How Your Brain is Turned Against You

By JC Collins Via POM

Filtering and Sorting External Stimuli

It was the early 1990’s and access to the World Wide Web was expanding at an exponential rate. During my graduating year in high school my parents brought home our first PC. It was setup in a spare room and the modem was plugged into the phone outlet. The dialup sounds bounced around the walls and the new world of the internet came to life at my fingertips.

Those early days were limited on quality of information but I quickly found my way onto conspiracy sites where the most bizarre and unthinkable things could be learned. Outside of porn, it was almost as if the internet was designed to spread conspiracy theories and manufacture virtual meeting areas for new forms of socializing.

It never occurred to me to ask how it was possible that so many alternative media sites rolled out almost simultaneously with the World Wide Web. Some of them are still around today in varying capacities and formats. Everything from aliens, government coverups, Omega groups, and secret rituals were packaged alongside more factual information about the Bilderberg meetings, the Bank for International Settlements, and material from those who genuinely appeared to search for truth.

The oppositional dialectic content and theme of the internet stood apart from the everyday normal world which most existed within. The nightly news was so different from what was on the web that the disorganized masses began to divide into different factions. Some divided themselves from who they wanted to be and who they really were. This personal allowance and distortion has evolved into the social media phenomenon which we experience now.

The impersonal nature of the internet allowed for some to roam around within the virtual world of the web and hide their true identity, or pretend to me someone else. This still happens today and is the number one method by which the insidious nature of the internet is hidden behind a curtain of self-obsessed delusion.

The internet is a personal experience. More personal than other media. As such, it serves as a massive potential machine of manipulation and subconscious coercion. It is much like reading a book. We process the information through our own internal filter and interpretation. Information presented this way has more success at getting past our natural logic defences, as does simple speech and verbal engagement. But unlike reading a book the internet engages back.

There is a part in our brain which is called the RAS. This stands for Reticular Activating System. The RAS is a complex system for sure, but in simple terms its primary responsibility is to filter information coming into the conscious brain and sort and file that information based on a predetermined set of filters and focus lenses.

Here’s where the internet serves a very specific purpose. It is the same purpose as the mainstream media which attempts to tell us what to think and create mental frames for us in which our RAS will filter and sort the incoming information.

When we are told what to watch for, or what to expect, our brain automatically puts RAS to work on those things. The video below serves as a great example of RAS and how it functions and can serve to distract us from other information and incoming stimuli. We are asked to count how many times the people in white shirts pass the ball.

Watch the video and we will continue our discussion.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY?wmode=transparent]

Do you see how the RAS can be used against us. You we’re told to focus on the white shirts and ball passes and missed all the other things. Some of you may have caught the gorilla while others may have noticed that the curtains changed colour. But it is highly unlikely that any of you noticed the gorilla, the colour change, and the person in the black shirt leave the screen all at the same time.

This is how the internet and other forms of media have manufactured thought-forms which serve to distract us from other and more pertinent concerns. We are told what to focus on. The mainstream evening news tells us what we should be thinking about. If that doesn’t get you the alternative media which is disbursed across the internet will get you with the oppositional dialectic scripting. Either way, all those forms of media work in unison to engage your RAS and convince it of what it should be focusing on and filtering.

Movies, music, television programming in general, and even our educational curriculums all work to hijack our RAS so that it doesn’t focus on real world observations. Mass populations are not left on their own to tell the RAS what to filter and sort. The power of the RAS is too great for such chance to exist in a structured and engineered civilization.

Outside of our own individual RAS system we also function within a form of collective social RAS where we are told by peers and social trends of what we should filter and sort. This collective RAS builds on the structure of Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy, which is a theory that puts a prioritized structure to human motivation.

The theory goes that we are predominantly focused on food and shelter, and from there work our way through safety, love and belonging, pride and self-esteem, and ending with self-actualization.

The importance we can take from Maslow’s theory is that our own wants and dreams, which are manifest in our self-actualization, has the lowest priority. Food and shelter is the dominant concern. This is the functioning aspect of mainstream news and alternative media. Both of those medias are laced with constant fear. Food and shelter evolve naturally into safety. The market is going to crash so you better have gold. Society is going to collapse so you better have guns and stockpiles of food. The government is poisoning our food. Earthquakes. Hurricanes. Tornados. Murder. Terrorism. Islamophobia. The twists and turns to logic and reason are as diverse as they are unreasonable and illogical.

We are willing to sacrifice our self-esteem to ensure that those basics are in place and that we belong within the larger social hierarchy which in turn builds our confidence that the basics are in place. So it is understandable that our RAS function can be hijacked with these base human patterns. We are told that our RAS should be focused on these things which sacrifices our own self-actualization.

It’s like a one-two punch where we are telling our RAS to focus on the base Maslow framework while all of our external stimuli, by way of all media, including the internet, is also telling our RAS what to filter and sort. Once the RAS is told what to focus on it will watch for exactly those things to filter and sort to the detriment of all other things.

When we think about the internet and the broad spectrum of alternative conspiracy information alongside the mainstream sources, we find that our RAS is seldom filtering and sorting information and stimuli which is pointed towards our own self-actualization and development.

While all of these outside external sources of information and stimuli are blocking our own RAS process from filtering and sorting we don’t even know what else we are missing. Like the gorilla, colour change and missing person, we may only catch one or two things which are passing by in the background of what we are being told to focus on.

The internet and conspiracy theories have evolved to meet the ever growing complexity of our material existence. These things are in fact tools which are engineering not only our cultural framework, but also our inner belief systems and visions of the future. Our world changed with the emergence of the World Wide Web. We are told of this vast conspiracy to rule the world when in fact the internet was one of the last acts which tightened the control grid over our lives and perceptions.

We need to reclaim our own brains and begin to filter and sort based on another set of parameters. What these parameters should be and how they should function is best left up to each of us as individuals. But understanding the fundamental structure and process of the RAS and how it organizes itself based on Maslow’s Hierarchy is the base knowledge which we first must master to begin re-framing our world.

Plan your life or someone else will plan it for you.

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hardscrabble farmer

Great piece. I got on the Internet way back when they were bulletin boards like USENET so I could keep up with other stand-ups as we traveled (there were no cell phones back then and you never knew what gig anyone was doing or what part of the country they were in). If you were on a dial-up connection an incoming phone call could knock you off the Internet and you’d have to listen to that baud song (all those weird tones and squeals that preceded a connection) half a dozen times per session.

Regarding Maslow’s pyramid: what isn’t mentioned but worth considering is not just the satisfaction of each layer of needs, but the requisite effort that goes into it before you move on.

Someone who hits the lottery or becomes a recording artist or politician may very well satisfy the first four layers, but without effort. By moving on to self-actualization without having made the sacrifices or doing the work required to fulfill the other needs it seems to pervert the final step and twist it into something unnatural, often deleterious to the psyche. If you’ve never had to actually provide yourself with food or a safe and secure home or if you’ve acquired hangers on that resemble friends but are really just sycophants, have you prepared yourself for the most important part of life which is understanding yourself and your purpose?

We have a lot of that around in the age of plenty and with it the assorted perversions of natural and healthy lives that haunt the landscape. I remember having to write an essay in high school about Maslow’s pyramid and describe a self-actualized person- so I chose my grandmother. My teacher said that I didn’t understand the assignment and because my grandmother hadn’t really “achieved anything” in life, she couldn’t be considered as self-actualized, like say a famous musician or actor.

I’ll never forget that.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

HF, an instructor lady we had was a shrink, she said she had been psychoanalyzed and that it took several years. She intimated that self-actualization isn’t something just anybody achieves. You have to practically be a Mahatma or Guru to claim that. However, Dr. Pangloss said people can achieve self-actualization more than once. That makes more sense because if you reach the mountain-top, you will have to come down like Kobe. You can’t live on a mountain-top. I achieved clarity once, but it was in the hospital and it might have been the drugs in the IV.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

“if you’ve acquired hangers on that resemble friends but are really just sycophants,”

OMG, it’s like the internet is trying to tell you something, Yohim.

IndenturedServant

Interesting story about your grandmother HSF. I looked at Maslow’s Pyramid and thought: “Who on Earth is in a position to decide when or even if another has reached their full potential?”

I can’t can’t count how many times I accomplished something, large or small, that others around me thought was superb or perfect yet I myself always found those accomplishments lacking in some way. It seems to me that “full potential” depends greatly on the goals being pursued at that point in time. Most times it is exactly the the requisite effort itself that that brings the most satisfaction……not so much the result. That is why I can be happy with something even if I fell short of the ultimate goal.

I’ve never understood why so many people seem to NEED praise or recognition from others in order to feel good about themselves or their accomplishments. Some even stand around waiting for it before they can move on and they stall out if they don’t receive it.

People would be better off creating and defining the levels of their own pyramids!

Austrian Peter

[Sorry this is meant for Hardscrabble Famer, the blogg faulted.]Nice example, Farmer – I follow your comments with pleasure. You sound about as old as me (72) and I remember all those things you talk about. I retrained, when I retired from business at age 50, and became a humanistic counsellor. The training was an eye-opener for me because I assumed that the course would just lay out all the theory and we would pass by taking an exam. How wrong I was! After 6 months of experiential role-play I became aware of my own internal dysfunctions mainly originating in childhood and upbringing. I had to do much work on myself including being counselled until I reached a level of personal comfort: “being comfortable in my own skin”. Only then could I move on to help others by walking with them in their own journey of self-discovery and completing my dissertation. Hopefully I can now pass on to others the rewards of such a journey.

Vodka
Vodka

Since the 20th Century opened the floodgates that sent a tsunami of unnatural stimuli into the lives of humans, we have now become overwhelmed by it and addicted to it. We ravenously crave it in new forms and in increasing quantities even though we see in ourselves symptoms of sensory-overload.

It’s a terrible predicament and I agree that it makes us ripe for manipulation. As to speculation about who is doing the manipulating, and why; I believe it is bigger than we have imagined. Bigger than just nefarious groups that we have labeled such as Deep State, NWO, Illuminati, Zionist Bankers, etc. I believe we are witnessing the culmination in the unseen battle between Good and Evil in the spiritual realm. We are merely pawns.

As to the foreboding sense of doom that many feel; the sense that society could utterly collapse and we would need to run for the hills: I don’t think it will play-out like that. It’s much more insidious. I believe we are already experiencing a collapse and are failing to see it because we’re expecting a single apocalyptic event. This IS the Collapse. Right here and right now. A fourth-turning that might only be recognizable in retrospect.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Great article.
I like to think we are all lab rats on this planet, stuck in a maze, and some manage to peek over the walls, and realize that there is more to this than just getting the cheese.

the first time I saw the Maslows pyramid, was when our company had us attend meetings designed to get us motivated (to get more work out of us). I have to admit, it was interesting to realize how easy it was to manipulate people into chasing the dream.

I imagined I could retire after I thought I reached the top, (and I did, for a few years). Then, reality came crashing back down to earth. Those two layers below self actualization are basically the reality of most of us, and that top of the pyramid, is just a dream, or a piece of cheese, designed to keep you in the maze, or the matrix as they call it today.

we all crave those two layers below self actualization, and spend our days chasing them, and once you think you have achieved something, then the world changes, and you are once again, back on the hamsters wheel, chasing, yearning for something more.

is there something beyond the top of the pyramid? and why did Maslow choose that geometric shape (was he a free mason?) just kidding.

Cheers.

Neil Dunn
Neil Dunn

I found this yesterday on mental models from Farnhamstreet(Shane Parrish) 5/7/17. The 1st + is the list, and the next 2 +s are examples( I hope the links work but you should be able to get back to the original article):

“+ We did a massive update to the list of mental models that we need to know to better understand the world.

+ Mental Model: Occam’s Razor — ‘Occam’s razor is summarized for our purposes in this way: Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.’

+ Alexander von Humboldt and the Invention of Nature: Creating a Holistic View of the World Through A Web of Interdisciplinary Knowledge — “much of our unsustainable behavior can be traced to a broken relationship with nature, a perspective that treats the nonhuman world as a realm of mindless, unfeeling objects. Sustainability will almost certainly depend upon developing mutually enhancing relations between humans and nonhuman nature.”

Neil Dunn
Neil Dunn

Sorry, no links. Here is the link to the article: https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/mental-models/

Wild Bob

I met a guy at open mike night last Wednesday. Bernie, 66 yo, looks just like the ‘weekend at Bernie’s’ guy complete with glasses. Plays bass guitar.
He started showing pictures of his hot 28 yo girlfriend to everyone on his cell phone. I said, “You lieing fuck” (in the sense of flattering him, not because I didn’t believe him.
I tell him to call so we can jam. He calls, we get together. He has a poster of his girlfriend on wall, sez she in Hollywood working on a movie, has a lambo and ferrari, and showed me a $26,000 diamond ring he is going to give her to marry him. He’s totally convinced she’s in love.
After I gave it all a lot of thought, I came to the conclusion that she’s probably a gold-digger, using guys to buy her cars and diamond rings. What would a hot 28 yo see in a 66 yo man that looks like Bernie? She’s prolly getting laid 5 times a day out there in Hollywood, rooting out new guys to get money from.
I asked Bernie if maybe he is being delusional about her….he said no way man, she’s the real thing, in love with him, blah blah blah.
Moral of story: Bernie, and everyone else, plays these ‘movies’ in their heads, about who they are and what’s going on around them. Often times we are blinded by people that are running cons on us. It’s difficult for us to see through the illusions, and use our minds critically to really envision the reality around us.
I think many people are COMPLETELY delusional, totally unaware. In fact, I think it’s the norm. It’s almost frightening.

DC Sunsets

We see what our minds are preconditioned to accept, and nothing more.

This is why experience doesn’t often change people’s viewpoints. It’s like an anti-racism zealot who gets robbed, or raped or beaten senseless by a black or a brown. They see a wire fence with yellow insulators and insist on peeing on it, and no matter how often they get knocked on their asses by a charge, insist that “NOT ALL WIRE FENCES WITH INSULATORS ARE ELECTRIFIED.”

Most of our actions in this world occur under conditions of uncertainty. When this is the case, we make our decisions in the limbic system, not the centers of our higher reasoning, and only enlist the latter to RATIONALIZE the already-made decisions of our limbic system.

If you look around, almost all of the “science” that backs what people do is actually nothing but a rationalization. People simply believe what they want to believe so they can feel good about their decisions.

Wild Bob

I moved here recently, and my new neighbor ‘Roy’ right away started hounding me. Always over, always talking about exactly the same things, what time his wife came home from work, what’s going on in town this weekend, how far he rode his harley. Day after day, same shit. I started thinking this guy is a total douchebag. Doesn’t he realize no-one wants to hear that shit?
I think, subconciously, yes, he DOES know something’s wrong with him, ’cause people probably always ‘begin to ignore him’ in hopes he won’t bother them. Nice guy, big teddy bear, missing a coupla screws.
SO: It’s THESE guys who are the ones that grab a gun one day and decide to randomly murder a few people (me) ’cause they’re just assholes and he’s tired of being ignored. This guy reminds me of the dumbass in the movie ‘Lawnmower man’. You never really know what these dudes are capable of. Again, the movie running in their head prolly doesn’t really match much of reality.

digitalpennmedia
digitalpennmedia

thats far too simple of an example…
no one truly knows how a brain is “programmed” or how it “runs” there are only speculations and guesswork in “studies” that are then contradicted in other studies because the brain doesnt seem to work in a compartmentalized setting. This was shown over and over in game-theory experiments and why the “rational choices” had to be recharacterized to more of a behavioral game theory as people time and again didnt choose rationally. The pyramid shouldnt be looked at like the “food groups” (which has for the umpteenth time has changed) since if a human tends to take a particular area for-granted then the focus of that individual changes. Take the shelter and safety examples…if an individual has no conceptualization of the potential to be homeless or in danger (which many of the yonnger generations display) then the ego takes over and self gratification rules the day. Self-awareness and the ability to introspect are the two biggest necessities to “reprogram” however that would also need to coincides with an ability to admit flaws in oneself and critical analyze oneself …which has been shown as more than difficult for most an even triggers sefl-defensive shields in subjects (much as any thoughts or ideas that the subject would disagree with). This is far to complex of a subject and can get far too deep to simply be shown as a brain missing a couple of occurrences when this has been shown to occur in all kinds of parlor games since the human brain fills in gaps and eliminates that which it doesnt deem important. The real takeaway should be that an individuals perceptions of their world is what forms the thoughts and needs that that individual pursues.

i forget
i forget

Well, Maslow’s map isn’t the territory I’ve traipsed. Actualization? Another secular, science-sounding, heaven\utopia that Nightingale\Conant, etc, can sell the bejesus out of. Esteem? Gamed\packaged\sold just as much as so many other things are; gold stars, trophies for all participants. B&L – how much breaking & looting, codependence, happens at that level? Security? An illusion. (Helen Keller. Me, too.) Air, water, food, shelter are needs. The rest is wants – if you want. & those wants beg the why\motivation question. From whence\why do those wants come…more importantly, why are they camouflaged as needs? Cuz needs sound more legit than wants. I need – not want – a new Dodge Demon to fulfill Maslow’s pyramid scheme…why not? Meet ya’ at the self-actualizing vanishing point. What a coincidence, steering wheel wrong side:

Norman Franklin

Interesting article and some really great comments to boot. We really do only use a small amount of the computing power our brain is capable of. All of the external stimuli, cacophony of noise, light, and nasty smells all take a toll.

As I have progressed in age I notice that sometime I get brain fog and the only fix is to tune out and unplug for a few days. I am able to do without news, internet, and tee vee. But the one thing I can’t completely turn off is music.

Changing to a healthier low carb, low sugar diet seems to clear some of the fog as well as walking in the park with the wife and dogs and spending a half hour or so hitting the heavy bag. Sitting down at my barn looking out over our property while breathing in the wild lilac and honeysuckle is a game changer.

It is truly something to strive for, living to your full potential.Not necessarily fame and fortune. Satisfaction in reaching a level of productivity and accomplishment that never seemed possible, and all the effort it took to get there, that is the top of the pyramid for me.

i forget
i forget

What I like about your comment is that it takes “actualization” out of the realm of cohort stats & actuarial tables & “cultural” designations\impositions & academic definition•recipes & puts it into the only perspective that counts or matters: yours (the individual’s).

But I also think things like “meaning” & “actualization” can be gotten past, which means they aren’t the summits they are brochured to be. Like a lot of things, I think those are training wheels. & the point of too little to fail wheels is to get past them – not to gold plate them. Plated trainers would not seem to qualify for anything like “actualization.” But they sure do sell.

Ed
Ed

Damn. All of y’all sound like y’all’s brains have turned against y’all.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

Ed, my dick is the only one that agrees with me.
Used to be we had terrible arguments and he’d always win.

Rdawg
Rdawg

How many times do I have to tell you? That hole is “Exit Only”.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

Ratdawg, that sounds gay.

Rdawg
Rdawg

Not necessarily. Free your mind, man.

Ed
Ed

I think that if somebody’s brain turns on them they might have to take some drugs and fuck their brain up. That’s my plan, anyway.

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