by CuriousG » January 6th, 2007, 12:00 am
I don't remember precisely what my post in that topic was, but the drift of it was probably something to the effect of 'the mind can't affect the body all that much, depending on what you're talking about, etc. (to simplify)'.
I hold to that still, essentially, but I have this to say:
The brain is an amazing organ. Beyond the obviously conscious functions, various parts control the unconscious functions of our bodies. Adrenaline, heartrate, reflexes, breathing while asleep, dreaming, muscle tics, etc., are all subconscious functions of our brain. Sometimes, we bridge over. In the past year, I've learned to wiggle my ears. It was simply a matter of isolating the contraction of certain muscles in my scalp from the eyebrow-raising motion that they normally accompany, unconsciously and uncontrollably. It was kind of a fluke, that I managed to do it. I just began to feel a control I'd never quite had before, and worked at it, eventually gaining a talent. Of course, I'd moved those muscles many times in the past, I just hadn't been aware of it, or able to control them independently.
That's it. That's all there is to bridging from the conscious functions to the subconscious ones. Some people can do it with dreams, some with pain, and so on. However, there's a magnitude problem. The human immune system, our chemical balances, metabolism and all that, are WAY more complex and give WAY less instant feedback than something like ear-wiggling. It's not just a matter of trying harder, it's so great a problem that it makes them IMPOSSIBLE to control, at least with any precision or reliability, I would say.
Even if that's wrong, or perhaps oversimplifies the problem (and I suspect it might), the heart of the matter is that the files and overall methodology prescribed by Warp My Mind is totally inadequate to do anything other than boost the imagination, or motivation.