The Mysterious Driver

Part 4

Mind is one of the most common and mysterious word we have been hearing from long time. We use it every day but no one in the world understands it fully. Is Mind and brain same thing? If they are same then why there are two voices come from our inside? Why we are not able to make decision logically? Why our impressions are subjective? Scientist doesn't know the answers about it. Neuroscientists have their own limitation while there is Indian philosophy that is entirely based on mind and very clearly distinguishes between mind and brain. Krishna said in Gita that our body made of eight elements: fire, earth, water, air, ether, mind, intellect and ego.  Aitaraye Upanished talks in detail about how mind was created and how it functions. Mind and Brain are two separate entities and both are involved in judgement making. Their brief characteristics I explained in my second article “Fast Mind and Slow Brain”. In this article I will describe in detail about Mind. Every day we make our 95% of decision by our mind so Mind is the main driver that drives us in our life journey and most important thing about it that we still know very little about it that makes it the most mysterious driver.

Position of Mind in body

In Gita 5.27, Krishna says :

“Shutting out all external sense objects, keeping the eyes and vision concentrated between the two eyebrows, suspending the inward and outward breaths within the nostrils, and thus controlling the mind, senses and intelligence”.

This verse hints that position of mind is at frontal lobe of the brain at forehead, just above the nose the same place where Shiva has third eye basically mind is dynamic and it keeping changing its position. It has three positions. When we are awake and make conscious judgements mind is at forehead, when we are in dream it goes to neck (Cerebellum part of Brain, this is also place of subconscious mind) and when we are in dreamless sleep it goes to heart and connects to cosmic mind (Aitrey Upanishad) and it is revitalized and re energized

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Working of Mind

Mind receives the thought from the five senses and stores them into subconscious mind as Impressions. Thoughts are always stored in our Subconscious mind as impressions and when we need to make a judgment by mind, subconscious mind automatically sends the suggestion that we already have stored there. You can compare it with the Google search. As you write in google search box, it will automatically give you suggestions about search. This auto suggestion feature is fundamental difference between brain and mind since brain doesn’t have this auto suggestion feature there it has to manually retrieve the information from memory that’s why ego depletion is not applicable in case of mind but most important drawback of mind is that you cannot turn off its auto suggestion feature it works 24x7weather you want it or not so when you see some dirty thing it will automatically give u the impression that you have stored earlier. When you see an angry face and instantly suggestion come into your mind “Angry” that is auto suggestion feature of your mind even when we you sitting ideal and thoughts are coming in your mind are the thoughts from your sub conscious mind that are popping out automatically. Let’s understand it with this diagram entire process how we capture thought and how same thought is stored and retrieved by brain and mind and how do we make judgements

We received the information (thoughts) from our five senses and that information is processed by these two processors brain and mind. Suppose you see and taste a chocolate than your eyes, your skin, your nose and your tongue will send the information about chocolate to your two processors and they will process and store the information in their respective memory folders in this format:

Brain	Explicit Memory
	Brand name of chocolate, company, color, size, calories, nutrition info
Mind	Implicit Memory (Subconscious Mind)
	Taste (good or bad), smell (good or bed) appearance (good or bad) like it or don’t like it, image

This information will be kept stored in your memory so when you see same chocolate next time and you have to make judgement weather you have to eat it or not your two processors will retrieve the info about the chocolate from their respective memories. Since retrieving function is automatic in mind so the first information will you get will be from mind that information will be in about the impression of chocolate in your mind like you like it or don’t like it. Retrieving function is manual in brain so here brain will send the command to explicit memory and required memory will be searched from the huge memory stored in your brain and after some time you will get the information from brain about its name, calories etc and now you will make the suitable judgement and now there may be two case:

Case 1: your brain and mind both are agree or disagree that you should eat it or not it

Case 2: your brain says eat it due to nutrition and your mind says no due to its taste or your brain says don’t eat it due to calories but mind says eat it due to taste

In that situation, what situation you will take depends upon which processor is powerful in most of the cases, Mind wins the battle and the reason for it that retrieving information in case of fast and automatic and it doesn’t consume calorie while in case of brain, it sends instruction to memory and then memory search for the info and send to brain that takes times and consumes calorie so normally we avoid to make decisions by brain and make decision by mind and it must be since you can’t make all the decisions by brain. It’s just a single case now imagine how much data till now you already have stored in your subconscious mind. While brain works on request mind keeps working unconsciously and keep storing data all till now we have stored trillions bytes of data as impressions in our subconscious mind

Why Mind is Magnificent and Mysterious

1.       Mind is subjective: It is the mind that differentiates one person to other person since each and every process and store the impression subjectively in subconscious mind while brain stores the data as logics and details. Like water of Ganga River: someone can store as ‘dirty water’ and someone can store as ‘Holy water’. We associate happy feelings for some information and bad feelings for same information

2.       Auto suggestions by Subconscious mind: Subconscious mind keep sending thoughts to mind 24X7 and it is completely uncontrolled and can’t be turned off. Like when you hear the word “Apple” your subconscious mind may send you picture of mobile phone and my subconscious mind may send image of a fruit. One of my friend doesn't like pizza since his girlfriend who dumped him was crazy about pizza so whenever he thinks about Pizza his subconscious mind sends him image of his girl friend

3.       Mind doesn’t know numbers and statistics : Since number details are stored in brain’s memory so mind actually doesn't have capacity to compare by numbers so if you hear two news:

“10 people died due to swine flu”

“1 people died in bob blast”

There is very fair chance that your mind may give more importance to second news though statistically news 1 is important. The information that can be retrieved easily is more important is considered by mind. So the judgements made by mind are prone to statistical error.

4.       Mind doesn’t know the difference between reality and illusion: Do you remember the dialogue of the film Matrix “Don’t think, just believe”. Suppose you touch an iron gate and got an electric shock now when next time when you touch the gate though you are sure there is no electric current there despite it you will feel fear. Irrational Fear is the result of it. You can easily walk on 1 feet wide wall whose height is 3 feet but if the same 1 feet fall is at height of 100 feet, Can you walk it ?

5.       Pleasure and Pain: One of the most powerful and dangerous property of Mind. Mind do the things in which it feel pleasure and avoid in which it feel pain so you can do anything and get ride anything if you can associate pleasure and pain with that activity. It was the pain felt by mind that converted Prince Sidharth into Budha,

6.       Feelings: Feelings are the byproduct of cognition process of mind. We can associate certain type of feelings with certain type of thoughts

7.       Beliefs: Similar type of impressions stored in subconscious mind forms a folder that is called beliefs. Beliefs are the fundamental block of our habits and everything that we do in our life.

8.   Physiological response: Mind controls our physiological response that includes heart rate, brain waves, body temperature, blood pressure, breathing etc. By controlling mind we can control our physiological response.

9.     Dreams: dreams are the impressions stored in our subconscious mind that popped out in the mind randomly when connection to external senses are cut off

10.   Intuitions: Mind works 24 hours unconsciously, keeps storing data. Intuitions are some of the expert judgements made by us where we don’t have enough reasoning information

Due to above mentioned properties; Mind is a wonderful servant or ruthless master. It depend upon us how we take it. Mind can be controlled by brain by continuous practice and efforts. We keep making judgements and till now you must be able to understand which judgement are you making by mind and which by brain. All the actions that you take instantly or in reaction are from mind while where you take time, giving some attention, you respond are by brain. If you think you must do something but when you don’t like to do and when you try to do you feel mental pain are the cases where your mind doesn’t like to do it like your new year resolution, learning new thing, some important work, changing habits etc and in other side if you think you must not do something but still you are doing and if you don’t do you face mental pain are those cases that mind likes to do like smoking, becoming angry, wasting time etc. If we can control our mind or somehow convince the mind then we can do whatever we want.

 In my coming articles, I will write in details about the above mentioned 10 features of Mind and will also explain how we can control the mind.

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The Lazy Friend

Part 3

 (Recap: In my first article I explained that we have two processors in our head that are actively involved in our judgement making and I called them Brain and Mind. In my second article I explained what is judgement and what are the brief characteristics of brain and mind and how they work. In my third article I will talk in detail about role of brain in judgement making)

Rajkumar is my colleague. Age around 40s, some extra pounds and very disciplined in his work, he is on diet from last 4 months and have very good self-control and normally he is successful to avoid the high calorie foods in our monthly Pizza parties. Last week we went to a seminar and attained seminar for 4 hours and surprisingly in lunch I found Rajkumar losing control upon him. I saw him eating everything that he normally calls high calorie food and avoids. He told me that it’s very difficult for him to control in these types of seminars and events. Why he could not control in seminars? Brain is logical and self-control/ will power is under autonomy of brain while mind is not logical and goes by impressions so the question is why mind take control on brain after some time and in which situations brain succumbs in front of mind.

You might have also observed that we make resolutions, set the goals everything seems fine in the beginning but with the course of time we feel distracted. We deviate from our resolutions, from our goals. Self-control is the part of brain while distraction is the nature of mind so here again brain lose against mind.

Basically we make three types of judgements:

1. Some judgement where brain is only involved and mind doesn't interfere like calculations, reasoning etc
2. Some judgements where brain is involved but mind also interfere like judgements related to self-control and will power as mentioned above.       
3. Some judgements that are very routine kind of and mind makes the judgements like general talks, routine works.

The title Lazy Friend is for brain so that makes clear brain is our friend and most of the time it is right and gives correct advise but it doesn't mean that you can make all the judgements by brain or judgement made by brain are correct since it has its own limitations. Judgement made by solely brain may be wrong that is called logical fallacies that depends upon your logical reasoning and that can be improved. Judgements made by mind are also prone to incorrect since mind doesn't have any reasoning power, that is called cognitive bias but since these are routine judgements and stake is not high so the main judgements are second type of where brain and mind both are involved. Where judgement must be made by brain but brain loses the battle against mind. Why it happens?

Roy F. Baumeister is Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. He is a social psychologist who is known for his work on the self, social rejection, belongingness, self-control, self-esteem, self-defeating behaviours, consciousness, and free will. He performed lot of experiments on self-regulation and presented the evidence that humans' ability to self-regulate is limited, and after using it there is less ability (or energy) to self-regulate and he called this phenomena as “Ego Depletion” that means if we are doing any activity where brain is involved for long time when we will do another activity after that brain will lose control and as brain loses control your automatic mind takes over. So we can say our friend (Brain) is lazy but why? To understand this we need to understand the metabolism property of brain.

The human brain is capable of 10¹⁶ processes per second and it consumes up to twenty percent of the energy used by the human body, more than any other organ. Brain metabolism normally relies upon blood glucose as an energy source. The brain stores glucose in the form of glycogen, albeit in significantly smaller amounts than that found in the liver or skeletal muscle. Although the human brain represents only 2% of the body weight, it receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilization.  The brain mostly uses glucose for energy, and deprivation of glucose, as can happen in hypoglycemia, can result in loss of consciousness and impaired judgement making. So brain is also a muscle and after using it sometime it exhausts same like any other muscle of your body. Suppose you can do 20 pushups when you are fresh but when your chest and triceps muscles are exhausted you can’t do even 5 pushups same happen with brain and same thing happened with Rajkumar. After spending 4 hours in seminar his brain was exhausted and in the lunch he lost the control against his mind that always wanted to eat those high calories food. The same happens with our resolutions and goals since brain have limited resources so after some time brain removes them from our priority lists and mind easily takes control.

A study published in 2010 conducted by some professors of of Columbia and Ben-Guron Universities looked at around 1100 judicial ruling over the course of 1 year concerning prisoner paroles and they found that right after breakfast and lunch, chances of getting paroles were highest. Around 60% of paroles were granted just after the judge had eaten a meal and only 20% just before lunch. The less glucose in judges’ bodies, the less willing they were to make the active choice of setting a person free and accepting the consequences and the more likely they were to go with the passive choice to put the fate of the prisoner off until a future date

So what is the solution for it? If you want the control over your mind by your brain: stay fresh. Take breaks. Get some sleep. Don’t make important decisions on an empty stomach. Marketing people know very well about ego depletion and they use this concept extensively. I have used extensively many times when I want my client to make favour for me I made them tired and negotiate when they are ego depleted state and many times when I want them make logical decision I contact them just after lunch. When I want my boss to sign my tour bills, I go to him when he is ego depleted state. So the next time if any sales person approach you and says that this offer is going to end very soon and you have to make decision immediately don’t take the decision. Cunning salesperson will always want you to take decision by mind not by brain. You brain is lazy but it is your friend.

Think statistically, do you know statistically, we have a 1 in 84 chance of dying in a vehicular accident, as compared to a 1 in 20,000 chance of dying in an plane crash that means journey in plane is around 20000 times safer that vehicle but still we believe journey in vehicle more safe than plane because we don’t think statistically since most of the time we are in ego depleted state.

Now by this time you must have realized that why Candies and snacks are placed close to market cash registers in the super markets.

In my next article I will talk about second processor: Mind. Now after writing this article I am feeling ego depleted need something to eat to give glucose to my brain. Catch you later, Bye.

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