We--(ALL of us)--THINK!
(If you just read that short sentence you thought about what I meant when I wrote it and its implications.)
Our very lives depend on how efficiently our thinking supplies our human needs. Survival=efficient thinking.
I ask you now: is that true (what I just wrote about Survival=efficient thinking)?
INSTANCES of necessary efficient thinking:
Certainly a heart patient who is suffering chest pains will need to ACT immediately. Efficiently.
A man with a dog bite will require efficent thinking.
Weather bulletins about a tornado or tsunami or flash flooding require efficient thinking.
Those are severe instances.
What about day to day ORDINARY life?
Driving a car on the freeway calls for thousands of life or death decisions. Efficient thinking makes all the difference!
Sex with a stranger who may have A.I.D.S. Yes/No ??
Eating food from a mobile food cart. Yes/No ??
HOW EFFICIENT is our thinking in everyday life?
The answer is fairly easy. What condition are you in?
Everyday life is the total of all your THINKING. At the end of the day, the situation you are in is the answer to the question!
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CONCEPTUAL THINKING can be tricky to fully understand---but, it need not be.
Example:
Imagine a desk. Upon the desk is a stack of various colored FOLDERS.
Printed on the outside of each colored folder is one word per folder: FLIG MURGAZ SCRONT LUNJO
We can reasonably assume those unfamiliar "words" MEAN something or other. Otherwise, why create a folder and print those things on them??
Okay, think of those folders as CONCEPTS. They are categories of things separate and distinct from other things.
We have to open the folder to view the contents.
A folder labeled ANTS would be expected to contain data about ANTS, right?
But, ANTS sounds like AUNTS.....are those connected some how? How would you know?
The contents of the folder will be DETAILS explaining, describing, validating/invalidating, quantifying whatever the LABEL actually MEANS.
Are you with me?
Let's conduct an experiment, shall we? Sometimes we find folders with UNfamiliar labels--what then?
We want to know what a FLIG is. Let's go to Google and enter the words: What is a FLIG?
Hit the SEARCH button.
What do you see?
Mostly likely you will see the definition of "FLIGHT."
What just happened?
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For your brain to be EFFICIENT in thinking (we established it already) it needs to be FAST and it needs to be ACCURATE.
But--sometimes it doesn't have a FOLDER (concept) with any information in it!
What your mind will do is TAKE THE CLOSEST ITEM THAT--in some way---RESEMBLES what you need.
It is a silly version of PREDICTIVE TEXT on your cellphone. (In other words, mostly annoying!)
Is this an ERROR?
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I know a grown woman who told me she had always thought people were "death" in their ears, if they could not hear.
She had heard the word wrong early in childhood. Her brain had given her to understand a MISconception and it stuck!
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WE THINK using those folders or CONCEPTS because we tend to store and connect bits of information (regardless of true/untrue) based on
perceived similarity.
Did you see the word "perceived" in that sentence? Add to that the word MISperceived, too.
RED FLAG:
You must actively sort through your CONCEPT folders to root out the MISperceived!
You go through your DEATH folder and find people wearing a hearing aid---what should you do???
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Sooner or later you knew this topic would come around to RELIGION and Jehovah's Witnesses, right?
Would you like to know why YOU were taken in by a cult so easily and why it appeared to be absolutely TRUE to you?
Read on....
(HINT: it has to do with those folders which are CONCEPTS)
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First of all, I apologize that this topic has gone on so long just to get to the point. If you are still with me and are willing to
participate, I think you'll be satisfied with the time you've invested.
I will give you the example of what happened to ME.
When I met my first Jehovah's Witness I did not know what a Jehovah's Witness was.
Therefore, I had no colored folder CONCEPT with the label: JEHOVAH'S WITNESS.
What I did have was a folder marked: SCHOOLMATES.
Johnny went to the same elementary school that I did. Johnny went into that folder first.
Johnny and I bonded because we both loved horror movies and comic books. We became best friends.
Yep, Johnny went into the concept folder: FRIENDS with a subheading: BEST
I spent considerable time and energy creating folders with various positive experiences with my friend Johnny.
I met his family (all JW's) and was gradually introduced to ideas they all had about god.
I already had a folder with the CONCEPT: god
I had begun that folder because my Mom had sat me on her lap and read creepy scriptures in Revelation to me. (Yeah, don't ask!)
I also had a concept folder: BIBLE
Inside that folder I had reassurances by trusted family members attesting to the special nature of information and linked this to the GOD folder.
(See how I'm presenting this? Get where I'm going?)
After not too long of a time Johnny started introducing me to opinions which appeared to CONTRADICT information in my folders!
Here is what happened next....
1. I searched the specific entries of data in my own folders and found they were practically non-existent!
2. Instead of using my few paltry bits of folder information---I argued on general principles too weak to defeat Johnny's
3. I realized Johnny had enormous stacks of folders at his disposal which could easily overwhelm those I possessed.
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You'll recall my first folder FRIENDS (subheading: BEST)...
I had an emotional connection to Johnny and his family.
Most of the information contained in my own concepts about god, bible, etc. was only emotional information from my Mom. No data, as such.
I proceeded to EDIT my CONCEPTS!
Folders about :
A. GOD became JEHOVAH
B. SOUL became BODY
C. HELL became GRAVE
D. TRUTH became Jehovah's Witness/Doctrine
You get the idea?
I had my efficient thinking REPROGRAMMED!
I had been hacked conceptually!
My emotionaly attachments transferred their connections like new hyperlinks, as well.
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When I left the Organization I took with me all my folders with CONCEPTS which had been hijacked and continued on my merry way.
How long do you suppose it took me to figure out that my thinking was still controlled by Jehovah's Witness doctrines??
Sad to admit: 10+ years!
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The strong EMOTIONAL LINKS were deeply rooted to the concept folders.
Our VALUES stem from our CONCEPTS of value.
Our EMOTIONS stem from our VALUES.
Unless......and....until we REPLACE the contents of those conceptual folders....we operate like programmed data bases.
Our "heart" and our mind cannot escape our programming unless we CONSCIOUSLY begin to UN-HACK!
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How the world can a person's MIND participate in changing ITSELF?
Isn't that like lifting yourself off the ground by grabbing yourself and pulling?
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Each cell in your body dies and is replaced constantly. You are never the same YOU from month to month.
But, the program operating YOU is different.
A computer is an interlinking operating system of hardware and software.
Software is a series of instructions: IF...THEN
The Programmer writes the instructions.
WHO IS THE PROGRAMMER for ........what YOU are?
The key to understanding that comes from understanding your CONCEPT folders!
Who labels the folder?
Who determines what the contents of those folders are?
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Your mind is the model for all the computers which have been developed and mirrors the operations.
In the same way, the first airplanes modeled the flight of birds. At a certain point CHANGES were wrought
to IMPROVE. Birds cannot fly supersonically. CONCEPTUAL changes were wrought by designers to IMPROVE on the model of the bird's flight.
The same is true of computing systems and cloud based computing. IMPROVEMENTS have made speed and efficiency vastly innovative.
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You contain your operating programming from 3 main sources.
1. Your genetic endowments from your parents and ancestors
2. Your passively absorbed ideas, impressions and concepts
3. Your actively rational choices as to what you will accept as true or false
Until you CONSCIOUSLY examine the contents of those concept folders and ACTIVELY engage in housecleaning---you are being CONTROLLED.
Your conceptual thinking CONTROLS how you emotionally deal with everything in your daily life.
What you regard as true, lovable, politcally good, morality, tasteful----all these things are your conceptual TRUTHS.
They come from those folders.
You control the folders or you are controlled BY them.
It all comes down to the contents.
Do your folders contain rumor and urban myth? or Evidence based facts?
Are your concepts consciously chosen or passively emotionally selected?
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CONCLUSION:
EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US could perform a fearless and searching inventory on our concept folders IF we thought it was necessary.
We hold the power within us to ACTIVELY and CONSCIOUSLY choose ---but---only if we DO actively and consciously choose.
Do you understand what that last sentence means?
WHO controls what we CHOOSE?
WHO is the WHO?
Which comes first---the chicken or the egg?
Do we like something because we chose it----or----did we choose it because we like it?
The contents of our folders do the choosing.
If you begin remodeling your home one step at a time and in the course of many refurbishings and reconstructions you finish the job....
It is still your home---but---the structure is now a NEW structure according to your conscious choices.
Originally, you chose the home for its potential. But, through thousands of little decisions and actions--the home is now an ACTUAL.
Look at your life and give the answer to the question: How efficient is your thinking?
The answer is the result of the contents of your CONCEPT folders.