The Psychogenic Decision System

Overview

The Psychogenic Decision System is a framework for understanding how decisions are made from the inside out. It breaks down the different parts of our inner world that activate when making decisions, as well as how the outer world influences our decision-making.

The key insight is this: the only way to reliably make good decisions is to approach them from the inside out. We need to understand how our inner world works because a decision moves from an internal resolution to an external action.

Both internal resolutions and external actions are required for a decision. We can't actually make a decision without an internal resolution, but equally as important is tangible action. Something has to physically manifest for a decision to have been made - otherwise, it's just a passing thought.

The Four Actors

Our inner world is not monolithic. It consists of distinct components that interact in predictable ways. Thoughts flow from one stage to another, transformed by each component to ultimately result in the internal basis for a decision.

1. Identity

Our sense of self. It's known as our ego and tells us a story about who we are and what we identify with. This is the perceptual filter we have for the world.

Identity determines what external stimuli even register with us. The actions of others or the consequences of our own actions only affect us if they activate our Identity. Everything that happens in our inner world starts here.

Most identities are defined as affirmations: "I am [insert label here]." These labels typically fall under one of four types:

• Relational: "I am someone's nephew. I am American."
• Physical: "I am black. I am a man."
• Preferential: "I am a coffee connoisseur. I am attracted to women."
• Ideological: "I am a Democrat. I am a Buddhist."

Understanding which identities are active in any given moment is crucial for understanding why we respond to situations the way we do.

2. Emotive Mind

The Emotive Mind deals with emotions. It is primarily concerned with two questions:

• "Do I like this?"
• "Do I not like this?"

It's the part of our mind that's animalistic, primal - the part that takes over on autopilot when we're just drifting through the day. It's correlated to the limbic systems of the brain.

The Emotive Mind receives impressions - perceptions of the external world filtered through our Identity. These impressions aren't exact representations but rough sketches that have been passed through our perceptual filter. Over time, these impressions form intuitions, biases, and patterns.

The outputs of the Emotive Mind are desires. If I like something, then I want it. If I don't like it, then I don't want it. There's not much nuance here - monkey see, monkey take. Desires are impulsive and primarily concerned with whatever is pleasurable.

3. Reflective Mind

When working properly, the Reflective Mind consistently asks the question: "What is Good?"

It is highly logical and correlated to the outer regions of the brain. It uses the filters of "good" that we've been taught, contemplated, or socialized into to bring a thought to the front of our mind.

The Reflective Mind evaluates desires on their merits, weighing the pleasure of a desire against the idea of what is good. It either alters the desire or keeps it intact to result in a resolution.

Strengthening the Reflective Mind is one of the key components of making good decisions. This is where practices like journaling, meditation, and self-inquiry become essential tools.

4. Sentience

Sentience is our general awareness as living beings. If someone is dead or in a coma, then they're not capable of making decisions.

Put another way, Sentience is what connects all the other components and allows for the ability of self-awareness. It's the Observer - the part of us that can watch the other actors at play without being caught up in them.

The capacity for subjective experience is a hallmark of sentience, of consciousness. Unlike machines that result in consistently similar outputs given the same input, sentient beings have markedly different responses to the same stimuli because they experience that stimuli differently.

How the Actors Interact

The Decision Cycle describes how these actors work together:

1. Stimuli from the outer world trigger our Identity
2. Identity creates a particular impression
3. The Emotive Mind translates impressions into desires ("Do I like this?")
4. The Reflective Mind evaluates desires to form a resolution ("What is good?")
5. The resolution becomes the inner half of our decision
6. Action in the external world completes the decision

Sentience underlies this entire process - it's the awareness that allows us to observe and potentially intervene at any stage.

Practical Application

Understanding this system helps us:

• Identify which actor is driving a particular decision
• Recognize patterns in our decision-making
• Intervene consciously when an unhelpful pattern is active
• Strengthen our Reflective Mind through deliberate practice
• Access our Sentience to gain perspective on the whole process

The Journal app in Harmonic Decisions is designed specifically to help you identify which voices are speaking in your stream of consciousness writing. By tagging passages with the four actors, you develop the ability to recognize these patterns in real-time.

Going Deeper

This framework synthesizes insights from multiple traditions:

• The Sankhya school of ancient Indian philosophy
• Modern cognitive science and behavioral economics
• Contemplative practices from various wisdom traditions

The goal is not to suppress any of the actors, but to understand them well enough that you can make decisions that truly reflect your deepest wisdom - decisions that come from harmony rather than inner conflict.

"If someone says they want to do something but don't do it, do they really want to do something?"

The answer often lies in understanding which actor was actually making the decision.