The Phoenix Centre

The Fringe Dweller's
Guide to the Universe

Universal Rules

click here for the full list of rules

Prior to calling Dar from Port Elgin this week, I'd noticed I had a 4-hour break on Wednesday, more than enough time to write Into the Centre. What I didn't have was the "Universal Rules" list. So, Dar dug it up for me from my  computer, and as an aside noted that the next two points were similar – did I want to combine them? I looked that them and thought and I just might.

The first of the two is a bastardization of a line from William James - author of As a Man Thinketh. (As a note, see below for a link to a site dedicated to self-development and to James' work. There, you can download a free copy, as well as buy other interesting stuff.) The actual quote is, "All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts."

Lately, I've been enjoying the writing of Steven Pinker, whom I mentioned some issues ago. He's a Psych Professor at MIT and also a Canadian. He is deeply engaged in studying the mechanisms of language and thought, and I wasn't sure I'd like his stuff. As it turns out, it's incredibly challenging, yet affirming of the principles we write about, week by week.

Here are two ideas, from two of Pinker's books.  The first comes from The Blank Slate: (pg. 43)

There is a connector, the corpus callosum, which allows communication between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Julian Jaynes wrote about its development in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Some people have this connection severed through surgery or accident. In experimenting with such people, a startling learning emerges.

As background, the right side of the brain is the creative/visual side. It does not have language per se, but "speaks" in images and actions while understanding language. You might say it sees and hears but does not label. The left side of the brain does math and language (in both cases, I'm simplifying). So, they flash "WALK" so that only the right brain can see it (by keeping it in the right brain's visual field). The right brain sees the words, and gets the person up and walking. Now, here is the interesting part. Every time they stop the person and ask him why he's are leaving the room, (left brain activity – reasoning, labelling and explanations) they get something like, "I'm getting a coke."

Now, remember, the left side never saw the "WALK" sign. There is no connection between the hemispheres. You'd think the left side would say, "I don't know," or, "That's odd. Every time we do this experiment I end up leaving the room and I don't know why." Instead, the left side of the brain "justifies" behaviour it hasn't a clue about.

Pinker writes:

"The spooky part is that we have no reason to think that the baloney-generator in the patient's left hemisphere is behaving any differently from ours as we make sense of the inclinations emanating from the rest of our brains. The conscious mind--the self or soul--is a spin doctor, not the commander in chief." (pg. 43, italics his.)

This begins to explain why people blame – whether it be fate, or genes, or upbringing, or the environment – when things don't go the way they want them to. It isn't even necessarily an intentional lie. It's just the left-brain's instinctual need to have a reason for everything, no matter how far fetched. It's also why, when we see others doing this (blaming, being inconsistent, justifying behaviour they just said they were not going to do again) that we judge them to be full of it. Pinker's description of the left side of the brain as the "baloney-generator" is an apt description.

In his earlier book, How the Mind Works, Pinker indicates that studies with identical twins raised in different households (a great way to look for differences in nature vs. nurture) has led to the conclusion that 50% of how we are as adults is genetic, (i.e. how much grey matter we have, our disposition, etc.) 10% is parental influence, (there's a big surprise) and 40% is peer group influence.

Pinker implies that learning or behavioural change comes about in a 2-fold process:

1. we change the way we think about something (thinking follows certain rules. Changing thinking follows the same rules. We learned to add by rote and by experience. We then took that pattern an applied it to multiplication, while changing the way we handled the numbers.)
2. we change what we are doing.

And what this means in terms of our "Rule # 6," is this: changing the way we think and act in the world first of all involves admitting we don't know something. Or admitting what we are doing isn't working. And then we need to fight against the influence of the baloney-generator that starts coming up with excuses for not being self-responsible. It is absolutely predictable that this will happen. Just like in the experiment with the brain patients--they don't know, but they sure have a reason.

Left to our own devices and firing on auto-pilot, you will quickly see that nothing can change, because belief and behaviour is a closed, self-sustaining system. We simply believe what our baloney-generator. Remember, too, that this way of understanding is a "hard wired pre-disposition." It will happen unless we train ourselves to notice it and change our behaviour. "Oops. I was just generating some baloney there. I don't know. Let's talk about it."

In other words, all of this changes when we simply say, "I haven't got a clue."

This is where the stats from Pinker's How the Mind Works come in. Simplistically,

If I want to learn to do something differently,
I need to change my peer group.

If I want to stop drinking, for example, hanging out in bars with my friends who drink might not cut it. An AA meeting might. If I want to learn to communicate and have an excellent relationship, I'd better go sit at the feet of someone who actually has one, shut up and listen. If I go there and defend what I know, I'll just stay stuck in what hasn't worked in the past. And if I do not go at all, all I will ever do is talk to myself about changing, and list of all the reasons why I can't.

If I think I know something, I am paralyzed by what I think I know. If I am open to learning, I have a chance to actually make new connections and thus change the way I understand what's up. I can't change my genetics, nor can I change how I was parented. (Notice, BTW, how many people whine about their genetics and parenting, the two things completely out of their control, yet only accounting for 60% of "what's up.") I can change my peer group associations and become a learner.

Even a true Master will acknowledge that he or she is a learner.
There is no, "I've got it!" There is only, "I am getting it!"

The second "Rule" is similar to the first. We are what we value. If I value being right, I will not be open to changing my belief. I will simply want recognition for what I know. If I want to be the centre of attention, I will either be larger than life or will change my behaviour continually, trying to be all things to all people. If I want ultimate success at work, family and relationships will suffer. If my focus is possessions, I will be consumed with getting.

It is an essential question, this. What do I value? For what principle or way of being would I sacrifice everything? For me, it is Nishkamakarma, "Do your duty, with faith in God, without attachment to the results of your action." Day in and day out, I slave at letting go of attachment to results, and I fight my urge to forsake my duty and run away. I'm "getting" it.

What do you value? What is working for you and what is not? What excuses do you list for not changing? And when will you let go of them, immerse yourself in a peer group that "is getting" what you seek, and show up as a learner?

We can change. If we choose. Again and again.