Mental Development Explained

This theory stren¹ provides a mental motion picture of the development of our manner of processing information.

            Destructive aggression is among nature’s basic means to survive and sustain the life cycle; nature rewards destructive physical aggression.  Earth’s creatures instinctively express aggression to get food, to mate, and to protect their young.  An animal kills, satisfies its hunger, and feeds its young; selfish aggression is within our basic natural repertoire of behaviors.  Needs are fulfilled for the benefit of one’s self or one’s family, often at the expense of another.  Such behaviors are mostly automatic but may also be volitional.  Most creatures have a limited repertoire of behaviors that include this physical response pattern.  A basic insight from observation is that “Behavior that is rewarded is repeated.”   Nature pre-wires us so that need creates tension, the release of which provides energy, action and the experience of a reward.  Lessening of the negative experience of tension/discomfort/pain and/or the positive experience of pleasure, and/or success in satisfying our needs/wants are powerful motivations to sustain destructive aggression.    

            Creatures possessing awareness have added a mental operating system (O.S.) to process life’s experience.  Conscious data processing of information expands an organism’s ability to satisfy its needs, to devise better ways to fight, run, and resolve problems.  Capacity varies according to the size and complexity of the brain.  It manipulates symbols: images, words, and “meaning.”  In most organisms with consciousness, mental processing relies more on images than reflective thinking and forethought.  It is relatively primitive.   Their conscious data processing is initially programmed to serve the pre-wired physical fight/flight method of survival by adding intelligent problem solving.  While we share much with earth’s creatures, we are distinct by the degree we create and use mental means to influence our actions.  Because our actions are so strongly mediated by complex language, our means of processing information, i.e. our operating system (O.S.), differs from that of every other earth creature.  

            Simple creatures and the organs of complex creatures have specific fixed physical programs by which they operate. For example, skin, blood, and kidneys function with such similarity that we are substituting like parts of one person for that of another with increasing success.   More recently, we are physically transplanting hearts.  It is conceivable that even the older portion of the brain, if transplanted, would express “instinct” behavior in a manner common to all others.  The recent to develop outer layer of our brain is different!  It emphasizes non-physical forms of energy, viz. words and concepts.  It transforms physical forms of energy into thoughts and thinking, and vice-versa.  Furthermore, this newer brain is programmable!  It assigns meaning to mental (non-physical, virtual) reality.  The meaning of the same word may be slightly or considerably different from one person to the next.  So much depends on “custom wiring.”  Nature, our nurturers, and our self each create their own O.S..  The meanings our nurturers and that we, our self, program into thoughts and thinking are individual, unique, and private, whereas the O.S. of nature, programmed largely by genes, has more universal predictable wiring patterns and behavioral outcomes.  The assigned meanings have the power to influence which physical path leads to the action outcome.  Words directly influence physical reality!  Therefore, our behavior will vary according to which wired path the energy follows.  While we may transplant similar organs,  a donor’s personality won’t match that of the recipient.  This is because the meanings of symbols are custom programmed; they vary. 

            Nature’s operating system, programmed prior to our birth, is the first to guide us.  It expresses the perspective of our genes.   Genes direct what we are at birth and continue to direct action along prescribed paths after birth.  We call these inherited behavioral patterns “instinct.”    After birth, our nurturers provide us the symbols and the meanings we use to process thoughts and thinking.  As we are indoctrinated through mimicking with symbols and their meanings, through repetition they become wired to habitually follow the path and action outcome designated by our teachers.  These meanings constitute what we call our “native language.”  Since this O.S. relies primarily on our nurturer’s programming, it might more accurately be labeled our “nurture language.”  This second O.S. emphasizes that issues be dealt with from the perspective of our nurturers more so than the pathways our genes advocate.  

            Conscious awareness initially is servant to our inherited instincts.  With our large brain, superior mental capacity, and prolonged dependence, our nurturers provide us a sophisticated language that creates an advanced mental O.S.  This sophisticated mental O.S. is no longer a mental extension of our nature, subservient to genes and their desires.  It is designed to serve the givers of our language, our nurturers, and the rules they prescribe.  Whereas the primitive mental O.S. of most creatures continues to serve nature’s call for physical aggression, our nurturers become our primary controllers.  Simply stated, the O.S. programmed by our nurturers during our years of physical and mental immaturity is designed for blind obedience to their prescriptions for “civilized” behavior.   

            Our nurturers prohibit physical aggression, except when it serves their desires.  They demand that we convert physical aggression into mental/symbolic aggression.  Civilized society condemns murder; we pay people to enforce our rules, and punish those who engage in physical assault.  “Aggression” is expressed quite differently when nurture’s O.S. dominates nature’s O.S.; we are taught to substitute mental aggression for physical aggression.  Our preferred means to dominate is to individually and/or collectively “attack” through non-physical punishment, fear, blaming others, resentment, and guilt (mentally attacking one’s self).  Our nurturers set rules through which symbolically “beating” others is physically and mentally rewarding.  Social, economic, political, and religious control is favored over physical domination.  What happens when our nurturer’s means are unsatisfactory?  When they don’t work?  Primitive aggression prevails when symbolic domination fails.  We also tend to trigger our inherited primitive “fight or flight” reaction when we interpret an event as “emergency.”   

            Years after our physical “birth day” the self of self-mastery is born.  Herein is our power to take personal responsibility for our life’s direction, to become our own person.  We become empowered to modify our “nurture” language and/or create newer symbols, to challenge the directions of our earlier O.S.s.   Freedom is among our most prized goals!   Self-management has prerequisites that include mental and physical maturity, sophisticated language, skill in mentally processing data, and reflective thinking (self-consciousness, literally “thinking about our thinking”).  Effectiveness also requires the acquisition and application of wisdom.  This is why this 3rd O.S. is exclusively ours among earth’s creatures, and why we can’t develop it until we are decades into our life’s experience.  Through easy modifications to our native language that we ourselves initiate, we may create the ANWOT O.S. (a newer way of thinking operating system) of self-mastery.  ANWOT is the operating system we design to set our self free from the control of the O.S.s of nature and nurture.  It provides the choice to challenge and/or affirm the directions of our passively inherited and acquired programming.   We expand our emancipation as we create our own programs and exercise independent rational thinking.   At issue is the relative strength of the O.S. provided by nature, the O.S. imposed upon us by our nurturers, and the self-mastery O.S. that we may electively choose to create. 

            The following image will strengthen your practical application of the ANWOT O.S. of self-mastery:Imagine a train beginning its journey on track A.  Track B appears along the way.  A switching point redirects the train to a different course on track B.  Further along, track C appears.  This time there are switching points that allow the train to return to track A, change to C, or continue on B.  The route and the destination of A, B, and C are identifiably distinct.  A very minor alteration at a switch-point may dramatically change the course and outcome of the journey.  Most words and their meanings are like generic tracks wired into our thinking.  They influence our life’s journey.  Though our language consists of many words, and many generic tracks, there are a very limited number of “word-switches,” words that determine which pathway our mind processes information.  We become a more effective conductor upon recognizing which “word-switches” direct our thinking to track A [the instinct O.S.], B [the habit O.S.], or C [the self-mastery O.S.].  Skillful use of a limited number of “word-switches” can powerfully redirect the processing of information from its native and/or nurture O.S. to our preferred self-mastery O.S.  Important easily acquired word substitutions that “update” our thinking are described in various strens, Seven simple steps to ANWOT, Good Agression ( pp.46-49, 59-63), Introduction to the Vocabulary, and Language of Self-Mastery.  Easily taught, readily learned, dramatic results … a “WOW” combination!

            Consider these examples.  (1) When we substitute “I allow” for “You make me” and/or “I am wise to” instead of “I have to,” we switch from the blind obedience, dependency, blaming track established in our first O.S.s to the more effective personal responsibility and creative problem-solving track.  (2) Considering the positives and negatives (both … and) of alternative choices offers a more accurate understanding than the oversimplified “right or wrong” “good or bad” dichotomous thinking appropriate when we are immature.  “Either … or” thinking limits our processing of information to two categories, distorts reality, and sustains our early prejudices.  (3) We are wired early to be impatient, self-centered, amoral, and seek dominance by “winning,” often at the “loser’s” expense.  (4) We label the natural response of arousal and frustration “anger” and/or “emergency” which is commonly processed to harmful physical and/or mental aggression (primarily “blaming” and symbolic put-downs).  Our rational self has the capacity to recognize this is rarely helpful.  By re-labeling our arousal state “energy” (a neutral word) instead of “anger”, we switch our thinking pathway to a constructive problem-solving outcome.  (5) By assigning a relative degree of importance for “emergency,” i.e., “high, medium, or low priority,” we switch thinking to a rational problem-solving track instead of the reactive “automatic” emergency response that may no longer serve our short and long-term interests, action we take and come to regret.                                                                                                                        
 
            Education of one’s self (our last to develop cortical brain) in this new “mental freedom” O.S. may be readily accomplished by any mature person through work, patience, direction, and risk-taking.  Each stren (skill exercise) adds strength to mental freedom.  We inherit the disposition to express aggression in the destructive physical manner predominant in other biologic families.  ANWOT is our appropriate means to aggressively re-direct the tension and anxiety that is the major source of our energy.  It is the required means to consistently challenge our natural harmful aggressive acts and switch our energy to the track that leads to “good” aggression.  Our use of symbols adds a new dimension that provides us alternative methods to satisfy our wants.  The aggressive expression of cooperation, love, and peaceful resolution of conflict, for others and one’s self, short term and long term, is both materially and mentally rewarding.  Such “virtue” is the outcome of ANWOT + wisdom.

            Perspective determines how aggression is rewarded and/or punished.  The path and outcome of aggression differs when our first O.S.s prevail.  For example, the O.S. of our genes may approve of stealing; the strong take from the weak.  Our nurturer’s O.S. may punish the same aggressive act with blame, guilt and/or imposing physical punishment.   The O.S. of a mature self may negotiate a mutually satisfying way to obtain goods.  If you forgo dessert, nature’s O.S. may punish in the short-term (“How could you be so stupid to pass on the pie-ala-mode!”) while the O.S.s of our nurturers and self-mastery may provide long-term mental and physical rewards.  Action depends on which O.S. is dominant! 

            Let’s consider other examples of how the O.S. of nature, nurture, and self may be apparent in palpable life situations:  (1) Nature: A hawk relieves its need for food by attacking and killing a smaller bird.  We kill animals for food but also satisfy our need for food by cultivating it.  (2) Nurture: Through real or symbolic power, humankind’s strong commonly dominate the weak and require others to provide sustenance/“wants” in a “win-lose” arrangement.   (3) Self-mastery: We may also obtain food by sharing knowledge and labor with others for mutual benefit, a “win-win” situation.  (1) The buck may fulfill its sexual interest through physical aggression and domination.   Testosterone, which is more prevalent in males than females, is understood to dispose to physical aggressive behavior, especially sex related.  (2) Our nurturer’s O.S. now labels forced sex “rape,” “primitive” and “unlawful.”    Our nurturer’s mental training in prescriptive thinking and the creation of rules has been successful in diminishing the frequency of rape.  Historically and currently, males are prone to fulfill sexual wants through symbolic (viz. economic) domination of “the weaker sex,” as would be expected when our second O.S. is dominant.  (3) Our present trend is towards more cooperative relationships among mutually consenting equals.  Yet, women remain subjugated in many areas of the world. 

            If and when we choose to take responsibility for our life’s experience, we also experience tension.   As we develop skill in original thinking, our first senior masters, instinct and habit, can be expected to resist giving up or sharing their established domain.  Overcoming and letting go of the older established instinct and habit patterns is a far more difficult task than developing the ANWOT O.S. suitable to self-mastery.  When we voluntarily shed the shell that has been protective (even if now no longer adaptive, perhaps now even harmful) we incur the risk of that vulnerable interim as we replace it with the newer structure that will house our growing self.        
             
            We have the ability to create a science of thought control.   Through many millennia, nature has progressively expanded the brain to the degree that humankind now engage in advanced abstract thinking relatively independent of the perspective of nature and our nurturers.  And we have created complex language and scientific method to immensely enhance the power of self-mastery.   Neither instinct nor habit provides the means (O.S.) to effectively manage the power of abstract thinking; neither enables us to wisely direct the raw energy we now possess.  We have yet to create a scientifically disciplined way of thinking (ANWOT) to add to those “instinctive” directions programmed by our genes and those “reflex habit patterns” and directions prescribed by our nurturers.  If we are to sustain our well-being, we must develop an easily taught science of thinking, of mental reality, suitable for mass education, such as we now successfully teach the science of physical reality.  Effective self-management requires education in the manner we may process information to short and long term constructive ends, win-win outcomes, and that emphasizes prevention more so than cure.  Simple modifications (for example, by substituting the limited number of ANWOT “word-switches” for those dependency blaming words pre-wired into our native language)
will redirect our mental energy to create the newer self-mastery processing of information      

            Knowledge of the perspective and values of each programmer and the characteristics of their word families, i.e. the “operating system” by which each determines specific action, empowers us to mentally direct aggression (“muscle”) to constructive ends.  Understanding physical principals enables us to create great power through science.  Understanding mental principals is required to add value to power, to wisely direct our muscles to get us what we want.   

            The ANWOT O.S. provides freedom.  Freedom means self-direction.  Direction requires values.  Values may be attained through wisdom and/or passively acquired through authority.  The “authority” provided in the O.S.s of nature and our prevalent nurturance emphasizes the wisdom of past and present experience, of instinct and habit.  Their O.S.s lack sufficient cognitive rehearsal learning to wisely anticipate and manage the longer term consequences of our new muscles of mass destruction.  Our authorities, including our parents and great religions, have established common agreed upon universal values.  The ANWOT O.S. provides a means to apply those values and to teach tolerance where there are differences.  It is our means to actualize the loving principals we preach and diminish the harmful acts we practice.       

            I hope you will recognize the critical issue addressed in this Guide.  We are overly investing in E=mc² when instead wisdom directs us to focus our energy on Einstein’s more important insight:  If humankind is to survive, we shall require a new manner of thinking.  Our establishment has yet to provide the disciplined education in the ANWOT O.S. skills we require if we are to wisely manage the power of self-mastery that has been thrust upon us.  Until we do so, we shall remain stuck in the blaming, prescriptive, dichotomous, dependency manner of thinking that grows increasingly incompatible with our new powers of human selection.  The simple skills that lead to mature wiser thinking can readily be included in our formal educational systems, evening courses, self-help groups, T.V. programs, made available on the Internet and other mass media, and conveyed in cartoons, in the same manner we abundantly make skill building programs of all sorts available to our masses.  The Guide offers a basic curriculum, easily modified and/or expanded upon, suitable for any population.  Many individuals, through their own perspicacity and/or lucky parenting already “get it.”  They recognize our need to fill the gap between our physical science and mental science.  However, most of us do not; we require education in thought management, in ANWOT. 

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