A mind instruction manual

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.