Motivation version

[Anonymous No.5776199]

Neuroscience discussion.
Not a neuroscientist, this is certainly one of the most interesting fields, mainly because the brain contains all the other fields and pretty much everything.

This time i wanna discuss the motivation/choice from a neuroscience aspect.

For example many people here suffer from procrastination.
How to override procrastination?
How to motivate yourself to do work, study, duties, etc.
How the brain chooses between tasks.
How to battle addiction (smoking, jerking off, etc)

I read a book "How we decide", interesting stuff but limited on the generalizations of dopamine system, but you can definitely build on that.
Lets start.

[Anonymous No.5776205]

>>5776199

I have severe procrastination. But I've discovered that any problem you can put off long enough just goes away.

[Anonymous No.5776208]

Feel free to start this thread off with some interesting discoveries in neuroscience.

[Anonymous No.5776207]

>>mainly because the brain contains all the other fields and pretty much everything

we're off to a bad start

[Anonymous No.5776214]

>>5776207
Well maybe i phrased it wrong, the brain does contain all other fields, in the sense that it is all understood by the brain.

And it "contains" everything, that is everything we ever experience and understand is done all by the brain.

[Anonymous No.5776222]

>>5776205
Lol

In case you're actually serious, the only reasons they go away is because people realize you're a lazy piece of shit so they just give up on you.

I would know, lots of experience procrastinating

[OP No.5776241]

>>5776205
Can you explain what exactly you mean?

[Anonymous No.5776249]

Now, the more i have researched the basic neuroscience, the more i see an interconnection between memory, motivation, intelligence, emotions, etc.

Ofcouse one would expect such thing, to see them more and more united.
But it's not in the way i expected.
It seems intelligence, learning, memory, choosing are extremely related, dare to say that they are pretty much the same thing viewed from a different angle.

[OP No.5776286]

I recently created a theory and wanted to test it out, no one can trust himself in such matters, that would be the ultimate bias.

Here's my 'theory':
The brain works like a problem solving machine, it is an organ after all, it has it's purpose.

After reading the book i mentioned in OP i was pretty much convinced that you never actually choose what to do.
Your emotions always choose for you.
Now that seems an extreme statement and at first glance it may look just dead wrong, but hear me out.
Ever been in a situation where you must do x but you do y anyway and regret it?

That seems quire crazy if we assume we're the most rational species.
We KNOW what to do, we MUST do it, it IS beneficial in the long run (like not smoking or not eating too much) but eventually we get carried away by our emotions.
And by emotions i mean our biological needs, for food, for satisfaction, anger driven choices that hinder our long term benefits, love driven choices, etc.

Everything you do is cause your emotions want to, your "logical" brain/frontal lobe/reasoning isn't there to decide but redirect your emotions.

Eventually your emotions always choose it's your frontal lobe that manipulates your emotion into choosing better options.
There was an example of a young female, that was doing her PhD or smth, never had drugs, was top student, good life, faithful companion that was engaged, etc.
After some point she started drinking, doing drugs, starting sleeping everyday with strangers, ditched her career, couldn't concentrate for few seconds on the most simple tasks, she had developed a tumor in her frontal lobe, she couldn't decide normally, she only did what her "reflexes" told her, couldn't reason out of something, just did the first thing her emotions threw at her.

Cont in part 2 am writing it right now.
If you have questions so far or see something wrong just point it out.

[OP No.5776339]

>>5776286
cont'd pt2
I don't know her fate, but i assume she died or worse.
So anyway, it seems that your addictions, choices, procrastination, motivation to do something, all that have the same source.

Addiction is something that your brain perceives as extremely beneficial, because of excess of dopamine when doing the exact task, you tend to repeat it cause it supposedly by your brain it is something positive for you.
Procrastination isn't really a procrastination to your brain.
You have xyz things to do, overtime you get anxious, your emotional brain can't understand
how important they are and only can grasp that there is that xyz and you're anxious, and wants to protect you from that, so it chooses to do other stuff that relaxes you, makes you feel good.
The more you do this the stronger the procrastination gets, you reinforce that habit.
Motivation occurs when your emotions AGREE with your frontal lobe, when you NEED (logic) to do something either for fun or duty and your emotions are ok with it.
Your emotions are stronger than your frontal lobe, when you see a spider that isn't venomous you can TRY to convince your emotional brain that "it's ok bud" but it doesn't give a shit, it will rush your blood levels high, spit adrenaline in your face and make you look like a retard.

Evolutionary speaking it was the most effective way to survive, too bad the brain doesn't know about the modern world.
But that is the general concept.
THOUGH, as a species we are famous of suppressing our emotional needs and doing things that are beneficial but not very pleasant.
It is still emotional though, the "beneficial" needs.
For example say you want a good body and you WANT to train 3 weeks a day for years(forever if possible).
Your emotional brain WANTS that, you WANT to feel good and strong and huge and other people admire your physique, so your decision is EMOTIONAL (as with all decisions ofc).

part 3 coming up

[OP No.5776382]

>>5776339

But the again another part of your EMOTIONAL brain is too fucking bored to lift things and procrastinates.
You have 2 different things your emotional brain wants, 2 different parts of your emotional brain.
Your frontal lobe's job is to evaluate the 2 needs and try to convince your primitive part of your brain to pick the long term beneficial choice.

That's what i mean that every choice is emotional, even if it 'logical' you are driven by emotion, not in the classical romantic sense though, as you have noticed by now.

So the trillion dollar question is how do you make yourself always or at least almost always pick the actual beneficial choice and not the retarded goodfeely choice?
It is a trillion dollar question because it has to do EVERYTHING in your life, your everyday life, your dreams hope, your happiness all depends on your choices.
If you can train and master how to correctly choose the best option you can be complete as a human being and be effectively happy.

Now i'll talk about how you can trick your brain into making to do things you NEED to do.
Most of us here have played video games.
What do you notice? You notice that you can sit for an insane amount of time and do meaningless shit.
If you think of this in evolutionary terms, this is insanely inefficient, literally crazy and stupid.
Why would you waste so much time in doing meaningless shit in front of a computer?
Even arguing on the internet over stupid stuff has at least some kind of benefit.
Especially when it comes to MMOs, you do the same thing a million times to get an a virtual item.
Well, how do you do that for endless hours?
Because you tricked your emotional brain that it is IMPORTANT. Yes your emotional brain chooses to do that.

part 4 comin up

[Anonymous No.5776390]

>>5776382
go on, getting interesting.

[Anonymous No.5776401]

>>5776286
>The brain works like a problem solving machine
This is only partially true; the brain works like a fucking brain. Stop being edgy, stop pretending you understand anything about neuroscience, stop being autistic, and fucking do as you want to do, without fucking assuming anybody else gives a flying fuck, because we most certainly don't.

[Anonymous No.5776411]

>>5776199
>How to override procrastination?
>How to motivate yourself to do work, study, duties, etc.
>How the brain chooses between tasks.
>How to battle addiction (smoking, jerking off, etc)
trying to solve normal psychological problems with neuroscience isn't going to work. The brain is way too complicated and delicate to be understood at this point in time. The only thing we can do is cut out a small part of a brain and see what changes. This is unethical so neuroscience contains mostly case studies of people who got their face blown off (phineas gage anyone?) and just follow them. How can we be sure that the damage taken is actually from the missing part and not some shrapnel in the brain?

Most of the brain is too complicated. Even with the most advanced imaging techniques, it's only possible to see brain activity and whatnot while doing a certain task, but that doesn't mean the active parts _only_ do that task, a piece of brain the size of a dice can do so many tasks at the same time it's mind-boggling.

Also OP, you shouldn't really get on the subject of games, that's a slippery slope and you're on a pretty right track here, but stay away from your theory about videogames.

[OP No.5776469]

>>5776401
That only depends on your interpretation of "problem".
Even sending signals to the heart to pump blood is solving a problem.
Enjoying fine music is again solving a problem, at least to your brain, it tries to decode the audio, the feelgood sensation is a byproduct of language processing, you can look it up.

>brain works like a fucking brain
Yes, i was trying to be somewhat stochastic.
> Stop being edgy
Edgy that am feeling awesome that i formed basic understand of how the brain works?
It just feels good, sry bro if you feel so angry about that.
>stop pretending you understand anything about neuroscience
Am actually trying to show what i understood from neurscience in hopes someone corrects me, recommends me stuff.
> and fucking do as you want to do
I was doing exactly that.
>without fucking assuming anybody else gives a flying fuck, because we most certainly don't.
You can always speak for yourself.
And you could always hide this thread or just ignore me.

But you didn't.
You felt the need to point it out and yell at me.
That means your emotional brain has a problem with this, you have infinite options, you could jerk off, watch a movie, read a great book, reply to a thread that you like, infinite options.
But you still came here to write an angry message.
That means your emotional brain felt that this was necessary, anger is an emotion evolved to for fight(out of fight/flight) purposes.
So can you tell me why you act the way you act? why do you need to fight? what can you say about yourself?

[OP No.5776484]

>>5776411
>theory about video games
How so, to me it seems like a perfect example for a range of different behaviors within the decision spectrum: motivation, addiction, sense of value, procrastination etc

[Anonymous No.5776509]

>>5776484
you underestimate the value of being good at something, compared to real life chores, which are either boring or too hard/troublesome.

you're assuming things about gaming i can't agree with.
You say playing games is meaningless, but games are made so that it's extremely rewarding to play them. If we follow your reasoning it's illogical to do anything besides eat, drink, breathe and fuck. There's a whole lot more to life than that, and saying that games are actually meaninless, is too harsh.

You claim that it's doing meaningless shit, but actually gamers are great problemsolvers, thinking outside the box, and gaming teaches you to be extremely optimistic in life. Some studies show gamers to be some of the most efficient in the corporate life.

Arguing on the internet, now that i can agree with is mostly useless, though knowledge is power. Who is to say i gain more knowledge being on 4chan? I certainly don't most of the days.

Claiming MMO's is just grinding for an item is missing the point and you're underestimating the value of social bonds in MMO's, though no MMO has ever created these permanent community bonds except ultima online and WoW. Most new mmo's nowadays are indeed grinding, but simply ignoring the social aspect is not right.

I'm not trying to justify playing games instead of anything else, and you are correct the emotional brain chooses this, but you should give gaming some more credit.

excuse any spelling errors, it's 3am over here and i'm dead tired, i'm staying up to follow this thread, because it's not often i see people talking about theories in neuroscience. Then again, it doesn't happen often someone tries discussing my area of expertise, neuropsychology games and virtual worlds. Excuse me, but i'll be going to bed now, if the thread is still alive in about 10 hours, i'll see if there's anything worth responding to.

[OP No.5776520]

>>5776382
pt 4

Am also sure that we all had the motivation flashes, when we get so pumped to do something.
It seems that, that is occurring when you convince your emotions to do what you need to do.
For example you want to study/exercise and you get a sudden rush to do both, you're in the mood.
But after some point, seconds, hours, weeks it kinda fades away.
I think the reason for that is that you Forget.
Like the synapses between neurons are strengthened each time you recall a memory and weakened as time passes
and you don't use the same connections.
Being motivated for something is like a memory, you have a reason to do something, and it is 'saved' as a memory.
When you remember the memory you get again pumped and motivated.
Now this is kinda vague and elusive as we go in, naturally cause it is complex and am talking heavily about approximations.

In a sense everything is stored as "memory" in the brain, that is stored as synapses, it may be recallable consciously or not.
When you think of an embarrassing moment of your life and actually imagine it happening you get embarrassed in real time.
Only by recalling a memory you actually recreate the emotion, mood of your brain.
That is very powerful. In essence is a double feedback.
You are what you think and you think what you are.
What am trying to say here in short is that you can recreate the motivation, positive feelings only by thinking about them.
It sounds simplistic and kinda like a common knowledge but it has very effective applications if you apply it seriously.
Many as myself have tried to recreate sometimes a past positive motivational feeling but failed to.

part 5 comin up

[OP No.5776540]

>>5776509
Well, am always afraid that i might rub people the wrong way in some ways.
No matter how careful i am it always happens because i can't predict how everything might be perceived
by all kind of people.

Now that you posted a full response i understand you.
Which is funny cause am an avid Dota2 player, i play quite often to stay sharp, it helps keeping contact with irl friends and new friends made over the internet, keeps me in a competitive mindset and i fully acknowledge that.

Ofc i couldn't predict it would be perceived as such, when am within a certain theme i use the aspects of the examples that fit within the theme.
I picked video games because am very familiar with it, played countless games over the years, all genres, thousands upon thousands of hours.
Everything can be labeled as useless or useful depending on which aspect you look at.
In our case it was video game's addictive side.
I used it as an example cause it was interfering with my functional life.
It might have been watching tv series/movies (also was addicted to that), i could name countless benefits of that but once you get addicted, no matter how good a thing is it interferes with everything else.

I could say movies are useless compared to studying and exercising, but i consider them important, i can get epiphanies, creative ideas, joy, etc from watching movies/tvseries.
If i didn't do recreational stuff life would be a chore, i agree.
Am also being dramatic to give emphasis when giving example as you might noticed.

[OP No.5776582]

>>5776520
pt 5

If it was so easy to just blink and remember the feeling you had when you were so motivated we would be
all high achievers.
But we aren't.
Let me give you just a simple glimpse of why that isn't happening.
I can say the word "poo" and feel "ok, whatever" but when i remember the actual shit, the texture, the smell, i get disgusted.
When you want emotions you can't think with words, you have to feel the memories.
Same for ensnarement, you feel embarrassment only if you specifically remember it too well, imagine the scenery , the voices, etc.
That is the simple version.
The version we care for, the version where you cut procrastination, motivate yourself to study/exercise, quite smoking, etc. is much more hard.

Before i go there, lets talk about value system of your brain, and how it works to give importance to things.
You must have noticed that some people, ideas, behaviors, needs, have gone up in value and down as time passed and you experienced various situations.

The addiction to smoking and your preference on leaning to the right when you're pissing and pretty much all 'preferences' and addictions, behaviors are selected by the value system.
From what i know i cannot really differentiate a preference from an addiction, at least not in a biological sense.
There isn't a clear line where you can draw from addiction and preference.
Both operate the same way at their core, preference is how your dopaminergic values different concepts.
If you get alot of dopamine action from leaning to the left when pissing you just continue to do so because it "feels right".
Why you get a preference pissing leaning left in the first place? Dunno, could be that when you were leaning at the left you though of a hot piece of ass, and accidentally did similar stuff when leaning to the left, your brain associated leaning to the left with positive emotions (dopamine release), and now you acquired the habit of leaning to the left.

pt 6 comin up

[Anonymous No.5776601]

as a neurofag this thread makes my brain hurt

[Anonymous No.5776612]

>>5776199
Nothing to do with neurons is any more a 'science' than psychology. It's all pseudobabble at best.
Can we turn the brain off, replace parts, and turn it on again? No. Can we eliminate extraneous functions and study the effect of a single circuit? No.
Nothing about the brain is a real science at all. It's all just a mumbo jumbo religion; unworthy of the title 'science'.
If you want to be a scientist, go for physics, chemistry, or mathematics. But don't waste your time on so-called 'neuroscience'.

It's like calling a retard 'cognitively delayed'.

[Anonymous No.5776617]

I'm well beyond procrastination and lack of motivation for my studies. I'm gonna need motivation just to live.

[OP No.5776640]

>>5776582
>>5776582
pt 6

A funny way to put this could be that a habit becomes addictive when it consistently interferes negatively with other habits.

At this point you might have guessed that when i say habit i mean pretty much everything you do, no matter of importance.
Because you can see that everything is really at core a "habit" if we take the dopaminergic approach.
So, the habit is physically present in your brain.
The only way to break the habit is to stop doing it the habit, if you stop doing it the synapses between the neurons that enable the habit will weaken over time.
The problem lies in the "stop doing it" if you can't stop doing it (addiction) how the fuck will you stop doing it to "stop doing it".
Lets keep this question in mind.
This approach you take if you want to cut a specific habit.
And then there's the other part, where you want to enable a habit.

Most of life is a continuous battle of acquiring positive habits and flushing down negative habits.
We talked about the acquisition of a habit and the flushing of a habit.
Again, if it was that easy, to start and stop habits we would all be living much satisfying lives.

Time passed, am tired, i'll continue next time.
I'll try to share my understanding on how we actually convince ourselves to acquire positive habits and throw hazardous ones.
We need to repeat something many times so it becomes integral to ourselves, but repeating alone isn't the key.
You can repeat many things and end up disgusted by them and never to repeat them.
It is about how you perceive them, i'll try to show some ways you can positively perceive and repeat things even if you couldn't initially so they can become a habit that you want to do.

[OP No.5776643]

>>5776601
It's actually my writing style.
Am shit at writing, thus my ideas and theories might sound shit.
>inb4 they are shit
might, just saying my writing doesn't help.

[OP No.5776653]

>>5776612

Well, not really.
Am not a scientist as you can clearly see but what you're dead wrong on the description of science.

Neuroscience, biology and other sciences use the scientific method.
You are confusing hard science with soft and what's between.
Sure, the hard science and more rigorous but still doesn't change the fact that biological sciences are still sciences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science

[OP No.5776655]

>>5776653
>sure, hard sciences are more rigorous
fix for myself.

[Anonymous No.5776659]

>>5776640
>Most of life is a continuous battle of acquiring positive habits and flushing down negative habits.

That's actually a good one liner.

[Anonymous No.5776666]

>>5776601
That is because you're an actual autist that cannot apply his knowledge to real world.

[Anonymous No.5776671]

>>5776617
Wanna elaborate?

[Anonymous No.5776703]

>>5776666
yeah okay

[Anonymous No.5776716]

>>5776671
Maybe later.

[Anonymous No.5776735]

I have put off about 8 essays, 20+ reading journals, and a short research paper for an English course all semester and I need to have them in before about 2pm Thursday. What are the odds I can get most if not all of them done tomorrow.

I am a masterful bullshit artist but I have a lot of trouble getting started.

Here are some grade weights:
Written papers (essays): 50%
Final Research paper: 20%
Participation: 20%
Reading Journals: 10%

If I have to sacrifice some assignments what should they be? I figure I can throw the reading journals to the curb since they're only worth less than 0.5% each.

[Anonymous No.5776857]

>>5776735
you know better than anyone.

[Anonymous No.5776907]

>>5776286
>calling a poorly developed hypothesis a theory
>saying the brain works like a problem solving machine just because we humans use it like this today
>saying every organ has a clear purpose
do you even science?

[Anonymous No.5776924]

Abulia is an understudied topic, so much that normalfags think wanting to do things and being able to do things is the same thing. There isn't even a word for capacity to do things, "bulia" isn't a term, "drive" is usually muddied with "motivation" and other shit.

Not exactly related but still fun:
Transient Acute Depression Induced by High-Frequency Deep-Brain Stimulation
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199905133401905

[Anonymous No.5776933]

This thread is bullshit.

[Anonymous No.5776931]

>>5776924
>Transient Acute Depression Induced by High-Frequency Deep-Brain Stimulation
I can't show you the video because it's copyright/etc from my research team, but we worked with DBS on french patients and I've seen a woman go from cheering happily to crying and sobbing in a few seconds by that, and then back to cheering about her grandson's birthday, then back to crying about how old she is and etc. Seriously powerful stuff.

[Anonymous No.5776938]

>>5776735
You're not going to make it, dude. You failed.

[OP No.5777322]

>>5776907
>>5776933
Well i kinda made it clear that am shit, obviously am trying to understand and translate scientific concepts like the behavior of dopaminergic system into everyday life and simple language, giving easy analogies and step to step progression to help myself and anyone to get deeper into the point, rather than spouting memes and arguing semantics over the internet like a good /sci/tizen should do.

If it bothers so much you go post in threads you deem worth of existing like duality consciousness and >math 300k starting threads, thank you.

[Mutemattics !!58hTUK7XbfZ No.5777333]

>>5777322
lel friend, you're not gonna cut it with a thread in /sci/ if you start with silly statements.

I read the whole thing and dare I say it is very correct when it comes to representing certain concepts like learning, after the starting point you make good cases even though in completely plebe language, I'll assume that was your goal from what you're stating.

Though it is fun to watch people shit on your thread it kinda bugs me when CNS posts some incomprehensible shit and it's so obvious that 98% of /sci/ can't into it but still they praise him like a god cause he uses so many terminologies and complicates simple things.

Science is about understanding the world, not as /sci/ treats it, an elitist club where the more edgy and unnecessary complicated you get the more 'sciencer' you become.

[Anonymous No.5777344]

>>5776214
The solipsism is strong in this one.

[OP No.5777363]

>>5777344
Nothing to do with solipsism bro.
Am just casually saying that everything you ever experience and understand is through your brain , it is rather simplistic and obvious fact.

But it is interesting that you got solipsism out of it, how did you manage that?

[Anonymous No.5777368]

>>5777344
>is strong in this one
That is 9fag tier humor.

[Anonymous No.5777366]

>>5777363
>But it is interesting that you got solipsism out of it, how did you manage that?
I was bored so I created you to make this thread so I could talk about solipsism with myself.