Cognition 2.0

You must have read or seen the movie The Secret. If you haven't, I recommend you do, but do so with a critical eye and mind. The bottom line of The Secret centers around the idea that there are three things that you can control to make your wishes reality:

• Think about your desires and envision yourself achieving them.
• The Law of Attraction guarantees that your thoughts will attract what you wished for.
• The Law of Gestation will set the wheels in motion in the world to make your wishes come true, but with a time delay.

The authors of the Secret claim that the laws of the universe are such that The Secret is a manifestation of these laws. Moreover, they also claim that there is evidence that points to neuro-biology and quantum physics that explains the processes by which these natural laws express themselves or manifest themselves in the physical universe. Although compelling and desirable, the concepts that the layman must master before fully grasping the intent of the book are well beyond his or her means, perhaps even beyond the top scientists today at the frontier of knowledge in the areas of quantum physics, neuro-biology, and cognitive science.

To start understanding the breadth of knowledge, let's assume that the above laws are true and that they govern the laws of the universe, including the laws that establish the 5 basic forces in nature, namely electro-magnetic forces, weak force, strong force, and gravitational force. Hence, these forces must derive somehow from the three laws put forward by the secret. By derivation I mean a scientific method and systematic, preferably mathematical formulation that can help elucidate the origin of physical law from the three laws of The Secret.

Let's start with one of the forces, say the gravitational force, which is by far the best known and the longest known theory ever since Newton in his classical formulation with the apple and the tree... According to the first law, in order for gravitation to exist there must have been somebody wishing for it, or better put, there must have existed a thought that brought about the gravitational force. According to the authors, the thought process causes a series of neurotransmitters to be secreted in the body and they in turn "cause certain vibrations that are emitted as a result". The vibrations have a specific frequency that is able to resonate with other bodies in its surrounding and hence cause them to attract. "Systems in resonating frequencies attract each other" is what the second laws says. However, this attraction doesn't take place instantly, but comes with a time delay. This would be the process required for gravitation to become part of the universe.

Let's see... for the earth to attract the moon, the earth or somebody must have wished for it first. I bet it wasn't Newton, because he discovered gravity well after the moon started orbiting the earth, so there must have been somebody before him doing the wishing for him. For those who have a strong belief in religion, a viable religious explanation of the origin of the universe is dated to the first act of volition from God. It is said that God first conceived the universe and somehow made it all happen. Nevertheless, the focus of this writing is not about systems of beliefs, but is more interested in an actual scientific or formal logical explanation.

Next comes the secretion of neuro-transmitters, or let's call it other substances that give rise to the creation of vibrations. These vibrations are understood as quantum mechanical vibrations or waves that propagate outward from the body. This radiation is responsible for producing enabling or even causing attraction to happen. In our example of gravity, this secretion of some very specific materials causes some wave propagation that radiates outward to make attraction between two bodies possible, such as the gravitational pull of the Earth on the Moon, and from the Sun on the Earth, and so on. This is an interesting concept that, although it has little to do with neuro-transmitters and secretion thereof, it embodies some curious and interesting concepts about the requirement of mass to be present in order for gravitational attraction to happen. Formulated in this way, the Law of Attraction has a good chance of withstanding logical scientific scrutiny and even the possibility of dovetailing to existing quantum mechanical formulations of gravitation in the form of gravitational waves. However the presence of a wave doesn't necessarily produce attraction, nor would it be able to explain repulsion, such as with the electro-magnetic field.

We finally arrive at the Law of Gestation. Time is the key ingredient to this law and it states that for the system to realize the outcomes of the first law, time will have to pass to allow for all the cogs in the machinery to be set in motion and the machinery to work as a whole. In physics, time is an independent variable that allows for the dynamics of the system to be explained. Time is essential in the creation of concepts related to change, such as speed as change of position, acceleration as change of speed, and so on. The time component in our example of gravity is somewhat fuzzy, since as soon as there is mass, there is gravity. There is no time component involved, it is a logical and even mathematical necessity. Perhaps in terms of the history of the universe, the amount of time it took from the primordial soup to segregate and specialize into the different forms of matter and fields, only this type of "gestation" is pertinent to the discussion and interpretation of the third law of The Secret, but it doesn't fully apply to everyday gravitational phenomena.

In summary, the three laws of The Secret possess the following shortcomings:

• They provide a humanistic view of cause and effect, not a scientific view. It resembles more a system of beliefs, rather than a scientific theory, hence establishing a myth that is based on widespread scientific terms.
• Even though it may have a common experiential and phenomenological foundation in human society, it is animistic in nature and cannot be considered universal. There is no objective argument that this could be also the case of extraterrestrial life forms with different biologies not involving neuro-transmitters and volition as we know it.
• From the above examples, physical law cannot be derived from the three laws proposed in The Secret, hence reducing them to a narrative used to explain certain behavioural patterns that people use to succeed in certain circumstances.
• True causality is not part of the three laws, but merely a temporal sequence of events. Events are not linked via logical and measurable processes or laws, but merely rely upon temporal precedence, hence giving it a structure similar to superstition, rather than causality.

With this, I leave it up to you to choose your poison: science or superstition?