Decision-making and Identity

This brain dump feels somehow like a small, but necessary, digression before I follow again the “direction” I hinted at in “The Natural Flow of Energy”. I often say that I might go back to the concepts I touch in my posts but this one specifically feels to me only like a necessary decluttering step; I need to make up for some space in my brain.

In the closing part of the post “The search for identity” I mentioned that, at least in my own experience, “needs” and “desires” define an individual. Although I am relatively sure that this concept can be generalized to some extent, I am realizing that searching for a few - discrete - characteristics that define an “identity” is the wrong approach, since I think that identity is mostly interactional.

Desires are a big drive for individuals and they carry interesting considerations. We might often not get what we want, even if we plan for it and invest a lot of energy; yet, some individuals continue to chase desires and this tells a lot about a person's identity. Needs I think must be discussed in the context of self-awareness (I am not surprised we are back again to this).

Leaving for the moment needs and desires apart, I still want to focus on “choices”. At a very high level, I think that choices are taken with inputs from:

• stimuli, i.e. sensory data, whether internal or external → perception

• memories, i.e. a priori knowledge

Although this brain dump is more centered on identity, there are a couple of references to “choices” and decision-making that I share here because interesting and potentially relevant in a later stage:

• Complexity and sense-making. Data is collected through perception (i.e. senses); we do a conceptual blending of emergent memories and thoughts (and feelings?); the first matching pattern is applied (i.e. we tend to satisfy rather than optimize).

• Human-centric design. Awareness is a key input to decision-making, although I can’t entirely agree with some of the points shared in the article, one example being, that the "filter passes along patterns". The model described is a good starting point, even though I think some blocks are misplaced: when no memory is available, I would claim that some can only be generated through sensory data, therefore I do not see perception as a subset of working memory.

I am unsure this fits well here, but I cannot help but think that another feedback I received in the context of identity was about how dreams and subconsciousness shape it. If little is known about cognition and consciousness, stepping into the subconscious is a delicate step (potentially opens also many doors to ethics). One key differentiation I feel like making is between unconsciousness and subconsciousness. In the first case, there is no awareness but there are still (automatic) actions (i.e. breathing during the REM phase); on the other hand, subconsciousness is potentially related to faster decision-making driven by instincts and (distributed-)memories. To this point, the link above about human-centered principles might provide a reference, related to the differentiation in decision-making between experts and novices. There is no doubt however, that subconsciousness is still part of one's identity, along with dreaming, although I think that decision-making while dreaming could be an entire domain by itself (i.e. lucid dreaming).

One closing note worth making about the “distributed” memories. To some extent, this touches on something I heard a long time ago from a Yogi, and that is that every cell in our body has memories embodied in it. Sadhguru often refers to this concept in his “Inner Engineering” program and it is certainly worth learning what that is all about. I understand that spirituality or, better, the soul, is an important part of our identity and existence, but this is not a direction I want to follow. This does not disregard for me in any way a "spiritual" dimension (we are body, mind, and soul); it is just for me a focalizing effort towards the direction that suits me best, and that is the natural flow of energy. Is it the easiest one? I wish it were. In the end, perhaps, “choices” shape one’s identity more profoundly than I thought.