MENTAL SYSTEMS THEORY This book offers a unique and extremely useful model of the mind mechanism and its connections with the soul and the body. It develops a set of concepts and laws that explain the mind phenomena and lay the foundations for a simple and highly effective method that improves the human systems' quality of life. This model can be applied in several fields and disciplines such as Business Administration, Psychology, Sociology, Education, Communication, Sports, Medicine, and more.

Mental Systems Theory

By Juan Martín Figini

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Juan Martín Figini
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-2432-1

Contents

Acknowledgements...........................................ixPreface....................................................xiIntroduction...............................................xiiiThe Mental System..........................................1Basic characteristics and interactions.....................1Laws of Interaction........................................10Conclusion.................................................71Glossary...................................................77About The Author...........................................85

Chapter One

THE MENTAL SYSTEM

BASIC CHARACTERISTICS AND INTERACTIONS

A system is an entity whose existence and operations are justified as a whole through the interaction of its parts. Following this definition, the mental system is an energy field of information whose existence and operations are justified as a whole through the interaction of the mental sensory system and the belief system.

All that is captured by the biological system of perception is then decoded by the brain in the form of electromagnetic waves. Those waves are then transmitted to the mental system.

This input received by the mental system is captured by the mental sensory subsystem whose function is to transform the electromagnetic waves into sensory images, through the auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and sensitive subsystems.

The defining components of the mental sensory system are a reflection of the senses of the biological system of perception.

Biological perception is determined by the following senses: visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, olfactory and sensitive.

The electromagnetic waves are captured by the mental sensory system, which transforms them into sensory impressions.

We shall illustrate these concepts with a simple example:

If we are in a room, facing a blue wall, where we can hear a dog barking, it's hot and we smell food, all that sensory data that we have captured is happening in our mind.

How is this possible? Those external stimuli (light, sound, temperature and smell) have been received by our biological sensory system. Then, this information, has been processed by our brain, and transmitted in the form of electromagnetic waves into the mental sensory system. All the sensory images that we have mentioned (the blue wall, the heat, etc.) are the emerging data of this process.

In short, all that we experience happens in our minds.

Those impressions, which are the emerging property of the mental sensory system, are sensory images with no linguistic meaning, and they are later transmitted to the belief system.

The belief system is an entity whose existence and operations are justified as a whole through the interaction of beliefs.

When sensory impressions enter the belief system, a series of automatic connections between beliefs occurs, resulting in an emerging interpretation. It is worth noting that in this theory the concepts of interpretation and thought are use as synonymous.

Beliefs are ideas that have a certain energetic charge and intensity and are firmly attached to the mind as truths.

Ideas are sensory images with a certain linguistic meaning, composed of one or more words that assume a logical grammatical sense.

Returning to the example, if I am in the same room and I hear a dog barking, when this sensory impression enters the belief system it gets a linguistic meaning and the interpretation emerges: "A dog is barking".

Interpretations are ideas that have a certain energetic charge and intensity which generate an emotional effect on the body system.

Emotions are physical sensations produced by the energetic charge contained in the interpretation.

Beliefs are linked within the belief system through the act of thinking. Through the act of thinking, mental energy is directed towards a set of beliefs that form a network. Interpretations emerge from this association between beliefs.

Beliefs that are energetically active are those that can affect the thinking process and hence the resulting interpretations.

But there is also a huge set of passive beliefs which are in a potential state and therefore they do not affect the thinking process or its resulting interpretation.

Let's continue with the example:

If my belief system receives the sensory impression of the bark, and my related active beliefs at the moment are: "I need to study now to pass the test", "I need to concentrate", "if I fail my exam I will fall behind with my studies", "if I fall behind with my studies, my family will be mad at me" and so on, the resulting interpretation of my belief system at that moment, may be: "There is a dog barking. It is ruining my study time. This is harmful for me".

We can suppose that this thought has a negative energetic charge of a certain intensity level, and that it is transmitted in the form of electromagnetic waves into the body system, which processes it and generates a corresponding negative emotion.

Laws of Interaction

As has been mentioned before, the act of thinking involves addressing the mental energy to one or more beliefs. Active beliefs are those to which the dynamics of thinking has given a certain amount of mental energy that makes it possible for them to affect the resulting interpretation.

But this does not mean that those beliefs that are activated in the process of thinking are the only ones that exist.

All belief systems are complete. All possible beliefs exist and they are present in the mental space. We only need to address the mental energy to activate them and take them out of their passive state.

The premise that holds that belief systems have all conceivable beliefs at this level of evolution (whether they are active or not), is called the law of completeness.

Let us illustrate it with our example:

Just as my belief system has all those active beliefs mentioned before ("I need to study now for the test", "I need to concentrate", etc.), it also has other positive passive beliefs that can lead to a positive interpretation, such as: "I have all the knowledge, the available time and the ability to pass my exams", "any environment is favorable to my study process".

In turn, other passive negative beliefs also co-exist and they can generate an interpretation even more negative than the original one, such as: "I will never pass the test", "my family thinks I'm a failure".

Although each belief system is complete, not all beliefs are affecting the thinking process. Those that are affecting it are considered active, and those that are not affecting it are considered passive.

The thinking process can be automatic or voluntary, generating a voluntary or an automatic interpretation, respectively, as an emergent property of the belief system.

An automatic thought is generated when an automatic link between beliefs occurs.

A voluntary thought is generated when a voluntary link between beliefs occurs.

The first type of thought is a reaction and the second type is a decided action guided by a purpose. The one who decides and guides the thinking process is our soul, what we are and will always be.

Continuing with our example:

If I let my automatic thinking process take place, the negative interpretation already mentioned will immediately emerge: "there is a dog barking, it is ruining my study time, this is harmful for me".

If, however, I voluntarily decide to intervene in the thinking process, I can activate any of the above mentioned positive passive beliefs, such as: "any environment is favorable to my study process", and thus I can voluntarily generate a positive thought: "even though the dog is barking, I can continue studying".

In this respect, the soul is a conscious energy that enjoys free will and operates on the mental system and on the body system.

It is the free will of the soul that makes it possible to choose which of the beliefs to activate in order to achieve the desired purpose.

This concept is key to understand how human beings can voluntarily modify their personalities, that is, their active belief systems.

The soul is the one who can intervene in the thinking process to create a voluntary thought, and interrupt the chain of automatic thoughts.

In addition to free will, the soul has another faculty called consciousness, which consists of recognizing how the mental and the body system work.

As regards the mental system, there are conscious and unconscious beliefs and thoughts. The first ones are recognized by the soul and the second ones are not.

Moreover, there are conscious and unconscious emotions and behaviours.

All those beliefs and thoughts that are not recognized by the soul, constitute the unconscious.

Whether we are aware of our active beliefs or not, they are by definition susceptible of affecting the thinking process.

The belief system is always operating and automatically generating links, except when the soul deliberately intervenes in the dynamics of thinking.

It is worth noting that the process of automatic generation of thoughts occurs as long as the stimuli that feed it remain.

A stimulus is a sensory image of either internal or external origin.

In this sense, an internal stimulus is a sensory image that has been remembered or invented.

An external stimulus is a sensory image received from the environment.

External stimuli are captured by the biological system of perception and transformed into electromagnetic waves that eventually reach the mental system, where they are retransformed into sensory images.

It is worth pointing out that when we talk about a sensory image we are not only appealing to the visual sense, but also to the whole set of senses that constitute the sensory system and that are a reflection of the biological system of perception.

Internal stimuli are sensory images generated in the mental system. The thinking process is based on sensory images since all beliefs are formed by one or more sensory images endowed with linguistic meaning.

When we are thinking, we are activating and linking beliefs, and therefore, we are activating and associating a set of linguistic sensory images.

The thinking activity is a process undertaken jointly by the sensory system and the belief system. Mental energy takes the form of a sensory impression, which is then completed by the belief system with a linguistic meaning.

However, the belief system does not only operate when the person has incorporated language. From the moment the soul incarnates in the body system, a set of beliefs that constitute the innate personality is already active in the mental system.

That is why babies and children who have not yet learned any language can suffer disturbances in their emotional state as a result of their active innate beliefs. Children receive external stimuli, which are automatically decoded by the belief system, after they have assumed the character of a sensory impression.

The sensory impression receives a certain energetic charge and intensity from those innate beliefs; then, it is transformed into an interpretation and it is received by the body as a physical sensation. That physical sensation is the emotion, which can be either positive or negative, depending on whether the energetic charge of the interpretation is positive or negative, respectively.

This is called the law of correspondence: every negative interpretation generates a negative emotion and every positive interpretation generates a positive emotion.

Continuing with our example:

When my body system receives the negative interpretation: "a dog is barking, it is ruining my study time, this is harmful for me", it consequently emits a negative emotion, such as "anger".

Similarly, if my body system receives the positive interpretation: "even though the dog is barking, I can continue studying", it emanates a positive emotion, such as "serenity".

The way in which the soul can become aware of what kind of energetic charge is prevailing in the thinking process is through emotion. Emotion is the indicator the soul has to understand whether positive or negative thoughts are taking place in the mental space. This recognition process is the outcome of the soul consciousness about the way the mental and the body system work. Being aware of what happens in our mental system is how we can voluntarily alter the course of thoughts in order to create a state of well-being or to break with the state of ill-being.

The degree of ill-being an individual suffers is equivalent to the intensity of the negative emotion manifested in the body.

Ill-being is the manifestation of any negative emotion, of any kind of intensity, such as: annoyance, hatred, anger, rage, anguish, sadness, depression, anxiety, fear, phobia, stress, etc.

Well-being is the manifestation of any positive emotion, of any kind of intensity, such as: relief, gladness, happiness, joy, excitement, peace, love, compassion, calmness, security, trust, etc.

In this regard, the intensity of an emotion is equivalent to the intensity of the interpretation that generates it.

This is precisely what the law of proportional intensity establishes: the energetic intensity of an emotion is equal to the energetic intensity of the interpretation that generates it.

Consequently, in our example we can deduce that the negative emotion "anger", of an energetic intensity grade four, is the effect of a negative interpretation: "this is harmful for me", of an energetic intensity grade four.

As a result of all laws mentioned above, it can be asserted that every emotion of a certain energetic charge and intensity has the same energetic charge and intensity of the interpretation that generates it.

It is worth noting that the energetic charge is the energetic pole assumed by the interpretation as a result of the thinking process. The energetic charge can be either negative or positive, of varying degrees, ranging from absolute negativity to absolute positivity. When I speak of the degree of the positive or negative energy I am referring to the energetic intensity. Energetic intensity is the amount of mental energy that a belief, an interpretation or an emotion contains.

Let us suppose we have a scale of zero to ten in the negative pole, in which zero is no negativity and ten is absolute negativity. If we had a negative emotion "discomfort" of grade three, we would have a milder degree of suffering than in the case of a negative emotion "anger" of grade eight.

To suffer is to live a state of ill-being. In this sense, there are varying degrees of ill-being for the different intensities that negative emotions express in our bodies.

Everything I have described about negative emotions is the same for positive emotions. The greater the intensity of a positive emotion, the greater the level of well-being the person will experience.

The intensity of a negative emotion is equivalent to the intensity of the interpretation that generated it.

For example, if my positive interpretation is "yesterday I played football very well" of an intensity grade three, it will generate the positive emotion "gladness" of grade three.

Also, a positive interpretation "yesterday I played football wonderfully" of grade eight, will generate the positive emotion "happiness" of grade eight, which will cause a greater good than the first interpretation.

We know that interpretations are the result of an interaction between active beliefs. The intensity and the charge of an interpretation are the result of the interaction between the intensities and charges of the different beliefs involved in the thinking process.

The more frequently a belief participates in the thinking process, the higher its intensity level is.

This principle is called law of intensity: the higher the degree of frequency in which a belief is recognized during the thinking process, the higher its energetic intensity; the lower the degree of frequency in which a belief is recognized during the thinking process, the lower its energetic intensity.

For example, if the belief "I am a productive person" activates twenty times during a day and the belief "I am a fun person" activates eight times during the same day, the first one will have a higher energetic intensity than the second one.

In the same way, if the belief "I cannot commit to anyone" activates thirty times in a week and the belief "nobody loves me" activates ten times in the same week, the first one will have a higher energetic intensity than the second one.

We know that beliefs are ideas that have a certain energetic charge and intensity and are firmly attached to the mind as truths. The higher the intensity of a belief, the higher its level of veracity.

This principle is called law of certainty: the higher the intensity of a belief, the higher the degree of certainty or veracity it expresses. Following the example, due to its higher intensity, the belief "I am a productive person" has a higher veracity level than the belief "I am a fun person".

Beliefs are truths, and each one of them expresses a certain degree of veracity that is equivalent to its energetic intensity.

The higher the certainty level of a belief is, the greater its influence on the thinking process and thus on the resulting interpretation will be.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Mental Systems Theoryby Juan Martín Figini Copyright © 2012 by Juan Martín Figini. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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