I think we are our programing meets our physiology. However I feel I have a great deal of control (over the long run) on my programing.

If the question is, does our physiology affect our behavior, the answer is unequivocally yes.

We see this is people who have brain damage due to a real bad virus, or head trauma, they relearn certain aspects of movement, or speech, but the people who knew them know they ARE different . . . How? Because they behave differently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

Its undeniable.

It doesn't have to be to dramatic either. Smoking cigarettes has an impact on your brain chemistry, as do all physically addictive drugs. Its easy to see how this effects our behaviors, yet I know first hand that with a decision, and gathering enough "will" you can reshape that behavior, then reshape over time the brain chemistry/ receptors.

Its not always a brick wall that stands in your way, many times its just a heavy door. Even brick walls can be brought down with enough effort and the right techniques.

Great analogy Skyhook.

The current problem is we only get one automobile in this life and if its a lemon, .. well we better learn something about it so we can make it work better.

I don't know how much control the higher self has over the genetics of the physical self and I don't think you do either and if you do, how would you use that power or control to change yourself or your projection? That is what I would like to learn.

I did meet a person once who seemed to be able to shape shift her appearance with her thoughts (against all the laws of physics) so I am not saying it is impossible, I would just like to know how its done.

To be the master, to shape shift, to truly alter physical reality with your thoughts... how do we learn that?

The tendency towards alcoholism runs in our family too. My grandfather was a hopeless alcoholic and so is my brother. It has something to do with needing certain chemicals in the brain. I am surprised that science has not found a cure for this problem.

It could be that it is not fully recognized as a biological and inherited problem. When my brother stops drinking, he loads up on chocolate candy because it supplies dopamine to his brain. Also sugar changes to alcohol in the system. That is why so many people are addicted to sugar.

Billy, first you state that you think "we ARE our programing" then you say you feel that you have a great deal of control over you programing.

That indicates that you are not your programing.

The "I" (self) inside of you that has control on your programing is NOT your programing.

So what is it?

Do you have programing that controls your other programing? How does this happen? What gives one program the power to control or reprogram another program?

we are biological thinking machines. but, there is no program.
we adapt, learn, react differently to new stimuli, we are
each of us the same in many ways, but each of us individuals
in many other ways.

that's life

Of course there are programs. What I mean by programs are automatic unconscious operations going on at all levels.

I have seen several articles lately that support the idea that our brains are little more than a support center for our bodies.

While it's true that the brain has to serve in part in that function I don't support that idea wholly.

Why?

Because it makes no accounting for free will.

It seems obvious to me when viewing the complex nature of human emotion and intelligence that one cannot simply discard free will when looking at the human animal.

In the introduction to the novel Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins he talks about water.

“Although the surface of our planet is two thirds water, we call it Earth. We say we are earthlings, not waterlings. Our blood is closer to seawater than our bones to soil, but that’s not matter. The sea is the cradle we all rocked out of, but it’s to dust that we go. From the time that water invented us, we began to seek out dirt. The further we separate ourselves from the dirt, the further we separate ourselves from ourselves. Alienation is a disease of the unsoiled.”

He says, in his novel, to provoke thought I am sure that "Water invented human beings as a device to transport itself from one place to another."

Seems as good an argument about what we are, where we sprang from and what our function and purpose is as many others explanations commonly heard.

An interesting concept to be sure eh?

At any rate I am not sure how one would prove that our brains are merely control centers for our bodies.

As for myself...I do not believe it.

If “you create your own reality” is truly an absolute spiritual law, and not just a hackneyed platitude to which we give lip service but don’t really believe, then the method by which one would accomplish those feats is, in principle, exactly the same as the method used in creating any other aspect of our reality.

You’re sitting on the couch and you get hungry. Some time later you’re eating. What is the mechanism that changed your reality from “hungry” to “eating”?

I call it “decision”.

You considered options and came to a decision to get up and fix a hamburger. In the absence of your decision, the chain of events that lead up to you munching a hamburger could not have happened. So quite simply, your decision is the prime cause in that change of reality.

And that is how “we create our own reality” – by deciding what that reality is. (And that verb is very specifically “is”, not “will be”.

And continuing on with that absolute principle, the logical extrapolation is that the whole of your reality – everything you perceive - is the result of your decision(s). (And it must be noted here that “deciding to agree with someone else’s decision” is still your decision.)

Thus the solution to any unwanted condition is to “undecide”, just as the solution to any wanted condition is to “decide”.

Going back to the hunger/eat analogy, the principle still applies to “why are you hungry?” Because at some point, you decided that you would be hungry. Now that decision may be a part of a bigger decision to “operate a body” (and all the other, complementary and inter-dependent decisions that that implies). It would be like the solution to “running out of gas.” There were a whole slew of decisions that led up to that condition – the main one of which is “drive a car that runs on gas”. So the problem of “running out of gas” has many solutions, all of which are decisions. You could “drive a car that doesn’t run on gas”, or you could “walk”, both of which boil down to “deciding not to drive a car that runs on gas.”

The problem then becomes one of discovering the decisions you made that led to a specific unwanted condition and changing them. And the difficulty there is that there are so many inter-dependent decisions that you already made, it is quite a complicated process to untangle them.

The same thing applies to specific wanted conditions – e.g. shape shifting. If you can discover what decision(s) you made that contribute to that idea being “impossible”, and then change those decisions, viola! You can shape shift.

This principle is just too incredibly simple for people to believe. They say “But what about _____” (insert complex, interdependent decision schema here) without realizing that “_____” is/are their decision/s!”.

Now getting back to your question of “how does one learn that?” it becomes clear that it is more a mater of unlearning (i.e. changing a decision that was already made). And the most practical method I know of is to begin with examining those things that you do “automatically”. In other words, there was some decision that “this always follows that”. An example might be “walking.” Just go out and walk and try to perceive every motion and muscle action that you would normally not even think about or notice. You may find that, for a short time, it actually becomes difficult to walk. If so, just realize that all that has happened is that you have simply changed your decision about walking from it being an “automatic” process to a “consciously determined” process. Effectively learning to walk again. And don’t worry, you’ll still be able to walk. Just flip that “automatic” switch back on and you’ll be back to walking without thinking about it again. (Just a note here. That is probably the most concise statement of the root of man’s problems – “_____ing without thinking about it. We’re doing all these things without thinking about them. And one wonders why things don’t go as one would like. Ever stumble on a small bump in the sidewalk while walking? Try walking on purpose instead of just letting it go off all by itself on automatic. No more stumbles)

As far as shape-shifting goes…well there are an awful lot of decisions that have been made that all add up to “impossible” for that one (e.g all the laws of physics that you decided to agree with). So don’t expect to uncover and change them all in any short amount of time. There are layers and layers of decisions and they have to be peeled like an onion.

But all that is dependent on whether or not “you create your own reality” is an absolute spiritual law. If you don’t agree with that, then none of this is going to be acceptable to you.

It’s your decision.

(Wow, did I go off on a rant of what? )

I agree. The begged question is "what controls the brain?" And the only answer offered for that one seems to be "the deterministic/probablilistic laws of the physical universe" - effectively just an off-hand dismissal of free will.

I too have a hard time swallwoing that.

I am still waiting for Billy to respond to this question.

Do you have programing that controls your programing? How does this happen?What gives one program the power to control or reprogram another program?

I don't think you can both BE THE PROGRAMING and DO THE PROGRAMING.

The analogy which relates the human condition to a computer only goes so far...

It falls apart as a result of the significant differences between the two, namely the fact that in humans the "hardware" and the "software" are interwoven and therefore affect and help determine one another. The concept of perception is also very problematic, as well as the notions of voluntary and involuntary responses.

For your dining and dancing pleasures...

http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/ayer/freedom_and_necessity.html

Thanks creative, nice article.

Programing can be adaptive. I work for a software development company, if you include a developer into the software, then he could add new code all the time, he could make changes on the fly . . . I think our will power is that programmer. Our will and intellect can combine and work to develop new skills and really make best use of the hardware by trimming the fat so to speak.




I think you can JB, its just not what we see in programing for computers now . . . doesn't mean it cant be that way. Just hasn't happened yet.

There are people working on adaptive programing (AI) now, it works, its just that retarded cockroach I spoke of in other posts, it can learn, but its still very dumb compared to anything biological. Think about it, the only way to truly learn is the make changes to the program.


__________________________________________

And like creative said, it is really stretching an analogy a bit, our hardware is our software. The brain is constantly making changes to protein receptors, indole rings, and neuro pathways. This would be hardware in the classical sense, but it is the software for the brain so . . . . the hardware software analogy fails to capture the beauty of the human brain.

In the book "Power of Will" by Frank Channning Haddock M.S. P.H.D. (a free public domain book) the author purposes that the "will" equals "the soul." (Whatever one might thinks the soul is)

(I think 'the will' equals 'the self' or the core of 'I AM.')

Where computer software is concerned, there still has to be a programmer or developer who adds the 'new code.'

So how would you define "The Will?"

That does not compute! The program is infinitely variable!

Make up your mind.

First you said there is no program, then you say that the program in infinitely variable.

if the program is infinitely variable, this is the same thing as "no program". it can be anything. that was the point.

But it is not 'anything.' Humans all have the basic survival instincts, they all have reproduction instincts, they all have basically the same organs, they all look similar, with one head, two arms, two legs, two eyes.

If 'the program' was infinitely variable no creature would resemble another creature. There would be no species, only a bunch of completely different "strange looking" life forms.

it is the how part of how we behave which is indeterminate. as i said in my original post, we have many attributes in common, but there is no program, how we react to stimuli and what we do is infinitely variable. which is not the same thing as saying that we can do anything we want. obviously we can't do that. no matter how hard we try we cannot turn ourselves into rocks or eat 1000 times our own weight in 1 hour.

"We are a virus with shoes." - Bill Hicks