The Human Operating System

 Even with our perceptual filters blocking out most of the information that we receive, we still need some way of making sense of the rest of it.

So all the information gets processed into a mental framework. The mental framework is like a scaled down model of the real thing. It misses some of the details, but broadly it looks the same. I call this our Operating System.

We start out having certain genetic tendencies. These influence the way that we react to situations. So each Baby will interpret and react to the same stimulus in different ways depending on their temperamental traits. So each is already starting to build up their own Operating System.

You’ve probably read that we only use 10% or less of the potential of our brain. Here’s what that is based on.

 All of us have billions of neurons at birth. The first time we process new motions, thoughts and actions these build a neural pathway by connecting neurons. The newborn baby responds to its interpretation of an event in the best way it knows how.

This creates a fresh path, like footprints in the snow. The next time the baby interprets an event needing the same response he takes the easiest route, which is following the previous footsteps. Sometimes he will add a new step or branch off slightly.

By the time he gets to be say six or seven there are clear pathways.

By the age of seven, 70% of all the neural connections your brain ever will make are made. It’s not that we can’t make more connections. But most of us do the same things over and over again. We become stuck in our ruts. Therefore we don’t do new things and so we don’t create new connections.

Like walking across a field it’s easier to follow where others have walked before. The more you respond in the same way, the harder it is to do something differently. The pathway turns into a rut and in time to a ditch. Until eventually it is impossible to see any alternative.

New actions that require unfamiliar responses, such as learning to drive, will create new pathways. But when you lift a drink to your lips you use the pathway you used to drink your bottle as a baby. When you throw something in anger it is the same pathway you built throwing your toys from your pram.

Most movements and thoughts are refinements of pathways built in childhood. They all start out along the same path, but in time we give ourselves more options. The more options we have; the more effective we will be.

If you have a powerfully emotional reason to do something differently you will. For example, if you usually eat cake with a coffee, you probably automatically reach for it and eat it. But if you had a coffee after the Doctor has just scared you out of eating cake, you’ll catch yourself and stop.

Most of life is conducted on autopilot. We are only capable of doing so much, but the more we automate the mundane stuff the more we can do. Therefore we only pay attention to the things that are most important to us at this moment. The rest we delegate to our own Personal Assistant – our subconscious.

When we need to act, unless we have any reason to believe the situation needs a great deal of attention, such as being very dangerous, we take the quickest option. We forget all the reasons why we act as we do… and just respond as we normally do.

For this reason, most of our lives are conducted on automatic pilot. Therefore our actions are controlled by our Operating System. So the most important changes you can make to your life, are those in your Operating System. But by its nature, we are unaware of most of what is in our Operating System.

Yet every decision you take determines the path you take through life. And almost all of these are decided through your Operating System without your even being aware of making the decision.

Just a small shift in beliefs can create huge differences in your experience of life. Because the deeper and more buried the belief… the greater the trajectory of change. Changing one of your core fundamental beliefs will change many other beliefs along the way to your actions and so into your experience.

Think of an aeroplane flying thousands of miles. Being just one degree out, can lead to being hundreds of miles from the planned destination. Yet the nature of flying means that Pilots spend most of their journey being off course. Their job is to continually adjust to get back on track and eventually get where they want to be.

Humans though expect to learn the rules… to understand right and wrong… and then never deviate off track. To just mindlessly go through life, reach the destination and everything will be fine. When we do drift off track we think it is a calamity and we’re going to be condemned forever.

Its never too late to get back on track. The nature of life is to throw us off track. We are not supposed to be Passengers through life, we are supposed to be Pilot’s continually adjusting to get back on track. The difference is that there is no final destination… just the direction we are travelling in.

Not only are your actions mostly chosen by your Operating System, but your Perceptual Filters are also set to support the Operating System.

The job of your Operating System is to minimize the mental energy you have to spend. It does something called Satisficing. What this means is that rather than trying to be perfectly accurate, it compromises accuracy in order to cover more ground. It does this by as much as it can making what you see match with what you believe.

You know how Politicians use facts and situations to emphasize their case. Even if they are taken completely out of context. This is exactly what your Perceptual Filters do. They reflect back to you as much as they can what you believe.

It is for this reason that arguments are generally useless in getting other people to see things your way. Whatever evidence you use, they will see it through their perspective. You know how some people just can’t see what you are telling them. It doesn’t matter how much you explain or how many ways you try to tell them. This is because they literally can’t see it fitting into their Operating System.

To believe something, there are certain assumptions and supporting beliefs that have to be there for it to slot in. Otherwise the information just falls flat and just gets stored under miscellaneous junk. It’s a bit like giving someone an ornament and without having any shelves or cabinets to display it in.

I have a theory along these lines. I believe that when people read a book that reflects the beliefs and understanding they already have… they think it’s good. If it articulates what they were thinking, but hadn’t ever put it together… they think it’s great. If it has beliefs they held a long time ago… or beliefs too far advanced… in other words if it doesn’t fit in with the stage they’re at… they don’t like it.

Whatever we believe to be good; is good because that is the way that makes sense given our entire Operating System. Equally whatever we believe to be bad, right, or wrong and so on all depends on our Operating System.

The problem with this is that we almost always have a false view of how things are. Life is creating change in every second, yet our Operating System is showing us as constant a world as it can get away with. It is the extent of the difference between our Operating System and reality that determines the extent of the stress or happiness we experience.

In the following chapters we will discuss how the operating system is created and how this interacts with what happens in your life to create the emotions you feel.