… sees what it expects to see, not what is actually there. Treat with the greatest suspicion the proof of your own eyes”, writes author and neuroscientist, Cordelia Fine, in her excellent and amusingly written book A Mind of It’s Own. I couldn’t put it down and finished it on a recent flight to New Zealand.

The best-seller Software For The Brain (Wrightbooks 1989) was first published 18 years ago in Australia and internationally and is now in its Fourth Edition. You can download your own copy here or at the bottom of this page. This book presents the ‘universal brain software’.

WHAT IS THE UNIVERSAL BRAIN SOFTWARE?

The Universal Brain Software is the thinking switch known as: CVS TO BVS.

This simply means that the Current View of the Situation (CVS) can never be equal to the Better View of the Situation (BVS). Or CVS ≠ BVS. When you use the Universal Brain Software your BVS can be ten times better than your CVS. CVS X10 = BVS.

The Gallup Poll says that Iraq is clearly the dominant policy issue on Americans’ minds. It has been at the top of the list on Gallup’s most important problem list since March 2004. By a wide margin over any other issue, Americans say it should be the president’s and Congress’ top priority. In general, Americans have been more likely over the past two years to say that U.S. involvement in the war was a mistake than favor it. Americans perceive that the war is going badly. A strong majority of Americans favor the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but there is no agreement on exactly when. Given four options, the majority of Americans opt for a phased withdrawal either within the next year or when conditions warrant. A smaller percentage favors “staying the course” or sending in more troops. A majority of Americans oppose the Bush administration’s 2007 “surge” in troops, and at least half would like Congress to pass a resolution and block funding for the surge. The majority of Americans believe that the benefits of “success” in Iraq are not worth the costs. Views on the war are sharply divided along party lines, with Republicans generally supportive and Democrats strongly opposed.

Richard Dawkins makes the point that because you have “the privilege of living after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick and their colleagues” that you could give Aristotle a tutorial “and you could thrill him to the core of his being”.

So, have a think and if you could go back in time and give the great Aristotle a tutorial from your current perspective of 2007, what would you reveal to him that would be a real knockout for old Ari?

“Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done. Today we are called once more — and it is time for our generation to answer that call,” Senator Obama said. More from Reuters

The ‘new generation’ card is an interesting one and may resonate with trends that are gathering momentum in the US and Australia. My own prediction is that within the next 10 years there will be a generation-based cultural revolution, similar in its revolutionary intensity to the one in the 60s. Spurred on by wired technology and global imperatives like climate change, the ‘new generation’ will revolt against the ‘boomer’ generation accusing it (fairly or unfairly) of failure and the consequences will be profound.

If you’re good at finding the one right answer to life’s multiple-choice questions, you’re smart. But intelligence is what you need when contemplating the leftovers in the refrigerator, trying to figure out what might go with them. William H. Calvin is a theoretical neurophysiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. His book How Brains Think is one of the best written books on the subject.

Brain scans have been developed which it is claimed can predict what a person is about to do. German, British and Japanese scientists were able to “read minds” using sophisticated functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) and computer programs.

Current Biology reported people were asked to think about adding or subtracting – scientists were able to read intentions in 70% of cases.  More on this …