Outline of a hypothesis about the lost-in-thought state
What causes unhappiness?
Observation 1: Most of the thoughts that occur in the lost-in-thought state (LITS) are simulations. We relive past experiences, with and without imaginary changes, and imagine possible future experiences.
Conjecture 1: LITS originated in early animals as a planning or decision-making system. The brain would consider possible actions, imagine the consequences of each one — in other words, simulate the experiences that would follow — and pick the best according to criteria which I'll discuss in Conjecture 2.
Observation 2: Although we are unconscious in LITS in the sense that we don't know what we're thinking or that we're thinking, the thoughts generate emotions and feelings. Examples: when we worry about bad things that may happen, we feel fear. When we fantasize about sex, we become aroused.
Conjecture 2: The early LITS system used intensity of feeling as the criterion for selecting the best possible action. I gave an example (weighing fear against thirst) in an earlier article.
Conjecture 3: The basic elements of the conjectured original LITS system remain in place today in humans. When we are in LITS, we are usually simulating scenarios (daydreaming) and as a result, stimulating ourselves affectively.
Observation 3: Most people spend most of their waking hours in LITS. It is incredibly hard to stop doing this for even a short time. We know this because all of the Asian soteriological traditions and some forms of psychotherapy place heavy emphasize on techniques that aim at stopping it. Hundreds of millions of people have practiced these techniques and know firsthand how hard it is. Almost no one succeeds in permanently stopping the tendency to lapse into LITS.
Conjecture 4: There are two reasons why it’s so difficult to stop LITS. The reasons are of different kinds: (a) LITS enables people to stimulate themselves affectively; the stimulation is a motivator. (b) Natural selection designed the brain this way; LITS is our natural state.
Observation 4: The idea in Conjecture 4 that stimulation is a motivator brings to mind the famous Olds and Milner (1954) experiment in which rats wouldn't stop pressing a lever that caused electrodes in their brains to stimulate their pleasure centers. Rats chose to die of thirst rather than stop pressing the lever to drink.
Discussion 1: The fact that the rats responded to the feeling of the reward stimulus rather than thirst may lend support to my suggestion (Conjecture 2 and this earlier article) that the LITS system uses intensity of feeling as a criterion for choosing actions.
Observation 4: Humans in LITS may remind us of the rats but there are several big differences. Humans sometimes stimulate themselves in a pleasurable way, like the rats, but they also sometimes stimulate themselves with thoughts that cause unpleasant feelings like fear, anger, sorrow, loss, depression, self-hatred, etc.
Discussion 2: It may seem puzzling that natural selection has designed our brains in such a way that we can become addicted to thinking thoughts that make us feel bad. But (a) natural selection doesn’t care about our feelings unless they affect fitness, and (b) to some extent, LITS in humans may be a maladaptation like impacted wisdom teeth that results from recent rapid increases in intelligence and brain size.
Discussion 3: The fact that people become unconscious in a certain way while in LITS may be a valuable clue toward a science of consciousness; it may have a functional explanation.
Discussion 4: The fact that thoughts in LITS often make people feel bad may be the main source of human unhappiness.
6. One last one - we think that thoughts are more real than what we experience in the Aware state. In other words, the virtual reality (simulated by thoughts) appears more real than reality itself!
Hi Freddie,
I wanted to just pass this by you as to whether you agree these are some more reasons why we go into the LITS state
1. By habit, this has become a default state and we think its normal (to be in this state since everyone around us is doing it too!)
2. If deliberately or by accident one happens to land in the Aware state (exiting the LITS), the person finds it boring with nothing interesting happening, depressing or plain scary and would rather go back to LITS so the person can be occupied with "something" rather than nothing!
3. The person (like me) is aware that he/she is in LITS while its happening but is unable to pull attention away from this state back to the Aware state because the LITS-vasana is too strong. (Question - how do I weaken it? My Answer: only way is to spend more time in the Aware state but the vasana prevents me from going there! What a setup!)
4. Some beliefs like "time is money", "think and become rich", "be creative and do some out-of-the-box thinking" etc make the person think more than they would otherwise, placing more importance on thinking and hence get stuck in LITS! I too believed at one time that by not thinking, I'm wasting my time and hence losing out on earning money/losing opportunities!
5. People don't have a "taste" of the Aware state and the deep peace that can experience here. Hence they resort to the LITS state thinking that it can satisfy all their desires!
Thank you
Rama