An Ecology of MInd (6 page)

"Absolutely correct. Very good. I notice some of you are still looking a bit confused. Let's see If I can clarify things with some examples."

"Each of you will have a construct in your head of the ideal mate. You may not realize it consciously, but it is there. There will be a lot of things on
that list. It may contain whether the person is tall or short, a blonde, brunette, or redhead. Whether they are thin or curvy, have blue eyes, a nice
smile, and white teeth. Do they have a great sense of humor? Are they athletic, honest, witty, sincere, loyal, or good with children? It may include if
they are reliable, punctual, or have a laid-back personality. The list will be fairly extensive, and some of the things included on the list you may not
have added consciously. Should they be like my mother or father? Should they be totally different from my parents? You get the idea. The actual list will
vary from person to person, but it is there."

"Now you meet someone at a party, and the brain starts comparing. The person is tall, check, blonde, check, blue eyes, check, thin, check, nice smile,
check. Your brain will not go very far down that list before it assigns the entire construct and all the qualities to that person, whether they are there
or not."

"It won't normally assign obvious physical characteristics that are a discrepancy. For example, it won't assign a Caucasian the designation of Asian, or
anything along those lines. It will, however, assign subjective traits like sense of humor, kind, generous, good with kids, etc...."

"And now for the kicker that I didn't mention yet. Once the brain has assigned a construct, it is resistant to changing that assignment. It has already
compared, matched, assigned and moved on. It actually alters the input or filters it so that it is seen as consistent with the mental construct. It is like
there is a force field around the link between the object and the construct. Differences that are noted now, between the construct and reality are ignored,
for the most part. It takes several repeated instances of inconsistency between the construct and reality, over a period of time, or else a very large
inconsistency, to change the link."

"So in our example, you are now dating this person who you think is just wonderful. They are a match or a close match to your perfect mate. They are
amazing, and they make you so happy. Your friends don't seem to have warmed up to them totally, but that is just because they don't know them like you do
and are not seeing the real person that they are underneath, like you are. A couple of your friends may even have said they don't know why you are dating
this person, but you think that is probably just sour grapes on their part. Your new love interest can do no wrong. This is the brain, rejecting the
inconsistencies between the construct and the real person."

"Eventually, the repeated small inconsistencies start to accumulate. They aren't careful with money; they are cheap. They aren't focused; they just don't
care about anyone else other than themselves. They don't have a quirky sense of humor; they are sarcastic. Alternatively, a large inconsistency like coming
home and finding them in bed with your roommate occurs. Now, the brain finally removes the link between the previous construct and that person and
immediately assigns another one. The new mental construct may be of a selfish cheating insensitive heartbreaker. Now, even good or neutral acts are seen as
manipulative self-serving lies on their part, whether they are or not. Your brain made a new construct and is again resistant to inconsistencies between
the real object and the construct. In reality, the person has probably not changed at all through all of this, but your mental construct of them has. "

"I notice as I was speaking that many of you in the audience had an "aha moment" about your dating life up until this point. This was just an example. It
applies to all areas of perception."

"Marketers use this brain feature in advertisements. Often they don't know the underlying reason why it works. They just know that it does. They have a
doctor or scientist showing a product, but really it is often just an actor in a lab coat. They don't even have to state the person's job, your brain
assigns qualities to them that you associate with white lab coats."

"They might show the product in the presence of sexy young people or fun exciting events to form linkages in your mind between their product and other
things you find appealing."

"Positive and negative associations are both assigned when the brain makes a link between whatever it perceives, and a construct. And not all links are
made at the conscious level."

"You can assign a construct in a fraction of a second. The really insidious part is that you usually don't even think to question it."

"You've probably noticed some of the effects I've described without knowing what was causing it. And you may not have realized how extensively this feature
of brain function affects your perceptions, thinking and beliefs. Often an outside observer sees it much more easily."

"This is very powerful stuff, and a huge barrier to perceiving reality, but you can guard against it somewhat. Try to be more aware of inconsistencies in
your perceptions and thinking. If things don't logically add up, look or think deeper. You will be surprised at what you start to notice."

THE SURVEY SHIP DROPPED OUT of hyperspace in the system a standard jump unit out from the center of the star. Jumps used the least energy at jump zero, but
that put you in the middle of the star. For this reason standardized energy expenditures were used for blind jumps to place the ship a set distance out
from the star centre. It usually worked. Nasty problems occurred when there was something else in the space, like a planet. Occasionally, a survey ship
lost contact on a new system jump, and if it did, the next one jumped two standard jump units. Fortunately, the volume of empty space in a star system was
huge, and the space occupied by planets if there were any, was minuscule. The number of occasions where a survey ship had been lost to a bad jump was
small.

They began scanning the system. Eight planets and assorted moons and asteroids were found. They had jumped to a point almost mid way between the orbits of
the fifth and sixth planets. Nothing seemed to orbit through that exact spot so a beacon was dropped. The beacon would act as confirmation of a valid jump
point in the future. They could be placed anywhere in the system and future jumps made to the beacon as a known safe spot but the location of their initial
jump seemed fine for now. Additional beacons could be placed if warranted.

There was no activity in most areas of the system, but a lot of signals in the electromagnetic spectrum were coming from the third planet; so intelligent
inhabitants of some sort seemed likely. Due to the volume and variety of signals, it was probable that they were used as some form of communication.
Exactly, what form that communication took was impossible to tell with the current information available.

While most systems were unoccupied, it was not unknown for survey ships to find life or in fewer cases, some sort of civilization. Extra caution would be
required in general, and a very careful approach and risk assessment would be required.

They had never encountered anything that their species could not handle. In a few previous cases, they had come across races that were advanced enough to
warrant treating as a threat due to the potential danger they represented. Usually though, whatever physical or biological resources were available on new
planets were exploited for their own species’ benefit.

Local life forms could be transformed into a source of labor. The altering of other species genetically to become docile productive sources of labor was
something their species had been doing as a natural function since the dawn of their civilization on their own planet. To do the same during their
expansion into space was a normal extension of their way of life. Those best able to dominate or survive would. It was a natural law of the universe.

For now, the third planet in this new system was an unknown. Unknown, meant exactly that, and extreme caution for initial contact was only prudent.

The ship's commander had a designation which located its exact position within the hierarchy of the ship, the larger space fleet, its political group and
its importance to the species itself. Due to difficulties in translation, it can best be referred to as Leader *. Its species also has three sexes, but it
can reasonably be described as male.

Leader * directed that they start with a full survey of the outer planets first and work their way through the system. They would bypass the third planet
and explore the inner planets, and then, when the rest of the survey was complete, they would approach the final planet. Any contact would have to be
carefully managed as to assess and adapt to whatever they found.

The survey ship began to move towards the eighth planet.

DR. PEARSON SURVEYED THE AUDIENCE. "I need four volunteers to do an exercise that may seem odd and unrelated. It should be physically painless but may, or
may not, cause social embarrassment of a mild nature. That should cover my legal responsibility to obtain informed consent," laughed Dr. Pearson.

"A show of hands of who would be willing. It will only take a few minutes, and you won't miss anything."

A scattering of hands went up. "Great, lots to choose from." He pointed to specific volunteers in succession. "You sir in the blue shirt, miss, you with
the blonde hair, sir, you with the red hair, and you miss in the green dress. If you could please stand up, and Dr. Wales will bring each of you a large
pad of paper, an eraser and a pencil to draw with."

Two of the volunteers groaned. "I can't draw," stated the red-haired student.

"Don't worry about it, all I am asking is that you do your best. It is all part of the experiment."

From the podium, Dr. Pearson dimmed some of the lights at the front of the room and lowered a large screen behind him. With another switch, he brought up
the image of a wooden chair with a watermelon sitting on the seat. The watermelon was held up by a small stand. The shadows of both the chair and
watermelon, were visible on the floor beside the chair.

"Is that readily visible to all of our volunteer artists or do I need to adjust the light?"

The volunteers all stated that they could see it well enough.

"The instructions for this exercise are simple. I want each of the four volunteers to use the pencils provided to do the best drawing of what they see here
that they can. I am not expecting Rembrandt quality but feel free to surprise me. All I request is that you accurately draw what you see. You have erasers
so you can make minor corrections as you go if you wish to."

"Volunteers, you have up to ten minutes to do your drawings. Is everyone ready?" The volunteers replied yes, but some looked more willing than others to
begin. "Alright, start drawing now. The rest of you try not to talk too loudly or disrupt their efforts."

Some of the class watched the volunteers work with some making comments of surprise at the talents of some or laughing at those of others. First, one
volunteer finished drawing then shortly after another one. The third took a little longer to finish, and the last one was working right up until Dr.
Pearson called time.

"Thank you all for your efforts." Dr. Wales walked around and collected the drawings. He took them over to the side of the room, and Dr. Pearson looked at
them and took photographs in a particular order and then loaded the image files into the computer controlling the projector.

"First let me say that all four of you did a wonderful job. Doing things live can sometimes give you results that you aren't hoping for. This, however, was
great. I couldn't have gotten better representations of what I was hoping for if I had drawn them myself. Thank you artists, it is always embarrassing if
an experiment flops when you do it live before an audience."

He brought up the first image of one of the student drawings. It showed a side view of a chair in stick fashion with an oval shape sitting on the seat. It
was from a side view showing no depth perception and only two chair legs were visible. "Let's look at this one first. It seems very clear to me that it is
a chair with a shape representing the watermelon sitting on the seat of the chair. It may not be apparent that the oval shape is a watermelon, but you were
limited with no color and the shape you have drawn captures the basic shape of the watermelon. I think most people would agree that you visually conveyed
the concept of a chair with an oval-shaped object sitting on top of the seat. Do you all agree with me on that?"