You must have heard this term Autopilot in relation to air travel. Now what does it have to do with our lives as an average person?
Well if you want to stay average then don't bother, but if you want to raise above, it will make a lot of sense. Let's think about it-
What is an Autopilot?
It is an automatic system designed to follow a predetermined set of parameters.
At first when this invention was made auto pilot was consisted of a mechanical arrangement with a gyroscope as a sensor which kept an aircraft in a level flight. Slowly as technology evolved other functions were also added, like automatic engagement or disengagement of autopilot.
Then came the fly by wire system and the electronics (fly by wire system is where the different controls only generate control signals, these signals are then processed by a processing unit and then actuating inputs are provided to the control surfaces. This technology is now coming to cars and bikes too, rather the luxury car makers are already using it.) This system made the programming of the system possible. Therefore now the autopilot of the todays aeroplanes are so advanced that once the flight plan is uploaded in the system very less work remains to be done by the human pilot. The autopilot can even take off or land a plane or even avoid collisions. But human pilots need to be there to deal with any surprises, as human lives are at stake.
So how can we lift our living above average with the knowledge of autopilot?
(Always remember that samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com is made to stimulate your mind to think, to use your common sense (common sense is the literal meaning of Samanya Buddhi) for the betterment of you Health, Wealth and Happiness.)
Or why I am telling you about autopilot in the first place? What is the relation of this autopilot and our life?
The working of the autopilot is similar to some extent to the working of our brain.
Our brain had two levels of thinking, conscious thinking & subconscious thinking. The autopilot works in the subconscious thinking. For example, when we are learning to ride a bicycle, it's our conscious mind at work. Our conscious mind is gathering the data when we are trying to ride a bike. It is recording everything, it literally gathers terabytes of data from every motor organ & every sensor our body has. (motor organs are our muscles, sensors include eyes, ears, skin, pressure sensing neurons in our muscles, the neurons which are sensing the movement of the liquid in the sacs behind our ears which is responsible for balancing(like an accelerometer).) Then our conscious mind works on finding out the correlation in different data parameters for example, when we press right paddle down with x amount of pressure, what happens to our balance, how much do we move forward or if we move at all. Similarly if turn the handle while moving forward what happens to our direction and balance etc. When this process of correlating is complete, our learning is complete.
(This process of correlating takes time and involves our subconscious mind, the process is fast when we are asleep, therefore whenever learning something new, take it easy, make sure you sleep in between your learning sessions, this way you will learn faster and easily, with less effort.)
Whenever learning something new, we make the effort with the conscious mind. We make the conscious effort to try (data gathering), then subconscious mind processes the data, and this is how we learn. Once the processing of data is complete it becomes autopilot. We can now do the thing without any conscious intervention. We can now think about something else while riding a bicycle.
But the problem with this autopilot is, it is very hard to switch it off completely if the need arises.
It is very hard to 'UNLEARN'.
Some creative guys made an experiment regarding this process of learning and unlearning. They built a reverse bicycle. The reverse bicycle has everything same as the normal bicycle except it has a special arrangement with the handle, so that when you turn the handle right, the front wheel turns left and vice versa.
To know what happens when a normal person who have already learned to ride a bicycle tries to ride the reverse bicycle see the video below-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0
You can see it is very hard for him to ride this bicycle, because he is constantly fighting with the autopilot which is there in his subconscious. He has to 'UNLEARN' what he have already learnt about riding a bicycle. And then after few months of acquiring the new skill of riding a reverse bicycle it is again hard for him to ride the normal bicycle, but he is able to engage that old autopilot for riding normal bicycle again. Now there is another autopilot in his brain to recognise which bicycle he is riding and engage the required autopilot. Complex, isn't it?
If you doubt the video and want to try it yourself then you don't need to go finding the reverse bicycle. There are other options, like I have tried riding old Royal Enfield motorcycle. Unlike latest motorcycles the old models of Royal Enfield used to have the break at the left foot and gear shifter at the right foot. So if you are used to riding latest our modern motorcycles then you will find it hard and dangerous riding the old Royal Enfield motor bikes. You can find other vintage motorcycle models if you don't find a Royal Enfield with opposite controls.
So, what does it have to do with betterment of our life? Or our goal of improving health, wealth and happiness?
There are many things like bicycle riding, car driving etc. that we learn and then start doing it on autopilot mode. But things keep on changing, as you can see the old models of motorcycles had reverse controls. So we have to adapt to the changes and here the problem starts arising.
But if there are problems with the autopilot then why we had an autopilot in the first place?
We have developed this mechanism of autopilot over thousands of years of evolution. This autopilot mechanism are also found in insects. It is such a basic thing of life. It actually makes our life easy. It frees up our brains processing capacity for more important things. Like learning new things or decision making or thinking. Otherwise we won't be able to think anything while driving a car.
So again coming to the betterment of our life-
There are few drawbacks of this autopilot system-
A) Because of mental inertia or laziness our brain tries to stick to the previously learnt autopilot. For example the person possessing the old model of Royal Enfield would like to stick to the old model only because though the new model of Royal Enfield motorcycle is better in all respects he can't use the old autopilot, he had to construct a new one to ride the latest models. The person may rationalise his decision to stick to the old model by inventing some other reasons. But all others except him knows that he is at loss.
B) Because of the autopilot we are unable to notice new developments. For example if we are used to take a particular rout for commuting to our workplace, we have a tendency to never change it because that rout is fixed in the autopilot. The autopilot knows when to slow down, when to speed up, the timing of traffic signals, probable obstacles coming in the rout etc. So in short it's easy for the autopilot to follow the same rout. But what if there is something useful happening on some other rout or if the other rout is time saving or fuel saving?
You would never know until to try it consciously.
C) The most important drawback of this autopilot, or rather we can day a DEADLY FLAW of this autopilot system is that-
If we don't think about the dangers or if we don't experience dangers during the learning phase of the autopilot, then the autopilot simply doesn't have any data to counter these dangers. And this flawed autopilot keeps on working until accident happened or the odds manifest themselves.
For example, if you have learnt to carry your cellphone always in ON condition without thinking about possible dangers, then without your recognising it you will enter a gas station (petrol pump) with the cellphone on, or even attend or make calls while at the gas station, without realizing it, how much you have put yourself and others in danger.(the radio emission from cellphone can cause build up of static electricity up to such an extent so as to cause minute sparking which is enough to ignite air fuel mixture readily available at gas station).
Similarly if you have learnt driving a car without wearing a seatbelt then you will be fine until you have an accident. Also if you are not aware of the hazards of sleep deprivation and driving a car then there are very high chances of accident.
Your autopilot simply does not have data about such rarely happening bad incidences because they happen very rarely, but the most important thing is they do happen and your autopilot does not know the same.
So how to overcome these problems?
First to eliminate the problems we have to detect the presence of an autopilot, because we are so used to the autopilot that we seldom recognise that we are on autopilot mode.
How to recognise the autopilot?
It is easy, our brain is not made to be a multitasking machine, therefore our brain resorts to this autopilot mechanism to do one or more things automatically (subconsciously) and then concentrate on doing or thinking something new. So whenever you find yourself doing one thing and thinking something else you can be sure that you are on autopilot.
Now as we have learnt to recognise this autopilot inside us it is time to eliminate it's drawbacks-
It is again easy to eliminate the drawbacks-
You have to visit each autopilot and study it if it is missing something, are there any dangers? If there is any change in the operating environment like development of new technology or any changes in the surroundings, if there are any better alternatives etc. and do the changes necessary, try to learn new things. In this way you also work up your brain muscle.
This autopilot system also works in money matters for example some people are just used to take loans for buying things, some just like to save, some just like to make fixed deposits, some just like to buy a particular stocks etc. The bottom line is, learn new things, know where the dangers lie.
Hope I have contributed something to your knowledge about yourself.
See you soon.
Have a nice day...
Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.
Well if you want to stay average then don't bother, but if you want to raise above, it will make a lot of sense. Let's think about it-
What is an Autopilot?
It is an automatic system designed to follow a predetermined set of parameters.
At first when this invention was made auto pilot was consisted of a mechanical arrangement with a gyroscope as a sensor which kept an aircraft in a level flight. Slowly as technology evolved other functions were also added, like automatic engagement or disengagement of autopilot.
Then came the fly by wire system and the electronics (fly by wire system is where the different controls only generate control signals, these signals are then processed by a processing unit and then actuating inputs are provided to the control surfaces. This technology is now coming to cars and bikes too, rather the luxury car makers are already using it.) This system made the programming of the system possible. Therefore now the autopilot of the todays aeroplanes are so advanced that once the flight plan is uploaded in the system very less work remains to be done by the human pilot. The autopilot can even take off or land a plane or even avoid collisions. But human pilots need to be there to deal with any surprises, as human lives are at stake.
So how can we lift our living above average with the knowledge of autopilot?
(Always remember that samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com is made to stimulate your mind to think, to use your common sense (common sense is the literal meaning of Samanya Buddhi) for the betterment of you Health, Wealth and Happiness.)
Or why I am telling you about autopilot in the first place? What is the relation of this autopilot and our life?
The working of the autopilot is similar to some extent to the working of our brain.
Our brain had two levels of thinking, conscious thinking & subconscious thinking. The autopilot works in the subconscious thinking. For example, when we are learning to ride a bicycle, it's our conscious mind at work. Our conscious mind is gathering the data when we are trying to ride a bike. It is recording everything, it literally gathers terabytes of data from every motor organ & every sensor our body has. (motor organs are our muscles, sensors include eyes, ears, skin, pressure sensing neurons in our muscles, the neurons which are sensing the movement of the liquid in the sacs behind our ears which is responsible for balancing(like an accelerometer).) Then our conscious mind works on finding out the correlation in different data parameters for example, when we press right paddle down with x amount of pressure, what happens to our balance, how much do we move forward or if we move at all. Similarly if turn the handle while moving forward what happens to our direction and balance etc. When this process of correlating is complete, our learning is complete.
(This process of correlating takes time and involves our subconscious mind, the process is fast when we are asleep, therefore whenever learning something new, take it easy, make sure you sleep in between your learning sessions, this way you will learn faster and easily, with less effort.)
Whenever learning something new, we make the effort with the conscious mind. We make the conscious effort to try (data gathering), then subconscious mind processes the data, and this is how we learn. Once the processing of data is complete it becomes autopilot. We can now do the thing without any conscious intervention. We can now think about something else while riding a bicycle.
But the problem with this autopilot is, it is very hard to switch it off completely if the need arises.
It is very hard to 'UNLEARN'.
Some creative guys made an experiment regarding this process of learning and unlearning. They built a reverse bicycle. The reverse bicycle has everything same as the normal bicycle except it has a special arrangement with the handle, so that when you turn the handle right, the front wheel turns left and vice versa.
To know what happens when a normal person who have already learned to ride a bicycle tries to ride the reverse bicycle see the video below-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0
You can see it is very hard for him to ride this bicycle, because he is constantly fighting with the autopilot which is there in his subconscious. He has to 'UNLEARN' what he have already learnt about riding a bicycle. And then after few months of acquiring the new skill of riding a reverse bicycle it is again hard for him to ride the normal bicycle, but he is able to engage that old autopilot for riding normal bicycle again. Now there is another autopilot in his brain to recognise which bicycle he is riding and engage the required autopilot. Complex, isn't it?
If you doubt the video and want to try it yourself then you don't need to go finding the reverse bicycle. There are other options, like I have tried riding old Royal Enfield motorcycle. Unlike latest motorcycles the old models of Royal Enfield used to have the break at the left foot and gear shifter at the right foot. So if you are used to riding latest our modern motorcycles then you will find it hard and dangerous riding the old Royal Enfield motor bikes. You can find other vintage motorcycle models if you don't find a Royal Enfield with opposite controls.
So, what does it have to do with betterment of our life? Or our goal of improving health, wealth and happiness?
There are many things like bicycle riding, car driving etc. that we learn and then start doing it on autopilot mode. But things keep on changing, as you can see the old models of motorcycles had reverse controls. So we have to adapt to the changes and here the problem starts arising.
But if there are problems with the autopilot then why we had an autopilot in the first place?
We have developed this mechanism of autopilot over thousands of years of evolution. This autopilot mechanism are also found in insects. It is such a basic thing of life. It actually makes our life easy. It frees up our brains processing capacity for more important things. Like learning new things or decision making or thinking. Otherwise we won't be able to think anything while driving a car.
So again coming to the betterment of our life-
There are few drawbacks of this autopilot system-
A) Because of mental inertia or laziness our brain tries to stick to the previously learnt autopilot. For example the person possessing the old model of Royal Enfield would like to stick to the old model only because though the new model of Royal Enfield motorcycle is better in all respects he can't use the old autopilot, he had to construct a new one to ride the latest models. The person may rationalise his decision to stick to the old model by inventing some other reasons. But all others except him knows that he is at loss.
B) Because of the autopilot we are unable to notice new developments. For example if we are used to take a particular rout for commuting to our workplace, we have a tendency to never change it because that rout is fixed in the autopilot. The autopilot knows when to slow down, when to speed up, the timing of traffic signals, probable obstacles coming in the rout etc. So in short it's easy for the autopilot to follow the same rout. But what if there is something useful happening on some other rout or if the other rout is time saving or fuel saving?
You would never know until to try it consciously.
C) The most important drawback of this autopilot, or rather we can day a DEADLY FLAW of this autopilot system is that-
If we don't think about the dangers or if we don't experience dangers during the learning phase of the autopilot, then the autopilot simply doesn't have any data to counter these dangers. And this flawed autopilot keeps on working until accident happened or the odds manifest themselves.
For example, if you have learnt to carry your cellphone always in ON condition without thinking about possible dangers, then without your recognising it you will enter a gas station (petrol pump) with the cellphone on, or even attend or make calls while at the gas station, without realizing it, how much you have put yourself and others in danger.(the radio emission from cellphone can cause build up of static electricity up to such an extent so as to cause minute sparking which is enough to ignite air fuel mixture readily available at gas station).
Similarly if you have learnt driving a car without wearing a seatbelt then you will be fine until you have an accident. Also if you are not aware of the hazards of sleep deprivation and driving a car then there are very high chances of accident.
Your autopilot simply does not have data about such rarely happening bad incidences because they happen very rarely, but the most important thing is they do happen and your autopilot does not know the same.
So how to overcome these problems?
First to eliminate the problems we have to detect the presence of an autopilot, because we are so used to the autopilot that we seldom recognise that we are on autopilot mode.
How to recognise the autopilot?
It is easy, our brain is not made to be a multitasking machine, therefore our brain resorts to this autopilot mechanism to do one or more things automatically (subconsciously) and then concentrate on doing or thinking something new. So whenever you find yourself doing one thing and thinking something else you can be sure that you are on autopilot.
Now as we have learnt to recognise this autopilot inside us it is time to eliminate it's drawbacks-
It is again easy to eliminate the drawbacks-
You have to visit each autopilot and study it if it is missing something, are there any dangers? If there is any change in the operating environment like development of new technology or any changes in the surroundings, if there are any better alternatives etc. and do the changes necessary, try to learn new things. In this way you also work up your brain muscle.
This autopilot system also works in money matters for example some people are just used to take loans for buying things, some just like to save, some just like to make fixed deposits, some just like to buy a particular stocks etc. The bottom line is, learn new things, know where the dangers lie.
Hope I have contributed something to your knowledge about yourself.
See you soon.
Have a nice day...
Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.
