Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Science of Falling Bodies

falling bodies
How many of us realize we are trapped in a prison of our mind?

We all navigate our physical bodies through a world that is defined to us by the science of physics. If this science is in error, or only partially understood, we live in a world we do not understand.

Our perspective of this physical world is based on the "laws" according to which we understand the way our physical world operates. If an event occurs outside this perspective or worldview we call it a miracle. Think of how often miracles occur in your life. If we are honest with ourselves we know that miracles occur infrequently at best.

The study and description of the physical world is called the science of physics. Our perspective or worldview relies on how we understand this science. Fortunately, the science of physics has undergone a few paradigm shifts in scientific history and is about to undergo one more.

Please consider Aristotle who lived until 2,333 years ago, and Galileo who lived until 369 years ago. After essentially 2,000 years, Galileo conducted a very simple experiment, prior to which the scientific world, for almost 2,000 years, accepted Aristotle's mathematical theories of falling bodies. Aristotle’s mathematical calculations suggested that a ten pound weight would fall quite a bit faster than a one pound weight of the same material

pisa

Aristotle was totally wrong, hence the scientific paradigm had a major flaw for all those 2,000 years. The entire scientific world, and all of us who rely on this science for our understanding of the physical world, were under a misinterpretation of this world.

It is interesting to note that Isaac Newton was born in the year 1642, the same year that Galileo died.

Modern physicists all agree that Newtonian physics does not define the physical world that we live in and navigate through. Quantum mechanics does not define it very well either, however, quantum mechanics defines it far better than Newtonian physics.

The only problem is that those who study quantum mechanics cannot seem to, or do not want to, explain it to us. Here is what they write:

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."
Richard Feynman

"If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet."
Niels Bohr

"Quantum theory is so shocking that Einstein could not bring himself to accept it."
John Gribbin

"If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them."
Niels Bohr

"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough."
Niels Bohr

"If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize."
Richard P. Feynman

I respectfully disagree, in fact I totally disagree. Anyone can understand quantum physics, but NOT from the perspective of Newtonian physics. Can you perceive the basic problem? Our scientists are reared and conditioned within the paradigm of classical physics and they are viewing their discoveries from that perspective. That is why they are shocked by those discoveries.

Here are two examples. The quantum principle of "nonlocality" is in essence a definition of a phenomenon that occurs when you observe twin particles spinning in the same directions at the same speeds. As you separate them, experimenters would assume that there affinity might weaken or cease. This does not happen; if one is slowed down, the other slows down, no matter how much space they are separated by.

"One of the strangest and most important consequences of quantum mechanics is the idea of "entanglement." When two quantum particles interact in the right way, their states will depend on one another, no matter how far apart they are. You can hold one particle in Princeton and send the other to Paris, and measure them simultaneously, and the outcome of the measurement in Princeton will absolutely and unequivocally determine the outcome of the measurement in Paris, and vice versa."

Seven Essential Elements of Quantum Physics

Professor Chad Orzel

The only reason to create the term nonlocality for this observed phenomenon is that the perspective is not quantum but classical. The very real possibility is that we have no idea what space is and this observed phenomenon affirms that.



Another example is the shock and awe that surfaces whenever an observer affects the results of an experiment simply by the act of observing. This phenomenon is described very differently depending on what you read, however, the results in each description affirm that when you observe a phenomenon, simply observe it, there is an influential effect of your observation.

In the quantum physical world there is a greater depth of understanding of "fields", spheres of influence that surround objects and living beings. If we were to define one of those fields as "attention: then directing that attention toward a phenomenon, and the changes that occur, are not that surprising.

Hopefully you are beginning to understand how a change in perspective is crucial to understanding the new science of physics. If we look at the new discoveries with the old perspective, we will remain trapped in the prison of the old science.

We would all benefit from a new breed of quantum physicists that have shifted their paradigm to embrace their own discoveries, rather than trying to understand, indeed explain, those discoveries to the common layman from the perspective of classical physics.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Five Senses and the Psychic Sixth Sense

brain

How many senses do we believe we have to navigate through our physical world? If you think of sensory systems as finely tuned instruments, such as a jet or yacht may have, finely tuned to gather information from the environment to give us a good chance of appropriately responding to the challenges of our world.

As a neuroscientist I am perplexed as to why most people believe that they only have the five senses that Plato defined (almost 2,500 years ago). All of our education and "common sense" affirms that many believe that they only have the five. What if you were to suddenly discover that you had more than that, many more?

Most of us also believe we have a psychic sixth sense, this sixth sense enables us to perceive stimuli from the spiritual, paranormal, or psychic realms.

I do not have to be a neuroscientist to know that Plato was totally wrong. Everyone really knows they have more that five senses, but many have not integrated the information. For example, we know that we have a sense called kinesthesis that enables us to know whether we are upright, prone, or upside down. The receptors for this sense are in the inner ear or cochlea. Another sense that we have that we are not very aware of unless we dance, practice the aerial arts, or gymnastics is the proprioceptive sense. This location of the proprioceptive sensors are in the joints of the body and tell us the position of our limbs even when we cannot see them.

So that is seven sensory systems, and then the eighth psychic sense.

However, the senses that Plato "lumped" together as the "touch" sense is actually at least six separate sensory systems with distinctly different receptors and distinctly different pathways into the brain.

If I am correct then we have at least 12 senses, and the "psychic sense" may be easily explained by current neuroscience.

The one that I would like to present in this post is the Pacinian corpuscles, or the sensory system that detects vibration, energy, or fields.
falling bodies
All material forms, animate or inanimate, possess fields that surround those material forms. These are spheres of influence that affect phenomenon like the fields surrounding the moon affect our ocean's tides, human cycles, and the behavior of other than human animals.

As you can see in the image above, the pale yellow inner portion, the neuron itself, is surrounded by many grey fluid filled vessicles that protect it from over stimulation. These highly sensitive neurons are able to detect subtle changes in the environment, perhaps caused by the the approach of an inanimate object or even the attention of another animate form.

Fields are powerful and huge compared to our physical bodies. The moon, for example, is 10,000 miles away and yet profoundly affects phenomenon on Earth. These fields are as "real" as the physical body itself. They are indeed physical, and influence the activity of both the particles and waves that form the content of our reality, our experience.

A few of the human fields, or spheres on influence, that surround human beings may be identified as listed below:

1. Gravitation
2. Electrical
3. Magnetic
4. Attraction
5. Attention
6. Intention

An example of the activity of these fields, if an individual pays attention to another individual for a length of time, often the subject of the attention feels that attention and will either turn to see where the energy is coming from or become visibly uncomfortable.

This not "psychic" or "spiritual" but a physical process that is well defined by current science.


The more we study and discover about these fields the more it appears as if the "psychic"and "spiritual" realms are simply an ignorance of the relationship between our dormant sensory systems and those qualities and characteristics of our physical world.

It is obvious, even with an in depth study of modern physics, that our physical world is not very easy to understand. We do not know what energy is, or what time is, or what space is, or whether light consists of particles or waves.

Perhaps it will take more than five senses (and the psychic sixth of course) to sort some of this out and study the physical world with greater clarity. Fortunately we have current neuroscience affirming that indeed we have many more sensory systems than those five.

It is time to discover our own sensory capacities and begin to exercise them, perhaps even learn to refine them. These are the