Brains

No magic, just neurons

The brain is that thing in your head that makes you do stuff.

"Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think." -Ambrose Bierce

The Mind/Body Relationship Summarized

The brain is the source of consciousness, which is an emergent property of complex neural activity. The notion of mind-body dualism is rejected by materialism. It follows that free will does not exist and all of our actions are deterministic. But ethically and legally we must still pretend it does.

Other Brain Related Pages

The Psychology page has the full index of pages related to consciousness. These are the ones that focus more on the hardware side.

• Neurophysiology
• Neural network
• Free will
• Addiction
• Drugs
• Placebo Effect
• Psychedelics

The Neurophilosophy module on Wi-Phi offers an interactive course that covers many of these subjects.

Know Thyself

Understanding the basic functions of the brain should be a necessary prerequisite for life in modern society. Since we are nothing more than self-aware brains, we should be aware of how the brain creates the self. This section will attempt to provide a general summary of the most important aspects of neurophysiology and psychology needed to understand the mind/body relationship and how feedback from our environment shapes our thoughts and behavior.

Neural Networks

The brain is a very complex neural network. Understanding how a simple neural network functions is the most important prerequisite to understanding the brain. The functions are identical, just on a much larger scale.

Artificial Intelligence

Large Language Models in AI, a topic currently in the zeitgeist, are likewise based on neural networks. Observing the behavior of LLMs, from repeating misinformation to casual racism, helps us understand our own.

Brains Are Muscles

Even though the brain is a learning organ, and theoretically should be acquiring new information and getting smarter over time, it should also be noted that they can go the other direction through misinformation or neglect.

Many have compared the brain to a muscle that must be exercised. This is apt. [1][2][3][4][5]

How much you can bench press or squat will change throughout your lifetime. The times when you work out a lot, your bench press goes up. When you get lazy and neglectful, it goes down. The brain is exactly the same. It's also true that peak performance happens when you are young, but unless you were an Olympic athlete you will always have plenty of room for improvement. Most scientists and engineers make their biggest breakthroughs early in their careers, then spend the rest of the time refining them. There are exceptions of course, especially in certain sports or subjects that favor experience, but the pattern is quite similar.

The following section uses contrarian anti-brainwashing to develop an exercise regimen for your brain.

Make Brains Dirty Again

Brainwashing is the technique that cults and oligarchs who control the media use to control your thoughts with propaganda. There are many common techniques that cults and high control groups, intelligence agents, marketers, and abusers use to manipulate people. If you break down common brainwashing techniques and apply a contrarian approach, you can develop a program to reinforce agency, neuroplasticity, and resilience instead of breaking it down.

• Isolation / Community - you brainwash people by isolating them from contradictory influences, creating a limited information environment (bubble) that is impervious to criticism. Social isolation is heavily incentivized by social media, and the incentivized laziness of staying home and having work, food, shopping, and relationships come to you. Engaging in community building, family, diverse friendships, and a variety of IRL social activities promotes resilience. Broad education and a variety of interests and information sources keeps you from being brainwashed by your bubble.
• Us vs. Them / Inclusivity - demonizing an out-group is a primary brainwashing technique. Embracing inclusivity and universalism as a core principle makes it hard for demonization to be taken seriously.
• Breaking Down / Building Up - attacking the self-esteem, identity, and beliefs of the brainwashing target is another technique. In the media, this takes the form of ads and shows that feature people who are way richer and more beautiful than you because they own products you cannot afford but must have if you want anyone to take you seriously. Positive psychology and the philosophy of optimism are all about building people up.
• Stupid Diets / Eat Anything - a lot of brainwashing and grift starts out with questionable dietary recommendations that deprive the body and make it susceptible to suggestion. Many cults and religions use fasting and diets to reinforce in-group identity and break down resistance. A diet rich in variety and love for all food will increase your resistance to ascetic cult diets, and helps you identify more with diverse cultures and viewpoints through culinary empathy.
• Repetitive Music / Love for All Genres - listening to the same handful of pop musicians over and over will limit your range of thought. Listening to a wide variety of music improves neuroplasticity and resistance to thought control. This goes for group singing as well.
• Love Bombing / Universal Love - brainwashers shower love on their target while reinforcing the idea that this love can only come from the in-group or its guru. Dirty brains are promiscuous, finding love everywhere in the universe and with many family, friends, communities, and philosophies.

If you intentionally do the opposite of everything brainwashers try to make you do, you have a great recipe for a happy life with good relationships, a strong sense of self-awareness and free will, open mindedness, empathy, and critical thinking.

See also: Brainwashing, Cult of Personality, Combatting Cult Mind Control, Anti-Cult Movement, 8 Brainwashing Techniques that Manipulators Use, BITE Model of Authoritarian Control

How to Brainwash Someone

Dark Persuasion - The History of BRAINWASHING from Pavlov to Social Media

If You Like Brains So Much You Should Marry One

One complaint that a lot of academic philosophers have about popular neurophilosophers is that they seem obsessed with brains. It's always brains this, brains that, everything always comes back to the brain.

This is a feature, not a bug!

Of course everything comes back to the brain, because that's where the consciousness happens! Reinforcing that idea helps you get over your innate sense of dualism and embrace nondual materialism.

Brain Not Smart Enough Understand Brain

Many philosophers argue that the brain is too complex to understand itself. This depends on what exactly you mean. It may not be possible to understand exactly how each neural pathway fires in order to create a specific thought in a specific person, but we get closer and closer each day.

This article does a great job explaining the problems in neuroscience and why it's so hard to learn exactly what's going on in there. Neuroscience is hard

Brains on Brains

People using their brains to discuss how brains work. Basic brain anatomy and their functions are part of standard biology coursework and are familiar to most people. However, the study of neural networks is not typically part of a basic science education, even though it is fundamental to understanding both ourselves and the AI that we'll all soon be working for.

The Hidden Brain podcast is full of great brain-related content.

Max Bennett on the History of Intelligence

Intro to The Brain

Decoding the Brain

Your Brain: Perception Deception

Your Brain: Who's in Control?