The scientific aspect........

So I totally missed the scientific aspects in the previous post on "being emotional.." And as my anonymous friend pointed out they play one of the major important part in the personality development. hmmm. Yes. But when I say these are the external factors, I mean the same. What I am intrigued is basically does a child is born with an inherent characteristics of its own?

State of happiness, sadness is a state of mind and the sub-conscious mind plays a great role in its functioning. Hormonal imbalance and neurons make a person behave the way he behaves. And over a period these patterns get formed. But there are some definite traits in a person. Emotional nature is one of those. You can not make a person behave with intense emotions however hard you might try. I frankly do not remember any other trait at this point of time to mention here which could be inborn. And this is something which I am not clear still. Is a person born with some inherent characteristics?


What does a counciler or physiotherapist do? what does a psychologist do? What does a course in mediation do? They all are different means to making you aware of why you act the way you act. They make you aware of your own nature and they have the scientific base behind them, so mostly people tend to listen and take them seriously. As usual the debate on left brain and right brain continues. Dominant the part of the brain, so are the characteristics shown like an artist or a businessman or technical person. Control the hormones that are playing roles in your body, control the neurons in brain and you can control the chemical reaction that goes. As "anonymous" said, these chemical reactions happening in brain give rise to different states and thus give a state of euphoria for the temporary period. They give the high. That is what is achieved after smoking, drinking or drugging. "Sex" is also one of such acts where passion plays a role and gives rise to secretion of different hormones. The irritating behavior exhibited by girls during their menstrual cycle, is also role of these hormones. So science has a role to play in the biological aspects of how different things could be controlled. Get addicted to these and surely things go bad to worst. Addiction of anything is bad.


This is the role played by science and the brain in making us behave the way we do. Scientific control of things is altogether a different aspect of looking at things. Different therapies used in psychological, physiological aspects have their basics lying in controlling these hormones and neuron development and controlling their imbalance. What is motivation? Is it not secretion of some hormones which make you feel better? Yes, it is. What is depression? What is fear? What is anxiety? What is anger? What is joy? What is sadness? They all are secretion of some form of hormone. They all result from the previous experiences we had over years. Why does a child called innocent? What is state of innocence? I think lack of such experience could be termed as state of innocence. Why is a child always innocent? Because he has not formed those patterns, he does not have those memories, he does not have those experiences. As we grow, we tend to accumulate memories, experiences. We characterize people according to previous patterns. We tend to form some unknown rules and patterns. We lose our innocence as we grow. This brings me to another aspect of things called different forms of memory. I will write a separate post on describing it. I do not think it would be elaborate but I would try to cover the aspects that I am able to recall. So once you are aware of all these things, you can to some extent judge what your reaction is going to be to a certain situation. What is the meaning of experience? It is the same to some extent. So all these states could be understood when you understand how and why they happen. You can understand what makes you feel happy, what makes you feel sad, what makes you motivated, what makes you perform better, what makes you feel worthy. Being aware of all these things gives you a different purpose and makes you look at the same things you have been doing subconsciously over years without questioning them. So by being aware things change.


How does meditation and other things help? They also are a form of scientific procedure which is not so obviously scientific and to a large extent is considered devotional or methodical. But I believe it goes to a great extent in controlling your behavior and does contribute heavily in making you aware of all these things. Its always said "Mind control" is the greatest thing you achieve by doing meditation related practices. In a way what you do is the same, just the approach is different. As one of my friends who is very active in "Art of living" foundation says, "He thinks he gets the same amount or even more high by doing meditation than he used to get by sniffing Ganja during his undergraduate college days". I believe in him.


What I ultimately want to say is "mental patterns could be changed to some extent". Though they are formed over years, they could be changed by being aware of all these things. It wont happen in a day,month or year. It would take time. But surely it could be done. Han, nobody should expect that things would change so dramatically that there is total change of personality, no. What would change is the approach to look at the things, the approach towards thinking, the approach of approaching different aspects. Nobody is saying that the person would be more intelligible, or more smart or with more IQ. What I am saying is his overall personality could be changed, provided he wants it to happen. What we need is more "wise men and women" not necessarily more "Intelligent men and women". Of course the other facts mentioned in my previous post plays a major role too. So the scientific study of all these things could be considered as the process of knowing why things happens the way they happen, once they start happening. Whereas the reasons mentioned in the previous post could be considered as the reason how they are formed as they are in the current state.


Thank you "anonymous" for bringing this point. I had always wanted to write something on this aspect but missed it. I recently read a book titled "Cognition - by Margaret Matlin" ....It illustrates all these and many more aspects very beautifully. If possible read it, it would change the way you have been thinking till now.