The Power of Narrative Intelligence. Enhancing your mind’s potential. The art of understanding, influencing and acting. Arsen Avetisov
desired, depending on the need for the current historical moment.
Therefore, not all narratives are accepted by people as long as their personal goals are threatened by issues like hunger, unemployment, hardships, and poverty. Try to deprive any person of a source of income – they will do exactly what they need to provide for their immediate needs and do whatever it takes for this. It is enough to recall the experiments on behaviour mentioned earlier. As long as there is a monetary system and maintained shortages of resources, the defining narratives will be the ones that are most in line with the model of human physical survival.
There is still something that can influence people’s behaviour after they have resolved problems with basic survival. Nowadays, this is a tremendous space for influencing and controlling human behaviour through meanings.
When the term 'meaning’ is mentioned, the last link in the chain of its descriptions is reasoning about the meaning of life. People managed to come up with a lot of definitions and designs for this, in their opinion, important concept. It might be, for example: 'This is who you want to be and what you want to create.' Or: 'To be, rather than to seem.' Thus, by the way, people constantly repeat and calmly continue to seem throughout all their lives, and not to be.
Some people present their true purpose as the mission with which they were sent to this world. And the contents of their last report, which has been taking their breath away all their life, will be presented with awe at the heavenly throne. But many, and most of them, perceive their destiny as a series of important, in their opinion, goals, the end result of which is seen as material benefits, position in society, scientific discoveries or mental balance and self-improvement.
But, thank God, everything is simpler. From the point of view of nature, the meaning of life is in life itself. A person’s goal and purpose is to continue to live. From the formula: 'Plant a tree, build a house, have a son,' for nature, the goal is only the latter. All the rest people have made up for themselves, and not because they are bored or narcissistic impostors. This is because the goals of a person’s brain and life goals are different.
The meanings people find in poems, novels, business, painting, politics, or all of them together exist as part of a chosen survival model to realise their primary purpose – to continue living.
Today’s world is a world made up of opportunities and limitations, but a world where ultimately the choice is always up to the individual. The choice is up to his or her models. Previously, people went through rituals, initiations, mentors, teachers, and universities to make this choice. Now, websites, blogs, groups, and subscriptions are used. The impact on humans has increased by an order of magnitude.
In order to understand all this, people turn to their consciousness. Turn to something that they do not know much about, and much less what it is actually intended for. At the same time, people confuse the concepts of brain and consciousness, and these are not exactly the same things.
The task of the brain, as we said, is survival. One of the functions of the brain is consciousness, which allows a person to adapt meaningfully and accurately to changing circumstances, adjust forms of behaviour and create new ones. This conscious adaptation is the highest ability that exists in the living world.
How did people get this unique tool? What is it and how is it designed?
Paradise: The Story of Abdication
When you point your index finger at someone else,
the other three fingers point at you. ― Anonymous
The unique ability to justify oneself and transfer responsibility to the surroundings has been around since the beginning of time, since the origin of man. The most famous story about this tells how the fruit of the tree of knowledge was secretly eaten in the well-known garden in Mesopotamia. Already in this story, humanity tries not to notice important details that affect the essence and immediately focuses on the ending and characters.
But the details speak a lot. First, Adam had certain duties to perform in the garden. Not picking or eating the fruit of the Tree of knowledge was just a condition of stay.
The second important detail is that after the incident, he tried to hide.
And the third – when asked why he disobeyed God, he answered literally the following: ‘The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.’
The classic method of transferring responsibility first to the surroundings – Eve, and then higher – to God himself. Eve has the same method as her husband: ‘The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’
That was all the Creator heard. No, not confession or remorse. But a justification of their actions, an attempt to explain…
Every day we hear hundreds of such responses – at work, at home, on TV, everywhere.
This is the only thing we were allowed to take away from Paradise – our ability to be seduced and then make our excuses and shift responsibility.
The story of the Garden of Eden is a story of abdication of responsibility.
The Basic Design of the Brain
How the 'triune’ brain came into being and what actually happens in it.
…unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall
have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be
taken away even that which he hath. ― Matthew 25:29
The brain is a complex structure that supports human life. Its configuration reflects the entire evolution of living beings, as it contains structures that share life support functions closely related to each other.
The conditional division of the human brain into functional levels has long been proposed. For example, according to ancient Jewish sources, the brain contains 1) Rauch, the hypothalamus, which is responsible for the needs of survival; 2) Nefesh, what is called the limbic system, which shapes feelings, emotions and desires; 3) Neshamah, the cerebral cortex, i.e. intelligence, strategy, philosophy and control over the other two levels.
The ancient Jewish description generally coincides with the modern view of the structure of the brain. Today, it is also schematically and functionally divided into the 'reptilian brain’, 'mammalian’, or emotional brain, and the cerebral cortex. All these conditional levels functionally correspond to the purposes mentioned by the ancient Jewish researchers.
The first and most ancient level is the 'reptilian brain’. It appeared 150 million years ago and is responsible for three main functions related to individual survival. The first function is security. Instant solutions that determine the degree of danger using the 'fight-or-flight’ algorithm. This widely used formula for responding to danger does not mention another possible option – to freeze.
The second duty of the 'reptilian brain’ is actions related to the search for food.
And finally, its third function is activities aimed at the continuation of the species, which includes finding and identifying objects suitable for reproduction.
The 'reptilian brain’ is constantly in operation, but a person is not aware of its activity, because the main indicator of the effectiveness of this brain, its KPI (key performance indicator), is speed and reliability, and not awareness. Awareness is as energy-intensive as it is slow and ambiguous. You can get eaten before you even think about it.
Above the 'reptilian brain’ is a structure called the 'mammalian brain’, or emotional brain. These structures appeared about 50 million years ago and help individuals survive in the group.
The emotional brain is the brain of social relations that helps structure a herd, tribe, pride, group, or society. Power and submission are behaviours that are shaped by this particular level.