BASIC FUNCTIONING OF HUMAN BRAIN & MIND
THIS CODEX RIGHT HERE IS BASICALLY AN INTELLIGENCE
Let me first tell you what exactly intelligence mean
It is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
Before I begin, I have a simple question for all my readers,
“What is the difference between Mind & Brain?”
Sounds complicated right ?
Well,
The mind is the set of faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgement, language and memory, as well as non-cognitive aspects such as emotion and instinct.
The brain is one of the largest and most complex organs in the human body. It is made up of more than 100 billion nerves that communicate in trillions of connections called synapses. The brain is made up of many specialized areas that work together.
Now for example, suppose we compare the human body with a computer, we can observe the human brain is a type of hardware and the human mind is the software/Operating System used in giving instruction to the hardware on how it must function.
Humans and chimpanzees reportedly share 98.7 percent of the same DNA, but differ greatly in appearance, behavior, and ability.
Imagine, the rest 1.3% of our brain helped us built this massive civilization, miscellaneous technologies & inventions.
The human brain is within the human body but our mind is not, to be more clear our mind is our reality, The people we meet, the things we see & experience is just a projection of our mind, we see the world the way we are, not the way it is.
We don’t attract the things that we want in our life, we attract the things that we deserve.
The way we feel about ourselves is how we feel about the reality we see, usually we response to every situation based on our emotions not based on what actually the situation is, so basically we are just manifesting our emotions into reality, now if we have negative emotions for a certain situation, eventually we will create negative reality for us, because happiness is something we create on our own, but instead if we attach our emotions to situations and outcomes we can never be happy.
“The mind has a powerful way of attracting things that are in harmony with it, good and bad.”
― Idowu Koyenikan
Ask yourself? Have you been going through a difficult situation lately?
It could be your choice, you are holding onto something, because you have attached your emotions and state of being to a certain outcome, do you have a choice of letting go?
Well, our reality shifts the moment we decide to change the way we feel about a certain thing.
“The discontent and frustration that you feel is entirely your own creation.”
Before I go forward, I would like to talk about inventions first.
So, What do we mean by invention?
The action or creative ability to invent something typically a process or device.
We must first understand that during all this time of human evolution, there was a time when currency & technologies were not invented, still humans use to survive, they had a totally normal life from their point of view, they use to spend times with their families, grow their own food, have fun and all that. But slowly as humans evolved we started putting values to currency, careers, technologies, etc. The real valuable asset a human has is their mental peace, their ability of creating happiness on their own & the real & most valuable art/career is farming, the ability to grow our own food.
But yes human lives has been made way more easier with everyday inventions, so what it takes to create something new?
Knowledge & skill is secondary factor, primary factor is Imagination.
Imagination is the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses, the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
-Albert Einstein
Talking about inventions, one of the most prominent invention in history of humanity is Computers.
First computer resembling today's modern machines was the Analytical Engine, a device conceived and designed by British mathematician Charles Babbage between 1833 and 1871.
Let us understand some basic aspects of Computers
To better imagine how a computer works, knowing what’s inside will make it easier. Here are the main components of a computer:
· CPU – or Central Processing Unit is considered the most important component in a computer and for good reason. It handles most operations that make it function, by processing instructions and giving signals out to other components. The CPU is the main bridge between all the computer’s major parts.
· RAM – Random Access Memory, or RAM for short, is a computer component where data used by the operating system and software applications store data so that the CPU can process them quickly. Everything stored on RAM is lost if the computer is shut off. Depending on the applications you use, there is typically a maximum limit of RAM you will need for the computer to function properly.
· HDD – Also known as Hard Disk Drive, it is the component where photos, apps, documents and such are kept. Although they are still being used, we have much faster types of storage devices such as solid state drives (SSD) that are also more reliable.
· Motherboard – There is no acronym for this component but without it, there can’t be a computer. The Motherboard acts as the home for all other components, allows them to communicate with each other and gives them power in order to function. There are components that don’t require a physical connection to the Motherboard in order to work, such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi but, if there is no connection or signal what so ever, the computer won’t know it’s there.
Imagine, the basic approach to invention of computers was to achieve faster outcomes for certain things that human brain takes a lot of time to process. For example calculation of numbers.
Communication is the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium. It’s a basic process of converting thoughts into certain set of understandable words. Like when two people conversate, they get to choose the language they are most comfortable with. Similarly a human may communicate with the computer in machine language. It is a computer programming language consisting of binary or hexadecimal instructions which a computer can respond to directly.
The data we store in our hard disk is also just a certain combination of 0s and 1s. The pictures, videos, documents, music all these data is just a set of 0s and 1s, arranged in a certain manner.
The humans are also no less than computers, in-fact better, a human cell generates . 07 volts of electricity. At 37.5 trillion cells, that's 2.625 trillion volts in a human body. Our cells are specialized to conduct electrical currents. Electricity is required for the nervous system to send signals throughout the body and to the brain, making it possible for us to move, think and feel. The elements in our bodies, like sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium, have a specific electrical charge. Almost all of our cells can use these charged elements, called ions, to generate electricity.
Now, as we have learnt the 98.7% of our brain is just that of chimpanzees, consider the rest 1.3% of our brain is capable of Imagination or we can say is capable of prediction of future.
Humans are the only species on this planet who are capable of predicting the future, rest all other organisms just survive their present, they search for food, re-product and sleep.
Just because of our capability of imagination we brought so much revolutions during all these years of human evolution.
If we compare humans with computers, we can observe the human body requires healthy food to function properly just like a computer needs proper voltage of electricity and our brain is basically a CPU, where this 98.7% of our brain resembles the Motherboard and Hard Disk and this rest 1.3% of our brain as the RAM of a computer. Our mind is the Operating System which operates on the RAM and gives instructions to rest of the CPU on how it must function. But the operating system is also basically an program installed in our hard disks, the type of OS we have, based on which we are taking our everyday decisions, and are able to access other programs installed in our hard disk, now what are these programs
These programs are basically the society conditioning we receive while growing up, from all around us, in our families, schools, television, books, the people around us, etc.
Before talking about these programs in our brain, we must first understand how are they crucial in our every day decision making process and ultimately impacts our realities.
Well, as we have observed the brain can be divided into two parts basically RAM and HDD or to be more precise conscious and sub-conscious.
Yes, The 1.3% of our brain is conscious which helps us shape our reality, by allowing us to make choices on different events and occurrence in our everyday life.
But the decisions we make are totally based on the programming we have received while growing up, the beliefs we hold in our hard disks in forms of different programs.
Our brain is formed of many neuron cells capable of transmitting data through electromagnetic waves. Radio waves and brain waves are both forms of electromagnetic radiation — waves of energy that travel at the speed of light. The difference between brain waves, radio waves, and other electromagnetic waves (such as visible light, X-rays, and Gamma rays) lies in their frequency — that is, how often the waves peak and trough in a second.
Radio waves, which include radio and other wireless transmission signals, as well as other natural signals in the same frequency, peak and trough at between 50 and 1000 megahertz — that’s between 50 million and one billion oscillations per second.
The human brain also emits waves, like when a person focuses her attention or remembers something. This activity fires thousands of neurons simultaneously at the same frequency generating a wave — but at a rate closer to 10 to 100 cycles per second.
Interference happens when two waves of the same or very similar frequencies bump into each other. This might happen when the signals from two radio stations, both broadcasting at 89.7 megahertz from different cities, bump into one another. “The shape of the waves changes linearly, they add to and subtract from one another,” says Dimitrios Pantazis, director of the Magnetoencephalography (MEG) Laboratory at MIT’s McGovern Institute. As a result, songs become static.
But, says Pantazis, since their frequencies are so wildly different, brain waves don’t interfere with radio waves. Even if that was the case, brain waves are so weak, they are hardly measurable at all. For comparison, says Pantazis, “the magnetic field of the earth is just strong enough to move the needle of a compass. Signals from the brain are a billionth of that strength.”
Hard to measure, but not impossible. MIT recently installed a new MEG scanner to study the function of the human brain. To capture brain signals, the MEG scanner is in a room shielded with mu metal, a special alloy that blocks external magnetic fields. “Like a rock in the middle of a river, this metal forces all electromagnetic signals to flow around the room and doesn’t let any inside,” says Pantazis.
The MEG scanner consists of a helmet that contains 306 sensors spaced uniformly across its surface. These “superconducting quantum interference detectors” (SQUID) are cooled to near absolute zero, which makes them superconductive and, according to Pantazis, “able to measure even the slightest magnetic signals from the brain.”
The MEG lab, open since March 2011, is used by researchers across MIT. Projects are as diverse as studying visual attention, language processing, or even olfactory responses to pleasant and unpleasant smells. “It is a very exciting field of research, you never know how the brain will respond to different stimuli,” says Pantazis. Meanwhile, the song on the radio remains the same.
Similarly like any other radio system, our brain is capable of vibrating at different level of frequencies, these are basically known as different type of brain waves.
Ned Herrmann is an educator who has developed models of brain activity and integrated them into teaching and management training. Before founding the Ned Herrmann Group in 1980, he headed management education at General Electric, where he developed many of his ideas. Here is his explanation.
It is well known that the brain is an electrochemical organ; researchers have speculated that a fully functioning brain can generate as much as 10 watts of electrical power. Other more conservative investigators calculate that if all 10 billion interconnected nerve cells discharged at one time that a single electrode placed on the human scalp would record something like five millionths to 50 millionths of a volt. If you had enough scalps hooked up you might be able to light a flashlight bulb.
Even though this electrical power is very limited, it does occur in very specific ways that are characteristic of the human brain. Electrical activity emanating from the brain is displayed in the form of brainwaves. There are four categories of these brainwaves, ranging from the most activity to the least activity. When the brain is aroused and actively engaged in mental activities, it generates beta waves. These beta waves are of relatively low amplitude, and are the fastest of the four different brainwaves. The frequency of beta waves ranges from 15 to 40 cycles a second. Beta waves are characteristics of a strongly engaged mind. A person in active conversation would be in beta. A debater would be in high beta. A person making a speech, or a teacher, or a talk show host would all be in beta when they are engaged in their work.
The next brainwave category in order of frequency is alpha. Where beta represented arousal, alpha represents non-arousal. Alpha brainwaves are slower, and higher in amplitude. Their frequency ranges from 9 to 14 cycles per second. A person who has completed a task and sits down to rest is often in an alpha state. A person who takes time out to reflect or meditate is usually in an alpha state. A person who takes a break from a conference and walks in the garden is often in an alpha state.
The next state, theta brainwaves, are typically of even greater amplitude and slower frequency. This frequency range is normally between 5 and 8 cycles a second. A person who has taken time off from a task and begins to daydream is often in a theta brainwave state. A person who is driving on a freeway, and discovers that they can't recall the last five miles, is often in a theta state--induced by the process of freeway driving. The repetitious nature of that form of driving compared to a country road would differentiate a theta state and a beta state in order to perform the driving task safely.
Individuals who do a lot of freeway driving often get good ideas during those periods when they are in theta. Individuals who run outdoors often are in the state of mental relaxation that is slower than alpha and when in theta, they are prone to a flow of ideas. This can also occur in the shower or tub or even while shaving or brushing your hair. It is a state where tasks become so automatic that you can mentally disengage from them. The ideation that can take place during the theta state is often free flow and occurs without censorship or guilt. It is typically a very positive mental state.
The final brainwave state is delta. Here the brainwaves are of the greatest amplitude and slowest frequency. They typically center around a range of 1.5 to 4 cycles per second. They never go down to zero because that would mean that you were brain dead. But, deep dreamless sleep would take you down to the lowest frequency. Typically, 2 to 3 cycles a second.
When we go to bed and read for a few minutes before attempting sleep, we are likely to be in low beta. When we put the book down, turn off the lights and close our eyes, our brainwaves will descend from beta, to alpha, to theta and finally, when we fall asleep, to delta.
It is a well known fact that humans dream in 90 minute cycles. When the delta brainwave frequencies increase into the frequency of theta brainwaves, active dreaming takes place and often becomes more experiential to the person. Typically, when this occurs there is rapid eye movement, which is characteristic of active dreaming. This is called REM, and is a well known phenomenon.
When an individual awakes from a deep sleep in preparation for getting up, their brainwave frequencies will increase through the different specific stages of brainwave activity. That is, they will increase from delta to theta and then to alpha and finally, when the alarm goes off, into beta. If that individual hits the snooze alarm button they will drop in frequency to a non-aroused state, or even into theta, or sometimes fall back to sleep in delta. During this awakening cycle it is possible for individuals to stay in the theta state for an extended period of say, five to 15 minutes--which would allow them to have a free flow of ideas about yesterday's events or to contemplate the activities of the forthcoming day. This time can be an extremely productive and can be a period of very meaningful and creative mental activity.
In summary, there are four brainwave states that range from the high amplitude, low frequency delta to the low amplitude, high frequency beta. These brainwave states range from deep dreamless sleep to high arousal. The same four brainwave states are common to the human species. Men, women and children of all ages experience the same characteristic brainwaves. They are consistent across cultures and country boundaries.
Research has shown that although one brainwave state may predominate at any given time, depending on the activity level of the individual, the remaining three brain states are present in the mix of brainwaves at all times. In other words, while somebody is an aroused state and exhibiting a beta brainwave pattern, there also exists in that person's brain a component of alpha, theta and delta, even though these may be present only at the trace level.
It has been my personal experience that knowledge of brainwave states enhances a person's ability to make use of the specialized characteristics of those states: these include being mentally productive across a wide range of activities, such as being intensely focused, relaxed, creative and in restful sleep.
When it comes to child development, it’s been said that the most crucial milestones in a kid’s life occur by the age of 7. In fact, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”
Data from Harvard University shows the brain develops rapidly during the first years of life. Before children turn 3 years old, they’re already forming 1 million neural connections every minute. These links become the brain’s mapping system, formed by a combination of nature and nurture, especially “serve and return” interactions.
In a baby’s first year of life, cries are common signals for a caregiver’s nurturing. The serve and return interaction here is when the caregiver responds to the baby’s crying by feeding them, changing their diaper, or rocking them to sleep.
However, as infants become toddlers, serve and return interactions can be expressed by playing make-believe games, too. These interactions tell children that you’re paying attention and engaged with what they’re trying to say. It can from the foundation for how a child learns social norms, communication skills, and relationship ins and outs.
A child’s beliefs about herself, her sense of the world, and her ways of being in the world are largely set by age seven. From before birth, a baby learns about his environment, the people in it, and how he relates to both. By the age of seven, these deep beliefs are very hard to change.
Cutting-edge cell science leads us to believe that our environment—or rather our perception of our environment—controls the activity of genes. This is known as epigenetics.
In Mind Over Genes (Pathways, winter 2016), Bruce Lipton explains how programming early in life sets us up for gene-expression throughout life. Scientists used to think that genes could turn themselves on and off, but only recently have they learned that, in fact, it’s our perceptions of the environment that tell the genes what to do.
Here we have the body-mind connection at its deepest.
A baby’s brain, in utero and after birth, operates primarily in theta and delta waves. These are the low, slow waves. Reduced consciousness, day-dreaming, relaxation, and feeling, rather than thinking, predominate in these states.
Children remain heavily in theta and delta until they are seven years old. Only then do children begin to think remotely ‘like an adult,’ with more alpha and beta processing brain waves.
Little kids obtain behavioral patterns by observation, not coaching. They mimic. This explains why they can’t get in the car fast enough for us, why they can’t explain how they feel but seem to feel so deeply. It’s why they forgive and love so easily.
Young children don’t make sense. And that is completely natural and healthy. They feel their way through the world.
So, we can conclude the consciousness of our mind is not completely developed until the age of first 7 years of our life, the brain of a child under 7 years is in its theta state, where the everyday life events are directly being stored in their subconscious part of the brain, the life events we went through, the society conditioning we received, eventually are stored as programs in our subconscious brain based on which are functioning our conscious brain and taking our life decisions everyday.
According to a research, The conscious part of our brain is capable of processing only 40 Bits of data per second where as the subconscious part of our brain is processing almost about 40 million Bits of data per second.
The Conscious part of our brain is creative and capable of imagination as discussed but the imaginations are being limited by the programs we have installed in our hard disks.
The simple fact is that whatever you can imagine you can bring it into your reality, but you are being limited from using your own extraordinary power of imagination because of the beliefs you hold, because of the things you learnt while growing up and you never took at-least a little time to evaluate if your programs are actually constructive or destructive for your life style.
Coming back to the first line of this article, Intelligence, the programs we hold in our brain are basically a form of intelligence. We as humans must understand this, that our intelligence should work for us instead of working against us.
“A man is but the product of his thoughts, what he thinks he becomes”
- Mahatma Gandhi
As a child our parents must be responsible for the programs we have received, but as an adult it’s our responsibility to unlearn certain things and re-create ourselves, re-program ourselves to attract a better reality for us, If we just stop blaming others for the reality we are currently experiencing Instead we choose to accept that wherever we are , whatever we’ve been through is just a set of choices we’ve made to get here. Until and unless we step out of the blame game and accept ourselves completely accept our mistakes and forgive ourselves and others completely we cannot move forward to growth.
“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them”
-Albert Einstein
The Subconscious part of our brain is a behavioral type of brain, the programs in our Brain can only be updated when we set our intentions for it in our conscious brain, when we practice gratitude and practice to choose our well being in every situation we slowly start to rewire our brain’s neural patterns and change our beliefs which ultimately allow us to grow, it doesn’t happen over night, it takes practice and strong intentions, once the subconscious brain is rewired after repeatedly, forcefully choosing certain behavior it becomes a program, like any other program in your brain, then it becomes effortless to choose growth, it becomes like any other activities you’ve been doing effortlessly all your life. We got to learn to operate different brain waves effectively and reasonably in order to completely explore all the deeper dimensions of our minds.
“I am the master of my own destiny, so I choose greatness and nothing less”
-Chiara Gizzi
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