The smell of bread being baked cannot bring the memory of the taste of the bread to the mind unless a person’s mind recognises the smell of the bread. Once we have tasted or smelled something that is ‘pleasant’ or ‘unpleasant’ the mind can automatically recall the thoughts and feelings of that original experience. This is because of the phenomenon of ‘sensory memory’. We have sensory memory of our previous experiences. What determines what we feel when we smell the bread baking will be influenced by how we previously felt when we smelled or tasted bread.
In this example our previous experience will influence our thoughts and feelings. When we smell something that we have tasted before our mind can recreate and reignite the original thoughts and feelings. The mind can use one single experience or numerous generic experiences to create conditioned responses. A bad first experience can install a feeling of displeasure. A good first experience can install a feeling of pleasure. Our mind is continually creating automated responses (thoughts, feelings and behaviour) that can be reignited with exposure to the same or similar experiences.
In the example above the stimulus is not the sight or physical presence of baking bread but merely the smell of the bread baking. The mind only requires one ‘experience’ to create an unconscious association with the stimulus of that experience. Once the mind is conditioned to respond to any stimulus associated with an experience, future exposure to that stimulus can reignite the same thoughts and feelings that were present in that first experience. The mind does not need the eyes to see any stimulus to re-ignite or recall the feelings of that first experience.
When a mind has been conditioned to respond to stimulus, that stimulus takes control over the thoughts and feelings of the mind that has been conditioned. The sights, sounds or smells of any experience existing together or in isolation can act as the stimulus to recreate feelings of ‘fear’ or ‘desire’. For example, if we have sampled food that we describe as ‘delicious’ we may only need to be exposed to the sight or smell of that food to reignite the thoughts and feelings we experienced when we first tasted that food.
A conflict or violent exchange can condition a ‘violent’ or ‘fearful’ response. After a conflict any future exposure to the sights, sounds or discussions that recall this original event may be all that is required to reignite the thoughts, feelings or behaviour that were present during the original conflict. Bigotry, racism (patriotism), misogyny, greed and selfishness remain because education has been used to create conditioned responses. Education enables us to replace our compassion with concepts that dilute or remove the awareness of our feelings of compassion.
Compassion is the feelings of others. If we see a child starving and we feel compassion we cannot stand and watch it. If education has replaced compassion with concepts to condition our responses we may simply feel pity. Pity is not compassion. Pity is emotional masturbation created to overcome the feelings of guilt created by our apathy and selfishness. If I am starving and you feel pity, I am still starving. If I am starving and you are compassionate you cannot eat whilst I starve because you literally feel what I feel. Authority created alternative unnatural conditioned responses based upon ‘moral’ concepts.
The creation of those moral concepts was essential if authority was to persuade us to deny our compassion in order to justify fighting in a war. So we think that if we can justify why we are not responsible for the suffering of others, then it is ‘justified’. A conditioned response is an automatic unconscious control mechanism that has autonomous control over our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. A conditioned response is a hypothesis that describes a natural survival mechanism. Before language and conscious contemplation it was the feelings of an experience that were the truth.
A conditioned response is a ‘term’ that attempts to define a natural phenomenon that pre-dates language, education and record keeping. A conditioned response requires one or more experiences which create an automatic attraction to what felt good and can create fearful thoughts, feelings and an aversion to what felt bad. Our unconscious association with our experiences can be enough to condition a response. In history religious authorities eventually observed this response and actively exploited this phenomenon to condition the minds of young children.
Religions were joined in the exploitation of this phenomenon by sovereign nations and democratic governments. Education in all its forms uses universal beliefs that are installed to create fearful conditioned responses. Conditioned responses are natural but when replaced by ‘educated perception’ they are unnatural. When conditioned responses are unnatural they can be used to usurp and overrule desire and/or compassion. Conditioned responses can be used to overrule natural behavioural expression by suppressing it.
One way to interfere with this natural phenomenon is to tell the child what to believe. When the child agrees that some behaviours and experiences are ‘good’ and some are ‘bad’ it creates conditioned responses. This means that the child responds to their beliefs and prejudices about the experience but not the experience itself. As demonstrated by phobic responses a belief about an experience can have more power over the mind of the believer than the experience itself. Fear and guilt are feelings that are associated with this form of universal conditioning.
Religious beliefs were and are used to inhibit natural expression by creating fearful conditioned responses to experiences that are pre-judged to be ‘blasphemous’, ‘immoral’ or ‘illegal’. Governments are exploiting this phenomenon by creating laws and education. The beliefs that come from religion and education interfere with nature. Nature creates instinctual, compassionate and wise responses. The cause of war, theft, rape, violence and greed is exploitation of the mind. To interfere with man’s natural instincts is to interfere with nature’s internal guide.
This interference is achieved by distorting reality. We distort reality with our educated perception of that reality. Universal beliefs are the method that is used to condition a mind’s perception of what is perceived to be real. This is done in order that the mind and body can be exploited and controlled by authority.
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