Your state of mind - is it supernatural?

[Brighty]

It'll be interesting to hear what some of your guys' thoughts are on this - I know a lot of you are firm believers of being in "state" or the "think and you shall become" belief.

It's interesting how many extremely successful people, varying from interviews to books, are all obsessed with mental state and mentality. They all talk about how reality can't help but bend around their ambitions, how having the right mindset is the absolute key to success, how the strong-willed are almost superhuman in what they can achieve, how you make your own destiny, etc. Here's an interesting interview with Will Smith where he briefly touches on the concept, and a quick glance at the comments shows that not a lot of people really get what he's trying to say.

Now I'm not trying to get all New Age mystical bull**** on you guys, I'm not saying its some kind of magic or whatnot, but I am genuinely curious what your thoughts are on this. As if when we truly believe something, it's not necessarily that the universe that forms around us, but that we ourselves are put - whether it be subconsciously through mannerisms, thought process, etc - in the best possible situation/scenario in order to achieve it.

I wasn't really a huge believer of this until around seven or eight months ago, and after I started realizing that there may be something to be said about the state of mind. I've toyed around with this since then with mixed results, but let me lay out the scenario that really started to make me question if there was something more to "state of mind".

I was out of town visiting with my friends over the summer and we were meeting up with these girls for a party, and one of them was supposed to be this gorgeous girl that everyone in my friends home town wanted to get on but she was a total *****. Everyone wanted her in high school, but she was completely stuck up (not to mention had a boyfriend for the majority of high school) and would barely even give my buddy the time of day. He told me horror stories about her as we all got ready, and as I was hoping in the shower, I just envisioned the idea of me completely disarming her *****iness and busting her balls. I wasn't serious (like trying to psyche myself up or anything), I was just nonchalantly toying with the idea and pretending that was going to happen. I didn't think anything of it. We go over to her house with her friends and it turns out my buddy wasn't kidding - girl's a 10, and she even looks *****y. I didn't really talk to her that much for the first few hours, but there was something between us that we both picked up that I can't really describe. Fast forward two/three hours later, we end up talking by ourselves for a few minutes and then it just happened.

And you know the weirdest thing? I wasn't even surprised that it was happening. Here I was making out with probably one of if not the hottest girl of my young adult life and there was no moment where I was going "oh my god, oh my god, I'm actually doing this". It just felt natural. We went back into the shower and then to her bed, and my friend still is praising me to this day.

I don't know what it really is. I've tried replicating that with other scenarios/situations and have had varying degrees of success, but I feel like there's almost something to having the right mindset that makes it almost like a superpower in a sense. What are some of your guys' thoughts on this? I find this stuff extremely interesting.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

There is a spiritual and supernatural side to it. It requires faith to believe that the mind does, through metaphysical laws we are yet to discover, dictate the entire course of one's life. It could be the law of cause and effect playing out on a metaphysical level, as well as in reality. Every prophet, wise man, and philosopher through the ages has endorsed it. The entire foundation of Christianity and Buddhism are founded upon the power of belief, even to the extent that through the mind one may transend physical existence. I believe in the metaphysical side.

But back here on the ground, I also believe the law of cause and effect to be as written in stone as it is meditated upon. I believe that what I focus on is what I will walk towards, and that I must not look to the right, left, or down as I travel; only up. I believe that we must find one thing we want in this world, and then concentrate all mental and physical efforts towards achieving that aim.

Too often we are distracted by all the bs in the course of life, the trivial everyday. Think BIG and work towards something, don't get caught up in all the distractions we have available to us.

The Law of Cause and Effect is as undeviating and absolute in the physical world as it is in our metaphysical inner game, so to understand how we got where we are is to have a better grasp upon how to get where were going.

 

[Rogue]

It's very true that your state of mind is crucial and plays a large role in being a 'self-fulfilling prophecy.' It's not 'supernatural' or 'metaphysical' by any pedigree but the power of psychology and congruency. When your inner thoughts are congruent with your desires, your thoughts congruent with your actions -- no hesitations, no second guessing yourself -- you will be a natural, not just 'faking' it. You were unaware of it at the time but you were following the 48 laws of power.

Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness
If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

Law 30: Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless
Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease.  All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work – it only raises questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.

Law 34: Be Royal in your Own Fashion:  Act like a King to be treated like one
The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated. In the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you. For a king respects himself and inspires the same sentiment in others. By acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown.

Law 35: Master the Art of Timing
Never seem to be in a hurry – hurrying betrays a lack of control over yourself, and over time. Always seem patient, as if you know that everything will come to you eventually. Become a detective of the right moment; sniff out the spirit of the times, the trends that will carry you to power. Learn to stand back when the time is not yet ripe, and to strike fiercely when it has reached fruition.

 

[Alle_Gory]

Since drugs can alter your state of mind I think it's a little more complicated than that. There's a physical side to it too.

 

[Nygard]

I don't want to go to deep into it, but I think you don't really control your mind.At most like 20 to 25%. That's why there are people here spinning their tires for 3,4 or even 6 years without any progress. Depending on your upbringing and other factors, I believe some people have even less control over their brains, some individuals even having almost no control over it (Check the mental hospitals out).

 

[YAboi]

We are not just flesh and bone.............

 

[JustLurk]

I don't want to go to deep into it, but I think you don't really control your mind.At most like 20 to 25%. That's why there are people here spinning their tires for 3,4 or even 6 years without any progress. Depending on your upbringing and other factors, I believe some people have even less control over their brains, some individuals even having almost no control over it (Check the mental hospitals out).

That's not quite correct. You have control and use over your brain, but not your thoughts. This is stupendously important as a distinction and of interest for more than just nitpicking. The ego, AFC, doubt, fear in approaching, just about any problem a person has comes from the very basic problem of not being able to control your thoughts. You see this come to play in every problem, ever. There's not a lot of issues you can have you can't fix with complete control of your thoughts. And, no, you don't have complete control of your thoughts. If you did, you could suffer extreme pain and ignore it. You could do a heck of a lot of other interesting things, but the main thing is that you would have absolutely no issue with any DJ mindset thing at all, ever.

EDIT: To address the post below, because I have reached the maximum number of posts: While I was not aware of the gunshot story, I do know of several mind over body thought controls by martial arts masters and monks. I was just saying that, in all likelihood, you, as in the average reader of this forum, does not have complete control of their thoughts. And no, these people do not have absolute control of their thoughts, but they have better, much better control.

 

[Rogue]

JustLurk:
You have control and use over your brain, but not your thoughts… And, no, you don't have complete control of your thoughts. If you did, you could suffer extreme pain and ignore it.

I agree with your statement about "there [are] not a lot of issues you can have [which] you can't fix with complete control of your thoughts," but I must disagree with the lack of complete control over thoughts. I can prove how someone can suffer and ignore extreme pain:

A man with a gunshot wound to the head walked into a local Walgreens drug store Thursday morning, strolled back to a cooler, grabbed a can of soda, then walked back to the front counter before he announced he had been shot and keeled over... The gunshot wound appeared to be life-threatening, police said... Police believe the shooting occurred near the store and that the man either drove himself to the store or had someone drive him there (source).

There are also people who can dive to amazing ocean depths without the aid of oxygen tanks, by practicing vigorous meditation to control their breathing by completely controlling their thoughts.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

Whether there is a metaphysical component or not, it is simply that we must continually examine the ideas that underlie our conduct.

And you very well can control your thoughts. It takes vigilance and discipline, but you just have to "stay on top" of yourself. An ancient philosopher wrote, "The first and best victory is to conquer yourself."

 

[Nygard]

You can't fully control your thoughts, even less what's going on behind the scenes on your mind.All of that is just training and conditioning to get to a certain degree of control but it will never be 100%. Out sense of self is not even what we think it is,it's just some cute story we tell ourselves.

A man with a gunshot wound to the head walked into a local Walgreens drug store Thursday morning, strolled back to a cooler, grabbed a can of soda, then walked back to the front counter before he announced he had been shot and keeled over... The gunshot wound appeared to be life-threatening, police said... Police believe the shooting occurred near the store and that the man either drove himself to the store or had someone drive him there (source).

Instinct. That's what it is. Call it the life-preserving system kicking off.There's no mind in there. I've heard policemen watching bullets in slow motion in a gunfight, but that's not a conscious effort, it's just the survival instinct getting turned on. Adrenaline, it's how it's called, by the way.

You have control and use over your brain, but not your thoughts.

Nah. Thoughts are originated in a part of the brain. How can we control the whole but not control a part of it? I think we both agree thoughts are originated in the brain and not in the heart or lungs or whatever.

 

[Brighty]

Bump.

 

[ArcBound]

Like Alle Gory said there is a very important physical side to it.

We can see it with drugs and people with medical conditions.

For example people with bi-polar disease. Even people with depression are attributed to having low or wrongly firing neurons. Then is it a surprise most antidepressants increase the neurotransmitter firings such as serotonin and dopamine?

Also the existence of our sub-conscious. We may be able to influence or sub-conscious but we cannot fully control it.

However to even answer OP, we need to actually define, what IS the mind?
Your left and right hemispheres of the brain alone "think" and act separately. If you cut our corpus collosum you get weird things like "alien hand syndrome" and parts of your body acting independent of each other, as if two people were controlling it.

 

[Alle_Gory]

If you cut our corpus collosum you get weird things like "alien hand syndrome" and parts of your body acting independent of each other, as if two people were controlling it.

Turns out that's not the case. The corpus callosum cannot be cut through completely. Partial cutting results in a desynchronization of the two halves of the brain. Really it's the same person controlling it, but at different times so it feels like some other person but it's not. That's the best way I can describe based on the information I found. No one really knows how to describe the experience because once the procedure is done, it's irreversible. So you don't get the experience described from a normal (fully functioning) person's view.

The same thing can happen with drugs. You take a drug and suddenly you can't access your short term or long term memory. Are you a new person? Probably not. But that one area of the brain is causing problems while under the influence of this drug.

 

[ArcBound]

Well yes it leaves smaller tracts intact but for the most part, the largest tracts are cut.

There are studies of people with alien hand syndrome after their cc has been cut, and fMRI's show when the alien hand or another body part was acting out of order, it was because the secondary motor cortex in the contra lateral hemisphere was controlling it. This is as opposed to normal movements by the patients in which the primary cortex is activated in the other hemisphere.

It is quite possible though not always the case is what I should have said then.

 

[Drdeee]

Citing the two-hole experiment, in which particles are beamed toward a barrier with double slits, Lanza pointed out that an observed particle acts as one would expect and goes through a single hole. When unobserved, however, the particle behaves like a wave and passes through multiple slits at the same time. Lanza suggested that our observations effect the world around us as well, and without conscious observers (in the form of biological life) there would be no universe at all.

Space and time are not external objects and do not exist independent of an observer's mind, he continued. Lanza likened time to a vinyl record on a turntable. All of the songs exist simultaneously even if you only experience them one at a time. He further proposed that the choices we make in our present can effect the past, noting the conclusions of a recently published experiment in which scientists retroactively changed a quantum event that had already happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97dratPJl34



What this talk really is, its seeds of talk of multiverse. Picture reality which is like a dial on your radio, you can tune it and change the frequency.

 

[Rogue]

Citing the two-hole experiment, in which particles are beamed toward a barrier with double slits, Lanza pointed out that an observed particle acts as one would expect and goes through a single hole. When unobserved, however, the particle behaves like a wave and passes through multiple slits at the same time. Lanza suggested that our observations effect the world around us as well, and without conscious observers (in the form of biological life) there would be no universe at all.

Space and time are not external objects and do not exist independent of an observer's mind, he continued. Lanza likened time to a vinyl record on a turntable. All of the songs exist simultaneously even if you only experience them one at a time. He further proposed that the choices we make in our present can effect the past, noting the conclusions of a recently published experiment in which scientists retroactively changed a quantum event that had already happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97dratPJl34



What this talk really is, its seeds of talk of multiverse. Picture reality which is like a dial on your radio, you can tune it and change the frequency.

Bullsh*t. (But thank you for trying. It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of debunking pseudoscientific superstitions.)

pseudoscience - "a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status. Pseudoscience is often characterized by the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories. The term 'pseudoscience' is inherently pejorative, because it suggests that something is being inaccurately or deceptively portrayed as science."

You're committing the sin of greedy reductionism. Science is hierarchical and domain-specific; you cannot leap too far in explanations of causation. Medicine is explained by physiology, molecular reactions are explained by chemistry, atoms are explained by Newtonian physics, subatomic particles are explained by quantum physics. Science is reductionistic but to the simplest necessity to establish causation. Greedy reductionism is a term coined by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett of the inappropriate jumps in explanatory hierarchy. Don't ask your local physicist why your tooth aches.

The most oft abused interpretation of [quantum mechanics], the Copenhagen Interpretation, is also the mostly widely supported among physicists. One major tenet of this interpretation involves the collapse of the quantum wavefunction. This wavefunction is a mathematical description of a quantum system that describes all the possible states that system can be in. It is essentially a collection of probabilities that can be used, for example, to determine the probability that a particle will be found in a certain position. Before the measurement is made QM tells us that the particle is in all possible positions, what is called a superposition of states. When the particle is observed its position is then known with greater accuracy and the wavefunction is said to “collapse” into a definite state, the reality that we observe. Mystics view the wavefunction as a vibration of a universal aether that pervades the cosmos, as real as a sound or water wave. In their view the collapse occurs due to our thoughts or even the thoughts of an omnipresent cosmic consciousness of which we are all apart. In The Conscious Universe Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau unite the concept of the wavefunction and existence. “One could then conclude that Being, in its physical analogue at least, had been ‘revealed’ in the wavefunction...” (Kafatos and Nadeau 1990,124) It is this wavefunction collapse brought about by a human mediated act of measurement or observation that has caused the confusion between quantum theory and consciousness. Since human consciousness ultimately makes the observation it must be intimately connected to the wavefunction and its collapse. This argument dissolves into sophistry, however, by the fact that the quantum wavefunction is not a physical tangible object that can be manipulated by a human mind. The Copenhagen Interpretation makes it clear that it is just a mathematical tool, an abstraction that does whatever the equations tell it to do. Physicist Henry Pierce Stapp of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory echoed fellow physicists with this quote: “In the Copenhagen interpretation the notion of an absolute wavefunction representing the world itself is unequivocally rejected... The probabilities involved are the probabilities of specified responses in the measuring devices under specified conditions.”

—excerpt from “Quantum Confusion: Does Modern Physics Support the Psychics?” by Robert Novella (1997)

And,

The conventional interpretation of quantum mechanics, promulgated by Bohr and still held by most physicists, says nothing about consciousness. It concerns only what can be measured and what predictions can be made about the statistical distributions of ensembles of future measurements. As noted, the wave function is simply a mathematical object used to calculate probabilities. Mathematical constructs can be as magical as any other figment of the human imagination-like the Starship Enterprise or a Roadrunner cartoon. Nowhere does quantum mechanics imply that real matter or signals travel faster than light. In fact, superluminal signal propagation has been proven to be impossible in any theory consistent with conventional relativity and quantum mechanics (Eberhard and Ross 1989)...

Quantum mechanics, the centerpiece of modern physics, is misinterpreted as implying that the human mind controls reality and that the universe is one connected whole that cannot be understood by the usual reduction to parts. However, no compelling argument or evidence requires that quantum mechanics plays a central role in human consciousness or provides instantaneous, holistic connections across the universe. Modern physics, including quantum mechanics, remains completely materialistic and reductionistic while being consistent with all scientific observations. The apparent holistic, nonlocal behavior of quantum phenomena, as exemplified by a particle's appearing to be in two places at once, can be understood without discarding the commonsense notion of particles following definite paths in space and time or requiring that signals travel faster than the speed of light. No superluminal motion or signalling has ever been observed, in agreement with the limit set by the theory of relativity. Furthermore, interpretations of quantum effects need not so uproot classical physics, or common sense, as to render them inoperable on all scales-especially the macroscopic scale on which humans function. Newtonian physics, which successfully describes virtually all macroscopic phenomena, follows smoothly as the many-particle limit of quantum mechanics. And common sense continues to apply on the human scale.

—excerpt from “Quantum Physics Quackery” by Victor Stenger (1997)

And the final nail in the coffin,

Inside our neurons are tiny hollow microtubules that act like structural scaffolding. The conjecture (and that’s all it is) is that something inside the microtubules may initiate a wave function collapse that leads to the quantum coherence of atoms, causing neurotransmitters to be released into the synapses between neurons and thus triggering them to fire in a uniform pattern, thereby creating thought and consciousness. Since a wave function collapse can only come about when an atom is “observed” (i.e., affected in any way by something else), neuroscientist Sir John Eccles, another proponent of the idea, even suggests that “mind” may be the observer in a recursive loop from atoms to molecules to neurons to thought to consciousness to mind to atoms….

In reality, the gap between sub-atomic quantum effects and large-scale macro systems is too large to bridge. In his book The Unconscious Quantum, the University of Colorado particle physicist Victor Stenger demonstrates that for a system to be described quantum mechanically the system’s typical mass m, speed v, and distance d must be on the order of Planck’s constant h. “If mvd is much greater than h, then the system probably can be treated classically.” Stenger computes that the mass of neural transmitter molecules, and their speed across the distance of the synapse, are about three orders of magnitude too large for quantum effects to be influential. There is no micro-macro connection. Subatomic particles may be altered when they are observed, but the moon is there even if no one looks at it. So what the #$*! is going on here?

Physics envy. The history of science is littered with the failed pipedreams of ever-alluring reductionist schemes to explain the inner workings of the mind — schemes increasingly set forth in the ambitious wake of Descartes’ own famous attempt, some four centuries years ago, to reduce all mental functioning to the actions of swirling vortices of atoms, supposedly dancing their way to consciousness. Such Cartesian dreams provide a sense of certainty, but they quickly fade in the face of the complexities of biology. We should be exploring consciousness at the neural level and higher, where the arrow of causal analysis points up toward such principles as emergence and self-organization. Biology envy.

- Michael Shermer

 

[KarmaSutra]

Mine is Supranatural, "That's a whole other level above Super!"

 

[Alle_Gory]

Citing the two-hole experiment, in which particles are beamed toward a barrier with double slits, Lanza pointed out that an observed particle acts as one would expect and goes through a single hole. When unobserved, however, the particle behaves like a wave and passes through multiple slits at the same time. Lanza suggested that our observations effect the world around us as well, and without conscious observers (in the form of biological life) there would be no universe at all.

No. That's complete nonsense. The best way to explain that experiment? Look at the debate over the properties of light. Some people argue that photons are waves, some people argue that photons are particles.

This is why we have experiments like the two-hole slits. To figure out what they are. Thanks for playing. You fail Physics 101.

Space and time are not external objects and do not exist independent of an observer's mind, he continued.

Space is external. Time is just a function of entropy. If particles were to freeze, time itself would freeze. But in reality things are moving all over the place, Building, eroding, rebuilding... etc. We humans are able to measure that (in our own bodies I suppose) and we feel the passage of time.

Lanza likened time to a vinyl record on a turntable. All of the songs exist simultaneously even if you only experience them one at a time. He further proposed that the choices we make in our present can effect the past, noting the conclusions of a recently published experiment in which scientists retroactively changed a quantum event that had already happened.

That's great. If you could observe a quantum event in the first place. There is much work being done in just observing the events without changing the outcome (it's a destructive measurement you see). But now scientist have observed these events... and reversed them too???

WOW!

No. I'm just being sarcastic. Please post the evidence to support your claims. But I know you won't because this is all bullsh*t.