Do you think you have control over what goes through your mind? If so, try this experiment. Sit in a quiet room with your eyes closed and try to think of nothing at all for five minutes. Or even one minute. Unless you have experience with meditation, you will probably find it surprisingly difficult. And if you can't choose to think of nothing for even a minute, if you can't choose whether to have thoughts, is it really reasonable to believe that you are in control of which specific thoughts you have?
posted by howtolive.org at
7:48 AM
2 Comments:
Gosh this is so true - I've attempted this "mind clearing" so many times I've lost count (with little or no success). I think our brains always want us to be thinking of something, but I also think we can control what we're thinking of to a significant extent, although there's always that random thing that pops up out of nowhere. Thanks for the post.
By
starbucker, at 3:08 PM
Thanks for the comment. You might want to look into Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine. She extends the theory of memetic selection (which is in some ways analogous to natural selection, but operates on ideas instead of genes), and comes to the conclusion that since the ideas that proliferate are the ones that are best at getting into people's brains, ideas have competed for space in brains to the point where brains are full of ideas, even if the brains don't want it this way.
By
howtolive.org, at 8:24 AM
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