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When it comes to your intellectual life, the Higher Mind values truth above all else. The Higher Mind’s intellectual mission is to steer your beliefs— your perception of reality —as close to actual reality as he can.

Of course, the Higher Mind and Primitive Mind totally disagree about what your Values Stack should look like.

At the very top of the stack are the values we hold sacred, and as we move down the stack, we place less and less importance on each value. Whenever two values conflict with one another, the lower one will be the one to compromise, while the higher one will stand firm.

Our intellectual motivation will normally reflect our values—or, more accurately, the way we prioritize our values. Most of us value both health and culinary pleasure—but whether or not we binge on Skittles is determined by which of those values carries the most weight in our heads in that moment. It’s as if our values are arranged in our head as a... See more

In the same way our intellectual viewpoints are a function of our intellectual process, our intellectual process is a function of our intellectual motivation. We think the way we think in the first place mostly because it serves our purposes.

How the Two Minds Think

Where we are on this y-axis is a result of the state of our internal tug-of-war, so the first question we need to ask is: how do the two minds think?

In our thinking square, a person’s x-axis position shows us where they landed at Point B—the output of their thinking process. Their y-axis position tells us about the kind of arrow that led them there—about the process and the rationale underlying what they believe.

A → BA = I don’t know B = I know → = is the belief formation process.