Whose Will Is It?

[talon]

The "wetware" of the brain allows us to assume we are in control of our lives, that we see what we see, and taste and smell, that our memories are infallible. Back in the 60's and 70's and as recently even as the past decade, people have compared the human brain to a computer. Indeed, there are still people today who cling to such an out-moded notion.

Comparing the brain to a computer has hindered a greater exploration of the human brain for many years, but new tools have given us the ability to make greater explorations into the workings of the human mind - the organic matter as well as - to a much more limited extent - the emotional effects.

The truth is that computers resemble, in a crippled and limited way, the human brain. Computers tick along in predictable and formulaic ways - even the most complex computer can be reduced to a simple formula. Because humans created computers, computers mimic, in the most basic and simplistic ways, how we felt our own brains functioned. And there it is - the computer mimics the most basic and easily observed functions of the human.

Humans are far more complex that any algorithm we've yet calculated.

The brain uses a variety of short cuts, tricks, and cheats to help us navigate the world about us. When we settle into a routine, we start ignoring everything outside of that routine and the brain works very hard to keep us in that rut. We cease to be in control of ourselves, our brain, and our life as our brain sets us on auto pilot. How many times have you taken the same route to work, only to realize you don't remember half - or more! - of your trip? How many times have you done the same task and forgotten what the in between steps are? You get from Point A to Point D in your life and often Points B and C are blurs, assuming you even remember them.

Our brains have a life of their own, beyond what we normally use. It's been said that we only use about 10% of our brain power, but I'm not too sure how true that really is. I'd say we probably use about 25% of our brain power, but we have the potential to use much more, most of it by paying attention to what our brain is doing when we are otherwise occupied - like driving down the street along a familiar route to work for the 300th time. In a computer, if you give it the same input, you will always receive the same output. In the human brain, this isn't true. Automatic and voluntary functions in the brain are intricately meshed. If your conscious expectations change, without in any way altering the input, your perception of the input, your output, will change. A quick example would be optical illusions - is it a goblet or two people facing one another? Same data in, different results out.

Neurolinguistic programming is one of the most documented methods of altering perceptions without in any way altering data, of changing patterns and thus changing behaviors and knowledge. The most important thing to know about neurolinguistic programming is that it has led to cognitive neuroscience, which studies the combined biological responses and cognitive responses of the brain - studying both the voluntary and the automatic functions and finding that we are really using far more of our brain than we'd previously assumed - we just aren't in control of that use as often as we think we are.

Cognitive neuroscience is a relatively new field, so the information filtering out of the labs and the studies is slow in coming, but what's coming is fascinating. In many ways, what comes from these studies are things we've speculated about in Numenism - the "extra senses" that we teach our members to use. It seems those "extra senses" aren't really "extra" after all, just that we've pulled aside the curtains of our brain to more completely interact with the world.

We've been taking the information that comes out and applying it to the exercises we developed to expand our senses and participation in the world, and we're finding new tools and new exercises.

This, this is what Numenism is about - learning the patterns about us, using our senses to their fullest, learning to more completely control our minds and bodies. This is what we feel is our collective purpose in being individuated corporeal beings. It's our brain, our will, and our job to learn how to utilize them to the fullest extent possible.