Okay, so there's a couple of different whiteboard
episodes about, there's two about the internal
calculators, okay? We covered, just to recap
real fast, sensory and then how state will map
onto the sensory processing that you're having
and then the value, okay? And then the control
and then the policy kind of you're learning.
What's feeding into and updating your beliefs?
phenotypes and personalities. We talked about
this mainly because it's prediction. Humans,
we're not responding to the environment. We are
responding to the predictions we have of the
environment. That's the basis of human behavior
and reaction. That's what it is. It's not just
like this blank state. It's the predictions based
off of our experiences that are feeding into
this. Here, especially here, because of how we're
feeling with the state, and then here, after
the value, and then how much control do we have
over the situation because I promise you, you
don't like uncertainty. And then learning will
happen, kind of feeding into this and then definitely.
as you're executing the task or you're experiencing
your life in the world. Okay so we talked about
prediction prediction error just general recap
here before we get in what we're going to get
into for today okay prediction error is simply
just what it's predicted what you predicted to
encounter versus the actual that happened okay
that delta Okay. And then you can zoom into this
and say, okay, reward prediction error is the
value higher than you predicted. That's going
to stamp. Okay. We're going to get there right
here, but you can also say aversion prediction
error. If you really want to zoom into the prediction
error model of neuroscience and human behavior,
which is the outcome was worse than. Okay. So
value, we talk about value here. Remember the
ventromedial prefrontal cortex. We call it the
scoreboard. This is what's kind of providing
the value. It's where all of these things are
feeding in all these neural correlates and telling
the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Actually,
I found the paper. I found the paper that...
I couldn't find it, but then I found it after
we recorded that video. I just wanted to show
you the amount of interactions and what's happening
with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, okay?
Especially these neuromodulatory regions and
these loops right here that we talk a lot about,
okay? This is another cell press journal. It's
a fantastic journal. Fantastic paper here about
the role of the medial prefrontal cortex in memory
and decision making. Remember the medial prefrontal
cortex? We outlined the three regions here. The
medial orbital frontal cortex, ventral medial
prefrontal cortex, and the ACC, the anterior
cingulate cortex, which is huge for control.
I could spend a lot of time on this but there's
videos about this stuff. is all in the medial
prefrontal cortex, remember? The medial prefrontal
cortex leads the way. It's where it's kind of
like our conductor for adaptive responses. And
that's a big thing with humans in the prefrontal
cortex. It's a flexible rule setting machine
because we're constantly having to adapt to our
environments. And that's like in real time and
over time through your history, through your
life. okay so I wanted to show that with the
ventral medial prefrontal cortex okay so now
value here is determined it's the delta of reward
minus cost metabolic cost okay so if the reward
is high higher than the cost you're going to
repeat that if the reward is lower than the cost
or the cost is higher than the reward you're
going to avoid that These are the equations of
your life. But then we dialed in. Okay, so what's
another way to look at value? That's net benefits.
Your expected reward, back to this, minus the
metabolic cost. Okay, remember the brain doesn't
like to work. It just wants to respond. And it's
evaluating. It's like the metabolic bank accountant.
Do you have enough energy on board to do this
task? You'll think about that and then you'll
decide that for yourself without the action.
You can tuck yourself into and out of many things
via thought. You can get lost in thought. Humans
have an infinite capacity for thought. Thoughts
are very bad. in this situation. And they're
just human creation, okay? That's the main goal.
Thoughts are human creation. They're not necessarily
reality. Okay, so then the last episode after
these two about the internal calculators, we
talked about anxiety, all right? And then I talked
about This paper here and this is what we're
going to kind of explore here I want to give
real -life examples of how this plays out. Okay,
and then we talked about how dopamine and norepinephrine
are kind of modulating amplifying stamping the
value here because dopamine is really Associated
with that reinforcement. Okay and learning and
norepinephrine is providing biological energy
Okay, remember we talked about the locus coeruleus
the blue spot how it just sprinkles the brain
with Neural energy, okay with that neuro epinephrine
and it lacks specificity it just kind of Provides
the brain this general Biological energy to perform
the actions, okay And this will modulate and
amplify. And what we're talking about today and
what you should talk about all the time in your
life is, do you persist or do you quit? Persist
versus quit is what this is talking about, okay?
We have some episodes about the autism. This
isn't necessarily autism, but it is related.
December, probably 2024. I first talked about
internal calculators and persisting versus quitting
and how our phenotype and belief systems kind
of dictate our lives, okay? And then with the
anxiety, we talked about socialness because the
social world, remember what I just said about
the medial prefrontal cortex and adaptive responses,
the social world is costly. There's a lot of
metabolic cost associated with that mainly because
not being understood but secondly is the the
amount of sensory processing. There's a lot to
take in. Sensations are like on fast forward.
It's a lot to keep up with. Okay so that's enough
background information I think for what we're
going to cover today and We're going to talk
about persist versus quit in life. Okay. And
I'm going to use a physical example here of a
physical activity of running, but you can also
apply this to mental effort, which is they're
like that. But if it's just like, say, I want
to just read this paper and understand this paper,
that's not physical effort. It's not a physical
bout. It's more mental bout, but you can plug
and play this with anything, anything in life.
Okay. So. I like to run. And one thing that you
can think about how this is working here is with
this expected reward and metabolic cost is if
I am running and the effort that I am giving
exceeds the cost or even exceeds expectation,
the prediction I have, I'm going to constantly
persist and keep going that's a big role of the
dopamine and or epinephrine here okay so if i
am running down the road here or you can view
it this way like if i just have a guy here running
and he's running down the road here okay the
time with this visual inputs coming in, the time
it takes me to get from here to here, or let's
say here to here, this is a little checkpoint,
okay? You're doing this. We have these internal
calculators and it's feeding in this, this value
and providing state and value and control over
the situation, the control over your motor movements.
The time that it takes from here to here or here
to here, if it's so -called net benefits, I'm
going to keep going. The neuroepinephrine, which
is shown here with a slow casseroleus, is going
to keep fueling me. And the dopamine is like,
I like this. This is reinforcing. I'm going to
keep going. But let's say over time, I start
to slow down and I'm using more metabolic cost.
That's going to happen. I'm not David Goggins.
I'm not campaigns. Even they quit. Eventually
this is going to shift. And the time it takes
for me to get from here to here is slower. And
then even from here to here is slower. Okay.
Or you can think about it from here. I'm running
this way. This is like a city block or something.
often you have electrical poles that you're passing
by and as you're passing by these city blocks
or the electrical poles and it's you're exceeding
that time expectation it's saying go go go keep
going if it's slower as you're slowing down and
you're just kind of battling in to get to that
next checkpoint because remember you've built
in this experience and this ability to evaluate
this your your brain is telling you what are
you doing essentially the amount of effort that
you're providing is not giving you the reward
the expectation so your metabolic cost is greater
than so you're going to want to avoid persisting
in that task. Okay and then you will start to
slow down because the visual inputs mainly it's
all about the visual inputs here. The visual
inputs are going to just be slower and slower
and slower. Okay now I can think about this mentally
too whenever I'm running. Whenever um as you're
let's see how how do I say if you if you think
about you're moving here you're moving down this
road and you're moving down this road like this
okay mentally i'm thinking i feel pretty good
i like this i'm enjoying this activity right
now because of the the amount of effort that
i'm providing for this bow this physical bow
or mental bow is giving me reward Okay, and I
can think about this I can think about Sensations
here I can feel Every time my feet hits the pavement
It feels light meaning each step I take it feels
like My feet aren't blasting the ground where
I'm just like hitting it and bouncing off Okay,
as I get tired I can start to feel my feet smacking
the ground and the the contact points of the
feet feels like it's greater than whenever I'm
just bouncing off the ground and This is signaling
to me like I am just stomping I'm running heavy
is how I evaluate that to myself versus I'm running
light Okay, and I can think about that and it
makes me think okay, I need to Kind of calm my
stress response. Okay, this Calculator here.
I need to stop making it trick me Okay, because
we can think about the sympathetic the sympathetic
and parasympathetic nervous system, okay, and
this is uh So sympathetic is get up and go activation
arousal go go go parasympathetic is like you're
calm okay so regardless as all of this mental
and physical effort is being exerted and i'm
way up here but i am slowing down physically
i need to bring myself back down to this range
here Let's say this is my range of optimal performance.
Okay, and I Need to calm myself down So I can
do that in two ways the visual inputs the visual
inputs coming in can help me and also breathing
because as you're using all of this metabolic
energy as you're using such metabolic demands
here, trying to keep up, trying to persist with
this physical activity that you like to enjoy.
You can deliberately take control of your eye
movements, slow them down. You can just focus
in on something. So if I'm running here and maybe
there's a rock in the road here and as I'm approaching
it, I'm going to stare at that rock. And it works
better if it's like maybe 10, 15 yards in front
of me. So can you see? Let's say this is a rock.
Okay. And then as I get closer, I can bounce
my eye movements and find something else to focus
on. And then for 10, 15 more yards, I'm just
staring at this rock. Okay. And then I'm just
going to keep finding something and make sure
my my eyes are not in an increased gaze because
increased gaze means your way up here your way
up here in the sympathetic range and you're just
going to exhaust yourself either accurately like
it's legit or you're just going to confuse yourself
because of this internal calculator and this
reward and cost value is going to be inflated
That's why we talked about The the the act of
quitting is mental because these glia accumulate
Evidence that actions are futile and suppress
unsuccessful behavior because your internal calculators
these biological calculators are going to think
well this action this effort is unsuccessful
and It's could be true, but you can keep going
a little bit more and a little bit more and a
little bit more in life because people have a
tendency to just want to quit early and that's
not so much the case. You can keep going. You
have to bypass these internal calculators. You
have to bypass these value systems that causes
you to quit. Causes your policy here that you're
updating your beliefs your core beliefs. I can't
I'm done and Your phenotype to I'm just going
to avoid that You can update this and change
it That's what's valuable about life because
you want to do something because you're doing
it and You can do better because humans have
an infinite capacity to succeed and do better
You can take control of this and utilize these
two behavioral tools or these two endogenous
ways of Modulating your autonomic nervous system.
Okay, one is the vision and then the other one
is breathing because I promise you as you're
running that physical effort your breathing is
Think about it as the rate and depth. It's fast.
It's too fast So you can slow, deliberately slow
your breath down and that's going to also bring
you back down. Okay, so vision, vision, taking
conscious control and not having so much eye
gaze, focusing in on something. And as you're
running towards it, you will kind of bypass and
trick these internal calculators. I promise you,
you will. So vision and the breathing taking
conscious control over both the eyes and your
breathing because they are directly related to
this autonomic nervous system Okay, and that's
exactly what this paper is about they trick these
zebrafish and exactly a Task like this where
they they determine that actions are futile but
the actions they're doing is not giving them
anything. So why do it? Why persist? And the
degree to which you can kind of set yourself
up to perform better and to kind of maintain
and persist versus quit is going to be a lot
of benefits in life. This is a lot of psychology.
This is a lot of mental toughness you could say.
It doesn't matter if you like to run or not you
can apply this to everything in life Because
these core beliefs your core beliefs here will
own you Even if they're not accurate you will
be owned by this kind of reward and cost benefit
thing Your phenotype Who controls your life?
Is it going to be you? Or is it going to be these
either false perceptions or the external world?
Then I don't know. It doesn't matter to me who
owns you, but something owns you. This is all
about taking control of your life because that's
what feeds in the adaptive responses in your
actions. Remember, from here to here, we hit
the dorsal striatum for actions the basal ganglia
okay so that is in summary what this is about
okay so i have a note here behavior pattern equals
trying to achieve a goal repeatedly failing despite
trying harder and giving up temporarily and then
trying again So the time it takes for you to
give up temporarily and then try again persisting.
I just showed you how you can accelerate that
gap. That temporal domain here. How you can bypass
that so you can persist for longer. And this
works. This is built into our nervous system.
This is all endogenous stuff. You will quit way
before your body We'll give up. We'll fail you.
And that doesn't matter if it's a mental bout
or a physical bout. We are who we are because
of this. I think I covered everything. I don't
know though. I hope so. All right. Persist versus
quit. You can keep going.