We've already gone over this information, found largely in mammals, much larger for us than other mammals. Confers ability for language, planning, consciousness and I will argue that the forebrain is largely responsible for providing human beings with the burden of psychological survival. Talk about living in the world of others. What do you have to do? Where you have to be? What do you have to believe? What do you have to believe to survive in the social world? How do you have to be? What do you have to know, or what do you think you have to know? So we're pretty much hardwired for physical survival, but we have to learn how to survive in a social world? We are not hardwired for that. We're hardwired to be capable of learning the rules of engagement in a social world, but in large part we also have to make them up. Well we're not really alone have to make them up. There's conditioning and rewards and punishments of your growing up. Don't do that. You know better than that. And so you take that in. Okay, I won't do that. And trial and error. We try this and that just didn't work. Instead of it leading to, well mommy loves you so much, she said don't do that again. Okay, so that's like rewards and punishment. And we learn by imitating other people, and we'll go into this a little bit more near the end of the course or somewhere. Imagining ourselves in the future, I've already mentioned this, and assessing how it would feel to be in that imagined situation as opposed to that imagined situation. Okay, the role of feelings in making it through the day. What I'm doing, I'm giving you little pieces that we'll gather up and look at in more detail in subsequent lectures, but the role of feelings that making it through the day, recognizing people. You're on college campus, you're on college ave, and your classes there's thousands of people around and you're going to, I mean where were you going? Going to the gym or the library and you're just toodling on, seeing all kinds of people and then all of sudden somebody comes by and you recognize them. Why do you recognize them? Because they change your feelings. They modified your feelings. You see them in a certain configuration. It was an old friend from high school. See that person changes your feelings. Hi, there! How you doing? There's a difference between that person and the hundreds of other people you just went by. All of the sudden somebody changed your feeling in a positive way. You want to talk to them! Now, say you go up to them, say, my God I didn't know you were at Rutgers! And they look at you, and they say, get lost. >> [LAUGH] >> Another change of feeling, now you go to another set of rules and the rule might be, well first of all it's disconcerting. You were not only friends with this person in Rahway High School or wherever, but you both liked to cook, and you shared recipes. And you talked about recipes. Once in a while you shared boyfriends. It was a good life between the two of you. Where does she get off by saying, oh, hello? And there you are looking like a fool, you're beaming. Hey. [SOUND] >> [LAUGH] >> So what do you do? You start thinking, oh. That's the wrong person, but then you realize it wasn't. Nobody could be as bowlegged as my old friend was. It's gotta be her! And then you start thinking well what did I do? What mistake did I make? Do I have spaghetti on my face or stuff in my teeth? You just can't explain it and what you're trying to do because this person didn't greet you the way you thought this person would greet you. It has upset the balance in your internal milieu and you want a solution that will calm it down. That's all that's happening. You want a solution that will calm it down. So you run through various possibilities through your mind or you maybe have the courage to say, hey what's going on or what's wrong. But that's indication you need to do something. Marvin wouldn't do anything. Elliot wouldn't do anything, because he wouldn't notice a change. Say you go home for the weekend and your mom is one of the super moms. She is so fabulous, and you walk in expecting to smell something really wonderful things that she's cooking. And she said you're home a lot earlier than I expected. Or even worse. What are you doing here? >> [LAUGH] >> Changed your feelings. And what we try to do is to calm down the internal milieu and find out what's needed to have it calm down. An explanation. Oh, I bet, I forgot to call Mom last week. That's what she's upset about. Now I get that. So, it's upsetting and what we want to do is to handle it because we can't go through many more hours with this stuff going on in our emotions and our feelings. Or let's say you have a frontal lobe injury of the sort we've been talking about and you're driving home, go around the corner, and your house is burned down and your pet, you know Fluffy? Burnt to a crisp. Or your favorite cat. The only thing that exists is a portion of its head. >> [LAUGH] >> If you didn't have feelings, or able to process the feelings. Fluffy? Easy come, easy go. >> [LAUGH] >> Yes. Try it. Put a stick into your temporal lobe and see what happens. >> [LAUGH] >> If you don't have any feelings. How else? Oh well, whatever. >> [LAUGH] >> You would have no feelings to be altered. They would be altered but you couldn't process it. That's what getting us through the day, pet being burnt to a crisp. >> [LAUGH] >> So we have rules for regulating our internal milieu. How should I act, what should I want, what should I believe, etc. To not feel bad about myself, to not be anxious, to feel loved, and to be respected. Now, there's lots of things that can disturb the internal milieu. Change in environment, you can change the internal milieu by yourself, by thinking of something. Thinking of some, stupid thing you did! You can't get it off your mind. And just thinking about it will alter your internal milieu. One of my daughters, when she was, she's grown up now, but when she was four, four years old, she came downstairs well after her bedtime she would be sound asleep by. And she didn't just come down the stairs, she bounded down the stairs and she was crying. What's wrong? Through her tears. Get this, she said, I don't want to be a thing that dies. Holy shit! >> [LAUGH] >> How did a kid that young come to realize the tragedy of existence? I mean this was a deep question. Well, first I'll talk about my internal with you, I told her to shut up and go to bed. >> [LAUGH] >> No I didn't, but it makes a good story. [LAUGH] My wife is a good deal more sensible to me. She said don't worry about it dear, you have a long life ahead of you. Now here's a kid who's calling on me, talk about upsetting an internal milieu, thinking about death will do it. We're usually pretty well buffered against that because we have a lot of training so we don't think about it a whole lot. But here is the first time, it dawned on her my God I'm going to die. It was right at the time when kids around age four they will imagine themselves in the future. And her traveling self went a little bit too far, and she realized at some point, she's going to die. >> [LAUGH] >> Now, the idea don't worry about it dear, you have a long life ahead of you. It would really soothe a troubled soul at that point. She thought. Got her to thinking about, well, yeah. Tomorrow, I'm going to do this, and [INAUDIBLE]. But listen, a lot of parents, maybe even some of your parents say, don't worry about it, dear. God will take care of you, right? God will take care of you. Becomes a platform for later lessons about the soul. If you take good care of your soul, guess what? You're going to die, but not really. You will continue on! Early on in your experience some stuff in your family and you have this guiding principle, is I'm not wanted, I'm unworthy. And you can do several things. After you make that decision you can say, well, what do I need to do to be wanted, to feel love by my parents or by my third grade teacher or whoever it is that you think you would feel better if you were loved. Once you make that decision, you have a belief that I'm unworthy and that will continue to drive you in various ways, sometimes obvious ways, sometimes non-obvious ways, and this assignment is an opportunity for you to just take a look at that belief. Just take a look at when that was install. And how you came up with that good idea. It could be through childhood experiences. You have memories, lots and lots of memories stack up around there. How it came to be that you felt not wanted. And you can feel not wanted so much, that when a person really indicates that they like you, they admire you, you dismiss it. You're so well defended that belief. When we have internalized beliefs, they're surrounded by feeling. And feeling say don't touch this belief. This belief is very important to me. And you may even go about to prove to others that you really are unworthy. And there's lots of other examples. Another decision, I must be liked by everybody. I must be liked by everybody who knows me. And that's a tough one because I know, I've had enough experience, all I have to do is to walk in to a, wherever I walk into. Into a classroom, first time up here in the classroom, not as large as this but whatever, that some people are not going to like me. I remind them of somebody or I have, you know, a habit of doing something that reminds them of somebody else who they didn't like. So if you are driven, if you have a decision that I must be liked by everybody who knows me or there's something wrong with me, I can't tell you to give it up. You're going to have to give it up yourself. But first of all you have to look at how it got installed and why is it so important to you in your life. Alright, we're done for the day. Thank you very much. You've been very attentive.
