Has anyone ever programmed their own brain?

I suspect almost everyone posting to this forum programs their brain constantly; it's called brain plasticity.

Tom

Thanks for using the philosopher Whitehead. It is good to see someone who studies philosophy. Programming one's personal brain software is of course an ongoing process. My research in my original book on digitalizing one's thinking particularly as studied by a number of scholars tells me that the initial code established even on one's own is important in how one reasons the rest of one's life. As I had a Mental Measurements Class in graduate school, I was required to test myself and obtain my tests and transcripts from my schools. The scores are in the current book, which are extremely interesting as to the high level scores.

I was lucky to have an atmosphere that encouraged learning. My mother was a teacher and my father, who didn't have the money to go to college in the Great Depression, always gave us the time to study. Trips to the area library to go through the stacks and pick out not the usual children's books, but philosophy and psychology as well as the Britannica Great Books. I still remember reading Mortimer Alder's How to Read a Book.

A problem I had was that I studied Socrates at an early age and became a gadfly. This did little for my marks except in the 2 year Senior Army ROTC camps where if you asked critical questions the training officers rewarded you. I took my training 1967-69

at Ft Benning and Ft Riley while pursuing a Masters in Counseling. Of course the open minded professors encouraged me in college.

Note that my initial code was on index cards where I did analyze of cartoons as to what theses were being presented. It was a yes or no decision in a style of simple computer code that I used in hundreds of cards until my third year in college.

A program is a sequential set of instructions to annalise / solve / complete an action or a task or in other words logic.

I think all people are born with logical thinking although I really cant see the logic behind the thinking of Venus persons (my wife for instance) or for that matter the Mars people (politicians).

Training or improving logical thinking is possible but correcting incorrect logic is impossible.

My logic is not so good at the moment because it is time for my beauty sleep.

Thanks for the comment as to logic, which when I took philosophy courses, seemed to be of infinite use.

Yes, I have programmed my own brain!! I was on the national wrestling team and we had a psychologist who came in once a week. This psychologist taught us to control our brains emotions. It is through practice, ( and lots of it as it is very boring) to try to control your brain. We did meditaition, a form of brain control, which allowed us to think of one thing only. As the years past, I got very good at controlling my brain as this controls emotions, and bodily functions. Once you have mastered it you can do almost anything you are trained to do. I beat world and Olympic Champions as I prepared for these battles. However, when I had a guy that was not listed on the rankings, and I did not prepare correctly, I usually had difficulty. This is usually called a "brain fart !" Your brain is very powerful and you can almost accomplish anything you want, you just have to figure out how to work your own brain. Most people just are satisfied with mediocrity. If you want to climb to the top of the mountain and you tell your self it is too high, too cold, too far, the pack is too heavy, etc, etc, etc, you will NEVER get to the top of the mountain.

In business, if you listen to the people in your own office for 1 week, take notes, you will see the ones that leave exactly at 4:30 pm quiting time, don't show up on day after pay day, tell each other in sales meeting that we can't achieve our goals because of this?? or that???

It is these people who are unsucessfull. The successfull ones are the ones who say " we did not achieve our goals this month BUT we have to change this or that to try for next month!"

Train your brain to be sucessful and you will be sucessful. Train your brain to fail and you will always fail !!! Positive thinkers will always be sucessful!! Negative thinkers are not!!

Just my .02 on the mind training idea as I truly believe in this.

I will go read your books.

good luck.

Programing in the sense of computers does not include the control of emotions.

A computer must be programmed to respond to sensors, by not programming in specific responses the computer will ignore them.

I however agree with you that the brain could be conditioned or trained to ignore pain signals, fear, emotions etc but I would not call it programming.

I was a cross country and track runner and had to do similar mental training. My graduate training is in counseling and I have worked as a therapist ever since on and off.

I went through a good deal of zen and yoga training as well. Plus as Freud and many other therapists believe is necessary, I have gone into analysis under some of the best analysts I could find.

Brain Washing, HypnoTheripy, School, Eduication, and ... These are all form of brain reprogramming. A problem child is one that has been programmed in an antisocial way and continues to reprogram them-selves in this manner to resist being reprogrammed.

As my training and research has been in therapy, I have also found brain washing by many therapists and schools kills the desire to learn. Many schools are constructed like factory production lines I am afraid to say. Of course we need to have certain words and thoughts in common such as in language, or we can not interact. But I like Socrates and had an English High School supervising teacher for my student teaching who as he was taught at the University of Chicago how to question students to make them reason. He did not tell what he wanted them to think, he asked them to ask critical questions on some extremely controversial areas. I owe much to our lunch critical questioning sessions of my mind and ability to reason.

Where is your pursuit of knowledge taken you? Are you a lake without wind?

I have tried to re-order my higher brain functions over the years in a similar digital (computerised) way with mixed results. Some results good, some not so good. The main problems seem to be that sometimes I cannot keep up with my own brain and it can result in me momentary physically freezing in place as I try and catch up. Also I sometimes utter the word "error" out loud (although most of the problems commonly occur when I am under intense stress).

There are advantages of course (like being able to take a slightly different look at problems, oh and the multitasking).

Strange but true.

Have some tea.

Thanks, that's the only beverage I will drink at work.

yes through meditation and auto suggestion you can program your brain.

crm

What do you do when you meet the Buddha (sp) on the road?

Yes, I do my own programming every day - sometimes only in seconds, but debugging cost me years. can anyone help ?
Regards Uwe

As a counselor for since 1969 I feel programming your brain is a lifetime search?

What and where have you looked? Have you tried some green tea today?

As a Canadian engineering student 20 years ago, we found various ways of reprogramming our brains to deal with the rigours of exam week. Most ways included copious amounts of liquid intelligence accelerators (beer, hard liquor) coinciding with an extended amount of sleep depravation.

It is amazing how much the mind absorbs when stressed to this limit.

Personally, I found the osmosis method of absorbing information to be more efficient.

What is the sound of the one hand clapping?

I own a substance abuse counseling program and think this is still common. In the 1960's in college we did the same. However, in finding drinking and substances to be too disasterous to holding a job or doing creative work, I stopped over 20 years ago.

Today, I drink water with green tea or lemon flavoring. An interesting book we use for our clients is written by Phyllis Balch and Dr Balch MD Prescription for Nutritional Healing A to Z. has many diets for different problems and prevention of many common diseases. It is in its 4th edition. As a holistic health practioner since 1992 and also I have applied my research to my health. One book I wrote about my health is called Cholesterol (sp) from 450 up to 100 by becoming Vegetarian. My heart had a bad valve, irregular heartbeat, and did not produce enough blood pressure a year ago. WIth combining different knowledge I heart did not have these problems by 1/07and I had heathly loss 25 lbs too.Before that I was developing cataracts and with a diet from this book Prescription by Nutritional Healing most of my cataracts were gone in 6 months. I have a small one left and I believe will shortly be gone. Now the title of their book may be alittle different as I am at the University Library and don't have it with me.You can find it at General Nutrition Center and many health food stores. I must caution you that in actuality diets when combined with traditional prescriptions can if not designed by a N.D. or at least a CNC can kill you or make you ill. For example dementia runs in the family and I decided at age 62 that I better find a diet that would delay or eliminate senility in myself, however I take a baby aspirin to thin my blood as I had TIA's about 6 years ago and this is to prevent a stroke. But if I increase circulation to my brain with one of those popular herbs often suggested, I could likely have internal bleeding. This was a surprice to me. SO when your knowledge is not enough, you need to get the best advise you can get.

A newly-born child has a huge C: drive, virtually empty apart from a Bios and 'Instincts 1.0' software installed. Life is about uploading everything else.

What do you think of children designing their brain software on their own through their early age reasoning? Would they know enough in dealing with cartoons, comic books, children's books, and other material to develop a basic computer software type language for their own thinking...particularly analysis of truths? If they can do it in their own software unique to their thinking, would teachers, family, and friends decide they were autistic, mentally ill, or strange?

It seems the media (cartoons, movies, video game, text books, ect) are programming the minds to have short attention spans and mold incorrect reasoning.

Movies and video games not as much, but the cartoons are a disaster! I sometimes watch them down here on satellite TV (sometimes you just need a laugh after a hard day). The record so far is 5 add breaks for a 30 minute cartoon shown on prime time! It's no wonder kids are suffering from attention deficit disorder, and medicating them with drugs is not the answer.

Say no to drugs kids!

As a therapist since 1969, I have seen what might be done with a good diet with possibly some herbs and some prescriptions for attention deficit disorder. I taught some students with ADD and I think they should avoid simple sugar, nutrasweet, and go to a good nutrition expert and N.D. or MD with training in holistic medicine for a proper diet.

I have counseled drug and alcohol users since 1970 in a variety of settings. Plus I tried some of it myself and needed treatment years ago. I don't believe is in a good thing to use prescription drugs when there is a good diet with perhaps amino acids, vitamins and of course good holistic doctors who can be ND,MD,DO. I really believe they need the medical training and internships to know this field. I don't know it all after 15 years studing holistic means to correct my health problems. But I still go to expert MD's or DO's who understand holistic medicine.

I meant newspaper cartoons as that is what I studied when I was preschool as to what the message was in the digital code of my personal thought software.

Thanks for the point.

No. But I have programmed someone elses brain.

cr3

Humor aside. Just how did you go about it? Did you use images as you did in this message? Did you tell them, or show them? I am curious how you went about it. My background has usually been as a therapist. Did you use free association? Or perhaps you were directive. There is an excellent book called Games People Play. I believe this example is called Uproar. Transactional Analysis is old, but still a good therapy.

When my brain becomes tired, I simply take a time-out to relax. That makes my brain works more effectively and accomplish more.