The Prediction Machine
The September 19, 2019 Edition of Oh Being with host Krista Tippett features a conversation with Erik Vance., author of Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Ability to Deceive, Transform and Heal. As usual I urge the reader to listen to this fascinating discussion.
As a licensed counselor and certified addiction counselor I have long been interested in the power of our thoughts in the role of healing. A host of thinkers and writers including Noman Vincent Peal and Dr. Wayne Dyer have built upon the beliefs of our ancestors that our mind plays an enormous role in the how we experience this life journey.
Some years ago I remembered listening to a guest on the NPR program The People’s Pharmacy say that a more helpful term for placebo’s is remembered wellness. If the brain thinks it is getting something which will help the body to heal then it begins to send well messages or healing instructions to the body. Mr. Vance and his colleagues are basically building on this theory by describing the brain as a prediction machine. He says: “Everything your brain does, it takes the past, it applies it to the present to predict the future. And it does it in small ways-it’s basically creating a map of how the world works, based on the experiences that happen to it.” His research further suggests that the brain does this with such diseases as “pain, irritable bowel syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, anxiety, depression, some autoimmune diseases, and maybe addiction – depending how you work on that; it’s a little harder to study – these things have high placebo rates. But if you look at something like autism or OCD, they have low placebo response.” Later on he and Ms. Tibbett talked about some the diseases such as cancer which the brain may not have any memory or map to apply to the healing process. Yet there are also example in some part of the world where directed energy by health care professional may have a profound effect on such conditions as tumors.
Almost all the work I do is based on the belief that if one changes the internal map one can drastically affect how we experience the world and how our body works to heal itself. Of course, in order for any machine to work it has to be maintained well. Many of us expect our body to keep functioning well with poor nutrition, excess amount of alcohol, caffeine and nicotine, little to no exercise, living around negative energy much of the time and not imputing new information into our brain. Obviously if one stands back and thinks about this it is ridiculous. Poorly maintained machines do not function well.
My Buddhist teachers including Pema Chodron suggests one:
When one makes predictions based on past experiences including past traumas one is predicting that what happened in the past has to predict what will happen in the future. One is feeding what has often become a belief. Many beliefs are based on a very low N (N=number of experiences or events). This is very unscientific. Even if one, for example, grew up in an alcoholic home and accumulated quite a number of negative experiences in that home, not all families are alcoholic. N now refers to number of families and not events. Of course, one also has to explore the common pattern of unwittingly choosing to be around alcoholic families thinking that one will finally find the healthy one. One tends to look in same places if one does not know to be very intentional about making other choices. When one labels an event one is also feeding the group of events which one has labeled as positive or negative. Self-fulfilling prophecies ensue. The goal is to just notice without comments.
The overall goal is, of course, to get more scientific in one’s analysis. Most of us know how to do that or can easily learn. One can then change the brain so that it can make predictions based on the outcome of the scientific analysis. If one repeatedly put more scientific information in the brain one changes the map in the brain.
Written September 20, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Of course this does not mean that medication cannot also, at times, be a piece of the healing plan. Some medications may work with the brain in changing he predictions and thus the instructions sent to the rest of the body. Acute clinical depression may require medication to allow one to step back enough to reexamine the negative predictions of the depression.
The bottom line is that as we learn more about the brain we know that brain maps can be altered. The process is fairly simple. Simple does not, however, mean easy. Habits of thinking, like all habits, are on automatic pilot unless one is very intentional about interrupting and inserting new thoughts.
The September 19, 2019 Edition of Oh Being with host Krista Tippett features a conversation with Erik Vance., author of Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Ability to Deceive, Transform and Heal. As usual I urge the reader to listen to this fascinating discussion.
As a licensed counselor and certified addiction counselor I have long been interested in the power of our thoughts in the role of healing. A host of thinkers and writers including Noman Vincent Peal and Dr. Wayne Dyer have built upon the beliefs of our ancestors that our mind plays an enormous role in the how we experience this life journey.
Some years ago I remembered listening to a guest on the NPR program The People’s Pharmacy say that a more helpful term for placebo’s is remembered wellness. If the brain thinks it is getting something which will help the body to heal then it begins to send well messages or healing instructions to the body. Mr. Vance and his colleagues are basically building on this theory by describing the brain as a prediction machine. He says: “Everything your brain does, it takes the past, it applies it to the present to predict the future. And it does it in small ways-it’s basically creating a map of how the world works, based on the experiences that happen to it.” His research further suggests that the brain does this with such diseases as “pain, irritable bowel syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, anxiety, depression, some autoimmune diseases, and maybe addiction – depending how you work on that; it’s a little harder to study – these things have high placebo rates. But if you look at something like autism or OCD, they have low placebo response.” Later on he and Ms. Tibbett talked about some the diseases such as cancer which the brain may not have any memory or map to apply to the healing process. Yet there are also example in some part of the world where directed energy by health care professional may have a profound effect on such conditions as tumors.
Almost all the work I do is based on the belief that if one changes the internal map one can drastically affect how we experience the world and how our body works to heal itself. Of course, in order for any machine to work it has to be maintained well. Many of us expect our body to keep functioning well with poor nutrition, excess amount of alcohol, caffeine and nicotine, little to no exercise, living around negative energy much of the time and not imputing new information into our brain. Obviously if one stands back and thinks about this it is ridiculous. Poorly maintained machines do not function well.
My Buddhist teachers including Pema Chodron suggests one:
- Drop dualities. Quit labeling thoughts or actions good, bad, right, wrong, positive, or negative.
- Just notice thoughts without feeding them.
When one makes predictions based on past experiences including past traumas one is predicting that what happened in the past has to predict what will happen in the future. One is feeding what has often become a belief. Many beliefs are based on a very low N (N=number of experiences or events). This is very unscientific. Even if one, for example, grew up in an alcoholic home and accumulated quite a number of negative experiences in that home, not all families are alcoholic. N now refers to number of families and not events. Of course, one also has to explore the common pattern of unwittingly choosing to be around alcoholic families thinking that one will finally find the healthy one. One tends to look in same places if one does not know to be very intentional about making other choices. When one labels an event one is also feeding the group of events which one has labeled as positive or negative. Self-fulfilling prophecies ensue. The goal is to just notice without comments.
The overall goal is, of course, to get more scientific in one’s analysis. Most of us know how to do that or can easily learn. One can then change the brain so that it can make predictions based on the outcome of the scientific analysis. If one repeatedly put more scientific information in the brain one changes the map in the brain.
Written September 20, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Of course this does not mean that medication cannot also, at times, be a piece of the healing plan. Some medications may work with the brain in changing he predictions and thus the instructions sent to the rest of the body. Acute clinical depression may require medication to allow one to step back enough to reexamine the negative predictions of the depression.
The bottom line is that as we learn more about the brain we know that brain maps can be altered. The process is fairly simple. Simple does not, however, mean easy. Habits of thinking, like all habits, are on automatic pilot unless one is very intentional about interrupting and inserting new thoughts.
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