area avoidance  ^{[active draft]  #tbc}

The following description suggests a distant evolutionary origin for psychological phenomena which align with those of modern human burnout and depression.

Specifically, attention is drawn to three neuronal mechanisms: two of which equate to operational implementations of basic (observable) predatory threat avoidance in physical environments; and one, which relates to consequences of evaluating mixed situational circumstances, which include both pleasing and displeasing phenomena, however individually unrelated.

For an overview, consider that humans conceptually model all universal phenomena (whether tangible or intangible, physical or interpreted) with the same selected-for cognitive neuronal implementation evolved to intuit and counter predatory threats in physical environments; physical environments then survived by long distant evolutionary ancestors.

feedback/ push-back very much hoped for

(with a special request for feedback to any psychologists or psychiatrists ¹)

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evolutionary priors

1. Ancestors had memory
   1. remembering is more efficient than rediscovering (time; resource; threat) ²
   2. Memories are persisted representation of: {phenomena; phenomenal relation (incl. physical spaces); relative significance; etc}
2. Memory maps of physical spaces, include
   1. Representation (which matches patterns of physical stimuli)
   2. Relation (relative position)
   3. Significance (relative assessment/ measure)
3. Operation
   1. An internal location is synchronised as animal moves
      1. Stimuli pattern matching (including way-point/ reckoning)
   2. Basic map {terrain: {resource; threat}}
      1. resources #todo ³
      2. Threat
         1. Predators
            1. Direct {sight; encounter}
            2. Indirect {urine; markings; artefacts}
         2. Uninterpretable or unnavigable phenomena
            1. Direct {water; uncanny/ dissimilarity/ mimicry; etc}
            2. Indirect {vertical/ treacherous sheer; open/ suspicious; over stimulating/ noise/ distraction; etc}
   3. Feeling hunger (internal stimuli) locates nearby food based upon internal map of {terrain: {resource; threat}}

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the set-up

Consider an implementation for a basic early-warning threat avoidance mechanism :

1. Basic look-ahead during navigation/ synchronisation, might be achieved by evaluating next x adjacent memory locations (to present or intended location) for threats
2. So, there’s food over there, but because there is a threat nearby, avoid (in mechanism form)

It stands to reason that there is also a mechanism which evolved to protect organisms from loosely adjacent areas of territory, marked as a threat.

1. Consider a spread of observed threats on a map, such that sufficient space exists between distinct threat locations, and under some circumstances of navigation, threat look-ahead is not triggered
   1. And an animal may end up being surrounded by threats
   2. Which is, however unnoticed, a significant threat itself
2. Consider over time, the look-ahead value between threat locations is weighted more than periphery
   1. Such that if x threat events are detected within y area of adjacent territory, the effect, is like a zonal-ban or prohibition, to the area within threat marked boundary
      1. later, a cascade marks the intermediate conceptual area directly ⁴
3. Consider this is :
   1. Low-level implementation, and unconscious – the animal doesn’t need to conceptually model the risk
   2. A fundamental mechanism – focusing attention on a location under zonal-ban immediately results in direct mutation of body-state ⁵
4. Consider the effect whenever attention (incl. look-ahead) leads to the area of a banned zone, the embodied state of the animal changes, to prevent continuing toward the area/zone
   1. Reducing embodied motivation (eg. atp available to muscles, etc)
      1. Degrees of attenuation
      2. ‘Heavy limbs’ all the way to ‘can’t move’
      3. (Perhaps under some cases freezing movement equates to stealth, and is more beneficial than abrupt or chaotic escape)
   2. Increasing embodied state modifier
      1. Which interrupts cognitive focus
      2. For force abrupt action (alarm/ modifier adrenaline, low intensity in this case)

further notes: #todo

• reference details on extended motivation/ suppression
• and greater family of similarly low-level mechanisms
  • to frame and relate other circumstances of neurodiversity

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the point

1. Remember that conceptual spaces are based upon our maps of physical spaces
   1. (Because physical space infrastructure was present and sufficient)
      1. Simple biological ‘segmentation’
2. consider that conceptual spaces use the same implementation as physical spaces, with the same operational mechanisms (because simple biological segmentation) ⁶
3. Such that over time, if we feel a certain way while thinking about conceptual spaces (eg. work, or ourselves), we run the risk of assigning our present body-state to the conceptual focus of the moment, and in some cases, the effect is to ‘pepper’ our respective conceptual map with problematic assessments of significance
4. And that over time, if these problematic assessments exceed specific thresholds, an autonomous action is triggered, and a cascade repeats the overall assessment to all loosely-associated intermediate concepts (within bounds of respective conceptual space)
5. Such that on future occasions, when we attempt to think about any specific concept (or memory) within that conceptual space, our body-state is automatically changed to suppress embodied motivation, to in-effect, prevent us from continuing to think about that specific region of conceptual map (just as it might automatically prevent us from physically moving toward an interpreted threat or danger, in the case of physical environments), for our own benefit – for survival

Specifically :

1. Consider the impact to our default conceptual space, the self
2. Consider the impact to alternate specialist conceptual spaces (commonly associated with work environments; neurodiversity)
3. Consider the range of embodied states which might be experienced, which serve this ‘purpose’
4. Consider downstream animal behaviour

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discussion

note: this discussion refers to some requisite lower-level operational mechanics, referred to in ‘1. phenomenal foundations’ in ‘’#the evolutionary picture’’, below (i will add these shortly #todo )

—what might the above mechanisms describe?

Consider depression and burnout, whereby depression is burnout of the self (the default conceptual space) ⁷.

—if this describes the biological and cognitive root of depression and burnout ⁸, what preventative and curative measures might we expect to see working?

—what is therapy, if not guided navigation of a conceptual map, whilst ensuring a positive body-state is maintained, to ensure beneficial write-on-access reset of respective conceptual significance?

though importantly – note that original (or subsequent) external factors have to be managed also – this is not ‘in someones head’, this is something someones brain ‘does to them’ as a result of external and internal factors, over time

on psychology

Consider that psychology asserts that “how you think affects how you feel” ⁹.

Consider the more fundamental observation :

1. How you feel {emotion; sensation; body-state}
2. While you are thinking (about arbitrary concepts)
3. Conditionally imprints upon the memory of that concept
   1. (And is then automatically re-invoked, upon recall of that same memory)
4. Irrespective of whether the circumstantially present {emotion; sensation; body-state} ought to be associated with the concept
5. And while there is a very specific embodied-directive (a method of thought) which facilitates this missattribution (which can be recognised by specific introspective or meditative methods/ practices, learned and refined, and used curatively to correct the value, though is not an explicit tool taught by psychology ¹⁰) – the simpler preventative measure is to avoid situations whereby the outcome would be that negative-motivational body-state is maintained, while we are engaging unrelated cognitive efforts
   1. For example
      1. Environmental conditions which are concerning
      2. Uninterpretable circumstances/ situations/ occasions
      3. Operational distractions, which interrupt thought exploration/ conclusion/ persistence/ other operational or maintenance operations/ etc
6. Further in the case whereby external factors were the major cause of cascade to zonal-ban of any conceptual space
   1. (And noting that the subsequent mechanism of motivational suppression is entirely unconscious)
   2. I suggest that it is improper (or perhaps even unfair), to emphasise ‘how you think affects how you feel’ (without explicit methodical direction on how/ what/ why)
      1. Because how someone feels may not be a direct consequence of how they are thinking ‘at that time, or any time’
      2. But the accrued consequence of problematic environmental conditions, over time
      3. Which unless addressed, will render volitional thought mitigations temporary (at best; and worse perhaps over time, viewed as futile)
   3. Key point: remediation includes the management of environmental circumstances

additional considerations :

Consider :

1. An animal observing threats moving to a new area resets the threat assessment of specific locations, such that the same escalation threshold is re-crossed, to de-escalate, and proximity weighting removed (or cascade reversed), with the result than operational mechanics of cognition no longer prevent conceptual navigation of the previously banned area
2. The automatic attenuation of zonal-ban intensity over time: to protect against the case whereby an area rich in resources was banned by mistake; or to cover cases where threats move on unnoticed, or the capability to overcome prior obstacles develops, etc
3. The possibility that some percentage of problematic human pleasure-seeking behaviour, is an evolved method to maintain positive motivational body-state while engaging in conceptual thought or rumination, to minimise the risk of missattribution and subsequent cascades (or undo prior missattribution, to reverse cascades)
4. The notion of a relatively simple mechanistic explanation (and perhaps even origin?), for something as ‘seemingly intellectually advanced’ as the innate interpretation of a (physically unobservable) -implicit- situational threat
   1. such that, specific circumstances of representation (adjacency, proximity, and relative structure) itself-becomes-a-stimuli to be detected, interpreted, and assessed for significance, to survive #rewrite
5. Escalation: the degree to which locomotion must be suppressed (negative motivation) is a function of intensity of positive motivation (for conscious dynamic-conditional operation) ¹¹
   1. Increasing curiosity and-or bravery increases dynamic-range of motivation scope, with motivation able to peak, conditionally, such that conscious functionality can override trained conditions
   2. To counter, negative motivation must allow for unconscious functions to conditionally suppress enough to interrupt even peak curiosity/ bravery/ absorption
   3. A side-effect of finite energy reserves, is that negative motivation is more sustainable than positive motivation: to this ends, negative motivation is plural dimensional
   4. If animal persists, increase the intensity and dimensionality of suppression

#tbc

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further discussion

evidence, consequences, preventive and curative mechanisms and applications

#tbc

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the evolutionary picture

see: the evolution of cognition (zonal-ban is presently 2.4.x)

#tbc