Our brains work according to two feedback loops.
The First Feedback Loop has three parts:
1. Stimulus
2. Emotion/Attitude
3. Connecting Fact
Here is the physiological explanation:
When you experience something through any of your five senses, this information enters the brain (cortex) in an electrical form. The information reaches the "relay station" of the brain...also known as the thalamus. The thalamus is the "relay station" because it is the site of the First Feedback Loop.
The thalamus sends an alerting signal to the cortex to prepare it for the information to follow. The cortex holds your memory in electrical form, so the thalamus is going to search your memory connected with the electrical impulse you just experienced from your senses in order to create "a full thought". The alerting signal actually creates your attitude...it finds out ahead of time if the memory is positive or negative and then the desired information in your memory is viewed with this attitude.
The electrical impulse you experienced from your senses and the electrical impulse(s) from your memory (along with the attitude) are then fed back to the thalamus (relay station). The First Feedback Loop is complete and results in "a full thought".
A "full thought" consists of:
1. an experience (stimulus)
2. a memory (connecting fact)
3. an emotion connected to the memory
Let's look at an example...
I see the color red. (This is a stimulus through my senses...sight).
I get excited. (This is the emotion connected to the memory and I experience it BEFORE I get the connecting fact.)
I think of a fire truck. (This is the connecting fact.)
So, my "full thought" is: a red fire truck that I'm excited about.
A person can choose to end this feedback loop or use the "full thought" as a stimulus and begin The First Feedback Loop again. For example, in the above example, I could consider "a red fire truck that I'm excited about" as the stimulus and form a more complex thought. I could continue doing this until the complex full thought is the story about the time when I was ten years old. My friend (Jimmy) and I followed a red fire truck to the biggest fire I had ever seen.
Notice, our thoughts are made up of WORDS.
EVERYTHING we will cover in this chapter is based on WORDS...
The First Feedback Loop is the most basic tool that people use in order to intentionally think. In fact, when you watch people intentionally think, this explanation sheds light on two issues people have with The First Feedback Loop:
1. They can't complete the loop.
2. They can't get out of the loop.
In order to understand the HOW/WHY behind both of these issues, we need to look at the cortex of our brains more closely...
The cortex is made up of "dendrites", which is the Greek word for "trees"...and the dendrites look like trees! This leads to an analogy I like to use to represent the First Feedback Loop...
The First Feedback Loop is like a squirrel that goes to the trunk of one tree, runs up the trunk and out to then end of a branch...in order to jump to the branch of another tree. The loop is complete when the squirrel runs to the trunk of this second tree and then runs to the ground.
Notice, the squirrel made progress...it began near the trunk of one tree and end up near the trunk of another tree. The tree is the stimulus. The second tree is the connecting fact. The emotion is how the squirrel feels about being on the second tree.
The speed at which this feedback loop is able to be completed is a measure of intelligence. Remember, everything is filed away in terms of WORDS. So, complex and/or contradictory definitions are going to slow down or completely prevent someone from finishing the First Feedback Loop.
People who are unable to complete the loop (issue #1) either can't make the jump (to the connecting fact) because of a bad memory or they are afraid to attempt the jump because the emotion associated with the stimulus (first tree) or connecting fact (second tree) puts the individual into fear. Remember, all the facts in our cortex have an associated emotion...and we feel the emotion before we are able to retrieve the connecting fact.
When we speak of people who can't get out of the loop (issue #2), we are talking about people who can't make settle on a full thought and move to the Second Feedback Loop. There are two ways this manifests...
First, the person ramps emotionally up and exhibits anxiety. The person gets so carried away with the emotion that they continue to jump to subsequent trees without returning to the ground. Notice, the inability to get out of a loop tends to occur with people who have very quick brains. For example, they can do so many loops and get energy from each loop that they end up, after numerous comparative loops, at a full thought that is extreme and alarming...and is not connected in reality with the original stimulus. They are far away from where they began, but they don't realize it because their "squirrel" didn't go down the trunk to the ground.
Second, the person has a contradiction that doesn't allow them to settle on ONE full thought. When it comes to a contradiction, the person actually express TWO or more full thoughts and can't resolve which is correct. The squirrel jumps from the first tree to the second tree...only to jump back to the first tree...only to jump back to the second tree. The reason WHY they jump back and forth is they have two different definitions for the same Word. When they jump from the first tree, the Word means one thing. When they land on the second tree, the definition changes which causes them to jump back to the first tree.
This inability to get out of a loop also tends to happen when people "lump" concepts...the squirrel jumps to a branch only to find out he is in the same tree! In order to deal with this, we need to bring Resolution to our thought process.
Resolution takes what appeared to be one tree and turns it into two or more trees. For example: Right-Right vs. Right-Wrong. People don't see a difference between two people who state a Right WHAT. They consider them to be in the same tree...and can't make progress during discussions. However, the difference between a Right WHAT with a Right WHY vs. a Right WHAT with a Wrong (or NO) WHY is the difference between Life and Death. Bringing Resolution to the topic through the WHY causes this one tree (Right WHAT) to become two trees (Right WHY and Wrong or no WHY). Now, the person can make progress through by going from one tree to the other. Calvinists are lumpers...they can't give the HOW/WHY, so they state that God intended us NOT to make progress in this thought because it is a mystery.
Finally, one common tool used to determine how quickly people are able to complete The First Feedback Loop AND how well their thoughts are organized is "Word Association". A WORD is stated (which is a stimulus). The respondent is supposed to state the first WORD they think of...the first connecting fact from the First Feedback Loop. The resulting emotion is also discussed.
FIRST FEEDBACK LOOP SUMMARY
The First Feedback Loop results in a full thought.
A full thought contains a stimulus, emotion, and connecting fact.
A Profitable Thought Process would create this full thought quickly and accurately.
An Unprofitable Thought Process would be unable to create an accurate full thought in a timely manner.
All of this is made up of WORDS...
Next Section at Book Level: The Second Feedback Loop
Chapter Summary
Part III Table of Contents
Part I Table of Contents
