Monkey, lizard, human brain

You're a lizard, Harry.

- Dumbledorf 🧙‍♂️

Did you know we have 3 brains?

Human thinking can be separated in three main groups, based on utility: survival, social, and tasks:

Brain	What does it think?	Goals	Example: what it solves
Lizard Brain	You’re alive. What you did so far kept you alive	Survival	Fight, freeze, flight, regulate body function.
Monkey Brain	Splitting from the group means death.	Social: Keep the group together*	"Which of these shirts do you like more?"**
Human Brain	Rational goals	Tasks: Solve problems.	"How do I open this jar?"

*Even to the detriment of the individual. E.g., abusive relationship.

** Decisions are made before Human brain.

Lizard 🦎

The lizard brain controls things like breathing and primary body functions. It tries to find patterns that keeps us alive. If something worked before, the lizard tends to repeat it since we survived before doing that thing. It doesn't understand social groups or high-level tasks. Lizard see lizard do.

Monkey 🐵

People live their life 95% or more in the Monkey brain.

1. The Monkey brain can speak directly.

2. Monkey only cares about social dynamic.

3. Monkey must keep group together at all costs. That's so ingrained that:

   1. Soldiers go to war and risk their life for the betterment of the group.

   2. People stay in abusive relationships due to Monkey scripts keeping the status quo.

   3. Breakups are hard. And so on.

Being in the group at all cost made sense in ancient past. Humans who went away or were cast away from the group, probably got eaten by an animal or died in other ways. That's why Monkey brain is such strong influence. Today, we have so many folks around, groups, and opportunities that moving away from a group is usually OK. Monkey evolution hasn't caught up yet.

Monkey brain is the cause for (almost) all troubles you'll face throughout your life!

That said, Monkey is useful to keep group cohesiveness.

Can Monkey Brain talk?

Yes, directly.

There was a study of people explaining political views, answering the question "why are you republican/democrat." They were in an MRI machine. During their explanation, only the Monkey brain part of their neurocortex lit up. Human does not light up, even if language and reasons seemed “convincing”. TODO: link

Usually, Monkey will make decisions then Human will find reasons to match them! Almost all of our thinking is Monkey brain thoughts.

How to know if I'm in Monkey brain?

You are almost always in Monkey.

Anytime you:

1. Use interpretations, evaluations, judgement, assessments, or diagnosis. See Terms: Interpretation, Evaluation, Judgement, Assessment, Diagnosis

2. Label

3. Feel anything related to a social encounter. 1:1, in a group, or by yourself thinking about it.

Monkey brain examples:

1. "Do you like this?" -> evaluation

2. "I'm quite good at this" -> assessment

3. "This person is crazy!" -> diagnosis

4. "They are late" -> interpretation.

5. "Why did you do this?" -> when used as judgement

6. "My lunch is tasty"

7. "Love it"

8. "Where do you want to eat?"

9. etc.

If in doubt, you're likely thinking with Monkey brain. Likely we do this near 100% of the time.

Human

The human brain is the one that understands logical order of operations, how to solve high level problems.

Human brain examples:

1. "How long does it take to get there?"

2. "Why is this code not working?" -> when intended as inquiry/investigation rather than as judgement

3. "How do I move my fridge?"

Next, we'll discuss how and where to engage our Human brain more.

📕 Source: Conflict Communication