The Simple Science Behind Law of Attraction
In 2006, a book called The Secret was published and became a bombastic talk of the world because it basically says that we can achieve anything we want in life when we put our minds to it. The book helped popularize the “Law of Attraction” philosophy which I did not understand until 2020 happened.
The law of attraction is nothing magical nor mystic. To me, it simply is about believing that you’ve received what you’re desiring and surrendering the outcome to the universe. It’s not a promise that it will happen the way you want it to happen, but it will bring you to the understanding of the bigger picture. The simplest example is when you desire to be happy, the ‘universe’ does not give you happiness, it allows you to be happy, and that’s where you decide whether you want to take the opportunity or not.
In layman’s terms, the law of attraction is simply thinking good to attract goodness too, or focusing on the bad and let only the bad happen to you. Perhaps it’s the same concept as Karma in Hinduism, Buddhism, and as well as what’s taught in Catholicism and maybe other religions as well.
The Predictive Coding
I was always taught by my parents that our lives depend on where I put my mind to. If I could only focus on the pain then only the pain it is I will feel, but if I open my eyes towards the opportunities underneath it, I’ll be more sensitive to the good that’s coming than the chaos beneath it all.
Perhaps there’s not enough concrete reasonings or empirical studies to show the evidence and best practice of how the “law of attraction” works, but there’s this theory called “predictive coding” which might actually support the philosophy.
“Predictive coding theory is a theory of brain function in which the brain is constantly generating and updating a mental model of the environment. The model is used to generate predictions of sensory input that are compared to actual sensory input. This comparison results in prediction errors that are then used to update and revise the mental model.” — Wikipedia
And here’s a graph on how it works by Lucy Reading-Ikkanda from Quanta Magazine.
The human race is able to make it this far to 2020 facing a pandemic, surviving every day with only 10% of the brainpower. On top of living our mundane routines, the brain is still capable of observing and analyzing our memories and our surroundings. Unconsciously perhaps this shapes our thoughts and our thoughts will help our brain shape the ‘predicted’ future.
Ever had one of those days where you predicted something would happen and when it happened you said to yourself “I knew it!” I believe this has something to do with our brains being able to predict the future through the infinite stimulus we receive every day without us noticing it. Sometimes the stimulus is so small of an event that we don’t even know our brain paid attention or stored it to our memories or picked it up to help us project the future. But indeed it did, it does, and it will continue to do so!
The conclusion (or the truth) is for you to interpret yourself. But through this piece of article, I would like to remind myself and everyone that our brain is a vital organ that we need to cherish and love whole-heartedly. Pay attention to what you consume, what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, what you want. In another article, I would like to share my ways of manifesting goodness in my life and implementing the law of attraction in (almost) my dailies. But first, we have to realize that what we think will help shape what we are in this set of reality.
