Beliefs Archives - Page 22 of 24

Neuroscience, Buddhism, and the Enneagram

July 15, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 7 Comments

Note: A greatly expanded version of this post can be read here.

Current neuroscience research supports the Buddhist belief that we are sleepwalking through life (“budhi” means to wake up), as well as the theory behind the Enneagram that we are all on autopilot most of the time. Although we have the impression that our behavior is consciously chosen, consciousness comprises only a small part of our brain’s activity—and consciousness is both limited and a huge energy hog. The vast majority of our thoughts, feelings, and actions are the result of brain activity we aren’t even aware of.

It can be hard to come to terms with the idea that we’re not consciously choosing every single thing we do. Even if we don’t always like what we’ve done—or at least the results—we want to believe we have freely chosen to do those things. Choice and freedom go hand-in-hand for us, and free choice means we have the ability or power to decide and to act of our own free will. But the reality is that our unconscious rules us to a considerable extent; and there is no way for us to directly access the unconscious.

We evolved this way in order to increase our chances of surviving. If we were forced to consciously think about everything we do, starting when we get out of bed in the morning, we would quickly deplete our brain’s reserves of conscious attention. Then, when a situation arose that required conscious attention, we wouldn’t have any left to devote to it. The expression “brain dead” aptly describes this state.

When we’re “brain dead,” our brain hasn’t really stopped functioning. We probably can’t solve a tricky problem or plan a complex project or learn and retain new information. But our unconscious is still operating just fine. It can get us home while looking out for any potential danger, take us through the operation of familiar kitchen appliances or drive-through restaurants to get us fed, and make sure we complete our regular bedtime routines.

Those are the kinds of things our unconscious does best. It’s always looking out for us, which is a very good thing. However, it has much more influence over us than we’re aware of, and it’s been influencing us our entire lives. After decades of believing we’re running the show, it can be tough—and initially alarming—to recognize how little control we actually have.

Yet, waking up to this state of affairs and figuring out where to find the autopilot switch is the only chance we have of actually gaining some control. Neuroscience is now giving us an opportunity to take a peek under the hood, so to speak. It’s fascinating to me. The research supports what I’ve been aware of ever since I was introduced to the Enneagram nearly 20 years ago–and what Buddhism has been telling us for centuries.

Keep Calm?

May 16, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 1 Comment

Thanks to www.womenworking.com. I couldn’t agree more!

Well, if Albert Einstein Said It…

May 9, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

Recently, I’ve come across several quotes attributed to Albert Einstein that sound more like something you would read in The Secret or another New Age book. So I attempted to track down a couple of them–as have many other equally suspicious individuals–and discovered that there are quite a few quotes out there that cannot be traced to Mr. Einstein.

The quote below originated with an individual who believes he channels an extra-terrestrial named Bashar.

Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.

The actual source seems to have been Bashar. But the quote wouldn’t get as much play if it was attributed to Bashar, since he doesn’t have Albert Einstein’s face or name recognition.

Einstein, however, seems to be getting fed up with all of these false attributions.

I didn’t create that one, but it would have been extremely easy to do.

Quotes are falsely attributed to Albert Einstein to give them an air of believably, respectability, and scientific authenticity. If Einstein said it, it must be true. It’s also easy to swallow something uncritically if it fits our already existing beliefs–well, especially if it fits our already existing beliefs.

Ideas should be judged on their own merits. If an idea or concept is “true” or worthwhile, it shouldn’t have to get traction by being falsely placed in the mouth of Albert Einstein. Besides, it isn’t really fair, is it? The man’s in no position to defend himself.

To Wander or Not to Wander, Is That the Question?

April 14, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

A few years ago, a study by Daniel Gilbert and Matthew Killingsworth made headlines—at least in the cognitive neuroscience world—by reporting two findings. One is that people tend to zone out nearly 50% of the time. The other is that “a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”

It should be noted that Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, specializes in affective forecasting—the ability to predict how people will feel in the future. He is the author of Stumbling on Happiness, which demonstrates that we actually have no idea how we’ll feel in the future, in spite of our firm convictions to the contrary.

Gilbert, then, is interested in studying what makes us happy. His research with Killingsworth consisted of interrupting people multiple times a day to ask them what they were doing and how happy they were when they were doing it. One of the things people reported being unhappy about was mind-wandering. (They reported being happiest when they were making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation.)

It seems that the most consistent response to this study, immediately following expressions of dismay, has been to try to get us to be more “in the moment”—in other words, to practice mindfulness. I’m a big fan of mindfulness, but I think there’s more to mind-wandering than whether or not it makes us happy. As I wrote about in an earlier post, people who pursue meaning in their lives rather than happiness aren’t necessarily happy, either. But they report being more satisfied.

As it turns out there are a few benefits associated with mind-wandering. One is that we can mentally escape from boring or unpleasant tasks or situations. An extreme example of mental escape was described by Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning as to how some prisoners in the concentration camps were able to survive better than others:

Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. Only in this way can one explain the apparent paradox that some prisoners of a less hardy make-up often seemed to survive camp life better than did those of a robust nature. …

The intensification of inner life helped the prisoner find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of his existence, by letting him escape into the past. When given free rein, his imagination played with past events, often not important ones, but minor happenings and trifling things. His nostalgic memory glorified them and they assumed a strange character….

As the inner life of the prisoner tended to become more intense, he also experienced the beauty of art and nature as never before. Under their influence he sometimes even forgot his own frightful circumstances.

Another benefit of mind-wandering is increased creativity. Neuroscientists have determined that our brains have a “default network” that is activated when our minds are free to wander. When our attention is focused on a task, on the other hand, our executive network is activated to oversee the operation. But sometimes when our minds are wandering both of these networks are active. Jonathan Schooler and Jonathan Smallwood, both of UC Santa Barbara, theorize that both networks are working on agendas beyond the immediate task—which could explain why people whose minds wander score higher on tests of creativity.

Eric Klinger, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota believes mind wandering “serves as a kind of reminder mechanism, thereby increasing the likelihood that other goal pursuits will remain intact and not get lost in the shuffle of pursuing many goals.” According to Dr. Klinger, our mind wandering gives us an evolutionary advantage.

So we probably shouldn’t rush to judgment and try to stop our minds from wandering in an attempt to make ourselves happier. Nor should we give our minds free rein to wander at will. Mind-wandering is something to be aware of. To appreciate. And to curb when it’s more appropriate to focus on the task at hand.

It isn’t as if we could put an end to our mind-wandering, anyway. We just need to learn when to go with the flow and when to direct the flow, which may be one more thing that is easier said than done.

What Gets in the Way

March 28, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

What keeps us from achieving the things we want or even set out to achieve? Science writer David DiSalvo (What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite) seems to like why questions—which I’m on record as opposing. He wrote an article for Forbes titled “The 10 Reasons Why We Fail,” which he describes as reflections on falling short—more precisely, why we fail despite ourselves.

Two of his reasons—the first and last, as it happens—really resonate for me based on my own experience and the experiences of friends and acquaintances.

You Don’t Believe You Can Do It

Luke: I can’t believe it.
Yoda: That is why you fail.

The crucial part of Yoda’s dialogue with Luke is “believe.” The human brain is a powerful problem-solving and prediction making machine, and it operates via a multitude of feedback loops. What matters most in the feedback loop dynamic is input—what goes into the loop that begins the analysis-evaluation-action process, which ultimately results in an outcome. Here’s the kicker: if your input shuttle for achieving a goal lacks the critical, emotionally relevant component of belief, then the feedback loop is drained of octane from the start. Another way to say that is—why would you expect a convincingly successful outcome when you haven’t convinced yourself that it’s possible?

Believing you can do something is a precursor to intentionally changing or initiating a habit. If you start out believing you can’t do it, you will more than likely fulfill that prophecy.

You’re Confused about What to Do

Of all of these 10 ideas, this one is to me the most difficult because it plagues me almost constantly. Gearing up the cerebral feedback loop for achievement is one thing, but without a sense of focus and direction, all of that energy isn’t going to yield very much in the end. My experience has been that sometimes you have to let the energy flow for a while without too firm a sense of direction and see if focus emerges organically. Once it does, you can then nurture it into a more structured method for getting where you want to go.

Confusion abounds, especially when people think they ought to know what to do and where to go, but don’t. There are several ways to prime the pump to gain some clarity about what to do next. Often, however, we and our brains are so frantically busy going in whatever direction we’re going that we can’t slow down enough to realize we don’t actually know what the heck we’re doing.

Note: A greatly expanded version of this post can be read here.

You Don’t Believe You Can Do It

You’re Confused about What to Do

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