image freedigitalphotos.net

Do What You Do

Why do you do the things you do, say the things you say, and believe the things you believe? Do you find it impossible to change your behaviors? Have you ever tried to change yourself? Is there anything about yourself that you want to change, or do you want to continue doing what you’re doing? If you’ve ever wanted to change dysfunctional and non-supportive behaviors, this article is a good starting point to do that effectively and efficiently through behavior conditioning. It’s time to make a choice and to take action to change your bad behaviors.

Freedom of Choice vs Conditioning

How much freedom of choice do you really have? Is it possible to have true freedom of choice when most if not all of our choices and behaviors are based on conditioning? If you’re raised in or around violence or raised by people who are prejudice then you were probably conditioned to behave in those ways. Once you use your freedom of choice and decide to change negative conditioning, you begin to condition your behavior.

All of our behaviors are conditioned or learned to some degree. How you were raised and by whom has a huge affect on everything you think, do, and say. Even if you raised yourself, your experiences and your reactions/responses to those experiences have taught you to behave in certain ways. All experiences and all types of educational methods condition us but that conditioning can be changed with new, supportive habits.

Creatures of Habit

We are all creatures of habit. We choose some habits, such as brushing our teeth or performing other hygiene rituals around the same times every day. Other times we move into patterns without even realizing it and other times habits are forced upon us. Since we are creatures of habit the best way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with a good habit.

Notice the Habit

The first step to conditioning your non-supportive behavior is to notice when you do the behavior and acknowledge that you have the bad habit.

Choose Something Different

Either out-loud or to yourself, say, “I choose…” and say exactly what you want to be doing instead of the bad habit. Always say it in a positive way, without using negative words.

Notice Again and Interrupt

Notice every time that you do the bad habit and immediately choose and do the alternative. Eventually, you’ll notice yourself starting to do the old habit in which case you can interrupt yourself and do the positive habit instead.

Soon, you’ll catch yourself long before doing the old habit and eventually the old habit will be gone for good.

This technique sounds simple because it is! The only difficult part will be catching yourself before you start the old habit and stopping the pattern. Realizing and admitting to having bad habits is difficult for some people, yet the sooner you realize what bad habits you have, the sooner you’ll be able to shift to good habits. Be honest with yourself about all your habits.

Conditioning requires repetition of the supportive actions, so expect to keep repeating the positive steps until you get it exactly the way you want it. Repetition programs the subconscious mind which in turn helps to establish productive habits.

Addictions

Behavior conditioning can greatly assist overcoming chemical addictions. However, much more is necessary for you to do in order to honestly quit the chemical(s) and habit(s). Addictions need to be handled mentally and physically.

Detoxifying

Along with doing what I’ve described above — noticing the habit, choosing something else, interrupting the pattern — kick addictions faster by getting into some sort of aerobic exercise, such as running and swimming. Keep exercising through the detoxification phase and if you’re successful in conditioning yourself into the exercise-habit, keep it up for the rest of your life! Exercise can shorten the detoxification phase dramatically. The faster that you work out the toxins the less you’ll have to deal with the physical symptoms.

Drink plenty of water while you detoxify and even consider alternative ways to detox your body, such as drinking green tea and adding food supplements with a healthier diet.

Other Suggestions

When you reach for the junk food, recognize the habit and choose to enjoy a healthy diet, then take action to reinforce the good habit by grabbing a better alternative.

If you’re craving to eat something sweet, then eat some raw honey instead of candy or other empty calorie snacks. Stevia is a another great, natural substitute sweetener for sugar.

When you feel that working out would take too much effort, recognize that habit and choose the habit of taking care of your body and mind, knowing you always feel better after working out. Look forward to feeling stronger and healthier from exercising.

When in those states of feeling great, choose to ALWAYS feel that way and feel excited about that possibility of gaining that non-stop supportive habit.

Is it possible to always feel good? Shit happens but by choosing the attitude-habit of always being positive, you greatly increase the chance of truly gaining that every instant of your waking and dream-state days and nights! Don’t sweat the little stuff and it’s all little stuff anyway. It is possible to be positive in any situation as long as you remain realistic and logical.

Choose the habits of moderation and determination. Habits can be supportive until they turn into dysfunctional addictions. If something is getting in the way of your productive life, then check to see if it’s an addiction.

Choose the habits of flexibility and self-will. Be able to change to better habits whenever it is in your best interest and benefit. Self will or self authority is always the best choice and the most fulfilling since it’s all YOU!

Image by joiseyshowaa

The Dangers of Simplification

In this fast paced world where we’re expected to take in more and more, we’re quick to use labels to group and organize our thoughts. But despite the obvious pitfalls of this kind of grouping in our minds is the problem of thinking that we have perceived something correctly when we really haven’t.

We need to label things for convenience, but in doing so we limit our understanding. Those guilty of these kind of rash associations are not only diluting the truth with simplification, but often completely misrepresenting it.

The complexities of most things mean that any simplification label is an all-out misinterpretation. Most concepts are far more complex than one simple observation. Yet people make these kind of oversimplifications every day.

Static Perceptions

Perhaps more significantly, in our categorizations, we lose appreciation for any dynamic nature that might be present. In other words, things change. Yet once something has a label it is incredibly hard to shake that description.

So once we have been brainwashed into thinking “patriotism is good” or “religion deserves respect”, that is how we see things from then on. People can never be persuaded that they are wrong because they believe that once they have the answer then they will always be right.

Instead, an approach illustrating the nature of change and complexity would be more effective.

Showing people that there is more to their observation than their perception is difficult. People’s insecurities will make them instinctively defend their perceptions, even though you’re not saying that they’re wrong, but that nothing is absolute, and nothing is static.

Some see admitting that you’re wrong as a weakness, an indication that future conclusions from one who admits error cannot be trusted. Yet this is just another example of failure to understand the importance of changing perceptions.

Throughout our lives, our perceptions change. All the things you believe today may be very different from what you believed a few years ago.

This is why there is constant political debate about what is the “right” way to think; capitalism, socialism, libertarianism, and all the flavors in between.

Really there is only one truth, and that is our perceptions will change. So how can we settle on one particular idealism, when tomorrow it brings up unforeseen issues that cause us to reassess our certainty in it?

This is why politics cannot be run on ideals. People’s ideals will always change, even what could be considered the “correct” ideal will be changed by its environment, or other external influences. Simply put, we will never all agree.

So that is why politics is not an effective way to run our world. At its very essence, it fails fundamentally in its purpose of deciding what is best for us – for two reasons. Firstly, it is based on perceptions, and secondly, it does not take into account the nature of change.

The current system will never reach any kind of equilibrium as long as there is change. And change is the only thing we can be sure of.

The most persuasive techniques have their roots in NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). These persuasion techniques are based on empathy – in order to persuade someone – you must understand them.

Empathy-Based Persuasive Techniques

The first and most important thing you must understand about the person you are trying to influence is what their mind best responds to – feel, visual, or auditory stimulation. Knowing this will allow you to be more persuasive by plugging into and feeding this specific desire.

Females usually respond best to feelings, but not always. Men often respond well to visuals, and some people are affected by audio. To learn which is the best stimulation to focus your persuasion, look at how they talk. Do they say “I see”, “I hear what you’re saying”, or “I feel that…”? These are obvious examples of course, the correct answer could be more subtle and perhaps a mixture of two types of stimulation.

Adjust your persuasion techniques based on the kind of mind you are dealing with; for example, when persuading someone who is “feel” orientated, focus on how they will feel if they do what you are trying to convince them to. Don’t try and tell them what it will be like – you have to make them actually feel it.

The more you’re aware of the person you’re dealing with, the more effectively you will be able to focus your persuasive techniques.

Mirror-Based Persuasive Techniques

Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As well as focusing the content of your persuasion in a way that interacts well with their specific personality type, you can also adjust your language and the way you speak to put yourself on their level. People respond better to persuasive techniques that are in their own “language”. Pick up on specific words that they use and use them back on them, especially adjectives. Pay attention to their speed, pitch and volume, and respond as similarly as possible.

Matching your body language and even your pose/position is a subtle but surprisingly powerful persuasive technique. You need to be subtle and it may feel awkward at first, but with some practice you will see how effective this technique, known as “mirroring”, can be at developing a rapport and easing persuasion.

Other Persuasive Techniques

There are many other persuasive techniques that you can work on and build up. We recommend that you master the empathy/mirror persuasive techniques most importantly as these are the most effective. However, the following techniques can be valuable additions to your persuasion armory.

Persuasive Words

There are many subconscious persuasive words that one can use. Often these will be a call to action: for example “Do that” or “Be this”. Positive words and adjectives such as “Definitely”, “Most” and “Effective” are very persuasive all on their own.

Use “now” words such as “today” or “at the moment” often to subliminally suggest urgency.

Rhetorical questions

Getting the person to think for themselves is highly motivating and can therefore be extremely persuasive. Ask questions that engage them and they automatically become more receptive. This will also help you learn more about them. Often this will even convince them that they are making the decision when in fact you have simply steered them to this persuasion.

Eye Contact

It is highly important to develop a good rapport with the person you are trying to persuade. Without eye contact this is virtually impossible. With consistent and non-threatening eye contact, you can develop trust. Add a genuine smile and persuasion will be much easier.

Be Persuasive by Connecting Emotionally, not Rationally

Anyone in politics will tell you – people simply don’t respond rationally. They respond based on emotions. To persuade someone, you must connect with them emotionally.

Aristotle identified the three basic elements of every persuasive argument:

Ethos: the credibility, knowledge, expertise, stature and authority of the person trying to persuade.
Logos: the appeal of logic, reason, cognitive thinking, data and facts.
Pathos: the appeal to the emotions; the non-cognitive, non-thinking motivations that affect decisions and actions.

All layers are of course important, but it is perhaps the emotional layer that holds the most power of persuasion. We are emotional beings and are much more likely to be persuaded by the promise of feeling good than the promise of “something being correct”.

Are Persuasion Techniques Moral?

Of course you may be thinking that using persuasion techniques is immoral, underhand. Indeed, you may find yourself with the dilemma of whether to use them on someone you love. It’s really up to you how you feel about using persuasive techniques, but remember the following.

People should be aware of the techniques, and know when others are trying to manipulate them. If you successfully persuade someone, you have simply out-competed them.

Persuasion is always optional. Yet, after much practice, you may find that these persuasive techniques simply embed into the nature of your being. Would you feel guilty for using any other aspects of your personality such as speaking confidently?

Much of the time, you will be trying to do what is best for them anyway. The purpose of connecting with someone emotionally is to learn what they want. When you know this, you are only persuading them to do something that they will want to do anyway. So, by its definition, persuasion is not manipulation – it is just bringing your point across.

People should be aware enough to make their own decisions. Ideally, you should be confident that you can use these persuasive techniques to do what is right for all concerned.

If you’re still not comfortable with using persuasive techniques, we strongly recommend this article: 5 Steps to Easily Influencing People Without Manipulation which gives a refreshingly caring perspective on persuasion.

WINNER!

In what areas were you a winner today? It’s up to you to decide if you are a winner or not. Even if you have won a tiny bit, acknowledge that. Be honest with yourself, even if you were a loser today. Hopefully, you’ll get another chance to try again tomorrow!

Training to be a Winner

Keep yourself trained as a winner in your chosen field, whether that is sports, creative endeavors, or business. By continually training yourself, you keep your mind honed in performing the steps necessary to keep you a winner.

As mentioned in Brain Mechanics One oh Won, balance your primary field of expertise by perfecting yourself in at least one other area and up to four different areas. Depending on how versed you are in other areas, you can add other areas in which to practice as long as you put in enough time with each area at least several times a week. At the minimum, spend thirty minutes in each area. But of course, the longer you spend practicing in each area, the better. The main idea is to keep your secondary trainings diversified which will force your mind to handle various types of requirements and increase your potential for winning in all areas. Focusing in other areas will definitely add to and affect your primary area of focus.

Mix It Up

If your primary field of study is physical in nature, such as sports, then balance that by training your mind to think in different ways intellectually, such as learning to play chess and reading books. Reading about other people’s experiences in your chosen field can be huge benefit of course, but also read other things to cause your mind to think of things you don’t normally hear about, including fiction and non-fiction. We live in a remarkable age where huge amounts of information are available instantly. There is such thing as information overload, so learn when to stop gathering information, when to switch to something else, and when to simply take a break.

Mix in other types of sports training that are different from your chosen primary area of expertise.

Entertainment

Entertainment is good but be aware as to how much passive entertainment you are experiencing on a daily basis. Interactive entertainment such as computer games will definitely train your mind to think in different ways, but never substitute that type of entertainment for physical activity. Get at least an hour of physical activity in a day, such as bike riding, walking, hiking, swimming, or any sport.

Keeping your imagination active can lead you to new insights and new approaches. Keeping your mind open and remaining rational about new information will increase your ability to sift through what works for you and what doesn’t work. Bending and pushing your imagination and forcing your brain to perform in new ways will add to your arsenal of abilities.

Mind Bending Exercises

Repeat all these steps every few days and then every few weeks to months to keep yourself proficient in doing these exercises.

1) Put something with a paragraph or two of your language of choice on the table in front of you. Read it normally for a few sentences, then rotate what you are looking at 180 degrees so that the text is essentially up-side-down to your point of view. Try reading the text as far as you can. Practice this enough by using text you have not read before and you’ll be able to easily read in this orientation. Also try positioning the text at ninety-degree angles to normal, i.e. text rows of words straight up and down so you are forcing yourself to read at any angle.

2) Hold up printed text in a mirror and attempt to read it. As with exercise 1, rotate the text 180 degrees and read it, then try the text rotated 90 degrees both ways. This will train your mind to recognize and function with reflections.

3) While staring straight ahead at a fixed point in front of you in the distance, use your peripheral vision to notice objects to the sides of your direction of view. How far to the sides can you recognize objects, movements, lights, or colors while staring straight ahead? Extend either arm to the side and experiment by wiggling your fingers and moving them forward and backward in and out of peripheral view.

4) Try anything that you’ve never done before, such as board games and crossword puzzles — anything that will cause your mind and thus your brain to be pushed to their limits. Accuracy games such as darts or archery are even more activities that will bend your mind beyond its limits. Practice skipping stones or throwing rocks at targets and even switch up your throwing arm and get that other less-functional limb honed.

Your Winning Conclusion

You now know what it takes to remain a winner. Extend that winning attitude into every area of your life — including love, business, friendships, and activities. Keep in practice. Letting yourself slip will cause you to lose abilities, so stay trained if you want to keep your skills at those winning levels. Spend the time and your mind will surely do what it takes. Motivate your time and you’ll find a new future that you’ll make.

Written by Maxwell Jennings

© ktsdesign - Fotolia.com

How can you work on your brain and win back abilities, win new functionality, and even increase your intelligence? By being your own brain mechanic. You at least have the basic tools already — the most important being your mind. This mini-course is designed to at least help you get started in those winning directions and will help you acquire new abilities, skills and tools.

So pull your mind into the garage, get it on the proverbial lift, and get ready to delve under the hood. Brain Mechanics 101 (won oh one) is about to begin!

Win Back Your Life

It is time to evaluate your life and to win in the areas that are important to you and to win back in the areas you’ve lost or have diminishing abilities. Are you where you want to be in all areas, such as love, family, financial, work, education, or your chosen sport? You may be proficient at what you do in select areas of your life, but what about the other areas where you want to be proficient and truly win? Are you winning in every area that is important to you? Regardless of all the media hype and what your family and friends tell you, only your judgment of yourself and where you are at is important here. You win already by simply wanting a winning mind and brain!

The first step at winning back your life is to know what your current reality is right now. We suggest that you create a written list of the most important areas in your life and rate them on a simple 0-to-10+ scale – where 10 is optimum-winner based on your own judgment of yourself and the plus (+) means you’ve exceeded your win-expectations.

Zero to Ten-plus Rating Guide

0 = nonexistent, extremely lacking, not winning, I want major help in this area.
1
2
3
4
5 = I’m average in this area but I know I can be better and I want to be a total winner.
6
7
8
9
10 = Winner! I have met my expectations of myself in this area.
10+ = I have exceeded my expectations of myself! The winning keeps getting better!

Test Topics to Win

As a guide, test yourself on these topics:

Love — 0 (= nonexistent, I need major help in the area of love) to 5 (= I’m okay with love but could be better about it) to 10 (= Winner! I’m in love, I feel really good about all my relationships). For those of you who think you’ve exceeded your win-expectations on love, tack on a plus sign to that 10, 10+ = far exceeded what I think it takes to win in the area of love.

Rate these areas as well:

Family
Friendships
Living my Passion
Business/Job
Education
Life Experiences
Hobbies
Bucket-List
(add your choices to this list)

Prioritizing Your List

What do you want to focus on first? Write out your list in order of importance to you.

Prioritizing with a written list gives your brain the task of prioritizing internally. Your list will become a part of your psyche and this will help you in creating an activity schedule to which you will be more likely to follow and with which to win.

Again, your goal should be to become a winner in your chosen areas, not just one area.

The Concept of Brain Mechanics

Whatever you put into your mind, your mind will try to reconstruct that desire at least in your mind. Focus on your desire enough and your mind will actually rewire your brain to accommodate for the desire. Focus enough and your mind will guide your choices to match the end-result of your goal. Much of this guiding is subconscious but don’t leave that part to chance. Use your conscious mind to guide you too.

The Adapting Brain

Although the old adage of too much of anything is not good is subjective in that people differ in how they adapt to situations, as humans, too much of anything for anyone can cause big changes in the mind/body systems. Whether it is a winning situation for you is up to you to determine.

The mind/brain will try to adapt to the stimulus at hand, and if that stimulus is particular and repeated often and for extended periods, then the mind/brain will dedicate itself to performing that particular task. The brain will actually rewire itself. Brain cells will grow in the required areas but the brain will also allow brain cells to not be replaced in unused areas, effectively killing off abilities.

Hone Your Skills

Being super focused is great for training in sports and academics. It is also very good to keep your other skills honed as well, at least skills you want to keep. Sometimes it’s okay to let yourself lapse in areas that you probably won’t use again.

However, the only way to keep up your abilities with skills you’ve acquired and want to keep is to refresh your mind and body in those areas often by actually doing those activities. Get out the sports equipment or whatever it takes to keep in practice, and do it!

Include as many of your goal areas in your regime and train the mind in as many different things for which you have the time. Balance out physical skills with mental skills and mix it up.

Multiple Stimulation

Make sure you’re stimulating your body with movement and coordination, such as sports, riding a bike, or even simply running and walking. Gravity and inertia are good ways of letting your mind-brain system know that action doesn’t just mean sitting and watching action movies or playing computer games. Teach your brain that the norm is never the norm and it will wire itself to adapt quickly to an ever changing sequence of activities.

Continued at Brain Mechanics Two-4-Too…

Written by Maxwell Jennings

Although the extremely split bicameral mind is not as prevalent today as it was several thousand years ago, a huge portion of the current population shifts into the bicameral mind mode to varying degrees.

There may have been an actual physical difference between our brains and the typical human brain at the time of the Iliad — such as less of a connection between the two halves of the brain along the Corpus Callosum, but I think it was more a shift in consciousness than it was an actual physical change or jump in physical brain evolution. We can change and increase dendrite branching by mental focus (exercise) and even cause atrophy of areas by lack of activity, but overall, I think the basic structure of the human brain has remained close to the same as people back then. If there was an actual change of the physical brain, it was definitely for the better as are all evolutionary changes.

For those unaware of the term, the Corpus Callosum is the structure that connects the two sides of the brain together allowing cross communication. This connection is more pronounced in human female brains. That is one reason women typically are less affected by and also recover quicker than males after single hemisphere strokes. This connection also varies from person to person.

For the completely bicameral-mind mode, the two halves of the brain work independently in favor of the highly creative right brain. Images conjured up in the right-brain can seem real and thus very compelling. This total split-mode lends itself to being highly influenced, programmable, and brainwashed by perceived external authorities. This mode is an actual separation of the personality to the point the person can believe that the other voice (or voices) and hallucinations in the mind are not their own and even erroneously think they are coming from an outside source.

In singular-mind mode, the highly creative right brain and the highly logical left brain work together in supportive unison, but the left brain controls and influences most thought processes regarding reality.

Most people operate somewhere in between. If you consciously make a decision or goal, or you believe in something strongly enough, the creative mind can produce scenarios in the mind that are fictitious.

Imagine being one of the first people to make that shift in consciousness thousands of years ago. If you truly cared for other people, then you may orate or write in terms the bicameral-minded people can understand in order to help them shift too.

If you are a usurper — someone that is intent on taking from other people, then you may claim that the gods or god talked to you. You would be revered since you would seem to have much more knowledge than does the average citizen. You could claim ridiculous things and everyone would probably believe you, especially if you could predict natural occurrences such as eclipses or other natural phenomenon to make yourself look like you know it all. With that comes the beginning of religions and kingdoms. Usurpers convinced bicameral-minded people that they were sent by the gods or in communication with the gods, and thus they deserved to be exalted and supported. The continuation of religion is mainly because enough followers still operate in this split brain mode. Value usurping religious leaders are still taking advantage of the easily programmable mind of their followers or initiates.

So how can anyone make this shift in consciousness to a fully integrated mind? To start, simply make the conscious choice to operate your mind so that each side works in unison to support you and realize that your mind currently is probably operating in split-mode. The creative right-brain is very adept at taking what the logical side dictates and doing what ever it takes to achieve that goal. You may notice an instant change or it may be gradual as your mind entertains the idea. Know your current reality and how it relates to your goal of having an integrated mind.

This shift may even require a conscious effort on your part to eliminate mysticism from your life. The right-brain is responsible for fantasy, self-induced hallucinations, and mystical thinking, all of which are not based on reality. If you can dump mysticism, you will notice an increase in clarity of your thoughts. The background chatter that you probably do not notice will diminish and eventually disappear. Your right-brain will begin to work for you rather than chaotically in opposition. Constantly educate yourself in reality. Most importantly, become your own authority and defy those that wish to control you.

I don’t find the following information controversial at all and I think the bi-cameral-mind situtation is still evident today as indicated at:

viewzone.com

Article copyright Beatrix Murrell (reprinted with permission)

bizcharts.com

Consciousness In The Cosmos: Perspective of Mind: Julian Jaynes

Back in 1976 when he was a professor of psychology at Princeton, Julian Jaynes published a very controversial theory about the emergence of the human mind. Indeed, even today his theory of the “bicameral mind” remains a controversy.

Rather than just harkening to behavioral psychology or brain biology, Jaynes presents his theory from the perspective of psycho-cultural history.

Going back to the the earliest writings and studying particularly the many early civilizations of the Near East, Jaynes came to the conclusion that most of the people in these archaic cultures were *not* subjectively conscious as we understand it today.

Jaynes provides extensive illustrations–ranging from Sumer, Ur, Babylon, Egyptian, Early Mycenean, Hebrew, and even Mayan and Asian cultures–that support his theory of the bicameral mind. But he mainly focuses on Mycenean (Greek) material–and it is this material which we will examine mostly in this post.

Jaynes bluntly declares “There is in general no consciousness in the ILIAD.” Analyzing Homer’s great epic, Jaynes came to the conclusion that the characters of the Trojan siege did not have conscious minds, no introspection, as we know it in the modern human. [Julian Jaynes, THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976, p. 69]

Whether Achilles or Agamemnon, there was no sense of subjectivity. Rather they were men whom the gods pushed about like robots. The gods sang epics through their lips. Jayne declares that these Iliadic heroes heard “voices,” real speech and directions from the gods–as clearly as those diagnosed epileptic or schizophrenic today.

Jaynes stresses that the Iliadic man did not possess subjectivity as we do–rather “he had no awareness of his awareness of the world, no internal mind-space to introspect upon.” This mentality of the Myceneans, Jaynes calls the bicameral mind. [Ibid, p. 75]

Now what was this bicameral mind? Jaynes briefly discusses brain biology–in that there are three speech areas, for most located in the left hemisphere. They are: (1) the supplemental motor cortex; (2) Broca’s area; and (3) Wernicke’s area. Jaynes focuses on Wernicke’s area, which is chiefly the posterior part of the left temporal lobe. It is Wernicke’s area that is crucial for human speech.

Pursuing the bicameral mind, Jaynes focuses on the corpus callosum, the major inter-connector between the brain’s hemispheres. In human brains the corpus callosum can be likened to a small bridge, a band of transverse fibers, only slightly more than one-eighth of an inch in diameter. This bridge “collects from most of the temporal lobe cortex but particularly the middle gyrus of the temporal lobe in Wernicke’s area.” And it was this bridge that served as the means by which the “gods” who dwelled in one hemisphere of the human brain were able to give “directions” to the other hemisphere. It is like thinking of the “two hemispheres of the brain almost as two individuals.” Hence the bicameral mind! [Ibid, p. 117]

Archaic humans were ordered and moved by the gods through both auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations. The gods mainly “talked” to them–but sometimes “appeared,” such as Athene appeared to Achilles. And “when visual hallucinations occur with voices, they are merely shining light or cloudy fog, as Thetis came to Achilles or Yahwey to Moses.” [Ibid, p. 93]

Jaynes believes in the mentality of the early Mycenean that volition, planning and initiative were literally organized with no consciousness whatsoever. Rather such volition was “told” to the individual–”sometimes with the visual aura of a familiar friend or authority figure or ‘god,’ or sometimes as a voice alone.” [Ibid, p. 75]

Now Jaynes thinks the great agricultural civilizations that spread over much of the Near East by 5000 b.c.e. reflected the bicameral mind. These civilizations were rigid theocracies! They were reminiscent of the Queen Bee and the bee-hive. These bicameral societies reflected “hierarchies of officials, soldiers, or works, inventory of goods, statements of goods owed to the ruler, and particular to gods.” [Ibid, p. 80]

Jaynes contests that such theocracies were the only means for a bicameral civilization to survive. Circumventing chaos, these rigid hierarchies allowed for “lesser men hallucinating the voices of authorities over them, and those authorities hallucinating yet higher ones, and so” to kings and gods. [Ibid, p. 79]

According to Julian Jaynes, “the idols of a bicameral world are the carefully tended centers of social control, with auditory hallucinations instead of pheromones.” [Ibid, p. 144]

In these ancient bicameral societies the idol or the statue was literally the god, so says Jaynes. The god/goddess had its own house. It was usually the center of a temple complex. The size varied according to the importance of the god and, of course, the wealth of the city.

In these theocracies the owner of the land was the divine idol–and the people were the tenants. The steward-king served the god by administrating the god’s estates. According to cuneiform texts, the gods also enjoyed eating, drinking, music and dancing. They required beds for sleeping and connubial visits from other gods. They (the statues) were washed and dressed, driven around on special occasions. Ceremony and ritual evolved around these idols.

The collapse of the bicameral mind came slowly, it was a slow erosive breakdown. But Jaynes spotted the first serious indications of collapse by the time of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, around 1700 b.c.e. Authority had started to crumble–and due to this Egypt had to re-unify itself, hence the Middle Kingdom.

Jaynes considers that this slow collapse was caused by natural disasters, such as the Santorini volcanic explosion that devastated many Greek islands. Migration of different peoples into new areas disrupted the bicameral societies already in place. Conquest over peoples by others resulted in further collapse. And writing gradually eroded the “auditory authority of the bicameral mind.” [Ibid, pp. 208, 212-213, 220]

Jaynes felt a real tipoff of this bicameral breakdown could be discerned in the Babylonian lines: “My god has forsaken me and disappeared, My goddess has failed me and keeps at a distance… [To Marduk]

It was with this, according to Jaynes, that one could detect for the first time the mighty themes of the world religions: “Why have the gods left us? Like friends who depart from us, they must be offended. Our misfortunes are our punishments for our offenses. We go down on our knees, begging to be forgiven. And then find redemption in some return of the word of a god.” [Ibid, p. 226]

For Jaynes this ruin, this bitter bicameral breakdown led to the growth of subjective consciousness in Greece. Moving from the ILIAD, Jaynes declares that Homer’s ODYSSEY is unlike its predecessor. Here we have wily Odysseus, the hero of many devices, a man of a “new mentality.” The ODYSSEY was about a man who was learning how to get along in a “ruined and god-weakened world.” [Ibid, 272-273]

With the Golden Age of Greece, in the starstruck sixth century b.c.e., with Solon, with Thales, Anaximander, and Pythagoras, Jaynes claims we are now with human minds with whom we can feel mentally at home!

Granted, a mother’s instinct to protect her offspring at all costs can be overpowering, but for humans, our main genetic drive is for self-preservation and in propagating our personal genetic code by creating more offspring. We can only do that if we are alive. Self-defense is a genetically programmed instinct. With humans, unexpected threats elicit self-preservation behavior. If given enough time to think and react, some people can consciously overpower (or be programmed/brainwashed to overpower) self-preservation and die for the cause/belief/person/people.

When we hear of people risking their lives or even dying while saving people or even animals, most of us feel a sense of admiration — amongst other emotions — for the person making the sacrifice. Many of us think that we would do the same. We admire selfless acts of bravery and heroic deeds, and most people would not entirely reject the idea of being seen as a hero.

For some people, the job requirements dictate sacrifice — such as in the military. The overall plan is to live, but as a soldier you are expected to give your life to protect whatever it is that the leaders say you are protecting. Self-defense is completely justified, but if you agree to join the military, then you agree contractually to fight for whatever the leaders say, even if it is an offensive attack upon other groups/villages/countries/enemy. Your job is to act under the orders without question.

Some leaders have joined the battle for their own cause and even died, but most of the time, leaders have simply dictated the conflicts and have required all their subjects to die for the leader and the cause, and in most cases for a god-head or deity(s). Even in the case where a leader fought and died, they were probably succumbing to the voices in their head — erroneously thinking it’s some external higher power telling them to sacrifice, “…and don’t worry, you have a place here in heaven if you do this!” More often, the leader and the military elite remain out of harm’s way on purpose.

Although public service positions such as police and fire-fighting carry a huge risk, the mandates there are for self protection; more so for firefighters since police can be required to engage in physical battle with citizens or other internal threats. Firefighters increase the threat to their lives every time they are called to duty to rescue or protect life and property.

Some people can quickly assess a dangerous situation and make a calculated assumption about their chances of survival and then act, all within a fraction of a second. The willingness to gamble against the odds is another factor upon which we may or may not act. “Can I realistically save them with minimum injury to my body?”

Think about this: You are the most important person in your life. That concept goes against a life’s-worth of programming to the contrary, so how did it feel to entertain that idea?

Do you agree with that premise or do you believe that your spouse/partner, family, friends, or even pets or endangered species are more important than you enough that you would possibly sacrifice your life to save them?

Let us assume that there is no such thing as an afterlife. When you die you really die forever — the electrical and chemical occurrences in your brain which amount to your total consciousness — your mind your thoughts, your memories, your awareness — all cease to exists forever. Your very self flickers out of existence completely. Therefore, there is no afterlife reward for your good deeds and your sacrifice only succeeded in preserving another life and not your own. Would you be less apt to sacrifice yourself?

Although pets and other animals are important to us, do you really believe that their life is worth more than your life to the point that you would risk yours to save theirs? Conscious human beings add value to the world through conscious effort and creation. Animals cannot consciously add much to humanity. Some animals are critical to our environment and others have shown some amazing talents and intelligence such as artistic abilities and in warning us about danger, but can these same artistic and heroic creatures add other value such as hold a job or invent new technologies or processes or save the world from stupidity? All humans have the potential of greatness and in adding superb value to the world.

These will be hard questions to answer for most people, but it is important to challenge socially induced beliefs and become your own authority on everything that affects you as an individual — including your life and your freedom. Some people will still choose to sacrifice themselves while other people will adjust their personal importance to themselves in relation to the perceived importance of other people. Is it possible to consider yourself the most important person in your life and to choose to protect your precious life while still seeing the importance of preserving the lives of all others? If you want to be a hero or simply save lives then educate and train yourself to be prepared for most situations so that you can survive. You are priceless and irreplaceable.

We should be doing everything possible to protect our physical bodies and in saving our consciousnesses. I challenge scientist to come up with a device that will upload everything about the human mind upon catastrophic death and then download that person into a human body. I challenge people in medicine to find ways to rejuvenate and completely heal our bodies in order to extend our lives and keep us completely comfortable, healthy and functional. I challenge industry to replace humans doing dangerous jobs with machines.

If presented with the option of biological immortality, would that increase your willingness to sacrifice yourself?

Most people think linearly – adding one concept to another step by step. This is a slow and ineffective way of thinking.

The following technique can improve the speed of your mind and stop you from being limited by this dead-end-creating thinking method. The technique involves looking at things from an overall perspective.

To give you an example, imagine if you were to pick up a textbook and read it all the way through from start to finish. You might understand it and you will probably learn a lot from it. However, what if you were to first take a good look at the table of contents? Absorb the whole structure of the book from an overall perspective. Look at the main sections first, then the chapters, and then the parts inside the chapters.

Before you even begin reading the book you can gain an overall appreciation for the subject that gives you an advantage when you actually read it. You will be more aware of the context of each topic within the book, so you may find that you understand it better than you would if you had merely read from cover to cover. This is how super concepts should work in your mind.

When a concept forms in your mind, look at it from an overall perspective. By this we mean look at it from as many angles as possible, ask questions about it, ensure that you fully understand its meaning, its context, and its implications.

Learning

If you have a difficult subject, study the overview of it first, making sure you understand it. Then go into the next level of complexity and make sure you understand each section before moving on. If you can’t understand it, break it down further. If you break it down as far as you can yet you still can’t understand what you’re learning, that usually means there is a fundamental gap in your knowledge which prevents you from totally grasping it. In this case, you can simply research into this topic, repeating the techniques of overview, breakdown, and understanding.

By seeing things from an overall perspective rather than a linear one, you will also possess the ability to absorb so much more data. This is because you will just need to remember the top overall concept, and your subconscious will remember the rest!

Let me illustrate. If I said to you the word “tree”, first you might think of the branches, trunk, roots, etc. From that you could think about leaves, bark, sap, buds, flowers if any, and even the soil in which it grows. You could then think about the tree’s photosynthesis process — how it takes in sunlight for energy, then the reproduction process, its growth process, and other scientific proven processes which you could then break down even further into simple explanations. From all this, form relationships between all these smaller parts.

You see, from that one overall perspective word, tree, your mind can now recall vast amounts of information and knowledge. In a way, it’s sort of a mind filing system. However, it is a sophisticated filing system similar to a relational database. It’s a system that includes data relationships, rules, a query facility, and most importantly, the computing power of the human brain that can perform calculations, observations, and deductions on all the information.

These “data relationships” are how the smaller parts relate to each other and to the structures to which they are a part. For example, in your mind is the trunk which relates to the branches which relate to the twigs which relate to the leaves and buds, and so forth.

“Rules” apply to how you personally set up your method of data extraction and how you apply that overall knowledge. Rules are basic guidelines that help you to think more efficiently. We all use rules, but we typically don’t realize that we are using them.

The “query facility” is the mechanism your mind employs to search for, retrieve and store your memory files, and how it pulls the necessary information from other topics together to complete the request or query that you instigated.

Idea Creation

Using this way of organizing information in your mind, you will now find your idea creation much more powerful. This is because your brain is working on all of the concepts at the same time. Seeing the overall picture, you can make individual deductions from each of the parts and integrate them together.

In contrast, the linear method of looking at a single concept at a time will make it difficult to make these kinds of connections.

Problem Solving

In addition, this technique is useful for problem solving. Rather than linearly working your way through a problem, gather as much information about it as you can first. Draw the solution as a diagram, either in your head or on paper, rather than a list of answers. More answers will present themselves when you focus on an overall perspective than if you were to analyze one concept in depth, then another.

Remember, brainstorms are diagrams that branch from a central point. They aren’t merely a list, they branch off and they also link together.

A Powerful New Mind

Don’t focus on one concept at a time, try and get the overall picture. This will allow you to keep the information organized, vastly increasing your brain’s ability to cope with the new knowledge.

With the concepts organized, you will be able to access them easily, see relationships between them, form new relationships between them, and also see gaps in your knowledge. Your memory will be greatly improved, your mind will be able to cope with far more complex concepts, and you will have the ability to build on these concepts, creating new ideas.

Thinking things through is a skill we develop over time, thanks to our experiences forcing us to do so. We know that all our actions cause a reaction, good or bad. Kids however, often don’t think of the implications of their actions. For example when they throw stones at cars or start fires.

As adults, we’re more likely to think about the implications because we have been there before or at least witnessed similar situations. However, if the situation is new to us, we can actually be as guilty as children for not thinking things through.

Scams are where we often get caught being illogical. If something sounds good, we’ll be likely to ignore the dangers in favor of the supposed benefits.

We need to learn to stop, and think things through.

As you get better at it, you will be able to think of more and more implications of each action, and also be able to see further ahead. You will create an implication tree in your mind, as each implication has more implications branching from it. This is a way of predicting and creating the immediate future.

By gaining more and more knowledge about each implication, you will be able to see which route along your implication tree reality will take. The more knowledge you gain, the more accurate your predictions.

As for creating the future, well, once you can see where it is going, you can intercept it or even bypass it if necessary by making a different choice. You can affect any one of the implications to make the situation go the way you want. You just need to pick the right point on the implication tree to jump on and make your influence.

As you improve this skill, you will be able to see further into the future as your brain will be able to cope with more possibilities.

The key is not to stop applying this skill. Don’t think a little into the future — think in boundless terms, infinite or forever into the future. Continue looking further and further ahead, taking as many implication paths as you can think of.

Remember though, to keep all predictions aligned with reality at all times.

As you look further and further into the future, so much more becomes possible. Eventually, you will be able to piece together the implications at a faster rate.

What are some ways that can help?

Playing chess is a good way to improve this skill as it is also a good metaphor for the technique.

On their first move, your opponent can make one of many moves, but then on their second, based on the move they made the first time and your move, they could make around the same number of moves again, multiplied by the number of moves they could have made the first time. Therefore it’s very difficult to look much further ahead than one move.

In life, it is usually a bit simpler because people’s minds are usually influenced by emotions. There is usually a much smaller number of possible motives than in chess, where any number of games can be played out. There are many factors that will influence the actions a person will take, and you will find they will be more predictable than you would expect if you just think about what those influencing factors are.

However, it still requires a great deal of skill, memory, and brain computing power to look more than a couple of moves ahead. This is where you call on super concepts. By creating super concepts in your head, you’ll not only be able to see a few moves ahead, but the whole big picture.

What’s the process of thinking in super concepts?

You basically think up super concepts as follows:

As you build up a set of pure, truth-based concepts in your mind, some of them will interlock, firstly like a jigsaw puzzle. Since the concepts will all be based on reality, they will all compliment each other, and interlock with many of the rest. Think of it like a mesh — a matrix, if you will.

The concepts you collect, you create based on your observations, your implication trees, and truth, otherwise known as reality-based, deductions. This alone will put you in a more powerful intellectual position than the majority of the human race who are all still suffering from one or more mind diseases to varying degrees.

However, it doesn’t stop there. Once your concept matrix is populated enough, you will see gaps, metaphorically speaking, that two or more concepts could plug into. Like a jigsaw puzzle that is almost complete, you will be able to see the big picture. You will be able to see what the missing pieces are. You’ll be able to complete the puzzle without any more knowledge, just your own concept-creating power. You will create a never before seen concept — a super concept.

A real life example would be when they realized that the world was round and humans may have evolved from ancestors of early apes. These are perfect examples of super concepts.

They are based on many other pure, reality based concepts, that when put together showed a shocking big picture. They are shocking because most people don’t create pure concepts. Most people think in corrupted concepts, based on knowledge that is poorly derived and presented.

So now you know how to think up super concepts. This is the first major step to becoming a genius.