THE BIOCHEMICAL ELECTRICAL IMPULSES CALLED "THOUGHTS"
During the last few years, neuroscientists have learned that much of what we had suspected about the human brain is true: The brain operates very much like a personal computer. It's not that simple, of course. For one thing, the brain is many times more powerful, in most respects, than the most powerful computers we have yet created. Even though the adult human brain weighs only about sixteen hundred grams, about three pounds, and looks more like a lump of grey cauliflower than a desktop computer, the brain functions in some important ways much like the man-made computers which are patterned after it.
In non-technical language, a computer has three basic parts: a "video" screen, a keyboard, and a program disk. The screen is what we use to visually display what we are programming into the computer. The screen also displays the results-the words, numbers, or pictures that we want the computer to store or compute for us.
The keyboard, much like a typewriter keyboard, is what we use to type in the directions and information we give to the computer. And the disk (in a personal computer it's generally called a "floppy disk") is a small sheet of magnetic recording tape onto which we record the information. Whatever we record or program onto that disk will stay there forever unless someone changes it by erasing the old information and leaving it blank, or by typing in new information.
Each of us, along with our brain, has similar parts. In us, the computer's video screen is comparable to our appearance and our actions-what we "display" to the world around us.
In a human being, the computer keyboard is the same as our five senses. Anything we hear, see, taste, touch, smell-or anything we say to ourselves--is "programmed" into our brain through our keyboard: our five senses.
A personal computer uses a "floppy disk" to record the program and the information which the keyboard feeds to it. In the human-computer, the floppy disk is our subconscious mind. Everything we experience is recorded-programmed-into our subconscious minds.
If you understand computers, my simplified explanation will be obvious and easy to understand. If computers are alien to you, it is important only to understand that whatever is programmed into your own personal "mental" computer is permanently programmed. That is, whatever programming you have received up to now is just as important and just as permanent as any "program" which has been key-punched into the most powerful man-made computers.
To help simplify the complex process of how and why the programming of the human brain affects us as much as it does, let's take a quick, imaginary look into the brain's central control room. That is the part of the brain where commands are received and where all the orders are handed out-the part of the brain that makes us feel good, work hard, and get things done. Or when not so well directed, it makes us slow down, fear the outcome, and stop dead-still in our tracks.
Imagine standing in the control centre of the brain, in front of a wall which is completely covered with literally tens of thousands of light switches, much like the light switches in our homes.
One section of switches controls our moods. Another section governs our health. Another group of switches controls our emotions, another our planning functions, another our hopes and dreams. Another section is responsible for how we act, how we move, sit, stand, walk, look, speak, react and respond. Everything about us - our memory, our judgment, our attitude, our fears, our creativity, logic, and spirit--is controlled by the switches in our mental control room.
When any command is transmitted to the controlling mom, the proper directions are sent to the appropriate panels of switches. Within a fraction of a second, some of those switches are turned off or turned on.
Within the brain itself, a network of tens of billions of neurons, and electrochemical switches called neurotransmitters, telegraph messages to every part of the brain, selecting just the right section of switches, which in turn switches parts of us "on" and parts of us "off ."
The brain's infinitesimally small chemical receiving centres respond to almost imperceptible electrochemical signals which deliver nearly unmeasurable but highly potent chemical substances to our brain, our central nervous system, and to our bodies-which in turn control or affect everything we do.
It is the brain's responsibility to take care of us. It does so by constantly monitoring our needs and directing the various parts of our systems to take the necessary action. The brain automatically responds to every one of our unconscious electricaVchemical mental and physical commands-those that are principally concerned with keeping us alive.
But the brain responds, also automatically, to another kind of command--another exceptionally compelling electrical impulse which also turns the switches in the brain on or off. Those electrical impulses, those special mental commands which direct and control us, are called thoughts.
Every thought we think, every conscious or unconscious thought we say to ourselves, is translated into electrical impulses which, in turn, direct the control centres in our brains to electrically and chemically affect and control every motion, every feeling, every action we take, every moment of every day.
Whatever "thoughts" you have programmed into yourself, or have allowed others to program into you, are affecting, directing, or controlling everything about you. From the day we were born, we have received a staggering amount of programming. It would require an immense computer just to compute the number of individual pieces of information we receive from the world around us in just one year. Some of the programmings are obvious, but much of it we are never even aware of receiving.
The obvious programs are those comments, questions, and statements which are made to us directly. We are told by our parents, and other adults, what we can and cannot do. We are told what we are good at and what we are not. We are told how we look. We are told what to expect, what to believe in, how to act, and what to do or not to do. Because, starting out as children, completely dependent on others, it is important to our survival to listen and to believe what others say, we learn to accept what others tell us and we learn to believe it.
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