the way that we develop and mature. Uh, so I- I cannot recommend that highly enough.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:02:53

       Awesome. I'm gonna try and find The Nine Levels of Increasing Embrace, and if anyone wants to check it out, it may be in the show notes below, or I may not have, I may have given up. Um, Ryan, man, I'm super excited for whatever the next book is and whatever you've got coming up. I really look forward to it.

   14. RBRyan Bush1:03:07

       Awesome. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, man. I really enjoyed it.

   15. NANarrator1:03:12

       (singing)

Episode duration: 1:03:26