I seek to be affirmed, and am most fulfilled when affirmed.

The summary description of EsSample says it is my internal model that seeks affirmation, and is affirmed.

What’s within that internal model being affirmed?

Any and all of the four below. EsSample the most native and functional state is the third. Getting there delivers the fourth. The first is our snapshot we create with our first modelling of our environment. The second is usually completely undone in achieving the third.

All of them are cognitive, and add binding (to affects and physiology) that already started binding before cognition, before birth.

 

1 Reference framework, internal model: what I start from. A base framework with which I took a view, adopted a stand. (This is the Montessori unconscious snapshot around age 3. Oliver James calls it our thermostat setting). It can also be visualised as the starting model I wear so seamlessly I call it myself. Or better visualised as my unconscious’s self. (Metzinger has a sensorial and cognitive equivalent that delivers first person perspective etc). As a starting model and unconscious framework, it’s the least evidenced and is overlaid by the self model (2). This model and framework is the most unconscious, and the least I can refer to, and whose shape I can least triangulate the shape of. It’s the most ‘unknown unknown’ of the four. The others are more ‘known unknowns’.

2 Self model: a view of myself, what we mostly refer to. My conscious self is a set of leaks from my unconscious, selected for consistency with the previous ones, assembled to a model I refer to as myself. Leaks are of dissonance (discrepancies) and resonance (congruencies), and only from movement or pressure (when in transition or under resistance). I describe this more elsewhere. Self-model also adds binding to affects and physiology, and these reinforce repeatability and consistency of what I experience as myself. The more these are informed or guided by minds being modellers (3), the less persistent these leaks are, and the less of you there is, so to speak. In an opposite environment, where the origin of leaks are not resolved and we are not guided by modellers, these persist. And persist as more hindrance in the environment of others and of the next generation.

3 Meta model: you as a modeller, more than a person and object. Modelling is undertaken and experienced by my unconscious. Undoing my self-model, shining a light on my reference framework – these peel off self-model and permit sensing self as a modeller. Self as a channel more than a vehicle. Being a modeller is more the operating state, perhaps a twin of and alternative to the reference framework. It is what’s left behind and revealed by the fulfilment model.

4 Fulfillment model: This is the twin and alternative of self-model (2). Fulfillment in the sense of changing an aspect of myself from a tangible and identifiable feature, to its expression or reflection of what’s beneath it and is its origin. This self is a set of leaks from my unconscious, selected for the extent to which they fulfill. This self is experience accumulated when moving from self-model (2) to being a modeller (3). The extent of fulfilment reflects the extent of transition completed. The sensation of fulfilment is from resolving discrepancies, from the smallest of a puzzle to the largest of changing outlook and lifestyle. Modelling my experience is our natural state and our bread & butter, and resolving discrepancies (blocks to that modelling) is the reward and icing on the cake.

 

The reference framework (1) always persists as a background default reference, but is replaced by modelling (3).

Self-model (2) is undone and is completely replaced by fulfilment (4).

Modeller (3) & fulfilment (4) are your own achievement and creation, and so the reward is affirmation. Reference (1) and self-model (2) are what you inherited and not your creation, so the reward is more stroking. Both rewards are bound to the affect of pleasure in the same way all the models are bound to affects and physiology. Affirmation is stronger and has more leverage, except where neuronal systems override modelling and demand stroking.

In an environment with no modelling, events and experiences are considered at face value. In such an environment, nothing is resolved and discrepancies persist, and self-model (2) dominates. Where self-models dominate, the environment is frozen by selfs and their positions.

In an environment of only modelling, events and experiences are considered for what they represent. In such an environment, events and experiences move to resolution, and modeller (3) dominates. There will always be a newborn’s framework to be revealed, and that revealing is food enough for fulfillment (4). Since the natural external environment naturally delivers challenges and discrepancies, there will always be grist for the mill for resolution and fulfillment. There will always be reference frameworks (2) needing attention from modelling from the nurturing and pastoral generation preceding.

 

The relationship you build with yourself during resolution is your ‘Relationship with Self’. It’s what you build when moving from self-model to modeller. The reward you have in building that relationship is part of that fulfilment model (4).