A mind instruction manual
What a fantastic machine! If only we could control our infinitely powerful brain! But our brain didn’t come with an “Owner’s Manual,” and sometimes we struggle and feel very limited, instead of limitless. So our mind is this super computer, with software and hardware, even an operating system. Our physical brain- the hundred billion-plus neurons with all their interconnections- is the hardware. The software consists of the innumerable ways that these neurons become interconnected over time. These range from simple neuron-to-neuron connections to programs which are highly complex.
The programming has been provided automatically by our experience of life, or more importantly as we shall see; the experiences that we attend to.
These interconnections are the way we process and store information, and we have an infinite capacity for these connections. Some estimate that we have more ways that our neurons can interconnect- than there are atoms in the known universe! So our brain’s computing power, and data storage capability is unlimited. You are a “computer” with unlimited knowledge and blazing fast speed!
Actually, you are two such computers. You have a left and right hemisphere. They are interconnected and can operate independently or in concert. One hemisphere (usually the left hemisphere) is very rational, and literal. It has major responsibility for receiving visual and auditory signals, and processing and comparing them. It houses the speech and language abilities (in adults.) The right hemisphere is the intuitive, creative, feeling side.
When both sides are engaged and operating together you are awesome, indeed. Here is where you can change reality. Here, miracles can occur. You are like God Himself—except that of course, you’re not! It is said in the bible that “we are created in the image of God” and that we are children of God. And like god, you have created a world: your own unique bubble of reality. Let’s look at this reality we create: let’s begin our journey into this reality.
I think, therefore I am- Rene Descartes
This is our “stepping off” place. Within our “bubble of reality”, what can we be sure is real? The philosopher Descartes was looking for such a firm foothold when he came to this point after having doubted that anything else existed. As he could not doubt that he doubted, he concluded that he was real; he existed, because he was thinking these doubts. A bit convoluted, but for our purposes an excellent conclusion: Reality exists in our own thoughts.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? – attributed to Philosopher George Berkeley
Even more convoluted, but also worthy of mention is this question of whether anything exists at all, if there is no one there to observe it? This ages-old riddle also supports the idea that Reality exists in our thoughts. For something to be real, it must be perceived, it must be Observed. We will come back to this point later.
The more you know about a particle's position, the less you can know about its (mass.)—Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
Science weighs in on this issue as well. When we take an extremely small particle of matter we cannot know both its location in space and its mass. The act of observing (measuring) the particle interferes with the possibility of determining what it is (consists of). This observation effect, as David Darling explains it in Equations of Eternity is fundamentally a creative process:
Equations of Eternity
In a sense, this is genesis at work, here and now: the making of the real from the unreal, the breathing of fire into the equations that underpin the world.
It is remarkable that such a deep metaphysical insight should spring from the heart of what is now mainstream scientific theory. But from what we have already seen of the relationship between human consciousness and the external world, we should not have been unprepared for it. Indeed, it comes as a powerful corroboration of what we have been suggesting all along: that the conscious mind is crucially involved in establishing what is real. (emphasis added) p 103
While we rightfully remain skeptical of this metaphysical, even “scientific” thinking, there does appear the possibility that we are far more involved in the creation process of reality than simply being passive observers. Yes we can change reality to a far greater extent than we ever thought possible, even to the point of being part of the creation process itself, when we Observe reality.
The World We Create: our own personal “bubble” of reality
While reality-- the real world that we only perceive through our senses-- is limitless, our own portion that we experience is limited: we have our own personal “bubble” of reality; something that we have created over the course of our lifetime, and continue to create. While our potential is limitless, for practical purposes we limit ourselves to the part of the “bubble” of reality that is our past. While we have room for an infinite amount of information, we are for practical purposes limited to the information that we attend to. This is clue #1; we have created a reality within ourselves by what we attend to, and we attend “7 bits” of information at a time:
Miller article
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information by George A. Miller
• George A Miller discovered this “limit” about fifty years ago. In a classic article on how the brain processes information, The Magical Number 7, +/- 2, he relates how we can hold up to about 7 “bits” of information in our immediate memory. That would appear to be the limit of what we can focus on, and those seven “bits” that we focus on is what goes into our “bubble of reality”!
This focus is critically important. It is the portal into our reality. It is the NOW of our experience. And this is the critical issue in positive versus negative thinking. It is in what we attend to that we become more positive or negative. This is the magical ingredient for living a positive, creative live, or the demonic ingredient in living a negative, destructive life.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
A Model of the Mind
This model is the product of a lifetime of interest and study of how the brain and the mind work. In college and grad school I studied Psychology. During that time Dr. Harry Bahrick, professor of Experimental Psychology at Ohio Wesleyan University, was pioneering research in information theory. Man is an information processing machine. When we are thinking, we are processing information. This may seem like a simple statement, but really, it is astounding. How is it that we think??? And how does this happen in our small brain, about the size of a grapefruit?!!
Visual of grapefruit
By a happy timely coincidence I came across a theory by Donald Hebb, a Canadian neuroscientist, that accounts for how the brain does this information processing. He proposed that our experiences are recorded in our brain in the form of neuron cell assemblies (which are networks of neurons.) This happens as a result of information being transmitted (from the senses) to the neurons in our brain. Basically his theory was that when one neuron transmits an impulse to another neuron a linkage is strengthened at their connection. So that the next time the first neuron is active it will more likely transmit its impulse to the next neuron. Interestingly, a similar process occurs in the programming of computers.
Visual cell assembly
This becomes very important when we consider what happens in our brain when we think the same thoughts over and over again. Those linkages become wired in. We will come back to this topic later. When these “linkages” occur we are forming pathways in our computer/brain. These pathways are our programs. The “data bank” in our computer/brain consists of the way these neurons have become linked to each other.
Visual of cell assembly progam
When we see a “tree” for instance, the visual input from the tree activates those nerves that were previously established as “tree” from our previous experiences of “tree”. The electrical/chemical activity that occurs as the neurons activate each other is our thoughts. Hebb proposed the idea of a “reverberating circuit”: as these neurons activate and re-activate each other we can hold a thought for more than just a moment. These reverberating circuits are the key to how we can focus on an idea, and how a stream of these ideas become our stream of consciousness. This is how our knowledge, memory and experiences are stored. This is how we think!
Visual cell assembly reverberating circuit
This was the beginning of the computer age, and the combination of information theory with Hebb’s theory made for a neat psychology major thesis about the mind: it works like a computer! Subsequent discoveries have further confirmed Hebb’s early ideas, and I integrated them into my research. Neurons do indeed change at their interconnections when they transmit impulses. Programming does take place in our brains.
Yet it seems like we have a whole universe of these thoughts and ideas. If these are programs, how can we carry them all in our brain? How can there be enough room for all these programs?
Actually, we really have two brains, interconnected, and the size of our brain is deceiving. Current estimates are that each hemisphere of our brain contains fifty to a hundred billion neurons. Some years ago, while writing The Psychology of Positive Thinking, I wrote:
• Estimates of the number of neurons in the brain are in the range of twelve to fifteen billion and more.** If we were to represent each neuron in the brain by a light bulb (which may be either “off” or “on”) taking up one cubic foot of space, it would take a room a mile long, a mile wide, and five hundred feet high to contain it! If we then added hook-ups between these lights as they occur between the neurons, the various light patterns that could be displayed (possible combinations of “turned on” lights, or cell assemblies) would be equal to the number 7, followed by 14 million zeros!!!
• Seven, followed by 14 million zeros… that is a very impressive number! I asked my daughter how big she thought that number was. She was in second grade at the time, and starting to learn some math concepts. She thought a minute, perplexed, and then seemed to brighten as she answered my question with another question: “Oh, Daddy! Is that how much infinity is?” Maybe so.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**that observation was made years ago. It was actually quite an underestimation. Today scientists believe that there are over a hundred billion neurons present in the brain, and each one of those neurons has between five and a hundred thousand interconnections with other neurons.
This is a truly fantastic number. We can call this number infinity! And we all have this potential Mind Power! With this Higher Power in our computer- we can account for the universe of experiences that we have in our lifetime. This is the data bank that has formed, and continues to form as you experience life. This data bank has made you become the person who you are today. All our experiences from our entire lives, everything we believe to be true about the universe and our place in it are stored there.
Visual- mind instruction manual picture of “How to” manual
What a fantastic machine! If only we could control our infinitely powerful brain! But our brain didn’t come with an “Owner’s Manual,” and sometimes we struggle and feel very limited, instead of limitless. So our mind is this super computer, with software and hardware, even an operating system. Our physical brain- the hundred billion-plus neurons with all their interconnections- is the hardware. The software consists of the innumerable ways that these neurons become interconnected over time. These range from simple neuron-to-neuron connections to programs which are highly complex.
Visual of grapefruit
By a happy timely coincidence I came across a theory by Donald Hebb, a Canadian neuroscientist, that accounts for how the brain does this information processing. He proposed that our experiences are recorded in our brain in the form of neuron cell assemblies (which are networks of neurons.) This happens as a result of information being transmitted (from the senses) to the neurons in our brain. Basically his theory was that when one neuron transmits an impulse to another neuron a linkage is strengthened at their connection. So that the next time the first neuron is active it will more likely transmit its impulse to the next neuron. Interestingly, a similar process occurs in the programming of computers.
Visual cell assembly
This becomes very important when we consider what happens in our brain when we think the same thoughts over and over again. Those linkages become wired in. We will come back to this topic later. When these “linkages” occur we are forming pathways in our computer/brain. These pathways are our programs. The “data bank” in our computer/brain consists of the way these neurons have become linked to each other.
Visual of cell assembly progam
When we see a “tree” for instance, the visual input from the tree activates those nerves that were previously established as “tree” from our previous experiences of “tree”. The electrical/chemical activity that occurs as the neurons activate each other is our thoughts. Hebb proposed the idea of a “reverberating circuit”: as these neurons activate and re-activate each other we can hold a thought for more than just a moment. These reverberating circuits are the key to how we can focus on an idea, and how a stream of these ideas become our stream of consciousness. This is how our knowledge, memory and experiences are stored. This is how we think!
Visual cell assembly reverberating circuit
This was the beginning of the computer age, and the combination of information theory with Hebb’s theory made for a neat psychology major thesis about the mind: it works like a computer! Subsequent discoveries have further confirmed Hebb’s early ideas, and I integrated them into my research. Neurons do indeed change at their interconnections when they transmit impulses. Programming does take place in our brains.
Yet it seems like we have a whole universe of these thoughts and ideas. If these are programs, how can we carry them all in our brain? How can there be enough room for all these programs?
Actually, we really have two brains, interconnected, and the size of our brain is deceiving. Current estimates are that each hemisphere of our brain contains fifty to a hundred billion neurons. Some years ago, while writing The Psychology of Positive Thinking, I wrote:
• Estimates of the number of neurons in the brain are in the range of twelve to fifteen billion and more.** If we were to represent each neuron in the brain by a light bulb (which may be either “off” or “on”) taking up one cubic foot of space, it would take a room a mile long, a mile wide, and five hundred feet high to contain it! If we then added hook-ups between these lights as they occur between the neurons, the various light patterns that could be displayed (possible combinations of “turned on” lights, or cell assemblies) would be equal to the number 7, followed by 14 million zeros!!!
• Seven, followed by 14 million zeros… that is a very impressive number! I asked my daughter how big she thought that number was. She was in second grade at the time, and starting to learn some math concepts. She thought a minute, perplexed, and then seemed to brighten as she answered my question with another question: “Oh, Daddy! Is that how much infinity is?” Maybe so.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**that observation was made years ago. It was actually quite an underestimation. Today scientists believe that there are over a hundred billion neurons present in the brain, and each one of those neurons has between five and a hundred thousand interconnections with other neurons.
This is a truly fantastic number. We can call this number infinity! And we all have this potential Mind Power! With this Higher Power in our computer- we can account for the universe of experiences that we have in our lifetime. This is the data bank that has formed, and continues to form as you experience life. This data bank has made you become the person who you are today. All our experiences from our entire lives, everything we believe to be true about the universe and our place in it are stored there.
Visual- mind instruction manual picture of “How to” manual
What a fantastic machine! If only we could control our infinitely powerful brain! But our brain didn’t come with an “Owner’s Manual,” and sometimes we struggle and feel very limited, instead of limitless. So our mind is this super computer, with software and hardware, even an operating system. Our physical brain- the hundred billion-plus neurons with all their interconnections- is the hardware. The software consists of the innumerable ways that these neurons become interconnected over time. These range from simple neuron-to-neuron connections to programs which are highly complex.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Choice- Getting off autopilot, taking over the controls
As adults we choose what we focus on in our environment and how to react to it; but most of that “choosing” is simply based on what has happened in the past. And herein lies a most important point:
If the choices we make today are based on the sum total of the experiences we have experienced yesterday, plus the equipment we were born with, then we are simply on Automatic Pilot. We are simply the response, in a stimulus-response reality.
• Now there is a choice to make. We can deliberately take control of this process. We have been guilty of being on this “Automatic Pilot” existence far too much of the time.
It is time to take over the controls, to take over your own thoughts by purposefully focusing your thoughts. This takes them off Automatic Pilot and puts you at the controls.
There are some guiding principles that govern how we pilot our bubble of reality through the sea of life. It takes more than a super-powered engine and unlimited computational power to get anywhere. We begin our journey by looking at these, and at the super- powered engine that propels us.
We will examine ways we can overcome the bad programs that cripple our computer: fears, pain, inhibitions and false beliefs; even past successes and pleasures can do us in. We will learn how to take over from the autopilot, trim ship and find guidance and help on our journey through the land of Reality. Welcome aboard!
First let us “look under the hood” at this powerful engine that will pilot us through this Land of reality as we go off of “autopilot”.
We will look at a model of the Mind, as it is presented in The Psychology of Positive Thinking, in order to help understand how the mind works.
Visual of book
If the choices we make today are based on the sum total of the experiences we have experienced yesterday, plus the equipment we were born with, then we are simply on Automatic Pilot. We are simply the response, in a stimulus-response reality.
• Now there is a choice to make. We can deliberately take control of this process. We have been guilty of being on this “Automatic Pilot” existence far too much of the time.
It is time to take over the controls, to take over your own thoughts by purposefully focusing your thoughts. This takes them off Automatic Pilot and puts you at the controls.
There are some guiding principles that govern how we pilot our bubble of reality through the sea of life. It takes more than a super-powered engine and unlimited computational power to get anywhere. We begin our journey by looking at these, and at the super- powered engine that propels us.
We will examine ways we can overcome the bad programs that cripple our computer: fears, pain, inhibitions and false beliefs; even past successes and pleasures can do us in. We will learn how to take over from the autopilot, trim ship and find guidance and help on our journey through the land of Reality. Welcome aboard!
First let us “look under the hood” at this powerful engine that will pilot us through this Land of reality as we go off of “autopilot”.
We will look at a model of the Mind, as it is presented in The Psychology of Positive Thinking, in order to help understand how the mind works.
Visual of book
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
You Can Change Reality.
You Can Change Reality.
The following is an exerpt from The Mind Instruction Manual, soon to be published as another blog.
“… you shall say to this mountain, move, and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” Matthew 17:20
The purpose of this Mind Instruction Manual is to show you how you can change the reality that you find yourself in. You can change it with positive, purpose-filled thinking and action. Part of the change will be in you, in your perception of reality, and part of the change will be in realty itself. This is something that you are already doing! In point of fact, you cannot not change reality. Every choice you make, everything you do, is already changing reality. Now let’s do it on purpose, and get the reality that we really want, rather than the reality that “just happens”.
First we will consider the questions “What is reality?” and “How do we relate to Reality?” Further we will consider how it is that we can grasp such a concept in the first place. Reality is something that is infinite, eternal and ever changing. Finally we will consider how we can change it, if we should and in which direction. You are the Captain of your own ship Reality. You have the tools, God has given you all the tools necessary, to guide your Reality ship where you Will.
You are made in “the image of God” and “a little lower than the angels”, as it says in the scriptures. You are well equipped to steer your ship. You have a computer, your brain, that has more than a hundred billion nerve cells, each hooked up to about fifty thousand other nerve cells. The number of circuits that this produces is infinite. This number is greater than all the atoms in the known universe. You have a super-power engine. Yes, you can steer your ship and chart your course to the reality that you choose.
First we will look at how our computer interacts with reality. This computer, our brain, has been running on, processing, data input from our interaction with the environment about us: our experiences since birth. This enormous amount of information is the reality of your life. It is your bubble of reality. It contains all the information and resources necessary to accomplish anything; “and nothing shall be impossible unto you”.
Of course it is not reality itself. Reality itself is something out there that is only experienced by you through your senses. Furthermore, the meaning of that experience is dependent on the previous experiences you have had in similar situations and the way you interpreted them. These experiences could have been accompanied by pleasure or pain, stress or stress reduction, joy or sorrow, etc. When those experiences were logged into your computer they were logged together with that positive, or negative, emotion. And you got stuck with them!
All of that data, from your entire lifetime of experiences, has programmed your computer. This is your “bubble of reality.” These data have formed all your likes, dislikes, memories, beliefs, superstitions, fears, joys, expectations. They have, in fact, made you you. All this data has been input into your super computer. Good bad or indifferent data, for better or for worse, has created this Bubble of reality which is you. Much of that data was erroneous; accidents happen; friends, even parents input wrong data: “you are such a klutz!”, “you are always late!”, “my child is so shy!” These accidents and words are data that get fed straight into your computer, and into your bubble of reality.
Initially you had little control over this data collection. Things just happened to you (good, bad, and indifferent) and you experienced and attended to them. As a newborn you were completely at the mercy of others. Gradually you gained some control of this process, and took part in it by focusing on different parts of your environment, approaching some areas and avoiding others. As adults we have gained complete control of this selection process, or at least like to think we do. You now choose what to focus on, and the forming process of your bubble of reality goes on.
Stay tuned for more
The following is an exerpt from The Mind Instruction Manual, soon to be published as another blog.
“… you shall say to this mountain, move, and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” Matthew 17:20
The purpose of this Mind Instruction Manual is to show you how you can change the reality that you find yourself in. You can change it with positive, purpose-filled thinking and action. Part of the change will be in you, in your perception of reality, and part of the change will be in realty itself. This is something that you are already doing! In point of fact, you cannot not change reality. Every choice you make, everything you do, is already changing reality. Now let’s do it on purpose, and get the reality that we really want, rather than the reality that “just happens”.
First we will consider the questions “What is reality?” and “How do we relate to Reality?” Further we will consider how it is that we can grasp such a concept in the first place. Reality is something that is infinite, eternal and ever changing. Finally we will consider how we can change it, if we should and in which direction. You are the Captain of your own ship Reality. You have the tools, God has given you all the tools necessary, to guide your Reality ship where you Will.
You are made in “the image of God” and “a little lower than the angels”, as it says in the scriptures. You are well equipped to steer your ship. You have a computer, your brain, that has more than a hundred billion nerve cells, each hooked up to about fifty thousand other nerve cells. The number of circuits that this produces is infinite. This number is greater than all the atoms in the known universe. You have a super-power engine. Yes, you can steer your ship and chart your course to the reality that you choose.
First we will look at how our computer interacts with reality. This computer, our brain, has been running on, processing, data input from our interaction with the environment about us: our experiences since birth. This enormous amount of information is the reality of your life. It is your bubble of reality. It contains all the information and resources necessary to accomplish anything; “and nothing shall be impossible unto you”.
Of course it is not reality itself. Reality itself is something out there that is only experienced by you through your senses. Furthermore, the meaning of that experience is dependent on the previous experiences you have had in similar situations and the way you interpreted them. These experiences could have been accompanied by pleasure or pain, stress or stress reduction, joy or sorrow, etc. When those experiences were logged into your computer they were logged together with that positive, or negative, emotion. And you got stuck with them!
All of that data, from your entire lifetime of experiences, has programmed your computer. This is your “bubble of reality.” These data have formed all your likes, dislikes, memories, beliefs, superstitions, fears, joys, expectations. They have, in fact, made you you. All this data has been input into your super computer. Good bad or indifferent data, for better or for worse, has created this Bubble of reality which is you. Much of that data was erroneous; accidents happen; friends, even parents input wrong data: “you are such a klutz!”, “you are always late!”, “my child is so shy!” These accidents and words are data that get fed straight into your computer, and into your bubble of reality.
Initially you had little control over this data collection. Things just happened to you (good, bad, and indifferent) and you experienced and attended to them. As a newborn you were completely at the mercy of others. Gradually you gained some control of this process, and took part in it by focusing on different parts of your environment, approaching some areas and avoiding others. As adults we have gained complete control of this selection process, or at least like to think we do. You now choose what to focus on, and the forming process of your bubble of reality goes on.
Stay tuned for more
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