The Default Intuitive Model

Have you ever wondered why some decisions feel automatic, while others take more effort? It all comes down to what I call the ‘default intuitive model.’ This is the mental software running in the background, making sense of our experiences and guiding our reactions before conscious thought kicks in. Today, I’ll explore how this model works, its strengths and flaws, and what happens when we examine it more deeply.

As I mentioned previously when talking about the divided self, there are different levels to consciousness: some parts are instinctual and automatic, while others are calculating and controlled. The default intuitive model operates on a level that’s faster and more fundamental than the willful, conscious observer. The model supplies the base assumptions about the world, and any conscious thought is built using the model’s innate viewpoint. The way we make our decisions and the way we learn from the world comes from finding patterns in the information that our sense organs receive.  The information runs through the model’s program, and the automatic reaction of our bodies is the result. 

For example, I can tell when food will be delicious, even if it's a meal I’ve never had, due to the brain’s ability to predict and recognize objects and sensations in my past.  I’ve had enough good meals where I can associate the sights and smells of food with their flavor.  I don’t need to calculate the pros and cons of a meal in order to like it, my default intuition does a fine job of making the experience obvious, even before conscious reason has a chance to analyze it. 
Recognition of repeated patterns is the root of this process. The more consistently an experience can be predicted, the more it cements itself within the model’s categorization system.  Once a group of experiences links strongly enough with a certain outcome, it can be treated as a predictable “thing” instead of just as chance or chaos. For example, most of the time eating random objects is unpleasant or dangerous. Of all the world’s detritus, only the objects coded as “food” are fit for consumption. You can see this at play in babies: they don’t have the consistency of experience necessary to make this distinction, so they will happily stuff their mouths with anything in arms reach. 

Unambiguous Truth

The model’s role is to generate basic assumptions and to let the conscious observer come to conclusions based on the information it provides. When providing the foundation for higher cognitive processes, the default intuitive model strives to build its framework using unambiguous truths. If the model’s initial assumptions are muddy or unclear, then even the most clever insights or reasoning that arise from them will have fundamental flaws or doubts at its core. Therefore, the model’s value system prioritizes objects and concepts that can be conceptualized cleanly, with as little messiness as possible. 
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In other words, the default intuitive model likes its information to be tidy. It prefers clarity, cleanliness, and consistency. It is an information processing algorithm that feeds our higher processes its interpretation of reality, and it does so by calculating in terms of black and white, or good and evil. The model has an aversion to things with blurry boundaries or things that change over time, and would rather deal with binary calculations and see things in terms of ‘yes’ and ‘no’. 

Comic adapted from robotatertot

For another perspective on tidy or clean information, consider Aristotle’s first principles, which preach a particular brand of permanence and consistency.  These principles are designed to measure truth and falsehood, with a mission to build a system from unambiguously “true” statements.  To that end, the principles seek to measure something’s permanence and consistency for the sake of finding binary units of trustworthy information.  These units of information ideally follow three laws:

1. The units have consistent identities that do not change over time
2. The units either exist or don’t exist, there is no middle option
3. The units cannot contradict themselves

These three goals set guidelines for how to quantify and measure information, and this standard has survived over 2500 years into the modern day. The logic behind computer code and the scientific method still uses these principles as a judgement system for what is true and what is contradictory. 

Despite the goal of finding perfect, unambiguous truth, the real world doesn’t work that way. Perfect information is a very abstract concept, and the real world is filled with nuance and complexity. Our default intuition unconsciously strives for information that will satisfy these laws, but the model is not without flaws. Blob Theory starts where the default intuitive model leaves off. By challenging its preference for polarized, binary truth, Blob Theory offers a new lens to examine the complexities of reality. The conclusions drawn by our default intuition are useful shortcuts, but they aren’t the truest or most accurate way to see the world. 

Next week I’d like to go more in depth on how the default intuitive model sorts the raw chaos of reality into names, units and categories, and how dangerous it can be to trust this simplified representation of reality. In this section and the sections to come I expect that many ideas might seem unintuitive or poorly explained, so let me know in the comments (or by direct message) if you notice parts that could do with better examples or clearer explanation. 
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This episode is focused on the terminology I use in my theories. For broader context, see my website, or follow the specific links embedded in the article.