Skip to main content

Your Mind

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;
  1.  Is it possible to re-write the firmware that is your operating system?
  2.  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.

Early in the seventeenth century, it was statesman-philosopher Francis Bacon who, first established the claims of Empiricism - the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience.

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.
Labels:

Comments

Don Hanley said…
Patrick - This is a wonderful and thoughtful essay -- everyone should read - AND PRACTICE what it teaches. Now please let me know how I can save it on my computer. Don Hanley
October 16, 2021 at 11:37 AM
Patrick B. Ball said…
Thank you so much Don, I've emailed you instructions on how to share a post from the blog site. All the best, Patrick
October 17, 2021 at 6:29 AM
Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

Truth for Sale

This episode is inspired  by Elton John & Bernie Taupin On Memorial Day, I took my first bike ride  since the accident , seeking proof that my legs, lungs, and nerves still remembered the road. The morning air carried that familiar Southern California mix of ocean haze, exhaust, eucalyptus, and sun-baked asphalt. My tires hummed across pavement I’ve ridden for years. Somewhere between the steady click of the chain and the rhythm of my breathing, Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s The Captain and the Kid found its way into my ears. There’s a strange kind of magic when the cadence of a ride syncs perfectly with a song you know by heart. Suddenly, the music and lyrics stop being background noise and become a lens. And through that lens, the road started talking. I've been cycling on this road some, Can't help feeling I've been showing my friends around. I've seen it grow from next to nothing, To a giant eatin’ up our town. Called up the tealeaves and the tarots, Asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Epictetus, Ego, and Acronyms

In this episode, Destroy Communication, One Three-Letter Acronym at a Time This week, I want to explore a deeply relatable, universally feared workplace character: the "know-it-all." Now, I’m not pointing fingers here. If we are being completely honest, we have all played this role. We've all uttered some version of, "Yes, absolutely, that aligns with our strategic objectives," while our internal monologue is screaming, "I don't even know what the objective is, let alone the strategy." What got me thinking about this was a chapter in Ryan Holiday's book, Wisdom Takes Work . Holiday leans on a powerful piece of Stoic truth from the ancient philosopher Epictetus: "It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows." It's a brilliant quote that strikes right at the heart of the human ego. You can't learn what you already know, and you certainly can't learn what you pretend to know to save face. Though to be ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Breaking the Script

In this episode, The Art of the Short-Circuit. We spend a surprising amount of our lives on conversational autopilot. You see it everywhere. At the hardware store. At the post office. In office hallways, where two people can exchange greetings, discuss the weather, and continue on their way without either one actually hearing what the other said. "How are you?” "Good. You?” “Busy." “Yep." It's less of a conversation and more of a system check. Most of us aren't being rude. We're just moving fast. We have emails to answer, meetings to attend, errands to run, and a hundred other things competing for our attention. Before long, our interactions become little more than verbal lane markers helping us navigate the day. I like to break the script. When I run into someone, instead of the usual greetings, I'll ask: "What's the good word?” The reaction is almost always worth it. You can practically see the gears stop turning. People pause. They blink....
Post a Comment
Read more

The Yellow Legal Pad

In this episode, the Art of Refiring July 1st is staring me in the face, less than two weeks away. For years, retirement seemed like something that happened to other people. Suddenly, it's on my calendar. I've been thinking a lot about the dreaded "R-word" lately. Not because I'm worried about having enough to do. Quite the opposite. What fascinates me is this strange paradox: Why does retirement make so many of us nervous, while having a job—even one that regularly drives us crazy—somehow feels comforting? Let's be honest. Most of us spend years complaining about meetings that should have been emails, reply-all disasters, impossible deadlines, and that one coworker who insists on microwaving leftover fish in the breakroom. Yet when the idea of walking away finally arrives, we hesitate. I think I've figured out why. A career isn't just a job. It's a highly structured coping mechanism. For forty-plus years, somebody else has basically decided what I...
Post a Comment
Read more