Ego and Algorithms

Algorithms are training your subconscious… and your ego is taking credit for it.

Not in obvious ways… but in small, repeated patterns. What you see. What you hear. What you start to believe is you. This episode explores how those patterns shape identity… and what it means to step back and notice who’s really doing the thinking.

Co-written by Doug Quigley and Alex Anderson.

Written and narrated by Gary Naccarato.

For more, visit theartofclarity.studio

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Topics include attention, focus, mindfulness, digital distraction, creativity, memory, and the impact of technology on the nervous system.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Did I tell you about when I drove to the dump the other day? Oh boy, here we go again. My dad was well into his eighties, and near the end he started repeating the same stories over and over again, sometimes minutes apart, always like he had just remembered something incredible he needed to share. The year before he had driven to the dump one afternoon by himself. He had retired in northern Idaho, small town, mountains on both sides of the valley, and if you were in the car with him, it could be a little nerve wracking, because he spent more time looking up at the mountains than he did at the road. He was always scanning cliffs, ridges, clearings, way off in the distance, looking for deer, elk, eagles. And what was strange, almost unsettling was how good he was at it. He'd suddenly slow down, point out the windshield and say, See, up there. See that tree leaning to the left, right at the edge of that clearing? Looks like a few rocks. And I'd be staring at nothing, just a patch of hillside. I would often think, what is he looking at? I'd follow his finger, try to line it up exactly. Same tree, same clearing. And it was just shapes, just color, texture, nothing distinct. Then he'd say, No, no, no, just stay with it for a second. And there's this moment where you almost give up, where you think he's wrong, or I'm missing something. But if you stay with it just a little longer, something shifts. Something moves just enough to break the illusion. And once that happens, your brain fills in the rest, the rocks start to move. And suddenly you realize they weren't rocks at all. They were elk. Three or four of them making their way across a clearing maybe fifteen hundred feet above the valley floor. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. And that's what he loved most about it, not just seeing it himself, but showing someone else. Back to the dump story. He would tell this story all the time, minutes after he had just finished it. He'd say I drove to the dump the other day, the guy in the booth, the guy that you paid to get in. I point up to a tree way off in the distance, and I say to him, Look, there's a bald eagle up there. He looks at me like I'm crazy, says there ain't no bald eagles around here. And I tell him no, just look, follow my finger. And then suddenly holy shit, you're right. I would have never seen that. That's the part that stuck with me. Not the elk, the shift in perception the moment something reveals itself, not because it changed, but because you stayed with it long enough to actually see it. And once that happens, you start noticing it everywhere. Welcome to the Art of Clarity, a podcast about creativity, the nervous system, and the strange ways the modern world competes for our minds. What I keep coming back to is that story my dad used to tell about going to the dump. Not in terms of nature, but in terms of attention. Because that's kind of how everything works now. It's a bit like tuning a radio. The signal's always there. You don't create it, the signal. I mean you just find it. And once you land on a frequency, you tend to stay there. Not because it's the only thing play, but because it's the one you've tuned into. I almost said the one you've turned into. Which is interesting because that's kind of what's happening. Not deciding what exists, just tuning over and over to the same frequency. And after a while it doesn't feel like something you're being shown. It just feels like what's there. And maybe that's the part we don't really notice, how quickly something becomes familiar just because we keep seeing it. It's like when you buy a new car, say a Toyota Forerunner, Midnight Blue, and suddenly you see that same car everywhere. It's not that more of them appeared overnight, it's just that your awareness shifted. This is known as the Bader Meinhof phenomenon or frequency illusion. Once something becomes part of your consciousness, you start recognizing it everywhere. My dad wasn't seeing something different. He was seeing something most don't stay with long enough to notice. Almost like there are two versions of you being fed at the same time one that wants more, one that pulls back, and something in the middle quietly deciding which one gets more attention. What if the thing in the middle isn't you? Not really. What if it's just responding to what you keep doing? Because most of that isn't even conscious. Algorithms are training your subconscious, and your ego is taking credit for it. The algorithm doesn't respond to who you think you are, it responds to what you repeatedly do. And there's a difference because most of what you do isn't conscious. Think of it, the algorithm as the subconscious' mirror or amplifier. Are we in control of our own algorithms? What if you could control your own algorithm? Would you actually choose truth or just a cleaner, more streamlined version of your own reflection? Algorithm as identity engine, and the idea of giving the user the keys, not just consuming the feed, but deciding who the feed turns you into. Your phone, your smart TV, the apps you use every day. Every time you stay with something a little longer, every time you pause, linger, come back to it, something is learning that pattern. And it gives you more of it. Not because it knows who you are, but because it's paying attention to what you keep doing. That's what an algorithm is doing, not deciding who you are, just responding to your behavior, quietly reinforcing it over and over until it starts to feel like that's just who you are. And maybe that's the part we don't really notice, how quickly something becomes familiar just because we keep seeing it. I'm fifty-seven years old and I've started noticing something else. The older I get, the more I repeat myself. Same stories, same beats. Friends, family, my husband, everyone around me seems to be doing it. You go to a dinner party, a few drinks in, conversation starts to flow, and you reach for the same story. And what's strange is you don't even really think about it. It just comes out. Same setup, same timing. And sometimes you can feel it happening in real time. You're halfway through the story, and there's a small part of you that knows you've told this before, not once, a lot, but you keep going anyway because it works. People laugh in the same places, they lean in at the same moments, and there's something comforting about that. Like you already know who you are in that moment. You don't have to figure it out. You just step into it and play it again. For me, it's pretty much always the same sequence. Evergreen state, Los Angeles, propaganda, biscuit, illness, loss, remission, hypnotherapy. Those are the beats, and I've started to wonder, is that actually who I am? Or is it just the version of myself I've repeated enough times that it feels like me? Because when you say something often enough, it becomes easy. And when it becomes easy, you stop questioning it. And when you stop questioning it, it starts to feel true. But here's what's interesting. I'm writing a book right now. It's a bit of a memoir, and I don't love that word, but it's the closest thing. And the reason I'm writing it is because a few years back I went through something that completely upended my life. I was dealing with a very rare neurological disease. When I say rare, I mean one to two people per million. It affected everything physically, mentally, my ability to function day to day. There was a point where I couldn't take care of myself. I lost my independence, my work, almost everything that defined my life at that time. And eventually I came out the other side of it, I went into remission. So yeah, it felt like something worth trying to understand. And in doing that, I'm revisiting all of those same stories, but I'm not just repeating them, I'm slowing them down, looking at them differently, breaking them apart. And when you do that, you start noticing things that never made it into the version you usually tell. Details you skipped, moments you brush past, parts that didn't fit the cleaner version. And some of those things change the meaning. Not dramatically, just enough to make you realize the version you've been telling isn't the whole story. It's just the one you got used to. And once you see that it's hard to go back, because now you know there's more there. And in some strange way, it's freeing. Like you don't have to rely on the same version anymore, like you're not stuck in that loop. And it makes me wonder how much of who we think we are is just repetition. I have a friend who's obsessed with Instagram. He sends me everything workout stuff, clips on narcissistic behavior, diet, guys with beards, stuff I never asked for, barely engaged with. Honestly, it annoyed me. But after a while I started noticing something. His feed was becoming mine. And the weird part is I couldn't point to when it happened, it just crept in. One post, then another, then something similar. Even if I didn't click, I still saw it, and seeing it is enough because the system doesn't really care what you say you like. It pays attention to what you stay with, what you hesitate on, what you don't immediately scroll past, and that's such a small thing, but it adds up. Until one day you look at your feed and think, how did this become mine? And it reminded me of the movie Memento. Leonard keeps writing things down, trying to remember who he is, but really he's just reinforcing the same version over and over. Not because it's true, but because it's what he keeps coming back to. And maybe that's what we're doing, not discovering who we are, but repeating it until it feels true. Not because it's the only thing out there, but because it's what we stayed with long enough to start recognizing it. And once you recognize something, you start seeing it everywhere. That's what my dad was doing. He wasn't seeing something different. He just stayed with it longer than most people would, long enough for it to reveal itself. And maybe that's what's happening now, just in reverse. Instead of you learning to see something, something is learning to show you more of what you already look at, more of what you stay with, more of what you come back to until eventually you don't even question it. It just feels like this is who I am, this is what I like. This is what's out there. And maybe it is. Or maybe it's just what you've been shown again and again until it started to feel familiar, until it started to feel like you. And somewhere along the way the boundary between you and the feed isn't as solid as you might think. This is Gary Nacarado, and this has been The Art of Clarity. Thanks for listening. If any of this resonated, feel free to share it or pass it along to someone who might need it. To learn more about my work or get in touch, you can find me on my website. I'll see you next time.