Way back in 1989, one day, I knew this was Intuition.
Abraham Thomas
KNOW YOURSELF PODCAST Listen each week, to one podcast. Based on practical self improvement principles. From the insight of an engineer, back in 1989, about the data processing structure of the human mind, recognizing, filtering, storing patterns, without stopping. Patterns of guilt, shame, fear. How to silence painful subconscious patterns and become self aware.
The psychology in A Beautiful Mind (the movie) provides a valuable lesson for the practice of self awareness by ordinary people. Artistically differing from the actual events, it is a film, which convincingly uses the visual medium to portray stress and mental illness within one person's mind.
The storyline supplants auditory symptoms with visual delusions to narrate the story of the paranoid schizophrenia developed by John Forbes Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. It was an illness, which had been intensified by the anxiety felt by Nash, about the pain suffered by his wife and friends due to his mental condition.
Even as he took medication to suppress the symptoms, Nash is shown returning to normal life by becoming self aware. The visually presented psychological symptoms in the movie effectively convey the barriers to distinguishing subconscious patterns within the mind.
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Can An Algorithm Be Controlling The Mind?
I am not a physician, but an engineer. Way back in 1989, I catalogued how the ELIMINATION approach of an AI Expert System could reveal a way by which the nervous system could store and retrieve astronomically large memories. That insight is central to the six unique new premises presented in this website.
These new premises could explain an enigma. A physician is aware of thousands of diseases and their related symptoms. How does he note a symptom and focus on a single disease in less than half a second? How could he identify Disease X out of 8000 diseases with just a glance?
First, the total born and learned knowledge available to the doctor could not exist anywhere other than as the stored/retrieved data within the 100 billion neurons in his brain. The perceptions, sensations, feelings and physical activities of the doctor could only be enabled by the electrical impulses flowing through the axons of those neurons. The data enabling that process could be stored as digital combinations.
Second, combinatorial decisions of neurons cannot be made by any entity other than the axon hillock, which decides the axonal output of each neuron. The hillock receives hundreds of inputs from other neurons. Each hillock makes the pivotal neuronal decision about received inputs within 5 milliseconds. Axon hillocks could be storing digital combinations. It could be adding each new incoming digital combination to its memory store. The hillock could fire impulses, if it matched a stored combination. If not, it could inhibit further impulses. Using stored digital data to make decisions about incoming messages could make the axon hillocks intelligent.
Third, combinations are reported to enable a powerful coding mode for axon hillocks. Olfactory combinatorial data is known (Nobel Prize 2004) to store memories for millions of smells. Each one of 100 billion axon hillocks have around a 1000 links to other neurons. The hillocks can mathematically store more combinations than there are stars in the sky. Each new digital combination could be adding a new relationship link. In this infinite store, specific axon hillocks could be storing all the symptom = disease (S=D) links known to the doctor as digital combinations.
Fourth, instant communication is possible in the nervous system. Within five steps, information in one hillock can reach all other relevant neurons. Just 20 Ms for global awareness. Within the instant the doctor observes a symptom, feedback and feed forward links could inform every S=D link of the presence of the symptom. Only the S=D link of Disease X could be recalling the combination and recognizing the symptom.
Fifth, on not recognizing the symptom, all other S=D hillocks could be instantly inhibiting their impulses. The S=D links of Disease X could be continuing to fire. Those firing S=D link would be recalling past complaints, treatments and signs of Disease X, confirming the diagnosis. This could be enabling axon hillocks to identify Disease X out of 8000 in milliseconds. Eliminating improbable (unrecognized) prospects to arrive at a possible (recognized in the past) solution powers the powerful inductive logic of the mind!
Worldwide interest in this website is acknowledging its rationale. Not metaphysical theories, but processing of digital memories in axon hillocks could be explaining innumerable mysteries of the mind. Over three decades, this website has been assembling more and more evidence of the manipulation of emotional and physical behaviors by narrowly focused digital pattern recognition. It has also been receiving over 2 million page views from over 150 countries.
Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind
Is Competition & Conflict In Your Brain Normal?
The
primary problem for Nash was his inability to distinguish between
reality and his delusions. Even normal people fail to distinguish the
concrete emotional changes in their viewpoints during the course of
an average day. You may be fuming with resentment one moment and
joyful, the next. These hidden shifts in moods and attitudes have a
clear cause. They happen, because the control of your mind shifts
between myriad competing and conflicting intelligences. These
intelligences were assembled over millions of years to become the
present triune
human brain.
At
the lowest level, a reptilian brain controls primitive functions like
breathing, hunger and heartbeat. At the next level, a mammalian brain
controls the system through love and despair, compassion and shame.
At the highest level exists PFR, wise human level prefrontal brain. These subconscious intelligences
offer competing strategies for your life. Unfortunately, your
mind switches
controls between
these entities without your conscious permission. In the case of
Nash, he suffered more because the vibrant delusions generated by his
emotions took frequent control of his system.
Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind
When Do You Become Aware Of An Action?
During
his delusional periods, Nash saw an imaginary room mate, Charles. The
movie audience shares the delusion of Nash. Charles is shown as a
real person, who greets him on checking into his hostel room when
joining college. Nash did not consciously create his delusion.
Actually, it began in his mind 350 milliseconds before Nash actually
saw Charles. Benjamin Libet discovered this time interval between
conscious awareness and the beginning of brain activity.
He
studied subjects who voluntarily pressed a button, while noting the
position of a dot on a computer screen, which shifted its position
every 43 milliseconds. The noted moment of depressing the button was
the moment of conscious awareness; the exact instant the subject
thought the button was pressed. Each time, Libet had also timed the
beginning of motor neuron activity in the brains of his subjects. He
discovered that awareness occurred 350 milliseconds AFTER the
beginning of motor activity. Nash was merely a witness to the events
occurring in his mind. If Nash was to heal himself, his PFR had to
understand that a delusional state of mind had already taken
control.
Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind
Can Your Emotions Mislead You?
Nash's
delusions had a complex character of their own. His imaginary room
mate, Charles, also had a niece, a little girl named Marcie. William
Parcher, a DoD official, was another imaginary figure. Parcher
assigned Nash to look for patterns in magazines and newspapers, in
order to prevent a Soviet plot. Nash spent hours in pointless
research and deposited his "top secret" reports in a secret
mailbox. The first conflict between reality and delusions occurred
when Alicia, his wife, confronted him with his documents, unopened,
which she had retrieved from the mailbox. The evidence made Nash
realize that he was hallucinating. Up to that time, his PFR accepted
these delusions to be truth, because they were convincingly
presented.
Negative
emotions use the vast power of your mind to meet their objectives.
They can convincingly distort the truth without your awareness. The
primary objective of, say, anger is to destroy opponents. The emotion
is designed by nature to make you fight more fiercely. Without your
conscious permission, anger will initiate past behaviors, which
fueled your resentment. It will impel you to provoke your opponents
so that their increased hostility intensifies your anger. Or, anger
will subtly guide you to fail in your project to intensify your
resentment against fate, which “destined” you to failure.
Just
like the delusions suffered by Nash, your responses to anger will not
be rational behaviors. Emotional intelligences will present you with
powerful arguments to support their objectives. Self awareness is the
process of discovering the damning evidence, which proves to your PFR that your behavior is not rational. It is the skill of consciously
identifying your emotional outbursts. You can gradually become
familiar with the irrational viewpoints of each of the negative
intelligences, which operate within your mind.
Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind
Do Emotions Blinker Your Vision?
The
delusions of Nash were triggered by his negative feelings. Emotions
have the capacity to restrict your access to your memories.
An intuitive
process within
your nervous system operates by eliminating alternative
possibilities. An animal cannot afford to remain frozen between one
decision to drink water and another to eat grass. If a decision to
drink is taken, the system instantly inhibits its hunger demands.
So
also, fear inhibits its option to stay back and fight. The animal's
intuition recalls memories of escape routes, while suppressing
memories of previous successes. Its mind provides memories in context
to enable it to cope with its immediate tasks. Hidden
emotions forcibly
redirect your mind without your awareness. With anger, your working
memory also tends to decrease, making you lose sight of the immediate
past. In the case of Nash, the delusions inhibited all those real
life viewpoints, which should have been obvious to a brilliant
scientist.
Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind
When Does One Accommodate Irrationality?
For
the treatment of his problems, Nash was subjected to a series of
insulin shock therapy sessions. He was released on condition that he
would take antipsychotic medication. But, the drugs seriously
affected both his family and academic life. Because of the new
problems, Nash secretly stopped taking his medication, triggering a
relapse of his psychosis. His condition became worse and,
unintentionally, he harmed his wife Alicia and his baby.
The
incident occurred, because the negative emotions of Nash were still
actively competing with his PFR, his rational self. Even ordinary
people may consider their irrational behavior to be more practical.
The temper tantrums continue, or severe grief persists with avoidance
behavior. Hidden resentments or excessive responses to grief continue
to harm their social life. While being aware of their irrational
streaks, they continue, since their PFR is yet to decide whether the
disadvantages really outweigh the need to control their negative
emotions.
Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind –
When Does Change Happen?
The
near accident with his wife and child changed the balance of power in
his mind. Nash was suddenly faced with the prospect of being
permanently committed to an institution. As Alicia tried to flee and
report his behavior, Nash stepped in front of her car to prevent her
from leaving. At that critical moment, a sudden insight appeared to
heal him permanently. He said "She never gets old." Nash
had realized that during his hallucinations over the years, Marcee
had continued to be a little girl.
It
was a single lightning flash, which illuminated his entire mental
landscape. The discovery was partly accidental and partly forced on
him by his anxiety to avoid being committed. It is usually a
traumatic incident, caused by emotionally negative behaviors, which
cause people to have a look at themselves. An alcoholic has to become
convinced that he has a problem, before he will submit to treatment.
Usually, it is when a person encounters a significant problem that
her PFR finally decides that her negative emotions need to be
controlled.
Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind
What Is The Power Of Self Awareness?
Nash
realized that although all three people seemed completely real, they
were in fact a part of his hallucinations. The human mind has small
emotional partitions and an immensely wise PFR, the prefrontal
intelligence. PFR normally accepts emotional viewpoints as the truth.
It is self awareness, which enables PFR to look down into the
emotional partitions of the mind. In meditation, the Buddhists advise
“staring back” at your thoughts.
Matthieu
Ricard, a respected Buddhist monk said: "One may wonder what
people do in retreats, sitting for eight hours a day. They
familiarize themselves with a new way of dealing with the arising of
thoughts. When you start getting used to recognizing thoughts as they
arise, it is like rapidly spotting someone you know in a crowd. When
a powerful thought or anger arises, you recognize it. That helps you
to avoid being overwhelmed by this thought." It is self
awareness, which exposes the ridiculous aspects of emotional
viewpoints. It is the first step to peace of mind.
Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind
Will The "Demons" Ever Stop?
Nash
could not avoid his delusions. They continued to haunt him, with
Charles mocking him for cutting off their friendship. His
hallucinations constantly reappeared, distracting him and
disconcerting his colleagues. His solution was to treat his “demons”
as though they were real. He thanked Charles for being his best
friend over the years, and said a tearful goodbye to Marcee. He told
Parcher that he would not speak to him anymore. Gradually they
troubled him less.
While
self awareness can throw light on emotional irrationality, many of
the behaviors will be triggered repeatedly by “speed
dial circuits,”
which respond to stressful situations. Negative emotions include
fear, sadness, disgust, boredom, contempt, embarrassment, guilt, and
shame. These emotions may have a rational basis. The irrational
impulses they trigger need to be acknowledged. Physical and mental
exercises, which calm the mind, are necessary to prevent a relapse
into old habits. But, only self awareness can inform you, when you
relapse into your old habits.
Psychology
In A
Beautiful Mind
Are You Aware Of The Symptoms?
Nash
had to prevent new delusions from entering his mind. He used to
humorously check with his students and colleagues whether they too
could see his new visitors. He was checking for reality. Negative
emotions always distort viewpoints and are accompanied by subtle
feelings of discomfort. Overpowering anger is usually accompanied by
symptoms such as feeling hot and flushed, hairs standing up, becoming
hyperactive, a racing heartbeat, sudden tension in your arms, neck or
shoulders, or the onset of a headache.
While
minor irritations may not trigger such symptoms, you may be able to
discover subtle symptoms, which accompany your anger. Can the
offender be aptly described as a “bitch,” or an “a**hole?” If
so, you are angry. Identifying such descriptions in your mind can
bring in an element of humor to release your tension. Each person
responds differently to each emotion. Those symptoms will appear a
few milliseconds before you realize that you are angry. Identifying
the physical symptom is the quickest way of stilling your negative
emotions. Like Nash, you need to be constantly aware of the subtle
tricks of the mind.
KNOW YOURSELF PODCAST Listen each week, to one podcast. Based on practical self improvement principles. From the insight of an engineer, back in 1989, about the data processing structure of the human mind, recognizing, filtering, storing patterns, without stopping. Patterns of guilt, shame, fear. How to silence painful subconscious patterns and become self aware.
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