Mind Control

Over the years a fair number of people have expressed concern about mind control so I thought we'd take a look at this today.

The first thing to note is that trying to influence other people is something that is basic to our natures. Whether this be for good or ill we try to convince others of why our views are valid, we try to get our children to obey rules we think are right and everyone, from salespeople to politicians, are trying to sell us on products and ideas.

Even when we think we are influencing others for the best reasons we are coming from our own views of the world. People may see our actions to persuade others as being wrong and/or bad. We also have to contend with the law of unexpected consequences- if we do manage to change someone-else's mind what effects might this have other than those we were aiming at?

Some may think that this level of persuasion is acceptable but what they are concerned about is influence over and above that. If that is your view then ask yourself where the line is and what differentiates one type of persuasion from the other. I think you'll find its not clear cut.

So this second level of persuasion may encompass all the methods which bypass your conscious mind. Well, firstly, this definition is already encountered in the "ordinary" examples above. If a parent or politician uses the "illusion of choice" e.g "would you prefer a safe society with decreased freedoms or a free society where we can't look after your security?" or "would you prefer to go to bed now or in ten minutes after a story?" you have already fallen for it, as the fact there are other potential answers has passed you by.

Also salespeople will alter sizes of writing, colours, levels of products etc. etc. to get you to focus on what they want you to see, and thus buy.

These techniques use ordinary perceptual processes. There is an experiment where you are shown a video clip of two teams, one dressed in black and the other white, in a corridor. They have a ball and over the course of a 30 second segment you have to count how many times the white team passes the ball to each other, both overhead and with a bounce. Easy? Well, its not too hard but after the clip is shown you would be asked did you see the person in the gorilla costume walk in to the centre of the frame! About half of people won't see it and it is thought that this is not just a case of not remembering but that the eyes actually didn't process that information, although I haven't seen the evidence for that conclusion. It is important because if there are different consequences for what can actually be done to us, depending on whether we see, and can be made to ignore that somehow, or whether we don't see at all.

Priming is another example: things outside of our consciousness can affect our behaviour. This has been demonstrated under experimental conditions but those experiments suggest that it may happen in many ordinary circumstances we come across in the course of our lives. Obviously it relates to the video clip experiment's conclusions.

So, along with outright lies and half-truths, we are living in a system of mutual influence that seems to have both conscious and unconscious factors. In fact if we consider our conscious thinking selves as "us" it raises also sorts of questions when we encounter experimental results that show we can make decisions that are viewable to others before we are aware of them. The whole idea of an independent conscious self seems more and more to look like a fiction we have deluded ourselves with. In fact, if you think about independence from our surroundings you have a real problem, unless you can prove the existence of something that lives beyond the physical universe and is unaffected by that universe- like a soul or spirit.

Some people have worried that militaries are trying to develop some sort of mind control weapon that will relay thoughts into our minds outside of our control. Firstly, would they do that? My answer would be that if the technology can be developed then the answer would be yes. There are many cases of governments performing deadly experiments on their own soldiers and civilians- in this country gases were tested on unsuspecting soldiers at Porton Down research station last century. Are these weapons in development though? We already have something that's beamed through the air into your minds and affects your thoughts- television. When the news story says taking a certain tablet has been proven to up your chances of a heart attack by 25% and you stop taking that product because of this information then you have been a victim of someone elses output. The fact that 4 people had heart attacks out of a 1000 (roughly) on the control tablet- and on the tablet in question the number of heart attacks was 5 out of a 1000 then you have a 25% increase. Whether the extra person was having that problem because of the tablet is unproven and, anyway, its 1 person in 1000 which is 0.01%. Of course we care if the motive behind the story was devious or whether it was just bad research, but either way we are influenced daily by these things.

I hope this post has got you thinking and provides you with many opportunities for follow up research on a wide variety of issues relating to these subjects.