We are terrified of our creaturely insignificance, and much of we do with our lives is a rather transparent attempt to keep this fear at bay.
And here is a good one to be reminded about:
Our waking and dreaming brains are engaged in substantially the same activity; it is just that while dreaming, our brains are far less constrained by sensory information or by the fact-checkers who appear to live somewhere in our frontal lobes.
And here’s the clincher:
For every neuron that receives its input from the outside world, there are ten to a hundred others that do not. The brain is therefore talking mostly to itself, and no information from the world (with the exception of olfaction) runs directly from a sensory receptor to the cortex….
No wonder it is so hard to change one’s mind and we need serious training and discipline to make any significant change. Except for our sense of smell every other sensory input gets corrupted by our brain, which plays with the information until it suits its own interpretation of the world.
Quotes from The End of Faith by Sam Harris.
There’s a bumper sticker I’ve seen around that says “Question Reality.” “Reality”, as perceived by the brain, is just a series of linked beliefs… some of those beliefs are totally based on assumption or faith in what someone told us.
Back to what you were saying in your post on “Brain” and the brain craving order… It would seem that to “change one’s mind” also requires a rather high tolerance for perceived discomfort.
One must believe in something in order to create it. If I didn’t believe in my music, then I couldn’t create it or if I was to paint a picture, I would first need a concept and the belief that I could do it. I believe this is true of everything including and especially learning new things. Confidence is everything!