Mangalores wrote...
Phatose wrote...
There are many ways to "screw with someone's brain". Reading a book, for instance. It does not require brainwashing to alter how someone thinks.
The only ways to alter someone's understanding I know off were invented as early as the 19th century and are all illegal and considered felonies today.
Okay, first things first...
Sigh. I'm getting too damned old for this.
Right, the human brain is not a magical box of wonder. It's a biological machine. A clever one, but a machine. Everything we do, think, and are is a mechanical process in a biological environment. We're understanding how that machine works more and more over time, and this understanding helps us cure things which people suffer with, like Autism. If you don't think that's a good thing, then you're a monster. Moving on...
What we understand is that, as it was pointed out, the brain changes all the time. Let's say that you turn on the television and you watch the news -- what unfolds in front of you is going to change you, because you now have knowledge that you didn't before. This is going to affect your future decisions. This is why propaganda works, because people are subjected to slanted views that could almost be true, and it opens them up to new possibilities, but specifically fashioned possibilities which are desired by the creators of the propaganda in question.
Look at history, look at how often this has worked. And consider how many successful forms of conditioning there are which are legal and happen all the time in day to day life. Every time you form a habit, you've basically conditioned the machine in your head to accept this as common behaviour. Whenever you open a book, your brain is changed because that knowledge is transferred from being words on a page to wiggling around in your limbic system.
You can read a story which affects you emotionally and remains within your memory. That's not changing you? Your mind is being changed by outside stimuli all the time. A good 80% of who you are is forged into reality by environmental stimuli. If you had lead a different life, with different stimuli, you would have been a very different person. And that continues to happen. It's still happening now, but it's all about what sources you want to trust, and how compelling you find them. But your brain is constantly changing.
That's the point that Phantose was making. The brain isn't a magical, impregnable fortress which can only be changed with magical mind control rays. It's a biological computer which rewrites itself all the time. The only time your brain remains static is when you die. Your brain's ability to change slows down a little with age, yes, due to levels of neuroplasticity, but it's still always changing. There's evidence which proves even that every time you access a memory, the memory changes slightly. That none of your memories are actually completely accurate. Ever.
You believe that you, as a person, are a construct set in stone. An unshakable gestalt built upon your beliefs. This is not so. Five years ago you were a very different person, five years from now you will be a very different person. Change is what happens. Change is life. Life mutates and changes all the time. The stagnancy and static existence that you believe in is contrary to reality.
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