h. Love
In my view, there is one major force that drives most beings toward the realization of the experience of
well-being, and this is love. In the context of contraction theory, love can be considered to be an actual
physical force, as real as any physical forces such as gravity or electromagnetism. The force of love, though,
is a force that works on the mind and soul. It's a force that draws a person's attention and shapes their
perceptions. The strongest manifestation of this force is usually found between people, though it can also be
directed towards other things.
As a person experiences time, their perceptions of love influence their positions in reality. People have
different capacities to perceive love. The stronger a person's attraction to love, the more that person's actions
will reflect the influence of love. It is possible for a person to lack the capacity to respond to love, having no
reactions to that force. A person in this state may never be strongly attracted to other beings, as they're
usually chiefly concerned with themselves. Most people, however, who have difficulty in responding to love
simply have barriers to it which can be removed. These barriers are usually rooted in fear.
The minimum requirement for love to exist as a force is for a being to exist. Love is the primary driving
force of most beings. However, there are secondary driving forces, such as the drive for power, security,
revenge, etc. Unless these forces are secondary to the force of love in a person, they will impede a person's
ability to perceive love.
Without the capacity to perceive love, a being has a severe limitation in their capacity to perceive and
understand true reality. The capacity to perceive love is essential for a person to be able to react to reality in a
way that will ultimately lead to a feeling of well-being for themselves and others.
i. Psychological disorders
In the context of contraction logic, all mental illness is the result of the lack of continuity between a
person's mental reality and objective physical reality. This lack of continuity is due to either a physical
disability or the development of a false mental reality.
Physical disabilities in a person's body can impede that person's ability to perceive and to construct both
physical and mental reality. This causes difficulties in relating mental to physical realities. Illnesses such as
schizophrenia and manic depression always involve false mental reality. This can be brought about by
physical deficiencies, but these deficiencies in themselves would not necessarily bring about the
development of these illnesses. The deficiencies are of a nature such that in certain environmental
situations they feed upon themselves so that eventually the illness occurs. The experiences of a person, or
more accurately, their perceptions of the experiences, can cause the will to form false mental realities. These
experiences are of such a nature that they cause the individual to develop reality manipulation in order to deal
with them. This can be the result of the detrimental actions of others, such as the actions of a sadistic parent,
or they could be simply the result of an individual's capacity, due to physical make up, to perceive aspects of
mental reality and not have the ability to deal properly with that reality. The latter situation would apply to
cases which don't seem to be the result of difficult life experiences.
Perceptions of mental reality draw energy and attention to that reality, and this can become the
predominate occupation of the mind. I emphasize here that mental reality has a physical essence that
requires energy exertion. A person especially sensitive to the perceptions of mental reality is more likely to
develop difficulty in distinguishing it from physical reality.
In defining schizophrenia in contraction terms, one must simply refer to the concepts of focus of
attention and the concept of the mind as a physical entity. Focus of attention refers to the direction toward
which a mind directs it's attention, this influencing how it applies the force of it's will. It defines a direction
toward which a mind applies it's energies. The reasons that a mind focuses it's attention in a particular
direction are many, some obvious, some not so obvious. A schizophrenic mind is one that develops multiple
focuses of attention. A normal mind naturally directs it's attention in many directions, but will also consolidate
it's attention toward one prime direction, then follow a path that reflects it's will, decided upon from it's
evaluation of it's situation. A schizophrenic mind is unable to consolidate its directions of attention, and the
result is multiple wills.
The mind resorts to multiple wills when it is unable to deal with the experiences that it is exposed to. It
splits itself by making parts of itself unconscious to other parts of itself. This is why a person in this condition
may have blockages in their memory. At certain times the true self allows a part of it's mind to use a will that it
has developed specifically for dealing with particular, usually crisis orientated, situations. Instead of this
section of the mind submitting to the whole mind, the whole mind passively follows the section's will.
When I refer to the sections of the mind, I truly mean sections. Recall that according to contraction logic
the mind is a physical entity, with substance. When a mind splits, barriers of energy separate one section of
the mind from other sections. These barriers consist of false mental reality. This false mental reality is the
result of the mind using it's energies to deceive itself in order to prevent itself from perceiving unpleasant
mental or physical realities.
The reasons that a mind would choose to deceive itself usually lay in the past experiences of the
mind. It is true that a normal mind will have a natural tendency to deceive itself when confronted with an
unpleasant experience. However, it's continued exposure to the true elements of reality compels it to
overcome it's attempt at self-deception. It must do this in order to perceive the nature and reasons for the
unpleasant experiences so that in the future it can prevent or avoid similar unpleasant experiences. The
ability of each individual to face and deal with unpleasant experiences varies. The number and intensity of
each person's unpleasant experiences also varies. If a person is incapable of dealing with an intensely, or
number of intensely unpleasant experiences, they will develop barriers within their mental reality in order to
reduce the unpleasantness. Once these barriers are in place, if a person perceives in an approaching
experience a similarity with an unpleasant experience of the past, they will submit their true self's will to the
alternative will that has been developed for just such an occasion.
In order to unify a mind so that it becomes submissive to one will, the barriers of false mental reality
within the mind must be broken down. It is the mind itself that provides the energy to sustain these barriers,
so it is necessary for the mind to come to the realization that the barriers are no longer needed. This is
accomplished when a being realizes the true source of an unpleasant experience and is able to prevent or
avoid that experience without resorting to false mental reality.
The above description of a split mind also applies to relatively healthy people and people with minor
psychological disorders, though to a lesser degree. Barriers can also exist in a healthy mind, and can be
useful when they help the person achieve a useful goal and don't impede the unified nature of the mind.
In applying contraction physics to the problem of depression and manic depression, the first thing that
should be considered is the role that the sense of time plays in a person's sense of well-being. As explained
earlier, in the context of contraction logic, since levels of time and the mind each have substantive physical
structures, and since the structures of these entities are intrinsically related, the perception of time by the
mind is itself a measurable quantity. This has major implications in understanding the nature of manic or
depressive conditions. The mind, as an entity, has the capacity to partially overcome the contraction of
physical reality because of it's ability to retain past perceptions and to logically anticipate possible future
perceptions. It synthesizes perceptions of time levels into a unified experience. This ability to unify time
levels affects a being's perception of the passing of time. The less able a person is at unifying time levels,
the less they are able to perceive the united and multi-leveled nature of time. This causes a distortion in their
perceptions, including their perception of time, which, under these conditions, will seem to drag.
Consequently, a proper sense of time is fundamental to our sense of well-being. Since a person in a state of
depression is not fully aware of reality and the changes that occur in reality with the passing of time, they have
a more difficult time in dealing with reality. It takes a greater amount of energy to deal with perceptions, and
there is less satisfaction and enjoyment with the results of this expenditure of energy.
Another consequence of not perceiving the changes that occur with the passing of time is an inability to
focus one's attention. This results in a weakening of the force of one's will. When one cannot perceive the
changes due to time, it becomes more difficult to position oneself at points in coming time periods that are
beneficial to oneself. When this is the case, a person has less desire to make the future real, and so they
subconsciously try to avoid it. In a manner of speaking, they fight the flow of time. To overcome this, one
must work toward understanding their past, present, and future. By developing a mental reality that is
consistent with physical reality, a person becomes more able to position themselves at points in the future
that are beneficial to themselves.
A manic depressive's perception of the passage of time is heavily influenced by false mental reality. In
the manic state, time flies for the person because they built a continuity of time based upon false perceptions
that are pleasing to themselves. The force of their will becomes very strong because their false perceptions
present a continuity of time and a unity of mind that makes them believe that their experiences in the future
will inevitably be good. When they realize that this is not so, they create a false mental reality that makes
them believe that future positions will inevitably be bad.
The most important necessity for any person to be psychologically healthy is the development of their
capacity to perceive the truth of the reality, both physical and mental, that they exist in, and to learn to deal with
these realities in a constructive manner.
j. Conclusion
On the previous pages I have attempted to present a physical structure for a life force and psychological
experience based upon the logic of the contraction interpretation of the structure of physical reality. I have not
attempted to explain all psychological experiences, but just a basic structure that reflects the logical
connections between physical and psychological phenomena as they exist in the context of a reality based
upon contraction theory's approach to describing reality.