Although the human mind is the most complex structure we know of in the universe, it is made up of more neurons than all the celestial bodies in the universe, yet we use only three percent of it for thinking, but let’s be honest, the average person might not even use that much. The part of our brain responsible for conscious thinking and performing cognitive tasks, that is, our self-consciousness, is nothing more than a two-millimeter-thick surface covering the frontal lobe. The rest of our mind is our subconscious, the so-called. autopilot. No one should have any doubt about the critical need and role the autopilot plays in our minds. In fact we outsource all of the daily routines to the autopilot, unloading our brain capacity to focus to those tasks that are important. Without the autopilot, even the simplest tasks would be insurmountable obstacles. Even our belief system and world view are determined partly or entirely by the subconscious without noticed. I have already spoken in a previous post about this topic, see: The source of our dissatisfaction, let’s dig deeper in this issue.
It sounds a cliche, but our lives from beginning to end is a constant learning process that may be conscious, but most of all, subconscious. Still few are aware of the significance of this. The learning process, the need of our mind, is actually nothing more than the transferring of knowledge into our subconscious, in other words, outsourcing. This is nothing more than putting what you have learned into practice. This integration is needed so that we no longer have to think about the way of doing the task later on, it should go by routine, and be able to focus on something else, instead of repeating the same mistake over and over again. This is for our development. However, it is enough to acquire a knowledge or practice once only in that case if we keep it active. Otherwise, the established neuronal pathway is deactivated by the time. So constant repetition is also part of learning until it becomes our nature, and we bacome a master of it. So the autopilot is huge, moreover indispensable help in fulfilling our daily routines, however, it also has a dark side. And this is a low consciousness and impulsive behavior. I need to stress the autopilot is useful if we use it wisely, and we don’t let it control those which are a tasks of the conscious part of our brain. In fact, the autopilot constantly wants to take control of the conscious part of our mind as well, so much so that many are already questioning the existence of free will either. But I used to say free will is nothing but our moral value judgment. And it’s also true that in rare cases, it’s helpful if the autopilot takes control, in life threatening situations for instance, we switch to a mode of survival. In such cases the intellectual thoughts don’t benefit, we need a reptile brain to survive. And those parts of the mind which don’t serve our survival are suddenly deactivated indeed. But apart from these rare cases we should use the autopilot as it is.
Just as outsourcing a business, our decisions and relating responsibilities the only ones that remain under our direct direction, we shouldn’t outsource our decisions about a crucial aspects of our lives to the autopilot. What does is it mean in practice? Never make decisions out of instinct, temper, and emotion. Think twice, or even a hundred times before you make decision with chilled common sense. The temptation of impulsions is always enormous.
Why? Because we will never have a chance to live in reality. Everything we know about the world, everything we perceive is necessarily subjective. The image we create in our heads of reality is just a distorted copy of it, an illusion. Everyone is alone in their own mind. We perceive the outside world only through our senses, and even a fraction of it reaches the consciousness. And the less conscious we are, the more surreal the world around us. For a child, for example, the world is the most surreal because a child is still an undeveloped personality. A child has a different sense of time, although the child sees the same world. As our personality develops, we get an increasingly realistic image of the world. But we will never see the world that way as we did in our childhood. But we will never see the world that way as we have seen a couple of years ago. The world changes, but most importantly we change either. Every moment is unique and unrepeatable. Every moment has different feeling. And when I realized that, my life completely changed. I wont waste a moment of my life anymore because it will never come back. If we lose a moment, we lose it forever. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ve become present-centric, but quite the opposite. I strive to live my life with purpose. And I consider as a tragedy every moment I have experienced with an undeveloped personality.
There is a very interesting phenomenon, called agnostic solipsism, which means nothing is proven to exist outside of our mind. I did a research regarding this issue, because that was typical of me as a teenager. What does this mean for a person’s life? Extreme anxiety. Lack of self-confidence. Extreme distrust of others. Seclusion. Don’t get me wrong, nothing is wrong with being an introvert and with the state of being private and away from other people. But if it happens of social anxiety, it’s definitely not a healthy state. One does not trust oneself either. For me, this manifested itself in checking the door closed as many times as possible after I left. Many times I also missed the bus because of this. The overchecking syndrome appears with this anxiety. This is a state of constant war. We can never make sure of anything. If we pee, where is the evidence we do it in wc, and not in public place? What if our eyes lie and our senses are deceived? And all that’s kind of stuffs I don’t list them further. How can you get over this? As I did, on Stoic way. Imagine the worst situation that can happen to you, and be okay with it. Imagine a public humiliation. And so what? What is in the mind of others is none of your business. If the others are not proven to exist, you aren’t proven to exist for others. And it’s only the beginning. You should face that you fear most of, and you’ll gain immeasurable strength. I escaped from the prison of solipsism and anxiety once and forever and I’ll never look back.
Some say there is a difference between faith and knowledge, which is partly true. However, the difference is not so clear because it blurs between faith and knowledge in many cases. The knowledge is an illusion when turns out that we lived in delusions. What is the reason of this? The human mind is a believer machine. Even if we are sure of something, it is because our brain believes it knows something. From the point of view of the mind, there is no difference between faith and knowledge. If you ask the people about what they know they let you know what they believe. Because we will never be in possession of objective truth due to limit of our mental capacity. This is why the knowledge is an illusion. We only believe that we know anything. As Socrates says, one thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing. Socrates also proved this mathematically. If the knowledge available in the world is infinite and my capacity of perception is finite, the end result will be zero.
The human mind is a believing machine, much more than a thinker. Most people don’t actually think at all, but what’s worse is that they don’t know they don’t think. Thinking is outsourced to someone else. And faith is very easy to hack. How many and how many religious mass hypnotists and political demagogues take advantage of this. Every social class, every religion, every sect, every political system and nation is based on mass hypnosis. All the illusions that the subconscious robot pilot believed with the conscious part of our brain. Every country and empire that ever existed is a dream only, the dream of power, greatness, and glory, which dominates the souls of all who come under the influence of this suggestive dream. Even the most oppressive regimes will helplessly collapse under their own weight as this suggestive dream ceases to exist or changes in the collective consciousness of the masses. Power over millions is just an illusion that lasts as long as the masses believe in it. Empire-builders, religious founders, and great revolutionaries do nothing but force their dreams on the masses, in other words, hypnotize them. And the masses do nothing but outsource thinking to demagogues, ideologues, and megalomaniacs, simply by refusing to think about certain issues. These are all highly talented hypnotists who have power over millions of lower-minded masses. So be careful not to ever be under the influence of bad hypnotists who sell illusion to our subconscious in order to hack our common sense.
Conclusion
The seduction of illusion is huge. Apparently this has evolved over the course of evolution to help the species survive. During the human evolution it helped a person survive if he did not ponder much but acted. But with the rise of civilization, everything has changed, because we no longer have to fight for survival every day. In our present days those who are thinking, are more successful. It requires higher intellectual abilities to orient yourself in mazes of an increasingly complex society. Truth is always abstract, or intuitive only in the rarest of cases, so the superficial mind can rarely understand anything, only the thinker can.
Thanks for reading me!