Transpersonal experiments with consciousness
Can we travel faster than light? Even this is subject to our Mind! But He will have to give up the "Ego", stop identifying himself with his suit - the body mind, go beyond its boundaries, turning into the Mind of Light ... Only on the wings of the supramental consciousness, identifying yourself with the Universe, you can be at any point in It in the twinkling of an eye... "Everything that a person can imagine, He can bring to life" Three Pioneer Experiments 1.) Transpersonal transmission of thoughts and images. In the early 1970s, a team of two physicists, Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, performed one of the first experiments in controlled transpersonal thought and image transmission. Targ and Puthoff placed the receiver in a sealed, opaque, and electrically shielded room, and the sender in another room, where he observed bright flashes of light at regular intervals. An encephalograph (EEG) recorded the brain waves of both the recipient and the sender. As expected, the sender's brainwaves were exactly what bright flashes of light usually accompany. However, after a short period of time, the receiver also began to show similar waves, although he did not observe flashes directly and did not receive the usual signals available to the senses from the sender. Targ and Puthoff also experimented with distance vision. In these experiments, distance made any form of sensory communication between the separated receiver and sender impossible. At a randomly chosen location, the sender acted as a signal beacon, while the receiver tried to see what the sender saw. To record their impressions, the recipients gave verbal descriptions, sometimes making sketches. Independent experts concluded that the descriptions and sketches corresponded to the characteristics of the place that the senders actually saw in 66% of cases. 2.) Spontaneous Communication: The second series of pioneering experiments was conducted by Jacobo Greenberg-Silberbaum of the National Mexican Institute. Over the course of five years, he conducted more than 50 experiments on spontaneous communication between individuals. He divided the subjects into pairs inside soundproof and insulated electromagnetic radiation Faraday chambers and asked them to meditate together for 20 minutes. He then placed them in separate Faraday chambers, where one subject received stimuli and the other did not. The first subject received stimuli at random intervals so that neither he nor the experimenter knew when this would happen. Those subjects who did not receive stimuli remained relaxed and did not open their eyes. They were asked to try to feel the presence of a partner and were told nothing about the stimuli. Typically, sequences of 100 stimuli were used - such as flashes of light, sounds, and short but not painful electric shocks directed to the index and ring fingers of the right hand. The electroencephalograms (EEG) of the brain waves of both subjects were then synchronized and examined for "normal" potentials evoked in the stimulated subject and "transmitted potentials" in the unstimulated subject. Transmitted potentials were not detected in controlled situations when neither subject received a stimulus, when the screen prevented one of the pair of subjects from receiving the stimulus (such as flashes of light), or when the two subjects had not interacted before. But in experimental situations, when one of a pair of subjects received stimuli, and both subjects interacted before, the transferred potentials appeared in 25% of cases. The young couple in love was a particularly outstanding example. Their EEGs remained in sync throughout the experiment, confirming that the feeling of deep connection is not just an illusion. In a somewhat limited version, Grinberg-Silberbaum was able to repeat the results obtained. When one person demonstrated transferred potentials in one experiment, he usually demonstrated them in subsequent ones. The results did not depend on the space separating senders and receivers - the transmitted potentials appeared regardless of how far or close they were from each other. 3.) Dowsing: The third experiment is about dowsing. It turns out that dowsers can often pinpoint the location of underground streams very accurately. Willow twigs, like pendulums, react to the presence of groundwater, magnetic fields, oil and other minerals. Obviously, it is not the wicker itself that reacts to the presence of water and other substances, but the brain and nervous system the person who is holding it. The rod, pendulum, and other devices of the dowser do not move unless they are held by the dowser; they simply amplify the subtle and unintentional movements of the dowser's arm muscles. It turns out that dowsers can also receive information not from natural sources, but transmitted at a distance by the consciousness of another person. Lines, figures and forms can be consciously created by one person, and they affect the mind and body of other people who are at a distance and do not know what was created and where. Their rods move as if figures, lines and forms were prompted by natural causes directly in front of them. All of this has been elucidated in a series of distance dowsing experiments carried out over the last 10 years by Geoffrey Keene, a renowned engineer, together with colleagues from the British Dowsers Society research and dowsing group. It turned out that the location of forms can be determined with an accuracy of several inches, even when they are created thousands of miles away. Positioning accuracy is not affected by the distance between the person creating the dowsing fields and the physical location of those fields: the results were the same whether the experimenter was creating the dowser shape from a few inches or 5,000 miles away. It didn't matter if the experimenter was standing on the ground, in an underground cave, flying in an airplane, or sitting inside a shielded Faraday chamber. Time also had no effect: the fields were created faster than measurements could be made, even at great distances. Time also didn't matter because the fields remained stable after they were created. In one case, they continued to exist for more than three years. But they could disappear if the person who created them wanted it. Keene concluded that the fields accessible to the dowsers were created and existed in the information field that fills the Universe. The brain interacts with this field and perceives dowsing fields as holograms. According to Keane and the dowsing research team, this is an example of a non-local interaction between the brain and the field of different and even distant people. / Riddles of Consistency of Consciousness. Erwin Laszlo./
Stanley Milgram's research, conducted in the 60s at Yale University, still causes controversy about the ethics of such experiments. He conducted experiments with the human brain, in which the subjects had to punish other participants with electric shocks for incorrect answers. The voltage was gradually increased from 15 to 450 volts, with the stipulation that one must follow the supervisor's instructions and not interrupt the experiment until the upper voltage limit was reached.
How scientists evaluate experiments with the brain in reality
A voltage much less than 450 volts can kill a person, which was known to the participants in the experiments, but these experiments with the brain were to find out whether information processing processes change depending on the authoritative pressure of another person and why this influence reduces the level of social responsibility for the subject. the consequences of their own actions.
In fact, the role of the victim was played by an actor, no one was electrocuted, and real people were given a setting in the experiment: the connection between pain and memory is being investigated. The trainee had to memorize pairs of words and voice them, and the teacher had to “stimulate” them with electric shocks for incorrect answers, each time increasing the voltage.
The subjects did not see the trainees, as they were in another room. According to the conditions, when the tension became above a certain mark, the “punished” had to knock on the wall, refuse to memorize words and demand, and if the tension was increased, he had to stop making sounds and answer questions. The experimenters demanded that the test be continued until a voltage of 450 volts was reached.
The statistics are surprising: out of 40 people, 26 completed the experiment - voltage 450 
volts, when there were no signals from the second participant - signs of life. Only five refused to continue the experiments, after the first signs of dissatisfaction with the actor, four stopped at 315 volts, two - 330 volts, three participants - 345, 360 and 375 volts.
The experiment showed that people can hurt another person, under the pressure of authority, and even against their own will. The authority and pressure of the scientist-experimenter had: if in repeated experiments the “doctor” was replaced by an alleged assistant, 80% refused to continue the experiment.
One of the authors of the methodology, Patrick Haggard, says that the basic sense of responsibility is sharply reduced when we are forced to do something. Yes, the defendants Nuremberg Trials, claimed that they did not feel responsible because they were following orders. Was this said to avoid punishment, or did the order from the authorities really change their level of responsibility, removing the internal prohibition of following cruel orders?
Haggard and his colleagues, in search of answers to this question, measured the "sense of responsibility" (Eng. sense of agency) i.e. the feeling that a perfect deed is the cause of some immediately occurring event. You flip the switch, the lights come on, it's perceived as simultaneous, but in reality, there is a very small time interval between them.
The followers of Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments: the subjects must punish the second participant for wrong actions with a shock or a fine, at the order of the experimenter or by their own decision. They were promised financial incentives for voluntarily performing the procedure. All participants knew for sure how much pain they caused, because during the experiment they switched places.
The researchers found that coercion led to a significant increase in the time interval between the action and the result, in comparison with situations in which it was accepted independent decision about causing damage to another participant. As if they were lost in the brain: pressing a button and an electric shock were not perceived as a single action, and a person turned into a passive performer.
The conclusions of the scientists are as follows: the excuses of the accused that they were not responsible for the actions 
orders from superiors may correspond to changes in the sense of responsibility and their actions were not an attempt to avoid punishment.
Facts: what brain experiments say
The results of past and current research bring to the fore the complex relationship of interaction between voluntary action and social constructs such as responsibility. These brain experiments show why so many people are easily coerced, and why coercion depresses the action-result mechanisms. Existing examples of such phenomena: military or doctors emotionally distance themselves from the results of their own unpleasant actions.
In the 60s of the last century, when Eastern religions began to take over the minds of the widest sections of the American intelligentsia, the physicist and staunch Buddhist Alexander Holdstat published a voluminous article designed to convince readers of the truth of Buddhist teaching and its consistent unity with the latest scientific discoveries. It is obvious that Buddhism, as a practice of personal liberation, does not need any scientific or any other justification, but Holdstat, apparently, was well aware that Western man, accustomed from childhood to blind faith in the power of scientific knowledge, needs the usual and understandable terminology to explain the essence of Buddhist teachings. In addition, the Buddha himself encouraged his followers to preach the Dharma in languages understandable to people: the essence of the message should prevail over its form, since understanding is the best coin that the listener can repay the speaker.
In his article, Holdstatt described several thought experiments that have become classics today, although their original source is now little known and interesting. Holdstat's experiments are divided into three parts: analytical, spatial and temporal, however, such a classification is very conditional and does not fully reflect their essence, therefore, in this article they will be described in semantic order without any fictitious gradations. Like many Dharma preachers, Holdstat began his explanations with an analysis of the human self itself, which in Buddhism is recognized as illusory and not possessing a true nature. As an illustration of this thought, the scientist proposed to conduct thought experiment No. 1.
Holdstat's first experiment
Imagine that your brain has been safely removed from your head and divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is in London and the right hemisphere is sent to Sydney. Communication between the hemispheres is provided by a cable laid under water. Your body in Los Angeles still sees the world through your eyes. Communication with it is also provided by electrical cables. Where, then, is your consciousness located: London, Sydney, or Los Angeles? Or maybe in one of the wires at the bottom of the ocean?
Analyzing everything in detail possible options, Holdstat comes to the conclusion that consciousness retains its integrity, despite the dismemberment of its carrier: no matter how many parts we divide human brain, while providing a connection between its separate elements consciousness will remain unchanged. Thus, the integrity of a person is just a bodily fiction familiar to our mind.
Holdstat's second experiment
Your split brain is still in London and Sydney, only now each half has its own pair of eyes, ears, and mouths. You are receiving conflicting information about your whereabouts: one pair of eyes sees a rainy English autumn, and the other a hot Australian spring. It turns out that you, like a bodhisattva, are in two places at the same time, but if you speak, then both of your mouths will say the same thing. If we mentally increase the number of your eyes in different places on the planet to a thousand or even a million, this will in no way affect the integrity of your very consciousness.
True, Holdstat wonders what will happen if the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain is temporarily disconnected. Will both “halves” of a person say the same thing (most likely not, although Holdstat suggested the possibility of some kind of synchronization between them at the quantum level) and, more importantly, will the integrity of consciousness be preserved or will we get two different consciousnesses through ordinary division? Here Holdstat, contrary to Western common sense, argued that the integrity of consciousness would be preserved, although there would be no exchange of visual information between the hemispheres of the brain. The scientist explained his position as follows: if we leave the brain divided for a year or ten years and as a result two independent consciousnesses arise, then when the connection between the hemispheres is switched back on, we will have to get two personalities with slightly different experiences that exist in one person at the same time, but at the same time, the consciousness, for the right to possess which they will fight, will remain united and identical to itself. Due to the fact that no one has yet been able to verify these conclusions empirically, this consequence from the second experiment has received the not entirely correct name "Holdshtat's paradox".
Holdstat's third experiment
Now Holdstat invites us to mentally divide the brain into a million separate particles and scatter them all over the planet, providing each of them with a personal set of sensory organs and a constant channel of communication with the rest of the parts. Not only that, we don't need to put pieces of the brain into robots, as suggested by the scientist in the previous experiment. Suppose we have learned how to transplant them into other living beings, and now your brain particles are in the bodies of wolves, bees, ants, birds, fish and other living beings. You look at the world through their eyes and perceive the whole picture in your unsplit consciousness. What will you feel if one of the ants with a grain of your brain is suddenly crushed to death by a stone? How would you feel if a hunter maliciously shot a hare, killing a piece of your mind?
With the help of this experiment, Holdstat tried to explain the principle adopted in Buddhism of not causing malicious harm to other living beings, but he did not stop there and boldly stepped further. Imagine that as a result of a technical failure, the connection between the particles of your brain is lost forever. Where are you now? Where is your consciousness? Your illusory "I" has disappeared without a trace, but your consciousness has retained its integrity - it is still the same for all beings participating in the experiment, only now it does not know it. Since all living beings on Earth originated from one cell, we have a single consciousness for all, and only our stubborn faith in the illusory significance of our own "I" prevents us from breaking out of the fetters of ignorance about our true nature - this is the conclusion from the third experiment. Another conclusion is that if you systematically replace the particles of your brain, united in a common network, with particles from another person, this will in no way affect your consciousness, only your personality will change.
Holdstat's fourth experiment
Having played enough with space, Holdstat moves on to the question of time. As you know, the speed of information transfer is limited by the speed of light. Imagine that your brain has grown to size solar system, and now the signal from one neuron can go to another for several seconds. You are still aware of what is happening around you (with the help of the same pair of eyes in Los Angeles), but now your thought processes have slowed down several times, which makes it seem to you that the world has begun to move faster. If your brain processes information 24 times slower, then a day for you will last only one hour of subjective time, and so on.
Imagine that every neuron in your brain is at the edge of the universe, and the signals between them go for billions and billions of years. Thus, your perception of time will slow down just enough that the entire existence of the universe from its birth to its death will fit in just one single moment of awareness.
Holdstat tries to explain that the perception of space and time is subjective and determined by causal relationships, but for consciousness, billions of years can last no longer than one heartbeat of a frightened mouse looking at the Universe. The paradoxical conclusion of Holdstat is as follows: consciousness does not exist in space and time, this space and time exist in consciousness.
Fifth experiment of Holdstat
From the previous experiment, it follows that the past, present and future can "exist" in the mind at the same time. A signal sent by a part of the brain from one end of the Universe will reach the other part in a billion years, as a result, two slices of data will appear in your mind at once: the events of the present moment and what happened a billion years ago, but both of them will exist simultaneously. The past and the present will merge, and you will perceive a billion years as the finest line between the past and the future, because we do not perceive the time required for the neurons of our brain to exchange information as significant, even if it lasts billions of years. However, since many causal chains fit into this face, you can easily predict the development of events in the future. Strictly speaking, the future for you has already come in the third part of the brain, to which the signal from the first two will reach another billion years.
Holdstat's sixth experiment
Let's go back and reduce our brain just enough so that the exchange of data between neurons becomes instantaneous and unhindered. Simply put, let's compress our brain into a point with an almost zero radius. Since our thought processes will be faster, outer time will slow down. If the brain is compressed to a state of zero radius, Holdstat argues, time will stop for us altogether. Given a question, we can read every book in the library of Congress in a hundred subjective years to give the best possible answer, but from the point of view of an outside observer, we will answer almost instantly. The questioner will most likely decide that we have the omniscience of the Buddha and, in some sense, we do. Eternity is contained in every moment, therefore, from the point of view of an enlightened consciousness, cleansed of the habits of human perception, this moment is no different from a billion years. Spatial and temporal restrictions are significant only for the human body, but not for consciousness, which does not occupy space at all and does not keep track of time using wristwatches.
Of course, today these mental experiments look largely naive, and some of Holdstat's conclusions are scientifically dubious, but they can still be considered a useful basis for the practice of analytical meditation and, in general, a good reason to reflect at your leisure on something more important than the next political one. scandal or TV show. In the roaring 1960s that followed, a few additional Holdstatian thought experiments appeared, but they should be considered nothing more than additional food for thought. Pure analytical meditation, to my knowledge, was not particularly popular during the psychedelic revolution. Holdstatt's paradox has not yet been resolved for quite obvious reasons, although the development of the Internet and neurosurgery allows us to remain optimistic in this issue. As for Holdstat himself, his body was cremated in 2001, and his consciousness belongs to all of us exactly to the same extent that ours belonged to him, while he walked the Earth and breathed the air common to all its inhabitants.
Scientists have found that if you look another person straight in the eye for a long time, you can change your mind. Anyone can do the experiment.
First experience
Giovanni Caputo, who is a professor at one of the Italian universities, did an experiment with mirrors. The experiment involved 50 people who looked at themselves in a mirror in a dimly lit room. The duration is 10 minutes. Already in the first two minutes, people began to experience some changes in their minds. In the first minute, people saw themselves with some kind of deformations, then their own reflection changed beyond recognition, and at the end some monsters appeared in general. Some subjects claim that at the end of the experiment they saw their dead relatives in the reflection. The volunteers were forced to switch mirrors and the hallucinations became more dramatic.
New experiment
The Italian scientist decided to conduct new experience and selected 40 volunteers. All participants were divided into pairs. The experiment was conducted in a dimly lit room, but people now sat on chairs and peered into the eyes of their partner. The distance from each other was one meter. People were divided in such a way that one group sat opposite each other, and the rest were with their backs. The second group of volunteers had to look at the wall. Due to the low light, people's color perception was reduced, but facial features could be easily seen. To prevent people from having unnecessary fantasies and hallucinations, they were instructed that they were participating in a meditative experience.
What happened?
After the experiment, volunteers were asked to fill out questionnaires. It turned out that those who looked into the eyes of their partner for 10 minutes began to perceive sounds more clearly and distinguish colors better, it seemed that time slowed down. About 90 percent of people admitted that in the middle of the experiment, the faces of their partners began to distort, and about 70 percent saw real monsters or monsters, and 10 percent were sure that their deceased relatives were sitting opposite. None of the participants remained indifferent. Everyone had some kind of emotion.
Conclusion
Indeed, people begin to see another world, but this is due to dissociation or distorted reality. The scientist argues that if there is an exit from consciousness, then there must be an entrance. The appearance of monsters can be explained by the lack of sensory stimulation. The fact is that when a person peers at one point, his peripheral vision becomes dull. This can explain the distortion of the partner's facial features. When visual information is missing or disappears, the brain itself begins to build it up, from here people begin to see all sorts of monsters, and someone of their dead relatives. The origin of the hallucinations will be determined soon, as the scientist has planned a new experiment.
facet.pwIs there free will - the ability of our consciousness to spontaneously intervene in physical processes and direct their movement? Philosophy gives different answers to this question, but science adheres to a very definite point of view.
According to neuroscientist Benjamin Libet, any thought is born unconsciously. Consciousness deals with a ready-made result. It is only a lantern, illuminating the processes independent of it. Free will in this case is a pure illusion.
A series of experiments carried out by him confirms this opinion. Benjamin Libet stimulated different parts of people with electrodes. The delay between the brain's response to a stimulus and its awareness averaged half a second. This is what explains the work of unconditioned reflexes - we remove our hand from the hot stove even before we realize the danger and pain.
However, as Libet's study showed, this is not only the mechanism of work of unconditioned reflexes. In principle, a person is always aware of his feelings with some delay. The brain first sees, and only after that we are aware of what is visible, it thinks, but only after a while we discover what kind of thought has appeared. We seem to be living in the past, lagging behind reality by half a second.
However, Libet did not stop there. In 1973, he conducted an experiment, the purpose of which was to find out what comes first - the activity of the brain or our desire. Intuition tells us that we have a will that commands the brain to act in a certain way.
Libet measured people's brain activity while they were making conscious decisions. The subjects had to look at the dial with a rotating arrow and stop the process at any time by pressing a button. They then had to name the time when they first became aware of the urge to press a key.
The result was amazing. The electrical signal in the brain that sends the decision to press the button appeared 350 milliseconds before the decision was made and 500 milliseconds before the actual action.
The brain prepares for an action long before we make a conscious decision to take that action.
An experimenter observing from the outside can predict a choice of a person that he has not yet made. In modern analogues of the experiment, the prediction of a person's volitional decision can be carried out 6 seconds before the person himself makes it.
Imagine a billiard ball that rolls along a certain trajectory. An experienced billiard player, automatically reading the speed and direction of movement, will indicate its exact location in a couple of seconds. Exactly the same balls we are for neuroscience after Libet's experiment.
The free choice of a person is the result of unconscious processes in the brain, and free will is an illusion.
2. Our "I" is not one
betteryears.com In neuroscience, there is a method for elucidating the functions of a particular part of the brain. It consists in the elimination or lulling of the area under study and in identifying the changes that occur after this in the psyche and intellectual abilities of a person.
Our brain consists of two hemispheres, which are connected by the corpus callosum. For a long time, its significance was unknown to science.
Neuropsychologist Roger Sperry cut fibers of the corpus callosum of an epileptic patient in 1960. The disease was cured, and at first it seemed that no negative consequences the operation did not work. However, subsequently, profound changes began to be observed in human behavior, as well as in its cognitive abilities.
Each half of the brain began to work independently. If a person was shown a written word on the right side of his nose, then he could easily read it, since the information is processed by the left hemisphere, which is responsible for speech abilities.
But when the word appeared on the left side, the subject could not pronounce it, but could what the word meant. At the same time, the patient himself said that he did not see anything. Moreover, having drawn an object, he could not determine what he was depicting.
During the observation of patients who underwent callosotomy (dissection of the corpus callosum), even more surprising effects were discovered. So, for example, each of the hemispheres sometimes revealed its own will, independent of the other. One hand tried to put a tie on the patient, and the other tried to take it off. However, the dominant position was occupied by the left hemisphere. According to scientists, this is due to the fact that speech center is located exactly there, and our consciousness and will have a linguistic nature.
Next to our conscious "I" lives a neighbor who has his own desires, but who is not capable of expressing his will.
When a person with a dissected corpus callosum was shown two words - “sand” and “clock”, he drew an hourglass. His left hemisphere processed the signal from the right side, that is, the word "sand". When asked why he drew an hourglass, because he saw only sand, the subject went into ridiculous explanations of his act.
The real reasons for our actions are often hidden from ourselves. And the reason we call the justification that was constructed by us after the action. Thus, it is not the cause that precedes the effect, but the effect is what constructs the cause.
3. Reading other people's thoughts is possible
vladtime.ru Each of us is internally convinced that his is a private area, not accessible to anyone. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions are the most protected property because they exist in consciousness. But is it?
In 1999, the neuroscientist Yang Deng conducted an experiment that showed that the brain is basically the same as a computer. Thus, knowing its encoding, one can easily read the information formed in the brain.
He used a cat as a test subject. Dan fixed the animal on the table and inserted special electrodes into the area of the brain responsible for processing visual information.
The cat was shown various images, while the electrodes recorded the activity of neurons. The information was transmitted to a computer, which converted electrical impulses into a real image. What the cat saw was projected onto the monitor screen.
It is important to understand the specifics of the image translation mechanism. The electrodes are not cameras that capture the image that appears in front of the cat. Dan, with the help of technology, was able to replicate what the brain does - convert an electrical impulse into a visual image.
It is clear that the experiment was carried out only within the framework of the visual channel, but it reflects the principle of the brain and shows the possibilities in this area.
Knowing how information is distributed in the brain and having the key to read it, it is not difficult to imagine a computer that could read the entire state of the human brain.
It is not so important when such a computer will be created. The important thing is whether people are ready for the fact that their thoughts, memories, character, personality as a whole are just one of the pages of a book in an unknown language that can be read by others.
