When I am struggling to explain things related to the functioning of the body and mind, I sometimes find it helpful to take a trip back to primitive man (not literally because I don’t have Dr. Who’s TARDIS), as it gives me an idea. where we were from and where we are now.
In this article I want to analyze the development of one’s personal “map of reality” and how it can be distorted. By “reality map” I mean how an individual interprets the world around them, who they think they are, how they think they fit into the world, and where they think they are going.
Hey … that’s a lot of stuff, no wonder our maps get distorted!
From birth, your subconscious mind organizes and stores the information gathered by your sensory systems and the emotions created by your personal circumstances and experiences. From this information, you create your belief system and this, in effect, becomes your “map of reality.”
In other words, you use it to make sense of what is happening in the world around you and where you fit into it. However, your map of reality is not static … by that I mean that once it is formed, it does not remain the same for life. Far from it, it is dynamic and very impressionable.
That’s not all bad, in fact if it weren’t flexible you would find yourself getting more and more lost (forgive the grammar) as the world evolved. The problem is that it leaves your mind open to manipulation.
And no, even before you ask the question … I’m not going to launch some conspiracy theory or another. It is a fact that as it receives new information, the brain accepts it or discards it. You tend to accept more easily what you consider to be new and relevant information, along with what has strong emotions attached to it.
There is a clue to how minds can be manipulated …
Anyway, let’s get back to the topic of information processing. What the brain accepts is organized and stored for future recall. As such, the stored information has the potential to reinforce or modify your belief system and therefore your view of the world and your place in it.
So with that in mind, how you evaluate incoming information is very important. If you don’t properly evaluate it, new information, rather than modifying an existing belief to make it more “real,” may well reinforce an existing perception that is patently false.
There is another clue to how minds can be manipulated. How did you go … did you pick up that one? If you don’t mind … let’s put the two tracks together and you’ll see how simple mind manipulation (which is actually mind control) is to put into practice.
In essence, all that needs to be done is, in the first place, to rely on the fact that the target (you) is unlikely to adequately evaluate the incoming information, either because you don’t know how or you can’t be disturbed or you don’t have time or what. And second, spark emotional appeal with the information.
Going back to the first …
In those days life was pretty simple. The priority was survival. By that I mean physical safety, shelter from the elements, food, and procreation. The man was not concerned with world events and it is highly unlikely that he was concerned with how they looked or what image they projected, etc.
The most probable is that the components of the map of the reality of the primitive man were: some animals attack and kill; some animals and plants provide food; caves provide protection against the weather; sex produces children; and other tribes threaten my survival.
In my opinion, primitive man had a fairly accurate view of reality, of the world around him as it really was. It was shaped largely through your circumstances and experiences and some passed-on customary practices. In general, the perceptions of early man were formed through what I will call “direct input.” What I mean is that you received the input directly and not through some “third party”.
How different things are today …
In addition to direct input from our circumstances and experiences, we are inundated with information and opinions from third party sources. Such sources include: books; newspapers; magazines The Internet; films; videos and television. But let’s not just mention the media … governments, religious organizations, charities, scientists, advertisers, etc. all make contributions. The target in each case is your mind or your money or both!
Although surprisingly little of this third-party information is directly relevant to our circumstances, we absorb it (largely unappreciated) and cling to it out of a need for certainty in our lives with the result that our map of reality may be far off. of the real. reality of the world around us.
Whereas primitive man built his map based on direct input, modern man uses both direct and third-party input. The problem this presents for modern man is how to evaluate the incoming information to eliminate interference and identify the true signal so that a more accurate perception of the actual reality around him can be formed.
I propose a couple of strategies that you would like to consider …
1) The desert island
This strategy involves cutting off the flow of information. Over a period of, say, two weeks, turn off all your usual sources of information. They turn off TV, radio, internet, newspaper and magazine deliveries … without movies, videos, or any other third party information sources. There are no discussions with friends or colleagues about topics other than what you consider essential … just act like you’re stranded on a desert island.
Well, how do you feel after doing that? Did your life fall apart? I can virtually guarantee that it was not, and that you will have a different and more confident perspective on the world and your place in it in terms of what is important.
OMG … you haven’t! Well, maybe at least, you will realize how much time and mental energy is wasted worrying about trivia and processing information that is of very little relevance to your life.
Okay, so you can’t do a couple of weeks … how about a couple of days? I can’t do that either, so it’s time to consider a second strategy.
2) it’s your mind
This strategy consists of regaining control of your mind. I can only hear the howls of protest … “But I am in control of my mind, no one manipulates me.” If that’s really the case, congratulations are in order because you are an exceptionally rare breed. For the rest of us mere mortals, we must make a conscious effort to maintain control of our minds.
Let’s go back to the phrase “nobody manipulates meTherein lies the problem for modern man. Mind manipulation techniques are sophisticated and particularly well disguised. So well, in fact, that we actually welcome our minds and use their input to build our maps of reality.
I still think that nobody manipulates you … well, try this to see the size:
Level 1: You hear a report from a celebrity having an affair. The presentation of the report stirs up emotions like “what a bastard to do that”, “how could he be so cheating”, “what about poor kids” and of course that is exactly what it was intended to do.
Stage 2: Accept the report. Now you have something to put your teeth into. Something you can immediately form an opinion on. Something you can be an immediate authority on. Something to discuss with your friends and anyone else who will listen to you.
In his mind, he has now established or reinforced an image of someone who is faced with problems, who has status, who can make decisions and defend his case, no doubt with great passion.
See how easy it was to manipulate, even with a trivial example. But I wasn’t manipulated … oh yeah, you were. Wondering how it is possible?
Well, you didn’t evaluate the information in the first place, so you really know very little about the circumstances surrounding the event that was selectively chosen and reported to engage your mind. Second, you allowed your emotions to flow freely when they could have been quite different if you had done an evaluation of the information.
All of this raises the question: what can we do to bring our perception of reality closer to that of the real world?
The answer is to practice critical thinking. My God … it seems like it takes effort. If it does. Is it difficult to learn? No, it is not. It is not intended here to do more than outline some of the considerations that constitute the background of the critical thinking process.
Here are some things to look for in the information you are exposed to:
1) Presentation aspects
- Omissions: things that are deliberately left out.
- Suppression: information that does not conform to the ideology of the information provider may not be disclosed.
- Lies and fabricated stories – statements that cannot be supported by evidence.
- Unbalanced reporting: Although they claim to present all sides of an issue, one argument has more exposure than others that might not fit the ideology of the information providers.
- Conveying non-evaluated information: Information that is known to be false or has not been evaluated can be transmitted
- Use of labels: color the perception by attaching ‘labels’ to people and events. For example, protesters for the war can be called “sympathizers of terrorism.”
But the above only deals with what I call the ‘presentation aspects‘of the information and we have to dig deeper to discover the’psychological triggers‘hidden in the information. By psychological triggers I mean what stirs up the emotions.
Again, I’m only offering an overview, as the topic deserves in-depth consideration in its own right.
two) Psychological triggers
- Fear: designed to make people fear something. For example, the alleged threat of a swine flu epidemic got millions of people vaccinated.
- Guilt: for example, they make you feel like you have so much when others have so little.
- Duty: For example, it is your duty to buy the products of your country instead of cheaper foreign imports in times of economic recession or to be considered unpatriotic.
- Sharing the burden: It is easy to wake up most people emotionally by invoking the principle of fair play. For example, businessman AB makes $ 5 million a year but pays only 10 cents in dollar income tax … with the joke “Now what’s fair about that?
- Your image, for example, if you are not wearing this or doing that or buying this or eating that or whatever … what will people think of you?
There are many more presentation and psychological aspects to watch out for, but hopefully this small sample gives you the mind manipulation strategies to analyze. When you do, I think you will quickly realize why the map of reality for many of us is so far removed from the actual reality of the world around us.
All we have done so far is try to understand how our map of reality is formed, how vulnerable it is to manipulation, and expose just a few of the strategies that can and are used to distort our map of reality. We have not yet detailed a strategy by which they can be countered using critical thinking, which will have to wait for a future article.
Who took the “real” out of reality? You did it! That doesn’t make you feel guilty!