In this episode - Your Mind . . .
For a moment, picture your mind as a blank slate waiting to be coded. Much like a computer, your mind accepts programming at birth without any instructions from you. In computer language, this initial programming is defined as firmware, “Permanent software programmed into a read-only memory.”
That brings up two questions;
- Is it possible to re-write the firmware that is your operating system?
- Is your firmware open source code or a closed system?
What a captivating concept!
Today the social and psychological sciences tend to take the view that human beings are 'formed' socially and psychologically by nature as well as by nurture. And there are inherited traits that society can build on and modify.
John Locke in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding restated the importance of the experience of the senses over speculation and establishes the case that the human mind at birth is a complete, receptive, blank slate (a tabula rasa) upon which experience imprints knowledge.
Locke argued that people acquire knowledge from the information about the objects in the world that our six senses bring. (vision, sound, touch, taste, smell, and proprioception). People begin with simple ideas and then build them into more complex ones.
Is this what determines the built-in software that is our firmware? Or as individuals do we have the free will to program our mental software from the synthetic experience?
Let’s imagine the mind as a white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. Locke did not believe in the powers of intuition or that the human mind is blessed with innate knowledge. In his Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1697), Locke advocated practical learning to prepare people to manage their social, economic, and political affairs efficiently. He believed that a sound education began in early childhood and insisted that the activity of teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic be gradual and cumulative.
But what about today? Is the education we receive active or passive?
We live in a society exposed to more information in a single day than our forefathers were exposed to their entire lives. Consider the influence of Television, the Internet, radio, blogs, social media, and the deluge of information we allow to fill that Tabula rasa?
Through our free will are we allowing our blank slate to be filled with ideas that build the strength of character, values, information that teach us to grow and develop as an individual?
Or do we passively allow junk to filter into our minds and fill the slate with garbage? It’s been said that we cannot erase the garbage from our mind but we can overwrite it by each day focusing on what we want to become. Not what our environment has programmed us to become.
So, how do we put this learning into action?
Engage the power of habit and discover what moves you emotionally. Overwrite your programming with good, clean, positive, powerful ideas to rewrite your firmware.
Reflect on your experiences, write them down, then share them with others.
"All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions." ~ Leonardo da Vinci
This is Patrick Ball, thanks for listening, see you in the next episode.
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