Brain Software
Course based on "Software For Your Brain" by Michael Hewitt-Gleeson
first published in 1989

Chapter 1 - Brain VIRUS

What if you had a virus in your Brain? What if it was a cognitive virus, a kind of cognitive AIDS? What would it do to you? How would it affect your thinking? How did you get infected with the virus? What could you do to cure it?

EVERY TECHNOLOGY has its hackers - those enthusiasts who enjoy exploring the intimate details of the system, cracking the codes and stretching and testing the capabilities of systems. There have been radio hackers and CB hackers, and you've no doubt read about the telephone hackers who have ripped-off the phone companies for millions of dollars in free long-distance calls.

We've seen nuclear hackers who have designed DIY nuclear weapons for science projects, and today we have computer hackers who roam the networks for fun and profit. No doubt it won't be long before we read of genetic hackers who amuse themselves by playing around in our gene pool.

Hackers, driven by strong curiosity, often just start off by seeking amusement and showing off their skill but sometimes their antics lead to chaos, fraud and even ... disaster!

In recent years, some computer hackers started out manipulating their systems for fun by designing viruses that replicate themselves into other systems. Few hackers, however, are competent enough or even willing to fully comprehend the ongoing consequences of their antics.

Many of their viruses took off out of control and by now have infected millions of personal computers. These viruses are real! They cause real down time, real loss of capital, real damage to equipment, real destruction of databases and, sometimes, real loss of life.

Donald Latham of Computer Sciences Corporation and a former White House Assistant Secretary of Defence, says, "The dangers of viruses are just unbelievable - The threat is more serious than most people think."

Daily cybertransactions that can be infected by computer viruses include:

The mind boggles at the havoc that can be caused if these viruses spread unchecked.

Yet, there is a virus, a brain virus, which already exists in the brains of many humans from preachers to presidents, that makes these computer viruses look like wimps by comparison.

This brain virus is real. It's seductive and it's very powerful. It's also highly destructive, and has been fatal to over 26 million humans JUST THIS CENTURY. In the brain of a president it could unleash a missile that starts the unthinkable nuclear madness that threatens the very existence of humanity. In the brain of a CEO it can threaten the survival of the business.

And, in YOUR brain???

This brain virus is the Plato Truth Virus, and chances are almost certain that you, dear brainuser, are already infected. In Part One of this book you will come to understand the virus and how it affects your life, then in Part Two you will find out exactly what you can do to contain it.

Plato the Hacker
Birth circa 427BC; Death 347BC

When it comes to 'thinking', Plato was the ultimate hacker.

At that time, playing around with thinking systems was as much the rage amongst an elite group of men in Greece, as playing around with software systems is the rage amongst the hackers of today. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were the most famous 'thinking hackers' of their day. These hackers of more than 2,000 years ago, designed fundamental thinking technologies, systems and viruses that have dominated Western thinking right up to now, and who knows for how much longer?

Today's hackers have handles like AcidFreak and CyberSam. Plato's handle would well have been TruthFreak since it was he who invented his 'truth' concept - the strange notion that there is such a thing as 'objective truth'

Yet this bizarre suggestion has so side-tracked Western philosophers that even today many great minds in Western colleges and universities have still not escaped from Plato's 'truth' idea and their thinking remains infected with this dangerous virus.

It would be a difficult (but worthwhile) project to calculate the cost to humanity and the staggering destruction caused by Plato's 'truth' virus. It's unlikely that Plato had any idea of the extreme consequences of his invention, any more than some of today's hackers will have of theirs. He was just hacking around with thinking.

In the next few chapters we'll take a careful look at the Plato Truth Virus: What is it? How does it work? What does it do? What is the up side and down side of the virus? How did the virus become so virulent? Who spread it around? How did you become infected? What is it doing to your brain? Is there a cure?

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The purpose of this training is to help us to become skilled thinkers through daily practice, which we do live and interactively in Internet Conference Rooms... for details contact An Ever Better World Internet Academy.... To further explore this subject, consult the Internet site by the author of this book available at http://www.schoolofthinking.org/... How to get these is explained during the daily practice sessions is provided to active participants with the Ideal Network...

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