I can't find the article, but recently a wearable device which upon exposing the users brain to EM fields makes the user want to move in certain directions has been unveiled. The devs said they intended to use it for a more realistic gaming experience. They also said the device only uses a few volts for the field, but said nothing about feild strength. Also, some researcher of consciousness at an university in the backyard of nowehere has also been using a similar device to influense the emotional state of test subjects, with repeatable but individual results. I don't know about the field strengths here either, but since the location was said to be in a relatively "EM silent" area I suspect the field strength isn't very great. While this in itself is quite fascinating, my question is of a different nature; namely how strong does an EM field need to be for it to effect the neural processing in the human body? If the answer is that even weak fields have an observable (the synapses being the observing devices) effect, something very significant has been discovered.
Ever heard of The God Machine? Look up a chap by the name of Micheal Persinger - he virtually pioneered some really quite remarkable research into this very subject, and it's genuinely fascinating stuff - apparently yes, even very weak but strategically focused EM emitting devices have been demonstrated to produce quite extraordinarily profound effects on cognitive function, not only but including the so called God Machine or God Helmet referenced above. Do look into it, I'm certain you'll find the reading more than merely interesting.
Ah, yes, this is probably the guy... Thank you very much. I can probably get the info I need from his publications. Right now it looks as if even a few hundred nano Tesla is enough.
Apparently, in close enough proximity to specific areas of the brain, it certainly appears to be the case. I remember first reading about Persingers work back in the early 90's, subsequently there's been talk of all manner of potential applications being explored, not least of which the US Military as part and parcel of its non-lethal weapons development programme - y'know the sort of things I mean? Sticky glue guns, non-lethal projectile rounds, basically anything with a potential application for "urban pacification." From what I recall they were talking of using a series of portable microwave transmitters to attain a similar, disorientating effect when deployed in crowd containment situations. Sounds like the plot of a typical Internet-conspiracy theory on the face of it I know, but this was back in the mid 90's on a long running popular science show called Tomorrows World and the idea of using something to attain a similar effect over distance certainly seems to have some degree of feasibility to the idea. Whether it was ever developed as a working system I don't know, but perhaps if y'have dig around in context with Persinger, y'might ferret something out on the matter. Point is, indeed, it seems to be proximity and focus rather than actual field strength which has the "desired" effect. Does kind of make one wonder what living next door to heavy electrical power transmission and amplification equipment can have on a person long term though... Of course, these days we're a lot more savey, health wise, when it comes to the practice of rigging these things up in peoples back yards, and even the potential effects from ridiculously tiny EM sources such as mobile phones are considered seriously enough when it comes to potential health risk - but even in a modest living environment, we're all surrounded by sources of, in comparison to strengths which have been demonstrated to yield discernible effect, relatively strong EM transmission. Who knows, perhaps there's some truth in the old paranoid schizophrenic cliché of taking to wearing a hat made out of tin foil after all... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I've long been wondering what the effect of constantly being surrounded by an 50Hz EM humming is on people, if any. It is certainly not natural. Neural nets such as the brain have an amazing ability to learn to decode just about any input it gets, which is proven by those people who upon sticking electrodes on a blind person's tounge and wiring them to a videocamera made them actually see after a period of learning. Cochlear implants seem to work the same way with the brain, but in a more direct fashion. And IIRC, the US Air Force experimented with putting electrodes over a pilot's back, feeding them data from various sensors. As far as I can tell, there was a period of learning and then the pilot was able to effortlessly make use of the info coming in from the nerves in his back. So if the brain can figure out how to use any info it is given it should be able to learn to decode info sent to it through EM. (I wonder if it already has, but we are so familiar with it that we don't think it's anything special.) If we send it visual data, we experience it as an image, and if we send it audio, we hear it. - Suddenly the 1983 movie Brainstorm (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085271/) is no longer Sci-Fi, but reality. That determined, the next question becomes; how strong are the EM fields created by the brain? Again, if proven to be observeable the implications are just massive. One has to consider such things as telepathy and a Jungian collective subconscious a real possibility. Then reality is no longer in the realm of Sci-Fi, but it has jumped directly to Fantasy. Haha. Yes, tin foil hats indeed, but I try to steer clear of all of that. For obvious reasons, I guess. Make too great claims and I'll have someone label me a crank, even if all I'm guilty of is asking questions and having a vivid imagination.
Well, I'm certainly familiar at least with the notion of Synesthesia, that capacity wherein certain individuals retain the usually sub-cortical ability of the limbic system to process nerve impulses in a cross sensory fashion - never actually heard of anyone wiring a camera up to someones tongue before and getting them to "see" via the connection, but certainly much study into this particular neurological function reveals people who experience a tactile response in tandem with the experience of taste, visual responses to auditory stimulation and vice versa, etc. It's currently thought the experience of our senses as separate, distinct experiences is a product exclusively of cortical development, prior to which we all experience the world in this strangely cross-connective fashion the limbic system process information which the "adult" brain, in most instances, learns to delineate between and separate out as cortical development increases in complexity. Most people will never consciously retain any memory of experiencing sensory input in this way without dropping acid. As to your original pondering, there is these days something of a medical issue concerning EM Sensitivity - something of a general catchall malady apparently effecting a certain percentage of people in fairly normal modern work environments experiencing symptoms ranging from rampant headaches to impaired short term memory and concentration problems. Whether or not these symptoms are infact linked directly to the individuals own proximity exposure to relatively "safe" electrical equipment such as office PC's, etc, remains not entirely clear, but the fact remains the brains is basically a hugely sensitive electrochemically fired battery of sorts and anything which could effect the transmission of relatively weak electrical charges such as those produced by nerve transition and synapses could conceivably be effected - the skull, after all, is wonderfully effective at protecting the soft squishy bits inside from falling coconuts and hail, but sub-atomic particles like electrons just whizz right through the thing as if it wasn't actually there, so should further research yield more concrete insight into the matter I really wouldn't be surprised. As for the ability for the brain to "leak" thoughts though, not too sure the old grey matter is actually generating enough juice to produce a field of its own that extended terribly far outside the confines of the skull... Be rather cool if it did though, y'could float tiny magnets on top of your head and all sorts if it did... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I've also often heard and read that EM from cellular phones may cause cancer. Same goes for technicians working on powerlines or people who live next to transformers and high-tension wires: "studies of children living near power lines that such exposure can approximately double the risk of leukemia and/or brain tumors. Evidence is less clear for adults, but suggests the possibility of similar risks. Risks of breast cancer, depression, and other negative health effects are based on much more limited evidence and are even more speculative. There is enough information to have some concern, but not enough to set exposure standards. There is also a lack of clear evidence from laboratory evidence from laboratory experiments to indicate what protective measures (if any) would be appropriate or to demonstrate to everyone's satisfaction a mechanism which could explain such an effect of powerline fields. The question of a "safe distance" is, at least in my opinion, a complete unknown. The epidemiologic studies indicated above used a "cut off point" of 2 or 3 mG (average magnetic field level) to define people as "exposed," but you should realize that this is somewhat arbitrary level. If you set the cut off point too low, the exposed group is not really much different from the group you are comparing them to, and if you set it too high you will never find enough people in the exposed group to allow statistical analysis. These experiments cannot really give an indication of safe levels: you would need a very clear effect, show a sharp change in effect over a small difference in exposure. Given the current state knowledge, I don't think anyone can indicate safe or unsafe levels, only magnetic field levels which are unusually high compared to what most of us are exposed to. Many people adopt a "prudent avoidance" position where they reduce personal exposure levels to 1 or 2 mG if it doesn't cost a lot to do so. In doing this you are not establishing "safe" conditions (because we don't really know what is safe), but are establishing conditions which do not expose you to an unusually high magnetic field." http://infoventures.com/e-hlth/answers/tension.html "Concern about potential adverse health effects was initially brought to prominence by an epidemiologic report two decades ago from Denver on childhood cancer....There has been a large body of high quality data for childhood cancer, and also for adult leukemia and brain tumor in relation to occupational exposure. Among all the outcomes evaluated in epidemiologic studies of EMF, childhood leukemia in relation to postnatal exposures above 0.4 µT is the one for which there is most evidence of an association. The relative risk has been estimated at 2.0 (95% confidence limit: 1.27-3.13) in a large pooled analysis. This is unlikely to be due to chance" "Review of the Epidemiologic Literature on EMF and Health," Environmental Health Perspectives Supplements Volume 109, Number S6, Abstract, December 2001. http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2001/suppl-6/911-933ahlbom/ahlbom-full.html
Is this really real?Anyway i looked up Micheal Persinger and found this http://www.barbelith.com/topic/16658 from a co-worker of persinger i suppose.Very interesting.The stage 4 of his experiments seem impossible without drugs.
Yep, infact there's a book written on the subject: God On The Brain I believe it was called, came out a couple of years back. Persingers findings with these relatively weak but focal applications of EM fields to specific regions of the brain seems to imply the concept of spirituality, or simply God if you prefer, remains in someway hardwired into the actual brain itself. A tad flouncy for my tastes, but deeply interesting work nevertheless.
