Midwest Preternatural Research
Theories of Consciousnessby Matt
We don't know what consciousness is, and until we do this is all pretty
much up in the air. Ghosts may not even exist, or they could be
something totally different. Since we don't know what consciousness is,
here are some of the different theories of what it could be.
An Electromagnetic Field
Robert
Becker is an M.D. and very established research scientist. He
discovered the direct currents in our body. Before that, we only knew
about the nerve impulses that transmit commands from the brain to the
motor nerves, and carry sensory messages from sensory nerves (skin,
ears, nose, eyes, taste buds) to the brain. But those are just
electrochemical. Scientists scoffed at the long-discarded myth that
there is electricity running throughout our bodies, like in old
Frankenstein movies, until Mr. Becker discovered the direct currents.
The
nerve impulses that are electrochemical travel down neurons. The direct
currents have to travel through the myelin sheath though because
impulses and electricity can't travel through the same neuron at the
same time without interfering with each other. When applied to bone
fractures, the direct currents will heal breaks that weren't knitting
(before, amputation was the only treatment). And the direct currents
also play a very significant part in limb regeneration. (If you're
interested in that, read Becker's book "The Body Electric".)
The
direct currents in our body produce an electromagnetic field. Some
researchers think that the brain's electromagnetic field is what binds
all the information in the different parts of the brain together to
generate consciousness:
"Each part of the brain has a particular
function with respect to the nervous system. The visual cortex has one
function, the frontal lobes have another function, the auditory system
has yet another function. And yet when we look at the external world we
see things as having properties that are inseparable from the object
itself...Imagine I have a little bird on my hand. I can see the bird. I
can see its color. I can see its shape. I can hear it sing. I can feel
its weight on my hand. It might peck me. All of these things occur
simultaneously, so we say that the bird has those properties. But all
those properties are put together in different parts of the brain. So
one wonders how the brain makes a collage of all these sensory inputs
to generate one single precept -- the bird -- out of all the different
sensory systems activated. This is called the binding property. Since
we don't know for sure how it works, we call it the binding problem."
(Llinas)
"Through his research, Professor McFadden realized that
every time a nerve fires, the electrical activity sends a signal to the
brain's electromagnetic field. However, unlike solitary nerve signals,
information that reaches the brain's electromagnetic field is
automatically bound together with all the other signals in the brain.
The brain's electromagnetic field does the binding that is
characteristic of consciousness. What Professor McFadden and,
independently, the New Zealand-based neurobiologist Sue Pockett, have
proposed is that the brain's EM field is
consciousness. The brain's electromagnetic field is not just an
information sink; it can influence our actions, pushing some neurons
towards firing and others away from firing. This influence, Professor
McFadden proposes, is the physical manifestation of our conscious
will." (McFadden)
An electromagnetic field could plausibly
survive bodily death and become a ghost, because energy can only change
form, it can't be destroyed. "Interesting enough there is some data out
there that suggests that the mind goes into theta waves just before
death, which gives us a possibility of ghosts." (Milione)
The
regular EMF meters that ghost hunters use are frequency weighted to
only pick up the EM fields from electronic devices, so they shouldn't
be able to detect a ghost consciousness. It's been hypothesized that
it's actually a reaction between the ghost's EM field and the EM field
of the environment that's being detected and not the raw EMF of the
ghost itself. The Trifield Natural Meter, however, can detect the nerve
impulses in your body when you move. If consciousness is an EM field
like we have in our body, you hypothetically might be able to detect a
ghost with this meter. However, even the most sensitive meters on the
market today are still very primitive and might not get anything at
all. And for all we know, consciousness might be something else
entirely.
An Undiscovered Energy
If
Psychokinesis (PK) is "mind over matter", and consciousness is an
electromagnetic field, then PK should affect the EM field of the
environment, but it doesn't. (Auerbach) The theory was that PK is the
willed action of the brain's electromagnetic field on the
electromagnetic structure of inanimate objects. "The material world, at
least as far as physics has penetrated, is an atomic structure held
together by electromagnetic forces." (Becker, p.269) However, nothing
happens to the EM field during a PK demonstration. (Auerbach) This
could mean one of a few things. It could mean that consciousness is
probably not an electromagnetic field. It could be a new kind of energy
that we haven't discovered yet. Maybe it either gives off
electromagnetic "radiation" or has a reaction to the EM field of the
environment. (Auerbach) The other possibility is maybe consciousness is
one thing and psi could be something else.
Quantum Entanglement
At
one point in time, everything in the whole universe was connected. It
was all contained in one cosmic egg. Then came the Big Bang, and it was
all split apart and scattered throughout the universe. But it all
continues to remain connected to this day through space and time, long
after the initial interaction took place. (Radin)
This is quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement isn't a theory, it's
been proven in laboratories. If you take a photon of light or any
atom-sized object and fire it at a screen with two slits in it so it
splits in half, the two halves will stay connected. (Radin) If
something happens to one, the other will "know". Even if you send both
halves to opposite ends of the universe, it doesn't matter. "It's as
though we lived in a gigantic bowl of clear jello. Every wiggle - every
movement, event, and thought - within that medium is felt throughout
the entire bowl." (Radin, p. 263) This happens not because there's some
kind of signal transfer going on between them, but because at some
level since they both came from the same place originally they're already coexistent with each other.
Quantum
entanglement is one of the theories for how psi works. The reason ESP
happens most often between twins could be because they were both split
from the same egg. Maybe this is what's going on in PK. If we're
already entangled with other people and objects, then maybe some people
can use that to affect
objects. In theory, quantum entanglement isn't limited just to ordinary
spacetime either. Since EVERYTHING came from the same cosmic egg, we
could receive glimpses from the future or past too. There will be a
whole entry about quantum physics later.
Perhaps consciousness
is something like quantum entanglement. Maybe all the neurons in the
brain are entangled with each other, and that's how the different parts
of the brain make a single whole.
The Brain Could Be Like A Radio
The
brain could be like a radio or TV that picks up signals from the
environment. Maybe consciousness starts out as a blank slate and your
personality and emotions have to be imprinted onto it. Perhaps when
someone is "reincarnated" they're really just picking up on information
that someone else imprinted on the environment. What's interesting is
that there have been some reported cases of reincarnation where the
person who died didn't die until a few months or years after the person
recalling the past life was born.
However, if consciousness turns out to be something like this, I don't think that leaves any room for intelligent hauntings.
References:
Classes on Parapsychology taken with Loyd Auerbach
Becker, Robert. "The Body Electric"
Llinas, Rodolfo. "The Electric Brain" Accessed 02/10/06
McFadden, Johnjoe. "Our Conscious Mind Could Be An Electromagnetic Field" Accessed 02/10/06
Milione, Ron. "Electromagnetism" Accessed 02/10/06
Radin, Dean. "Entangled Minds"