I was sorry to hear of the passing of Robert Anton Wilson. An inspired writer on many subjects, past editor of Playboy and author of one of the books that I am currently enjoying (I “moodread”, which you may not have heard of, essentially it is a word I made up which means that I have different books for different moods. Prometheus Rising gets picked up when I am in a “curious” mood. I currently have books for inspired, excited, and bored. The other dwarves are left to browse the interweb).
Anyway I digress. One of my favourite ideas in Prometheus Rising is that the mind has two main parts; a thinker and a prover. The thinker is extremely flexible, and can think any number of things. The thinker can think that the person is lucky, the thinker can think that the person is unlucky. The thinker can think that society is getting worse, the thinker can think that society is getting better. The thinker can think pretty much anything.
The prover is much more predictable: what the thinker thinks, the prover proves.
Whatever the thinker is thinking, the prover will sort for evidence to support it. Effectively the prover “filters” the person’s experience of reality to find the information that proves the thinker right. So in the previous example, if the thinker thinks that the person is lucky, the prover will bring to the person’s attention all experiences that could be construed as luck. As a result that person’s belief that they are lucky will be continuously reinforced.
If a person thinks they are brilliant, the prover will show that to be true. If a person thinks that they are stupid, bad at maths, a poor driver etc., then the prover will commit to finding evidence to support that thought. Of course this is a hard concept to accept because unless your thinker is open to the idea that it is true - your prover will work to find reasons why it is false. So just for a moment, pretend that it is true and imagine the possibilities…
Also imagine the impact on others. With an 8 month old child I am becoming increasingly aware of the power of our words to Ben. Imagine how much influence a parent has on a child’s thinker and prover - how drastically negative talk could affect a child’s potential and for me this alone shows both the potential, and the danger of the thinker and prover concept.
Imagine how easy it would be to feel good about yourself if your prover ignored the bad stuff. Imagine how great it would be if you began to notice how you are a little bit closer to your goals rather than any evidence that tells you you are not. This is a powerful concept and one that requires literally zero effort on your part, it can even be fun to see what it’s like, after all we do it anyway - most of us have a state where we are optimistic, and in this state most people are coded to look for positives, so bringing that positive outlook in to other states is easy once you realise that it is possible.
