If your body’s emergency mobilization systems are running in response to an issue, but your survival doesn’t actually depend on actions on a timescale of minutes, then you are not perceiving reality accurately.
You are locked in a room. You are going die of thirst in a few days. The door has a combination lock. You know the password is 5 digits (0 to 9). If it takes you one second to try each combination, it’s going to take you 27.7 hours to try all the combinations (so half that on average to find the right one). Your survival doesn’t depend on your actions on the timescale of minutes, and yet having your body’s emergency mobilization systems running wouldn’t mean you’re not perceiving reality accurately.
You are part of a police department. You get a credible threat that someone planted a big bomb in the city and will detonate it in 48 hours unless his demands are met. Your goal is to find where the bomb is and disable it. Your survival doesn’t depend on your actions on the timescale of minutes, and yet having your body’s emergency mobilization systems running wouldn’t mean you’re not perceiving reality accurately.
Unless I misunderstand what you mean by “your body’s emergency mobilization systems”, this seems clearly true.
Unless I’m very much mistaken, emergency mobilization systems refers to autonomic responses like a pounding heartbeat, heightened subjective senses, and other types of physical arousal; i.e. the things your body does when you believe someone or something is coming to kill you with spear or claw. Literal fight or flight stuff.
In both examples you give there is true danger, but your felt bodily sense doesn’t meaningfully correspond to it; you can’t escape or find the bomb by being ready for an immediate physical threat. This is the error being referred to. In both cases the preferred state of mind is resolute problem-solving and inability to register a felt sense of panic will likely reduce your ability to get to such a state.
You are locked in a room. You are going die of thirst in a few days. The door has a combination lock. You know the password is 5 digits (0 to 9). If it takes you one second to try each combination, it’s going to take you 27.7 hours to try all the combinations (so half that on average to find the right one). Your survival doesn’t depend on your actions on the timescale of minutes, and yet having your body’s emergency mobilization systems running wouldn’t mean you’re not perceiving reality accurately.
You are part of a police department. You get a credible threat that someone planted a big bomb in the city and will detonate it in 48 hours unless his demands are met. Your goal is to find where the bomb is and disable it. Your survival doesn’t depend on your actions on the timescale of minutes, and yet having your body’s emergency mobilization systems running wouldn’t mean you’re not perceiving reality accurately.
Unless I misunderstand what you mean by “your body’s emergency mobilization systems”, this seems clearly true.
Unless I’m very much mistaken, emergency mobilization systems refers to autonomic responses like a pounding heartbeat, heightened subjective senses, and other types of physical arousal; i.e. the things your body does when you believe someone or something is coming to kill you with spear or claw. Literal fight or flight stuff.
In both examples you give there is true danger, but your felt bodily sense doesn’t meaningfully correspond to it; you can’t escape or find the bomb by being ready for an immediate physical threat. This is the error being referred to. In both cases the preferred state of mind is resolute problem-solving and inability to register a felt sense of panic will likely reduce your ability to get to such a state.
This. I think a lot of the problems re emergency mobilization systems relate to that feeling of immediateness, when it’s not.
I think a lot of emergencies are way too long-term for us, so we apply emergency mobilization systems even when they aren’t there.