| By
Gary Scott
This series in Success Guidelines
is reviewing ways we process information. Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" identifies
our ability to spot patterns and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience.
He calls this process Thin Slicing, a way to make fast, accurate decisions. If
you have not read the first messages on this, go to the beginning
of this series.
According to Gladwell's
book a lot of our effective thinking works at our deepest quantum level, beneath
our awareness and logic.
So let's look a minute at quantum
mechanics to understand this better. What are we, what is our brain, our mind
and our thoughts?
The traditional Newtonian answer
is that we are solid matter run by electrical energy and chemistry. Our brain
is specialized electrical chemical matter that can store, recall and process information
and our thoughts are this process.
This explanation partially works
if we stick to the lighter side of Newtonian physics. However if we look deeper,
we see that at some stage, all the chemistry and electricity cannot explain the
process well. We have to go deeper into quantum mechanics.
Our knowledge of quantum
physics has been with us for a century but is still largely ignored because this
science suggests that at a deeper level of existence the tiny bits of stuff, that
are us, start shifting and acting in unpredictable non scientific ways. Part of
the time our deeper aspects act like matter and part of the time acts like energy.
So what is this stuff-energy?
The startling reply according to quantum science is that we are simply our intention,
or attention or observation. Consciousness appears to be the root of all being
and we are as affected by these tiny movements of awareness as we are by the huge
particles that swirl above us in space (the sun starts and planets).
One good book on the subject
of quantum science is the
Elegant Universe.
This quantum level is where
the scientists of processing information and those who are called mystics seem
to come together. Prayer, meditation, astrology, yagyas, shamanism, chanting,
whirling, mysticism and quantum science are all ways of affecting intention by
combining the conscious and unconscious.
Blink for example tells the
story of Vic Branden, a tennis coach who always knows when a professional player
was about to double fault his serve, even before the player hit the ball. This
is highly unusual since so few professionals ever double-fault. This ability slowly
came as a surprise so he started keeping a record at a professional tournament
in Southern California. He correctly predicted sixteen out of seventeen double
faults on players who almost never double-fault. Something in the way the players
hold themselves, or the way they toss the ball or the fluidity of their motion
triggers something in his unconscious and he just knows. The frustration is that
this man does not know how he knows. Gladwell suggests in this book that snap
judgements rely on the thinnest of information known at the unconscious level.
His explanation is that
our subconscious is the creator and leader of our conscious thought and that we
cannot escape the programming we have acquired at our deeper levels of being.
Gladwell also shows how some
people and companies have learned to identify at the conscious level what is unconsciously
known. For example one insurance company has learned how to spot whether Doctors
are likely to be sued for malpractice or not.
Most of the ancient wisdoms
have recognized the power of the unconscious, but instead of trying to bring the
unconscious into the conscious realm, they develop thought tactics in the opposite
direction. Most ancient philosophies have conjured ways to place conscious intentions
into the unconscious, deeper level of being that are often used in modern business
and investing today.
For example in The Ant and the
Elephant, business strategist and Olympian, Vince Poscente, uses a parable that
shows how to focus the subconscious mind to accomplish conscious goals. He writes
about Adir the ant (the conscious) and Elgo the elephant (the subconscious) who
must work together to realize the common goal of reaching an Oasis, their vision
of paradise in the African savannah.
The
Elephant and the Ant
The next message in this series
looks at how one of the most successful investors in the world and Sufis use this
type of thinking power to improve health, wealth and life.
Until then, good thinking to
you!
Gary
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