Mind Over Matter: For Real

[DudeAsInCool]

Mind Over Matter, for Real

By STEPHEN MIHM

December 14, 2003. Consider the plight of a quadriplegic when confronted with an object that he wants to pick up. Though it sits directly in front of him, his desire to reach out and grab it is thwarted by his paralyzed body. But now there's hope: this year, scientists demonstrated that monkeys, properly trained and specially wired, can channel the mere thought of reaching and grasping into the actual reaching and grasping of a surrogate robotic arm. If all goes well, trials of the technology on humans will begin soon.

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This triumph of mind over matter took place in the lab of Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke University. First, Nicolelis and his colleagues trained two macaque monkeys to operate a robotic arm by controlling it with a joystick. Then they implanted hundreds of tiny wires into the monkeys' brains and identified the specific patterns of brain activity that accompanied the operation of the joystick. Finally, the researchers connected the wires coming out of the monkeys' brains to the robotic arm by way of a translating device called a brain-machine interface.

Then came the moment of truth: the researchers unhooked the joystick from the robotic arm, leaving the arm wired only to the monkeys' brains. At first the monkeys tried to use the joystick to operate the robotic arm, but they soon realized that they had a more direct means of control: they could operate the robotic arm just by thinking about moving the joystick. It was, by all accounts, an eerie scene. The monkeys sat motionless, while the robotic arms reached and grasped, powered by monkey thoughts alone.

The implications for paralyzed humans are pretty obvious and somewhat staggering. Nicolelis and his colleagues speculate that a quadriplegic, given similar implants, could control an array of surrogate robotic limbs. They hope to begin clinical trials within the next two years, and they will have competition: researchers with Cyberkinetics, a private company based in Massachusetts, have announced plans to implant electrodes into the brains of five paralyzed patients, enabling them to control a computer.

Though this research may sound like an unequivocal boon to humanity, there is a darker side. Nicolelis's research was financed by Darpa, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon. In an address at a technology conference in Anaheim, Calif., Anthony J. Tether, the director of Darpa, ruminated about using the technology to build an army of marauding robots controlled from a distance by the thoughts of their commander in

NY Times.com

[DudeAsInCool]

Here's another pretty amazing development...

Science and Technology

Coincidence Theory

By JASON FELCH

December 14, 2003. More than half of Americans believe in ''anomalous phenomena'' like clairvoyance, unexplained coincidence, prayer healing and psychokinesis. Yet mainstream science remains unconvinced. After all, these anomalies appear to fly in the face of everything we know about how mind and matter interact. But that may be about to change. This year, Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, introduced a conceptual model to explain seemingly inexplicable events scientifically.

In 1991, Mayer had her own brush with the anomalous. She was searching for a stolen family possession and, on a dare, turned for help to a man 800 miles away who claimed to be psychic. To her astonishment, he was able to tell her precisely where to find the missing object. Mayer wanted a scientific explanation, and she embarked on a decade of research.

Mayer's research and writings eventually led her to Robert G. Jahn, a science and engineering professor at Princeton. Since 1979, Jahn had amassed a mountain of data demonstrating people's ability to alter the outcome of a random event generator -- essentially a machine designed to replicate a perfect coin toss over and over -- in a minute but statistically significant way.

Comparing the latest research from the fields of neuroscience, psychoanalytic psychology and quantum physics, Mayer and Jahn found some intriguing overlaps. Just as psychologists have spent the last century exploring the unconscious mind, physicists have been exploring that netherworld of physics called intangible dynamics, where string theory and quantum mechanics lurk. Both of these shadow realms violate our everyday understanding of logic and physics, space and time.

Jahn and Mayer say they believe that anomalous phenomena may be a result of some type of information exchange between the unconscious and the intangible. ''Clairvoyance'' may actually be snippets of information from the physical world slipping into the unconscious mind and percolating up into awareness. Moving in the opposite direction, the unconscious mind may have the ability to subtly alter the physical world, explaining Jahn's data using random event generators.

For now, the model is more a way to think about the problem of anomalous phenomena than a solution. ''Though we're still far from having evidence which proves it correct,'' Mayer notes in a public lecture she began giving this year, ''we can find tantalizing grounds on which to find it appealing.''

NY Times.com

[HolyMoly]

True story. I was always very good in school when I was young though I really didn't understand why or care why. I just learned concepts easier than other kids in my age-range. One day, my fifth grade teacher gave everyone an assignment for the next day. She gave each of us a small book of poems and each of us was assigned one poem in it to recite the next day. My assigned poem was, "Robinson Crusoe" ... not as long as the novel, but still a long poem. So, I took the book home, read my assigned poem through once, did the rest of my homework and watched TV. The next day in class when I was called on, I walked over to the teacher, gave her the book, and went to the podium ... where I recited the poem verbatim from memory. Other kids in the class started giggling and I couldn't understand why. I didn't find out why until I got home. Apparently, after class, my teacher called my mom and told her about my reciting the poem from memory ... and she told the teacher, "that's just the way he does things." My mom called me aside and told me she'd known for a long time that I had photographic memory ... but said to never demonstrate it in front of others again because they wouldn't understand. I followed her advice ... but found that my ability faded away and completely disappeared by the time I'd left high school.

In the early part of the 20th Century, most people believed that photographic memory was a gift that some people had ... that it really existed. But with the rise of cognitive science, psychologists began to poo-poo the ability ... assigning it to the "woo-woo" realm of pseudoscience.

Anyhoo, when I got out of the Navy (still, pre-Internet) and had some time on my hands, I scoured my local library for information on photographic memory. And, all I could seem to find were short pieces by cognitive therapists poo-pooing the phenomenon. But, as an Encyclopedia Britannica owner, I had access to Britannica Research Service -- and sent them a request for all information on serious research into the phenomenon. They only found one item ... a study performed by Bell Labs in the 1940s using people claiming to have the ability. They were able to conclude that there were some people who had it ... but most were children whose ability faded away by adulthood. More importantly, since they were unable to show "why" the ability existed at all, the study was considered inconclusive and halted.

This changed in 1995 when two researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Labs, Dr. Jerry Yin and Dr. Tim Tully, made a discovery. Both men are molecular biologists ... and they discovered that the hippocampal region of the brain produced 2 DNA subprotiens called CREB activator and CREB repressor. And via animal testing, they discovered that memory was enhanced when they chemically induced a high CREB activator level ... and that memory suffered when they chemically induced a high CREB repressor level.

This fell in line with the abandoned Bell Labs study. Quite likely, some children are born with higher-than-normal CREB activator levels ... levels that "balance out" with CREB repressor when most such children go through puberty and approach adulthood.

For a while, I subscribed to CSHL's newsletter for lay-people. And in one of those newsletters, they discussed an experiment that can be performed at home to prove photographic (aka "eidetic") memory exists. This is based on their experiments which used chemicals to heat the brain (heat induces CREB activator release while cold induces CREB repressor release). And if anyone reading this right now is a student (grin), you can use this experiment to "cram" for a test. Here's how it works.

If you're studying material you need to memorize, put yourself into a room where you have the heat turned up as hot as you can stand it ... then study. People will remember more of what they study if the studying is done in a "hot" room than if they study in a "cold" room. This is because the hot room will induce your hippocampus to release copious amounts of CREB activator ... enhancing your memory of everything that occurs in the room (like studying). Try it. I have ... and it works.

P.S. Yin and Tully are continuing their research. They do NOT propose the creation of hypermemoried humans (grin) by permanently altering human brain chemistry. But, their research may lead to future therapy for those suffering from amnesia ... including the most severe kind of amnesia found in sufferers of Alzheimer's Disease.

P.P.S. Regarding "anomalous phenomena," I'm a believer. But, I honestly think that the people with REAL gifts tend to remain silent about them ... just like I was told by my mom to remain silent about mine (leaving only the hoaxters and charlatans in the public eye). And, it makes perfect sense to me. For example, if someone went in front of the media and clearly demonstrated a psychokinetic ability ... moving objects with his mind ... how long do you think that person's life would remain normal? Sooner or later, men wearing black suits and dark glasses would whisk that person away ... and that person would spend the rest of their life being poked and prodded by "experts" trying to find out how they did it.

BTW, there's a lesson to be learned from the "X-Men" saga. Sooner or later, the human race will "evolve" into something else. If that "something else" has a gift that invokes fear or awe, what we saw in the first "X-Men" movie would come to pass. Right now ... as we speak ... I am absolutely certain that there are "mutants" living among us. No, not people with metal claws coming out of their knuckles (snicker) ... but people who can do some things that other people cannot do and have no idea WHY they can do them. There are even some brave psychiatrists who have gone so far as to suggest that schizophrenia is not a disease. Think about it. Do schizophrenic people "see/hear things that aren't there" ... or are schizophrenics people who can "see/hear things that ARE there, but that others can't perceive?"

[DudeAsInCool]

There are a couple of movements that are about called Speed Learning. The process essentially requires one to play Bach in the background while studying, and prgrogramming information while breaking it into bytes of 3's. Apparently, this allows one to retain complex information, and in essence, memorize it.

If you want to know more, buy the paperback: SuperLeaning 2000 by Sheila Ostrander, Lynn Schroeder and Nancy Ostrander--I found it fascinating and have started to put it to use.

[HolyMoly]

If you want to know more, buy the paperback:  SuperLeaning 2000 by Sheila Ostrander, Lynn Schroeder and Nancy Ostrander--I found it fascinating and have started to put it to use.

Hmm. I visited their SuperLearning.com website. It sounds intriguing. However, I couldn't find a page on their site showing the Ostranders'/Schroeder's credentials (degrees, business, etc.). And on the Amazon.com site, there are a number of negative reviews of the book ... one calling it a "528-page advertisement" for other techniques/stories. Of course, these critics could be wrong (grin). But, prior to their original SuperLearning book, the only other books published by the Ostrander/Schroeder team appear to be "Handbook of PSI Discoveries," "Psychic Experiences: ESP Investigated," "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain," and "Seventy-Six Psychic Techniques: A Primer in Parapsychology."

I'd be interested to see their credentials in the area of cognitive science.

P.S. Mind you, that doesn't mean lack of credentials is a strike against them. Some people with lots of credentials have exceptionally bizarre theories. Case in point - here are the credentials of Dr. Michael Salla, a professor at American University in Washington, DC (CLICK HERE). Impressive, isn't it?

Now ... read his theory on why we went to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein had contacted aliens and was in possession of a "Stargate" ... which the US wanted (CLICK HERE). BTW, one of his credentials not shown is the dubious honor of being a sometime guest on Art Bell's "Coast To Coast AM" radio show, now usually hosted by George Noory.

As I said, people who have "anomalous" abilities or knowledge tend to keep silent to retain normalcy in their lives ... leaving only those with a profit motive (selling books, audio tapes, seminars, workshops, etc.).

[DudeAsInCool]

Lol. Maybe Saddam is an alien, too. I wonder why he left Art Bell off his CV...I listen to him upon occassion. There's also a theory that the Bush family are alien reptillians--I might subscribe to that.

Yes, the book is longwinded. However, there's a couple chapters relating to super learning and music which I syopsized for you, that are worth taking note of. Those little gems are worth the $5.95.

[HolyMoly]

Lol. Maybe Saddam is an alien, too.  I wonder why he left  Art Bell off his CV...I listen to him upon occassion.

Not sure. But, I listen to Art Bell (et. al.) occasionally, too, and that's where I heard him. Later, I went to Bell's website where I found a link to Salla's website. This guy really believes what he preaches.

There's also a theory that the Bush family are alien reptillians--I might subscribe to that.

Ah, yes ... Project Monarch ... where author, Cathy O'Brien claims in her book "Trance Formation of America" that George Bush shape-shifted into a reptile in front of her (grin).