Some of the machinery is optimized for evolutionary selection pressures that run directly counter to our declared goals in using it. Deliberately we decide that we want to seek only the truth; but our brains have hardwired support for rationalizing falsehoods. We can try to compensate for what we choose to regard as flaws of the machinery; but we can’t actually rewire the neural circuitry. Nor may martial artists plate titanium over their bones—not today, at any rate.

While the human brain has evolved for survival, its structure can limit our abstract reasoning abilities. One approach to overcoming these limitations is to differentiate between the learning and practicing phases when acquiring a new skill. Contrary to the common belief that "practice makes perfect," it is essential to understand that practice actually makes skills permanent, not necessarily perfect. By acknowledging this distinction, individuals can focus on perfecting their skills through learning processes, such as the Kolb cycle, before committing to practice for long-term retention and improvement.

The Kolb cycle, a well-established model in experiential learning, offers a four-stage process that includes concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. By applying this process in the context of reasoning, we can iteratively refine our thought processes and become more adept at bypassing the evolutionary constraints of the brain.

Prototypes possess inherent limitations in terms of their physical attributes. Nevertheless, one can attain a sense of moral fulfillment by conceiving an improved version of oneself, which represents a non-physical characteristic of a superior self-prototype. It remains uncertain whether non-physical attributes, such as an enhanced version of oneself, share the same upper boundaries as physical qualities, like a specific number of birds. Consequently, does scope neglect genuinely occur if the scope in question influences a non-physical aspect of a prototype? Is the scalability of a prototype restricted when the scope impacts a non-physical characteristic?