Getting An Understanding Of Understanding

Most of us assume that what we come up with in our mind is something we thought up. In some cases that is true however, more recent scientific findings indicates that much of our thinking is planted like a seed.

Let me explain, when we're born, some call us a blank slate awaiting things to learn. The fact is we are not born with a blank slate, rather we were born with what our two parents passed on to us. Moreover, what is passed on is more than eye and hair color. An intelligence is also passed on which gives us the bases upon which all subsequent learning is added. That intelligence can go back as far as eight generations on both sides of the family.

Then along comes the environmental modifiers and triggers that informs our subconscious of whatever they want us to think, good or bad. Hopefully at this point you begin to see the potential problems.

So how do we reason and make decisions? That to me is the most intriguing of any aspect of the mind. So if you separated the mind into two sections, you would have the conscious and subconscious mind.

The conscious mind is where the real time active processing takes place on data provided to it. It has the ability to accept or reject anything presented to it.The subconscious mind on the other hand is a storehouse of habits and many other bits of information, some of which you didn't consciously put there. Another interesting aspect of the subconscious mind is the fact that it will accept anything given to it with no ability to scrutinize what it gets.

We live in a society today that de-emphasize critical thinking and so as a result, you have a lot of what I call "The Walking Dead" in that only surface thinking is done which relies a great deal of what comes to mind no matter if if comes from the conscious mind or the subconscious mind. Clearly it makes a difference where the information comes from.

Unfortunately, we were not taught critical thinking in school at any level. That is the root of this so called "Thought Disorder", which is really a mis-education. We're not aware that our subconscious is always open to everything awake or asleep. So we have to be vigilant on a personal level.

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