From: Hermit (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Fri May 10 2002 - 22:23:34 MDT
While psychoactive drugs reduce the effectiveness of the brain's filters, which may increase sensitivity to both suggestion and nuance, and undoubtedly cause sensory cross-over (e.g. seeing sound, smelling touch) this is not ESP which remains a myth.
Hermit cites some ancient history:
["Memetics on Crack was virus: Memetic War", Hermit, 2001-10-16]
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.
May I suggest that at the current time, any idea of "bio-physical fields" is unsupported by anything deserving the label scientific. Which most fortunately appears to remove any need to bother comenting on the balance of the letter - which seems to me, might be better addressed by an alienist than a scientist.
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25462>
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