Why wisdom often comes in threes

[Carl-Richard]

Arguably, a central aspect of wisdom is holism. More specifically, it's the ability to see different aspects of life and how they're all interconnected, whether it's your mind and your physical body, other people's happiness and your own happiness, your finances and your life opportunities, your habits and your successes; the list goes on. Since I'm particularly interested in psychology, I have mostly realized this through learning different theories from psychology (and of course with a bit of help of other people I admire, particularly John Vervaeke, Bernardo Kastrup and Jordan Peterson, as well as my own experiences). I will present some of those theories here:

 

Plato: "the monster, the lion and the man"

Let's start with Plato's three aspects of the psyche: the monster, the lion and the man. The monster represents the more primal survival instincts, for example the need for food, sexual reproduction or safety. The lion represents the mammalian instincts of connection and social bonding. And lastly, the man represents the self-aware rational mind; the intellect. For Plato, in order to perturb self-deception and achieve wisdom, you must balance all these aspects of the psyche and give them life, not neglect or repress them. You'll see that many of these principles (promoting balance, avoiding repression) are common to all the theories I'm about to the present.

 

Freud: "id, superego and ego"

Next up is Freud's three aspects of the psyche: the id, the superego and the ego. The id is again the primal instincts, the fundamental driving forces of your survival, and it cares very little about higher moral responsibilities. The id just does what it wants to do. The superego is analogous to the voice of conscience, which tells you how you ought to act, and it's peculiarly often experienced as your mom's voice nagging you to do the right thing. You can ponder why that is (hint: it's highly socially conditioned). The ego is the thing that mediates between the id and the superego. It's the self-aware center of the psyche, and it chooses what it wants to listen to; the id or the superego (or at least it thinks it does). Similarly to Plato, Freud proposes that in order to avoid psychic conflict ("neurosis"), you must learn to balance the different psychic structures.

 

Self-determination theory (SDT): "competence, belonging and autonomy"

Not many people are familiar with it, but self-determination theory (SDT) is similarly a powerful theory of the psyche with three components: the need for competence, belonging and autonomy. SDT proposes that in order to achieve optimal motivation for a given behavior, you must address all these three needs. The need for competence says that all organisms have a need to express their innate capacities (for example their physical strength or agility), as this is in line with ensuring the survival of the organism. It's again about primal survival instincts. The need for belonging represents how your needs (psychological or otherwise) need to be supported in a social context (again, this is obviously about social needs). Lastly, the need for autonomy says that a given behavior must be in line with the individual's own wants, feelings and values. It's the more self-aware, rationally oriented part of the psyche.

 

Modern neuroscience: "the Triune brain"

The second last one is often the least expected, but modern neuroscience has its own version of this three-part split of the psyche, represented by the structures of the brain. It's called the "Triune brain", and it's of course a vast over-simplification of how the brain actually works, but there is still value to talking about it: the reptilian brain, the limbic system and the neocortex. The reptilian brain (a.k.a. the basal ganglia) takes care of lower-level survival functions like basic motor movements, the limbic system takes care of complex social emotions, while the neocortex takes care of the intellect. According to modern neuroscience, proper functioning requires an integration of functioning across brain structures. Deficits in one structure lead to deficits of the whole, which can happen when development is impaired (as the different brain areas experience different "growth spurts").

 

The biopsychosocial model of health

To hammer it all home, you've probably heard about the biopsychosocial model of health. It's the most condensed summary of the point I'm getting at: life consists of multiple parts, and you must tend to all of them to live a healthy life. This approach to health is foundational to fields like health psychology, and it's a growing approach in various other health fields.

 

Summary

You might have noticed a trend of three levels of ascending complexity: biological, social, psychological. These different theories provide different perspectives on how the human psyche is structured and how the different parts need to be tended to in order to secure proper functioning and health. Whether you conceptualize it as avoiding psychic conflict like Freud, or promoting optimal motivation like SDT, or achieving wisdom and avoiding self-deception like Plato: it's all pointing to a common lesson about life. You don't have to subscribe to any particular theory to discover this lesson in your own life, but it often helps to get some pointers from the outside, and arguably, it will always follow the principle of holism (which often comes in threes).

Edited April 22, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

Let me also tie this to my insights about meaning (or rather Jordan Peterson's insights lol):

At the bottom of the evolutionary tree, you have an organism purely driven by instinct, and its experience of reality is likewise simple: it has not yet developed a complex social brain, definitely not a rational brain. Yet, this organism can be said to experience meaning by fulfilling its survival needs, which in this case is limited to things like the need for competence (the simplest form of this arguably being movement itself). This becomes obvious when you walk it up the evolutionary tree:

What does a social organism experience as meaningful? Why do people go to parties? Why are social gatherings, religious ceremonies or holidays experienced as meaningful? Because they fulfill your social needs, but also because they provide meaning in a more abstract sense, because humans are able to experience meaning through abstractions.

The things that make a book, or a movie, or even a scientific theory appealing is that they're abstract representations of meaning (narratives), or simply abstract representations of movement. A narrative involves direction, movement, a start and an end. If an organism's movement through a concrete environment is experienced as meaning, then a human's movement through an abstract narrative is also experienced as meaning.

But you're not just limited to experiencing the meaning of narratives as a mere abstraction inside your mind. You can also do it through concrete activities. Rituals — be it religious ceremonies, holidays, parties or nature hikes —  all have direction, concrete steps, starts and ends. They're the concrete embodying of narratives. Maybe the fancy glitter of religion is not all for nothing? 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

I don't know what wisdom is.

[Carl-Richard]

11 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

I don't know what wisdom is.

That's certainly a big feature of it

Edited April 16, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

9 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

I don't know what wisdom is.

Wisdom is one of those things that is hard to capture conceptually, but that is actually true for anything in reality. We can still try.

For example, I think wisdom generally correlates with life experience, and it's often displayed as a kind of maturity or self-awareness. Think about the difference between a 15 year old boy who just learned about the scientific method versus a 60 year old professor. It's not just that the boy is less knowledgeable, but he is also more confident in the extent of his knowledge than the professor. The professor has learned where science does not apply and generally what kind of egoic traps can trick you into thinking you know more than you do (self-deception). 

You can give both of them the same IQ (which is not such a stretch when you consider that IQ peaks in the early/mid-twenties), which can help to distinguish wisdom from concepts like smarts or witts. Other than that, the other concepts I mentioned earlier like balance, holism and general awareness (as opposed to repression) could easily be big components of wisdom. The problem is that since these are such vague concepts, it doesn't easily prompt concrete examples in your mind, but I tried to do that with this thread.

[Buck Edwards]

2 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Wisdom is one of those things that is hard to capture conceptually, but that is actually true for anything in reality. We can still try.

For example, I think wisdom generally correlates with life experience, and it's often displayed as a kind of maturity or self-awareness. Think about the difference between a 15 year old boy who just learned about the scientific method versus a 60 year old professor. It's not just that the boy is less knowledgeable, but he is also more confident in the extent of his knowledge than the professor. The professor has learned where science does not apply and generally what kind of egoic traps can trick you into thinking you know more than you do (self-deception). 

You can give both of them the same IQ (which is not such a stretch when you consider that IQ peaks in the early/mid-twenties), which can help to distinguish wisdom from concepts like smarts or witts. Other than that, the other concepts I mentioned earlier like balance, holism and general awareness (as opposed to repression) could easily be big components of wisdom. The problem is that since these are such vague concepts, it doesn't easily prompt concrete examples in your mind, but I tried to do that with this thread.

I think wisdom is also associated with a deep sense of intuition. An inbuilt ability, although it can be cultivated. I've seen some people are naturally more intuitive than others. It's one of those things you don't learn in school. It simply happens. 

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, Enlightement said:

I think wisdom is also associated with a deep sense of intuition. An inbuilt ability, although it can be cultivated. I've seen some people are naturally more intuitive than others. It's one of those things you don't learn in school. It simply happens. 

That can certainly be true when you consider how wisdom is not easily reduced to concepts or logic. An intuition occurs to you as important despite you not knowing where it came from or what is the logical justification. That is also what distinguishes wisdom from intellect, because the intellect likes to view the world through clear-cut concepts and logical propositions. A truly intuitive person can often operate completely without logical justifications and still touch on deep truths. The problem is often that other people don't understand them, or that it's hard to communicate through language (which is why they often gravitate to more emotional forms of communication like poetry, music, art). One of the things wisdom is showing you is that the world isn't easily carved out into neat categories or linear stories, hence the saying "an image is worth more than a thousand words".

Edited April 17, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

I can also talk a bit about my personal experiences viewed through the three-way split I've been talking about:

In my late teens, I was stuck in a kind of Peter Pan syndrome, constantly living life in a daze of fantasy and comfort-seeking; no sacrifices, no taking responsibility of living in the world. Every real-world action had to be in perfect alignment with my highest ideals and the feeling of safety and comfort, or else it wouldn't be worth it. At some point, you're fed a dose of reality and pushed to make some sacrifices and compromises, which culminated when I was 21: I was given an ultimatum by my mother to straighten up or get lost, replaced smoking weed with meditation, started pursuing academics, became more focused on health; a transition away from primal impulses. Amidst all of that, I had a bunch of spiritual awakenings, but I realized that I wasn't ready to surrender to God, which brought me a lot of pain, but that whole journey also gave me some "edge" psychologically. Then I became very heavily focused on the mind, and today, the focus is on integrating emotional and social aspects. The next step after that is probably returning to God (mysticism).

Edited April 17, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Buck Edwards]

4 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I can also talk a bit about my own personal experiences viewed through the three-way split I've been talking about:

In my late teens, I was stuck in a kind of Peter Pan syndrome, constantly living life in a daze of fantasy and comfort-seeking; no sacrifices, no taking responsibility of living in the world. Every real-world action had to be in perfect alignment with my highest ideals and the feeling of safety and comfort, or else it wouldn't be worth it. When the over-protective mother gets enough of this endless coddling, you're fed a dose of reality and are pushed to make some sacrifices and compromises, which culminated when I was 21: I was told to fix my shit or get lost, replaced smoking weed with meditation, started pursuing academics, became more focused on health; a transition away from primal impulses. Amidst all of that, I had a bunch of spiritual awakenings, but I realized that I wasn't ready to surrender to God, which brought me a lot of pain. Then I became very heavily focused on the mind, and today, the focus is on integrating emotional and social aspects. The next step after that is probably returning to God again.

You mean returning to God sans religion? 

I saw you mentioning somewhere - that's why we need religion, something to that. 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Enlightement

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Enlightement said:

You mean returning to God sans religion? 

Returning to the experience of God as myself, à la mysticism.

[Buck Edwards]

4 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Returning to the experience of God as myself, à la mysticism.

You're quickly becoming my favorite on the forum. Congratz!!!   Nice post. Nice talking to you. 

[Carl-Richard]

9 hours ago, Enlightement said:

You're quickly becoming my favorite on the forum. Congratz!!!   Nice post. Nice talking to you. 

Haha no problem.

 

9 hours ago, Enlightement said:

I saw you mentioning somewhere - that's why we need religion, something to that. 

Religion as a general phenomena of course has a lot of wisdom, and I would prefer to practice mysticism in an environment that is actually supportive of it and which is also not in some cult leader's garage. 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[StarStruck]

Everything stems from the holy trinity

[Carl-Richard]

7 hours ago, StarStruck said:

Everything stems from the holy trinity

or Sat-Chit-Ananda?  

[UnbornTao]

So what is wisdom? Wisdom isn't conventional knowledge, smartness, intelligence, opinion or information. Could be held as an unusually deep and unconventional intuitive understanding and feeling-sense. It could also basically refer to consciousness, being profoundly aware of the truth of something.

Consider examples such as Gandalf, Chuang Tzu and Plato. What makes these characters wise as opposed to the average person? Food for thought.

Edited April 23, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Carl-Richard]

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

So what is wisdom?

Could be held as an unusually deep and unconventional understanding. It could also be basically consciousness, too. Again I haven't looked into it much yet. What makes someone wise? Imagine Gandalf, or Chuang Tzu.  

If I were to summarize what I just wrote, it has a lot to do with non-propositional and embodied knowing, i.e. things that aren't easily grasped or taught through concepts or logic and which correlates with the amounts of data points and perspectives you've been subjected to. The problem of course is that because of this, it's hard to say concretely what it is.

[zurew]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

If I were to summarize what I just wrote, it has a lot to do with non-propositional and embodied knowing, i.e. things that aren't easily grasped or taught through concepts or logic and which correlates with the amounts of data points and perspectives you've been subjected to. The problem of course is that because of this, it's hard to say concretely what it is.

This is a really good summary. One other way to frame it , is to say that a wise person has the ability, to provide the right prescription.

It would be probably useful to try to outline the differences between being knowledgeable/smart vs wise. 

We will probably have a hard time outlining in a precise way what wisdom is, so one thing that could help is to talk about 'what is the opposite of wisdom' or 'what is the opposite of being wise' and by that we can narrow things down even more.

Some opposites could be:

- Being reductive

- Having a narrow perspective

- Conflating description with prescription

- Having  no good, embodied way to provide prescription

 

I would add a few more things (that are probably correlated with being wise):

- Having epistemic humility (the recognition and honesty of what you don't know, and knowing the edge of your knowledge)

- Being extremely good at relevance realization (Having an ability to focus on and to recognize, the right things at the right time, without using a prewritten formula for it)

- Having a top-down, rather than a bottom-up approach to life (Having a deep, embodied, philosophically grounded approach to life/going from meta vs only focusing on the specifics and the outcome and then trying to find/build a solution from there, without ever recognizing what generated that outcome)

 

These are just a few things, hopefully others will be able to provide a lot more.

[UnbornTao]

@zurew @Carl-Richard thanks.

Ultimately, it seems to me like wisdom is an abstract, wide notion that depends on how it's held by each individual.

Edited April 24, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Sultan Al Hind]

@Carl-Richard @Carl-Richard 

 

Who are the top 5 greatest philosophers to ever lived

[Carl-Richard]

5 minutes ago, Sultan Al Hind said:

@Carl-Richard @Carl-Richard

Who are the top 5 greatest philosophers to ever lived

I don't really know that much about particular philosophers, but my list would be: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Kuhn, Immanuel Kant.