Science, wisdom, the human brain and supposed “discoveries”

Scientists ‘discover’ source of wisdom in the human brain, the opening two paragraphs of which read:

“Scientists have discovered the source of wisdom in the human brain, it was revealed today.

Experts have pinpointed the part of the brain that guides people when they are battling with difficult moral dilemmas, according to the study.”

As usual the reality of the research is somewhat different to what is claimed for it.

The author of the study is Dilip Jeste, Professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at the University of California in San Diego. He is quoted as saying, “Our research suggests there may be a basis in neurobiology for wisdom’s most universal traits”.

Although the findings of the study are described as “a significant departure into the area of expertise that has long been regarded as one of religion and philosophy”, as is most often the case, further reading and just a little thought is far short of such claims and interpretations.

The research of Jeste and his colleague, Thomas Meeks, which is to be published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, claims to show that a person weighing up an issue that just called for am altruistic response used the medial prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is linked to intelligence and learning, but that when someone is considering a moral dilemma other areas of the brain are used, such as those parts that are linked to rational thought and primitive emotions.

According to the report, “Professor Jeste admitted the possibility that wisdom and free will are based on the make-up of someone’s brain rather than metaphysics is unsettling”, though is quoted further as saying, “Knowledge of the underlying mechanisms in the brain could potentially lead to developing interventions for enhancing wisdom”.

Well there are certainly many mainstream scientists, among numerous other people, science reporters included, who could do with a strong infusion of wisdom, though that is unlikely to be the way to obtain it, at least not the best, or lasting, way.

Although many in mainstream science tend to consider the brain as the source of mind that is not proven and is only opinion. Many others are of the opposite view that the brain, along with other material world constructs, emerges from mind. On a practical experience and direct knowledge level that is my view, more properly my knowing. I am well aware of the underlying structure to the physical world, the body and the brain included. I am also aware of thoughts, wisdom, etc., that are of mind in origin without that mind having a physical brain.

Professor Jeste is more careful with his words than the reporter is and, I suspect, many others will be. Indication of processes in the brain is not indication of the processes being only there let alone proof that they are.

Pendennis, Dawkins and The King delusion

In his Observer Diary Pendennis Column (Sunday 22 March 2009 ) Oliver Marre writes:

“A new 'ism' for Richard Dawkins. An excited source at pressure group Republic, which campaigns against the monarchy, says Dawkins is an official backer. Suggestions that he's cross because he's never been knighted are perhaps less pertinent than that he enjoys a fight.”
The story seems to be not that recent, going by an entry on the Republic Web Site, “Richard Dawkins backs Republic's campaign for end to monarchy”.

I am not really surprised. Dawkins often does give the impression of being “spoiling for a fight” rather than reasoned debate, though that goes for many, most(?), of the self-styled sceptic, limited classical science and materialist community in general.

The Human Aura, Science, Non-Science, the Esoteric and That Which Falls in Between

During a recent meeting, connected with esoteric matters, that I attended, the subject of auras came up, largely in connection, at least initially, with a person who was new to not just auras but mediation and matters to do with the non-physical in general.

One of those present described the aura as the magnetic field around the physical body, adding, if I recall correctly, that it emanated from the body. I pointed out that the field of the aura was not magnetic and that the physical body emanated from the field of the aura, not the other way round, adding that referring to the aura as a magnetic field compounded the problems that people like me, who understand science, were having with the mainstream science people when non-science people were persisting in using such terminology.

When the magnetic field explanation was repeated, I said that it was not detectable with magnetometers, it was not physical but was an etheric field. A person who taught yoga then said that the people she taught were of mixed religions, many of which could not handle the term “etheric”, so she insisted on calling it a magnetic field. Then the matter of the ancient science connected with yoga was brought up. Since the ancients did not know about magnetic fields I could not see how that made any sense. Either way it came down to people being told that the aura was something that it was not and, apparently, science, of a fashion, being brought into it as well. By such routes is disinformation and misunderstanding borne.

As it was then put that the aura not being magnetic was just my opinion, I started to explain what I understood and include the science, as far as it could go, thought about it, then just said that it was at the quantum physics level, really beyond that; I was talking to people who would be lost a that level anyway; not an adverse comment on them, it was just that I would be using terminology and concepts that were outside their knowledge and experience.

I thought about such matters on the way home, maybe thought too much, then decided that I really must try to finish the explanation for auras, as well as other matters, that I started writing a couple of years ago, or more, for my Psychic Engineer Web Site. The problem, as is usually the case with me, was spending too much time and effort getting everything as right as possible, before actually publishing it. Were it not for such a trait there would be far more on my Web Sites and Psychic Engineer Blog. My book "Remembering Lorelei" might also be finished, though the reticence there is partly, largely, to do with the eruption that will take place when certain information on events in Havant finally emerges into the public domain.

I recalled an article that I had read “A Brief Scientific Look at the Human Aura, Its existence and Meaning” by Violet Aura on Associated Content. While I have no doubt that it was written with the best of intentions it is, regrettably, far from scientific and much of the rest of the article does not fit very well with my understanding of such matters.

A great deal of work, with apparent progress, has been carried out on auras by Konstantin Korotkov and Alexander Levichev, with much being explained in “The 3-fold way and Consciousness Studies”.

For the time being a reasonable approximation would be to view the aura as an energy field, more properly a field that can be represented by a stress-energy tensor which is not in Einstein-Minkowsky space-time; it is to form structures in physical reality but only partly in physical space-time.

Wikipedia is useless for non-physical matters, or anything non-mainstream, though the mainstream itself is very questionable, due to the large number of amateur editors with a heavy materialistic bias who “know it all”, though have not a clue. However, for limited instances involving mainstream explanations, it has its uses; from that point of view the Wikipedia explanation of the stress-energy tensor may be useful.

As already pointed out, the aura does not emanate from the physical body, the physical body emanates from the aura. That is generally applicable in that all biologically living entities have a comparable structure, as well as other “entities”, plus physical reality being generated by and supported by non-physical energies and structures.

The spiritual is prime, the non-physical sub-prime, the physical sub-sub-prime; at least as an approximate explanation.

The aura is part of the non-physical level of existence that is close to the physical, part of what David Bohm referred to as the implicate order, supporting the explicate order of physical reality.

For an overall understanding without the science mentioned above, this is best achieved by referring to Barbara Brennan’s books, such as “Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field” and Web Sites relating to Barbara’s work. Barbara Brennan gained mainstream science degrees before she developed knowledge of this field. Though I do not see as much as is illustrated in Barbara’s books, all that I do see and feel corresponds with those descriptions and illustrations, similarly for my Healer colleagues.

Pi Day

This afternoon I came across an interesting item on the BBC Web Site from which I learned that today is Pi Day, a celebration of the mathematical ratio (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7296224.stm).

Of course this only works by taking the 3.14 approximation of Pi in the American dating style sense, that is the English style reversed, of course; 3/14 working better than 14/3, or 14/03, from the Pi Day point of view. Clearly the residents of that great expanse of rock and mud west of the Pond has more uses than playing football with their hands and needing to wear crash helmets to do so, turning Rounders into a national sport and having an English dictionary written by some who cannot spell.

Mind you the thought of a reversed dating style, belatedly, seemed even stranger; more like “boomps a daisy” than anything intimate.

Anyway, less of the frivolity; back to Pi and its fascinations. As a Professional Engineer, plus an interest in science before that, Pi has been part of my life for over half a century. Even so, I came across a couple of interesting points in the BBC piece that I do not think I recall having seen before.

Pi Day, 14^th March, is also the birthday of Albert Einstein.

Another gem was the ratio off the lengths of a river. Apparently, if you divide the length of a river from source to mouth, across a gently sloping plain, by its direct length, “as the crow flies”, the answer is Pi.

I was aware of the Great Pyramid of Giza having Pi related ratios and, of course, very familiar with Pi in waves, though, rather than the ocean waves mentioned in the article, those in electrical and electronic engineering, mechanical vibrations, stress waves, etc.

There are other enigmatic constants as well, of course, such as “e”, the base of natural logarithms, though Pi is the most readily recognisable in the general sense.

However, as Daniel Blatner, author of the BBC article and the book “The Joy of Pi” points out, Pi is an ever present, sometime grating reminder that there are puzzles that can be solved and there are mysteries that, perhaps, cannot.

Of course my background and experiences are such that I am only too well aware of the limitations of science, at its present level. What is beyond is both beautiful and fascinating, far more so than even the science and mathematics.

Heroes, zeroes and the rest of us

I was somewhat surprised to come across a news story about Airmen from RAF Wittering being told not to wear uniforms in the City of Peterborough in order to avoid being verbally abused by civilians. Apparently, people who oppose U.K. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq had been taunting service personnel from the base. However, on later reflection I wondered how much it had to do with the ethnic mix in Britain nowadays.

I have been totally opposed to the illegal and immoral wars in which corrupt, cowardly politicians have involve my Country, since the possibility of such conflicts arose. Except for very rare and pressing exceptions I do not believe wars are justified except in self defence and any actions that might result in loss of life should only be undertaken as a last resort. Note that none of the politicians who sent others into those conflicts have ever had the courage to serve in the Armed Forces themselves, other than one who joined a “home defence force” apparently to avoid serving abroad.

However, I have had nothing but admiration for those who have been asked to serve this Country, risk and, unfortunately, give their lives in the process. I seriously doubt if their abusers would get anywhere near their level of courage, more likely turn and run at the lightest threat to their safety.

My late parents met while serving in the Royal Air Force during World War Two. I was born was my father was on a posting in India and owe my life to a surgeon at the Royal Air Force Hospital, Ely; I was belatedly diagnosed with intussusception and operated on with only about half an hour to go. If it had not been for my father effectively overruling the Base Medical Officer, I would not even have made it to hospital. We also used to live in Cambridgeshire, at Upwood R.A.F. Base, not far from Wittering, as well as in my mother’s home town of March, which arises in te early Chapters of my book “Remembering Lorelei” (www.rememberinglorelei.com), hopefully available from May 2008, onwards.

Partly because of my parent’s involvement with the Air Force, though for many other reasons besides, I have considerable respect for the Armed Services. If it was not for them this Country would not have enjoyed the freedom it has, though, regrettably, that is now being taken away by stealth by the very politicians who make use of brave people for the aforementioned immoral, illegal ends.

In the few days following the report of the incidents in Peterborough I have been delighted to read that there has been a huge up swell of goodwill and support for Service personnel from by far the greater majority of people in this Country; that includes the suggestion of an Armed Services Day being incorporated in the calendar.

News Blackouts, Princes and Kings

The story of Prince Harry serving in Afghanistan under a news blackout has, naturally, generated a great deal of discussion. It has a personal interest connection in that something I was involved in, as well as myself, to a very large extent, has also been the subject of a news blackout. The difference was that, unlike Prince Harry. I was not party to it, or involved in any way. In fact I would have preferred everything to be in the open. The other difference is that there is nothing illegal in Prince Harry’s situation, while there is everything illegal about the situation connected with me, though nothing to do with any of my actions, mine were totally above board.

As Jon Williams, BBC World News Editor, put it, in his Blog of 29^th February 2008 (News black-out):
“ At its simplest, journalism is about telling people things they don't know. So when the Ministry of Defence approached the BBC - along with other parts of the UK media - to ask us not to tell our audiences about a possible deployment of Prince Harry to Afghanistan, it was something we thought long and hard about.”

He goes on to write that:
“ A news black-out is unusual, but not unique. An agreement exists between the police and the media over the reporting of kidnaps - the police have the right to request that media organisations don't report an abduction while negotiations are under way, in case it makes the release of the hostage more difficult; in return, they accept the responsibility to update the media regularly and reveal the full story, on camera, once the situation has been resolved. When lives are at risk, it's not always helpful to have things played out in the glare of publicity.”

The local situation had nothing whatever to do with kidnaps, or anything remotely similar. It had everything to do with major fraud perpetrated by local public officials.

The actual offence was misappropriation of European Funds by false accounting, deception and fraud. The money had to be paid back to avoid prosecution. Government Bodies do not, usually, bother to prosecute unless the money is not paid back, or the sums involved are several, many millions of Pounds; as confirmed by a friend who is Financial Director of a major company. Even so, the sums involved were in the hundreds of thousands of Pounds, quite possibly a million Pounds, or more, at 2008 values. To pay the monies back the local residents and taxpayers were defrauded and have been kept in the dark about it ever since.

A reporter said I should let them know when I wanted to go public. When I expanded on what was involved in terms of work and time for the reporter the encouraging response was, “As long as it takes”.

Soon afterwards the reporter was moved to another office. The responses from a main office reporter and a local replacement was completely different to the original, positive, helpful, expected, professional approach. A reporter at the main office who I contacted after he wrote and published a short, very incomplete report was,
“ You will say one thing and the Council will say another, and our readers will not be interested.”
I would have thought they would have been extremely interested at the time, let alone the alter information I received to confirm that it was fraud and on a scale far greater than even I knew about.
When, also just after the original events, I had a conversation with yet another reporter, adding that there was an additional matter of professional qualifications that claimed by a public employee who was heavily involved being false, the response was,
“ I’m sure you must be disappointed … ” and took it no further.

Some months later I ‘phoned the main office in relation to a completely unconnected matter and found myself talking to the original reporter; we recognised each others voices. Without me even asking about the major fraud investigation on which that reporter was prepared to embark, it was quickly brought up anyway,
“ On the other matter; there was a high level meeting and it was decided we could not help you.”

It seemed odd from the start. My non-physical side with its unique connection would normally be worth a story in its own right, even if only to take, or attempt to take, the proverbial. Major public sector fraud is normally a front page story; even, possibly, a national one, at least on that scale, particularly with the connections involved. Even though I was a victim of the fraud rather than the perpetrator, one person was involved in both stories, yet even the combination was not enough. No wonder other media professionals thought it odd. Quite apart from me being worthy of “a high level meeting at which the decision was made, or conveyed after already having been made.

A radio presenter, who was a former reporter, whom I spoke to on a radio ‘phone in reacted to the non-reporting story I told him, in general terms, by saying,
“Very strange.”
Not long afterwards, in a conversation with a regional BBC reporter my story elicited the same exactly the same response,
“Very strange.”

Years later “The Well-Wisher”, who had seen it all from the inside, described the relationship as “neighbours and very close friends”, in addition to having already confirmed that the fraud was very real, was a major one and indicating that the repayment money had been taken from local resources. I was also told that I was why I was being slandered behind my back, which I had heard about anyway, to dissuade officers and others from responding to me, to discriminate against me. The jigsaw was close to completion.

“The Well-Wisher” also thought my computer problems of late 2006 might have been due to an attack, as there are very good computer people within the organisation working against me, though I am not sure. However, should my Web Sites and Blogs disappear, or anything else untoward happen, I would not be surprised. There are not many people who are anxious to have a free “holiday” courtesy of Prince Harry’s Grandmother, let alone a group of them.

As the BBC’s Jon William’s said, “journalism is about telling people things they don’t know”. Clearly, some journalists are prepared to help others prevent people knowing what they wish to keep from them.

Unfortunately, I only outrank Prince Harry in name, otherwise matters would have been different.

Thanks to me being read about, around the world, in Barbara Ford-Hammond’s book “Past Life Tourism - Gateway to Bridging Your Past and Future”), a change is at least beginning to happen. Quite apart from my Web Sites and Blogs, as well as other Internet contributions, people around the World are getting to know more about Havant, Hampshire, U.K.

Unexpected Visitors

On Saturday (10 November) Emma and Fred brought Anna, our new granddaughter, to stay with Jo and I for the day while they had a break in Poole. Fred wanted to indulge in some surfing and Emma had Open University studies to catch up on. Between feeding Anna Jo and I walked into Havant with her, had lunch on our return and a relatively quiet afternoon.

In the early evening our son, Tim, rang. He and his Jo were at Bognor Regis, visiting Jo’s relatives and wanted to come to our house to see Anna. The result was all of us together for the evening.

What was, in a sense, the most significant part came later, after we had a meal, followed by an hour or two of Anna receiving a great deal of attention. By then Anna was tired, so, after yet another bottle of milk Jo put her in her pram and rocked her to sleep.

By then it was a about 9.00 p.m. a little after that, ten past nine, or thereabouts, I was looking over my left shoulder towards the pram with Anna in it, plus Jo, Tim and his Jo, Emma and Fred, wondering what my mother and father would think about the group, particularly Anna, when my higher senses suddenly became more open. My late parents were behind me, by the lounge door, together; they were happy and delighted. They were standing with their backs to the door, a foot or two from it, my father nearest to me with my mother a little further away, on his left, their arms around each other. It was a shame they were not in the physical to see and be with their great granddaughter in that way but, in the greater reality sense they were with us anyway, as we are all always together. They were both very happy and pleased with what they saw. The left side of my head was “fizzing” as it tended to, at times, when my senses were that attuned and it stayed that way for at least fifteen to twenty minutes, only starting to fade when Emma, Fred, Anna, Tim and his Jo were leaving.

A very enjoyable day had ended unexpectedly busy, plus the added extra of my late parents arriving, a pleasant surprise which I told Jo about the next day. Fortunately, Jo is open enough to be able to accept that with ease; while my mother was terminally ill in 2004 events reached a stage where Jo sensed and said, to me, that my mother was not really there; her physical world representation was but not the real, actual, person, something I had largely concluded some time before that (www.richardspsychicrealm.com/RPR_PreDEMM.htm).