Our Noble Mind
An Investigation Into Human Nature.
Consciousness, Intellect, and our Mind.
From Daydream to Orgasm
Altered States of Consciousness.
The H I Mind Model provides a basic concept of a functional mind that is evolved to handle different situations in different ways. Our experience of our own mind, our state of mind, will depend on which of the different Focuses are more or less active, how much intensity and concentration is being applied, and the ongoing conscious interpretation that is going on.
All the Focuses represent activity in the Neocortex of our brain. Our brain doesn't just seek to interpret our senses and perceptions, solve problems, and try to optimise our behaviour in various ways, it also seeks to conserve our energy. We experience these different influences within our brain as changes in generalised feeling, which we may name as relaxation, excitation, stimulation, mood, intellect, emotional swings, and so on. Our brain activity is ongoing so long as we are conscious, awake, and will naturally change from moment to moment.
But there is more.
The Aspirational and Noble Focuses are creative and this means that we experience activity in these Focuses more as intuition than as clear thoughts, memories, or opinions. Even when we consciously concentrate on trying to perform a creative act we are more likely to experience a range of impressions rather than clear thinking. This creative state of mind is quite different to the state of mind as we work logically through a to-do list, or attend to a social conversation.
At the same time as moving from Focus to Focus and experiencing varying intensity we also have a feedback loop, or a number of feedback loops, that will be activated involving our Subconscious. This will trigger associations in those parts of our brain that are fully automatic which, in turn, will generate our emotions, compulsions, and imperatives. We think something and then we feel something which can modify what we think next. The result is yet another source of mental variation as a continuous aspect of simply living our lives.
But there is more.
We are philosophical and pleasure-seeking creatures. We all have certain times when we will seek to adopt certain states of mind that we hope will give us reduced discomfort, such as anxiety or strong emotions, and to increase greater tranquility or pleasure. We learn how to meditate, or to concentrate on certain thoughts and feelings, or we listen to music or read evocative books. All these approaches can influence which parts of our mind, which Focuses, are preferentially active and how strong that activity may be.
One important reason for developing a better model of the human mind is so that we can better understand why we experience different states of mind. With just as simple model of conscious and non-conscious minds we have very little ability to explain the natural and continuous variability in our experience of living. The potential benefit of developing a better model of the human mind, the H I Mind Model, is that we can better understand our different states of mind and more effectively adopt ways to manage and, potentially, change our own state of mind. For example, transcendent states of mind may be associated with the Noble Focus, and there may be ways to stimulate our own Noble Focus with the aim of encouraging such mind-opening transcendent states.