A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind

A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind by Lorin Friesen Volume 1: Head, HEART & Identity Copyright Copyright © 1997 by Lorin Friesen. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be reproduced or translated into another language without express written permission. No part of this book may be photocopied, under any circumstances. First Edition, 1997. First Printing, 1997. PRINTED IN CANADA Printed by Lorin Friesen Abbotsford, B. C., Canada Introduction This book is a Programmer?s Guide to the Mind. In it, we will attempt to do two things: We will try to explain how the mind works, and we will also show how a person can make it operate more effectively. If we compare the task of developing the mind to that of taking a journey, then this volume could be described as a combination road map and tourist guide. While there are many similarities between a brain and an electronic computer, there are also several factors which make the human „computer? unique: First of all, it is rather large. The electronic chips which are contained in the computers of the 1990s are constructed from flat little squares of silicon, no bigger than postage stamps. In contrast, the human thinking apparatus is a three pound, three-dimensional, solid chunk of neurons and interconnections. The average human brain contains about one hundred billion neurons and around one hundred trillion connections. Compare this to today?s computer chip with its total of about ten million transistors, and you can understand why, at present, we have about sufficient technology to simulate the brain of a slug. Unlike computers which are made from silicon, the human mind is not just a conglomeration of mathematical calculations and dry logic. Rather, it feels as well as thinks, it has a personal interest in its surroundings, it makes friends—and enemies, and it has both a self and a self- image. All of these factors will be included in our analysis of human thought. Those of you who work with computers have discovered that computer manuals generally fall into one of three categories: User?s guides, Reference manuals, and Programmer?s guides. A User?s guide is for the person who says, “I do not want to know how this gadget works, just tell me how to use it.” I suggest that bookstores are full of User?s guides for the mind, each containing a few nuggets of wisdom aimed at helping us to use our minds more effectively. This book is not a User’s guide. What you will be reading is also not a Reference Manual. These are deep, heavy tomes full of specialized words which plunge into the depths of the machine, never to return to the surface of normal speech and everyday life. They deal with theoretical questions such as interrupt levels, capacitive loading and assembly language. These volumes seem to forget 4 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind that the computer is also a tool which is used by the average person in daily life. I have done my share of reading the specialized literature of neurology and engineering and sometimes it appears as if some of those writers have gills for breathing apparatus, for they never „come up for air.? What I have put together is a Programmer’s Guide to the Mind. It is designed for the individual willing to take the effort to understand and to program his mind in order to develop it to its maximum potential. What I will be presenting in this book is a new theory of mind and personality based in years of original research. Most of the material which you will be reading has not been published before. While theories cannot be learned overnight, especially ones about the human mind, I have done my best to make the information as readable as possible. You will not need a knowledge of advanced mathematics or esoteric logic to grasp this material. An ability to think rationally, combined with a good dose of common sense should suffice. Personally, I have found that when I am studying the mind, what I need more than anything else is the ability to combine head and heart. This is because when we and our emotions become the topic of research, then the tendency is either for the heart to win over the head—the approach of the User’s Guide, or for the head to suppress the heart, resulting in a Reference Manual. As the title suggests, we will approach the mind from a logical viewpoint. While we will try to stick to the straight and narrow path of rational analysis, we will also make a point of enjoying the mental vista of understanding through which we are passing. We will stop to smell some of the flowers of feeling which grow beside the trail and we will also slog through mudholes of emotional trauma which we encounter.A If the brain is so complicated, how can anyone figure it out? Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that within this mass of complexity are hidden a few fundamental principles which determine how we act and think. It appears that these basic laws of mental processing can be represented by a single structure which I call the diagram of mental symmetry. This diagram is both a summary of mental interaction and a highly simplified map of brain circuits: Each of the names corresponds to one major section of the human brain, and the arrows between the names indicate paths along which information can flow. So far, I have found that this simple model of the mind can be applied to fields as diverse as neurology, economics, art, music, politics, artificial intelligence, history, mathematics, psychology, religion and philosophy. A I personally have both intellectual and artistic training: I have a Master?s degree in Engineering, and I play violin professionally. Introduction 5 Our research on the mind originally started with a concept which psychologists refer to as cognitive styles. This states that people can be divided into different groups, depending upon how they act and think. If you could compare a group of people to a pie, then cognitive styles uses a „knife? to cut this pie into separate pieces. There are many ways of dividing individuals into categories, just as there are many ways to slice a pie. Some of these systems have been around for a long time. For instance, the four divisions of sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic were initially proposed by Galen, a Greek physician from the time of the Roman Empire. The scheme that I will be using in this book arranges people into seven thinking styles, called Mercy, Perceiver, Server, Teacher, Exhorter, Contributor, and Facilitator. Each name describes a prominent positive character trait of a certain type of individual. Each name also starts with a different letter of the alphabet. This system of categorization is not original with us. It is used by others—although at a fairly rudimentary level. What attracted us to this particular scheme was that it seemed to be the best way of slicing the pie of human personality. Other methods ended up with leftover bits of „crust? and „filling,? whereas this method of seven thinking styles appeared to divide people cleanly and accurately. While others use the same scheme of cognitive styles, no one else who follows this system has developed a comprehensive set of traits for each type of person.A We also are the first to relate personality types with brain regions. It is this correspondence between the „software? of human personality and the „hardware? of human neurology which makes us think that we are on the right track—that we have cut the pie in the best way. Notice that I use the words „we? and „our.? This is because the initial work on this theory was done by my brother Lane Friesen. He discovered most of the personality traits and worked out the first sketches of the theory. This basic understanding was then developed by the two of us. For years we spent hours a day on the phone, discussing ideas. More recently, my brother has chosen to focus on documenting these traits from history, while I worked out the implications and details of understanding and of programming thought. This volume summarizes my work. A The information was first published in 1986. 6 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind As I have already mentioned, this book contains original research. While most new discoveries are fairly minor and add only small fragments to the body of knowledge, my brother and I have had the fortune of stumbling across the motherlode. Talk about being „cursed? with success. Each step we took revealed another vein of rich ore begging to be refined into the gold of integrated understanding. This „mining? and „refining? was so exciting that we ignored the task of „selling? our nuggets to the world. We did occasionally try to publish our findings, but the mine which we had discovered was so rich that the inevitable frustration of getting new material accepted simply drove us away from the town of established science back to the hills to dig for more gold. Because so much of this book contains new material, you, the reader, are going to have to put on your thinking cap. You have to test the theory to see whether it is true gold, or only the „gold? of fools. This is a Programmer’s Guide to the Mind. One of the first steps in mental programming is to take information from others and to evaluate it for yourself. Testing ideas in this book will give you practice. To do this effectively, you will need some tools. Let me suggest the techniques which I used. Whenever I came up with a new aspect of theory, I had to decide whether to accept it or to throw it away. I have found that certain guidelines are effective for separating ore from gold—fact from fantasy: First, observe. This book talks about the mind. You have one. Your family, children, partner, neighbors, even the people in magazines and on television, also have minds. Observe their behavior. See if this theory describes how they think, act and react. Second, use logic. If you discover a contradiction, then something is wrong. Check this book for logical errors, and mistakes in facts. See if the ideas make sense. Third, look for patterns. Expect to find similar principles popping up in different areas. When patterns emerge, then that is the sign of a good theory. Fourth, compare. Other people also study aspects of the mind. Since the subject of research is similar, the ideas should also be comparable. However, do not get side-tracked by opinions or preconceptions. Rather, stick with the facts and see if they are consistent. Finally, try it out. This book is a Programmer’s Guide to the Mind. Apply principles and see if they work. However, be sure that you are willing to pay the price in time and effort. There are no instant answers, Introduction 7 and it is better not to start at all, than to quit halfway through the process. If you turn off your computer when information is being written to the disk, you may lose your data. Similarly, I suggest that it is dangerous to shut off your mind in the midst of reprogramming your memories. Before you go further, let me orient you. You will find the diagram of mental symmetry at the end of the book. If it looks complicated, don?t worry. I don?t expect you to understand it right away. However, take a look at it; we will refer to it throughout the book. To Life, whose Form gave me hope when all else failed. Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 9 COGNITIVE STYLES 15 The Effects of Environment 22 The Diagram of Mental Symmetry 26 How to Make Friends with a Theory 36 A Word from your Tour Guide 38 MERCY STRATEGY 40 Mercy Thinking 40 Mercy Automatic Thought 43 The Mercy Internal World 46 Neural Networks and Mental Life 50 Schizophrenia 52 Multiple Personalities 53 Mercy Strategy and the Brain 56 PERCEIVER STRATEGY 64 Associative Thought 64 The Diagram of Mental Symmetry 67 Perceiver Confidence 69 10 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind Perceiver Automatic Thought 71 The Perceiver Internal World 75 Perceiver Assumptions and Axioms 77 ‘Schizophrenia’ and ‘Multiple Personalities’ 81 MERCY PLUS PERCEIVER 85 Who does What 86 The Definition of a Fact 89 Good and Bad, Right and Wrong 94 Object Detection 95 Automatic Thought versus Internal World 97 The Role of Cognitive Style 99 Perceiver Strategy and the Brain 99 Objects in Space and Time 103 Art and Belief 105 CONSCIENCE, TIME, AND LIFE 108 Life and Generality 110 What is Life? 113 Some Conclusions 114 Conscience 115 The Mechanics of Conscience 117 The Uncertain Connection of Conscience 122 Assuming that We are Different 125 EPISTEMOLOGY 128