Koyaanisqatsi Fahrvergnugen wrote:
> Mozilla's RH Negative Blood, Reptilian ORIGINS!!!
> http://www.mozilla.org/party/1999/raven/
>
> RH Negative Blood and Aliens
> http://www.google.com/search?q=RH+Negative+blood+alien
>
> SEVEN PITFALLS OF UFOLOGY
> by Jacques Vallee
>
> The intelligence agencies often forget that before they can
> classify or censor a piece of data, it has to exist in a
> conscious thought in somebody's head. This is especially true
> of UFO data. It can be tracked down, investigated, and verified
> by anyone capable of independent thinking. But the pivotal
> keyword here is independent: truly unbiased investigation
> implies the careful recognition and deliberate avoidance of a
> few deadly pitfalls in reasoning. Therefore I will close this
> section by identifying the seven most dangerous pitfalls that
> tend to derail our thinking process.
>
> Pitfall One: The Transitivity of Strangeness
>
> We are all prone to this fallacy, which works as follows:
>
> Someone makes an extremely strange statement we will call (A).
> For instance, (A) could be the assertion "I am in contact with an
> extraterrestrial civilization." When challenged to prove this
> assertion, the subject will make a second very strange statement
> we will call (B). For instance he or she might say, "They have
> given me the power to bend your spoon just by thinking about it."
>
> Naturally you will challenge this second assertion by saying
> something like "Oh yeah? Well, prove it, wiseguy!"
>
> In the next few minutes the subject proceeds to turn your spoon
> from a treasured heirloom to a pitiful, useless, unrecognizable
> shred of twisted metal, leaving you amazed and breathless. From
> then on you will probably tell all your friends that the individual
> in question is indeed in contact with extraterrestrials.
>
> A truly independent thinker, on the contrary, would have
> realized the fallacy. The subject has only demonstrated
> assertion (B), namely the fact that he could bend your spoon.
> We could debate whether this ability derives from paranormal
> powers which could be latent in all of us or whether trickery
> was involved. But in no way does it prove statement (A), namely
> the contact with space civilizations.
>
> The human mind, which loves to jump to conclusions, has
> established a transition (B is true, and it was stated in the
> context of A, therefore A must be true) which is completely
> unwarranted.
>
> Pitfall Two: The Ratchet Effect
>
> This particular fallacy was discovered by a skeptic who noticed
> that most amateurs of the paranormal never went back to a
> baseline of normal belief once they had become convinced of a
> certain weird fact, even if it was later proven to be false.
>
> A perfect example of this fallacy is given by the current
> legends about live humanoids in the custody of the Air Force.
> Several independent researchers have become convinced that there
> were such humanoids in an underground base under Area 51. It
> took me months to find the man who was the source of the rumor.
> When he was interviewed, it turned out he had never seen
> any such humanoids. Yet the people who had believed in his
> story did lot simply erase the statement from their mental
> blackboard. Instead, they started looking for any confirmation,
> any other hint, from any source, that little humanoids might be
> held in some underground base. Their belief had become too dear
> to them to be questioned, even when they knew its underpinnings
> to be wrong. Their assumptions about the world had been "
> ratcheted" one notch and could not come down again, no matter
> what the evidence was.
>
> This fallacy is not limited to ufologists. If you can get
> people to buy lottery tickets just once on the expectation that
> they might win a million dollars, they will probably go on
> buying lottery tickets even if they keep losing: it would now be
> too painful for them to let go of the pleasant realization that
> they might win a million dollars next week, especially as their
> losses (now viewed as investments) keep mounting.
>
> Pitfall Three: Spurious Data Sequencing
>
> This fallacy is an emotional one, and as such, it is even more
> devastating than the first two. It ensures that most
> researchers of the phenomenon, once fooled by a certain belief,
> will continue to be fascinated by successive "revelations" even
> when they absolutely know them to be false. It works like this:
>
> A stranger calls you on the phone and breathlessly reveals to
> you some extraordinary confidential fact. For instance, he
> might assure you that a flying saucer will land next week at a
> certain spot in New Mexico. As you are a dedicated researcher,
> you fly to New Mexico in time for the big event.
>
> The flying saucer never comes.
>
> Now you have a perfect opportunity to tell the stranger that he
> is a self-deluded fool and that he must never call you again.
> According to Pitfall Three, however, you are unlikely to do this,
> because he has now become a source of adventure and privileged
> information for you and you are afraid to be cut off from his
> data stream if you offend him. Many ufologists derive a curious
> form of self-gratification and a sense of power from such
> sources, even though their revelations are consistently spurious.
> It does not matter how often the Mysterious Stranger is wrong,
> as long as he or she keeps producing a sequence of good stories
> that play into your expectations.
>
> Pitfall Four: The Lure of The Physical
>
> As I compiled the data for this book I observed a novel fact
> that I found as amazing as the UFO phenomenon itself. Again and
> again I witnessed experienced researchers, people who had
> patiently studied the paranormal and related effects for many
> years, actually flipping in a matter of a few hours when exposed
> to taped interviews of people like Falcon or Condor. Once, in
> San Francisco, an entire lecture hall filled with the creme de
> la creme of California parapsychological research heard
> respected scientist and philosopher Arthur Young, inventor of
> the rotor for the Bell helicopter, introducing taped revelations
> about the alleged aliens in secret bases. Many came away
> convinced that proof was at hand. As one of these researchers
> told me, "At long last we have something tangible!"
>
> He had nothing of the kind, of course. All he had was a
> videotape of pleasant-looking strangers making wild claims. How
> could scientists who had spent much of their life designing and
> critiquing delicate experiments in parapsychology suddenly buy
> the story of hard material proof of captured saucers in Air
> Force hangars, without demanding an opportunity to probe into
> the obvious discrepancies of these claims?
>
> The answer probably lies in our continuing frustration with a
> phenomenon that remains maddeningly beyond our reach. These
> revelations came at an ideal time to relieve the pain caused
> by this frustration. It promised physical evidence, a proof
> we might all see and touch, if only we had the clearances to
> get inside Dreamland.......
>
> The irony of watching a roomful of psychic luminaries falling
> for a story of captured saucers because "at last we have
> something tangible, something physical," was quite remarkable.
>
> Pitfall Five: The Coconut Fallacy
>
> When I told the story of these repeated teasers to one of my
> scientific colleagues, physicist Edwin May, he sighed and said
> he understood my frustration. "It's like my experiences
> researching parapsychology in India," he said with a shrug.
> "People would tell me that if I went to a monastery two hours
> outside Benares, I would find an amazing wise man who could
> materialize an object inside a coconut as I was holding it.
> They did not expect me to actually do it. So I would buy a
> coconut at the local market and like a stubborn American
> scientist I would hire a driver and I would go two hours away
> from Benares, and sure enough, there was a monastery full of
> wise monks and they would direct me to an especially holy man
> who was meditating in his hot little dusty cell. Yes, he said,
> he could materialize a physical object inside my coconut by the
> sheer force of his spirit, but what made me think that I could
> hold the coconut?" In the business of MJ-12, Condor, Falcon,
> and the Aviary, there is no information, no document, no evidence
> that does not come from a source that is either a suspected forger
> or someone closely associated with governmental disinformation.
> In every case the hoaxers are firmly in control of the coconut.
> And we are left holding the bag.
>
> As long as you are restricted to the position of watching it,
> rather than holding it, there is no way for you to ascertain
> what is actually happening to the coconut.
>
> If the President of the United States announced tomorrow that
> aliens had landed and were being held in a secret base in New
> Mexico, how would the scientific community find out if the
> statement was true or not? What are the limits of what can be
> faked? If something is recognizable as a mystery, doesn't that
> automatically imply that it is within the scope of our
> scientists' detecting instruments, and therefore could have been
> faked by other scientists, possibly equipped with slightly more
> advanced instruments?
>
> Pitfall Six: Mystery Merging
>
> When two curious events (A) and (B) happen in close time and
> space proximity, it is natural for the human mind to merge them
> into a single mystery. Yet this often turns out to be a mistake.
> The fact that solid citizens have seen strange objects fly
> over Groom Lake (event A) does not substantiate Lear's claims
> that there are hangars with disks in them (event B) at Nellis
> Air Force Base. And even if such disks existed, where is the
> evidence that they have anything to do with the UFO mystery?
>
> It is a similar flaw in the published statements about Roswell
> that makes me hesitate to regard it as a genuine UFO crash, in
> spite of the excellent field research that has been done. What
> we have is evidence that something did crash on a ranch (event A)
> and was covered up by the Air Force, which used a ridiculous
> explanation to deny the facts. Yet the debris showed no
> evidence of being disk-shaped, and there were no bodies present.
> Another site with a disk and bodies was said to have been
> discovered miles away nearly a week later (event B) by different
> witnesses. So where is the logical link between these two
> events, and why do ufologists automatically merge these two
> radically different episodes together as "the Roswell incident"?
>
> The material recovered in the crash itself, while it remains
> fascinating, was not necessarily beyond human technology in the
> late Forties. Aluminized Saran, also known as Silvered Saran,
> came from technology already available for laboratory-scale work
> in 1948. It was paper-thin, was not dented by a hammer blow,
> and was restored to a smooth finish after crushing.
>
> Pitfall Seven: The Magnification of Secrecy
>
> Believers in the extraterrestrial theory are often seen on
> television and in lectures brandishing heavily-censored
> government documents as evidence that they are right. The
> public loves an expose, so these men derive a great measure of
> prestige and additional leverage by claiming that formidable
> government agencies are trying to hide the facts.
>
> In reality such censorship could come from a great variety of
> trivial reasons, which go from the obvious requirement to
> protect new technological capabilities to mere bureaucratic
> stupidity. When such censorship is lifted, the hidden text
> often turns out to be purely technical in nature. The believers
> have simply magnified the nature and the meaning of the secrecy.
>
> The very fact that the U.S. military has been doing its own
> secret research, interrogating certain witnesses and conducting
> discreet laboratory analyses, demonstrates how little, not how
> much, they know. This is the kind of obvious contradiction many
> believers have been ignoring, blindly assuming that the government
> knew everything. Would there be a need to conduct covert
> experiments, to monitor civilian research groups, even to
> finance through devious channels the investigative efforts of
> certain ufologists, if the Air Force did have flying saucers
> sitting helpless in its hangars and little aliens under the
> scalpel of its surgeons?
>
> The facts point to a different conclusion: the expectation of
> advanced visitors from the sky is being fostered and exploited
> by various groups for their own purposes.
>
> Taken together, these seven fallacies lead to an important
> observation: anyone smart enough or devious enough to emulate
> the appearance of UFOs as physical objects can drive the
> conclusions of the research community into any direction he
> wants. He can capture the fascination of the public, and
> possibly the secret beliefs of the government experts themselves.
>
> If a test of the control-system hypothesis is ever designed, if
> a real signal is ever sent to the form of consciousness that may
> be governing the UFO phenomenon, the formula will be found at
> this level. The intelligence community does not control this
> capability. Once these flaws in human reasoning are understood,
> challenging the UFO control system is a game anyone can play.
>
> Excerpt from:
>
> Revelations
> 1991 by Jacques Vallee
> ISBN 0-345-37566-1
> Ballantine Books, NY
>
> Jacques Vallee!! Jacques Vallee!! Jacques Vallee!! Jacques Vallee!!
>
> Jacques Vallee www.conspire.com/val.html
> [Excerpt]:
> Vallee refers to this complex system of control--which is
> shaping human society over the course of thousands of
> years--as an "interface of reality with consciousness."
> It sounds a lot like Arthur C. Clarke's science fictional
> theme in 2001: A Space Odyssey--an alien intelligence
> subtly directing the course of human development,
> toward mysterious ends. Talk about your cosmic
> conspiracies! http://www.conspire.com/val.html
>
> "...It was called the 'New Age Club', this extremely
> highly-placed intelligence careerist revealed. He confirmed
> that its members had more access and say in UFO matters
> than the National Security Agency (NSA) http://www.nsa.gov/
> does! Its members included: Henry Kissinger (ubiquitous proxy
> for David Rockefeller, http://www.bilderberg.org/trilat.htm
> prominent player in the Bilderberg Council,
> http://www.parascope.com/mx/articles/bilderberg.htm Council on
> Foreign Relations <http://www.cfr.org> and the Trilateral Commission);
> <http://www.trilateral.org/> his older brother Laurance S. Rockefeller
> <http://www.islandpress.org/books/bookdata/rockefeller.html>
> (who has quietly funded various UFO investigations
> <http://www.crossfields.com/~watcher/uforocke.html> );
> Howard Hughes http://www.willgriffin.com/howard.htm
> (the reclusive billionaire who provided fronts for many CIA projects
> http://www.odci.gov/index.html through his many companies); a top
> official in the RCA corporation; former CIA Deputy Director and Chief
> of Counter-Intelligence, James Jesus Angleton;
> <http://www.sightings.com/politics6/secret.htm> and included in some
> of its activities such notables as 60's television mega-star Jackie
> Gleason, (to whom they once showed extraterrestrial corpses at an Air
> Force Base in Florida.) http://www.sightings.com/ufo5/gleason_u.htm
> <> Possible Violation of Standard Model *
> <> http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/bnlpr020801.htm
> | The Morning of the Magicians by Louis Pauwels, and Jacques Bergier
> | http://www.cafes.net/ditch/motm1.htm
> "...[T]he creed of the Thule Society inner circle [...]
> "http://www.totse.com/en/religion/the_occult/nazicult.html
> Jack Parsons: a Pasadena kid who turned his enthusiasm for
> experimental rockets into patents for Jet-Assisted-Takeoff,
> and became a co-founder of Aerojet (Aerojet-General) and the
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was also the head of an occult
> lodge based on the teachings of Aleister Crowley, whose
> magic rituals incorporated sex as an essential ingredient.
> http://www.zolatimes.com/JparArt/JackParsons.html
>
> Erik Davis - Techgnosis
> http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/129/edavisint.html
>
> King of the Rocket Men Profiling Jack Parsons, occultist and rocket Pioneer
> http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/132/parsons.html
>
> Plan Nine From Outer Space
> http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/126/nine.html
> One New Age channelling cult, above all the rest, has had a huge -
> very disturbing influence on hundreds of thousands of devotees
> worldwide. Known as 'The Nine', its disciples include cutting edge
> scientists, multi-millionaire industrialists and leading politicians.
>
> Astronaut Reveals NASA Mind Control Program Involving Children
> http://www.sightings.com/general2/astro.htm
> LOS ANGELES -- Astronaut Gordon Cooper, one of the
> original seven Mercury astronauts, has confirmed the
> existence of a mind control program administered by
> NASA in the 1950's and 1960's involving gifted
> American schoolchildren...
>
> In the Mid-70s, Dr. Andrijah Puharich ran a complex in Ossining called
> the Turkey Farm. In the summer of 1975, Puharich assembled around twenty
> children from the ages of nine to late teens, called "Gellerlings", or
> "Space Kids". Puharich trained their psychic abilities, and claimed that
> they received messages from aliens. One teen claimed that they practiced
> remote viewing, and some of their assignments included political targets
> like the Kremlin and the White House. [Levy, pg 165-7] Puharich has
> claimed that the Space Kids are able to materialize objects like trees,
> and that six of them arrived at his ranch via teleportation. [Gardener,
> pg 287] It was also during this time that Puharich did experiments on the
> effects of ELF radiation on the central nervous system.
> Andrijah Puharich died in 1995. See Terry Milner's series "Ratting out
> Puharich" for a more complete account, and for details on Puharich's
> possible links to biological experiments...
>
> National Reconnaissance Office - N. R. O.
> http://www.nro.gov/
>
> F.B.I. - Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) UFOs:
> http://foia.fbi.gov/ufo.htm
>
> The Official (as it gets) Martin Cannon Page.
> http://www.visitations.com/
>
> [][] "Cheney [replied] that if he did attend such a meeting
> [][] on UFOs, it most certainly would be 'classified,' and
> [][] therefore he'd be unable to discuss it."
> [][] http://www.sightings.com/general10/talk.htm
>
> Transhuman/Posthuman Web Report:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=transhuman
>
> Dr. Anderson:
> "... About all I can tell you is that we
> know -- from both the prophecies and our
> remote viewing technology -- a significant
> amount of information about this race.
>
> "For example, we know that it hails from a
> galaxy that our Hubble telescope has examined
> as thoroughly as possible and we've charted it
> as extensively as possible. We know that it is
> 2.6 million light years away and that the
> species is a synthetic race -- a mixture of
> genetic creation and technology. It possesses a
> hive mentality, but individual initiative is
> still appreciated as long as it is aligned with
> the explicit objectives of its leaders.
>
> "Because it is a synthetic race, it can be
> produced in a controlled environment and its
> population can be increased or decreased
> depending on the whims of its leaders..."
> http://www.wingmakers.com/interview/indexi.html
>
> <snipped>
>
> Transhuman/Posthuman Web Report:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=transhuman
>
> D E L U SI O N A L E P I L E P T I C S U P D A T E !
>
> http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~maximus/fig1.gif
> "...[Don't] let these guys
> get behind you. They are tricky. And their
> elfin humor may not be your idea of a good
> time. http://deoxy.org/timemind.htm
>
> [] [] P L O N K
> []
> [] <<<http://www.infowars.com/bg7.html>>>
> []
> [] Haven't the delusional epileptics amongs us suffered enough
> [] at the hands of the relentless confused chaotic forces
> [] of distraught Find Mucking pseudo-sentient Owl Worshipping
> [] tripartisan janitorial bookkeepers all hell bent on
> [] implimenting the dreaded Plan 9 from Outer Space?!
> [] It's ALL THERE in that insidious, trashy Ed Wood movie!!
> [] I shit you NOT! http://www.4rie.com/rie%207.html
> []
> [] T H E D A N G E R L I E S W I T H I N
> []
> [] Yes. The delusional epileptics,
> [] by current medical definition, must
> [] never support the long-term presence
> [] or inhabitation of non-Aliens.
> [] The delusional epileptics are clearly
> [] willing to disassociate for their beliefs.
> [] They will not change this stance in the
> [] forseeable future. Therefore, it is probably
> [] incumbent upon all non-epileptics to study their
> [] mindset, their beliefs and behaviors, as objectively
> [] as possible. One can only presume that if any ETs are
> [] in the neighborhood, they will likewise be engaged in
> [] similar careful study of.............................?
>
> If the density of the universe exceeds a certain threshold known as
> the critical density, this gravitational attraction is strong enough
> to stop and later reverse the expansion of the universe, causing it
> eventually to recollapse in what is known as the "Big Crunch."
> /.../
> For quite some time it has been known
> that the mean density of our universe
> agrees with the critical density to
> within better than a factor of ten.
> Even with such large margin of error
> this agreement is remarkable.
> Establishing initial conditions so
> that the mean density remains close
> to the critical density for more than
> a fleeting moment is much like trying
> to balance a pencil on its point.
> A universe initially with slightly
> subcritical density rapidly becomes
> increasingly subcritical and soon
> virtually indistinguishable from
> an empty universe. Similarly, an ever
> so slightly supercritical universe
> rapidly collapses into a Big Crunch,
> never reaching the old age of our
> universe---somewhere around twelve
> billion years. To obtain a universe
> like ours seems to require fine
> tuning of the initial density to
> agree with the critical density to
> an accuracy around one part in 10^60!
> [That's a "ten" with sixty zeros]
> http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/inf_lowden.html
>
> C U B E
> http://cubethemovie.com/CBSeal.html
>
> Verily... A Ten with Sixty Zeros "chance" for
> the initial density to "agree" with the critical
> density, to inflate a life-nurturing universe
> versus an empty universe, seems to suggest a
> specific fine-tuning of the original conditions...
> (a 1 in 10 to the power of 60 chance): Eternity
> has nothing but Time to impliment such myriad
> varieties. On the other hand, perhaps an advanced
> technology from a previous successful universe
> has found a way to perform these precise calculations
> for fine tuning many universes for scientific
> study and maybe even entertainment or motives
> entirely incomprehensible to us clever primates?
>
> Will we do likewise?
>
> Brookhaven National Laboratory
> http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/
>
> Time Travel Research Center
> http://www.time-travel.com/links.htm
>
> D E L U SI O N A L E P I L E P T I C S U P D A T E !
> http://wiretap.area.com/Gopher/Library/Fringe/Ufo/ebe.txt
> http://bedlam.rutgers.edu/ufo/ebe.txt
> http://paul.rutgers.edu/~mcgrew/ufo/ebe.txt
> http://www.magonia.demon.co.uk/ethbull/mms32.html
>
> ...infinity factory: dr. mario pazzaglini (realaudio)
> by Richard Metzger - February 13, 2001
> http://www.disinfo.com/pages/multimedia/id784/pg1/
>
> Richard Metzger interviews the late
> Dr. Mario Pazzaglini, the author of
> Symbolic Messages: An Introduction
> to a Study of Alien Writing.
>
> Dr. Pazzaglini was investigating
> the possibility of Alien writing by
> studying hundreds of artifacts and
> interviewing individuals who claimed
> to have been contacted by alien
> intelligences. He presents a very
> balanced, rational, and informed
> view of the escalating reports of
> written communication alleged to
> have originated from non-human
> sources...
>
> -=\_~o0-O-0o~_/=-
>
> Saucer Smear BOOK REVIEWS AND SUCH:
> http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v45/ss980110.htm
>
> In Erich Aggen's November 1997 issue of his monthly
> zine "C-Com", he comments on several alleged
> extraterrestrial alphabets. We feel that he errs in
> believing in the discredited George Adamski case;
> and even the complex UMMO case, which he also
> mentions, has recently taken a nosedive, with the
> confession of one of the principal particiants...
>
> Nevertheless, "alien alphabets" constitute a
> fascinating UFO-related subject, and we were
> therefore pleased when, a few days after
> receiving Aggen's zine, we received a 90-page
> softcover book on the same subject, written by
> one Mario Pazzaglini Ph.D. The title is
> "Symbolic Messages - An Introduction to a Study
> of 'Alien' Writing".
>
> Pazzaglini does not list his qualifications, but
> from the highly intellectual tone of this self-
> published book (1991), we can only assume that his
> scholarship is genuine. What really impressed us is
> that this is an objective attempt to make some
> sense out of the many, many types of messages that
> have come to us through "automatic writing" and
> other such sources. Pazzaglini emphasizes the
> difficulty and complexity of this study.
>
> Says the author: "Our... assumption is that the
> world we perceive is a mentally constructed world
> that is clearly not the same world that 'really'
> exists out there." Further on, he cautions: "Many
> scripts are blatantly mundane in their origin.
> Best examples (of this) are perhaps scripts that
> contain exactly the same letters and number of
> letters as our own alphabet. It would be extremely
> unlikely that another race of beings developing
> totally separately from us would produce exactly
> the same symbol and sound repetoire.. although
> nothing is impossible..." At the very end of the
> text he states, profoundly: "Are we talking to
> ourselves or is someone else trying to tell us
> something. Who knows?"
>
> As usual, Space limits our ability to do justice
> to this unique contribution to UFO literature.
> The book is presumably available from the author,
> at: 523 Capitol Trail, Newark, Delaware 19711.
> This is great "4-D" stuff, and certainly worth a
> few bucks.
>
> We should add that, in addition to the 90 pages
> of text, Pazzaglini includes about 80 pages of
> various terrestrial alphabets, as well as unknown
> writings of various sorts. Our favorite in the
> latter category is Jesse Marcel Jr.'s recollection
> of the "symbols" he saw on the "I" beam of the
> Roswell, N.M. crashed saucer. He notes that all of
> these characters were in violet. Looking at this
> famed series of symbols, they still look like
> stylized flowers to us. Hard-core Roswell fans will
> know just what we mean by this! --Saucer Smear
> http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v45/ss980110.htm
>
> -=/_~o0-O-0o~_\=-
>
> Alien Writing: An Interview With Dr. Mario Pazzaglini
> http://www.excludedmiddle.com/pazzaglini_interview.htm
>
> -=\_~o0-O-0o~_/=-
>
> ALEISTER CROWLEY AND THE LAM STATEMENT
> © 1996 By Ian Blake
> http://www.excludedmiddle.com/LAMstatement.html
>
> -=/_~o0-O-0o~_\=-
>
> Engineering and Consciousness
> http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/
> The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR)
> program was established at Princeton University in
> 1979 by Robert G. Jahn, then Dean of the School of
> Engineering and Applied Science, to pursue rigorous
> scientific study of the interaction of human
> consciousness with sensitive physical devices,
> systems, and processes common to contemporary
> engineering practice. Since that time, an
> interdisciplinary staff of engineers, physicists,
> psychologists, and humanists has been conducting a
> comprehensive agenda of experiments and developing
> complementary theoretical models to enable better
> understanding of the role of consciousness in the
> establishment of physical reality.
>
> -=\_~o0-O-0o~_/=-
>
> Sex and Rockets
> http://www.excludedmiddle.com/sexnrkts.htm
>
> -=/_~o0-O-0o~_\=-
>
> Interview with John Mack
> Psychiatrist, Harvard University
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/johnmack.html
>
> NOVA: Let's talk about your own personal evolution
> from perhaps skepticism to belief ...
>
> MACK: When I first encountered this phenomenon, or
> particularly even before I had actually seen the
> people themselves, I had very little place in my mind
> to take this seriously. I, like most of us, were
> raised to believe that if we were going to discover
> other intelligence, we'd do it through radio waves
> or through signals or something of that kind.
>
> The idea that we could be reached by some other kind
> of being, creature, intelligence that could actually
> enter our world and have physical effects as well as
> emotional effects, was simply not part of the world
> view that I had been raised in. So that I came very
> reluctantly to the conclusion that this was a true
> mystery...
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/johnmack.html
>
> -=\_~o0-O-0o~_/=-
The Evolutionary Biology of REM Sleep
"We should note that REM is an ancient brain function
in mammals, to the best of our knowledge, fish and
reptiles exhibit no such state. REM sleep is rudimentary
in birds, occurring only in brief and infrequent episodes...
Using this evolutionary context as background, it is
unlikely that REM evolved de novo within the brain stem
of early mammals... Indeed, from a range of facts... we
might surmise that what is now known as REM mechanisms
originally controlled a primitive form of waking arousal.
With the evolution of higher brain areas, a newer and more
efficient waking mechanism may have been needed, leading
to the emergence of the ARAS [ascending reticular activating
system]. The more ancient form of arousal may have been
gradually overridden and relegated to providing a background
function such as the integration of emotional information
that seems to occur during dreaming. People who hold dream
experience in great esteem may be correctly affirming the
importance of affective information that is encoded through
our ancient emotional urges for the proper conduct of our
waking activities... As the new thalamocortical cognitive
mechanisms evolved, the old emotional arousal system
may have assumed the subsidiary role of doing
computations on the environmental relationships that had
transpired during waking, especially those with a strong
emotional content. In other words, the REM system may
now allow ancient emotional impulses to be integrated with
the newer cognitive skills of the more recently evolved brain
waking systems. This could help explain many striking
attributes of REM sleep, ranging from its heavy emotional
content to its apparent functions of enhancing learning and
solidifying memory consolidation." (p.135)
Panksepp, J: Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of
Human and Animal Emotions. New York, Oxford University
Press,1998 [Quoted by Morton F. Reiser, M.D. in his article:
The Dream in Contemporary Psychiatry.
The American Journal of Psychiatry,
Vol. 158, No. 3, March 2001]
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org
