A Rough Hierarchy For Ranking Systems

Initially, I had intended to write a piece generally on the topic of the importance of individualization, but decided that this instead would be much more valuable as it offers a more comprehensive way of appreciating the distinctions between various systems. Individualization is still a very central theme in this piece, however it is now encapsulated in a broader illustration of the balance between it and its alternatives, which will make more sense shortly. First and foremost, I should clarify that by system I’m talking about basically, ideas, ideologies, thought mechanisms, habits, tools and so on. This is important because the scope of this paper is intended to be relevant to basically any human algorithm, if you will. Also, it should be noted this paper will assume that readers are at least directionally interested in being “better than ok” as I will talk specifically about an approach that is in my view likely necessary for, “being the creme that rises to the top.”

With the above out of the way, this hierarchy or pyramid has something like four basic levels. Level one, is the space of instinct and the sort of unconscious, “monkey see, monkey do” level heuristics. This is the space in which infants and small children occupy most heavily, and as I’ll come back to, I think is incredibly important for developing unconscious competence in adulthood, with relevance to career, and skill development generally. Note by the way, I’m not claiming this is new psychological science, this is purely my own way of categorizing things. The second level is where systems that we learn from our parents and from our environment that we don’t necessarily pick up intentionally live. The third level, is the level where we intentionally seek out systems from people who we perceive to be competent, obviously often in the hopes that we can “,have some of what they’re having.” The fourth level, and a very important one indeed, is the level in which, you guessed it, one conjures up their own personalized systems.

Now for a bit of analysis of each of the levels and how they relate to each other, as well as the balance between how we occupy each of them. I find that many of us in adulthood tend to occupy levels two and three most. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, we have this problem that we don’t let instinct and the unconscious help us, and we don’t trust ourselves enough to muster coming up with our own systems much of the time. As one can probably imagine, you likely need a good relationship with instinct to develop unconscious competence, and you probably need to have some courage to take the leap into level four. With level one the assumption that you will unintentionally stumble into unconscious competence, although sometimes true, seems to be a proposition that loses a lot of bets. One needs to actually sharpen the skill of letting the non-conscious parts of the brain do the work, as the fore-brain is a strong inhibitor of the rest of the brain, which you can explore psychology and neuroscience to learn if you aren’t familiar, as it would make this piece too long if I went into it. As for getting into the domain of level four, I think it is the case that many of us don’t start due to a natural lack of confidence that comes from a proportional lack of experience. The problem arises from the fact that it is really difficult to be great at something you’ve never done, and all the uncertainties of creating one’s own system really seem to only be explorable by taking the leap and attempting to experiment in low stakes circumstances.

Without going on for too much longer as I’ve basically illustrated the rough concept that I have floating in my head, it is important to note that the world class seem to have a lot more systems one would categorize in levels one and four. I think this is because you have to a. offload tasks where the foremost-brain isn’t really needed to the unconscious mind, eliminate, automate or delegate, and b. come up with your own systems to really get to the next level or increase over time, the rate of improvement itself, if you will. However, I think I will leave it there for now as there is a lot to touch in this area, and it would be difficult to cover it all in one piece. I hope this was valuable in some way, and I hope you will be well.