The Author
"We are living in an era of growing uncertainty and insecurity that is
challenging all our beliefs and assumptions. In these troubled times it
is crucial that we acquire some understanding of just who we are as a
species, why we exist and how best we may order our lives and societies
within the universal scheme of things."
- Eugene D. A. Bell-Gam
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Excerpts from ..
INTRODUCTION |
RELIGION ON ORIGIN |
SCIENCE ON ORIGIN 1 |
SCIENCE ON ORIGIN 2 |
FOCUSING ON PURPOSE |
SOLAR LABORATORY THEORY |
IMPLICATIONS OF THE THEORY |
The Solar Laboratory Theory
[abridged excerpts]
An Expendable Experiment
When all the information available is considered logically, one is
driven to the inescapable conclusion that perhaps the solar system is a
giant laboratory in which our earth contains 'active' experiments and
other planets provide both 'inactive' controls and variable influences.
In this scenario the sun is the essential catalyst providing magnetic
cohesion, light, heat etc. to kick off and sustain the whole theatre.
Life forms and the dynamic environment they exist in are the active
experiments providing continuous feedback for the benefit of an
extra-cosmic intelligence. Sophisticated monitoring, information
gathering, data relay, and storage processes link back to an
extra-cosmic processing centre.
The mortality of all organisms is a
clear indication of our ultimate expendability. The birth and death
cycle guarantees a steady stream of new organisms that will have unique
experiences and provide a wide range of differing feedback from
generation to generation ...
... These propositions are not as far-fetched as they might appear. Humans
operate more modest laboratories all the time that involve the
manipulation of other animals. We regard these creatures as being
expendable and use them for our own advancement. We have even created
robots to carry out labour-saving tasks as well as intelligent
investigations ...
... The scientific evidence and observable natural phenomena that provide
the basis for my hypothesis are outlined in subsequent sections under
the following headings:
Recording Data - Animal Memory
Timing Mechanisms
Sleep
Dreams
Memory Consolidation and Storage
Memory Retrieval
Consciousness: The Mind-Brain
Death
Quantum Unreality
Influencing Mechanisms
Recording Data - Memory
... Animals experience life both via physical
senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, and via non-physical
emotions and perceptions ... Animals are the perfect tools for information gathering
on earth.
What constitutes memory? [56]
Researchers in Biological Psychology and Neuroscience have identified
different memory types, functions, stages, and processes ...
Indications are that different regions of the brain control the recall
of different aspects of memory ...
How and where is memory formed and stored? [57]
It is thought that there are at least two distinct memory formation and
storage stages: a short-term store for initial encoded memory and a
long-term store for later consolidated memory. Canadian psychologist
Donald Hebb first proposed this two-stage consolidation theory in 1949 ...
... Researchers have since discovered a molecular process .... [that]
has been labelled Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) ...
... it is generally accepted that
LTP is far from sufficient to explain memory storage. No one knows for
sure exactly where short-term memory is held in the interim, or where
our enormous databank of long-term memory is stored permanently ...
... there is no anatomical evidence to support the existence of
different memory systems, or memory storage, in the brain ...
Timing Mechanisms
We know from human experience that we switch off self-running things
temporarily:
when they are not in immediate use
when they need to be serviced/repaired
when they are required for study or examination.
Is there evidence that living organisms are being switched on and off?
Remarkably the answer is positive ...
... Chronobiology, the study of biological rhythms, is now an
established scientific field ...
... It all suggests that there is far more to biological timing
mechanisms than mere physiological needs. [60]
Sleep
When we conduct an experiment with organisms, we collect information at
regular intervals while the specimens are alive. Death is final and can
yield little other than information on the decay process. If we could
'read' the minds and memory of laboratory animals, there would be no
better time than during sleep; that naturally recurring state in which
normal physical activity and consciousness are suspended.
Since we spend approximately one third of our lives in sleep it is
reasonable to assume that an extra-cosmic observer of life as a whole
would do the same. But what is the evidence that this is occurring? ...
Sleep Stages
... Five stages are now recognised by sleep researchers [62]
... Strangely, after Stage 4 is reached,
Stages 3 and 2 are repeated in that order before the onset of REM
sleep. Hence a normal sleep cycle looks something like this:
Stage 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 < 3 < 2 > 5 (REM)
There is no rational explanation why we should experience more
than one sleep cycle per night [63] ...
No one knows why the sleep sequence is so strange, or exactly what the
signals are for transition between phases ...
Dreaming
... As we have seen dreaming occurs most vividly during REM sleep, although
some researchers hold that this condition is not an exclusive
prerequisite [72]. One of the distinct features of REM sleep is the
absolute stillness of the body. During most stages of sleep we toss and
turn, but in REM sleep only the eye and middle ear muscles twitch.
Curiously, the brain appears to actually turn itself on even though the
dreamer remains unaware and unconscious ...
Why do we dream?
Theories on the functions of dreaming abound ... practitioners
from Sigmund Freud (1900) and Jung (1933) to Foulkes (1985) have
attempted to show that dreams are linked to emotional and intellectual
problem solving ... What no one has shown clearly is exactly how a dream can
operate to solve such problems. [74]
After exhaustive investigation and several suggestions, most cognitive
neuro-scientists have concluded that dreaming has no useful biological
function ...
Memory Consolidation And Storage
For our purposes, the most exciting theory about sleep and dreaming is
that REM might have the important functions of memory cleaning and
consolidation ...
Permanent Storage
One of the first lessons we are taught when we start using a personal
computer is that, as a precaution against sudden system failure, we
should save or back-up our work frequently on media external to the
computer ...
... It is therefore more than a racing certainty that the permanent
long-term store for animal memory is not located within perishable
mortal bodies ...
... If the storage centre is external just where is it located? Is it
earthbound in another dimension or is it extra-cosmic? How is the data
transmitted? How is it retrieved? Who else has access to our subjective
memories -- especially after death? ...
Storage Mechanisms
We can summarise the persisting questions surrounding sleep as follows:
Why should the brain suddenly turn itself on five stages into sleep?
Why should muscle paralysis occur only at that fifth stage?
Why should the eye and middle ear muscles start twitching so rapidly
while all other muscles remain paralysed?
Why should we go through such a strange sleep sequence reverting from
Stage 4 to Stages 3 and 2 before the onset of Stage 5 REM?
Why should we go through more than one sleep cycle in a single night's
session?
Why should we experience such intense dreams during REM?
Why should sleep deprivation bring on the same cerebral exhaustion we
experience when we cross time zones (jet lag) or use mobile phones?
Why should we wake up so mentally refreshed and with sharply improved
memory recall when the brain has been in a highly active state during
REM?
I submit that the only logical explanation for all of the above taken
together is that they represent evidence of a sophisticated, circadian
process of memory cleaning and consolidation, long-term storage at an
external location, and brain recharging.
Let us objectively examine this breath-taking possibility against the
seven sleep puzzles listed above ...
Consciousness And The Mind-Brain
Our consciousness is perhaps the best definition we have of being
'alive'. Its exact form has continued to defy human understanding ...
... Consciousness used to be a somewhat taboo topic even among
psychologists. But in recent years academics have become more willing
to study consciousness seriously ...
... The issue is not wholly academic -- there are pressing practical
considerations in related fields. For example, exactly when does the
mass of stem cells in a developing embryo receive the spark that
'switches on' subjective consciousness? In other words, when does the
cell mass become a separate entity with sentience (i.e. perception and
feelings) that make it a new human being entitled to the same rights
the law affords all persons? ...
Defining Consciousness
What is the source and form of the internal force or power that
activates life and keeps it going? How does it function? How and why is
it extinguished at death?
Further, there is more to life than computer-like functionality that
can be activated by energy flows. For example, our unique, highly
subjective conscious experiences or qualia gives us a dimension that
goes far beyond computer models. What is the form and source of our
individual and varying perception, reasoning, planning, artistry,
loving, singing, laughter, crying, and response to external stimuli
such as light, sound, smell etc.? How are these produced? Why should
we (essentially physical beings) have these subjective qualia at all? ...
The mind-brain debate
It has long been believed that humans have an 'inner being'; a
non-physical state that most people still refer to as our 'soul' or
'spirit' (the term psyche derives from the Greek word for soul). This
inner state defines our essence and personality through the medium of
the mind ... The precise
relationship between the mind and the brain is yet another mystery that
has spawned many theories ...
Any attempt to describe the mind-brain has to involve an explanation of
the process of thought in particular ... Is there a 'virtual'
mind that operates separately from the physical brain? If so, where is
it located and how does it function? Which aspect is in control -- do
the brain's physiological processes give rise to the mind's functions,
or is it the other way round? Is this mind the same as our
consciousness? Is this mind the source of our life force? If so, how
does it arise in the womb? How is it extinguished at death? ...
... there is a formidable hurdle to the concept
of consciousness as a full or part biological state. If indeed mind
phenomena are brain-based and brain-generated, how can these then
proceed to initiate and control biochemical processes in the brain? In
other words how can something emerge from the brain, manifest itself as
the 'mind', and then take control of the brain from which it emerged?
It would be like a car engine silently and mysteriously creating a
driver who then climbs into the car, starts it, and drives away!
... many scientists have questioned whether our
life force and qualia can ever be explained in terms of pure physical
processes ...
On balance, it seems a fair assumption that there is indeed an external
component to consciousness that is likely to remain beyond human
discovery.
Mastering consciousness in totality will open the door to human control
of the life and death cycle. This will upset the crucial flow of fresh
specimens within the solar laboratory.
Death
... Scientific discussion of non-physical aspects of death is even more
taboo than discussion of consciousness. This is understandable. Death
is not only an uncomfortable reminder of our mortality and the seeming
futility of our existence, it is also an irritating fly in the
theoretical ointment of those materialists who deny the existence of
any abstract form of consciousness outside the brain.
For centuries religious advocates used the fear of death to intimidate
people into compliance with otherwise questionable dogma. By invoking
the idea of a human soul that continued in an afterlife it was possible
to control earthly behaviour ... The denial of
consciousness/death by modern materialists is largely a rejection of
such religious manipulation.
The nature of death
... Before the twentieth century a person was considered 'dead' once they
ceased breathing, returned no heartbeat and appeared to be permanently
unresponsive to stimuli ...
... As technologies developed to sustain physical processes within the
body, the definition of death shifted to disparate notions of 'brain
death' ... But, as advances in neuroscience and cybernetics combine to give us
the ability to manipulate, sustain and even replace brain tissue, the
debate has shifted yet again to just how much of the brain must be lost
irretrievably before a patient can be declared dead ...
... The latest view of brain theorists is that, in future, a definitive
standard of death may no longer be possible in physical terms. Death
will have to be re-defined as irreversible loss of consciousness
instead of irreversible tissue damage. This marks an interesting move
towards separation of mind from brain for a practical medical and
social definition of death [102]. How the presence or not of abstract
consciousness will be determined with certainty is anybody's guess!
[Read more ... get the book]
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The Book
Pen Press, London
ISBN: 1-904018-86-6
Buy it now!
BOOK CONTENTS
Preface
1. INTRODUCTION
Timeless Questions, Shifting Answers
Crisis and Contradiction
Conflicting Indoctrination
Importance of the Debate
2. RELIGION ON ORIGIN
What is Religion?
Early Accounts of Origin
Creation Science
Common Ground with Science
3. SCIENCE ON ORIGIN PART 1: THE UNIVERSE
What do we mean by Science?
Astronomy
Cosmology
Big-Bang Theory
Problems with Big-Bang
More Missing Pieces
Where is it all heading?
Common Ground with Religion
4. SCIENCE ON ORIGIN PART 2: LIFE
Evolution
Darwinism
Impact of Modern Genetics
Problems with Evolution
Evolution, Religion & Social Science
What Next?
5. FOCUSING ON PURPOSE
Why restrict Inquiry?
Is it all a futile exercise?
Modern Design Science
Wrong Assumptions
6. THE SOLAR LABORATORY THEORY
An Expendable Experiment
Recording Mechanisms - Memory
Timing Mechanisms
Sleep
Dreaming
Memory Consolidation and Storage
Memory Retrieval
Consciousness and The Mind-Brain
Death
Quantum Unreality
Influencing Mechanisms
7. IMPLICATIONS OF THE THEORY
The Role of Free Will
The Good-Evil Paradox
Morality and Religion
The Problem with Religion
Morality outside Religion
Chances of Intervention
False Security
8. DEVELOPMENTS
9. FURTHER READING
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