See:
http://peyote.com/jonstef/brain.htm
Has a colour diagram showing how frequencies vary between the brain wave types you mention.

Ambiguity and vagueness (worse still, equivocation) are the tripwire of understanding.

Sorry. Do you mean that external electrical activities can influence the brain/mind? This is certainly true. But what have they to do with the origin of the mind (that they influence)?

Frequencies are based on hertz, which are the number of revolutions per second. Electricity moves either back and forth or in a constant loop (AC or DC). How fast that elecricity moves decides the number of revolutions per second/hertz.

Okay now the brain is a bioelectrical mechanism, so... it has a electrical frequency. How fast the elecricity inside the brain moves is what determines the brainwave frequency.

Diffrent frequencies are used for diffrent levels of thinking and states of consciousness.

0.5 - 3.0 The Delta frequency is a sleeping state in which you are in REM, deep sleep or are lucid dreaming.

3.1 - 8.0 The Theta frequency is regular sleep, memory recall, creativity, and the shuman resonance is in there too.

8.1 - 12.0 The Alpha frequency is an altered state of consciousness, think of it like day dreaming, your not asleep but your not totally awake either.

12.1 - 30.0 The Beta range includes regular awake state, high level learning, logical brain functions.

I cannot describe all of the things involved for each one here, but it gives you an idea.

Hey, did anyone see this before:

http://iands.org/research/vanLommel/vanLommel.php

Nicely written but watch out for the regular putting 2 and 2 together to make 5.

Interesting thread...



There are rival hypotheses, though I am sure there is a grain of truth to most of them.

In The Blink of An Eye, by Andrew Parker

home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/korthof60.htm

Rick's quote mentions Stuart Hameroff's idea (not a theory, I suggest). Here is a summary for the uninitiated: http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/penros...f/cambrian.html. Watch out for the anthropomorphic statements regarding paramecia (e.g. seek and find food, identify and couple with mates). Of course, anthropomorphism is redundant if even single-celled organisms can do what we do. Also, he seems to prematurely and automatically associate "intelligent behaviour" with mind/consciousness. My room thermostat is thinking about changing the temperature and decides to do so, so of thing? The bridge between IB and mind is given less consideration than it deserves, and the jump to mind is made very quickly and speculatively. An example is when he states:

A conscious organism having an experience of fear or pain would be motivated to avoid threatening situations, and one having experience of taste would be more motivated to find food. The experience of pleasure could well have promoted reproductive efforts.

Motivation is not necessary, rather a neuronal feedback loop (having no requirement for a mind) could determine a future behaviour if, for example, there is a record of survival (simply being present to undertake the present feedback loop-based event) then the same behaviour as previously used is employed. An experience of pleasure is not needed, just the ability to remain alive and be able to undertake the next life event. His statement:

As consciousness can't be measured or observed in the best of circumstances, it seems impossible to know whether or not consciousness emerged in early Cambrian organisms (or at any other point in evolution).

is apt and it presently disqualifies his notion as there is no evidence (shooting oneself in the foot comes to mind). This is not quite correct, as of course human history contains evidence of the human consciousness/mind - cave paintings, stone-age decorated items such as jewelry, Greek philosophers and the like.

There has been some major criticism of the Penrose-Hameroff idea of quantum consciousness mediated via microtubules, so these two are not infallible. This has been discussed elsewhere on this forum. I am happy to accept that the Cambrian explosion could have been the time when protomind began to evolve, it is just the vehicle that I am unhappy with, as are many others.

Maybe we should consider what the experiential and identity properties the protomind to mind intermediates had.

Hi Rick,

This is my first post here.

I think consciousness is necessary for machine computation, in our case human consciousness. A human has to set up the computer to compute, and then interpret the results.

What do you say?

Jester

You may want to look at Timothy Learys or John C Lillys work.
But then again you may find them akin to vodoo.
I think that we cannot answer these questions without getting strange answers because the questions themselves are very metaphysical.

John Lilly and Tim Leary did way too many drugs (ketamine and LSD, respectively) and it no doubt damaged their brains, their intellectual capacities, and their judgements.

Yes, and we've been through that discussion before. Thanks for pointing it out again tho for newbies.

I would disagree. Sorry if It has been posted before.
How would you be so certain to say that their intellectual capacities and their judgements were damaged?
We are dealing with 'out of the box' questions, which would imply 'out of the box' answers.

what's there to disagree with? It's a fact that doing too many drugs produces brain damage. John Lilly and Tim Leary did way too many drugs all throughout their lives; they made no secret of this, they flaunted it and encouraged others. We thus should expect that they had serious brain damage. Not surprisingly, if you read their works, you can see that it negatively effected their intellectual capabilities. In the beginnings of their careers, they were promising scientists but damaged themselves and subsequently were not accepted by the scientific community because they compromised their intellectual capabilities and became drug addicts. Regardless of how noble their intentions may have been originally for expanding the mind, they pursued that path in a foolhardy and irresponsible manner, and did irreversible harm to their brains. Instead of expanding their minds, which they probably did in the short term, they destroyed their minds in the long term.

Did you ever wonder why so many drug addicts kill themselves? It's because after the initial mind-expanding period, you experience a prolonged mental depression and contraction, the exact reverse of the mind expansion. It's the supreme irony of life at work. However, with more foresight and self-control, these drug addicts would have foreseen the consequences of their actions and would have exercised moderation, greater precaution, and more self control.

John Lilly and Tim Leary are examples of what not to do. They failed in their endeavors. Their paths lead to dead ends. Only the self-destructive would follow similar paths, but they should be prepared for the impending self-destruction since it is rare for people to get off this dead-end path once they get on it.

No offense to the dead, but to have these types of bio's on these sites says it all:

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/mad-science/timothy-leary/
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/UFOs/Gorightly.htm

I do not disagree with what you are saying, but I do not think that one should invalidate their work entirely either. Our current understanding of science is still very very very limited and 'pioneers' should not be discouraged.

Ok, John Lilly did not kill himself. My bad. I was thinking of Jim Morrison.

I'm not saying we should invalidate their work either, only that we should appreciate the context of their work and factors contributing to it.

Pioneers should be warned and should take precautions (like having limited supplies of drugs available and having some sort of safety net in place).

I was about to question that as well

Your version of reality is what you perceive around you. If you dont perceive it, it isn't real to you. This does not mean it isn't real.
What if there is a massive alien sitting next to you albeit invisible to your senses? Im being facetious
but if you want answers, and the answers don't fit your current view of reality you cannot dismiss them out of hand.

Tim Leary became deeply religious and went about preaching his beliefs that LSD could open you up to religious experience and everyone should take it. Personally I agree, although not in the way he said. I believe a real "trip" should be undertaken as a right of passage. It would do the world good to breakdown some of those hardened Ego's of our youth. It would also inspire some belief.

Leary created a huge wave of fear about LSD, because everyday reserved people who had no knowledge of the nuances of the drug culture were suddenly hearing of the effects of LSD. People seeing angels, demons, and describing what they experienced as real all gave the average person a feeling of unease. Religious institutions became extremely fearful of this uprising and where it would go, and so the combined fear of the people and fear of established religions destroyed opportunity for legitimate use and research in psychedelics.

The rise of the hippy is a keystone of our current society in my opinion. Religion preaches faith and love for all. Hundreds of thousands of hippys all had direct spiritual experiences with a drug and went forwards preaching with newly cemented belief on what reality was all about. These hippys also taught love for all and that Mother Nature is extremely important.

Its funny that we are now in a world where we are trying to promote a feeling of one with our planet and get people off their backsides to recycle and save energy. We are also asking ourselves to have complete faith in static religious beliefs. The rise of the hippy was a necessary step to change our perceptions of faith and our world.

I actually take offence to people being so uptight about what the experiences actually did for our societies. The fear that was felt was the same fear that gave us slavery, racism, ageism, religious intolerance - its a lack of knowledge. Psychedelics and hallucinogens as sacrementals are very important, they should not be thought of as addictive drugs because a tolerance builds up quickly.

The only problem with Leary was his complete conversion to a religion that came from his experiences, not from scripture. I agree the way he handled the extremely potent LSD experience was wrong, but to dismiss these cultural artifacts is also wrong. To say he gave himself brain damage is also completely wrong, he was given 14 years for one joint of pot to get him off the streets. I'd keep a low profile after that wouldnt you?

Oh, and Morrison didn't kill himself directly, he had a heart attack whilst in the bath. This is irrelevant to this discussion about conscious thought as he was using heroin and whisky and anything else he could get his hands on, and anyone who knows anything about psychedelics and entheogens would not put them in the same category as alcohol and heroin.

I agree with you on the counts that too much drugs will lead to brain damage or worse. Prolonged and educated usage of psychedelics (in other words taking the right supplements to protect your brain) should not lead to these problems. I have done some research for MAPS and there work along with erowid in some ways are at least making would be or current users aware of what they can do to protect themselves.

http://www.discover.com/issues/dec-06/feat...riments/?page=1

Well said /me claps

Whats your point?

There is not a single human emotion or experience that cannot be broken down into a chemical reaction in the brain, or into a complex network of neuronal firing. Does this make the human experience more or less real?