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Who's Riding on Your "Me-Bus"?
The "modular mind" concept can help you sort yourself out
Posted June 30, 2016
"I don't know why I said that."
"Something told me that was the right decision."
“I owe it to myself to take some time off.”
Our everyday figures of speech reveal a lot about the infrastructure of our thought. Language is a fundamental part of our mental software, and it both expresses our thoughts and gives form to them.
The "Me, Myself, and I" Paradox
When you say something like, "I was proud of myself," or "I promised myself I would do such and such," take a moment to stop and ask yourself if it sounds like you're referring to two different people. In that sentence, who is the "I" and who is the "myself"? Are there two of you? Are there other "you's" (or “I’s” or "me's") in your brain?
Actually, there are lots of "me's" in each person's brain. Cognitive researchers increasingly endorse the "multi-mind" hypothesis, which portrays the brain-mind system as a collection of semi-autonomous processor modules, which divide up the work of thinking into a variety of specialized subtasks.
Advocates of this modular mind concept see no need to assume the existence of a single "executive self"; no "master module"; no "CEO circuit"; no "super-me"; not even an "ego," in the Freudian sense.
Our behavior at any one moment, according to this proposition, merely reflects the consensus of a number of disparate impulses, each originating from some individual gadget in the brain, and all contending for the "driver's seat."
This hypothesis brings with it some stunning implications. For many people, this controlled chaos model of the brain's activity is difficult to accept. It's counter-intuitive – we want and need to believe that "we" (whoever that might be) are in charge all the time.
But, consider that most of us have already accepted the idea, at some level, that we're not completely "in charge." We fall asleep, for example, not when we decide to, but when our circadian clocks change our hormone flows and deactivate our primary cortical functions. We hallucinate every night; we’re not crazy – we just call it dreaming.
We drift into and out of trance states frequently during a typical day – also known as daydreaming. We become aware of seemingly random snippets of thought drifting uninvited through our conscious attention field – the words to familiar songs; punch lines of jokes; peculiar phrases or expressions; fleeting visual images.
We may become angry or joyful in reaction to environmental signals. What does it mean to say, “I lost my temper”? What does it mean to say, “I haven’t been myself lately”? Who have you been, and when did you stop being yourself?
Who’s In Charge?
According to neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, one of the researchers involved in the famous “split brain” research studies at CalTech in the mid-sixties, we have one specialized mind module, or “me-module,” that typically does the talking. Professor Gazzaniga nicknamed that module the “narrator,” or the “explainer.” Strangely, according to multi-mind theorists like Gazzaniga, the narrator tells our “story,” but it doesn’t decide what the story is. It takes its stage direction from a variety of other modules that are acting, or acting up, at a particular moment. The job of the narrator, it seems, is to make sense out of our thoughts and behaviors.
In a sort of comic-ironic way, this narrator module, according to Gazzaniga and others, thinks it’s the “mind.” But, rather than acting as the CEO, its real job is just to explain why we’ve just behaved the way we have. This view holds that our “values,” which we proudly recite, are simply the reasons we give (or the narrator gives) to explain, rationalize, or justify our behaviors.
The somewhat creepy notion that each of us is sort of riding on a figurative “bus,” but not actually driving it, can give us pause. It pushes us toward the disconcerting proposition that sanity, as we conceive of it, might just be an accident. If we’re lucky, all of our modules have somehow figured out how to co-exist, cooperate, and actually perform fairly well. In the lingo of system theorists, sanity becomes “an emergent property of a complex adaptive system.”
Insanity, or serious maladjustment, could be a state of irresolvable conflict amongst our mind modules. A common British expression for psychotherapy is "sorting yourself out." The distinguished American therapist Virginia Satir often spoke of our many "parts," and finding ways to integrate those parts into a healthy pattern of cooperation.
Riding on the Me-Bus
The analogy of a bus, as previously mentioned, offers an intriguing construct for thinking about these many "parts," "selves," or "me's" and how they might operate in harmony – or fail to.
Picture your own mental bus – your "me-bus" – as constantly rolling along highways and byways, the everyday situations and experiences of life. Imagine further that you are not the driver, but merely one of a collection of me's riding on the bus. Now realize that the driver of the bus is very skillful at driving it, but has no idea where to go. That decision comes from other me's – the ones riding on the bus at the moment.
Who are those other me’s? Well, the narrator, for one. Most likely, your narrator module believes it’s you, and that it’s the chief executive presiding over the whole mental process. Not hardly. Not even close.
We can think of lots of other modules, figuratively at least, and postulate them as influencing our behavior as it varies from one situation to another. We might have a sympathizer module; an apologizer module; a blamer module; a procrastinator module; a cheerleader module; a mourner module; a martyr module; an analyzer module; a sheriff module; a criticizer module; a jester module – it’s a long list.
Welcome The Observer
And, aside from all of these modules, as important as each may be, there’s one very important module we haven’t mentioned yet. It’s the observer module. Arising from a number of mystical and spiritual traditions, the idea of the observing self – a part of us that monitors our internal state, hears our thoughts, senses our emotions, and identifies our reactions and intentions – can lead us to understand one of the most valuable parts of our self.
The increasingly popular concept of mindfulness, which generally refers to a state of awareness characterized by neutral, non-judgmental acknowledgment of the present situation, opens the doorway to a kind of module-friendly consciousness.
We can say that individuals who lack self-insight; who have become emotionally self-alienated; who lack present-mindedness and the capacity to sense the feeling states of others; and who seem perpetually driven by emotional reflexes and impulses, behave mindlessly much of their time. Their internal observers are chronically on break or in custody. In therapy, part of the goal pattern is for them to become more aware of their inner selves, to monitor their reactions, reflexes, thoughts, and intentions, and to subject them to ever greater scrutiny, with the help of their observers.
By maintaining awareness of the present moment, more and more of the time, and by allowing the observing self to guide our understanding of the choices we make, we can perhaps help our many modules connect with one another, cooperate in our own best interests, and continually progress toward ever higher levels of sanity.
References:
Gazzaniga, Michael. “Who’s In Charge: Free Will and the Science of the Brain.” New York: Harper Collins, 2011.
Marcus, Gary & Jeremy Freeman. “The Future of the Brain: Essays by the World’s Leading Neuroscientists.” Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.
The Author:
Dr. Karl Albrecht is an executive management consultant, coach, futurist, lecturer, and author of more than 20 books on professional achievement, organizational performance, and business strategy. He is listed as one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in business on the topic of leadership.
He is a recognized expert on cognitive styles and the development of advanced thinking skills. His books Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success, Practical Intelligence: The Art and Science of Common Sense, and his Mindex Thinking Style Profile are used in business and education.
The Mensa society presented him with its lifetime achievement award, for significant contributions by a member to the understanding of intelligence.
Originally a physicist, and having served as a military intelligence officer and business executive, he now consults, lectures, and writes about whatever he thinks would be fun.
