Edgar Mitchell in the news...

TCPalm.com has a nice article about astronaut Edgar Mitchell this morning. Mitchell is the founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), where I recently went for a visit.

The work of noetic scientists, Mitchell noted, provide a new understanding of how beliefs, thoughts, and intentions affect the physical world.

"Because 400 years ago, (French philosopher) René Descartes made the pronouncement that body, mind, physicality and spirituality belonged to two different realms of reality," said Mitchell during a phone interview. "That had the nice effect of getting the Inquisition to get off the backs of European intellectuals and allow science, as we understand it classically, to arise.

"But the bad side is that for all those 400 years, science has avoided the subject of what is consciousness and why are we conscious at all."

Apparently, Mitchell, along with Dean Radin recorded a segment for the Larry King Live show, expected to air in December.

Mitchell served on the Apollo 14 mission, and founded IONS based on an experience he had during his time in space, experiencing a sense of "universal connectedness,"

"He intuitively sensed that his presence, that of his fellow astronauts, and that of the planet in the window were all part of a deliberate, universal process and that the glittering cosmos itself was in some way conscious."

Mitchell also lent his name to the 1974 anthology Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science, a 700 page collection of essays by a number of leading researchers of the time.

New JCS

The new issue, 14(12),of the Journal of Consciousness Studies is out.

This issue features some intriguing sounding articles:

• Explaining Strong Emotional Responses to Music by Jeanette Bicknell
• Quantitative Somatic Phenomenology by Glenn Hartelius
  
• Consciousness and the First Person by Itay Shani
• Setting Criteria for Ideal Reincarnation Research by Jonathan Edelmann
  

Global Consciousness Project Update - Roger Nelson at Sedona

via sedona.biz:

Sedona, AZ - Dr. Roger Nelson, Director of the Princeton Global Consciousness Project presents An Epiphany of Scientific Findings on Global Consciousness at the Sedona Creative Life Center, 333 Schnebly Hill Road, Friday, November 30, 7-9 PM. Admission: $15.

Find out what scientists are discovering about how we can collectively empower global consciousness to heal the world and transform reality.

Dr. Nelson’s professional degrees are in experimental cognitive psychology, with a special focus on the lesser known aspects of perception. His primary work in design and analysis is supplemented by a background in physics, statistical methods, and multi-media production.

Until his retirement in 2002, he served as the coordinator of experimental work in the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) lab, directed by Robert Jahn in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, School of Engineering/Applied Science, Princeton University.

Dr. Rogers gives most of his time to the Global Consciousness Project (GCP), which he directs. The GCP is an international, multi-laboratory collaboration (independent from the PEAR program) that maintains a network of random event generators (REGs) around the world that send data continuously over the internet to a server in Princeton, NJ. The purpose is to examine subtle correlations that reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world.

GCP says it has learned that when millions of us share intentions and emotions created by powerful global events, such as the funerals of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, the network shows correlations that can be interpreted as evidence for a growing global consciousness. It suggests we have the capability and responsibility for conscious evolution. We make the world we live in.

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Dr. Nelson discuss his involvement in PEAR and the various projects in which he was involved.

For more information on the GCP, visit: http://noosphere.princeton.edu.

George P. Hansen interview

I dropped the ball a bit and didn't get this announced as early as I wanted to, but Marcel Cairo of AfterlifeFM will be interviewing George P. Hansen, blogger, and author of The Trickster and the Paranormal this week.

This is currently one of my favorite books, and I can't recommend it highly enough, if you're interested in consciousness/dreams/the paranormal, and the difficulties inherent in studying them.

Marcel's interview will air Tuesday, November 27, at 4pm, Pacific Time.

The Trouble With Dream Studies

Ryan at the Dream Studies Portal has uploaded a new essay, The Trouble with Dream Studies.

This [article] introduces a series of articles about the difficulties facing dream studies as a field of knowledge. These difficulties emerge at every level of participation with dreaming, from third-person gathering of dream reports to first-person remembered experience. How do we know what we know? What is the spectrum of possibility for human consciousness? What is real?

Ryan, as always, digs deep, and raises a lot of thought-provoking points. It's well worth the read.

Comments are also welcome.

Free V.S. Ramachandran talk...

V.S. Ramachandran will be giving a free talk in London.

Via The Royal Society:

Wednesday 28 November 2007 at 6:30pm Public Lecture

Event Type: Public Lecture

Location: The Royal Society

Email: events@royalsoc.ac.uk

Address:
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5AG

by Professor VS Ramachandran, University of California San Diego

Professor Ramachandran examines problems that lie at the interface between neurology and psychiatry. He explains how phantom limbs may be used as a probe for understanding brain functions and shows that far from having fixed connections, even the basic 'wiring' of the brain is constantly being modified in response to changing sensory inputs. This has theoretical implications as well as practical implications for recovery of function from stroke, phantom pain and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD). Ramachandran will also discuss synesthesia, an inherited condition in which sounds and printed numbers are seen as colored. He reveals its neural basis and suggests it might provide clues to understanding high level brain functions such as metaphor and abstraction.

Professor Ramachandran is director of the center for brain and cognition at the university of California San Diego and adjunct professor of biology at the Salk Institute. He is best known for his work on visual perception, behavioral neurology (including phantom limbs) and more recently, synesthesia.

The fifth in a series of lectures on the nature of human knowledge and understanding supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

This lecture is free - no ticket or advanced booking required. Doors open at 5.45pm and seats will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

This event will be webcast live at www.royalsoc.ac.uk/live/

First Annual Ghost Rush Conference - Northern California

Volcano, Ca – American Paranormal Investigations announced today that its first annual Ghost Rush conference will take place March 28-30, 2008 at the St George Hotel in Volcano, California. Volcano is located in Amador County, about an hour outside of Sacramento.

Ghost Rush 2008 will be the first event of its kind held in Northern California. Conference Attendees will have the opportunity to attend lectures provided by some of the most respected names in the Paranormal Community, including: Jeff Belanger, Konstantinos (warning: goth music at the link), Loyd Auerbach, Todd Sheets, Mark Stinson and Al Tyas. Workshops will also be offered throughout the event and even more speakers are anticipated as the date nears.

"This will be a great event for novice and seasoned investigators alike. We’ll have full access to some highly sought after and active locations and have the chance to learn from some of the best in the field" said Amy Bruni, conference organizer, Producer for Beyond Reality Radio and Investigator with API.

In addition to the informative lecture series, conference goers will spend two nights investigating the town of Volcano. All of the event speakers, as well as Kris Williams from the Sci Fi Network show, Ghost Hunters, will lead teams of attendees on ghost hunts. Local business owners have teamed up with American Paranormal Investigations to allow access to their buildings after hours. At the St George Hotel alone, frequent reports of beds being unmade, knocking heard on walls, coins being thrown at bar patrons and full bodied apparitions are just a few of the happenings that drew conference organizers to Volcano in the first place.

" I’m looking forward to speaking at the Ghost Rush conference in Volcano, California," said Jeff Belanger, author, founder of Ghostvillage.com , and one of the event’s featured speakers. "When you consider Volcano’s mining history, remote location, and haunted reputation, we’re sure to have a ghostly great time investigating and discussing the paranormal in a setting that hasn’t been overly exploited like many of the better-known haunts on the West coast. It’s an opportunity for the attendees and for me as well!"

More information about Ghost Rush 2008 and American Paranormal Investigations can be found at http://www.ap-investigations.com

panpsychism in the New York Times

Well, I'm back after an extended holiday break. Thanksgiving, as we call it here in the U.S., is always a little tricky for me. I try to put aside the cultural baggage that comes with it, and reflect on the things I'm thankful for. I also took some personal downtime, and got some more taken care of on my Masters thesis.

While I was away from the blog, though, a number of interesting things came through my consciousness, as it were:

First off, The New York Times has an article on panpsychism. I'm not sure if you'll need to register/log-in for this one or not.

The article traces panpsychism's proto-origins with Thomas Nagel, and continues up through Roger Penrose and David Chalmers, and Galen Strawson. Interesting that they did not seek out Christian de Quincey, who has published two books on the subject.

I have my own issues with panpsychism. While I find it an intriguing possibility, I don't see how it answers a number of questions. In fact, I think it leaves even bigger questions than it answers.
As the article notes,

Panpsychism may be easier to parody than to refute. But even if it proves a cul-de-sac in the quest to understand consciousness, it might still help rouse us from a certain parochiality in our cosmic outlook. We are biological beings. We exist because of self-replicating chemicals. We detect and act on information from our environment so that the self-replication will continue. As a byproduct, we have developed brains that, we fondly believe, are the most intricate things in the universe. We look down our noses at brute matter.

And while some may take what they consider to be the next logical step (and one I consider to be "reductio ad hitlerum"), that this mind/body or mind/matter split is responsible for everything from poor body image to global warming and destruction of the environment, I do not know that being a dualist inevitably leads to such destruction.

In any event, finding this article in the NYT this morning was a pleasant surprise, even if it was published back on the 18th.

More Dimensia...

Fresh on the heels of yesterdays posts about E8 and "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything", and Möbius Transformations, comes an interesting article from Science News Online: Shadow World, which suggests that "How many dimensions space has could be a matter of perspective."

The article features the work of Juan Maldacena, who suggests that in terms of string theory (something I'm not particularly sold on, myself),

the mathematical machinery of strings completely translates into a more ordinary quantum theory of particles, but one whose particles would live in a universe without gravity. Gravity would be replaced by forces similar to the nuclear forces that prevailed in the universe's first instants. And this would be a universe with fewer dimensions than the realm inhabited by strings.

Just as a hologram creates the illusion of the third dimension by scattering light off a 2-D surface, gravity and the however many dimensions of space could be a higher-dimensional projection of a drama playing out in a flatter world.

In physics parlance, the two theories would be dual to each other—two mathematically equivalent languages for describing the same reality. Physicists could study each phenomenon using whichever language that makes it easier to understand.

If this description sounds familiar, go watch the video I posted on the Möbius Transformations post.

While there is no direct mention of "consciousness" in this model either, on a meta-level, it does seem to lurk there in the background, in that it allows for the choice of which "mathematically equivalent language" to use.

E8 and "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything"

The Telegraph has an article about Garrett Lisi and his "Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" (.pdf).

[Lisi] has high hopes that his new theory could provide what he says is a "radical new explanation" for the three decade old Standard Model, which weaves together three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force; the strong force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; and the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.

The reason for the excitement is that Lisi's model also takes account of gravity, a force that has only successfully been included by a rival and highly fashionable idea called string theory, one that proposes particles are made up of minute strings, which is highly complex and elegant but has lacked predictions by which to do experiments to see if it works.

Lisi maps his model onto a structure known as "E8" (in the picture above).

E8 encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional. Lisi says "I think our universe is this beautiful shape."

What makes E8 so exciting is that Nature also seems to have embedded it at the heart of many bits of physics. One interpretation of why we have such a quirky list of fundamental particles is because they all result from different facets of the strange symmetries of E8.

That's a lot of dimensions, but it should be pointed out that they're not all spatial and temporal.

Unfortunately, my last good math teacher was in the seventh grade. I can't tell you whether Lisi is on to something or not, but it certainly sounds cool. I would, of course, like to know how consciousness fits into this model.

Additional commentary on the model at Not Even Wrong, and Back Re(Action).

Lisi also has a wiki.

In Dreams...

NPR recently ran a story on Talk of the Nation about dreams and nightmares. Natalie Angier and Kelly Bulkeley were guests, talking about negative dream emotions and nightmares.

In other dream related news, the idea that dreams are a process of "memory dumping" seems to be getting a bit of play again, thanks to a recent study by the University of Arizona.

According to Scientific American,

The scientists implanted electrodes in the brains of rats, surveying the activity of up to 120 neurons (nerve cells) in the medial prefrontal cortex (a forebrain region responsible for goal-oriented executive functions such as organizing thoughts and actions) while the animals completed a navigational task, scampering between spots in sequence on a circular table top. The research team monitored the rats' brain activity daily for a few weeks as they scurried to complete the 50-minute running session and then napped for 20 minutes to an hour.

Using two different methods—comparing the activity between pairs of cells and surveying patterns over the entire population of monitored neurons—the team noted that neuronal activity sequences that occurred when the rats were running seemed to reappear during sleep.

While it seems pretty obvious to me that dreams are about a bit more than memories (because if my dreams were based on my memories, my life would be far more entertaining and interesting than it is), one interesting bit might be the idea that perhaps the process that the UA team is describing is happening during sleep, but not during dreaming. Additionally, they found that:

Not only were the same patterns reactivated while snoozing, but the replay would take place six to seven times faster than when the rats performed the task...

This replay phenomenon has previously been shown in the hippocampus, a forebrain structure involved in episodic memory, and in the visual cortex, where sensory information related to sight is processed. Euston believes the process may be related to plasticity, the strengthening and weakening of connections between of nerve cells that is thought to underlie learning.

Möbius Transformations made easy

Science News Online has an article about a video put together by Douglas N. Arnold and Jonathan Rogness illustrating the beauty of Möbius Transformations.

A Möbius transformation alters an entire plane. To understand the transformation, it helps to focus on a square that lies on the plane. A Möbius transformation can alter the square in any of four ways. The first three ways aren't too hard to picture: the transformation can move a square around on the plane, expand or contract the square, or rotate it.

The fourth alteration is especially intriguing. A Möbius transformation can turn the square inside out. The Arnold-Rogness video illustrates this process beautifully, showing how points that start close to the square's center are sent far outward, while points near the edge of the square move toward the center.

Video below:

not the thing from Scanners

I've been away from the blog again. The big news is I've just been accepted into a PhD program. This means I need to get more work done on my Masters thesis, so I can move on to my next endeavors.

Something crossed my path a few days ago about "Exploding Head Syndrome." It seems that lately there are "syndromes" and "disorders" for just about everything, but this one made me chuckle. I thought of that bit from Scanners, but as it would turn out, "EHS" is something far cooler.

Per Wikipedia, "Exploding Head Syndrome"

causes the sufferer to occasionally experience a tremendously loud noise as if from within his or her own head, usually described as an explosion, roar or a ringing noise. This usually occurs within an hour or two of falling asleep, but is not the result of a dream and can happen during the day as well. Although perceived as tremendously loud, the noise is usually not accompanied by pain. Attacks appear to increase and decrease in frequency over time, with several attacks occurring in a space of days or weeks followed by months of remission. Sufferers often feel a sense of fear and anxiety after an attack, accompanied by elevated heart rate. Attacks are also often accompanied by perceived flashes of light (when perceived on their own, known as a 'visual sleep start') or difficulty in breathing. The condition is also known as 'auditory sleep starts.' It is not thought to be dangerous, although it is sometimes distressing to experience.

While I've never had the auditory "bang," I do normally get flashes of light as I enter hypnagogia.

mmm....braaaaiiiins....

Seems to be a slow news week again. Of course the last time I said that, I was flooded with stuff to post about.

In any event, there is this:

brusnichka.com (the "cheerful blog") has posted a series of photos from an abandoned brain research facility in Russia.

The photos are safe for work, slightly disturbing at times, and some have moments of true artistry.

Enjoy.

New LSD study and other Psychotropic news...

MAPS reports:

Dr. Peter Gasser's MAPS-sponsored study evaluating LSD-assisted psychotherapy for subjects with anxiety secondary to advanced-stage illness received final Ethics Committee (Swiss IRB equivalent) approval on October 30 and SwissMedic (Swiss FDA equivalent) clearance on November 8.

This is the first to evaluate LSD's therapeutic applications in over 35 years.

Also, MindHacks has a brief meditation on Absinthe.

False Memories (continued)

A while back, I'd posted a bit about a false memory case that had made the news.

Science Daily recently reported on research done by Roberto Cabeza at Duke University into the nature of false memories.

The article, titled Why False Memories Sometimes Feel Like They Are Absolutely True, details work that Cabeza did with an fMRI device, and the medial temporal lobe (MTL) of the brain, and the frontal parietal network (FPN).

Information retrieved from memory is simultaneously processed in two specific regions of the brain, each of which focuses on a different aspect of a past event. The medial temporal lobe (MTL), located at the base of the brain, focuses on specific facts about the event. The frontal parietal network (FPN), located at the top of the brain, is more likely to process the global gist of the event.

The specific brain area accessed when one tries to remember something can ultimately determine whether or not we think the memory is true or false, the researchers found.

According to the article, there are serious possibilities to apply this research to the understanding of Alzheimer's.

INLAND EMPIRE

I finally snuck a few hours away from my Masters thesis last night to watch INLAND EMPIRE, the latest from David Lynch.

(Lynch prefers the title in all-caps)

Well, that was a doozy. I've been a Lynch fan for years. This one continues his meditations on the fluidity of identity and reality that in many ways started showing up in Twin Peaks, and got more and more fluid in Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr.

24 hours later, the film is still with me. If you were to ask me what it was about, I think the best reply I could give you would be "179 minutes."

The film has plots within plots within hallucinations within dreams within plots within plots. Parts of the film are incredibly beautiful. Parts are horrific, yet within that, there, too, is beauty. I have a feeling I'll be watching it a few more times to let start unraveling it. Yet, part of me just wants to let it sit, and reveal itself to me slowly, through my own dreams, and in waking, when I least expect it.

The dvd features a second disc with an additional 75 minutes, called "More Things that Happened." This is more than your usual deleted scenes type feature. It runs almost as a counterpoint to the main 179 minutes, and only deepens the intricate intertwining of realities and unrealities and meta-realities.

This is a movie that I suspect a lot of people will hate. For me, though, it is a welcome addition to Lynch's body of work, and I take great pleasure in jumping into the epistemological and ontological whirlpools he creates.

Beautiful, dense, horrific, and emotionally painful at times. My hat is off to Laura Dern for her performance(s) in this one. I think I'd need a few years of therapy after this.

Also worth checking out on the dvd is the short feature Quinoa, which, if you ever wondered what a David Lynch cooking show would be like, now's your chance to find out. Lynch shares his favorite quinoa recipe, and shows that there can be deeply ominous and sinister overtones to even the simplest of tasks.

After watching that, I'd allow him to prepare dinner for me anytime.

I realize this post is somewhat of a departure from what I usually put on here, but let's just consider it a follow-up to this post, shall we?

November MAPS News Update + Conference Announcement

MAPS - The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies has posted their November News Update.

Among the many links in their news update is word of this conference:

World Psychedelic Forum
Change of Consciousness:
A Challenge of the 21st Century

Basel, Switzerland. At the World Psychedelic Forum, which will take place from 21st to 24th March 2008 at the Congress Center Basel, more than fifty experts from all over the world will inform about and discuss the multi-dimensional aspects of consciousness expanding substances, and will present their tremendous potential for self-awareness and for the change of consciousness.

Psychedelics have been widely used for thousands of years nearly everywhere on the planet. Psychoactive plants have been central to most ancient sacred rituals and primitive medical treatments. They have been worshipped in all cultures as "Plants of the Gods" and considered as mediators between human beings and the universe, linking the physical to the spiritual dimensions of existence.

In January 2006 the International Symposium "LSD – Problem Child and Wonder Drug" took place at the occasion of the 100th birthday of Dr. Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD. Several thousand visitors and more than 200 media people from 37 countries gathered in Basel to hear lectures from scientists and historians, to exchange ideas and disseminate information. It was the biggest conference of its kind worldwide. For the first time since the turbulent 1960s, a wide range of psychedelic issues and topics has been brought back to public discussion and re-evaluation.

The World Psychedelic Forum will expand upon this renewed interest, presenting a unique opportunity for experts, researchers, and interested persons from all around the globe, to exchange views and hear presentations of the latest research on the value of these remarkable psychedelic substances in medicine, psychology, science, religion, culture and the arts.
The term "psychedelic" is derived from the Greek "psyche" (soul) and "delos" (manifest), and means a state in which the soul manifests itself. It was coined in 1956 by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond, in a now-famous exchange with writer Aldous Huxley; both recognized the potential of these compounds for self-awareness, and their correspondence to psychoactive plants held sacred for millennia.

Albert Hofmann experienced the extraordinary mental effects of LSD in the context of his work as a chemist in 1943. He so was placing a cornerstone for new insights and knowledge about by the time unexplored consciousness expanding substances. The following decade saw the publication of thousands of research papers about the nature and the effects of LSD, mescaline and psilocybin. But when LSD got out of the laboratories and "out of control", to be used for self-exploration by 1960s youth, Western governments generally declared psychoactive substances a menace, claimed it had no psychological, educational or therapeutic value, and linked it to dangerous and addictive narcotics. With a compliant mainstream media that sensationalized and parroted the official drug policy, the "authorities" not only prohibited research on these sacred compounds but criminalized the users, a situation that has prevailed ever since, except for example in the Netherlands and in Switzerland, and although inroads have been made in recent years that will be one of the many themes of this conference.
The classic psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin from magic mushrooms, mescaline from peyote and ayahuasca – the Amazonian "Vine of the Soul" – are not drugs in the medical sense but belong, according to Albert Hofmann "concerning their chemical structure and their pharmacological effects, to the sacred substances, re-discovered through LSD, and used in ritual settings for thousands of years." They are characterized by the fact that they are neither toxic nor addictive, and have the power to bestow benefits of both practical and transcendental value.
The global youth movement, that peaked some forty years ago with the "Summer of Love", was fueled by psychedelics. A historical view shows, that the "consciousness-expanded" hippie counterculture exerted an enduring influence on society. Without the soul-opening and sensory stimulus of psychedelics, many of the social, cultural and ecological advances taken for granted today would be absent from our lives.

At the World Psychedelic Forum more than fifty experts from all over the world will bear witness to, and shine light upon the multi-dimensional psychedelic experience with its tremendous potential for expanding consciousness and for self-awareness. We will hear of the renewal of research that foretells a promising future when psychedelic plants and their synthetic derivatives will reclaim their destined position as incomparably valuable tools for individual and collective evolution and thus supporting the needed consciousness change for humanity.

The general headline for Friday, 21st March will be The Psychedelic Experience: Opening the Doors of Perception

On Saturday, 22nd March, we will shed light on The Legacy of the Shamans: Ancient Traditions and New Dimensions

Sunday, 23rd March is all about Change of Consciousness: A Challenge of the 21st Century

The World Psychedelic Forum welcomes the elite of the international consciousness researchers, among them Rick Doblin, Stanislav Grof, Ralph Metzner, Jeremy Narby, Daniel Pinchbeck, Thomas B. Roberts, Christian Rätsch, as well as Alexander and Ann Shulgin. But also prominent artists and contemporary witnesses like "Mountain Girl" Carolyn Garcia or visionary painter Alex Grey will come to Basel, to give account about their personal experiences with psychedelics and its influence on art and culture. In addition more than 30 papers and dissertations from young scientists from various countries will be presented. LSD discoverer Albert Hofmann will attend the conference as a guest of honor.

Program Flow
Each morning will begin with a "Tune-in", a meditative-musical start into the program. Afterwards, as well as in the early afternoons, the plenary events "Panorama" will be presented: with short talks a moderator and several speakers will illustrate the day’s topics in order to give the audience reference points for easy navigation through the dense program of the day. Before noon, in the early and in the late afternoon, 40 and 90-minute seminars, panels, and workshops will be staged. There will be three blocks of 3 to 4 presentations each. At the end of most lectures the speakers will be available in the foyer of the Congress Center for follow-up discussions or individual conversations.
A rich supporting program will be presented in the foyer of the Congress Center from Friday to Sunday, with discussions, exhibits, shows and films.
On Monday, 24 March, day- and half-day seminars will take place with Alex and Allyson Grey, Stanislav Grof, Ralph Metzner and Manuel Schoch.

Patrons are the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), USA, The Beckley Foundation, UK, consulting the UN for drug matters, and the Swiss Medical Association for Psycholytic Therapy (SAEPT).

The World Psychedelic Forum will be presented by the Gaia Media Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to the communication and networking of information for a holistic and up to date understanding of our existence, and the potential of human consciousness, and its expanded states. Under the motto The Spirit of Basel the foundation organizes local and international events.

Information and Registration
Spirit - Congresses and Events
Neuweilerstrasse 15
CH - 4054 Basel
Switzerland
P +41 61 302 12 36
F +41 61 383 97 21
info@psychedelic.info
www.psychedelic.info

Press Office
World Psychedelic Forum
Neuweilerstrasse 15
CH 4054 Basel
Switzerland
P + 41 61 383 97 22
F + 41 61 383 97 21
presse@spirit-services.ch

Conference: Proof of an Afterlife?

San Francisco Conference: Proof of an Afterlife? Jan. 19-20, 2008

Forever Family Foundation to present Investigations of Consciousness and the Unseen World.

Forever Family Foundation, a non-profit, non-sectarian organization that supports the premise that life does not end with physical death, announces a groundbreaking conference that will bring together world-renowned scientists, medical doctors, researchers, and mediums with a goal of educating the general public. The conference, scheduled for January 19-20, 2008 at the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center, will help raise awareness among the general public about the extensive research of consciousness and its implications that we survive our physical deaths.

"This will be the first scientific conference of its kind geared to general audiences," said Robert Ginsberg, co-founder of Forever Family Foundation, "One of our goals at Forever Family Foundation is to further the understanding of life after physical death. Mainstream science has historically ignored the study of consciousness, and we have brought together experts who are at the forefront of such research who will present evidence that our minds are not dependent on our brains."

The two-day conference is designed for the public rather than a scientific audience. The speakers will present bodies of evidence on near-death experiences, reincarnation, the nature of consciousness, quantum physics, ghosts and apparitions, afterlife encounters, mediumship, and other phenomena that suggest an existence beyond our physical lives.

"It is time for the scientific community to bring survival of consciousness research out of the labs, files, peer review journals, and private conferences," said Dianne Arcangel, President of Forever Family Foundation. "By bringing our findings into the public arena, we offer comfort to the bereaved as well as necessary education and hope to the masses."

Confirmed Presenters:
Dr. Fred Alan Wolf - Physicist, author, lecturer, and What the Bleep contributor

Dr. Dean Radin - Consciousness researcher, author, and senior scientist at I.O.N.S.

Dr. Gary Schwartz - Investigations of mediumship, professor, author of The Afterlife Experiments.

Dr. Bruce Greyson - Researcher of near-death experiences, medical doctor, author

Dr. Jim Tucker - Reincarnation studies, medical doctor, author of Life Before Life

Dr. Arthur Hastings - Psychomanteum research, author, and professor

Loyd Auerbach, M.S. - Apparitions, professor, author, and paranormal investigator

Dianne Arcangel, M.S. - Afterlife encounter research, author of Afterlife Encounters

Robert Brown - Demonstration of mediumship, author, and lecturer

Hollister Rand - Demonstration of mediumship, integration of science and music

Admission: $225-275 (join FFF for free online and pay lower price)
Conference website: www.foreverfamilyfoundation.org/SanFrancisco.htm

In addition to the two-day conference, Forever Family Foundation also announces a psychic entertainment event, Mindreading by the Bay. This special fundraising event will feature Loyd Auerbach, Professor Paranormal, and a surprise guest. Tickets to this separate event are $25-$45 and are not included with the conference admission.

dealing with the nattering nabobs of negativity

I am involved in researching the nature of consciousness, both waking, and dreaming.

As this is a somewhat "out there" field, in many respects, it is rather misunderstood. Interestingly enough, people seem to have a better idea of what I'm doing if I focus mainly on the dream research.

While most people I talk to find my interests fascinating, I do occasionally get hit with people who smugly proclaim that my fields of interest are a load of crap. They want to lump me together with any number of other "fringe" fields that usually involve things like crystals or pyramids or UFOs and such, and won't hear otherwise.

Depending on my mood, or the level of engagement I think I can expect from the naysayer, I might respond in-depth, or I might shrug, smile, and walk away. If they've figured out how reality works, good for them! I'm not prepared to make that statement just yet.

In any event, Michael Prescott has an excellent post about dealing with these people, ("Invalidators") and the dangers of allowing oneself to be defined by others.

In effect, the Invalidator says, "You don't really believe what you're saying" (you're lying) or "You can't possibly think that way" (you're delusional) or "You have no basis for feeling that way" (you're breaking the rules).

...It is very disconcerting to be told that you don't matter -- that an opinion you've just expressed "can't be taken seriously," or that "nobody could believe" what you said you believe. People who express these criticisms are saying that you can't be taken seriously and that you are a nobody. It's difficult for the average person to recover instantly from such an aggressive assault.

What's even worse is when Invalidators start telling you what you're "really" thinking or feeling. "You just believe that because ______."

Fill in the blank with any negative psychological diagnosis. Worst of all is when the Invalidator claims that you believe the exact opposite of what you're professing. This tactic is not uncommon and is doubly invalidating, since it not only identifies an ulterior motive for your statements, but discovers "evidence" of hypocrisy and deceit, as well.

These tactics are what are known as ad hominem attacks, and are pretty easy to spot if you turn on FoxNews, or start reading publications by CSICOP.

In any event, it's a great post, and a great reminder about the wisdom in knowing when and how to choose your battles, and choose them wisely.

more Magnetic Fields

Public Parapsychology offers up the third and final part to a primer on geomagnetic and electromagnetic fields and their possible correlations to haunting experiences.

Also in the news, is this story from the BBC, announcing the creation of the first World Digital Magnetic Anomaly Map (WDMAM).

Personally, I look forward to seeing if there are any correlates between spots on the map, and rates of incidence of reports of hauntings.

thought police

George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 is well-known for its visions of what a totalitarian future might look like.

Among Orwell's predictions were the Thought Police, a law enforcement agency charged with arresting people who had thoughts contrary to those approved by the State.

With fMRI Brain Scan techniques providing more and more detailed images of the how the brain processes thoughts, it is perhaps sadly inevitable that this technology may have uses beyond the simple mapping of neural activity and correlates of conscious experience.

Popular Mechanics has a lengthy article about how fMRI scans might be one day be abused.

In the past decade, a wave of researchers using scans has laid bare the rough schematics of how our brains handle fear, memory, risk-taking, romantic love and other mental processes. Soon, the technology could go even further, pulling back the curtain guarding our most private selves. Indeed, boosters say, a nearly foolproof lie detector based on brain scanning is just around the corner.

If they’re right, then there may come a day when others—the government, employers, even your spouse—might turn to technology to determine whether you are a law-abiding citizen, a promising new hire or a faithful partner. But skeptics say that talk of mind-reading machines is nothing more than hype. “They’re marketing snake oil,” says Yale University psychiatry professor Andy Morgan. “We’ve been really skeptical of the science. But even if it works, it raises interesting questions about Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. Is [an involuntary fMRI scan] illegal search and seizure since something was taken from you without your permission? And how do you protect your right not to incriminate yourself if people have a way of asking your brain questions, and you can’t say no or refuse to answer? These are some serious questions we have to begin to ask.”

With any new technology comes responsibility, and this article is thought provoking. At what point do we choose to draw the line in how technology is used? While I am firmly in favor of scientific inquiry, and technologies that will assist in the endeavor, the use of these technologies need to be tempered by ethics and morals. As fMRI technology is refined, a set of rules for its usage will soon be an imperative.

The Secret Life of Plants part two

I'd posted about some vegetative coolness a while back. In unrelated news, Wired recently paid a visit to the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology, where Professor Stefano Mancuso is busy studying plant intelligence.

"If you define intelligence as the capacity to solve problems, plants have a lot to teach us," says Mancuso, dressed in harmonizing shades of his favorite color: green. "Not only are they 'smart' in how they grow, adapt and thrive, they do it without neuroses. Intelligence isn't only about having a brain."

... In addition to studies on the effects of music on vineyards, the center's researchers have also published papers on gravity sensing, plant synapses and long-distance signal transmission in trees. One important offshoot of the research activity is an international symposium on plant neurobiology. Next year's meeting will be held in Japan.

more here.

soon

Things have been rather chaotic the last few days, and I haven't had time to make any posts.

That said, there should be a nice set of updates this evening.

But first, I have some work to do on my Masters thesis.

stay tuned!

Brain Dynamics Underlying the Nonlinear Threshold for Access to Consciousness

PLoS, the Public Library of Science, hosts a variety of peer reviewed open access journals (including my new favorite - the PLoS Journal of Neglected Tropical Diseases).

The current issue of PLoS Biology features an article by Stanislas Dehaene and fellow researchers studying brain activation using EEG equipment to understand the neural mechanisms that distinguish between conscious and nonconscious processes.

From the introduction:

One of the most obvious and yet unexplained properties of conscious perception is the existence of a threshold for conscious access: when a stimulus is flashed and followed by a backward mask, subjects do not report perceiving it until the target-mask interval exceeds a threshold duration [1,2]. Below-threshold—or “subliminal”—stimuli receive complex perceptual and even semantic processing [3–6], but for an unknown reason, these processes remain inaccessible to consciousness. Understanding the neural mechanisms that distinguish such conscious and nonconscious processes remains a crucial issue in cognitive neuroscience. We used high-density recordings of event-related potentials (ERPs) to ask several questions: (1) What sequence of activations is evoked by subliminal masked stimuli? (2) What additional sequence of brain events leads a stimulus to cross the threshold for conscious reportability? (3) At what time does this access to conscious report occur?

Rest of the article here, or as a .pdf.

David Lynch, epistemological impulsivity, and more...

In an online-only article, the journal The Psychologist looks at the parallels between Lynch's film Inland Empire, and how it might "offer some insight into the feeling of what it is like to suffer from psychosis."

Inland Empire’s dark and chilling world is produced in part by David Lynch’s use of story. While fear is generated with genuinely unsettling imagery and dark shadowy lighting, it also comes from the carefully managed attrition of any recognisable storyline. The audience, who have been led through the early stages of the plot with some of the conventional devices of storytelling (coherent dialogue, linear chronology) are suddenly thrown into a world of unfamiliar film cuts, unexplained locations and wordless acting. We are forced to jump to our own conclusions and build what narrative we will from scant concrete evidence as to events. Our sense of sense itself forces us to put something together and, given the presence of ominous emotions and apparent malice, what we put together is a paranoid and terrifying vision of the intentions of the characters in the film and even the world we inhabit.

In short, Lynch uses our natural epistemological impulsivity against us to generate fear: in this case the human proclivity to build story from elements that may or may not actually be bound as a conventional narrative.

...The disorientation engendered by the experience of hallucinations is another tool in David Lynch’s armoury. In Inland Empire, sequences from dreams and earlier versions of the film being shot by Jeremy Irons’ director character are interspersed with footage of the ‘reality’ in which Laura Dern is an actress making ‘High on Blue Tomorrows’. This idea of showing multiple levels of reality is a characteristic of Lynch films. Unlike other directors he goes to great lengths to disorient the viewer by removing the conventional indictors that normally signpost the transition from one text world to another (Werth, 1999). This tendency to remove the tools that allow audiences to monitor the source of what they are witnessing may elicit an experience that resembles the psychotic patient being ‘taken in’ by their hallucinations.

I'm a big fan of Lynch's work (though I'm probably the only person I know who wasn't that fond of Wild at Heart, and one of the few who liked Lost Highway). I find his films are best watched late at night, usually around 11pm at the earliest. I've had Inland Empire on my shelf for a few weeks now, waiting for the right moment. I suspect that moment might be soon.

video goodies

Some video links have also crossed my path lately, as well.

First up, ted.com has a video by V.S. Ramachandran: A Journey to the Center of Your Mind.

In a wide-ranging talk, Vilayanur Ramachandran explores how brain damage can reveal the connection between the internal structures of the brain and the corresponding functions of the mind. He talks about phantom limb pain, synesthesia (when people hear color or smell sounds), and the Capgras delusion, when brain-damaged people believe their closest friends and family have been replaced with imposters.

Next up, Google Video has all three parts of Jon Ronson's Crazy Rulers of the World series (originally produced for Channel 4), which is based in part on his book The Men Who Stare at Goats. I enjoyed Ronson's earlier book, Them: Adventures with Extremists, and found The Men Who Stare at Goats to be the weaker of the two. Ronson writes with entertainment in mind, and can occasionally be a little snarky. That aside, Goats does offer a fascinating look at some of the more interesting intersections between government military spending and the paranormal.

The Crazy Rulers videos are described as follows:

The three-part series begins with The Men Who Stare at Goats, which charts the history of a secret US Army unit founded in 1979 - the First Earth Battalion.

The programme uncovers the startling truth about this unit's involvement with paranormal activities that defy all known accepted military practice, including mind reading, out of body experiences and 'thought-death' experiments carried out on goats at Fort Bragg.

In programme two, Jon Ronson reveals how the New Age movement of the 1980s has influenced interrogation at Guantanamo Bay and in post-war Iraq.

The final episode looks into the military's involvement with remote viewing and mind control experiments.

In other Ronson related news, The Daily Grail reports that he recently took on Sylvia Browne.

just because you can...doesn't mean you should

The Guardian has a list of the most bizarre experiments carried out in the name of science.

Some of these are downright gruesome, others are truly bizarre, and odd.

One from virtually "down the road" from where I used to live in Ohio:

Clarence Leuba, a psychologist from Yellow Springs, Ohio, set out to discover whether laughing when tickled was a learned or spontaneous reaction, and commandeered his newborn son and later daughter into the study.

Lawrence LeShan also made the cut:

Then there was Lawrence LeShan, a researcher from Virginia who in 1942 stood in a room of sleeping boys repeating the phrase "My fingernails taste terribly bitter" to see if he could break their nailbiting habit while they slept.

I've been biting my nails since I was 4 years old, and I have a couple of LeShan's books on my shelf. Hmmm.

Though, The Guardian does a nice quick and dirty summary, the full article with all the gory details can be found in the latest issue of New Scientist. Once again, you'll need to be a subscriber to the print version in order to enjoy it on your computer screen as well.

More Alleged OBE Induction Makes the News

Forbes was the first place I saw this, and I think it got picked up by the AP this morning. There is a story going around that "Scientists Spot Brain Center for 'Out-of-Body-Experience," to borrow the Forbes title.

Once again, we have a misleading title that will only add fuel to the fire that "it's all in the brain."

Annalisa did an excellent job tackling another recent report, and I have a few bones to pick with this one.

A team of Belgian scientists have linked the sense of disembodiment central to the experience -- the feeling of leaving one's body and then floating outside it -- to abnormal activity in a specific region of the brain.

This activity appears to short-circuit the processing of sensory information and the ability to locate oneself in time and space, the team said.

"Self-perception is nothing else but a creation of your brain," explained study lead author and neurosurgeon Dr. Dirk De Ridder, of the neurosurgical department at Antwerp University. "We found a key spot in the brain in which different areas are normally activated whenever stimulus comes in, so you can relate that stimulus to yourself, which helps create a unified perception of ourselves."

"The 'total perception of self,' " he added, "is built out of different parts. And one of these parts is that your consciousness belongs within your body."

"But when something goes wrong in that brain area so that the integration of all the incoming information -- sight, sound, smell, the senses -- is not happening as it should, then you can feel that you're not in your body," De Ridder said. "You can get an out-of-body experience. You're perfectly conscious. But you just feel as if you're not actually sitting in your body."

There are a few immediate problems here. "Self-perception is nothing else but a creation of your brain" is a VERY big statement. While the brain may facilitate self-perception, creating it is another thing entirely. By starting with this assumption, there is an immediate bias to any sort of experiment hoping to find out more about OBEs. In fact, at that point, researching OBEs becomes pointless.

One interesting thing to point out is De Ridder's comment "you just feel as if you're not actually sitting in your body." I would like to highlight the "as if" part, as I think it's crucial to this experiment, as I understand it.

De Ridder's team discovered what they believe is a hardwired connection between the out-of-body experience and specific abnormal brain activity. They did so while observing the unanticipated side-effects of a treatment offered to a 63-year-old Belgian patient suffering from tinnitus, more commonly known as "ringing in the ears."

Electrodes were implanted in the patient's head.

Unfortunately, stimulation of the electrodes failed to halt the ear-ringing. However, in the process of doing so, the attending physicians found that the patient repeatedly experienced what he described as an out-of-body experience.

By monitoring the use of a patient-controlled button pressed at the start and end of each experience, researchers found that within one second following electrode stimulation to the brain, out-of-body experiences were provoked -- each lasting from 15 to 21 seconds an episode.

While at no time causing any alteration in his sense of consciousness, during each episode, the patient consistently reported feeling disembodied to a specific location -- namely about 20 inches behind his body and to the left. The perception remained the same, regardless of whether the patient was standing or lying down during electrode stimulation.

At no time did the patient report the sense that he was watching his actual body from another place -- a phenomenon known as autoscopy. Rather, he said that throughout each out-of-body episode, he visually perceived the world as usual -- from the vantage point of his actual body. At the same time, however, he continued to feel as if his body was located elsewhere.

So, we have a sensory confusion, at best. The patient is noting a consistent position of his body about 20 inches to his perceived left, yet was perceiving the world consistently from the vantage point of his actual (presumably physical) body.

While interesting, and most likely confusing for the patient, I don't quite see how this counts as an OBE. What they are terming autoscopy has been a pretty consistent characteristic of OBEs throughout history, or again, at least as I've always understood them. I'm not discounting that something weird happened for the patient. I've had similar experiences at the dentist, under nitrous oxide.

At the end of the article, Paul Sanberg, director of the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair with the University of South Florida's College of Medicine in Tampa weighs in:

"I imagine if you can stimulate a part of the brain that has been found to control where we are in space and orientation and our sense of body, it could give a sense of being out of our body," he said. "It could give us a sense that we are somewhere else. Perhaps not a real out-of-body experience. But a perceptual experience, nonetheless."

I am inclined to take this position as well. What has been brought out in De Ridder's experiments is an interesting perceptual experience. But not an OBE.

De Ridder's original work on the subject appears in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

upcoming conferences

The Julian Jaynes Society is announcing their biennial conference.

Tentative Dates: August 7–9, 2008
Charlottetown, PEI, Canada

Keynote Address: To Be Announced

The Julian Jaynes Conference on Consciousness was created as part of the Julian Jaynes Memorial Endowment at the University of Prince Edward Island. This fund was established to create a lasting tribute to the late Princeton professor and author, and long-time PEI resident, and to fulfill his legacy to support and encourage the study of consciousness.

The conference is coordinated by Dr. Scott Greer at the University of Prince Edward Island Psychology Department. It is the only consciousness-related conference endorsed by the Julian Jaynes Society.

Also, the Second Annual International Brain Conference is coming up soon, too.

Combining the latest research foci and treatment modalities, the Second Annual International Brain Conference at UCF offers physicians, scientists, pharmaceuticals, medical device manufacturers, nurses, allied medical professionals and students the opportunity to learn about the absolute latest in brain research and practice. Participants will also be able to earn Continuing Medical & Psychological credits.

Held at UCF’s beautiful Rosen College of Hospitality Management in the heart of Orlando’s tourist district, the Second International Brain Conference at UCF features keynote speaker Dr. Konrad Beyreuther, recipient of the Potamkin Prize and the Henry M. Wisniewski Award for Lifetime Achievement in Alzheimer’s Disease Research. Beyreuther’s work laid the foundation for understanding the molecular processes that lead to Alzheimer’s Disease.

On opening night Special Guest Mark McEwen, weatherman and entertainment reporter on the CBS Early Show for 16 years, will tell his inspiring personal story: “Stroke: My Recovery Story and the Regenerative Powers of Hope and Rehabilitation.”

Take advantage of early registration rates that end December 1. Special rates are also available for ADI members. Register now at www.brainconference.org or call 407-882-1576 for more information.