The Second Feedback Loop has five parts:
1. The full thought is converted into a chemical
2. The emotional response
3. The decision
4. The action
5. All of this information is converted to an electrical fact in the brain
Here is the physiological explanation:
1. The full thought is converted into a chemical
The thalamus sends the electrical full thought information to the chemical manufacturer of the brain...the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus creates chemicals in response to the full thought information. These chemicals are based on your internal emotional state. The experience, memories, and emotion (full thought) are now completely tied together as a chemical.
2. The emotional response
This information is sent to the amygdala. The amygdala is an almond shaped structure in the brain that stores all the emotional perceptions that have ever occurred every time a memory has been built...since the womb. So, memory and emotions are also tied together in the amygdala. The amygdala determines an emotional response. The response to this full thought is determined based on past emotional perceptions. The emotion and thought are filed away in the amygdala.
3. The decision
The amygdala is where the "emotional decision" is made. The amygdala has many more electrical connections going to the cortex (logical decision) than the cortex has going to the amygdala...so the amygdala can overwhelm the cortex electrically and prevent reasoning.
The amygdala is the cause of the "fight or flight" response. If it sends a negative message to the adrenal glands, adrenaline and cortisol (chemicals) are released which fogs the brain...and encourages the response: fight or flight. The amygdala can also initiate the release of positive chemicals if the emotion is positive.
The amygdala can overload the cortex electrically and fog the brain chemically.
4. The action
Once the decision is made taking into account the full thought from the cortex and the emotional response from the amygdala, the individual's response to the stimulus is expressed. This is the actual action that the individual expresses to the outside world.
All of this information...the information from the external world (reality), the internal response (perception), and the external response (actions) is then sent to the hippocampus in the form of a chemical...a physical molecule. This information is now in the short-term memory. This information is stored between 24 and 72 hours.
Now it is time for the critical fifth step:
5. All of this information is converted to an electrical fact in the brain
So far, everything that has been covered in this section happens whether you want it to or not. It happens naturally...it is in your nature. In order to complete the Second Feedback Loop, an intentional decision has to be made...and the clock is ticking!
The decision: a) ignore the information in the hippocampus or b) deal with it?
This involves your corpus callosum...
a) Ignoring the information is a choice and causes the hippocampus to discharge the information (in the form of a chemical) as heat energy once the individual's unique ability to hold short-term memory has expired...and the information is consciously forgotten.
b) If you choose to intentionally deal with the information, the corpus callosum passes the information to your cortex to be electrically filed away in your memory...and the Second Feedback Loop is complete.
Notice, the Second Feedback Loop is ONLY completed by the individual expressing their will to complete the Second Feedback Loop by filing away the information into their cortex. This information consists of: the stimulus, connecting fact, associated emotion, emotional perspective, action taken, and feelings about the action taken. There are three facts/actions and three emotions/feelings that are filed away into the cortex.
Now we see WHY connecting facts have emotions attached to them...they get filed away with emotions AND the actual facts/actions we took...which we can also feel good or guilty about.
Notice, this means that everyday, we are remaking our brain. Everyday, we either have a better or worse brain. Everyday, we are either improving our thought processes or damaging our thought processes. (This explains HOW Lucifer could be made perfect by God, yet end up with sin later...because Lucifer changed his thought process to one that allowed sin in. The same could be said for Cain.)
Not only does lacking this information in the brain lead to a damaged thought process, it turns out it can also lead to physical illness! HOW? WHY?
The Second Feedback Loop is completed in the rest of the body apart from the brain! For instance, the heart has a record of what action was taken. Also, somewhere in the body, there is at least one cell that has the same chemical (as was present in the hippocampus) with a record of everything that resulted from this specific stimulus.
Dr. Leaf shows in her book "Who Switched Off My Brain?" that the resulting stress from the body having a record that the brain is lacking causes the body to create toxic chemicals that medicine has been able to show leads to 87% of the illnesses that the individual experiences.
Let me be crystal clear: Medicine is finding out that our physical illness is actually the effect of an Unprofitable Thought Process. Medicine is finding out our physical well-being is actually the result of a Profitable Thought Process. (The Bible stated this thousands of years ago...)
Getting back to the decision...
Our Mind makes the decision to file the information away into our brain (cortex) or not. We have a choice as to what information is in our brain and how it is arranged. Dr. Leaf explains that it would be better to file the information away wrong, then to not file it away at all. Wrong information can be accessed and modified. Information that is lacking could be gone forever and may result in greater stress between the body and the brain.
You can physiologically repair your brain. After three days, the new connection physically appears to have always existed.
One of the main purposes of "Modeling God" is to make you aware of what YOU believe and WHY. Even if you don't agree with what is written in "Modeling God", you can become healthier by identifying what you do believe and intentionally filing that information into your brain. People who are unaware of what they ACTUALLY believe are in danger of "amygdala moments" (moments where the amygdala controls the body to the exclusion of the cortex) and may be setting themselves up for future illnesses.
However, notice that we can't falsely file information into our heart. What gets planted in our heart is an effect of what we ACTUALLY think and feel! Hearts and Minds are spoken about in the Bible in a completely unique manner from each other. We have seen that recent discoveries in medicine completely agrees with the Bible.
What you TRULY believe is planted in your heart whether you want it there or not. The heart cannot lie...the Mind and the brain can lie. (This makes SEVERAL passages about the heart from the New Testament and the Old Testament take on a much deeper meaning.)
It turns out that the people who tend to live the longest have less information to process each day AND take the time to process this information. For example, people who keep their mental faculties longest over analyze things and have a partner that lives with them.
A person who over analyzes things faces most to all of the information in their short-term memory. A person who lives with a partner is more likely to face the information in their short-term memory.
This means that Fellowship can make us healthier!
This means attempting to live with NO HOW/WHY and encouraging others not to think actually results in brain damage!
SECOND FEEDBACK LOOP SUMMARY
The Second Feedback Loop results in the brain possessing accurate information.
This information is composed of facts (thoughts and actions) and emotions (feelings and attitudes about the actions).
A Profitable Thought Process would complete The Second Feedback Loop.
An Unprofitable Thought Process would fail to complete The Second Feedback Loop or complete it with inaccurate information...causing future First Feedback Loops to be Unprofitable.
Next Section at Book Level: The Unaware Brain
Chapter Summary
Part III Table of Contents
Part I Table of Contents
