[Neurons] 2024 Neurons #11 I HAVE MODELLED "THE MIND"

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2024 Neurons #11

February 29, 2024

 

I HAVE MODELED "THE MIND"

 




Modeling the anatomy and structure of the brain-that's easy!  Well, it is
easy compared to modeling the anatomy and structure of the mind.  With the
brain, at least you can see it, weigh it, measure it, test it-you could even
take it out and hold it in your hands if you are so inclined.  It is
physically real and subject to a wide variety of testing processes that have
been invented.  This is the domain of neurology and the neuro-sciences.

 

But not the mind.  You cannot see the mind, weigh it, measure it or test it.
And you definitely cannot grab it and hold it in your hands!  It's not that
kind of thing.  It not even a thing!  Some even ask, "Is the mind real?"
Subjectively it certainly seems real to us.  And somehow the brain seems to
produce it.  Further, the brain's well-being and functioning can powerfully
enable, or disable, the mind.  Yet the brain is not the mind.

 

Neuro-Semantics, as a new and higher development of NLP, is about the mind
and our subjective experiences-curiosity, learning, joy, play, relating,
fear, stress, shame, resiience, forgiveness, parenting, competence,
confidence, and a thousand other subjective experiences.  Like NLP, it is
"the study of the structure of subjective experience."

 

Question: How can we study the structure if we don't have a Model of the
Mind?  Obviously, we cannot.  We need a Model of the Mind.  Yet the founders
of NLP never set out to create a model of the mind-they had another question
in mind.  "How can Fritz Perl's language patterns create such seeming
'magic' in people's lives?"  That was the original question.  Later they
asked that same question about Satir and then Erickson.  Out of that they
created the NLP Communication Model.  So at the beginning, the focus was
simply on how Perls, Satir, and Erickson thought, their thinking patterns. 

"When I first stated modeling, it seemed logical to find out what psychology
had already learned about how people think." (Using Your Brain-for a Change,
1985, p. 14)

 

How do people think?  They "think" visually, auditorially, and
kinesthetically (which includes smells and tastes), and they also "think"
using words.  Amazingly, this extremely simple and obvious insight was a
breakthrough in the field of Psychology!  Bateson noted that he and his
associates had been searching for an unifying foundational mechanism to
understand human psychology and they missed this.  "Why didn't we think of
that before?"

 

Unknown to them this led to the first pieces of a model of the mind-namely,
representational systems and the meta-representation system-language.  Later
using Bateson's levels of learning, Dilts added the logical levels of
beliefs, values, identity, and purpose which he mistakeningly treated as
hierarchical.  Now while only three pieces, and not connected as a model, it
was a beginning.  The sad thing is that this is still where the field is
today, Yes, brilliant thinkers in NLP have added other significance pieces,
but that's just it.  Pieces.  Bits.  But no model.

Now enters Neuro-Semantics.  From my doctoral work and a deep immersion in
Bateson and Korzybski, while modeling resilience, I began exploring the most
unique aspect of the mind-self-reflexive consciousness.  No animal has this
kind of mind.  I read extensively in the fields of Meta-Cognition and
General Semantics.  Finally one September day in 1994 I had an epiphany in
eliciting a strategy from a man about resilience.  Suddenly I caught a
vision of the meta realm above and beyond representations and language-the
inner world of reflexivity-  mind function in its most uniquely human way.
Here the states-about-states (meta-states) held the secret for the higher
structures the inform and hold subjective experiences.

 

That led to the Meta-States model, to the Frames Games model (a simple
version of Meta-States), to the Matrix Model, and eventually to the Meta
Place Model.  In pursuit of a Model of the Mind, I delved into an extensive
study about thinking.  Starting with Executive Thinking, I included the
thinking of metaphors, humor, learning, deciding, trance, wisdom, etc.  Then
one day, having made a list of more than 100 words that described some
aspect of thinking-I decided to see if I could combine them to create a few
basic categories.  Eventually, I identified three categories with five
thinking skills in each (essential, eureka, and executive thinking skills).
With these as the primary landmarks of the mind, lo and behold, a model of
the mind arose- The Meta Place.  

 

Now with The Meta Place we have a way to pictorially represent the mind, see
it, watch it in action as thinking changes, evolves and creates different
experiences.  After all, mind is not a thing but a process-a ever-moving,
changing, dynamic process.  Now we have, at least metaphorically, a picture
that we can use to elicit the anatomy and structure of the mind.

 

A Special Package of these Books: 

1.      The Meta Place: Exploring Your Mind's Inner 

      Landscape   $25            

  2. Thinking For Humans: The Art of Being Mindful $25

  And for #3, pick one: 

Executive Thinking, Executive Learning, 

              Executive Decisions, 

Metaphorical Thinking, 

Humorous Thinking, 

              Thinking like a Modeler, 

Hypnotic Thinking. Each one $25 

              

All 3 books, total of $75 - now for a limited time: $45 plus shipping.

In the US, you can choose $5 Media Mail or $10 Priority.

Outside the US, the cost is $42 - for all 3.

To Place your order, write to me directly -  <mailto:meta at acsol.net>
meta at acsol.net

 

This special is not on the website; Instead use this link for the payment:

https://www.neurosemantics.com/pay-a-statement/ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net

 

 



 

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