SUPER BRAIN

[Michael Grove]

DEVELOPING YOUR GREATEST GIFT

A SUPER BRAIN CREDO

HOW THE MIND RELATES TO THE BRAIN

1. The process always involves feedback loops.

2. These feedback loops are intelligent and adaptable.

3. The dynamics of the brain go in and out of balance but always

   favor overall balance, known as homeostasis.

4. We use our brains to evolve and develop, guided by our intentions.

5. Self-reflection pushes us forward into unknown territory.

6. Many diverse areas of the brain are coordinated simultaneously.

7. We have the capacity to monitor many levels of awareness, even

   though our focus is generally confined to one level (i.e., waking,

   sleeping, or dreaming).

8. All qualities of the known world, such as sight, sound, texture,

   and taste, are created mysteriously by the interaction of mind

   and brain.

9. MIND, not the brain, is the origin of consciousness.

10. ONLY consciousness can understand consciousness. No mechanical explanation, working from facts about the brain, suffices.

These are big ideas. We have a lot of explaining to do, but we wanted you to see the big ideas up front. If you lifted just two words from the first sentence - feedback loops - you could mesmerize a medical school class for a year.

 

IN no dissimilar manner than a Computer Integrated Manufacturing System uses feedback loops to -

LEARN - so also can our individual and collective MIND make use of feedback loops to - LEARN - that

IT IS the MIND that has the capability of using the BRAIN instead of just allowing the BRAIN to use YOU. 

The body is an immense feedback loop made up of trillions of tiny loops. Every cell talks to every other and listens to the answer it receives. That’s the simple essence of feedback, a term taken from electronics. The thermostat in your living room senses the temperature and turns the furnace on if the room gets too cold. As the temperature rises, the thermostat takes in that information and responds by turning the furnace off.

Everything hinges on how you relate to your brain. By setting higher expectations, you enter a phase of higher functioning. One of the unique things about the human brain is that it can do only what it thinks it can do. The minute you say, “My memory isn’t what it used to be” or “I can’t remember a thing today,” you are actually training your brain to live up to your diminished expectations. Low expectations mean low results.

The first rule of super brain is that your brain is always eavesdropping on your thoughts. As it listens, it learns. If you teach it about limitation, your brain will become limited. But what if you do the opposite? What if you teach your brain to be unlimited?

Think of your brain as being like a Steinway grand piano. All the keys are in place, ready to work at the touch of a finger. Whether a beginner sits down at the keyboard or a world-renowned virtuoso like Vladimir Horowitz or Arthur Rubinstein, the instrument is physically the same. But the music that comes out will be vastly different.

The beginner uses less than 1 percent of the piano’s potential; the virtuoso is pushing the limits of the instrument. 

As Deepak Chopra has commented in his recent conversation with Ken Wilber - 

"WE HAVE an ANSWER for the DAWKINS DELUSION NOW"  

.

 

[Michael Grove]

MINDSIGHT - our ability to look within and perceive the mind, to reflect on our experience, is every bit as essential to our well-being. MINDSIGHT IS our seventh sense - Dr. Daniel Siegel

 

[Michael Grove]

Deepak Chopra talks to Ken Wilber about his new book, Super Brain: Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Well-Being—exploring how we can train our brain to reach beyond its present limitations, and how our subjective "mind" and objective "brain" co-arise and even co-create one another.

[Michael Grove]

What’s especially remarkable - the close parallels between ant colonies’ networks and human-engineered ones. One example is “Anternet”, where we, a group of researchers at Stanford, found that the algorithm desert ants use to regulate foraging is like the Traffic Control Protocol (TCP) [updated with correct spelling] used to regulate data traffic on the internet.

Both ant and human networks use positive feedback: either from acknowledgements that trigger the transmission of the next data packet, or from food-laden returning foragers that trigger the exit of another outgoing forager.

This research led some to marvel at the ingenuity of ants, able to invent systems familiar to us: wow, ants have been using internet algorithms for millions of years!

( WIRED, too, flirted with the concept of “anternet” in its Jargon Watch column last year.)

[Michael Grove]

Neurobiologist Kristin Harris takes us on a cruise through a block of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that stores memories. The brain’s synapses change structure when something new is learned.

Watch dendrites, organelles, & glial cells “dance” in this 3D rendering, showing how biologists try to build a brain. Watch the full program of Architects of the Mind: A Blueprint for the Human Brain.

[Michael Grove]

Endless terror. Refugee waves. An unfixable global economy. Surprising election results. New billion-dollar fortunes. Miracle medical advances.  What if they were all connected? What if you could understand why?

The Seventh Sense is the story of what all of today’s successful figures see and feel: the forces that are invisible to most of us but explain everything from explosive technological change to uneasy political ripples. The secret to power now is understanding our new age of networks. Not merely the Internet, but also webs of trade, finance, and even DNA. Based on his years of advising generals, CEOs, and politicians, Ramo takes us into the opaque heart of our world’s rapidly connected systems and teaches us what the losers are not yet seeing — and what the victors of this age already know.