After 15 years of self-directed research into the mysteries of the brain, how it works and what makes us think the way we do, David Weiner has come to a grand conclusion: He has no clue.
Weiner readily admits that unlike most scientists, neurologists and psychiatrists, he does not hide the fact that the brain is as much a mystery to so-called experts as it is to anyone else.
Weiner, who heads a marketing research company in Chicago and spends his weekend nights playing piano at a Clark Street saloon, has no formal scientific training, but he says he has read most of the major publications dealing with the brain, many of which took months to complete, and a medical encyclopedia, to translate into plain English.
The more he read, the more obsessed he became, devouring any material he could find, until he began to create his own hypotheses, which he turned into the book “Brain Tricks” (Prometheus), a series of simple fictional dialogues in which characters ask the important questions that scientists haven’t been able to answer.
“Those guys just write for each other,” Weiner said recently at a North Avenue restaurant near his home. “I spent six months on just one chapter of a book about the mind, to really understand it.
“These guys should just say, `Hey we don’t know how it works.’ “
Weiner used his skills as a former technical writer to make the confusing more digestible for the average person, which is what he considers himself.
“Some of these guys, not all of them, but some when they get their degree they think they are God’s gift to the world, and that’s just crazy,” Weiner said. “They are no different than you and me, their brain is just programmed differently.”
Weiner was programmed for business–he is founder and CEO of Marketing Support Inc.,–and with a so-so talent for banging on the piano, which he does at Joann’s “only after I’ve had three shots of vodka. I’m not a drinker, but it keeps me from getting married again.
“A decent woman wouldn’t want a man who gets drunk every Friday and Saturday and goes out to play the piano. That’s how I trick my brain.”
Weiner said it is often necessary to trick the brain into doing what you want, because the brain can act as your enemy, making you angry, impatient or even sexually amorous, when you do not want to be, or when it is inappropriate.
The brain, Weiner writes, also keeps us from thinking about how humans came to existence, why we are here and our purpose in life.
Whenever we begin to concentrate on the big questions of our existence, Weiner said, something trivial always manages to distract us and throw us back into our constructed reality.
“The brain definitely did not like that I was writing, because I was critical about it,” Weiner said. “But the way the brain is programmed, if you start to think about things like it would take 6,000 years to get to the next nearest star traveling at 500,000 miles an hour, that there are 100 million galaxies beyond our own, or that every cell in our body has the DNA coding to make an entire new brain, 10 minutes later you start thinking about where you’re going to do your laundry tonight.
“The brain has tricked you from keeping focused.”
“Brian Tricks” begins with several vignettes in which two people discuss the concepts that tend to make one’s head spin.
What is the idea behind the universe? Whose idea was it? Why do humans have violent tendencies?
The answers to the first two, like the mysteries of the brain, have no exact answer, Weiner said.
“Unless you have a religious belief, and that’s fine. No one knows, you could be right. And as long as you aren’t hurting anybody and it makes you happy, then go with it.”
Weiner was raised Jewish but quit going to services years ago. He still believes that something must be responsible for creations like the complex DNA strand, and the vast universe.
As for the question of violence in society, Weiner believes that “it starts with the fact that we humans, among other animals, need to kill and eat other living things to have a well-balanced diet. And so for millions of years we have gotten used to the idea of killing.
“It would have made more sense for nature to have created an abundant supply of inorganic food that humans and animals would all be programmed to love.”
But according to his research, the brain is flawed, and as long as it perceives violence to be a part of survival, then it will continue to pass on that genetic coding.
“And with 90 million people killed in wars in the century, the brain may not know that things have changed yet, that all of this killing is just crazy,” he says.
After Weiner has flooded the reader’s brain with unanswerable questions, he concludes “Brain Tricks” with a few ideas of how to fool the mind into behaving the way one wants it to behave.
Everyone’s brain, he writes, contains six programs that have evolved as a result of genetics and conditioning: Purpose, power, social, sexual, territorial and security. Each program runs on a different speed from “Barely Discernible” to “Off-the-scale.”
Once you recognize which program is causing you to suspect your faithful husband of cheating or why you are jealous of the neighbor whose business has suddenly become a success, Weiner provides several ways to try to keep your programs running at average, or healthy, speed.
“While you are seeking a solution, stop blaming yourself. There is nothing wrong with you. Your programs are the real problem. You didn’t walk into a store and buy them. You have them and you are responsible for managing them; that’s what you are trying to do, to the best of your ability.”
Weiner said his advice differs from a psychiatrist’s or a self-help guru’s, because he doesn’t give one pat answer for everyone. Each brain is different, and he provides guidelines to help an individual come up with his or her own strategy.
One thing he learned about his brain while writing his book is that his programs were not compatible with either of his two former wives, and that if he ever got married again it would have to be to someone with solid social and purpose programs who would not mind a husband who works late or spends his weekends on the tennis court and playing piano for screaming college students.
Weiner feels confident that if the scientific community admits that our brains are flawed and that they have no idea how they function, that scientists can begin to work together to solve some of the brains mysteries, and then explain them to the public without talking over our heads.
And in the meantime, as we sit on our little planet in the galaxy wondering why we exist?
“Don’t worry about it,” Weiner said. “You can look at these frightening things and not go nuts, because sooner or later the baseball game is going to be on, or your granddaughter is going to come in the room and ask to play, and you’ll forget all about it.”
