76 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind
stay „alive.‟ Therefore, any system of belief which develops a life of its
own will try to protect itself from being attacked.
Mercy fragments grow around defining experiences. I suggest that
Perceiver belief systems are based upon absolutes. An absolute is simply a
core belief which exists within the Perceiver inner world. The average
person in our western society tends to find the concept of an absolute
somewhat frightening. It is of course scary—by definition. Imagine
believing in an idea so
strongly that it affects
how you approach other
facts. In the middle ages,
for example, people used
to believe that the sun
moved around the earth.
This one piece of
information warped their
entire world view. That is
the power of an absolute.
Let me see if I can
demystify this explosive
subject of absolutes. We will start by reviewing how Mercy thinking
operates: Each Mercy experience which enters the mind is associated with
a certain feeling of physical pain or pleasure. This incoming experience
reminds Mercy strategy of related experiences from the past, each with an
associated emotional label. The sum of these emotional influences
determines how Mercy thought feels about the present situation. Mercy
memories which are located in the internal world of Mercy strategy have
the greatest impact upon this calculation of feeling simply because they
have the strongest emotional labels—they act as emotional „absolutes‟
which guide how Mercy strategy feels about other experiences.
I suggest that Perceiver thought operates in the same way: A fact enters
Perceiver strategy. This incoming fact reminds Perceiver thought of related
facts from the past, each with an associated label of confidence. All of
these influences add together and determine the label which is given to the
new information. Perceiver facts which are located in the internal world of
Perceiver strategy have the greatest effect upon this calculation of
confidence simply because they have the strongest labels—they are the
absolutes which determine whether other facts are labeled right or wrong.
Let me illustrate. In the past, when I introduced people to the concept
of cognitive styles, I often received the following reaction: “Oh,
personality types. That reminds me of horoscopes. Well, I know that
horoscopes are wrong, therefore your theory must be incorrect as well.”
Notice what was happening. Perceiver thought encountered a new fact
about cognitive styles. The labeling for this novel concept depended upon
which related ideas came to mind and how they were labeled. If Perceiver