Ecology of Consciousness: Life. Beliefs make you who you are. That is, most of what you perceive about your conscious personality will be in jeopardy if at some point it is questioned.
Neuroscientist and professor at the University of London, Bo Lotto, has been researching human behavior and perception of reality for over 25 years. In his book "Refraction" Lotto talks about why we do not perceive reality as it is, and how this can lead to the development of creativity and helps to take a fresh look at work, love, play, relationships with relatives and other important events of our life.
Beliefs make you who you are
Life is a fairly common thing, although, as we all know, not easy. At any moment, the brain (as well as the brain of any other creature) makes only one decision: to go in the direction of something or from something.
The reaction we (or they) choose is based on beliefs rooted in our history, just like that frog in the video (This is a popular YouTube video in which a hungry frog jumps on a smartphone screen and tries to lick "digital" ants, based on their past experience).
Thus, all sensations and actions are only a direct expression of what was useful to us in the past. However, how does our brain differ from the brain of a frog, surely it must be different in some way? What makes it great?
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The structure of delusion
As you know, for the brain "reality" is a much broader concept than our narrow ideas about it. We are used to thinking that physical experience is real, and fictional is unreal. But for the brain there is almost no difference - to imagine visual images or see them.
At the same time, delusions as the ability to see or imagine what we do not observe at the moment in the physical world are an important tool of our consciousness. With their help, we create new and meaningful images of perception that allow us to change the brain, acting from the inside, and (in the future) perception itself.
But if the human brain is the physical embodiment of the entire history of trial and error - from evolution to learning - and any perceptual response is reflexive, how can humans (even the most delusional) change perception? After all, we are all well aware that the past is stubbornly unwilling to change. What has already happened has happened.
However, when it comes to the inner workings of the brain, everything is not simple here, since we, as you know, never remember what actually happened, let alone the time when it happened.
“You change what you perceive. In other words, since the brain in the process of evolution has not adapted to see reality, you have complete freedom to choose what to see."
The brain carries with it into the future not the actual past … and certainly not the reliable reality.
Based on the history of perception of reality, the brain builds basic beliefs, which are manifested in its functional architecture, through which we perceive the moment.
These beliefs determine what we think and do and help predict how to proceed. It is important to note the opposite: they also determine what we do not think or do. In isolation from a specific situation, beliefs cannot be good or bad. It's just ourselves … all together and each separately.
Impact of evolution
We are very lucky that the brain in the process of evolution has learned to create beliefs, while the bulk of them seem to be the same as the air we breathe - invisible. As you sit down on a chair, you are sure that it - and usually it does - will not break under you.
Each time you take a step, you know for sure that the earth will not leave from under your feet; the foot will not turn up; that you have put your foot far enough forward and correctly redistributed the weight for the next movement (since, after all, walking is actually a continuous process of falling). These are inherent beliefs.
And if you constantly had to think - how to walk, how to breathe? Or think about all the other extremely useful things that are done unconsciously that your brain does without any effort. Chances are you would not budge.
Fear of heights
Through this experience, the brain acquires as many beliefs as possible, hoping to find laws that can be applied in different situations (like theorems in physics). For example, fear of heights. Oddly enough, it seems we are not born with this fear and knowledge of why it is dangerous. A recent study using "visual reset" showed that young children avoid heights but do not automatically show fear. However, time goes by, development goes on: we fall from the upper tier of the bed and hit painfully; parents shout that we do not come close to the cliff - this is how life experience is acquired.
Thanks to this, a hierarchy of beliefs is introduced into us, which ultimately allows us to consider the danger of heights. Regardless of the reasons for our caution, a very useful belief is born with which we keep ourselves safe. There is common sense in this, but from the very beginning there was no such confidence in our head. Other basic-level beliefs that influence behavior - there are thousands of them - are not physical but social survival, and yet they are also quite natural.
What you are now experiencing or experiencing is just a steady pattern of electrical activity being transmitted through the brain; it is a non-romantic view of perception, but quite accurate. Throughout life, electrical circuits created in the head as a response to stimuli become more and more "stable", and in physics this is called an attractor.
Dunes in a desert or a whirlpool in a river are examples of attractors, even our galaxy is an attractor. All of them are stable patterns that have developed as a result of long-term interaction of many individual elements. In this sense, they have their own stable energy state, or moment (in which it is difficult to move them), which turns out to be the most natural in order to continue to exist in it (although the state of the brain of children is not as stable as that of adults). The task of evolution is to select certain attractors, or, more precisely, a sequence of the most useful attractors.
Freeways of conviction
Electrical circuits are created by neural pathways that connect different regions of the brain … this infrastructure of connections is like a highly convoluted and vast highway.
The schemes created increase the likelihood of some actions and decrease others. Studies have shown that the more such communications, the more diverse and complex beliefs (for example, the more stable vocabulary and memory). At the same time, despite the abundance of connections in the brain and their importance for perception, the number of neuroelectric impulses received and used during life is very small. This is because, in fact, their potential is almost endless.
Beliefs make you who you are. That is, most of what you perceive about your conscious personality will be in jeopardy if at some point it is questioned. That being said, the process of creating abnormalities based in the brain that shape us as we are also makes us the unique people the world needs so much.
“So how do you use mental imagery to develop creative perception? The answer again boils down to the practical utility the brain stores and how the data we perceive determines our views of the future world. The immutable truth about perception, which I explained earlier, has not changed: we do not see reality, but only what was useful to see in the past.
But here's the deceiving nature of the brain: the past experiences that determine how we see include not only real sensations, but also imaginary ones. If so, you can influence what you see by thinking about it. The connection between true and imagined sensations is that what we are considering now represents the history of what we saw before - in the imagination or not (although not all have the same weight). That is why we not only experience what we feel, but also create our sensations!"
Bo Lotto, from the book "Refraction"
