Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts

Friday, August 20, 2010

The Intelligence of the Unconscious - University of California San Diego



Partner:
University of California San Diego
Location:
University of California San Diego
La Jolla, CA
Event Date:
02.08.08
Speakers:
Gerd Gigerenzer
Summary
Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious

Acccording to the speaker, human beings tend to think of intelligence as a deliberate, conscious activity guided by the laws of logic. Yet, he argues, much of our mental life is unconscious, based on processes alien to logic: gut feelings, or intuitions. Dr. Gigerenzer argues that intuition is more than impulse and caprice; it has its own rationale. This can be described by fast and frugal heuristics, which exploit evolved abilities in the human brain. Heuristics ignore information and try to focus on the few important reasons. Says Gigerenzer: "More information, more time, even more thinking, are not always better, and less can be more." His talk is part of an ongoing series on "Behavioral, Social and Computational Sciences Seminars" organized by the UC San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), which aims to bring the benefits of computational science to disciplines that have largely been by-passed by the information-technology revolution until now. More information on this and other talks in the series can be found at http://bscs3.calit2.net. Gigerenzer, a leading expert and author on heuristics, won the AAAS Prize for the best article in the behavioral sciences. He is the author of Calculated Risks: How To Know When Numbers Deceive You, the German translation of which won the Scientific Book of the Year Prize in 2002. His books on heuristics include Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox, with Reinhard Selten, a Nobel laureate in economics - UCSD

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Part 2 of 2 MonoAtomic Gold-- FOOD for the GODS?

Part 1 of 2 MonoAtomic Gold-- FOOD for the GODS?

The Eyes Have It: Modern Medicine of Vision, Part 2

The Eyes Have It: Modern Medicine of Vision, Part 1

Stem Cells & Tissue Regeneration

Mind-Body Interactions

Love, Belief, and Neurobiology of Attachment

Transform Your Mind, Change Your Brain

Change your Mind Change your Brain: The Inner Conditions...

Think faster focus better and remember moreRewiring our brain to stay yo...

A Healthy Nervous System: A Delicate Balance

The Origin of the Human Mind: Brain Imaging and Evolution

The Neuroscience of Emotions

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Articles and Papers - Scientific Papers - Ageing of Cells - Ageing, Growth and Death of Cells

From Articles and Papers - Scientific Papers - Ageing of Cells - Ageing, Growth and Death of Cells
http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/ageing/AgeingofCells.html

The Ageing, Growth and Death of Cells

Nature, Vol. 250, No. 5465, pp. 381-385, August 2, 1974

by Rupert Sheldrake

No cell is immortal. If a cell grows and divides, it becomes two cells; if it does not divide, sooner or later it dies. Multicellular organisms are not aggregates of cells in a state of exponential growth and division. Some cells divide, but most differentiate and do not undergo further division. Here I shall discuss the ageing and death of cells in vascular plants and vertebrate animals in an attempt to explore the significance of these processes in relation to growth and development, both normal and abnormal.

It is often convenient to think of cells of living organisms as maintaining a more or less steady state; but it is also easy to forget that this is an approximation, an abstraction which, if realised, would confer on cells and on organisms the doubtful blessings of eternal life and eternal youth. The realities of growth, development, ageing and death cannot be understood in terms of steady state concepts. They are directional and irreversible changes in time.

Some cells die as they differentiate, for example xylem cells in plants and keratinised epidermal cells in animals; some, such as phloem sieve tubes in plants and red blood cells in mammals, lose their nuclei; others which retain their nuclei may lose their ability to divide - as do most nerve cells. But even cells which retain their ability to divide will die if they do not do so; they senesce.

Any general hypothesis of cellular ageing must not only explain cellular ageing itself, but also the way in which some cell lines do not senesce and die out. The germ cell line is continuous from generation to generation (also many plants can be propogated vegetatively indefinitely) and some cell lines derived from plant or animal tissues can be propagated in vitro for an indefinite number of generations.

General hypotheses of ageing based on genetic mutation face two difficulties. First, in explaining the universality of the processes of ageing in non dividing cells in terms of a lethal accumulation of harmful mutations and, second, in accounting for the facts of sexual and vegetative reproduction, which show that mutations do not accumulate to a lethal extent in all cells. The alternative to a genetic-mutation hypothesis of ageing is some sort of 'cytoplasmic' hypothesis, the most recent and best known of which is Orgel's 'error catastrophe' hypothesis, which postulates that an accumulation of errors in protein synthesis leads to a positive feedback of error as the enzymes involved in protein synthesis themselves develop errors and thus produce more defective proteins1. For this hypothesis to account for the continuity of the germ line and the indefinite propagation of 'permanent cell lines' in vitro it is necessary to postulate a process of 'cellular selection' whereby error-containing cells are selected out.

Neither the genetic-mutation hypothesis nor the protein synthesis 'error catastrophe' hypothesis of ageing are supported by sufficient evidence to rule out the possibility that cellular ageing may be explicable in terms of the accumulation of cytoplasmic breakdown products, some of which might be deleterious to the cell if they accumulated sufficiently. In all actively metabolising cells, there is a turn-over of cytoplasmic constituents such as proteins and membrane lipids. More is known about their synthesis than about their breakdown in vivo; while some of them may be broken down completely, others may be broken down only partially or not at all. They must therefore accumulate.

Lipid peroxidation
One example of such an accumulation is provided by the 'age pigment' or lipofuscin granules which accumulate in an age-dependent way in the cells of many mammalian tissues4. The lipofuscin material contains lipid and protein and may be formed in autophagosomal vesicles, for example during the digestion of mitochondria; haem groups, released as the cytochromes are degraded, may catalyse the peroxidation of unsaturated lipids in the degenerating mitochondrial membranes which may cross link with each other and with denatured proteins 6. The cells seem to be unable to destroy these cross-linked polymers. Lipofuscin granules do not seem to damage cells directly except when they accumulate, as they do in certain diseases, to such an extent that they mechanically interfere with the structure and functions of the cell.

Lipid peroxidation does not always result in the formation of microscopically visible lipofuscin granules, nor is it confined to autophagosomal vesicles; it occurs in all functional cell membranes, including the surface membrane. Once the peroxidation of unsaturated lipids is initiated, by haem groups, Fe2+ ions and other simple catalysts in the presence of oxygen, it takes place by a free radical chain reaction. It can be inhibited by lipid-soluble antioxidants such as vitamin E and accelerated by vitamin E deficiency, ionising radiation, chloroform and ethanol poisoning and hyperbaric treatments 8,9, which can cause irreversible damage to cells.

The peroxidation of lipids within cell membranes is occurring in vivo all the time. Some peroxidised lipids may be metabolised but others, perhaps those which are cross linked to other lipids and lipoproteins may not be. The chain reaction of lipid peroxidation may be terminated by the oxidation of other substances which may themselves be damaged and accumulate. Such substances formed within the surface membrane, for example, may accumulate in situ; if they are removed from the surface membrane as the membrane is recycled by the invagination of membrane vesicles11-14 or by other means, some of them might find their way into residual bodies, but they might also be incorporated into intracellular membranes. The formation and accumulation of such substances within the outer and intracellular membranes, for example in the Golgi apparatus, endoplasmic reticulum nuclear membrane and lysosomal membranes, could well be deleterious to normal membrane functioning and could also lead to a positive feedback of damage by further lipid peroxidation, and thus to the senescence and death of the cell. The rate of ageing would be temperature dependent and would also depend on the composition, structure and functions of the cellular membranes, the extra - and intracellular environments, antioxidant levels and so on. Thus, different types of cells would age at different rates but, according to this hypothesis, all cells would be ageing to a greater or lesser extent all the time; all cells would be heading towards senescence and death.

The elimination of membranous material from cells might enable the ageing process to be retarded and there are a few examples of the shedding of membranes by cells which I will discuss further. But, in general, the only way in which cells could avoid their otherwise inevitable mortality would be by growing and dividing, thus diluting the accumulated breakdown products. Although lipid peroxidation may be the most important cause of the formation of such substances, the following general considerations could apply to any deleterious substances which accumulate with age.

Growth and division of cells
An artificially simple case is provided by cells dividing symmetrically with a fixed generation time if these accumulate deleterious breakdown products linearly with time, an amount, x, being formed per cell generation time. Successive generations contain more of the accumulated breakdown products but the increments become smaller and smaller. If the rate of accumulation is not linear, but proportional to the amount already accumulated, the content per cell will increase exponentially; and if there is a progressive lengthening of the cell generation time, there will be a greater accumulation within individual cells in succeeding generations. With either or both of these assumptions, it can be seen that the whole population will undergo senescence and sooner or later die out.

But another type of cell division is possible, an asymmetrical division in which one of the daughter cells receives all or most of the accumulated breakdown products (becoming more 'mortal') while the other is rejuvenated, receiving little or none. The more 'mortal' of the daughter cells might die or differentiate directly, or it might divide again unequally, producing a rejuvenated cell and a cell even more 'mortal' than itself, or it might undergo one or more sequential symmetrical divisions (as discussed above) to produce a population of cells which sooner or later die (unless they can undergo further asymmetrical divisions to produce rejuvenated cells).

I shall now consider a few aspects of the growth and development of higher plants and higher animals in the light of these ideas. Dicotyledonous trees illustrate the pattern of indefinite growth that is characteristic of plants. (There are of course plants, such as herbaceous annuals, which die after they have flowered. But annuals are capable of growing for much longer than their normal life-span if they are prevented from flowering, indicating that they die because they flower and not because of an innate inability to go on growing15.) The life span of trees is limited by a variety of mechanical factors, but cuttings taken from old trees can give rise to healthy young trees, and this process can be repeated indefinitely. The growing points of the tree, the apical meristems, remain perpetually young.

Cell divisions within the apical meristems of the shoots give rise to daughter cells with different fates: some remain meristematic, others give rise to the differentiated structures of the stems and the leaves. Some of these cells die as they differentiate into vascular tissues and fibres, others, for example the leaf mesophyll and pith parenchyma, remain alive for some time, but, unless they are stimulated to divide again in a regenerative response to wounding or damage, they eventually die. The leaves senesce and fall from the tree; the pith breaks down. The root meristems give rise to the primary tissues of the root which, apart from those which divide to produce further root meristems, sooner or later die. In secondarily thickening stems the divisions of the cambial cells give rise to cells which die as they differentiate into xylem or undergo further asymmetrical divisions to produce phloem companion cells and sieve tubes. These cells eventually die and are sloughed off in the bark. Cell divisions in the cork cambium give rise to cork cells which die as they differentiate; divisions of the root cap initials give rise to root cap cells which die and are sloughed off. Thus, in the various meristems of the plant the continued growth and continued rejuvenation of the meristems is associated with the production of cells which die during or after differentiation.

Vertebrates
Vertebrates, unlike trees, do not go on growing indefinitely, nor can they be propagated vegetatively. At first, fertilised eggs undergo cleavages which rapidly increase the number of cells, but this rate of increase of cell number declines progressively as the animal develops, and as cells and tissues differentiate16. Throughout the development of the embryo many tissues and groups of cells regress and die17,18. Some of these cell deaths are associated with tissue differentiation19, some occur during morphogenetic processes20, and others may represent the regression of phylogenetically vestigial structures17, but the significance of other cell deaths is obscure. As the animal develops, the cells of some tissues, such as nerve and muscle, differentiate and to a large extent lose the ability to undergo further division. Some of these cells die as the animal grows older and are not replaced21,22 but in the adult animal a number of other tissues continue to grow, for example the epidermis, the intestinal lining, the liver and blood cells continue to be formed. In all these examples the production of new cells is offset by cell death. Cell divisions in the basal layers of the mammalian epidermis give rise to daughter cells which remain in the basal layers and divide again, and other daughter cells which differentiate and keratinise, dying as they do so. Cell divisions in the crypts of the intestinal villi replenish the population of crypt cells capable of further division and produce other daughter cells which move up the villi where they die and are sloughed off23. Asymmetrical divisions of the early precursors of all cells of the blood occur throughout life and give rise to further precursor cells as well as to the maturing and mature cells of the blood, all of which have a limited life span. During the formation of red blood cells24 and granulocytes25 in the bone marrow, and lymphocytes in the thymus26, considerable numbers of cells die in situ soon after they are formed. The reasons for this 'ineffective' erythropoiesis, granulopoiesis and lymphopoiesis are unknown.

The mortality of at least some of the cells which die in developing animal embryos and in mature animals may represent the price that is paid for the rejuvenation of other cells which continue to grow and divide. But unfortunately too little is known about cell lineages in animals, especially in embryos, for it to be possible to decide how general is the phenomenon of asymmetrical cell divisions giving rise to daughter cells of unequal mortality. The recognition of this pattern is complicated by the fact that by no means all cell death takes place as a result of cellular senescence. Some cells die as they differentiate and others may die because they find themselves in the wrong places at the wrong times19. Cell deaths may be controlled chemically, for example by steroid hormones: the injection of glucocorticoids can cause large numbers of lymphocytes to die27, the regression of Mullerian and Wolffian ducts is controlled by androgens and oestrogens19,28 and the regression of the lining of the female genital tract is under the control of oestrogens28. But, under the hypothesis that asymmetrical cell divisions lead to a rejuvenation of 'meristematic' daughter cells at the price of the increased mortality of their sister cells, it does not matter whether the latter die as a result of senescence, or whether they die as they differentiate or for any other reason.

Sexual reproduction
In the sexual reproduction of both higher plants and higher animals almost all the cytoplasm from which the embryo and the new organism develops is provided by the egg. In both cases, the egg cells are formed as a result of asymmetrical divisions of the egg mother cell. In the great majority of higher plants, the meiotic divisions of the egg mother cell produce four cells, three of which die. The fourth undergoes further divisions to produce the cells of the embryo sac, most of which die before or shortly after fertilisation. In some species, one of more of the three sister cells of the cell which gives rise to the egg may undergo further division to produce short-lived embryo sac cells29. In animals the first and second meiotic divisions of the egg mother cell give rise to the first and second polar bodies, which regress and die.

It is particularly striking that in both plants and animals, only one of the progeny of the egg mother cell gives rise to an egg while the sister cells die (or if they divide give rise to short-lived progeny). By contrast, there is no comparable cell loss in male gametogenesis associated with the meiotic divisions of the pollen mother cells and spermatogonia.

The many examples in both higher plants and higher animals (and many more can be found in the lower plants and lower animals) of the production of rejuvenated meristematic, stem or egg cells by asymmetrical divisions do not of course prove that these divisions involve an asymmetrical distribution of deleterious breakdown products; but the available facts appear to be consistent with this hypothesis.

Loss of membranous material by animal cells
If the accumulation of deleterious breakdown products of membrane lipids is one of the causes of cellular senescence, the loss of membranous material might be of considerable importance in enabling cells to rid themselves of such substances. The shedding of membranous material by living cells does not seem to be of common occurrence but can take place in mammalian cells as follows.

First, in apocrine secretions part of the cell membrane is lost. The best example, and the only one for which conclusive ultrastructural evidence exists, is in the secretion of lipid droplets by the cells of lactating mammary glands. The secreted lipid droplets are surrounded by a unit membrane derived in part from the surface membrane and in part from Golgi vesicle membranes.

Second, membrane-bounded vesicles of cytoplasm can break away from mammalian macrophages both in vitro and in vivo. This process, known as clasmotosis, is of unknown significance. Lymphocytes which are activated in immunological reactions or as a result of phytohaemagglutinin stimulation form 'tails' (uropods) which can bleb off vesiculated buds in vivo and in vitro. Again, the significance of this process is unknown. Clasmotosis is also frequently observed in cultures of fibroblasts.

Third, many types of animal viruses are budded off from host cells in membrane-bounded vesicles. The protein in the membrane of the vesicles is largely viral, at least in the case of RNA tumour viruses, but the lipids are derived from the host cell membrane35. Viral particles bounded by membrane are also budded off from the cells of a number of spontaneously cancerous tissues and from many of the cell strains and permanent cells lines which are commonly cultured in laboratories.

Tissue cultures
Many plants callus cultures can be grown indefinitely in vitro. During the early stages of the growth of some calluses, an exponential increase in cell number takes place at a rate which suggests that many of the cells may undergo a limited number of sequential symmetrical divisions before the growth rate declines but in most plant tissue cultures the rate of increase of cell number is more or less linear for most of the growth period39,40. Linear growth characteristics would be compatible with a meristematic pattern of cell division such that some daughter cells continue to grow and divide while their sister cells age and sooner or later die. Unfortunately nothing is known in detail about cell lineages within these cultures, nor are there any quantitative data on cell death. Nevertheless, dead and dying cells are by no means uncommon.

'Permanent' mammalian cell lines capable of indefinite propagation in vitro can be derived from cancerous tissues and also from cells which have undergone a spontaneous 'transformation' during culture. Diploid fibroblast cultures can be propagated, however, only for a finite number of subculturings, more (up to about 60) if the cells are derived from embryonic tissues, fewer if they are derived from mature organisms41. The number of generations through which the cells can be passed before the population senesces and dies out is reduced if the period of time between the subculturings is increased42. Fibroblasts of the mouse L strain have been observed to divide symmetrically over six to seven cell generations with a more or less constant generation time43; if the cells in the diploid fibroblast cultures also divide symmetrically, deleterious breakdown products might accumulate in the cells of succeeding generations, as discussed above, and account for the senescence of these cultures. It is impossible, however, to make any detailed interpretation of the senescence of these cultures in the absence of quantitative information about the proportions of dividing and nondividing cells, the incidence of cell death, and the extent and significance of clasmotosis within these cultures - or indeed with cultures of 'transformed' and 'permanent' cell lines.

Cancer
Malignancy must not only involve the freeing of cells from the normal controls on their proliferation, but also the avoidance of senescence by at least a part of the cell population. Many animal tumours contain a stem cell or 'meristematic' population which gives rise to daughter cells which may or may not differentiate, but which sooner or later die. There are numberous examples of cell death within cancerous tissues45-48. Some of the cell deaths can be explained in terms of an inadequate vascularisation of the tumour tissue, but in most tumours this is by no means the only cause an does not apply to all to leukaemias; many of the cells may die as a result of ageing.

Little attention has been paid to the incidence of cell death within cultures of cancerous cells and it is therefore at present impossible to know to what extent the patterns of cell division, ageing and death within these cultures resemble those within in vivo cancers. It is sometimes assumed, if only implicitly, that overall exponential growth characteristics of cell cultures mean that there is a homogeneous population of symmetrically dividing cells. This assumption is not justified: a heterogeneous population containing proliferating, nonproliferating and dying cells can also grow exponentially if the proportion of cells that die is constant with time.

It is conceivable that the loss of membranous material either spontaneously, as in certain types of mammary gland tumours, or as a result of the budding off of viruses (such as RNA tumour viruses) could play a significant role in the retardation of cellular senescence in certain types of cancer.

Effects of cell death
Very little is known about the biochemistry of dying cells. Such cells probably release all sorts of proteins, glycoproteins, peptides, amino acids, amino acid breakdown products, nucleic acids and nucleic acid breakdown products, lipids and lipid breakdown products as well as salts and other substances which were sequestered inside the cells.

It has recently been found that in higher plants the hormone auxin (indole-3-acetic acid) is formed as a consequence of cell death as tryptophan, released by proteolysis, is broken down. Dying cells in differentiating vascular tissue, regressing nutritive tissues and so on, are probably the major source of this hormone within the plant52. Other plant hormones may also be produced by damaged and dying cells: ethylene from the breakdown of methionine and cytokinins by the hydrolysis of transfer RNA. In higher plants the normal production of hormones as a consequence of cell death and the production of 'wound hormones' by damaged cells can be seen as two aspects of the same phenomenon.52

Wound and regenerative responses in vertebrates cannot be explained simply in terms of wound hormones, but there is evidence that dying cells release substances that stimulate phagocytosis53, and affect growth and development in both normal54,55 and cancerous tissues56. And at least some of the cell deaths which occur during normal embryonic development may well result in the production or release of substances involved in the control of differentiation and development.

Dying cells may not only have a chemical effect on neighbouring cells but also a physical effect as cell to cell contacts are broken. Cell deaths within a tissue may also affect the functioning of the tissue as a whole: for example, the death of nerve cells within the brain22 seems likely to affect pathways or patterns of nervous conduction, perhaps leading to the formation of new pathways or patterns. Such cell deaths could act as a source of random change within the nervous system that might not always be deleterious57.

So little attention has been paid to the ageing and death of cells during growth and development, both normal and abnormal, that detailed information about these processes is scarce. Where facts are few, speculation can flourish. Most of the speculations advanced in this article could be opposed by alternative speculations, but they illustrate the view that growth and development cannot be understood in isolation from ageing and death. This is by no means an original concept, but at the cellular level it provides a perspective in which many familiar facts take on a new significance and suggests a new approach to familiar problems.

I am indebted to Dr A. Glücksmann, Dr W Jacobson and Professor E.N. Willmer for helpful comments, criticism and discussion.

References
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Morphic resonance : A Telephathic Cat?

Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world’s most innovative biologists and writers is best known for his theory of morphic fields and morphic resonance, which leads to a vision of a living, developing universe with its own inherent memory.


He first worked in developmental biology at Cambridge University, and is currently Director of the Perrott-Warrick project.
Rupert Sheldrake... Biography
A Guide to the Website Rupert's Science and Philosophy



Are the laws of nature more like habits?
A summary of the hypothesis of Morphic Resonance.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

MORPHIC RESONANCE AND MORPHIC FIELDS

MORPHIC RESONANCE AND MORPHIC FIELDS
An Introduction
by Rupert Sheldrake

In the hypothesis of formative causation, discussed in detail in my books A NEW SCIENCE OF LIFE and THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST, I propose that memory is inherent in nature. Most of the so-called laws of nature are more like habits.

My interest in evolutionary habits arose when I was engaged in research in developmental biology, and was reinforced by reading Charles Darwin, for whom the habits of organisms were of central importance. As Francis Huxley has pointed out, Darwin’s most famous book could more appropriately have been entitled The Origin of Habits.

Morphic fields in biology
Over the course of fifteen years of research on plant development, I came to the conclusion that for understanding the development of plants, their morphogenesis, genes and gene products are not enough. Morphogenesis also depends on organizing fields. The same arguments apply to the development of animals. Since the 1920s many developmental biologists have proposed that biological organization depends on fields, variously called biological fields, or developmental fields, or positional fields, or morphogenetic fields.

All cells come from other cells, and all cells inherit fields of organization. Genes are part of this organization. They play an essential role. But they do not explain the organization itself. Why not?

Thanks to molecular biology, we know what genes do. They enable organisms to make particular proteins. Other genes are involved in the control of protein synthesis. Identifiable genes are switched on and particular proteins made at the beginning of new developmental processes. Some of these developmental switch genes, like the Hox genes in fruit flies, worms, fish and mammals, are very similar. In evolutionary terms, they are highly conserved. But switching on genes such as these cannot in itself determine form, otherwise fruit flies would not look different from us.

Many organisms live as free cells, including many yeasts, bacteria and amoebas. Some form complex mineral skeletons, as in diatoms and radiolarians, spectacularly pictured in the nineteenth century by Ernst Haeckel. Just making the right proteins at the right times cannot explain the complex skeletons of such structures without many other forces coming into play, including the organizing activity of cell membranes and microtubules.

Ernst Haeckel Tafel_06
Most developmental biologists accept the need for a holistic or integrative conception of living organization. Otherwise biology will go on floundering, even drowning, in oceans of data, as yet more genomes are sequenced, genes are cloned and proteins are characterized.

I suggest that morphogenetic fields work by imposing patterns on otherwise random or indeterminate patterns of activity. For example they cause microtubules to crystallize in one part of the cell rather than another, even though the subunits from which they are made are present throughout the cell.

Morphogenetic fields are not fixed forever, but evolve. The fields of Afghan hounds and poodles have become different from those of their common ancestors, wolves. How are these fields inherited? I propose that that they are transmitted from past members of the species through a kind of non-local resonance, called morphic resonance.

The fields organizing the activity of the nervous system are likewise inherited through morphic resonance, conveying a collective, instinctive memory. Each individual both draws upon and contributes to the collective memory of the species. This means that new patterns of behaviour can spread more rapidly than would otherwise be possible. For example, if rats of a particular breed learn a new trick in Harvard, then rats of that breed should be able to learn the same trick faster all over the world, say in Edinburgh and Melbourne. There is already evidence from laboratory experiments (discussed in A NEW SCIENCE OF LIFE) that this actually happens.

The resonance of a brain with its own past states also helps to explain the memories of individual animals and humans. There is no need for all memories to be “stored” inside the brain.

Social groups are likewise organized by fields, as in schools of fish and flocks of birds. Human societies have memories that are transmitted through the culture of the group, and are most explicitly communicated through the ritual re-enactment of a founding story or myth, as in the Jewish Passover celebration, the Christian Holy Communion and the American thanksgiving dinner, through which the past become present through a kind of resonance with those who have performed the same rituals before.

The memory of nature
From the point of view of the hypothesis of morphic resonance, there is no need to suppose that all the laws of nature sprang into being fully formed at the moment of the Big Bang, like a kind of cosmic Napoleonic code, or that they exist in a metaphysical realm beyond time and space.

Before the general acceptance of the Big Bang theory in the 1960s, eternal laws seemed to make sense. The universe itself was thought to be eternal and evolution was confined to the biological realm. But we now live in a radically evolutionary universe.

If we want to stick to the idea of natural laws, we could say that as nature itself evolves, the laws of nature also evolve, just as human laws evolve over time. But then how would natural laws be remembered or enforced? The law metaphor is embarrassingly anthropomorphic. Habits are less human-centred. Many kinds of organisms have habits, but only humans have laws. The habits of nature depend on non-local similarity reinforcement. Through morphic resonance, the patterns of activity in self-organizing systems are influenced by similar patterns in the past, giving each species and each kind of self-organizing system a collective memory.

I believe that the natural selection of habits will play an essential part in any integrated theory of evolution, including not just biological evolution, but also physical, chemical, cosmic, social, mental and cultural evolution (as discussed in THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST ).

Habits are subject to natural selection; and the more often they are repeated, the more probable they become, other things being equal. Animals inherit the successful habits of their species as instincts. We inherit bodily, emotional, mental and cultural habits, including the habits of our languages.

Fields of the mind
Morphic fields underlie our mental activity and our perceptions, and lead to a new theory of vision, as discussed in THE SENSE OF BEING STARED AT. The existence of these fields is experimentally testable through the sense of being stared at itself. There is already much evidence that this sense really exists Papers on Staring

You can take part in a staring experiment yourself through this web site. Staring Experiments

The morphic fields of social groups connect together members of the group even when they are many miles apart, and provide channels of communication through which organisms can stay in touch at a distance. They help provide an explanation for telepathy. There is now good evidence that many species of animals are telepathic, and telepathy seems to be a normal means of animal communication, as discussed in my book DOGS THAT KNOW WHEN THEIR OWNERS ARE COMING HOME. Telepathy is normal not paranormal, natural not supernatural, and is also common between people, especially people who know each other well.

In the modern world, the commonest kind of human telepathy occurs in connection with telephone calls. More than 80% of the population say they have thought of someone for no apparent reason, who then called; or that they have known who was calling before picking up the phone in a way that seems telepathic. Controlled experiments on telephone telepathy have given repeatable positive results that are highly significant statistically, as summarized in THE SENSE OF BEING STARED AT and described in detailed technical papers which you can read on this web site. Papers on Telepathy Telepathy also occurs in connection with emails, and anyone who is interested can now test how telepathic they are in the online telepathy test. Experiments Online

The morphic fields of mental activity are not confined to the insides of our heads. They extend far beyond our brain though intention and attention. We are already familiar with the idea of fields extending beyond the material objects in which they are rooted: for example magnetic fields extend beyond the surfaces of magnets; the earth’s gravitational field extends far beyond the surface of the earth, keeping the moon in its orbit; and the fields of a cell phone stretch out far beyond the phone itself. Likewise the fields of our minds extend far beyond our brains.

February 2005

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The God Helmet



THE GOD HELMET

Todd Murphy, 2007






The God Helmet is the popular name given to a laboratory apparatus more correctly called the "Koren Helmet", after Stanley Koren of Laurentian University's Neuroscience Department, who built it according to specifications provided by Dr. M.A. Persinger, director.

The Koren Helmet applies complex (having an irregular shape) magnetic signals to the head of the person who is wearing it.

The Koren Helmet is connected to a PC computer through a 'black box' which cycles the signals through four coils on each side of the head over the temporal lobes of the brain. The temporal lobes are the area of the brain many researchers feel is the source of spiritual and religious experiences. link

This illustration shows how the signal shifts from one coil to the next. This is a side view. There is also another set of coils working on the other side. The two coils at the top are no longer used.

The sessions are done in an Acoustic Chamber - a completely silent room. A large part of the temporal lobes ongoing activity is dedicated to monitoring ambient sound. The temporal lobes are the source of religious and mystic experiences, so that silence helps a great deal in creating these experiences in the lab.
Used as a research tool to investigate the bran's role in religious and mystic experiences, the Koren Helmet has been given the name God Helmet. A few Journalists gave it this name when they learned that some people had visions of God while participating in Koren Helmet experiments. The name has stuck.
I asked Dr. Persinger how many people had seen God using the Koren Helmet, and this is what he said in reply:
Stanley Koren shows us the most recent version of the God Helmet, which no longer uses a helmet, and has had the unused coils removed.
"The problem is producing an environment in which people will report what they experience without anticipating ridicule on the one hand and not encouraging this type of report (demand characteristics) on the other.
Thus far, about 20 or so people have reported feeling the presence of Christ or even seeing him in the chamber (The acoustic chamber where the experimental sessions took place). Most of these people used Christ and God interchangeably. Most of these individuals were older (30 years or more) and religious (Roman Catholic). One male, age about 35 years old (alleged atheist but early childhood RC (Roman Catholic) training), saw a clear apparition (shoulders and head) of Christ staring him in the face. He was quite "shaken" by the experience. I did not complete a follow-up re: his change in behavior. Of course these are all reports. What we did find with one world-class psychic who experiences Christ as a component of his abilities was we could experimentally increase or decrease his numbers of his reported experiences by applying the LTP pattern (derived from the hippocampus) over the right hemisphere (without his awareness). The field on-response delay was about 10 to 20 sec. The optimal pattern, at least for this person, looked very right hippocampal.






By far most presences are attributed to dead relatives, the Great Forces, a spirit, or something equivalent. The attribution towards along a devil to angel continuum appears strongly related to the affect (pleasant-terror) associated with the experience. I suspect most people would call the "vague, all-around-me" sensations "God" but they are reluctant to employ the label in a laboratory. The implicit is obvious. If the equipment and the experiment produced the presence that was God, then the extrapersonal, unreachable and independent characteristics of the god definition might be challenged."
That's the important thing about the God Helmet. Even if only a few people saw God because of it, it creates a host of new questions - questions theology has never had to face before

The experiences of those who have come face-to-face with God might just be an example of a very rare brain activity. If they actually met the true God, then why did they do so in this experimental setting, but not at other times? Can one control God by controlling someone's brain?
The implications for theology are obvious. Perhaps God exists, but has been waiting until humanity developed enough to find him in the brain before he would appear under any circumstances humans could control. Perhaps God exists only in our brains. Perhaps he exists, and chose to bless 1% of Dr. Persinger's research subjects with visions of him, because these people were believed to him.

Perhaps he exists, but he appears to those with the right neural history in moments when the right pattern of brain activity is present, and not according to what he sees in their hearts.







There is much more to the God Helmet than just the Koren Helmet alone.

There is also a computer program called complex, authored by Stanley Koren, which allows the computer to create the signals. These signals are derived from EEG traces that appear in certain parts of the brain. Just as the brain responds to chemicals with specific shapes, it also responds to magnetic signals with certain shapes.
Because these signals are complex, irregular things, it takes a special computer program to produce them.
A third component is the acoustic - completely silent - chamber where the sessions take place.
The last component is the 'black box' which converts output from the computer into input for the Koren Helmet. This box (not shown) is a specialized DAC (digital-to-analog converter). It's the core of the technology. The rest of the components of the God helmet are quite common.

The God Helmet is a misleading name. It give the impression that it can produce the experience of God. In fact, only one percent of the subjects had the experience. It also passes over the crucial role of sensory deprivation - above all, the completely silent environment provided for the subjects. In contrast to the one percent who saw God, 80% of the subjects felt a presence of some kind, but did not call it God. Of course, there were probably some subjects who experienced an appearance of God, but were shy about saying they had seen God in a laboratory. That kind of thing is not only intensely personal, but can also get you ridiculed. If you saw god, would you tell your story just as it happened if you thought you weren't going to be taken seriously? A lot of people assume that, just because someone wears a lab coat, they won't believe such a vision can happen, or that it's a sign of a mental illness. Nothing could be further from the truth in this laboratory, but how would these subjects know that? They had been told they would be participating in an experiment to study relaxation response, and the experimenters were very careful not to encourage such glamorous reports.

Stanley Koren, senior technician for the research group for the last 15 years.

The Koren Helmet has also produced visions of demoniac beings, out-of-body experiences, visions of other realities, and a range of other paranormal experiences. It could have been named after any of them, but journalists prefer more sensational names, and you can't get more sensational than God.

One question that comes up often about the Koren Helmet is whether it's possible to obtain one. The Koren Helmet exists only in the laboratory where it was made, and is not available to the public. There is a version of the God Helmet you can obtain; the Shiva Neural stimulation System.