How we prioritise

Prioritise

Fretworks can become large and complex, but they operate using simple biomechanical processes. Our reasoning can be full of nuance and cleverness. Other choices are straightforward, we do something to satisfy basic needs. Either way, it is links and fretworks in action. A choice is a choice no matter how serious or whimsical. Fretworks operate in the same manner regardless of the consequences.

I have found some problems have taken less than five minutes to clarify. Others many days. How we prioritise was one that will sound rather corny, took a good while and is quite obvious. I considered a regular shopping trip. I drew a map, putting all the items on one by one. This created a visual representation of the simple links. Get bread, milk, soup. Return a parcel. Whilst in town, see if I can find a nice shirt. Having gleaned nothing from this exercise I tossed the paper on the floor. Then I saw it.

I added things to those links. What problems were solved by going shopping and the problems that exist if these items are not here in my house. I can’t make nice coffee without milk. People are coming to visit tomorrow. They will want a cup of coffee. There is a deadline for returning the parcel else no refund. You can imagine for yourself the possibilities in your day-to-day life. As you add these extra links relating to what you can and can’t do without the items the fretwork gets bigger and bigger. The bigger the fretwork the more it is prioritised. When you include all the consequences, a full map gets quite big. One thing may prevent you from doing another. No milk means no drinks for our guests and no bowl of cereal for the kids either. The more links we establish the more we feel the need to go shopping.

Unlike your skiing trip, you do indeed head towards the door to go shopping. Then the phone rings. Someone is in hospital and needs a washbag and a change of clothes. Oh well, maybe I can have a look for a shirt another time. A quick dash to the local shop will dissolve the lack of milk situation. It costs a bit more but never mind. I’ll drop the parcel on the way. You broke the fretwork down thereby changing your priority. The hospital visit has become the new priority. It now has the bigger fretwork.

The process of deciding what to do works in the same way as priorities. We build fretworks consisting of pros and cons. Should we, should we not. What do we gain and what do we stand to lose. We can leave decisions for a while as we gather information but when time runs out, we are forced to come to a decision. What do we do then? What we do is approximate the relative size of the competing fretworks. The bigger one wins the day. The largest one always gets the go ahead.

The largest fretwork will have information surrounding the seed and a variety of hooks that link into prearranged bunches of links; what we describe as experience. You need to go shopping else you go hungry. Hunger dwells in your head. Memories of being hungry - being hungry in the past left a mark. If your food cupboard is bare, getting the soup to eat later will link into hunger memory fretworks. If there is a grim alternative to soup, you will have fretworks relating to eating a vile tin of pilchards. Do I want to go out and get some nice soup or stay in this afternoon and eat vile pilchards tonight?

Simple questions. Simple sets of interlinking fretworks. Simple method of deciding. We choose the largest most prominent fretwork. A decision has nothing to do with the factors per se, but the number of factors and the space those factors each occupy. The factors relate to the real world. Indeed, they do. However, the factors are representations of the real world. A choice will have real world consequences, but a choice is based on how fretworks are formed in your head. You think something is important, so have a big bunch of neurons set up in relation to it.

Sounds, smells, sensations are all transcribed into fretworks. The things we see are transcribed too. All our experiences and memories are transcribed into fretworks. Those musical notes that you have stored can be fed into your hearing system to make you hear a song. Those links that form a picture can be fed into your seeing system to allow you to see it without your eyes. These fretworks are sometimes linked to decision seeds. They enable us to build competing networks. The competition is to gain priority and to encourage us to decide things.

The clues are all in the language we use. We say, on balance that was the best thing to do, or the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. The more we care, the more information we will seek out. The more information we analyse the greater the confidence we will have in our decision. Lots of information leads to lots of deliberating, often for many weeks before a conclusion is reached. When all the analysis is done, all we need do is make a quick assertion of which group of neural links is the largest. It is worth noting that when we later get new information, namely the full story - more related links, we may realise that we made an error of judgement. The size on one side would have been different if all the facts were present. More information can also detach sections. We rule things out. We thereby discount something which reduces the size of one of the competing fretworks.

choice-pair

How do we win an argument? We counter reservations – reduce the scale of someone else’s network of objections. And we add other items that increase the positivity of your point of view. We outline potential repercussions, the details of which need no explanation. When someone’s life is under threat, vast banks of fretworks are called upon. All their hopes and dreams.

It doesn’t matter who you are, a simpleton or a modern-day emperor, we have the same decision system in our heads. The only difference in the information you use and the external effect a decision will have.

We spend a lot of time choosing and deciding, but not so much thought is put into the mechanics of how it is achieved. We might make a list of all the options then take a pick. We might decide upon something because it is a little different, fashionable or in keeping with our style. Each factor is another tail. The more positive tails the more chance there is that we choose it. You are controlled by how you build each fretwork. Good deeds, criminal acts and spontaneity all derive from the same mental process. The more links the more presence it has. As each fretwork expands it becomes more important to us.

Choosing what to do can be delayed when we have a circular path. Links can go in circles and therefore thoughts go in circles and a decision is not possible. There are no distinct set of fretworks hence you can’t then measure the size of each group. We end up in a land of limbo, doing very little until this is sorted.

Free will is and always will be free. We have the ability to exercise free will randomly, consistently, predictably and/or thoughtfully. That is always true, however freewill is steered by our past far more than the present. Things: ideas, habits, beliefs, hopes, desires, experiences and so on become rooted in our mind. A decision is based on those roots. A decision may seem like something we do in the present but what we choose stems from thought processes during the days, weeks, and years prior. What happened in the past has a huge bearing on decisions we make. What we do today, what we think today, what we experience today will affect our decisions in the future. We learn how to do something, we form habits, we do things instinctively and of course we can act out of character. With so many modes of behaviour it is easy to see why free will is endlessly debated. To simplify the understanding of free will, ask yourself if you can choose to get in a car and drive somewhere? Can you drive somewhere without knowing how to open the car door? Can you get to where you would like to go without being able to drive competently? Free will is interconnected with skills and knowledge.