General Chat

Old Crone. Glad to hear that you occasionally fumble aroud with what I write. Keep it at that, though, or I'll call my nurse. len

9. Last Friday (the 13th as it happens, an auspicious day for the superstitious) it was in most of the papers that an international team of archaeologists had unearthed, in China, 160 fossil embryos of the oldest animals on earth, from 550 million years ago. These are the ancestors of all today’s animals. A special prize (an orange) awaits the first GR member to authenticate their line back to these creatures. Some 4600 million years ago the earth was born followed in another 800 million years by the first single-celled beings. Where did these first living creatures come from? Some say that they spontaneously appeared in the “primeval soup” when all the right amino acids came together in just the right conditions. Other scientists argue that this was just as likely as an explosion in an electrical components warehouse resulting in a working television set. I wonder which creature, of all the myriads that subsequently evolved, had the first thought. Could it be, as mentioned above, that consciousness pervades all living matter to a greater or lesser degree and increases with the complexity of its host? There must have been a forerunner of our species who was touched with the spirit. DNA researchers, geneticists, say there was - a woman born of non-human stock who they dubbed “Mitochondrial Eve”. Apologies, Adam, but they think you came later. She was the first of Homo sapiens and was born in Kenya about 2 million years ago. This is slightly misleading as there obviously were other females in a very sparse population of these hominids but only the genes of one went on to populate today’s world. Perhaps she was a mutation. All those other females received their DNA from another source and their lines died out. There were other hominids (ape-men) contemporary with Eve, the last one to go extinct being Neanderthal In July 2001 “red rain” fell in Kerala, a province in India. At first it was described as red dust brought down by the rain but investigation revealed that the particles were not unlike blood corpuscles. DNA tests were made with the surprising result that the blood-like cells contained no DNA. Therefore, if once living, were not of this world. They had thick walls and were, also unlike blood, not soluble in water. Some scientists postulated that these may have originated in space being brought to earth as comet dust This was supported by researchers from the University of Cardiff who pointed out that a regular fall of debris from space reaches earth. Unsurprisingly, this theory was fiercely attacked by others although, to date, they have not come up with an alternative. The jury is still out. Makes yer fink though. len

10. At birth, the human brain is unformatted except for a particular area which is already hard-wired with automatic survival mechanisms. This part is functioning at about 12 weeks after conception and memory-forming. The electron microscope can see nerve-cell membranes and specialised contact points (synapses), by which selective chemical and electrical communications established from cell to cell, can be seen. The main area, the cortex, is a blank sheet waiting to be filled in by life experience. We are born with some 50,000,000,000 nerve cells (neurons), far more than we shall need for normal living and reproduction. The hard-wired bit is operating well before birth and has memory which a foetus needs, particularly if premature, in order to know what is what for survival and how to manipulate mum so as to get what it needs by way of nurture. The more sensory stimulation the undeveloped brain receives the more it will develop. Surplus connections that receive no sensory input, will wither and die. After the age of maybe 7 or 8, there will be no more basic development, the neurons and synapses will atrophy. Children, who have not experienced speech by then, will never learn grammar and syntax. We all have the same basic mental kit but each brain develops individually, according to its owner’s life experiences. Lots of things we take for granted would have been unbelievable in the childhoods of those born more than 30 years ago, let alone to our forbears. Not so long ago, electricity, x-rays, electronic equipment were not even pipe dreams. A Croat called Tesia and a chap called Marconi (some older folk may have heard of them) independently and separately developed the technique of harnessing a small part of the electro-magnetic spectrum and transmitting it through air and space and materials without wires. At first it was called “wireless” but later the name “radio” became universal. Suppose the developing brain is stimulated by sensory input, not necessarily from nearby but from remote sources, what then? These days, the successors of Tesia and Marconi are still at it, as are corporations e.g. IBM, Sony and other electronics giants. Names to ponder are Dr Stephan Schmidt of Freiberg University who, in 2005 published in The British Psychologists Journal a paper conceding that the mind, or its essence, is able to travel through space at near the speed of light at indeterminate distances and affect another mind. Techno-speak is “Distant Intentionality”. Our-speak is “telepathy”. Vision researcher Dan Simons of the University of Illinois suggests the existence of another phenomena, “Mind Sight”. In his research with blind people and animals he discovered interesting and previously unknown phenomena. Some people (and animals) are able to perceive things by means other than the eyes or the known 5 senses. Studies in Holland, particularly by Dr V.P.Lommel of Rijnstate Hospital, whose team have investigated hundreds of patients in 10 hospitals across the country. These patients have all been resuscitated after being clinically dead, and has reached conclusions that have “pushed at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind/brain relationship”

Hi Len, although I can't pretend to understand everything you have written, I find it all really interesting and thought provoking. I love your threads, so thank you and keep posting them please! Maz. XX

Hi Len. like Maz I just wanted to say I have read all you have written, and while some of it is outside my complete comprehension (I never did understand physics, maths or chemistry) I have found it interesting. It is also good to read something intelligent on here so please continue. (some of it might stick!) Ann Glos

I've just finished reading 'Human Traces' by Sebastian Faulks. Obviously a fictional novel; but there is a theory in there re schizophrenia and the hearing of voices. In this novel the emerging psychiatrist evolves the theory that what people of the last century called 'mad' because they heard voices may actually be a throwback, maybe millions of years ago to a time when ape-men etc. walked this earth and that these creatures had an active part of the brain (now much much smaller in the human species of today) which could 'hear' voices, spirit, in the ethos and was accepted as part and parcel of everyday living. Tuning in so to speak to the spirit of the cosmos. Sylvx

And by the way Len, I have to say how I enjoy reading your posts, you are a very deep thinking person. Keep on posting. Sylvx

Len Two plants (fiscus) were bought on the same day both plants were the same size and in the same condition (healthey) one was places in the family room the other in my studio. both rooms face due south, have almost identical light and heat the one in the family room is subjected to a huge ammount of noise TV, music, human chatter, ect the other is given an almost silent life three years on the one in the family room is almost twice the size of its twin in my studio now does the plant in the family room 'think' its part of the family and therefore thrives, and does the other plant feel excluded and just plods along?????? Steve

that's really interesting Steve - maybe Prince Charles has got it right then when he chats to his plants! Maz. XX

I always have a chat to mine! lol Sylvx

Thank you, Len.

Steve You have noticed something that many others have noticed too, over a long period of time. In fact the case has been proved by clinical trials conducted by Prof. Joseph Banks Rhine and students of Duke University in North Carolina. Groups of students were divided into three teams. Each team was given access to trays of seedlings, all grown under identical circumstances and cared for equally by horticulturalists. Each team had an identical laboratory. Briefly, team A willed their seedlings to thrive and treated them to kindly thoughts whilst team B just watched theirs. Team C willed theirs to fail . Guess what ? The A plants did extraordinarily well; the B plants were normal whilst the C plants were stunted. Fresh plants were introduced and the teams reversed their roles. Results were the same. The experiments were repeated over and over with different teams of students. Conclusion: The human mind is able to affect plants. This can be read up in 'The Reach of the Mind' by J.B.Rhine. Be warned though, it can be tedious reading with endless repetition of tests and loads of statistics It is Interesting that Darwin's botanist on the Beagle was one Joseph Banks Professor Robert Jahn of Princeton did much the same apropos the mind and electronic machinery. In his case, he set out to disprove theories but was won over Thanks for your input len

Sylvia I have been referred before to Seb. Faulks but, these days, I steer clear of novels, mainly because of lack of time. Long ago I read Arthur C.Clarke and Isaac Asimov. Ever tried those? They were into both fiction and non-fiction, both being scientists I love reading the latest scientific work, particularly in the fields of the paranormal and quantum mechanics, which terms seem to be synonymous. What strikes me is that all these scientists seem to stick strictly to their own patch. An astrophysicist never strays into psychology or palaeontology and botanists treat crystallography or mathematics as no-go areas. I seem to suffer from a sort of synaesthesia (confusion between the senses) and see all these things merging into one another. What did you learn from Seb. Faulks? Thanks for adding to my thread. len

Carol When I was training to be a counsellor, my supervisor was Dr Diana Reilly, consultant psychiatrist at our local hospital. On memory, she told me that they noted that babies born in the maternity ward were noted for actively responding to the signature tune of 'Neighbours' which many young mums seemed to be addicted to in the 90s. The babies, it seemed, also listened, from the womb - and remembered. len

Steve Oops, my mistake. Joseph Banks was, in fact, botanist on Captain Cooke's voyages. len

11. Scientific investigation into psychical research is fraught with difficulties, not only because of the near impossibility of arranging sessions to order, under clinical conditions, but there is also the possibility of mediums being skilled in telepathy and obtaining information from the sitter. That was a bit of a paradox as telepathy, until the last couple of years, was itself derided by the scientific world as hocus-pocus. However, there is now excellent evidence for telepathy (Distant-intentionality) from various famous academic institutions around the world and, like hypnotism, it is gradually being acknowledged. The boffins like to call it that as “telepathy” is a bit unscientific-sounding and they think “Distant Intentionality” is more exacting. It is sending thought or intentions to a remote destination, by some (at present not identified) electro-magnetic force, instantaneously over any distance. It sounds good too. “Distant Intentionality” – one can roll it round the tongue and savour it. Further research reveals that the human mind can also interfere with electronic machinery. Some successful gamblers have long maintained that they can influence the fall of dice. I wonder if some can make horses run faster. It seems that this world of ours, so solid and reassuring, is just the result of thousands of years of brain-conditioning and moulding. Our brains have a “need to know” control, a set of parameters (blinkers if you like) to prevent them being overloaded with a mass of information which we do not need for health and survival. For instance, a house-fly needs super eyesight to prevent us from swatting it - so actually can see the alternating pulses of light from an a/c (alternating current) electric light bulb whereas we cannot even discern the individual, 16-frames-per-second pictures flashed onto the cinema screen. We just take it as a moving picture. That’s our conscious mind, of course. If an extra frame containing a message (e.g. “I need an ice cream”) was inserted, it would not register with the conscious mind but the subconscious would catch it and a queue would rapidly form at the ice-cream kiosk. That’s called “subliminal” – it hasn’t registered with the thinking part of us, yet our subconscious has somehow caught it and gets us to act upon it Subliminal messages are, of course, illegal. That fact demonstrates that it is a very well known phenomenon of many years standing and the government has had to act to save us from ourselves. The subconscious is not bound by the same rules as the conscious mind, in other respects as well as receiving subliminal messages. At one time in my life no-one could have been more hard-line than me. I only accepted what my five senses told me. I was a hard-headed accountant and auditor and could calculate and manipulate figures at fairly high speed, without the use of any calculator (they had not been invented). I was aware, though that if interrupted in, say, adding up a long row of figures, I would have no idea of where I had got to and would have to start again. I did not do figures at a conscious level. I also became aware (and colleagues in the business admitted much the same) that if there was what seemed to be an insoluble problem, the answer often came when I had given up and was indulging in a spot of day-dreaming – better know now as a “meditational” state. The best example that comes to mind when something seemed to have gone wrong with a mechanised (not computerised) accounting system at Furness Withy, the shipping people It was £.s.d. then, not decimalised. The books would never balance, always out by a few hundred pounds every day. With others I spent a couple of weeks checking and re-checking. Nothing. The Eureka moment came when I was 'meditating' in the loo: the machine had stopped registering halfpence, a mechanical fault with a small cog,soon fixed. I also sometimes worked with an outstanding auditor, a marvellous Irishman who could “smell” a fraud a mile off – and I never knew him to be wrong. His only explanation: 'sure, 'tis a gift' len

Fascinating Len I have only just come across this thread and enjoyed reading it. I like reading Focus magazine which makes a lot of scientific ideas clear to non experts. I found a recent idea that distant things can still be somehow connected to each other and have an effect on each other intriguing. This might explain a lot of paranormal experiences. Thank you Sue

Hi Len, I really do like Seb Faulkes as an author; writes with a real insight into humanity with all its foibles etc. I have known a lecturer in psychology for about 25 years now and done loads of typing for him throughout that time. He is actually a schizophrenic himself, but the creativity just pours out of him. And it all makes such sense. Keep on posting Len = very interesting and thought provoking stuff. Sylvxx

Hi Len Just found this - haven't got time to read it right now - but am sure it will be fascinating!

Susan You are talking quantum mechanics. Particles may be separated by an infinite distance yet still affect each other. Just the thing for bed-time reading. len