Goal Seeking as a Tool for Self Help

[PsychoCybernetics]

As a thought experiment let's assume that we all have a goal seeking machine at our disposal. Let's assume that our brain is fundamentally a goal seeking machine. Now Let's put that hypothesis to a test. Let's take a brand new brain, one that has not been cluttered by any information at all, good or bad, a human baby. Well, almost no bad if we ignore the first encounter with other humans is to have your bottom smacked to make you cry because they love you.

After that ridiculous encounter you calm down and start looking for food. Some people have called this instinct but this is as misguided as slapping your bottom. You goal is to get something to eat and is duly provided by someone who really loves you, your mother.

Next, sometime later, you find yourself laying on your back in a crib with an interesting multicoloured mobile dangling over your head. You don't know what this perverse thing is so you decide to see what it feels like. But that's not as easy as you think. Your arms wave around, your fingers grasp at the air. You have no concept of the vast multitude of muscles to achieve your goal, you need help. Over time something in your brain, by trial and error, guides your hand and fingers to what you want. You have achieved your first goal. Well, second if you don't ignore your first one. with your mother, but that usually only happens when you are a teenager.

After that ordeal, you learn to use that technique to achieve goal after goal. As time passes you want more and different things. And that something inside your brain always finds a way to get it for you, using whatever means you know of, sometimes using very inventive methods you aren't really sure where they came from.

Now you have grown up and had many many life experiences and have gained a vast storehouse of knowledge. It was gained in every way that it's possible to gain knowledge. Much of it you don't consciously remember and a lot that you can't put into words, like how to ride a bicycle, but it's there nevertheless. It has a name it's called tacit knowledge.

It is that tacit knowledge you will draw from for your self help. You only need a goal to bring it out. It's always worked in the past. Any ideas?

[Croix]

Dear PsychoCybernetics~

I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what you are saying. I'd agree of course that we acquire both conscious and instinctive knowledge throughout life and these are used to gain the goals we want or need. I'm probably missing the point - my apologies if so.

Selecting goals is something I'm more comfortable with, as one's mental health dictates to a very large extent what might be possible, but trying to accomplish things is still important. While in everyday life a goal might be a large thing, go to work and do a particular project for example, if one has to battle depression one might need to sets one's sights towards something that is easier to do.

When coping with feelings of pointlessness and exhaustion just getting out of bed in the morning might be a triumph. Aiming under those circumstances to do that project is basically setting oneself up for failure, which in turn makes one feel worse and feeds the depression. A smaller goal can lead to feelings of success. Multiple small goals more so.

As I said I'm not really sure what you intended, I hope my post is not too far off topic

Croix

[PsychoCybernetics]

Hi Croix,

Many thanks for your reply. No, you are not missing the point far from it. Your first paragraph shows you already grasp the concept that our brain has the answers, methods and solutions to reach our goals. Academically this is called "Tacit knowledge"

Bear with me while while I elaborate on tacit knowledge. It is unwritten, unspoken, and hidden vast storehouse of knowledge held by practically every normal human being, based on his or her emotions, experiences, insights, intuition, observations and internalized information. Tacit knowledge is integral to the entirety of a person's consciousness, is acquired largely through association with other people, and requires joint or shared activities to be imparted from one to another as opposed to formal knowledge.

Since there is such a vast amount it isn't easy to access it. Much of it cannot even be put into words. I used the example of trying to tell someone how to ride a bicycle. It is also the theory of apprenticeships. Watching more skilled people doing the work and imparting their tacit knowledge through showing and doing.

The trick is finding out how to access this tacit knowledge. Since much of it cannot be put into words, even if you talk to yourself you can't conceptualize it. The way an experienced apprentice might tackle a new puzzling job is they would look at it for a while then just start at a place they do know. Once started their tacit knowledge would be tapped, although they don't immediately know all the steps they need to do to solve all the problems they will face, it is the final goal that they keep in mind that will be the drive to solve each problem along the way. If asked, while they are working, how they are going solve the original overall problem, without looking up, they will most likely say; "I don't know" and keep working.

A beginning computer programmer, sooner or later, will get a program running in an endless loop. Asked what they will do about that they most likely will say ;"Nothing can be done, I can't break into it to stop it and if I turn the computer off and on again it just starts in that endless loop again."

That is a description of depression. And to break into that endless loop we need to be like the apprentice, we need to start somewhere, no matter how small a step we take we won't get anywhere without a goal. A tiny goal and a tiny success is a first step to tap our tacit knowledge. I'm out of space.

[Croix]

Dear PsychoCybernetics~

Well I think I'm getting an idea of where you are going, and I guess tacit knowledge can be used or exploited in the case of depression. If I inderstand correctly you are talking about using the knowledge of the way we react or behave to assist in defeating depression.

As an example knowing that listening to the news makes things worse, and that reading a favored book soothes and rests and promotes healing.

I guess from the fact we are in the Depression Section that you to suffer from this condition too. Do you mind if I ask if you have had it long, and if your are OK at the moment?

Croix

[PsychoCybernetics]

Hi Croix

Lots of thanks for coming back. You are correct.

You said:

Dear PsychoCybernetics~
Well I think I'm getting an idea of where you are going, and I guess tacit knowledge can be used or exploited in the case of depression. If I inderstand correctly you are talking about using the knowledge of the way we react or behave to assist in defeating depression.

You are right about changing the way you react to bad news too. We are surrounded by it these days and how you react is important. What you suggest is actually how to break the bad habit of getting more depressed by immediately starting to do something more pleasant to change your mind set. Continuing doing that is replacing one habit with another. Which, in reality, is the only way you can shake a bad habit.

For example it's how I stopped smoking. Every time I had an urge to have a cigarette I immediately took a deep breath and got up and got a drink of water. It took persistence and a lot of trips to the toilet but it eventually worked. Now every time I smell cigarette smoke I have to pee, I need to find a replacement for that now 🙂 So always be careful what habit you replace a habit with.

However that is not the way I propose to tap into your tacit knowledge. Remember tacit knowledge is very elusive and what you might need is not as simple as replacing habits. Depression can be too extreme for such a simple solution since it can become so all encompassing with its endless loop. It will keep running, wiping out any attempt to deliberately launch a frontal attack on it.

That's why it defies therapy, suggestions by well meaning friends and family, drugs, and experts from around the world. Even knowing you have it and a great desire and effort to over come it, is like lifting yourself by your own boot straps. Like that computer program caught in an endless loop it can't be stopped.

However, there is a solution and a very happy one. Start a new program drawing on your own tactic knowledge. It's setting there unused and unaffected by the endless loop. With a massive life time of information to draw on a little wasteful, energy sapping, useless endless loop can't stand a chance.

You might have already guessed the method I suggest how to tap this tacit knowledge. But saying would it make it a silver bullet that doesn't achieve anything, you and I, like Plato, need a dialogue to give it justice. Please come back soon.

Your last questions, yes, yes, and yes

[Croix]

Dear PsychoCybernetics~

Well, I'm glad you are OK at the moment. Although you said you did mind my asking about your condition I hope that answer was just a mix up, if not my apologies.

I'm afraid you have lost me with your method of defeating depression. I'm very glad you have found something that works for you. I would agree trying to improve is often like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and I've had to have outside help, both professional and personal, to improve. That of course does not mean one does not try to help oneself. Such things as revising goals to stop setting oneself up for defeats is important I believe.

I'm afraid Plato is to subtle for me 😞 I'd be grateful if you would simply share your knowledge

Croix

[Doolhof]

Hi PsychoCybernetics,

The mind is certainly a very powerful instrument, it can absorb far more than we may ever be able to recognise and can have quite considerable control over our moods, emotions and thoughts.

I have been reading the conversation between yourself and Croix and have found it interesting if somewhat a little above my level of perception and understanding.

Lately I have been told to think happy thoughts and my depression will go away. If only it was that simple! All of us have different life experiences and store away certain data that yes, we can use for a positive change in mood but it may take quite an effort to do so.

We may have the ability to heal our minds by accessing the stored information within the deep recesses of the brain, the question is how to retrieve that information, and how to put all the good and helpful strategies into action.

I have been told the happy thoughts will soon outweigh the negative or unhelpful thoughts, that depression will loose its power, but in the same breathe have been told I will likely have depression for life.

Do happy thoughts have the capacity to have the power to change the chemical balance enough in the brain to heal one from depression?

Surely the tactic knowledge one gathers over a life time mirrors the lifestyle and environment a person has lived in. Or is this tactic knowledge intrinsically positive?

Also I had always assumed that first slap on the bottom after birth and being hung from your feet was to encourage a baby to take in their first breathe and ensure the lungs were drained, not so much out of love but maybe necessity.

Cheers from Dools

[PsychoCybernetics]

HI Croix

I'm sorry I answered yes to the second part of your three part question it should nave been no.

Plato wrote approximately 30 dialogues in which knowledge was imparted through questions and answers. That's all I meant was for you to stay in contact and continue our dialogue.

Now I will digress again to explain why one shouldn't simply go straight to the point sometimes - using some cross discipline knowledge. In the discipline of selling products there are such things such as "features" and "benefits" of the product you are selling. You should never state the product's features before the benefits because the features are not what the customer wants. They want to know what benefit the product has for them. For example, Stating the feature that the product has gold-plated contacts immediately brings up it the buyer's mind - Gold! - Expensive!!! And then you may or may not get them to hear or believe what the benefits are.

If I say depression can be helped by goal-setting then one thing (among thousands) that could come up in the person's mind is one thing you have already pointed out, and that is failing at a goal would exacerbate the depression. Goal-setting is the feature of the theory not the benefit. And the choice of goals must be carefully considered as well as how they are presented.

You have already stated that "selecting goals is something I'm more comfortable with." And you have indicated you understand the existence of tacit knowledge. If a depressed person can be given goals and use their tacit knowledge to reach them then they will start to believe in themselves again. Note the goals have to be something they can succeed at things, things that are inconsequential. Definitely not life goals or a goal to get out of depression! The more abstract, from their situation and depression, as possible the better. So they have to draw on their tacit knowledge. The idea is as the treatment progresses they can be shown what they are doing and how they are doing it.

Almost all suggestions to help depression is about depression we need a better way.

Do you understand now and will you help me refine this theory into something more concrete? Possibly with some goals to start with.

[PsychoCybernetics]

Hi Dools,

Thanks for dropping in you are very welcome.

You have brought up some very important points and a new perspective to help expand this theory of goal seeking or more specifically how that part of our brain works that does this goal seeking.

Thinking happy thoughts is good and should become a daily habit. But they are too fleeting to make any permanent changes. Logically it stands to reason that if we didn't have low periods in our lives we would have no concept of happy.

Wouldn't it be nice to have those happy thoughts by thinking about your successes and achievements. But more so knowing how you got them, confident in the knowledge you know how to get more anytime you want to. That could get to be more permanent.

Whoever told you that you would likely have depression for life should be told to have more positive thoughts..

Of course your tacit knowledge is shaped by your total life experiences good and bad. That's why you need to know more about that part of the brain that does this goal seeking.

Let's just call it the brain for simplicity. And call it a goal seeking machine. And a machine will do anything it is instructed to do positive or negative.

An example from my own life, because I had several brothers and sisters before the internet, we played board games a lot. One was checkers or droughts with red and black disks. We got so good at it, it started to become boring. Someone suggested we play give-away. The goal changed from trying to win into trying to lose. The goal was to lose all your men instead of capturing the other guys. We all learned a lot of moves we had never dreamed of before. That was a lot of fun but also taught us more how to play the game the right way too.

From that example you can deduce that goal seeking is just a tool. To it there is no right or wrong, win or lose, it's neutral and is there at your direction by giving it a goal. When set on its task it will draw from your tacit knowledge as well as your conscious knowledge. It will consider those bad experiences in your tacit knowledge perhaps to avoid them or to learn what obstacles might be encountered in reaching the goal. So the bad things can be good in this case.

There is very very much more your contributions are more than welcome.

It's funny how you can smack a bottom to make a child live, but can't to make them behave to live better 🙂

[Doolhof]

Hi PsychoCybernetics,

Challenging the way our minds work can be a "challenge" in itself. In previous posts elsewhere, people have written about our minds getting in a rut. It is like our brains are so used to thinking in a certain way, that trying to re-direct our thought patterns into a different and new direction can take a lot of work.

Goal setting can be a struggle when I have told myself in the past there is no point in setting goals because achieving those goals and desires will never eventuate. I need to change my thoughts and say to myself, yes, some goals have not been achievable and that is okay.

I realise that my mind can very easily consider the negative or unhelpful thoughts and notions before it considers the positive and helpful.

This morning as soon as I awoke my mood was low. I decided my option was to acknowledge how I was feeling and consider ways to change that mood. I also made plans and goals I could work towards during the day to help me feel better about myself, life and to have a sense of achievement.

Realising I can change my moods and thoughts is an achievement, as is making goals for the day. Each achievement helps build up to a sense of empowerment.

I also realise and comprehend that total happiness 24/7 is not possible, what is possible is to accept that depression is a part of me and there will be times when I can change how I am feeling and times when I will just have to go with the flow and accept the low moods.

Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values, emotions, conscious and unconscious ideas and ideals. It is enough to make your head spin!

Cheers all from Dools