Become a God for 79 Cents

 

In 1934, a product was created that has yet to be trumped in its incredible power, not by 3D printing, bionic hands, or even self slicing bread. One man had the revolutionary idea to take blank pieces of paper and bind them together with a spiral of twisting metal. Thanks to this pioneer of liberal thinking, today, if you have 79 cents, you can become a god.

I grow impatient of your incessant rambling, Qwizx. Just tell me this amazing thing already!

Alright, jeez, Fictional Naysayer, I gotta rope you in and build the suspense a little, ok? Cool your ADHD jets…

Buy a notebook, and you can have superpowers… literally.

Of course, there is the obvious, “hey kids, unleash the power of your imagination,” (as though Wondergressive would ever become some PBS special or episode of SpongeBob). Or the spot-on philosophy of sci-fi grandmaster Robert A. Heinlein, World as Myth. Or, like we’ve already shown, creativity is the meaning of existence. No, this is much much much cooler than all that.

So a friend mentions how he found this method of tripling your energy in the morning, and you placatingly nod and think, “Cool, I’ll add it to the pile of things I’ll blow off until I die, right along side lose 50lb, quit masturbating, and develop a photographic memory.” Except, do you actually have that pile? No? Then make one…

Get yourself a pad of paper and a pencil, those ancient technologies, to keep in your pocket at all times, and jot down any passing thought, even just a one or two word “note-to-self.”

Don’t be afraid to take it to serial-killer levels of obsessive compulsion:

But, why?

Short-term memory is super limited, so it’s easy to get overwhelmed if, say, more than two things are happening at once. But your brain is a tremendously powerful biological supercomputer capable of… frankly we have no idea, because we are constantly pushing the boundaries of what we are capable of. What the notebook does is very simple; it allows you to set your subconscious to its own devices and create miracles on par with walking on water.

So, this time, a buddy mentions something about eating more spinach, and we try something new; instead of “yeah yeah, I’ll get to it eventually” we simply jot it down in our handy dandy notebook… and that’s it. Don’t think about it again. Set it and forget it.

Bullshit!

Always the skeptic, Mr. Naysayer. Good, don’t ever change.

Ok, think of it this way: Yes, short-term memory is limited. Long-term memory, however, has no limits. None. (Well, not quite none. It’s only capable of storing the entire Milky Way galaxy jam packed with terabyte hard drives) and it thinks half a million times faster than you. Putting your subconscious to a task is like wondering what to make for diner and having the entire population of Luxemburg stop what they’re doing to exclusively weigh the pros and cons of mac-n-cheese vs. Chinese takeout. Assigning a job to the subconscious is really easy, too…

When we half-heartedly think “Yeah yeah, I’ll get to it when I get to it” what we’re saying is “Hey Luxemburg, just sit around. We’re not doing shit today”

There is a general taboo on Magic, here in the age of science, but “magic” is just a word. The mind is so magnificently powerful that it’s incomprehensible to our thinking consciousness. Perhaps the first grimoire was just this concept; a young lady wrote down her inner thoughts and crazy “coincidences” started happening. (Shit, better burn her.)

Whatever. I have a journal and don’t own my own planet yet.

Touché.

First, go back right now and read your old journals. You’ll be astonished at how much of what you’d written has happened. You’ll be far more astonished at how much of what came true you totally forgot about and then put no conscious effort whatsoever into achieving, but it happened anyway.

Second, take a special look at your language. Our thoughts are noise, and even the smartest among us are complete morons. That’s a good thing. When you wrote, “Brian is so cute, but there’s no way he’d like me,” Luxemburg took that and created exactly what you wanted. They got together and filtered what they would show you (like how he’s talking to Hillary and hasn’t noticed your low-cut top, asshole) hiding anything non-affirming (see how he can’t make eye-contact and keeps shifting his feet when you’re around. That’s a good thing). You will see whatever you already expect to see. That’s why Brian’s an asshole.

Instead, even if you don’t believe it, jot down “I think Brian might be into me,” and Luxemburg will start to show you little bits of proof that you’re right.

Got any examples?

Sure do. In ’95, Neal Donald Walsch was a broken man. Razor in hand, ready to open his wrists in desperation, he played one last-ditch wild card that he never expected to work. He pulled out a spiral notebook and started frantically scrawling a passionate hate letter to God, demanding answers to not just his own turmoils, but to the big existential things; why is there so much suffering? What happens when we die? Bad things to good people, all that.

A devout atheist, eventually, in his passion, something happened. He started expecting an answer. In that moment, he got one. His hand started moving of its own accord, and the revelations revealed were nothing less than divine. These madman scribblings have gone on to become a series of spiritual texts lauded the world over. God? Brain? It doesn’t matter.

Another. Are you reading this on a Mac? So you’ve heard of Steve Jobs? His biography flies off the shelves and one of the most beautiful things in it is his constant demanding of the impossible. All throughout the book are moments where a chief-engineer would come to him with bad news, “Steve, we can’t do it. I know what you’re saying; it’s just that what you need us to do doesn’t exist. It’s impossible.”

Top engineers for Apple or Pixar are kind of smart, so if they say something isn’t just hard, but utterly impossible, then, yeah, it can’t be done. Steve, charismatic manager that he was, would simply say, “Fucking do it, or you’re fired.”  And it got done. Every time. (Screw you, reality)

Get your own spiral notebook without leaving your house!

Is that really all there is to it?

Yep. When you write it down it gives your brain permission to do what it does best, solve problems.

Don’t think big. Think huge. Don’t think huge. Think cosmic. Just decide and don’t worry about the how. Your private fleet of subatomic-physicists, genetic-engineers, economists, composers, and dreamers can work out the details.

 

 

Sources:

First Spiral Notebook (Sep, 1934)

Reanimated Kidneys, 3-D Printing, and (Icky?) Organ Markets

Bionic Hand That Can Feel

World as Myth

The Almighty Escapism: Creating Distraction

Engineering the Perfect Morning in 8 Easy Steps

The Amazing Bacon, Beer, and Edible Underwear Diet

Quit Cumming: Save MANkind

Photographic Memory (Phase 2: Holy Shit)

How Handwriting Trains the Brain

Obese? Got a Fatty Liver? No Problem. Spinach and Nuts Have You Covered

Neural Pathway Development

Conscious Vs. Subconscious Processing Power

Science Says, “Smart People Are Idiots”

How Do Brains Filter Data?

“Party Chat” Brain Filter Discovered

Brain “Irrelevance Filter” Found

Preserving Integrity in the Face of Performance Threat

cwg.org

Conversations With God, an Uncommon Dialogue

Steve Jobs

24 Inspirational Steve Jobs Quotes That Help You Suck Less

Will Smith: Wisdom, Motivation, Inspiration

 

 

Morals or More Rails To Guide Us: Science Vs. Religion

The virtues of right and wrong have been around since the first creature felt what would be later called pain and responded to it. When something hurts, you try not to do it again. It is a relatively simple concept that has evolved unobstructed for one life time (one life time being from the start of all life, until now). There are many different sources of morality. Each of these sources share one major thing in common: They all believe that they are the most right. I’m not here to call your god a shape-shifting molester of women (unless you pray to Zues) or tell you how to live your life but rather, I would like to examine a few schools of moral thought. I’ll leave the conclusion making to you, our Wondergressive readers.

Science

Before I begin I would like to address a euphemism. You see, There are No Morals in Science but what science lacks in morals, it makes up in “ethical concerns” which if you ask me, is a science’d up way of saying that even scientists have morals.

Science believes, whole-mindedly, that the answers to everything are measurable. Using analysis, a scientist decodes the world. There is nothing that cannot be measured. The things that are not yet measured are only not yet measured because we haven’t found a way to measure them yet. Science will find a way to answer every question through precision measurements. From What is Science:

Science is continually refining and expanding our knowledge of the universe, and as it does, it leads to new questions for future investigation. Science will never be “finished.”

Logic is the pride of science. Every decision must be logical. Since I’m in the habit of asking google what things are, I decided to ask “What is Logic?”

Briefly speaking, we might define logic as the study of the principles of correct reasoning. This is a rough definition, because how logic should be properly defined is actually quite a controversial matter.

Basically logic is the refinement of thinking in order to achieve perfectly scientific results.

 

Fables, Fiction, and Fantasy:

Guided by both the imagination and the wisdom of everyday life, invented stories are another means of instilling morality. This time, when I searched the rules of fiction, there is nothing concrete. There are limitless ways of expressing good/evil dichotomies when you use your imagination. There are a few guiding points in writing a good piece of fiction. Each work must have elements of plot, setting, character, conflict, symbol, point of view, and some sort of a theme to tie it all together.

That is just from the standpoint of the author. The great thing about these three ‘F’s is that the infinite imagination of the reader is coupled with the infinite imagination of the author to create unparalleled sharing of ideas. Reading fiction challenges the morals, or-if you prefer-ethical concerns, through vivid imagery. A good author is capable of projecting feelings through the work that has been created in order to engage the reader in a decision making process. Did things turn out the right way? But what happens when you pair both science and these three ‘F’s?

Religion

Unlike any of the aforementioned morality boosters, religion deals primarily with what happens after you die. Some philosophies approach the matter more scientifically and some choose to use time-tested stories in order to explain the whatnots and whyfors of morality. Religion asks its followers to fully believe that there is no other way than the path that they are on. Relying on a sense of community to herd the masses into doing what is right, religion gives security to the faithful.

 

Secular ethics and the World Around You

Speaking as somebody who has a terrible time deciding what class to choose in RPGs (I often choose the druid or shape shifting class), I think that we all have a responsibility to find our own moral code. Religion, Science, and Fables/Fiction/Fantasy all give us ways to learn something new, or really.. really old. It is up to us to decide to be kind and charitable to each other whether or not we share the same values. At the core, we all want to be happy and that is all that matters.

In closing, as Kurt Vonnegut puts it best:

God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.

Source List:
What is Science?
What is Logic?
There are No Morals in Science
There are a few guiding points in writing a good piece of fiction
This is a great part of Monty Python’s Life of Brian

Doctors Communicate with Vegetable Through Brain Scans

 

A Canadian man named Scott Routley, who has been in a vegetative state for 12 years, was able to communicate with doctors via a brain scan, proving that even a seemingly brain dead person may have an active and fully conscious mind. He was able to successfully explain to doctors that he is not in pain.

A vegetative state is defined by being unaware of your surrounding and incapable of conscious thought. Until this remarkable discovery, Routley was thought to be a complete vegetable.

This is the first time in medical history that a vegetative patient has been able to relate some type of clinically relevant information to doctors.  British neuroscientist professor Adrian Owen, leader of the research team at the Brain and Mind Institute of Western Ontario, said:

Scott has been able to show he has a conscious, thinking mind. We have scanned him several times and his pattern of brain activity shows he is clearly choosing to answer our questions. We believe he knows who and where he is.

The team uses an fMRI scanner to located active regions of the brain.  They ask the patient to imagine playing tennis or walking around their home.  These thought process create very distinct patterns of activity in the brain. The doctors are able to assign one thought process as meaning ‘yes’ and the other as meaning ‘no.’  In this way, Routley is able to have a conversation with the doctors through his imagination.

Proffessor Owen believes this breakthrough will make a profound difference in improving the lives of patients all around the world.  He explains that:

In [the] future we could ask what we could do to improve their quality of life. It could be simple things like the entertainment we provide, or the times of day they are washed and fed.

Professor Owen believes that 20% or more of people assumed to be in a complete vegetative state may in fact be completely conscious.

I believe far more time and consideration must go into ensuring people like Routley are still able to live as comfortably as possible. It is equally important that these people are able to make decisions for themselves. They may not have control of their body, but their life is still their own.

 

Sources:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/vegetative-patient-communicates-1.748615

https://wondergressive.com/2012/09/01/death-is-a-privilege-not-a-right/