Fear and why it's bad for you

I fear a lot of things, especially the things I can’t see or control. Is this good or bad?

It is bad, but natural. The brain is not perfect, we evolved our brains from reptiles, then we evolved the limbic or mammalian brain, then humans and some animal got this awesome gift – THE CEREBREAL CORTEX!!!!!

            Angels and God is in heaven, high up in the sky. God represent forgiveness, understanding, empathy and reason. The devil lives down below, deep underground; he represents evil, hatred, pride, chauvinism, and irrationality.

This is a perfect analogy for our brains: heaven represents the cerebral cortex and the R Complex (R standing for Reptile) is the old lowest part of the brain.

So the challenge for humans is to have our cerebral cortex override our R Complex.

Give me an example Bill.

Well we fear medicine like immunization shots, or silicone in breast implants, right? Million have been paid out by big business to people that convinced jurys that immunization shots and silicone breast implant hurt them. Well that belief is all R Complex, because after millions of dollars spent on studies by BOTH SIDES, no, zero, zilch, none, nada scientific evidence has backed up these beliefs. They are ‘beliefs,’ not facts. The R Complex survives on belief, the cerebral cortex relies on facts.

Now normally I think Big Business is motivated more by money than helping human beings, but in this case I believe the big companies got screwed, and the people who worked for them who got laid off to pay off these million dollar awards did too.

But Bill, I have personal evidence that this is true? My (insert relation here) got sick right after (he/she) got (immunization shots/ breast implants).

Mr. Cerebral cortex would realize that personal anecdotes don’t represent the majority of the cases, and court cases can’t be decided by jus one incident. The R Complex is perfectly persuaded by a few personal experiences, projecting them out to everyone. This is called a Logical Fallacy, specifically the Anecdotal Fallacy.  

Here is an example of a logical Fallacy.

“My grandpa lived to 110 and smoked like a chimney. So I don’t believe smoking is bad for you.”

That is R Complex simple. He might be alive, but he had to suck oxygen, had brittle arteries, and had one lung removed. Plus there are genetic factors that can counter the bad effects of smoking the 99% of smokers don’t have. The cerebral cortex knows things are not black and white, but shades of gray. The world is complicated and one answer does not fit all situations.

The R Complex wants simple explanations, and thus come up with simple quick answers. If an answer is simple, quick and easy, then that means it is probably wrong and your R Complex, notorious for being lazy, won out.

So what you are saying is the challenge of human beings is we have to fight this evil R Complex that tries to make us fear everything and come to simple, black and white solutions, but we have this reasoning wise cerebral cortex that tries to counter it with facts, reason, wisdom and logic.

Uh, yeah. So every time we run in to a challenge or a fear, I think we need to ask ourselves “which part of our brains is talking, what part is making the decision for us, the devil side or Godly side? Am I giving into fear and ignoring reason, or have I successfully ignored fear and listen to my higher brain?

This is our cross to bear, our constant fight. Life is more complex for us than for animals, but we are rewarded with awesome experiences and intelligent consciousness. I think this struggle we have to deal with the two parts our brain is worth the rewards we get for being human.

But with great power comes great responsibility. The world is too dangerous of a place to constantly give into our R Complexes. We have the built bombs that can blow up the world several times, and Mars too if we wanted. If we give into our R Complex and fear, the consequence is that we needlessly throw away our unique human gift.

So I should not watch Fox News because it panders to my R Complex?

No. Don’t watch Fox News. You can watch Fox network- the Simpsons, and reruns of 21 Jump Street, but not Fox News. The Simpsons is actually wiser than Fox News. Seriously, it is.

But it gives me pride to stand up to reasonable thought and facts. I feel like the lone savior who stands up to the mindless masses.

Hubris and pride are both major parts of the R-Complex. The devil was sent to hell for pride wasn’t he?

Yes, this is a psychological phenomenon in which people are more likely to stubbornly stand up to the majority opinion because it invigorates their pride.

“Screw the majority and their irrefutable facts. I am proudly stubborn! I disagree with overwhelming evidence. Screw you! I’m stubborn and I fell good about being stubborn even if I’m clearly dead wrong. Screw the truth!”

Yep, there is the R Complex talking, fully in the driver seat. That person has failed and threw wisdom and reason out the window, they might as well be a reptile. Humans use reason and think; reptiles just go with what they feel. Hopefully this person isn’t president.

But loyalty to my (cause/ political party/ social economic status, regional culture/ religion) is more important than reason and wisdom. I’m not changing my mind if it goes against my cause. It would be traitorous.

Another psychological phenomena that comes right from the R Complex, its called chauvinism- blindly loyal to a cause. The Nazis, the Japanese in 1940, Italians under Mussolini, the KKK, Al Qaeda, all got and still get recruits because of this R Complex flaw.

Would you drive off a cliff. No.

Would you drive off a cliff if blind folded. Maybe.

Would you drive off a cliff if you were blind folded and not sitting in the driver seat? Most likely.

Well that is what it’s like if you follow a cause blindly, you drive off a cliff and get hurt, and hurt others.

 This is why you must question your leaders, challenge them, and never give into calls of patriotism and loyalty. Those are just requests for you to put your blind folds on, cerebrela cortex on the shelf, sit in the passenger seat, and trust the driver won’t go off a cliff.

Unfortunately, with all the day to day stuff we have to deal with its just easier to leave the hard thinking up to someone else than to take time out and use the upper brain to say “ Hey, maybe invading Iraq was bad thing because the evidence was thin and most likely manufactured, and Iraq doesn’t represent an immediate threat. Maybe we should just fund the Kurds and the Shiites, aid them in their fight and have them earn their own freedom like we earned ours back in 1776. Sure the French and Spanish helped, but they didn’t suffer, worked hard and earn the freedom for us. We did it ourselves and now we have a lot of confidence and national self esteem because of it. Maybe that would be better.”

Or…

“Hmmm, maybe we shouldn’t invade Poland with force. Why not make really good products, sell that to them, and with the profits we make BUY what we need from them instead of taking it by force. This way no one dies and there isn’t any destruction. Plus I could piss off stronger countries and who will kick my butt. Maybe that would be better.”

Where are all the aliens? If life evolves where  the conditions are right, there should be hundreds of civilized planets out there?

Continued intelligent life is not a given. Because evolution works by starting simple and evolving to more complex forms, and it works with what it has, we unfortunately are stuck with this part of the brain. It worked great when we were primitives, and had no world killing tech.  But with rockets, nukes, biological weapons, experimental zombie viruses, maybe the R Complex is not such a good thing now.

Assuming evolution works the same on other planets, and there isn’t any good arguments to think it works radically different, then maybe the lack of aliens has to do with the fact those aliens failed to control their R-Complexes, and thus used ray guns on each other and killed themselves off.

The question that we all have to answer is: do we want to be one of those suicidal civilizations, or do we want to be the exception?’  We can’t get rid our R-Complexes, just like we can’t get rid of evil (See No Country for Old Men, Halloween, and Shadows and Fog for great analogies for ever enduring R Complex), but we can use our great gift, the cerebral cortex, to fight it, and keep it in check.