When I do mindless or routine tasks for a while, activities I don’t need much conscious thought for, I go back to older and simpler cognitions. It takes me a little effort to, for example, notice I’m confused, and then remember the methods of rationality. That takes me a second or so, during which some attention goes inward, to flash images associated with rationality. So to me, rational, purposeful thought distinctly feels like a faculty that needs to be (re)activated to be used.
That’s my own experience. Does anyone experience this similarly?
So I played with this activation. First I started noticing it and feeling it in detail. I don’t know how much my (non-trivial) mindfulness meditation training helped with this. I related to the activation impulse as another part of my body, as if I had an extra finger and was learning how to twitch it. I found a short trigger phrase for me to associate with this activation and taught my brain the connection by simply doing the activation at the same time as I was saying the trigger phrase.
Do any of you guys do something like that? Some image, phrase or visualization that helps you remember to be rational?
Techniques to consciously activate a rationalist self-image
When I do mindless or routine tasks for a while, activities I don’t need much conscious thought for, I go back to older and simpler cognitions. It takes me a little effort to, for example, notice I’m confused, and then remember the methods of rationality. That takes me a second or so, during which some attention goes inward, to flash images associated with rationality. So to me, rational, purposeful thought distinctly feels like a faculty that needs to be (re)activated to be used.
That’s my own experience. Does anyone experience this similarly?
So I played with this activation. First I started noticing it and feeling it in detail. I don’t know how much my (non-trivial) mindfulness meditation training helped with this. I related to the activation impulse as another part of my body, as if I had an extra finger and was learning how to twitch it. I found a short trigger phrase for me to associate with this activation and taught my brain the connection by simply doing the activation at the same time as I was saying the trigger phrase.
Do any of you guys do something like that? Some image, phrase or visualization that helps you remember to be rational?