Brain in love?
“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”
― Epictetus
On the way home from writing the evolution of love, I had an aha! moment. I would like to breakaway from my continuing the empathetic engine, but use the previous post as a basis for this post. When many different inputs all align, I believe that I have signal. I feel at this moment the signal is strong for this idea.
The problem
We are seeing two memes on the web, one from males, and the other from females. On the male side we see the Manosphere in response to the FriendZone. The idea that a woman only sees a particular man as a “friend”. We know this is only playing friends. On the female side we see women with the “complete” guy, but still not interested. What is going on?
The Matrix Solution
If you are inside the matrix and read the womans story above, you think something is wrong with her. But at some level if you are a women you understand, no tingle? Whats that about? Everything a man is told within TheMatrix, is the man she describes, it’s the man who waits on you, comforts you, dare I say builds a chicken coop for you. Is there to be your best friend! The matrix tells you relational equity is where it’s at, that if you just put in the time, the woman will “love” you.
I propose that all TheMatrix is offering is Social brain thinking. If you read Rollos RelationalEquity.
So it’s particularly jarring for men to consider that all of that equity becomes effectively worthless to a woman presented with a sufficiently better prospect as per the dictates of her hypergamy.
I propose that she doesn’t even need a better prospect. That the man is in the Manosphere sense a BETA, he is completely in the Social brain space. When I discuss the details of the emphatic engine we will see why. But the traits of the BETA are all about making/creating the utopian view of an emphatic civilization, they are derived from the NeoMammalian Social brain.
Why Game Works
If I was to describe PUA and its underlying theme, it would be, get fit, and appeal to her emotion. That in a nutshell is how to pickup women. What did that just describe? It described the Reptilian (Functional), and the PaleoMammalian(Me) parts of the brain.
If you notice the description, from my previous post, the inner portions of the brain deal with the reproduction. The outer brain deals with the socialization problems.
For a man to attract a woman for mating, he must be fit, to excite the Reptilian brain. Base emotions are selfish in nature, they are contextual to the individual. Appealing to them creates mating connection. Once the relationship is consummated, chemicals are released that will enable the “social” brain to calm any fears this is the wrong man.
Getting out of the FriendZone
One of the most bitter pills for me to ever swallow is the above message, that everything you have been taught in TheMatrix, doesn’t help you attract and keep a mate. But it makes you a “nice guy”. A nice guy is a Social brain thinker, but he has basic drives, he is “trained” by his environment to be more of a “social” thinker than a “Me” thinker. Remember he still has basic drives, and they must be acknowledged at some point in some form. We will see how the emphatic engine is “trained” to build this “Nice Guy”.
Conclusion
Rollo appeals to the engineer in me, I don’t like all this hindbrain kinda thinking and talking. It’s a complex network of neurons and people appear to be attracted to different components within the Triune brain. If anything is clear it should be the tension that is between the Reptillian, Me brain and the Social brain, both at an individual level, and a civilization level of evolution, they are competing.
There is one piece for me, that now falls into place, and that is Rollos FlashesOfAlpha
A lot of what men construe as Drama Queen behavior is the direct result of this beta-Alpha-beta cycle. The more stable, healthy relationship follows an Alpha-beta-Alpha frame where the man maintains his Alpha presence, with just an occasional beta episode to “prove he’s human”.
Rollo is advocating that you activate the short-lived chemicals in her Reptilian and PaleoMammalian brain, but sometimes you are human and have to reenable the longer term “social” brain chemicals. This “equation” maintains all the chemical cocktails needed to sustain love at all levels as described by Ph.D. Brenda Schaeffer.
I would like to leave you with the following thought.
What is the difference between shame, and tolerance? Its been said we live in a shame filled society. My guess is as our tolerance for each other is rising, so is our shame. For the emphatic engine, they are the same thing.
I don’t see a correlation between shame and tolerance – they seem like two opposing factors to me? Perhaps I need to think about this more.
You know that question “Are you the man you want to be?”? Who is that man and who/what helps you with the decision-making process? You alone? Society? Both? What if you evolve in a direction that is not true to who you are but to who you think you should be?
Regarding being fit: I think this, too. Meaning, if I am physically fit, I will attract more men. But I also need to be psychologically fit, too. The Chef wasn’t “visually” fit. He said he needed to lose 15-20 pounds. I still found him attractive, until his inner self did some things I didn’t like too much.
Oh, how my brain hurts. Too early, and too much thinking on too much caffeine.
Humble,
To tolerate situations, people, or an object, is to deny these things that bother you. In the same way shame prevents you from speaking up, in situations, people, or an object. Is it shame or tolerance when you don’t speak up when someone runs into on the street? Thinking about it some more, to “tolerate” something, is a society definition of what is good. When you feel “shame”, it tolerance that society doesn’t feel you should.
Reflect on Japanese culture, is it that there is a lot of “shame” or “tolerance”? I would contend it depends upon your PointOfView.
I am not trying to put a value on shame or tolerance, only that the mechanism is the same. I feel it is a socialization construct of the NeoMammalian brain, the mechanism that arbitrates the individuals needs with the impressioned societal needs . There aren’t two mechanism one that tolerates and the other that shames, they are the same. Does that make sense?
In order to really see my theory you need to remove value judgments on the descriptive words we use, (shame, tolerance, empathy) and see it as a system or mechanism. I feel the description of the brain as exists in psychology is too complicated, overly so. That to simplify it would go along way in healing. What I am trying to say is the system is probably simpler than we imagine.
I have been behaving, through shame et al, like the man TheMatrix wants me to be, a “NiceGuy”. But I am the one that determines this, I realize the only thing standing between me and my true vision of self is myself. I determine it day to day…. I don’t believe in a true self, the concept is foreign to me. There is an internal vision of self, and external execution, the further from each other the worse the disorder. I could go on to describe how a “niceguy” syndrome is distorted thinking.
Regarding fit, yeah, I think people are initially attracted to fit, but as i will try to explain in a future post its not everything for humans, and its not equal for everyone. There are also physiological things that happen when you are fit. If I can use your vernacular, you give off a different energy when you are fit, or just had some exercise. I am beginning to think that is true about just having good sex.
I am off to Florida for the Fourth! Have a good day, coffee is my problem too!