From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jan 25 2002 - 20:37:59 MST
<snip>
[ben 1*] I was suggesting the possibility that they are not physical places
in any universe, but are more like states of being. States of existence are
commonly referred to in English by the same mechanisms as physical places:
"Person X is in ecstasy" or "Person X is in a foul temper" or "Person X is
on the net" - another linguistic detail that could have been lost over time.
[Bill 2] A state of being is nice, good sex makes me feel like I am in
heaven, and cleaning up after my cats makes me feel like I'm in hell -
however, all emotions that we have, with few exceptions, are identifiable
chemical processes happening in an electro-chemical dance inside the brain.
[ben 2] The brain under certain circumstances emits radio waves [url=
http://www.hhmi.org/senses/e/e120.htm][/url]), providing at least a basic
'wireless' capability. Theoretically (expanding that idea, and making up
neuroscience fiction as I go along here) it is then possible for a human
brain to project its entire conscienceness outwards. If it is possible for
anything to receive, translate and organize the data then we have just had a
direct host-to-host soul transfer. Perhaps Heaven is the name given to the
electrochemical dance in the recipient brain resulting from a successful
transfer in the seconds before death, and Hell is the name for the error
message if it fails... (STP error 403: Access Denied = bad bad painful
dance)
<snip>
[Hermit 2] ben you are doing an excellent job, and supporting your
assertions well. While I completely disagree with both you and Bill, because
we have to have evidence to form a hypothesis which will have value, and to
support that value the hypothesis has to have utility (i.e. predict things)
and be falsifiable (i.e. if it predicts things which cannot be tested, then
it has no utility and is indeed SF rather than science, time constraints
limit my reply to the issue addressed below. As such, I am snipping the
portions of your discussion which are not relevant to my response.
[Hermit 2] The troubles with the hypothesis above are multifold. It does not
take a number of factors into account. The first is that to get the brain to
"transmit" when using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) we
subject it to a a very high energy pulse at a frequency designed to make the
molecules vibrate. This in turn releases radio frequency energy until the
pulse dies away. The sensors used, which are in close proximity to the brain
are amongst the most sensitive receivers we have built.
[Hermit 2] So our brain does not [i]normally[/i] transmit anything. More to
the point, we do not have a mechanism to receive such transmissions. The
appended article may be helpful. You might also refer to the "god module"
[url=http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::bEtbR1zu-EVrb-a3cZ-WTkT-wyU0OXfZXzaZ]God
Module repost[/url].
Kind Regards
Hermit
PS While I will respond in the FAQ ver II, here is the answer to your <snip>
question (the spelling/grammar doesn't apply to you - I just wrote it at the
same time when I thought of it and will copy-paste it to the FAQ).
PPS The reply to your other question was a pleasure and your disagreement
was elegantly phrased and beautifully explained.
Snipping:
As a word to the wise, <snipping> is appropriate when you do not disagree on
a point, or where you state that it is not worth arguing. It is also
worthwhile when replying with a short (or even a long) comment to the gist
of a previous post, but where you are discussing the totality not the
independent points. It is worth remembering that not everyone has a fast
connection, most people have insufficient reading speed, and few want to
read a long post for the second time to see where the replies are located.
So use your judgment to keep the volume tolerable. Just don't <snip>
something that you take issue with or somebody will attack you for removing
their arguments and assert that you did this invalidly because you couldn't
argue your case effectively rather than just putting back the excised
material.
Criticizing Spelling and Grammar:
Only a fool picks at the grammar or spelling of an opponent, unless their
opponent is using this tactic, or if you cannot find a reference (or don't
understand what they are saying) because of their errors. A request for an
explanation, definition or clarification is almost always in order. Trying
to discern what your opponent means, don't try to pick at their style. It
makes you look silly. At the same time, given that nearly everyone here is
smart (although some may pretend not to be) and spelling and grammatical
errors are usually (but not always - cf Dyslexia) a sign of laziness which
usually extends to other intellectual areas, we encourage people to take
care with their posts, and attempt to run them through a spelling checker.
===
["Memetics on Crack was virus: Memetic War ", Hermit, Tue 2001-10-16 20:59]
[quote]
And now we know what Memetics might look like when on crack?
Here is why this article appears to be a fantasy.
Let us examine the possible sources of things which can affect the brain and
which the brain might transmit.
There are only four fundamental forces in our Universe. These are the forces
by which the elementary particles interact with one another. The four
fundamental forces which shape the universe are gravity, electromagnetism,
the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. Although they are
distinct from one another in the present day universe, they are all thought
to be slightly different aspects of the same superforce. This superforce is
predicted by unified field theories and is theorized to have been active
only in the first few instants following the big bang. As the universe
expanded and cooled so the superforce broke up into the four fundamental
forces we are familiar with today. Steps towards proving this theory begin
with the unification of electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force to
provide the observed electroweak force. The unification of the strong
nuclear force and the electroweak force then provides the hypothetical grand
unified force. After the development of a quantum theory of gravity, that
too can be unified to produce the unified field superforce.
Any signal which is able to affect the brain would have to belong to one of
these four categories. While the article did not specify which of the four
categories "bio-physical fields" fall into, we know that if they exist, they
must be in one of these categories.
Our brains are driven by complex electro-chemical systems. In order to
affect the human brain, a signal has to be large enough to affect the
particles making up that brain. While it is possible that something
operating at the quantum level could affect the brain, quantum effects are
subject to gross statistical forces, and any quantum effect serving a useful
purpose must be present at a gross (i.e. particle) level as well or it would
simply be submerged within the noise which exists at the flux level. In
other words, quantum effects do not have a direct effect on the brain unless
there are sufficient such effects to cause changes at the particle level.
We are remarkably capable of using technology to detect any of these forces
- even at miniscule levels. Naturally any signal which is able to affect the
brain would also affect other particles, including those in a detector.
Despite looking very carefully at what humans "transmit", we have not
detected such forces. A reasonable assumption is that if we cannot detect
them, they do not exist.
That said, if we are sensitive to any sort of "bio-physical fields," then
subjecting the human to such a field should result in an alteration of brain
function. However, forces causing detectable effects on the brain tend to
need to be quite large - and just as well, because we are surrounded by a
barrage of low level signals and if not relatively well insulated from them,
we would be even more prone to cpu failure than we are. Indeed, the only
fields which we know to cause changes in brain operation are magnetic and
electrical. And here the power levels required to make a change at any
significant distance are significant. Certainly much higher than background
noise, and so easily detected.
We know how much power a brain draws (around 120W) and are also aware of how
it is used (most is distributed in heat, some is used to transmit signals
through the neurons). We understand the power usage of the brain well enough
to be certain that any "unaccounted for" power use is miniscule (femto
Watts). Given that so little power is available to be involved in the
generation of "bio-physical fields" and given that we appear to have no
"focusing" mechanisms for any of the known forces, any field generated by
humans must be distributed more or less equally in all directions. Thus the
field strength involved in any signal transmitted by humans will fall off
rapidly (due to inverse square law effects). Within a very short distance,
such signals will be submerged within the background noise of the
environment, and thus not useful to transmit anything. So if there are
"bio-physical fields" they have a very limited range. A few meters at most.
However, we detect no change in brain operation when subjecting humans to
such fields, or indeed, until we reach the milli Watt level - or 12 orders
of magnitude higher than that which humans are capable of producing. Which
strongly mitigates against this concept having any validity.
If we take the idea that somehow a billion people have an effect which a
single person would not, then we have to consider that a billion times a
femto Watt only brings you to the micro Watt level. Still three orders of
magnitude (a thousand times) smaller than the level required to cause a
detectable change in the human brain - even at a distance of millimeters.
In addition, any signal able to affect the brain would be shieldable, and if
such a signal were affecting the brain, the act of shielding the brain from
that signal should provide a measurable difference in the operation of the
brain. Despite having shielded people in various ways, we have never
observed a measurable difference in their brain functioning when operating
shielded as opposed to unshielded. Which strongly mitigates against this
concept.
<snip>
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