Who is Controlling Our Minds?

SinLessZero
Sep 2, 2018 · 7 min read

When we play video games, controlling the snipers to finish a head shot or Ronaldo to perform an insane dribble, are the characters in the game aware of that? Do they know that it’s you who controls their actions and decisions? If we assume they are conscious just like humans, they’ll probably think that they are making their own decisions, right? If we save and archive the game, the characters in the game will not notice the pause of time. If we make changes to the game, they will not know that their world has been modified: instead they will think that their decisions come from their own thoughts and are based on reality.

Picture Source: Odyssey

So, the question here is: are our thoughts controlled by ourselves? Are our thoughts real thoughts? Can we be sure that we are not part of any game? If, I mean, if, everything is a game, then who is at the controls and manipulating our minds?

To answer these questions, we must first find out how our minds and thoughts develop.

Let’s hypothesize that you were born in a world where there is no one else but you. In order to survive, you will need to observe, think, speculate, and test to acquire basic survival skills. But will you talk? No, because no one teaches you and you don’t need it. Will you invent a language? No, because there is no use for one. Would you paint? Maybe, but you will need to learn what tools to draw with, and it might take you a long time to figure it out because no one is around to teach you. By the time you get around to learning to draw or perhaps even invent language, you may be already dead.

Picture Source: Internet

But if there were other people in this world, then in order to survive you would try your best to communicate with them. From using sign language to building tools together, there will inevitably be cooperation and disagreement. But along the way, more thoughts and ideas will take form. Future generations will more easily pick up on the languages and tools you have built together and further develop these into even greater accomplishments.

You see? Your mindset is not built into you, but more likely has been absorbed from the people and things around you as you start learning to live your life. All the information you receive in your life, no matter how or where gathered, will be the source of your mindset and, apart from basic survival instincts, is largely based on outside influences. Because humans are social animals, we continue to learn largely through our interactions with others. That is to say, the values and ideas that have been defined in the past by others are often accepted by us without question until overturned and new, perhaps more advanced, ideas come to be accepted.

You have probably also noticed that the reality is that it is much easier to get your ideas by absorbing information from others rather than by creating them from out of blue, or on your own. In fact, from birth each of us will come into contact with many people: parents, relatives, friends, classmates, teachers, neighbors, colleagues and even strangers. According to past statistics, before death, the average person will come into contact with as many as 2,000 people or more during their lifetime. Among them, taking out those you don’t normally stay in touch with, the main people who will continue to influence you are mainly parents, partners, friends and some close colleagues. But regardless, it is much less than the approximately 2,000 people you will meet during your lifetime.

Picture Source:Genomic Enterprise

Besides getting your information from the people in your daily life, what are some other sources of getting information? The Media.

In its various forms, the Media has become the most important means of information dissemination in our world today. Daniel Rhodes Ha, a spokesman for the New York Times, said in an email that the New York Times website, publishes an average of 150 articles per day from Monday to Saturday, 250 articles per day on Sunday and 65 posts per day on blogs. On average, more than 330 charts are released each month, with more than 120 messages containing video, dynamic and static charts. This is an average of more than 15 media messages per day from this one source alone.

Yet another source of daily information, Buzzfeed, released 6,365 tweets and 319 videos in 2016, compared with just 914 tweets and 10 videos 12 years ago, an increase of 700% and 300%, respectively. Buzzfeed reports an average of 6 billion views per month globally. In addition to these daily streams of information, or ‘feeds’ as we now call them, each of us spends an average of 60 minutes a day browsing Facebook, 50 minutes watching YouTube videos, and 40 minutes watching Netflix. In addition, we are bombarded with countless Ads every day, “hamburgers only $2”, “the best quality sneakers”, “the fastest mobile network” and so on. Of course, in addition to that, we read an average of one book a year.

Picture Source: Varnamfm.com

So, let’s pause for a second. These people and Media that we come into contact with, are the sources of almost all the information we get. That information forms the basis of our mindset, unless or until one day we are somehow exposed to different information, or we break through the ever-constant stream of information itself and create new ideas of our own. Thinking for yourself is extremely difficult, as we explained before.

Each of us, whether living in the same or different places on the planet, speaking the same or different languages, looking at local or international mainstream media, all having different families, friends, classmates and teachers are individuals and thus theoretically capable of free thought. On our own, almost every one of us could come up with completely different thoughts and mindsets. But the truth is, most of us were just in contact with our parents, school teachers and friends throughout childhood. With our family and friends, we watched the same cartoons and read the same books. Along the way, these people and sources have taught us what’s right and what’s wrong, who is good and who is bad. Almost every school teacher in the world teaches their students based on a syllabus that is typically prescribed by a Ministry of Education, which is under the jurisdiction of their country’s government. That is to say, the central government ultimately dictates what the Ministry of Education should and should not teach.

Picture Source: Newsport Daily

What about our daily news sources, our books or our children’s cartoons? What about the mainstream media we are in daily contact with? These come from various writers, artists, editors and reporters, right? Yes, but who asked them to write these articles? Are they expressing their own individual thoughts? Or are those thoughts also mixed with the willingness to compromise with their government or perhaps a shareholders’ consortium? Don’t forget, they are also part of this world and can also be influenced by information produced by other media. Whoever it is, we can come up with a simple logic like this:

Your thoughts = Information Received + Your Independent Thinking. We know that most information comes from the media, which includes people, books, television, the internet and so on. Thinking comes from within us personally, but at the same time, is largely based on the information we have already been given. So, to a large extent, it is information that determines our thinking! If we don’t take the initiative to think for ourselves, or if we don’t think at all, Independent Thinking = 0, which means: Your Thoughts = Information Received. In this case, your thoughts only occur as a result of the information that flows to you day in and day out. Moreover, this information often comes from someone who plants it, purposely, to let you absorb the information as they dictate it. This may ultimately become part of your beliefs and so you come to think that your understanding of the world around you is based on “your own thoughts”.

Hmm, really? Is that possible? If so, who plants all this information?

People who are playing games outside the Game.

The Game of Life.

Your Life.

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Economics | Development | Technology Follow me on YouTube:https://bit.ly/2vVDwqK

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