We learn to create the world we live in.
The unconscious brain receives and processes billions of bits of information every second and makes automatic judgements about which information to bring to our conscious awareness; about 2000 bits of information, out of 400 billion. Depending on what you count as a bit, the estimates of incoming information vary from 8 – 400 billion and depending on the definition of awareness or indeed if you use the word attention, the estimate of bits of information you notice vary from 8 – 2000. The general proportion of scale is the important point, it is in the area of billions to one.
The unconscious brain accesses filtered memories, knowledge and provides the insights of creative wisdom.
It operates our automatic behaviour. This includes both the learned functions that are controlled by the cerebellum and the automatic, fantastic chemical factory, and its subsidiary support systems like breathing, which is our physical body.
Learned functions/behaviour I’m referring to include both the physical things that we do (without consciously attending to) like walking, brushing our teeth, driving & Kung Fu, (once learned properly) and also the habitual thinking and the casual observations, which is also learned habitual behaviour. (this is a vital point) Yes even our casual observations, what details we notice and the way we perceive the world, how it looks to us, is an unconscious, learned habitual behaviour.
It short, it is responsible for everything we do that we do not give our conscious attention to; though it is likely the choice of what you give your attention to was unconscious.
While many functions are purely automatic from the start, a surprising number of these functions are learned at first and then consigned to automatic (unconscious) once we have run the programme a few times. Some of these programmes, running in the background, we learned when we were so young that we have forgotten that we ever learned them. Programmes like walking, finding poo disgusting, getting anxious about social events, reacting to a threat with aggression or selecting which information to bring to our conscious attention.
Now as mentioned at the start, the difference between what we unconsciously receive from all our senses then process and what is presented to our conscious attention by this learned selection programme is enormous; one estimate suggests that we are consciously aware of 0.0000000005% of what we unconsciously take in.
This unconsciously taken in (but not brought to conscious awareness) data is a vast resource, an untapped world of information available to us if we can learn to re-programme this selection process. We can see most clearly in others when this selection programme is a little different to our own. Some people have programmed their selection protocol to notice motor bikes, flowers, birds, dogs, reasons to be jealous, reasons to be offended, opportunities to make money, opportunities to flirt, apparent threats or insults. After working as a head doorman for many years, I found that I could be in any vast crowd and notice without conscious intention a fight about to break out, or someone about to collapse and often I could be there before those immediately next to the individuals involved had even noticed anything wrong. Even after I finished working as security manager at an international insurance company, I would drive past one of their buildings, or any other large office block, in the evening and without any deliberate attention, know that 3 of the windows on the 6th floor were open. Fortunately, after years of neglect, I no longer have these particular functions tuned to such a high sensitivity. Though, I still notice security cameras and their neglected dead zones. I still notice open windows and climbable access routes. I still intuitively or unconscious sense when someone is about to be violent and without any conscious thought, I am aware of the best target and angle of strike to take them down quickly. The world that we live in is the world we perceive. With so little of the available data attended to, how can we think for a second that we have an objective, realistic handle on the real world? If we are only consciously aware of a billionth of what is even available to our senses, we are blind to all the rest. That’s not even taking into account of the stuff our senses can take in; the rest of the light spectrum, radio waves, magnetic fields, sound above or below our hearing, etc.
It might be an obvious thing to mention, but we all notice what we look out for. But, the choice of what we look out for is mostly selected unconsciously, our brains having previously learned this preference. If we have practiced, for example, looking for opportunities to make money, then, through repetition, by creating a habit, we consigned the process to be an automatic function, then we will, apparently intuitively, automatically, notice all such opportunities. We could just as easily have practiced looking for trouble in a crowd, open windows after dark, things to be grateful for or happy about, or indeed, reasons to get depressed, be offended or feel victimised about. This is a large part of what is happening when people observe that whatever we focus on or give our attention to, we appear to attract more of that into our lives. Remember when you were consider getting a particular car. You Googled it, found out about it, then did you notice how often you saw one as you drove around. They are everywhere! It’s almost miraculous, it must be God/the universe telling you to get one. With such a vast untapped resource of incoming data available to all of us, it will always be the case that what you focus your attention on, you will appear to attract into your life. Focus on health and you will notice opportunities to be healthier, you will notice the foods to avoid, opportunities for exercise etc. Focus on illness and you will appear to attract that instead. Two people with identical aches and pains will have totally different experiences of their apparent health. One will notice, highlight and be aware of every pain, constantly complaining about their age and decrepitude, while the other will brush those minor pains aside and focus on the joy of living, considering a few aches and pains a small price to pay for the privilege of reaching a great age. There is even evidence that as we consider the prospect of getting a cold with dread and anticipation it acts as instructions for our unconsciously run immune system to adjust down and allow the cold virus in. The unconscious does not recognise negative instructions.
This system/law of attraction might not (I’m open to it being true) make you healthier, happier or richer. It will however seem that you get presented with an unbelievable abundance of opportunities to get healthier, happier and richer, which is good enough to bring about the reality. Our learned process of selecting the data we become consciously aware of is the method by which we are creating the world we perceive. This is why when people say things like “seeing is believing” or that they’ll believe it when the see it, they are often wrong. It is perhaps more often the case that “believing is seeing” and only when they believe in something will they be able to see it.
