Hi Mark L.
Yes. It finally clicked. I understood the concept of programming that you were explaining but could not understand how it actually applied to the mental thought/subconscious thought process.

So this programming is developed through past experience?
You are of the belief that these programs are something we're not born with as such, but rather they develop with experience?

So say for example, I dunno, for me personally, one way that I see that this programming may apply, particularly when I was younger and in school, say if I had an evening of homework that I needed to do but was sat in front of the telly and didn't have the discipline to forgo watching television to do my homework, what I would find myself doing would be to start flicking through all the channels. If I came across a program that I liked, in order to dissuade myself from watching, I would flick back and forth between this and another channel until my interest in the initial program had waned, thus the program or television would no longer hold sufficient interest for me to stay watching, I would abandon that and go do my homework.

So to summarize what I see as the mental program that was at work; a comfortable situation that I needed to remove myself from but one in which it was difficult to do so, I would ensure that the pleasantness of that situation or the interest I held in it, that it would diminish by means similar to above, but obviously the means themselves varying greatly, and thus it would make that situation a lot easier to abandon and leave behind.

The television example is just one of so many that I can think of that apply/have applied to me in relation to this program
i.e. creating an uncomfortable current situation thus encouraging myself into a subsequently more progressive and productive one.

In other words, this particular mental program, although put to use for a relatively small purpose in the aforementioned example, has been used in a similar way to play a part in myself extricating myself from other situations, which have then gone on to allow me to put myself in more progressive situations, far more beneficial than the former.


So for the Lance Armstrong example, would you be of the opinion that it was a mental program at work?
That somehow, perhaps through his own past experience, his subconscious had deduced that when he was put in a situation that may threaten his well being, that it would cause him to perhaps take stock of his situation and upon recovery he would rededicate himself, but on a much more disciplined level.
In his own words, and as you pointed out, Armstrong felt that without having suffered through cancer, he would not have won the Tour De France even once.

Is it possible that this subconscious mental programs could be so extreme?

Consciously, even if he was aware of the benefits – so to speak – I don't think Armstrong would ever have wished three forms of cancer upon himself.
Is it possible that this subconscious program allowed his body to be subjected to the sickness, bring him back from the brink, a brink that by all medical standards he shouldn't have been brought back from, and therefore put him in a position or situation that would allow him to achieve his maximum potential?

My question before about these programs being developed though past experience?
Some people believe in pre-destiny or “everything happens for a reason”, as some people say.
Oftentimes, these things don't occur outside of us as such, but rather they're self inflicted.
Perhaps when I was young and sat in front of the telly when I should have been studying for my exam the next day, maybe at the time I thought it was a blessing that there was nothing of interest on the telly that evening, it was God intervening – I'm aware of how comical this sounds, as well as the fact that this is a very trivial example compared to the gravity of the results of the actions of such a program in a more serious situation (Lance Armstrong for example) – "thank God the television programs that evening were boring else I would have stayed watching, not studied, and ended up failing that crucial exam."

It wasn't God intervening, or some predestined occurrence, it was our own mind, the subconscious convincing/deceiving the conscious, albeit in a very round about way, to create a “mess” of the current situation, thus encouraging us out of it, into a better more productive situation for us.

Could these programs be so extreme?

I'd be interested to hear your opinion?

Can you or anyone think of an example where their programming may have had a drastic, as such, affect on them in order to dissuade them out of a situation or particular frame of mind, into a more productive one?

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On a slightly separate subject.
Also, our being pushed or pulled into or away from certain situations, perhaps there are some external factors?
Astrology is something I must look into further – there was a thread in Off-topic before, think it got erased or something?
I know pretty much nothing about it save for my own theory.

If the smallest particle known to man, the electron, has an actual gravitational pull on other objects around it, 10x-8 Newtons or something, despite that fact that the force is negligible – the stars, despite the fact there millions and millions of miles away and their gravitational force is negligable, given the quantity of them and their specific arrangement and orders in their constillations, they may have an affect on us, depending on their position, our position - their affect beginning at the time of our birth/conception and affecting us as they move with time/as we grow with time? Or perhaps more specifically an affect on our minds? Is the brain or thoughts themselves affected in some unknown, as yet unscientifically proven way, by gravity, the gravitational push/pull affected of the millions of constellations of stars?
But I'm not really expected a reply on that one, just thought I'd share my own far out theory.