The Driver Behind You May Be Unconscious
Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.
- Bruce Barton, American author, advertising executive, politician (1886-1967)
Almost all of us believe that something inside us is superior to the circumstances of our lives. It's what keeps us sane and away from killing each other. Not so many of us accomplish something splendid. The reason may be a disconnect between what we are capable of and what we believe we are capable of.
Hold that thought for a moment while we check out that driver behind you.
Have you ever fumbled with your car radio or to take something out of your glovebox or even had a conversation with someone in the car you were driving and suddenly realized that you had absolutely no memory of driving the past few minutes? Technically you were unconscious while driving.
Unconscious? Doesn't that mean in a coma or dead, or at least asleep? Yes, but not exclusively. To be conscious means to be fully aware of your surroundings. As you were obviously not fully aware of your surroundings while you drove in our example, you could not have been conscious. So what were you?
Social science has given up on the idea formerly called the "subconscious." Mostly because there is no evidence for it. One dictionary describes "unconscious" as "that part of the mind wherein psychic activity takes place of which the person is unaware." In this example you were aware of your radio search or your glovebox search or your conversation. But you were also aware in some very different sense--psychically--of your driving.
Could you be driving "mechanically" as some used to say young adults did after a few years of driving experience? Let's put it this way, would you be comfortable driving on a highway at full speed surrounded by people who were driving only "mechanically"? The ugly truth is that many of us do. That guy behind you may indeed be driving mechanically, or unconsciously, meaning that he may not be able to apply his full attention to any emergency that may arise (such as you having to come to a sudden stop because a dog wandered onto the highway).
You dream with your unconscious mind. When you dream many of the functions of your brain you normally consider part of your waking life are shut down. The frontal lobes, for example, those brain parts that allow you to distinguish between right and wrong and that keep you on "an even keel" when you are awake, don't function. That's why dreams can be crazy sometimes, because the brain's normal control mechanisms are shut down when you are asleep.
Science doesn't know for certain why we need sleep, though recent research suggests it help us to review our activities of the previous day so we can embed them in longer term memory--that is, we need sleep to consolidate our daytime learning. You, very likely, do not know how you managed to pilot your car down the road without being aware of what you were doing while searching for a different radio station. But you are certain you weren't asleep. But were you conscious?
Any activity of the brain that does not involve the full application of all critical brain functions is an activity you do while, technically, unconscious. While unconscious your body may be in bed resting or in a hospital room in a coma. It may also be doing--indeed parts of your brain may be doing--something other than that of which you are fully aware.
What do you think when you hear an argument in a murder case that the defendant was not fully aware of what he was doing when he killed his wife? If you are involved in a collision while you are technically unconscious, the investigating police officer will consider you just as liable. We all assume that we do everything consciously. Science says otherwise, though we all hope that part of science doesn't take the stand in a court case.
Murder cases and car collisions are extreme cases. Most of our lives are lived away from extremes. Yet people sometimes do little things they may not be aware of--things that annoy you greatly or that inconvenience you--without being fully aware (conscious) of what they are doing. You don't want them imprisoned for their faults because then you would have to be behind bars for doing similar things. So, what to do?
The human brain and consciousness are, as you can see, subjects that bear much more study. We understand very little about them. Yet they govern our lives, and the brains and consciousness of others impact our lives, every day. As much as they mean to us and as much as they affect our lives, we know almost nothing about them.
We accept that we are all imperfect beings. Now you have a clue why that is. It may not solve any mysteries for you but it may help you to understand why people do or say things that simply don't seem right or in character for them, things that seem out of place.
As with many human behaviours it's best to ignore the extremes because they do not represent who these people are. Who they are when they are fully conscious. They, in turn, can be expected to forgive your extremes of behaviour.
But, just in case, if the driver behind you seems distracted, maybe you should pull over and let him or her pass before something happens you may find messy and uncomfortable. You can still drive fully conscious.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to know how their children can develop socially and emotionally in concert with their intellectual and physical development.
Learn more at http://billallin.c/om
Showing posts with label mind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mind. Show all posts
Friday, June 25, 2010
Monday, November 30, 2009
How Smart Are We Humans Really?
How Smart Are We Humans Really?
Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.
- Abraham Flexner, American educator (1866-1959)
If an alien from a planet unimaginably distant from here were to come to earth with the objective of studying life forms, what do you think he should do?
If he were to study the most abundant life on the planet he would have to look at microbes. We, for example, have more microbes in our own bodies than we have cells we can call our own--that is, that carry our unique DNA.
If he decided to look at life forms more advanced than a single cell he would likely look at algae or plankton in the oceans. If he looked for something more mobile, he would have to study insects. There he would find some well organized and advanced societies if he looked at ants or bees.
Maybe he would want to communicate with another being. For that he might choose a chimpanzee. Or a dolphin.
Dolphins can understand and speak back, especially if given the opportunity to learn a new language. Chimps can't talk because they lack the physiology to form most sounds we consider essential to language.
Why doesn't he study us, you may ask. We live in more parts of the land world than any other creature--at least more than any other large animal, maybe not more than the cockroach. We are certainly the most destructive, which makes us the most powerful.
Surely a being from another world who travelled may light years to reach earth would want to speak with the most powerful creature on the planet. Or would he?
What language would he use? Remember, most of us know only one or a few human languages. Not one of us can communicate more than a few hundred words with any living being on earth other than humans.
We, who seek extraterrestrial life on distant planets, do not have the ability to communicate well with any other species on earth other than ourselves. Our solution to that problem, it might seem to an impartial observer, is to render other intelligent life extinct.
Now that's power.
But why would an intelligent space being admire the power we use to destroy each other and other beings on our own planet? Only 20th Century science fiction had space aliens invading earth to kill everyone or enslave us. It doesn't take much thinking to see that the "destructive space alien" scenario simply doesn't make sense.
Are we really the smartest creatures on the planet? Sure, just ask us.
I'm going to ask you something. Two things, but they're related.
(1) Do you think that if you asked 1000 people you meet randomly on the street in the next few days any of them would admit that they are stupid? Even one?
(2) Have you considered the behaviour of people you have seen and thought they "must be stupid"?
The most intelligent minds among us evaluate how brilliant we humans are, using human testing methods (we haven't a clue how to test otherwise) and human result standards (such as IQ) have decided that we humans are the most intelligent creatures on earth.
Isn't that a bit like asking an Olympic athlete who he believes will win the gold medal in his event? Or like asking a religious person which religion he believes is the best? The results couldn't be more biased.
Assuming we could be shrunk to the appropriate size, could you survive and thrive in a bee or ant colony? Assuming you can swim and even given diving equipment, could you live the life of a dolphin? Or, make it easier, could you fit into a colony of chimpanzees well?
Why not? If we are so smart we should be able to adapt to different living conditions. But we can't. Because there are things--many things--that ants, bees, dolphins and chimps know that we will never know. That we can never know. That we have no way of finding out.
As our quote says, we are the species that borrows billions of dollars for war (trillions in the case of the USA at present), but seldom borrows much to fund our education systems. We borrow money to kill each other, but scrimp when it comes to educating ourselves.
How smart is that? Chimps only fight to see who dominates, not to kill each other. Dolphins squabble over mates. No, wait, we don't even know that much about dolphins. They may be smarter than us, we would never know. No, they live in the water, so they can't be as smart as us.
So we say.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to know what to teach children to aid their intellectual, social and emotional development and when to teach it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.
- Abraham Flexner, American educator (1866-1959)
If an alien from a planet unimaginably distant from here were to come to earth with the objective of studying life forms, what do you think he should do?
If he were to study the most abundant life on the planet he would have to look at microbes. We, for example, have more microbes in our own bodies than we have cells we can call our own--that is, that carry our unique DNA.
If he decided to look at life forms more advanced than a single cell he would likely look at algae or plankton in the oceans. If he looked for something more mobile, he would have to study insects. There he would find some well organized and advanced societies if he looked at ants or bees.
Maybe he would want to communicate with another being. For that he might choose a chimpanzee. Or a dolphin.
Dolphins can understand and speak back, especially if given the opportunity to learn a new language. Chimps can't talk because they lack the physiology to form most sounds we consider essential to language.
Why doesn't he study us, you may ask. We live in more parts of the land world than any other creature--at least more than any other large animal, maybe not more than the cockroach. We are certainly the most destructive, which makes us the most powerful.
Surely a being from another world who travelled may light years to reach earth would want to speak with the most powerful creature on the planet. Or would he?
What language would he use? Remember, most of us know only one or a few human languages. Not one of us can communicate more than a few hundred words with any living being on earth other than humans.
We, who seek extraterrestrial life on distant planets, do not have the ability to communicate well with any other species on earth other than ourselves. Our solution to that problem, it might seem to an impartial observer, is to render other intelligent life extinct.
Now that's power.
But why would an intelligent space being admire the power we use to destroy each other and other beings on our own planet? Only 20th Century science fiction had space aliens invading earth to kill everyone or enslave us. It doesn't take much thinking to see that the "destructive space alien" scenario simply doesn't make sense.
Are we really the smartest creatures on the planet? Sure, just ask us.
I'm going to ask you something. Two things, but they're related.
(1) Do you think that if you asked 1000 people you meet randomly on the street in the next few days any of them would admit that they are stupid? Even one?
(2) Have you considered the behaviour of people you have seen and thought they "must be stupid"?
The most intelligent minds among us evaluate how brilliant we humans are, using human testing methods (we haven't a clue how to test otherwise) and human result standards (such as IQ) have decided that we humans are the most intelligent creatures on earth.
Isn't that a bit like asking an Olympic athlete who he believes will win the gold medal in his event? Or like asking a religious person which religion he believes is the best? The results couldn't be more biased.
Assuming we could be shrunk to the appropriate size, could you survive and thrive in a bee or ant colony? Assuming you can swim and even given diving equipment, could you live the life of a dolphin? Or, make it easier, could you fit into a colony of chimpanzees well?
Why not? If we are so smart we should be able to adapt to different living conditions. But we can't. Because there are things--many things--that ants, bees, dolphins and chimps know that we will never know. That we can never know. That we have no way of finding out.
As our quote says, we are the species that borrows billions of dollars for war (trillions in the case of the USA at present), but seldom borrows much to fund our education systems. We borrow money to kill each other, but scrimp when it comes to educating ourselves.
How smart is that? Chimps only fight to see who dominates, not to kill each other. Dolphins squabble over mates. No, wait, we don't even know that much about dolphins. They may be smarter than us, we would never know. No, they live in the water, so they can't be as smart as us.
So we say.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to know what to teach children to aid their intellectual, social and emotional development and when to teach it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
Friday, September 25, 2009
The Journey: Yours, Mine, Ours
Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
- William James, American psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)
The Journey: Yours, Mine, Ours
Join me on a journey. An unusual journey in that it will be one of the mind, prompted by my words and filled by your imagination.
Yet not unusual in that every experience we have is of the mind. The rest of the body has no means of recording or evaluating experiences. The brain records but has no inherent ability to critique, nor reason to do so, unless it is prompted by other experiences of the mind.
Our lives are of the mind, not of the body. Come along to learn more as we travel.
Our journey will take place over water. We will travel together, more or less, but each in separate boats. We may link together our watercraft, some of us. From time to time we will separate from each other, then link with others. Some of us will grieve the separation, others welcome it. We will all welcome the company of others, though some may not know how to show their pleasure in social interaction because they simply don't know how. They may remain alone more often than not.
So many of us will be on this journey that we will never meet everyone. Some will say that the ones we don't know are bad, stupid, simple, or evil, will plot against us given the chance. We don't know. The more we realize how little we know about the others we don't know and have never seen, the more likely we are to believe unfounded rumours about them. In all likelihood, they are just like us, but why take the chance?
We will meet relatively few others on our journey, compared with the total of us. We'll base our opinions and thoughts about them and what they are like on our own experiences with the few people we know. Many will not realize that if we think they are like us based on our experiences with those we know, it doesn't make sense to believe the people we don't know are any different from the ones we know.
Some won't like us. They will judge us based on their opinions about our boats, the looks, the component materials, the shape, the paint job, our own attire for the trip, our apparent ability to pilot where we want to go. There will always be people to tell us we should go another way, their way, even though they don't know where they are going either.
We're not sure of our destination. Some will say the destination doesn't matter, that we should make the best of what we have on the trip. Others will say that we should deprive ourselves on the voyage so that we will have an abundance once we reach our destination. Oddly, many who recommend depriving ourselves here believe that we will have abundance when we get to our destination. It may not make sense, but it's human nature. Still, nobody knows for sure what our destination is.
Some say that if we don't conduct ourselves on our voyage the way they say, our destination will surely be dire and tragic, eternal tragedy. They claim that if we follow their path the destination will be glorious. Strange how people who don't know a thing have the insight for forecasting what anyone's destination will be like. "It's in the book," they will say.
Some say they know the way and the destination because they heard of a man who had done it before and reported back. Others will say that man never existed. Many will admire the life that man led, according to reports they have read and heard, and will pay homage to the advice he gave. But few will actually follow that advice because it doesn't make them happy.
Many we meet along the way aspire to be happy. They haven't a clue about how to actually be happy, but they have read about their right to pursue happiness and it sounds really good. They will keep trying to buy and trade with others what they have for happiness. They will get thrills. The thrills pass, a bad period follows, then they will try again to buy or trade for a new kind of happiness. Like a good drug trip followed by a bad recovery. But they keep trying as if the routine will change by itself.
No one is sure what happiness is. So many hold happiness up as the greatest goal of life. They keep chasing happiness, but they can't ever achieve it because they can't buy it or trade for it. Yet they have been told that hard work and wealth buys happiness, and they believe it to a large extent.
What they know how to do best is to buy and trade their efforts for bargaining power. Acquiring, they have learned, is the way to happiness. That lesson, reinforced by every medium they know, has been taught to them since childhood. What you get and what you do will make you happy. That's the lesson.
Yet each joy or thrill passes. Happiness, it seems, never wants to stay.
A few people seem to enjoy some sort of joy that stays with them. They don't seem to necessarily be happy, just content all the time. Some say these people are delusional. Others that they are emotionally unbalanced, socially not "with it."
They are suckers by the standards of most. They spend far more time helping others along the voyage than they do acquiring for themselves. They don't seem to understand that they can't give and get at the same time. If the objective is getting--and almost every social norm suggests that's what is desirable--then they will never be happy because they keep giving so much they can never build up a sufficient treasure to be happy. Still, they seem to mysteriously enjoy life far more than most people. They don't experience as many thrills though.
Only the delusional, unbalanced, socially "different" people who give to others, who help others, who work with others along the way, seem to have some kind of inner joy that lasts, that stays with them no matter what trouble they endure along the way. The "suckers" can't be happy because that's not how most of us define happiness.
Some will look around and see multitudes of others in nearby boats, yet still feel lonely. They think that the others want to ostracize them or they feel isolated from the others because of something social abhorrent about themselves, while the others simply ignore them because they act invisible. They may just lack the social skills needed to make friends. Or they may be looking too much for what others can and (they believe) should give them while not concerning themselves about what they can give to others.
Some will be sick, weak, lack body parts that allow them to move through the water like others. Somehow they manage to move along the same route as the rest of us. We don't know how. They must have some scary secret remedy or formula that allows them to manage when they aren't "whole" like most of us. Most of them can't afford the same thrills as the wealthy ones. But they don't experience the same depressions either. Weird.
Some won't seem mentally "right" at times. They get angry, act out, get into battles with others. Some have periods of depression. Others periods when...they act strange. We try to ignore them. We may have something they need. We may even be able to help them. But we don't know what it is they need or how to help them. It's easier to ignore them, to pretend they don't exist for a while. Best keep them at a distance.
Some beg from others. They gain such skills at begging--they may call it by some other word--that we wonder why they don't apply the same devotion and effort at learning skills that will better benefit them so they can be more self sufficient. They won't learn. They admire their own skills at begging.
Some believe they are totally alone, with no one to help them. They move through the water by paddling with their hands while leaving the oars within reach sitting unused. They can't see what is obvious to us. We don't point this out to them because they are likely stupid and we don't want to seem socially intolerant. One must be correct, mustn't one?
Many will wonder what the purpose is of the voyage. "Why are we even doing this. All we ever see is the same old water." When told by the old ones that they once left solid land to make this voyage, they will be suspicious. When told the purpose is to learn something that will help them once they reach the new land, they will be suspicious. All they can remember seeing is water.
Maybe water is all there is. Maybe there was no land we once left and there will be no land to establish a new life after we reach a new shore. Maybe it's just water, water, water. What can you do with water? Better get as much as we can from others to make this endless voyage bearable.
Some will believe there never was land. Some that there never again will be land ahead. Some will say that land is a myth, that the only true way to define anything is according to the conditions of the present. If they can't see it, feel it, touch, smell or hear it today, it doesn't exist.
They will say that having faith that something existed in the past and will exist again in the future is self delusion. They ignore the argument that water must be supported by land underneath it, instead claiming that only what they can sense and "prove" today actually counts, actually matters.
Here's the Catch-22 of this story. Now that you are on the voyage, you must stay on it. Sorry, I kind of forgot to mention that earlier, before we launched.
Oh, and I have to leave you here because I promised to join with others away from here. I hope you don't mind. You will have to figure out the rest of the voyage for yourself.
You can do it. Think it through. Remember the kind of future you want so that you don't get stuck dwelling on the endless water around you. The better you plan the rest of your voyage, the likelier it is that you will reach the destination you hope for.
It's a voyage. Voyages end eventually. That's how they work. What may differ is the destination you reach. There are many to choose from.
But plan where you want to get eventually. If you don't, you may spend eternity paddling around in this same old water.
Good luck! See you around.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for people who want to know how to make their lives and their communities better. It all begins with teaching children what they need to know, when they need to know it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- William James, American psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)
The Journey: Yours, Mine, Ours
Join me on a journey. An unusual journey in that it will be one of the mind, prompted by my words and filled by your imagination.
Yet not unusual in that every experience we have is of the mind. The rest of the body has no means of recording or evaluating experiences. The brain records but has no inherent ability to critique, nor reason to do so, unless it is prompted by other experiences of the mind.
Our lives are of the mind, not of the body. Come along to learn more as we travel.
Our journey will take place over water. We will travel together, more or less, but each in separate boats. We may link together our watercraft, some of us. From time to time we will separate from each other, then link with others. Some of us will grieve the separation, others welcome it. We will all welcome the company of others, though some may not know how to show their pleasure in social interaction because they simply don't know how. They may remain alone more often than not.
So many of us will be on this journey that we will never meet everyone. Some will say that the ones we don't know are bad, stupid, simple, or evil, will plot against us given the chance. We don't know. The more we realize how little we know about the others we don't know and have never seen, the more likely we are to believe unfounded rumours about them. In all likelihood, they are just like us, but why take the chance?
We will meet relatively few others on our journey, compared with the total of us. We'll base our opinions and thoughts about them and what they are like on our own experiences with the few people we know. Many will not realize that if we think they are like us based on our experiences with those we know, it doesn't make sense to believe the people we don't know are any different from the ones we know.
Some won't like us. They will judge us based on their opinions about our boats, the looks, the component materials, the shape, the paint job, our own attire for the trip, our apparent ability to pilot where we want to go. There will always be people to tell us we should go another way, their way, even though they don't know where they are going either.
We're not sure of our destination. Some will say the destination doesn't matter, that we should make the best of what we have on the trip. Others will say that we should deprive ourselves on the voyage so that we will have an abundance once we reach our destination. Oddly, many who recommend depriving ourselves here believe that we will have abundance when we get to our destination. It may not make sense, but it's human nature. Still, nobody knows for sure what our destination is.
Some say that if we don't conduct ourselves on our voyage the way they say, our destination will surely be dire and tragic, eternal tragedy. They claim that if we follow their path the destination will be glorious. Strange how people who don't know a thing have the insight for forecasting what anyone's destination will be like. "It's in the book," they will say.
Some say they know the way and the destination because they heard of a man who had done it before and reported back. Others will say that man never existed. Many will admire the life that man led, according to reports they have read and heard, and will pay homage to the advice he gave. But few will actually follow that advice because it doesn't make them happy.
Many we meet along the way aspire to be happy. They haven't a clue about how to actually be happy, but they have read about their right to pursue happiness and it sounds really good. They will keep trying to buy and trade with others what they have for happiness. They will get thrills. The thrills pass, a bad period follows, then they will try again to buy or trade for a new kind of happiness. Like a good drug trip followed by a bad recovery. But they keep trying as if the routine will change by itself.
No one is sure what happiness is. So many hold happiness up as the greatest goal of life. They keep chasing happiness, but they can't ever achieve it because they can't buy it or trade for it. Yet they have been told that hard work and wealth buys happiness, and they believe it to a large extent.
What they know how to do best is to buy and trade their efforts for bargaining power. Acquiring, they have learned, is the way to happiness. That lesson, reinforced by every medium they know, has been taught to them since childhood. What you get and what you do will make you happy. That's the lesson.
Yet each joy or thrill passes. Happiness, it seems, never wants to stay.
A few people seem to enjoy some sort of joy that stays with them. They don't seem to necessarily be happy, just content all the time. Some say these people are delusional. Others that they are emotionally unbalanced, socially not "with it."
They are suckers by the standards of most. They spend far more time helping others along the voyage than they do acquiring for themselves. They don't seem to understand that they can't give and get at the same time. If the objective is getting--and almost every social norm suggests that's what is desirable--then they will never be happy because they keep giving so much they can never build up a sufficient treasure to be happy. Still, they seem to mysteriously enjoy life far more than most people. They don't experience as many thrills though.
Only the delusional, unbalanced, socially "different" people who give to others, who help others, who work with others along the way, seem to have some kind of inner joy that lasts, that stays with them no matter what trouble they endure along the way. The "suckers" can't be happy because that's not how most of us define happiness.
Some will look around and see multitudes of others in nearby boats, yet still feel lonely. They think that the others want to ostracize them or they feel isolated from the others because of something social abhorrent about themselves, while the others simply ignore them because they act invisible. They may just lack the social skills needed to make friends. Or they may be looking too much for what others can and (they believe) should give them while not concerning themselves about what they can give to others.
Some will be sick, weak, lack body parts that allow them to move through the water like others. Somehow they manage to move along the same route as the rest of us. We don't know how. They must have some scary secret remedy or formula that allows them to manage when they aren't "whole" like most of us. Most of them can't afford the same thrills as the wealthy ones. But they don't experience the same depressions either. Weird.
Some won't seem mentally "right" at times. They get angry, act out, get into battles with others. Some have periods of depression. Others periods when...they act strange. We try to ignore them. We may have something they need. We may even be able to help them. But we don't know what it is they need or how to help them. It's easier to ignore them, to pretend they don't exist for a while. Best keep them at a distance.
Some beg from others. They gain such skills at begging--they may call it by some other word--that we wonder why they don't apply the same devotion and effort at learning skills that will better benefit them so they can be more self sufficient. They won't learn. They admire their own skills at begging.
Some believe they are totally alone, with no one to help them. They move through the water by paddling with their hands while leaving the oars within reach sitting unused. They can't see what is obvious to us. We don't point this out to them because they are likely stupid and we don't want to seem socially intolerant. One must be correct, mustn't one?
Many will wonder what the purpose is of the voyage. "Why are we even doing this. All we ever see is the same old water." When told by the old ones that they once left solid land to make this voyage, they will be suspicious. When told the purpose is to learn something that will help them once they reach the new land, they will be suspicious. All they can remember seeing is water.
Maybe water is all there is. Maybe there was no land we once left and there will be no land to establish a new life after we reach a new shore. Maybe it's just water, water, water. What can you do with water? Better get as much as we can from others to make this endless voyage bearable.
Some will believe there never was land. Some that there never again will be land ahead. Some will say that land is a myth, that the only true way to define anything is according to the conditions of the present. If they can't see it, feel it, touch, smell or hear it today, it doesn't exist.
They will say that having faith that something existed in the past and will exist again in the future is self delusion. They ignore the argument that water must be supported by land underneath it, instead claiming that only what they can sense and "prove" today actually counts, actually matters.
Here's the Catch-22 of this story. Now that you are on the voyage, you must stay on it. Sorry, I kind of forgot to mention that earlier, before we launched.
Oh, and I have to leave you here because I promised to join with others away from here. I hope you don't mind. You will have to figure out the rest of the voyage for yourself.
You can do it. Think it through. Remember the kind of future you want so that you don't get stuck dwelling on the endless water around you. The better you plan the rest of your voyage, the likelier it is that you will reach the destination you hope for.
It's a voyage. Voyages end eventually. That's how they work. What may differ is the destination you reach. There are many to choose from.
But plan where you want to get eventually. If you don't, you may spend eternity paddling around in this same old water.
Good luck! See you around.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for people who want to know how to make their lives and their communities better. It all begins with teaching children what they need to know, when they need to know it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
How Science Lets Us Down
The purpose of action is to enable philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone they become no more than beasts.
- Saint Sophia, 2nd century Rome, whose daughters Faith (Pistis), Hope (Elpis) and Love (Agape) were slaughtered in front of their mother for their devotion to their God
The Roman emperor Hadrian had Sophia's daughters slashed, stretched and eventually beheaded and burned to get them to renounce their beliefs, all in front of their mother. As he could think of no worse punishment to Sophia that to live out the rest of her life knowing that her only children had died horrifying deaths, he spared her. She gathered the bodies of her children, buried them and died three days later.
Were they all martyrs? Were they all stupid to die before their times instead of saying the words Hadrian wanted (albeit blasphemous words because he wanted them to acknowledge him as their god)?
In the 21st century we have come to respect science more than at any time in the past. Science originally was the means by which humans could better understand the works of God. Yet science gained such power and authority over its respective cultures that it now sees itself as a kind of god.
Nothing that cannot be manipulated by humans or that cannot be rationalized as originating according to natural order exists, according to the materialist view. There can be no God because no one can describe God, no one can prove the existence of God, no one can manipulate God.
Furthermore, the gods of the popular religions of today can be shown to be human inventions or hand-me-downs from earlier pagan religions.
Yet materialists cannot explain dreams in terms that do not make dreamers seem insane at night. They cannot explain visions that people have, or vision quests that change people's lives.
They cannot explain ESP (extra-sensory perception). They cannot explain how patients who are legally dead on an operating table can have out of body experiences where they can later describe exactly what was going on in the operating theatre until surgeons restarted their hearts, brains and other organs.
Materialists cannot explain self or mind other than in ways that make us seem like advanced forms of dogs or dolphins.
In short, if materialists can't grasp their minds around a concept in such a way that they can explain it in human terms, they deny it exists. They expect our reality to be limited by the perimeters of their minds. Or I should say brains because they don't believe in the mind as being separate from the brain.
How does that fit with quantum physics where a particle can be in two places at once, where in fact if you look for it in one of those places it will automatically be in the other? How do they explain that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points only on a global scale, not on a universal scale where time and space bend, can even fold back on each other?
Multiple dimensions, they say. We can only detect four dimensions, but string theory stipulates that all this mysterious stuff makes sense if we accept that reality has eleven dimensions.
Science asks us to believe that some day it will show that all the mysteries of physics, of space larger than we can imagine and space smaller than we can imagine, will be explained and proven as truths. It's called Promissory Science. Science promises that it will prove these mysteries some day.
At the same time science denies that God or any of the other mysteries it cannot explain, phenomena and experiences that you and I may have many times in our lives, will ever be explained because they don't really exist. Science says we should believe its promises, not the promises of non-scientists.
How does science say we invent these things? It's all in our minds.
Oh, wait! They don't believe in the mind. It's all in our brains.
But apes, dolphins, wolves and many other animals have brains similar to our own, some even larger than ours, yet they don't seem to have supernatural experiences. If a brain can create fantasies, should a sophisticated brain such as that of a dolphin or a chimpanzee not be able to do the same?
So far, only humans have been shown to have extrasensory experiences. These can easily be explained by the coexistence of both brain and mind. But materialist scientists can't grasp the concept of mind because it's too difficult to study. It denies the mind exists, in many cases.
Are they not, despite their protests, what Saint Sophia called "no more than beasts?"
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who are well balanced socially and emotionally as well as intellectually and physically.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Saint Sophia, 2nd century Rome, whose daughters Faith (Pistis), Hope (Elpis) and Love (Agape) were slaughtered in front of their mother for their devotion to their God
The Roman emperor Hadrian had Sophia's daughters slashed, stretched and eventually beheaded and burned to get them to renounce their beliefs, all in front of their mother. As he could think of no worse punishment to Sophia that to live out the rest of her life knowing that her only children had died horrifying deaths, he spared her. She gathered the bodies of her children, buried them and died three days later.
Were they all martyrs? Were they all stupid to die before their times instead of saying the words Hadrian wanted (albeit blasphemous words because he wanted them to acknowledge him as their god)?
In the 21st century we have come to respect science more than at any time in the past. Science originally was the means by which humans could better understand the works of God. Yet science gained such power and authority over its respective cultures that it now sees itself as a kind of god.
Nothing that cannot be manipulated by humans or that cannot be rationalized as originating according to natural order exists, according to the materialist view. There can be no God because no one can describe God, no one can prove the existence of God, no one can manipulate God.
Furthermore, the gods of the popular religions of today can be shown to be human inventions or hand-me-downs from earlier pagan religions.
Yet materialists cannot explain dreams in terms that do not make dreamers seem insane at night. They cannot explain visions that people have, or vision quests that change people's lives.
They cannot explain ESP (extra-sensory perception). They cannot explain how patients who are legally dead on an operating table can have out of body experiences where they can later describe exactly what was going on in the operating theatre until surgeons restarted their hearts, brains and other organs.
Materialists cannot explain self or mind other than in ways that make us seem like advanced forms of dogs or dolphins.
In short, if materialists can't grasp their minds around a concept in such a way that they can explain it in human terms, they deny it exists. They expect our reality to be limited by the perimeters of their minds. Or I should say brains because they don't believe in the mind as being separate from the brain.
How does that fit with quantum physics where a particle can be in two places at once, where in fact if you look for it in one of those places it will automatically be in the other? How do they explain that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points only on a global scale, not on a universal scale where time and space bend, can even fold back on each other?
Multiple dimensions, they say. We can only detect four dimensions, but string theory stipulates that all this mysterious stuff makes sense if we accept that reality has eleven dimensions.
Science asks us to believe that some day it will show that all the mysteries of physics, of space larger than we can imagine and space smaller than we can imagine, will be explained and proven as truths. It's called Promissory Science. Science promises that it will prove these mysteries some day.
At the same time science denies that God or any of the other mysteries it cannot explain, phenomena and experiences that you and I may have many times in our lives, will ever be explained because they don't really exist. Science says we should believe its promises, not the promises of non-scientists.
How does science say we invent these things? It's all in our minds.
Oh, wait! They don't believe in the mind. It's all in our brains.
But apes, dolphins, wolves and many other animals have brains similar to our own, some even larger than ours, yet they don't seem to have supernatural experiences. If a brain can create fantasies, should a sophisticated brain such as that of a dolphin or a chimpanzee not be able to do the same?
So far, only humans have been shown to have extrasensory experiences. These can easily be explained by the coexistence of both brain and mind. But materialist scientists can't grasp the concept of mind because it's too difficult to study. It denies the mind exists, in many cases.
Are they not, despite their protests, what Saint Sophia called "no more than beasts?"
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who are well balanced socially and emotionally as well as intellectually and physically.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Attacking The Hypocrisy Of Science
There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.
- Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885), Les Misérables
It's impossible at this time to know what Victor Hugo meant by "the human soul." As many different concepts exist for it, it would be nearly impossible to find a consensus among any group of people no matter how small.
Let's put this quote into perspective. It's extremely difficult for anyone to have a workable grasp of the immensity that is the great ocean that comprises most of the surface of our planet. As a frontier of science, the ocean is still relatively unexplored territory. New (previously unknown) species of ocean dwellers are discovered through research every week, almost at the rate of one per day.
The quantity of water and life in the great ocean are beyond the comprehension of most people, if not all of us. At the bottom of the ocean lies more than three times as much land as humans have ever walked in all of history.
What is the sky? If you take a photo of it, or many photos to comprise a panoramic view of the sky, then assemble them into a contiguous whole, would that be enough to explain the sky? Of course not. The blue of the sky is merely a blue shift of white light coming from the sun. Beyond that are galaxies we can see at night, plus billions more galaxies we can't see, then maybe other universes beyond that.
That's not even considering other dimensions that may exist all around us, features of reality we can't sense but some people feel or experience from time to time. As the concepts of multiple universes and dimensions of space-time other than the one we perceive enter science through theories such as the string theories of physics, science is forced to accept that there may be existence beyond what they can detect with their equipment, that is little more than supersensitive versions of our own five senses.
Scientists exploring other galaxies with their telescopes and spacecraft tell us that planets far beyond ours may hold life. They don't want us to accept anything we may perceive as real if they can't prove its existence themselves, but they are quite prepared to propose that whole planets of life--some maybe with non-DNA-based life--probably exist beyond our present ability to detect. They use statistics as evidence, as if anyone with any sense of experience with the false and deceptive use of statistics would grant that any credibility.
Many scientists deny the existence of the human soul. They claim it's a figment of our brains, if it exists at all. They can even show what happens in our brains when what we call a soul is active. But, they believe, it's nothing more than our imaginations at work. Yet they want us to believe in other civilizations light years away and other dimensions of existence for which they have no evidence more than a vague theory with no proof in the works.
The trouble with our concept of the human soul is that far too many people have used their own versions of fictional concepts they made up to bilk many of us out of our money. Frauds and charlatans have existed almost as long as our species has. Many of them have purported to have knowledge of the human soul that the rest of us don't have. They don't, but we and our ancestors have paid good money to hear their stories anyway.
That doesn't mean that the human soul doesn't exist. Or, for that matter, that God doesn't exist. We all know that there are as many differing concepts of God as there are religions on the planet. That includes societies such as what we call the Roman Empire, that appointed their own Caesars as gods--they worshipped their emperor as a god.
That doesn't mean that God or the human soul doesn't exist. It means that most of us haven't the ability to detect them. We may pray to God, hoping that he exists, having been threatened with eternal damnation in Hell if we don't fall on our knees before the God that someone else tells us is the real God. But we can't be certain that the God we praise is real, any more than we can prove that unknown civilizations light years away are real, or different dimensions are real.
Or even that thought is real. Science can prove that something happens in various parts of the brain as we think and that different parts "light up" on their scopes as we do different kinds of thinking. But science has only proven that something has happened in the brain when we think. It has absolutely no concept of what thought is, at least nothing I consider workable.
The very scientists who are thinking about how to explain to us that things they can't prove don't exist can't prove that thought exists. By rights we should be able to claim that their thoughts are nothing more than activity of their imaginations.
So, what is the human soul? Nothing more or less than a part of God that is on loan to us while we inhabit these bodies of ours. We are all part of one great whole.
When our body dies, it gets recycled. Not an atom is lost when our body decomposes. It all becomes either part of other things composed of atoms (matter) or it becomes some form of energy. Just ask Einstein who explained it with his famous equation, e = mc2 No matter or energy are ever lost when a transfer or transformation happens. It's all part of a great whole.
Science can't explain energy either. They know energy exists because they have experienced it. So what can science offer to those of us who have experienced something beyond what even they can't comprehend?
Perhaps science should do what it tells us to do with thoughts about subjects we can't explain: shut up.
The human soul cannot be explained by science, so science should not have any right to make definitive pronouncements about it. Since the human soul is merely part of the greater whole we call God, it follows that science should have no say about God either. Science has no right to tell us that something we believe doesn't exist while it blithely accepts theories that propose the existence of things they can't prove; that would be hypocrisy.
I feel God within me. I can't explain that. I don't even have an interest in attempting to explain it or to prove it to anyone, let alone a doubter.
The doubters always make more noise than the believers who know they are right, who know what they feel within them. That doesn't make them right or those with greater perception and higher levels of consciousness wrong.
It only shows their ignorance and inability to tolerate thoughts that go beyond what they can comprehend. They are bigots with white coats.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach their children truths before the charlatans get at them. or to make corrections if they have.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885), Les Misérables
It's impossible at this time to know what Victor Hugo meant by "the human soul." As many different concepts exist for it, it would be nearly impossible to find a consensus among any group of people no matter how small.
Let's put this quote into perspective. It's extremely difficult for anyone to have a workable grasp of the immensity that is the great ocean that comprises most of the surface of our planet. As a frontier of science, the ocean is still relatively unexplored territory. New (previously unknown) species of ocean dwellers are discovered through research every week, almost at the rate of one per day.
The quantity of water and life in the great ocean are beyond the comprehension of most people, if not all of us. At the bottom of the ocean lies more than three times as much land as humans have ever walked in all of history.
What is the sky? If you take a photo of it, or many photos to comprise a panoramic view of the sky, then assemble them into a contiguous whole, would that be enough to explain the sky? Of course not. The blue of the sky is merely a blue shift of white light coming from the sun. Beyond that are galaxies we can see at night, plus billions more galaxies we can't see, then maybe other universes beyond that.
That's not even considering other dimensions that may exist all around us, features of reality we can't sense but some people feel or experience from time to time. As the concepts of multiple universes and dimensions of space-time other than the one we perceive enter science through theories such as the string theories of physics, science is forced to accept that there may be existence beyond what they can detect with their equipment, that is little more than supersensitive versions of our own five senses.
Scientists exploring other galaxies with their telescopes and spacecraft tell us that planets far beyond ours may hold life. They don't want us to accept anything we may perceive as real if they can't prove its existence themselves, but they are quite prepared to propose that whole planets of life--some maybe with non-DNA-based life--probably exist beyond our present ability to detect. They use statistics as evidence, as if anyone with any sense of experience with the false and deceptive use of statistics would grant that any credibility.
Many scientists deny the existence of the human soul. They claim it's a figment of our brains, if it exists at all. They can even show what happens in our brains when what we call a soul is active. But, they believe, it's nothing more than our imaginations at work. Yet they want us to believe in other civilizations light years away and other dimensions of existence for which they have no evidence more than a vague theory with no proof in the works.
The trouble with our concept of the human soul is that far too many people have used their own versions of fictional concepts they made up to bilk many of us out of our money. Frauds and charlatans have existed almost as long as our species has. Many of them have purported to have knowledge of the human soul that the rest of us don't have. They don't, but we and our ancestors have paid good money to hear their stories anyway.
That doesn't mean that the human soul doesn't exist. Or, for that matter, that God doesn't exist. We all know that there are as many differing concepts of God as there are religions on the planet. That includes societies such as what we call the Roman Empire, that appointed their own Caesars as gods--they worshipped their emperor as a god.
That doesn't mean that God or the human soul doesn't exist. It means that most of us haven't the ability to detect them. We may pray to God, hoping that he exists, having been threatened with eternal damnation in Hell if we don't fall on our knees before the God that someone else tells us is the real God. But we can't be certain that the God we praise is real, any more than we can prove that unknown civilizations light years away are real, or different dimensions are real.
Or even that thought is real. Science can prove that something happens in various parts of the brain as we think and that different parts "light up" on their scopes as we do different kinds of thinking. But science has only proven that something has happened in the brain when we think. It has absolutely no concept of what thought is, at least nothing I consider workable.
The very scientists who are thinking about how to explain to us that things they can't prove don't exist can't prove that thought exists. By rights we should be able to claim that their thoughts are nothing more than activity of their imaginations.
So, what is the human soul? Nothing more or less than a part of God that is on loan to us while we inhabit these bodies of ours. We are all part of one great whole.
When our body dies, it gets recycled. Not an atom is lost when our body decomposes. It all becomes either part of other things composed of atoms (matter) or it becomes some form of energy. Just ask Einstein who explained it with his famous equation, e = mc2 No matter or energy are ever lost when a transfer or transformation happens. It's all part of a great whole.
Science can't explain energy either. They know energy exists because they have experienced it. So what can science offer to those of us who have experienced something beyond what even they can't comprehend?
Perhaps science should do what it tells us to do with thoughts about subjects we can't explain: shut up.
The human soul cannot be explained by science, so science should not have any right to make definitive pronouncements about it. Since the human soul is merely part of the greater whole we call God, it follows that science should have no say about God either. Science has no right to tell us that something we believe doesn't exist while it blithely accepts theories that propose the existence of things they can't prove; that would be hypocrisy.
I feel God within me. I can't explain that. I don't even have an interest in attempting to explain it or to prove it to anyone, let alone a doubter.
The doubters always make more noise than the believers who know they are right, who know what they feel within them. That doesn't make them right or those with greater perception and higher levels of consciousness wrong.
It only shows their ignorance and inability to tolerate thoughts that go beyond what they can comprehend. They are bigots with white coats.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach their children truths before the charlatans get at them. or to make corrections if they have.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, March 18, 2007
A Glimpse Into The Mind of a Deep Thinker
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
I find the term "religion of solitude" a bit unsettling bcause of the multiple meanings of "religion." I choose to interpret the phrase to mean a deep respect for time to be alone.
Do people with powerful and original minds welcome and respect the time they spend alone because they appreciate the relief of not being comfortable in social settings for which they are unprepared due to their social immaturity? Despite how common it is for people with powerful and original minds to be underdeveloped socially, making them uncomfortable in many social settings even if they look comfortable and happy, I would answer "no" to the question.
A powerful and original mind needs time to think. Originality demands a solitary gestation period and birth.
Deep thinking requires time for the mind to mull over multitudes of information, experiences, thoughts and inspirations without the mental clutter of non-relevant thoughts about.
Though I have no scientific evidence to support this theory, I suspect that deep thinking activates many of the same parts of the brain that dreaming does, plus some others. Deep thinking is like travelling through a land you have never visited before, without a map and with the path ahead strewn with random thoughts and impressions. It would be frightening for the average person who has not experienced it. Much like a bad dream.
Deep thinking is not highly organized thought, at least in the beginning. Organized thought requires the same levels of restriction and discipline used in ordinary thought in everyday life. That kind of barrier forbids original thought. Deep thinking can't exist within barriers, at least those of the intellectual or emotional variety.
It requires a mind to float free of the body, of the rigours of daily life, of time and place. Yet to forge on through the morass of thought bits to find something unknown.
It requires a certain amount of courage to take such a mind trip because its results are often not welcomed by others when the thinker returns. Original thinking, almost by definition, is resisted if not outright rejected when first presented. Being original oftentimes forces the thinker into a lonely, "outsider" position. Yet that does not impair the interest of the creative mind from searching further. There is a certain mental "high" to discovery.
Deep thinking is hard work. Studies have shown that it requires 31 percent as much energy as heavy lifting. The difference (69%) is easily made up because deep thinking tends to be constant whereas heavy lifting is usually intermittent. Great thinkers are more apt to be slim than pudgy due to the effort required in their thought.
Deep thinking is not for the faint of heart, or the faint of mind. It needs time alone to build something worth considering by the rest of the world.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light on some unusual parts of life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
I find the term "religion of solitude" a bit unsettling bcause of the multiple meanings of "religion." I choose to interpret the phrase to mean a deep respect for time to be alone.
Do people with powerful and original minds welcome and respect the time they spend alone because they appreciate the relief of not being comfortable in social settings for which they are unprepared due to their social immaturity? Despite how common it is for people with powerful and original minds to be underdeveloped socially, making them uncomfortable in many social settings even if they look comfortable and happy, I would answer "no" to the question.
A powerful and original mind needs time to think. Originality demands a solitary gestation period and birth.
Deep thinking requires time for the mind to mull over multitudes of information, experiences, thoughts and inspirations without the mental clutter of non-relevant thoughts about.
Though I have no scientific evidence to support this theory, I suspect that deep thinking activates many of the same parts of the brain that dreaming does, plus some others. Deep thinking is like travelling through a land you have never visited before, without a map and with the path ahead strewn with random thoughts and impressions. It would be frightening for the average person who has not experienced it. Much like a bad dream.
Deep thinking is not highly organized thought, at least in the beginning. Organized thought requires the same levels of restriction and discipline used in ordinary thought in everyday life. That kind of barrier forbids original thought. Deep thinking can't exist within barriers, at least those of the intellectual or emotional variety.
It requires a mind to float free of the body, of the rigours of daily life, of time and place. Yet to forge on through the morass of thought bits to find something unknown.
It requires a certain amount of courage to take such a mind trip because its results are often not welcomed by others when the thinker returns. Original thinking, almost by definition, is resisted if not outright rejected when first presented. Being original oftentimes forces the thinker into a lonely, "outsider" position. Yet that does not impair the interest of the creative mind from searching further. There is a certain mental "high" to discovery.
Deep thinking is hard work. Studies have shown that it requires 31 percent as much energy as heavy lifting. The difference (69%) is easily made up because deep thinking tends to be constant whereas heavy lifting is usually intermittent. Great thinkers are more apt to be slim than pudgy due to the effort required in their thought.
Deep thinking is not for the faint of heart, or the faint of mind. It needs time alone to build something worth considering by the rest of the world.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light on some unusual parts of life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, February 19, 2007
Can Cancer Be cured Without Drugs?
All any drug amounts to is tweaking the incoming data. And you have to be really self-centered or pathetic to be satisfied with simply tweaking the incoming data.
- William Gibson, science fiction writer (1948- )
What is he talking about? Does Gibson mean prescribed drugs or illegal drugs?
He means both. Medical doctors know and everyone else should know that all medical science does is to help the body do what it doesn't do for itself. Furthermore, the brain controls virtually all activity in terms of protecting the body from invaders and ridding the body of invaders that manage to pass its primary defences.
Most drugs that a doctor prescribes tweak some part of the brain to get it to do what it should have done without the drug, but did not. Usually this involves the immune system, but often it involves other organs that have not produced enough of some kind of chemical to defend the body against something that doesn't belong inside of us.
Anyone with enough control over their own brain should be able to coax the brain to do what it should do without taking medication. The catch is that most of us do not have this much control. Some people can control their heart rate and blood pressure, for example, while most of us cannot.
Could we control cancer within our own bodies? Some say yes, but medical science won't admit to anything that almost everyone can't do without much effort. In other words, we may have the power within us to cure our own cancer, but since everyone can't tap into that power (and the power itself does not require any pharmaceuticals) it's unlikely that we will learn much about this power in the near future.
When it comes to illegal drugs, the mind-altering kind, they simply provide an excess of one or more chemicals that the brain provides for naturally. Again, anyone with enough knowledge and control of their own brain could produce the same kinds of effects that mind-altering drugs do. Few do. Pharmaceutical companies will suppress or vigorously oppose any initiative to teach us how to produce our own versions of what they sell for profit.
Runners and those who do strenuous exercises develop a state known as "runner's high" which mimics the effects of marijuana and other feel-good drugs. Nuns deep in prayer to God (a state likened to a trance) have been found to have brain activity in the reward centre, meaning that the brain has provided the kind of relaxation and feeling of well-being that some drugs give. Their communion with God is a natural high.
It is possible to make our own brain work for us to do what it hasn't necessarily been required to do before. That requires considerable study and practice.
This is not to suggest that doctor-prescribed rugs have no value. On the contrary, prescribed medications do for us what we are unable to do for ourselves, given our present circumstances. Most of us don't know how to use our brain effectively to make ourselves healthy.
Gibson wonders if we should be "satisfied with simply tweaking the incoming data," meaning in an artificial way by taking drugs. It might serve us better to learn how to tweak our own brains to get them to provide the full services for which they were designed and are capable.
On the other hand, Gibson, American-born but living in Canada for nearly four decades, best known for his novel Neuromancer , as a science fiction writer might be suggesting that we take our natural brain abilities and enhance them ourselves to become something more than we are now.
Coiner of the term cyberspace and father of the cyberpunk subgenre of scinece fiction, Gibson knows that our brain is the least understood and most underutilized part of our body. He sees its potential but doesn't want that potential destroyed or depreciated by drugs.
"The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet," he said. The future won't become widely distributed by our increasing dependence on drugs.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the potential of the future a little clearer than it is with drugs.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
- William Gibson, science fiction writer (1948- )
What is he talking about? Does Gibson mean prescribed drugs or illegal drugs?
He means both. Medical doctors know and everyone else should know that all medical science does is to help the body do what it doesn't do for itself. Furthermore, the brain controls virtually all activity in terms of protecting the body from invaders and ridding the body of invaders that manage to pass its primary defences.
Most drugs that a doctor prescribes tweak some part of the brain to get it to do what it should have done without the drug, but did not. Usually this involves the immune system, but often it involves other organs that have not produced enough of some kind of chemical to defend the body against something that doesn't belong inside of us.
Anyone with enough control over their own brain should be able to coax the brain to do what it should do without taking medication. The catch is that most of us do not have this much control. Some people can control their heart rate and blood pressure, for example, while most of us cannot.
Could we control cancer within our own bodies? Some say yes, but medical science won't admit to anything that almost everyone can't do without much effort. In other words, we may have the power within us to cure our own cancer, but since everyone can't tap into that power (and the power itself does not require any pharmaceuticals) it's unlikely that we will learn much about this power in the near future.
When it comes to illegal drugs, the mind-altering kind, they simply provide an excess of one or more chemicals that the brain provides for naturally. Again, anyone with enough knowledge and control of their own brain could produce the same kinds of effects that mind-altering drugs do. Few do. Pharmaceutical companies will suppress or vigorously oppose any initiative to teach us how to produce our own versions of what they sell for profit.
Runners and those who do strenuous exercises develop a state known as "runner's high" which mimics the effects of marijuana and other feel-good drugs. Nuns deep in prayer to God (a state likened to a trance) have been found to have brain activity in the reward centre, meaning that the brain has provided the kind of relaxation and feeling of well-being that some drugs give. Their communion with God is a natural high.
It is possible to make our own brain work for us to do what it hasn't necessarily been required to do before. That requires considerable study and practice.
This is not to suggest that doctor-prescribed rugs have no value. On the contrary, prescribed medications do for us what we are unable to do for ourselves, given our present circumstances. Most of us don't know how to use our brain effectively to make ourselves healthy.
Gibson wonders if we should be "satisfied with simply tweaking the incoming data," meaning in an artificial way by taking drugs. It might serve us better to learn how to tweak our own brains to get them to provide the full services for which they were designed and are capable.
On the other hand, Gibson, American-born but living in Canada for nearly four decades, best known for his novel Neuromancer , as a science fiction writer might be suggesting that we take our natural brain abilities and enhance them ourselves to become something more than we are now.
Coiner of the term cyberspace and father of the cyberpunk subgenre of scinece fiction, Gibson knows that our brain is the least understood and most underutilized part of our body. He sees its potential but doesn't want that potential destroyed or depreciated by drugs.
"The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet," he said. The future won't become widely distributed by our increasing dependence on drugs.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the potential of the future a little clearer than it is with drugs.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
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