Our Most Wonderful & Valuable Gift

Our most wonderful and valuable gift is our human mind. Humans, like other animals, are born with a brain, but the human brain is capable of neural activity that we call the mind. Without those neural connections there is no mind.[i]

Our minds have huge amounts of computing potential that can be used to create free extraordinary fulfilled lives with purpose or lives trapped in endless loops of thoughtless habits that result in unfulfilled purposeless lives. If you feel like you are not living up to your potential, take a moment to grasp the potential power of the gift that you have access to right now at this very moment.

● About a hundred billion neurons of several hundred types, each of which contains a cell body, a descending axon cable, and numerous dendrites and axon terminals -- a hundred billions neurons is 10¹¹ , or a 1 followed by 11 zeros: 100,000,000,000.

● Dendrites and axon terminals branching out to other neurons in approximately a thousand trillion synaptic connections between those hundred billion neurons – a thousand trillion connections is a quadrillion, or 10¹⁵ , or 1 followed by 15 zeros: 1,000,000,000,000,000.

These are staggering numbers. The number of neurons in a human brain is about the same number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy!

The number of synaptic connections in the brain is equivalent to the number of seconds in 30 million years. Think about that for a moment. Start counting seconds as “one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand . . . .” When you get to 86,400 that is the number of seconds in a day; when you reach 31,536,000 that is the number of seconds in a year; and when you finally reach one trillion seconds you will have been counting for about 30,000 years; now, do that 30,000-year counting block one thousand more times and you will have counted the number of synaptic connections in your brain.[ii]

http://thenextweb.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/11/MilkyWay.jpg

Cognitive neuroscientists estimate that the self-conscious mind contributes only about 5% of cognitive activity, which means that 95% -- decisions, actions, emotions, and behaviors -- are contributed from the subconscious mind.[iii] At the subconscious level the mind is like the Wizard of Oz, hiding behind a curtain, monitoring our environment, while controlling everything from our breathing to influencing the decisions we make.[iv] 

It is estimated that the large subconscious mind can interpret and respond to over 40 million nerve impulses per second, while the tiny self-conscious mind only processes about 40 nerve impulses per second.[v] As an information processor, the subconscious mind is one million times more powerful than the self-conscious mind.[vi]

Never forget that the controls of your wonderful gift are in your hands, but until you learn how to use them you will never be able to win the game. 

  

Life is waiting -- make it fulfilling & purposeful!  

Shalom,

Jim Myers

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[i] The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies; How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths By Michael Shermer © 2011; Times Books, Henry Holt and Company LLC, New York, NY; p. 111.

[ii] The Believing Brain; p. 113.

[iii] Spontaneous Evolution; p. 33.

[iv] Spontaneous Evolution; p. 32.

[v] Spontaneous Evolution; p. 32.

[vi] Spontaneous Evolution; p. 32.