Mind Power - An Analog

The contents of consciousness are arbitrary, except for one requirement: they must guide the organism
to successful consumption and development. It is a miracle that the opportunity for this exists in the
first place. But, given the initial opportunity, the organism must continue to find it, or must be able to
create it, or perish.

What might a real analog for the mind look like? For example, a common radio receiver selects, out of a
chaos of noise, usable signals and converts them to a specific output that is organized to meet specific
needs.

Think of the brain and nervous system as such a receiver. It does not care where the signal comes from
as long as it can find elements it has been developed to recognize. A chaos of signals come in that can
be organized to a assume a predetermined structure that has been successful in the past. Demands are
place on the organism to act, to create output signals that affect the structure. Some of these actions
are automatic, just doing what has been successful in the past. However, on another level, the surface of
the structure is not predetermined and can be manipulated by the organism to satisfy demands. On this
level it is the skill of the organism in manipulating the structure that determines whether demands will
be satisfied. Predetermined skills are refined by interaction with the structure to optimize success.

Using the radio analog, it is the operator who fiddles with the radio’s output to determine whether it
produces Bach or rock, seeking by experiment the output that satisfies the demand. We can see from
the analog that part of the structure must be an operator who has discretionary influence over the
structure. It is the operator that is involved in creating opportunity.

The radio operator need not understand the device, only feel the demands and be able to relate them to
things that can satisfy them. For the organism, satisfactory things may be raw in the structure, or it may
be necessary to manipulate the structure to produce them. The operator must understand the means
for manipulation that are available.

The radio operator need only know that the contact must be moved over the coil of wire to produce all
the possible results. The relationship between this operator and other operators in the structure must
be very complex to produce MTV, yet the task of each individual operator is no more complicated.

The contents of consciousness, the contents of the “mind,” are an efficacious illusion that is cultivated by
the “operator” in the pursuit of opportunity. The most successful minds are the ones that have been
stretched to their limit countless times and have survived. There are no guarantees. Be prepared.