# MC does subconscious analysis **URL:** https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/mc-does-subconscious-analysis/1765 **Category:** Friendly **Created:** [April 12, 2023, 8:37am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/mc-does-subconscious-analysis/1765 "2023-04-12T08:37:25Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 13
### Author: ![MetaCreation](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/user_avatar/discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/metacreation/32/2670_2.png) [@MetaCreation](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/MetaCreation) #### Post date: [May 14, 2023, 10:07am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/mc-does-subconscious-analysis/1765/13 "2023-05-14T10:07:09Z")
Some subconscious issues I’ve been processing recently: **Processing confusion and anxiety** I’ve been very anxious since Elliot pointed out that [I misquoted](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/delegating-mental-work/1764/4). I’ve slept poorly and had anxious dreams about making more mistakes and misquoting again. I think this indicates some deeper subconscious process at work. I think it relates to my **Tribalism conflict** and there’s some sort of fear of being cast out or rejected for things that I don’t understand. Discovering my misquoting mistake has made me doubt that I understand quoting correctly (on a subconscious level) and I’m concerned that I will do it again, so that lack of self-understanding makes the rule against misquoting kind of scary. The fear of being cast out is also real - I’m sure that Elliot **will** ban me from posting if I keep misquoting. In summary, because I’m confused about my quoting competence I’m scared that I will mess up so badly I get banned. But even being banned isn’t the end of the world. Elliot isn’t some irrational tribal chief; tribalist thinking is **not** relevant here. He’s a smart rational person that has good standards. If I do make so many quoting mistakes that I get banned I would still be able to go away and work on that on my own and then attempt to persuade him that I’ve fixed the problem and if I succeed I may be allowed back. It may take a lot of time. If I truly do turn out to be that confused and bad at quoting it makes sense that I don’t try to fix it in a way that causes a lot of problems for others (i.e. by doing it on CF and misleading people with repeated misquotes.) **Thinking about misquoting** Misquoting is completely unacceptable on this site and this is good. I think people are generally very very very sloppy with quoting and misquoting is a form of lying. This is actually useful to take seriously as it’s a relatively easily-identified form of lying compared to many forms of lying that are insidious and evasive, so I think anyone who wants to pursue being more honest should take it very seriously. Since I started being active here I’ve consciously taken it seriously, but I made a bunch of big mistakes anyway. I think maybe subconsciously I wasn’t taking it seriously enough, or maybe had some subconscious ideas about quoting which were misguided (learned from typical bad quoting conventions) or maybe both. Thanks to Elliot’s criticism I think (and hope) that my subconscious mistakes have been identified. I’m going to pay more conscious attention to my quoting until I’m confident that my subconscious can handle it well. I think expressing my thoughts in this section helps my conscious and subconscious be more in tune. **Approval-seeking** Related I think to my **Tribalism conflict** I’ve noticed that approval-seeking has come into my conscious thoughts. There’s some part of me that is disappointed when I don’t get approval for things I write. I think this is bad; just like I need to learn to judge my quoting ability and my grammar on my own I need to judge for myself if my ideas are good. I think this is related to being habitually confused to some degree. Because often on some level that maybe I don’t even consciously notice I’m confused, I often don’t know how to judge if something I’ve done is right or wrong. So some part of me wants someone else to answer that for me so I can stop being confused. This is _dependent_ thinking that relies on other people to take responsibility. This is both irrational (other people can make mistakes too) and immoral (only I am responsible for my success or failure.) I think continuing to exercise being _decisive_ is the best thing I can do to solve the root cause of this problem. My [mini-project studying Peikoff’s grammar course](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/mc-studies-more-grammar-peikoff-course/1824/7) which I will **fail** if I write final answers that I am confused about is one such exercise. I think also my **Overload conflict** contributes to my underlying confusion, so continuing to work on that with better project planning and time management will also help. --- _[View the full topic](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/mc-does-subconscious-analysis/1765)._