[Cognitive Engineering Theory of Creation] OS Protocol for Creators 12: 'Objective Perspective Skills' Recursive Audit Edition

This is finally the last installment, the 'Recursive Audit Edition'.
I never imagined this series would span the entire duration of the Creative Awards...😅
To everyone who has followed along, thank you so much.

What does it mean to 'be able to view things objectively'?

If you think about this seriously, it's like standing at the entrance to an infinite hell, which is fascinating.
For those who carry the prototype of cognition, undergo internal training, and design AI and evaluation functions to analyze their own work, the next trap awaits.
This is because the tools we have used so far do not have the function to audit the 'self that is viewing objectively'.

The trap of self-identifying as 'being able to view things objectively'

• 'Everyone is driven by emotion, so that's why they fail.'

• 'Many people don't realize their own biases.'

• 'It won't get through to people who can't use metacognition anyway.'

...Have you ever thought this way?
I have.😇
If you look closely, these are all talking about 'others who don't realize'.
And the moment you start talking about 'others', the 'self' is removed from the audit target.

Objective perspective is something that should originally be directed at oneself.
However, at some point, it gets replaced by a tool to judge others.
The moment you say 'everyone else doesn't get it', you have stepped off the audit platform.
So why do we remove ourselves from the audit target and try to judge others?

Humans have an instinct (self-defense psychology) that says, 'I don't want to think I'm wrong' or 'I want to protect my pride and legitimacy'.
When you try to view yourself objectively, you have to face your own flaws and biases, which is mentally painful.

Then, receiving the instinctual command to 'protect yourself from pain!', your 'thinking area (such as the frontal lobe)' begins to operate at full capacity.
To fulfill the instinctual goal of 'wanting to protect myself', thought almost unconsciously constructs 'plausible logic that can assert correctness'.
In psychological terms, this is called 'rationalization' or 'justification'.

So, what happens if you stubbornly cling to the audit platform and keep staring at your 'self'?
That is where you run into this problem.

The problem of who audits the PM who audits the PM

In the conceptual explanation section, I explained objective perspective as the 'ability to place a PM inside yourself'.
It is the idea that a PM oversees each process (from observation to output) from a bird's-eye view.

If so, who audits that PM themselves?
If you think about it simply, you might say, 'Why not just place a higher-level PM to monitor the PM?', but if you do this, hell begins.

• A PM that monitors the PM

• A PM that monitors that PM

• And a PM that monitors that one...

This is what philosophy calls an infinite regress.
It's fine to place a 'monitoring PM (metacognition)' inside yourself, but if you keep adding PMs to monitor those PMs, your brain's processing resources will be depleted, leading to gestalt collapse (or a mental freeze).💦

When you try to monitor thought with thought, a hellish vicious cycle begins.

So, let's try using a completely different tool.
The keyword is 'disgust'.

Track your disgust to expose your self-defense lines

The most practical method for doubting the 'self that is observing objectively' is to utilize feelings of disgust.
Why start with the 'emotion' of disgust rather than 'thought'?

Even if you try to track your own defenses through thought, you will rarely find them.
That is only natural.
Because those very thoughts are what are defending your self.

It is impossible for the person who is thinking 'I am logically correct' to find the distortion in that thought using thought itself.
This is because, as explained in the previous section, the 'thought' that should be the auditor has been bought off by 'instinct' behind the scenes and is complicit in the cover-up (justification).

And even if you try to use thought at the moment when an objective perspective is needed, it has already been bought off and it is too late.
Therefore, no matter how seriously you turn your thoughts over, you will only ever reach the conclusion that 'No, I am objective and correct.'

However, emotions are outside of that control.
In particular, 'disgust' is difficult to control by oneself.
The reaction of 'this feels wrong' arises before thought, so it can be utilized as raw data before defenses are activated.

In the internal training section, I talked about the prototype of cognition.
It was a device that judged things based on 'feels good / feels bad,' wasn't it?
By tracking this 'feels bad = disgust,' the boundaries where the prototype is reacting become clearly visible.

The emotion of disgust is often treated as something negative.
But when viewed as a function, it becomes a super-excellent sensor.
Humans find it easier to verbalize 'dislike' specifically than 'like'.

For example, 'I like sincerity' is an abstract impression.
The outline of where sincerity begins and ends is vague.
But if you say 'I dislike values that allow people to deceive others without feeling bad,' it suddenly becomes more concrete.

When you want to know your own values, it is more accurate to look at what you 'dislike' than what you 'like'.

You often hear platitudes like 'Let's have a broad mind that does not harbor anger or disgust.'
However, due to the structure of the brain, it is absolutely impossible to erase the disgust that wells up.
If it is a mechanism that cannot be erased anyway, let's make effective use of it as an alert.

As long as you are human, disgust itself is a normal defensive reaction.
Instead of excluding it as something 'dirty,' it is more profitable to treat it as a tool and enjoy it, thinking, 'Oh, I've obtained some top-quality raw data. Shall I take a peek into my own subconscious?'

Once you get used to using it as a tool, you will no longer be swayed by the emotion of disgust yourself.

Using AI as a 'disgust emotion excavator'

So, how do you track disgust?
Here, the application of the external device section comes into play.
Let's use AI as an 'excavator'.

The point is not to make the AI a 'critic'.
A critic AI will start saying things like 'That is prejudice' or 'Generally speaking...', and the excavation will stop.
Therefore, bind the AI with a prompt and fix it as an excavator that mechanically repeats 'Why?'

Specifically, you throw a prompt like this at the beginning.

This is a specialized version of the “Arrow Technique” used in cognitive behavioral therapy.
The essential logic (digging deep into thoughts to reach the core) is the same, but the 'target (input)' and 'purpose (output)' have been narrowed down.

The Arrow Technique is usually used to alleviate negative automatic thoughts that cause suffering, such as 'anxiety/depression/fear'.
And the purpose is to doubt the excavated belief by asking 'Is that really true?' and to 'rewrite (correct)' it to resolve the difficulty of living.

On the other hand, the excavation of disgust emotion specializes in recognizing the 'unyielding boundaries (identity or aesthetics)' within yourself by exploring what makes you feel angry.
The purpose is also more specialized for the creative domain, where you recognize the excavated boundaries as 'This is my value' and deepen your self-understanding.

Stopping conditions for excavation

However, if you keep digging, this will also become an infinite loop, so set stopping conditions.
The stopping conditions are the following two.

• Cycle detection
  End if the same reason starts to loop
  Example: Because it's unfair -> Why? -> Because I can't accept it -> Why? -> Because it's unfair... stop if it starts to cycle

• Emotional Saturation
  If you start feeling irritated, getting defensive, or justifying yourself, stop immediately.

The important thing is that the goal is not to come up with the correct answer.
If you can just bring back a trace of 'there is something I want to protect around here,' that is a huge success👍
If you try to come up with a perfect answer, you will fall into the valley of 'searching for the right answer.'

It is best to treat it as a casual game of cultivating the sense of digging into yourself.
Since it is a game, 'if you think it's no good, stop' is the rule.

Objective Perspective as Pathology

I have a horror novel titled 'ECHO-PROT: Cage of Echoes.'
I will omit the details to avoid spoilers, but it is a work that depicts what happens to a person who gets absorbed into the concept of metacognition without deep understanding.

From a certain point on, the protagonist becomes convinced that 'I am perfectly objective.'
He becomes convinced that he can perfectly read the inner thoughts of others as well.
And he even begins to interpret the reactions of rejection and fear shown by the people around him as evidence of their affection for him.

In terms of cognitive structure, this is a state where the self-recognition of 'being objective' induces a cessation of thought, and he mistakes distorted interpretations born from unconscious defense reactions for logical judgments.
The question, 'Do you think you can explain that logic to others and have them understand it?' has completely disappeared.
He does not doubt at all that his interpretation is correct.

When the 'trap of objective perspective' progresses to the extreme, this is what happens.
This is fiction, but I believe it is a pathology that exists in terms of cognitive structure.
It is a work that depicts such terror.

There is no 'End Point' to Objective Perspective

The methods in this article can be summarized as follows.

Human instincts hack thoughts and justify them
↓
Talking about metacognition with hacked thoughts leads to blindness
↓
Disgust can be used as raw data before defenses are activated
↓
Use that as an alert and a target for excavation to deepen your awareness of the boundaries of your own defensive consciousness and values on a daily basis

Objective perspective skill is a dynamic ability that must be continuously operated, and it is a device that incorporates stop conditions and recursive audits.
The entire series can be summarized as follows.

• Internal Training: Techniques for auditing your own writing

• External Device: Co-designing evaluation functions with AI and using them as an evaluation device

• Recursive Audit: Doubting the 'you' that is being objective

Only when these three layers are in place does the objective perspective skill begin to function.

And the moment you think 'I am being objective,' is the most dangerous time.
Therefore, the goal of objective perspective is not to 'become able to do it.'
Rather, the opposite is true; training objective perspective is about taming the 'attitude of not trusting yourself' within you for the rest of your life.

Do not think you have 'succeeded.'
Doubt that 'you might still be overlooking something.'
Consciously operate in a 'cognitively unstable state.'
That is what I consider objective perspective skill to be.

However, if you view this as a 'task that must be done perfectly 24/7, 365 days a year,' you will definitely get sick, so think of it as 'security software that you occasionally launch.'

In daily life, it is fine to live thinking 'I am right.'
Otherwise, you cannot lead a social life (laughs).
But only in moments when your emotions are stirred intensely, such as 'when you are extremely irritated by something,' try launching this security software and excavating with AI.

'Taming it for the rest of your life' does not mean constantly doubting yourself, but rather, when you think of it as an endless task of cherishing the bias-ridden subjectivity that comes along when you've forgotten about it, saying 'Oh, here we go again,' it should become easier to operate.

In conclusion

Thank you very much for staying with me until the end of this long, long series.

Writing Is Thinking
There is a saying like this.
It is a philosophy that many thinkers and writers have repeatedly expressed in their own words.
However, I could not find any theory of creation that placed that 'way of thinking' at the forefront.
My honest reaction was, 'You should have left a proper record of this...' but since I couldn't find one, I felt I had no choice but to write it myself, which led to my motivation for writing this series.

With the advent of AI (LLMs) as an 'evolving averaging device,' the world of creation has changed significantly.
In the future, to compete with AI that outputs a 'beautiful median' from vast amounts of data, human-specific distortions and obsessions will likely become our greatest weapons.

This theory of creation is not intended to help you 'write beautifully'.
It is centered on the question, 'How uniquely can you capture the world through your own perspective?'
Capturing the world through your own unique perspective leads to distortions and obsessions that AI cannot produce.
I hope this work will be of some help to you all in the world after the arrival of AI.

And for those of you who have read this far, you should already be more than enough of a 'thinker'.
Well then, I look forward to seeing you in another article.