Thursday, October 30, 2014

Can Plants Think, Talk, Read your Mind?
Evidence for Plant Consciousness Mounts

Image: Still Frame from “Little Shop of Horrors” 

“I just come and talk to the plants, really – very important to talk to them. They respond.”
~ Prince Charles

The Prince of Wales took some flak from his critics for that comment back in 1986. When asked again recently if he still spoke to planets, joked in a self-deprecating way, “No, now I instruct them instead.”   

But how strange, really, is the notion that plants are sentient beings capable of awareness and interaction which is more akin to its higher-order cousins (animals and humans)?

There is mounting evidence that plants have such capacities—albeit in rudimentary forms. We won’t spend time recounting the same info, we’ll give you links and you can read it for yourself.

From The Economist article on the question to The Epoch Times blog(s) on the subject, and many other sources online in between, a growing debate on the question of plant sentience among “serious” scientists is reason enough to stand up and take notice. 

The challenge materialist scientists face is not so much proving or disproving the phenomenon exists; but rather, explaining how/why it should exist. Materialist science has this challenge precisely due to its own limits: materialism.

The fact that plants have no brain or central nervous system puts “serious scientists” into a bit of a quandary. Yes, they can come up with alternative theories, chemical processes and point to alternative bio-electrical pathways in plants. But that’s precisely the point: they assume that the brain and central nervous system (or corollary bio-chemical-electric network in plants) is the origin of consciousness.

Pardon the analogy, but this is like saying the Internet produces what it outputs.

A reasonable person observing only the Internet in isolation—that is, the technology alone—could easily come to such a conclusion. Electrical signals whizzing about this vast network of interconnected nodes. It’s obvious, is it not? The Internet is sentient in and of itself and reacts to the events of the world around it via technology. This is what is commonly referred to as the ghost in the machine.

Image: “Ghost in the Machine” 

But those who know the truth about the Internet know that remove humans from the situation and what you get is a big, hulking mass of cables, circuit boards, screens and keyboards…dead tech.

The activity is dependent on CONSCIOUSNESS.  In this case, the consciousness of the humanity who designed, built and use the technology. Even if that consciousness is mostly bottled-up inside ego (cravings for and aversions to all manner of conceivable and inconceivable things reaching into the highest heights of conscious human awareness to the darkest depths of subconscious desire and depravity).

Sure your iPhone6 will give the appearance of sentience. Complete with a name (Siri) and lots of autonomous activity. But without an operator, it’s just a fancy little box with blinky lights and nifty sounds. That complex device was designed and constructed according to a template, and is an expression of the human mind.

Working backwards, then, how is the human brain any different than the iPhone6 or the Internet? We can observe lots of activity, and we can see it accept inputs and produce outputs. Thanks to EEG, MRI and other imaging technology we can see it very active during thinking, dreaming, meditation, etc. But is this evidence that it is the origin of it all?

If you sent a “bot” into the Internet which was incapable of detecting anything but its own nature—digital technology—it would be completely blind to the biological organisms that are truly behind and at the heart of the Internet, yes? It could explore the whole of the Internet as part of the digital paradigm and be completely blind to the underlying biological creators of the Network, despite the “signature” of those strange biological creatures all over the place…the digital representation of them.

Likewise, if one identifies solely with the material paradigm and “reason” (which is the intellectual paradigm on which artificial intelligence is based), one becomes blind to the underlying paradigm on which physical reality is based.

That underlying paradigm is energy and consciousness. Now, even physics (quantum mechanics in particular) recognizes that matter as such doesn’t exist. The fact that the observer effect has direct consequences on certain quantum experiments is reason enough to begin questioning the underlying “metaparadigm” of materialist science…the unquestioned underlying assumption that the physical universe is primary.

This question is explored in the excellent talk by Peter Russell called The Primacy of Consciousness.

Video: The Primacy of Consciousness - Peter Russell - Full Version
Source: YouTube: http://youtu.be/-d4ugppcRUE

The erroneous assumptions established by the metaparadigm of material science (that the material universe is primary and all phenomena stem from the foundation of the material) lock science into the problems of the scientific method: of concocting elaborate theories and then hunting for physical explanations which support said theories. As if material evidence is the only—and ultimate—arbiter of what is real and what is not.

Still, there is no reasonable scientific, economic, physical explanation for altruism and love…self-sacrifice, for instance. The many values we hold most dear fly in the face of all manner of logical argument, when reduced to that most “ultimate” arbiter…materialism. Materialism and love are incompatible, fundamentally, and so science simply ignores the latter in favour of its foundational metaparadigm.

Why? Were the metaparadigm proven—somehow—to be incorrect, the very foundations of the scientific community would be shaken, and much of what we hold true today would simply collapse like a deck of cards.

And that day is coming.

The real question we should be asking is this: what sense does it make to construct a universe where consciousness is an emergent phenomenon reserved for certain beings but not others? Does it not make more sense to design a universe on a common platform using a similar paradigm at all levels? Just as we constructed the Internet?

So here the atheists chime in with their evolution versus creationism argument. Sorry, it doesn’t hold up in this case.

Evolution is a theory, and while it is true that organisms change over time, no one has ever witnessed the birth of a new organism by means of natural selection. But all that aside, there’s an even greater reason why it doesn’t hold up in this case.

In the context of the present discussion, all life is bound by the same fundamental matrix with DNA at its very biological heart. Be it single-celled organisms to multi-cellular organisms to multi-individual super-organisms (ecosystems) to the planet itself, life follows repeating shapes and patterns at all levels. This happens on the physical as well as metaphysical planes. Truth be told, biology’s definition of “life as we know it” is far too narrow.

The sooner materialist science recognizes this, the sooner scientists will not only talk to plants, they will LISTEN. And REAL science can “emerge”…and the REAL magic can begin.


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Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Scientist Agrees: Exploration is Key to Knowing Ourselves

Image Collage by Genesis: Temple of Apollo in Delphi; Earth Rise
“Man know thyself and thus thou shall know the universe and the gods.”
~ Engraved on the Entrance to the Temple of Apollo, in Delphi, Ancient Greece
If ever there was an impassioned, mainstream, contemporary SECULAR plea in harmony with the voices of great philosophers whispering to us from the annals of Ancient times, Neil deGrasse Tyson makes it in the following video about the effects of the Apollo space mission on the American psyche and the corollary effects of NASA budget cuts since the pinnacle of NASA’s achievement: the lunar landings.

Video: We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 2) - A New Perspective

Is it coincidence or serendipity that this most influential, world-changing, consciousness-awakening event was named after the same Greek god, Apollo, who’s Temple in Delphi, Greece proclaims Homo nosce te ipsum… “Man know thyself and thou shall know the universe and the gods.”

In the contemporary manifestation of Apollo, the corollary seems to have been true: man know a bit of the heavens, and you will know yourself a bit better.

Tyson’s list of emergent entities following the Apollo missions is telling. They also spawned a huge pop-culture swing toward “science-based” science fiction. Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey are probably the best examples. Star Trek would go on to have a huge influence on the development of many of the technologies we take for granted today.

Image Collage: “Make it So! A Handful of Innovations attributable to Star Trek

Mr. Tyson has no illusions about why we went to the moon in the first place. Here he outlines how it was the climate of the Cold War, the threat of the Russians putting ballistic missiles in orbit or on the surface of the moon that put fire under the seats of power of U.S. leaders.

Video: Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 1)

However, if Mr. Tyson believes this was the ONLY “perceived threat” and the ONLY “pretext” for the Apollo mission, well, he has ignored the not-so-mainstream narrative which really began in Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947.

Whether you believe in the UFOs phenomenon or not, it makes just as much sense to us that a paranoid government launching an aggressive space program fearing space superiority by  a foreign power, would be just as likely to consider the possibility of extra-terrestrial threats in its strategy.

Of course, once they discovered that extra-terrestrials pose no threat whatsoever, and that that the existential threat from a Russian space program was non-existent, NASA’s mission switched to one of payload delivery (of military, weather and communications satellites)…and the space shuttle program was born: the first reusable manned spacecraft. Most recently, the top-secret X-37B space drone, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California after almost two years in orbit.
“Just what the plane was doing has been the subject of sometimes spectacular speculation. Several experts have theorized it carried a payload of spy gear in its cargo bay.”
Source: MailOnline
Image: Space Shuttle & X-37B: Different Spacecraft for Different Approaches to Orbital Space Missions 
Sources: http://www.bhmpics.com/view-space_shuttle_mission-other.html ;  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2797493/Top-secret-space-plane-lands-California-coast.html

Exploration of the Consciousness

As passionate and admirable as Mr. Tyson’s plea is—to embrace the spirit of science, exploration, and the deeply-rooted longing for all beings to know themselves in the most fundamental and profound way—he  is missing a piece of the puzzle.

The reason that NASA’s budget was cut so radically because of the costs and limitations of physical human space travel. Certainly, it is conceivable that with a big enough budget we could develop the technologies to allow us to travel to the furthest reaches of the solar system. But beyond that?

Even at the speed of light, interstellar space travel is simply not practical, bound by the laws of physics. Besides, didn’t all the organizations spawned by the Apollo missions illuminate us as to how we don’t yet have our own house in order?

Do we really think the intergalactic fraternity is going to welcome with open arms a humanity which is as degenerated and barbaric as ours? Preoccupied with such frivolous obsessions as material fortune, fame, power, accolades, legacies, sexual exploits? 

Let us not forget the most important idea Star Trek gave humanity:
“…the Prime Directive is the guiding principle of the United Federation of Planets. The Prime Directive, used in four out of five Star Trek-based series, prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering with the internal development of alien civilizations.”

Specifically, the Prime Directive forbids open contact with pre-warp humanities. Planets which have not yet developed dimensional travel, and cannot exceed the speed of light, are not ready to join the intergalactic fraternity of humanities.

We are not ready. And, we won’t be ready so long as our space program is motivated by fear, military interests, economic interests, or any other ego-based considerations…no matter how much money we throw at it.

In other words, to know the heavens, we must first know ourselves. Yes, the Greeks were right. But take heart! The best news is that if one does educate oneself on the true science (non-materialist science) of the consciousness, one can travel anywhere in the universe.

Awakened consciousness and the development of the subtle vehicles of the human being—the solar vital, astral, mental and causal bodies—allows one to escape the limits of physical plane and travel and explore the fourth, fifth, sixth dimension and beyond. Awakened consciousness is a passport to the interior worlds, allowing us to visit any place in the universe; or any place on earth for that matter.

Image: Astral Travel 

Ecosystems can help us awaken.

Developing a conscious relationship with nature’s highest physical expression, we cross over to nature’s non-physical foundation. We can begin exploring our oneness with the harmony of the ecosystem, and recognize the illusion of the ego, of physical reality, and the total waste of time, energy, effort, and consciousness which the ego is—and all our material pursuits are.

Through meditation and other practices of pure science—conscious science, not limited by materialist scientific dogma—each individual can become an intrepid explorer for themselves…of themselves…of the “heavens” and yes, know the “gods,” beginning with their own Innermost Highest Self. The True Self.

And the best part is? An ecosystem may set you back some cash, it’s true. But nowhere near as much as a vain attempt at a materialist scientific space program. And, truth be told, if you don’t have the funds for an indoor ecosystem; you can spend time in nature and do it on the cheap.

To be a traveler, explorer, and true scientist of our multi-dimensional universe, COSTS NO MONEY AT ALL. Just time, patience, diligence, and effort.


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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

If at first you don’t Suck-Seed, MODIFY THE CHILDREN
The GMO Industry’s “Next Generation” Propaganda

Video: Bill Nye Sells a Whole New Generation on GMO’s
“If you set aside for a moment from the usual debate about whether GMOs are bad or good, a curious fact emerges. For a rich and powerful [industry] that seems to excel at nearly everything it does, [GMO companies] suck in one important aspect: spin control.”
Clearly, the GMO industry has a PR problem. A growing number of people are expressing real concerns about the safety of “frankenfoods,” not just in terms of health, but also the environment.

Genetically engineered organisms are NEW SPECIES, unlike anything the world has seen before. And let’s face it: we human beings are caught between two insanely irrational psychological bents…
  • FEAR ANYTHING’S THAT’S NEW on the one hand, and
  • EMBRACE EVERY NEW TECHNOLOGY PRECIPITOUSLY on the other.

With GMO’s there are real concerns. These concerns have been well documented and voiced by many groups and individuals—including prominent scientists, biologists, bio-ethicists, and geneticists—David Suzuki among them.

So while the GMO industry keeps advancing, pushed by soaring profits (and they would say “the global demands on industrial agricultural food production”), they are feeling the pinch in terms of public opinion. Not only are GMO’s banned in many countries, the demand for GMO labelling of food products is gaining ground in many jurisdictions. 

“What to do!? Never fear! Bill Nye is on the case! (Suck our GE eggs, Suzuki!)” – GMO lobby.

When you’re losing battle on one front—consumer population and regulators—why not launch a flanking maneuver on a whole new WEAKER FRONT? “If we can’t convince THIS generation of the safety and reliability of GE organisms, why not get at the NEXT generation, while they’re still vulnerable?”

Psychologically Modified Offspring (PMO’s)

Children are naïve and impressionable, right? Kids will believe practically anything they’re told by authority figures, teachers, and the people who they watch all the time…personalities TV they admire, find smart and amusing, look up to and like to watch. TV personalities like BILL NYE.

But hold on! There’s a catch. Children have been growing up WAY TOO FAST in recent years. The double-edged sword of this is while they make for ravenous consumers and impressive “influencers” for adult purchases (expert naggers), they also are much better informed on issues than ever before! 

Video: Rachel Parent proves children are not so gullible


So, it’s not enough for Bill Nye to come out with gloves swinging outright against the fear-mongering camp. He can’t just come right out all “rah-rah” for the GMO lobby. It has to be MORE SUBTLE. After all, their kids…the industry has YEARS to propagate subtle, suggestive hints buried in superficially “balanced” reporting on the science and safety of GMO. 

Consider the opening video to today’s article. Nye begins by expounding on how we’ve been tinkering with agriculture for centuries, and why agricultural organisms are not really “natural” anyway.

At 3:35, thrusting a pair of papayas toward the camera like a prize fighter, he asks, “Is it GOOD versus EVIL? Or is it another step in the march of industrial agricultural progress?”

Again, this rhetorical question implies that the whole GE issue is NOT really an issue at all! There’s no “right or wrong” here, there’s just the inevitable step forward in human progress.

This is followed by the classic argument for GMO’s (that the farmers of GMO crops don’t have to use as much pesticide, and their crops are practically chemical free). This turns out to be flat-out WRONG. (Sorry, papaya-man). 

A study by Food & Water Watch found that the promise of less herbicide use has not come to fruition. Based on USDA and EPA data, the study echoed the findings of a similar study by Washington State University conducted by Professor Charles Benbrook.

Image: Increase in herbicide use since introduction of GMO crops.

According to these studies, the problem appears to be the emergence of “superweeds,” which appear with repeated application of a pesticide which selects for chemical-resistant weeds. To what end?

“This has meant huge profits for agribusinesses developing and selling genetically engineered seeds, herbicides and pesticides.  Seed revenues have septupled (increased seven fold) since 1998.”

Quote & Image: Revenues from GE Seed Grows like Weeds.

Ah-ha. Now we see the sparkle in “Nye’s Eye.”

Keep in mind that Bill Nye is AN EXPERT at communicating to children. He does it for a living. He is wildly popular in his ability to explain complex scientific concepts to young kids. He’s wacky, zany, loveable, charming…the makings of a very powerful influencer.

This is propaganda on a very large yet very subtle and seemingly “harmless” scale. There may be some of you saying, “C’mon! This is the least of our worries! What with ISIL, EBOLA, the economy, THE RUSSIANS!”

Well, just remember how the illusionist is able to perform his tricks right before our eyes without us knowing it.

If you care about your children and their future, and want to expose them to science programming on the TV, you’ll turn off Bill Nye and let your children watch David Suzuki instead. Too bad our American Neighbours to the south don’t have that alternative.


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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

“Smarty Plants” & the Roots of Plant Intelligence


“We think the Sagebrush are basically eavesdropping on one another.”
~Rick Karban, U.C. Davis Ecologist
Source: The New Yorker – The Intelligent Plant

A few weeks ago, PeapodLife posted a blog entitled Do Plants Hold the Secrets to Consciousness? . Today, we offer a good deal more dramatic evidence that plants not only behave, it is quite possible they have complex behaviour and even intelligence.

Genesis Eco Fund also wrote on the topic of plant communication as it relates to ecosystems back in July: Do Trees Communicate? Ecosystems & the Communication of Plants.

Mainstream materialist science has no choice but to accept plants are not the passive organisms it assumed them to be. And while many still dismiss the notion of plant intelligence, others are embracing a different view.

Probably the most well-known of these is Stefano Mancuso, Plant Neurobiologist. Here is his TED Talk from 2010:

Video: TED Talk - Stefano Mancuso: The roots of plant intelligence 

Listening to the passion of his presentation, one can easily comprehend why Mancuso is the Co-Founder of LINV - International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.

Plant Neurobiology? Plant Neurobiologist? But plants don’t have a brain. “If you are a plant, having a brain is not an advantage,” Mancuso says. And yet, he has dedicated his life to the pursuit of plant intelligence. Source: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent-plant

There is certainly much more which could be said on this topic.

For starters, the conversation must invariably and inevitably move from the question of individual plant intelligence, or indeed, plant and animal intelligence, to one of ecosystem intelligence. That is, the ability for the superorganism to exhibit behaviours which show intelligence.

And certainly, in the view of Genesis, the conversation must (and will) eventually migrate from the question of intelligence, to the issue of consciousness and the discussion of what these two terms describe and how they differ from one another.

But today, we think we’ll just share some more videos demonstrating that something is indeed going on with plants, and it’s a secret world that we’re only just beginning to explore in any meaningful way.

Video Link: Mind of Plants: Documentary on The Intelligence of Plants, produced by Gédéon Programmes, K Production, ARTE

Video Link: Nature: What Plants Talk About – Documentary


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Thursday, September 18, 2014

Why “Education” Gets a Failing Grade;
Ecosystems Encourage “Growth Mindset”

Image: The Teacher from “The Wall”
We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
Video: Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two (Official Music Video)
Source: YouTube: http://youtu.be/HrxX9TBj2zY

How little has changed in 35 years.

Oh, we know: the educators will cry foul at a statement like that. But the truth hurts sometimes. And that’s the point of today’s blog. To truly get better, one better get used to the idea of failure.

Real learning comes by way of trial and error, exploration, discovery and—effectively—self-learning. But our education system—and indeed culture—worships “success” and fails to recognize the immense importance failure plays not only in the learning process, but in personal growth, all manner of progress and evolution itself!

Allow us to change the dark tone to a more positive one by way of sharing a video from Khan Academy.

Video: You Can Learn Anything 
Credit: Khan Academy

Salman Khan started the not-for-profit Khan Academy on his earnest beliefs that:
  1. Anyone can learn anything—evidenced by so-called neuroplasticity of the brain.
  2. Everyone should have free access to learn anything—why his online academy is 100% free.
  3. Failure should be celebrated and efforts rewarded—in the struggle to succeed one will naturally and inevitably face failure, and that’s a good thing since failure teaches us more than success.

In a recent blog post, Salman Kahn describes a heartwarming story of his son reading a story out loud, struggling for over a minute before finally pronouncing the word “gratefully.”
“He then said, ‘Dad, aren’t you glad how I struggled with that word? I think I could feel my brain growing.’ I smiled: my son was now verbalizing the tell¬-tale signs of a ‘growth¬ mindset.’…I decided to praise my son not when he succeeded at things he was already good at, but when he persevered with things that he found difficult. I stressed to him that by struggling, your brain grows. Between the deep body of research on the field of learning mindsets and this personal experience with my son, I am more convinced than ever that mindsets toward learning could matter more than anything else we teach.”
~ Salman Kahn
Brilliant. Finally, decades since the release of The Wall, educators are coming around to the conclusion that their job is about teaching how to think not what to think.  To create a learning mindset: immersing children in a culture of trial and error, where failure and success receive equal billing; children are rewarded for overcoming obstacles, not for succeeding at tasks that came relatively easy to them. Can calls this the “growth mindset.”

Of course, the challenge is we live in a culture which lives in a “fixed mindset.” Not only does society tell us what to think, how to feel, what we need to be, buy and/or experience to be happy, etc. Our culture also glorifies success. We are inundated with advertising, game shows, reality TV contests, films, newscasts, sports stars, celebrities and “success stories” of all kinds proclaiming “the glory of victory” and “the agony of defeat.”

More than anything else, our culture worships “celebrity”—sports stars, actors, billionaires, royal couples, religious icons, even mobsters and famous criminals like Bonnie and Clyde. This tendency to embrace a “cult of personality” suggests our conditioned belief that talent (such as intelligence) is fixed—something we are born with, in our genes, etc.—for the masses to celebrate (and envy). 

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell turns the ideas of innate intelligence and ambition—“born talent”—on its head. He argues that environmental factors and one’s attitude to achieving success through constant struggle and effort are paramount to success.

Image: Outliers Cover 
Credit: Malcolm Gladwell, Penguin Books Australia


In said book, he coins the phrase “the 10,000 hour rule,” implying that mastery emerges only after thousands of hours of efforts, failures and renewed efforts.

In fact, one “superstar athlete” Gladwell mentions in his book would like to take a minute to go on record and apologize if he added to the mass contemporary cultural delusion which forgot the old adage, “success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.”

Video: Michael Jordan 'Maybe It's My Fault' Commercial
Source: YouTube: http://youtu.be/9zSVu76AX3I

Controversial as Gladwell’s argument and Kahn’s “growth mindset” may be to those entrenched in their fixed mindsets and established worldviews, one cannot argue Michael Jordan’s first-hand experience, nor the fact that we are products of our environment. Even the recent science of epigenetics indicates that genetics are not “fixed”—that environmental factors can turn certain genes on and off.

Finally, we come to evolution and nature itself. In nature, nothing is fixed. We recommend watching the videos posted on PeapodLife’s Blog Article: Meditations in Motion, Living Ecosystems Give Life to see the significance of that statement.

Evolution is both success and failure. We recently coined the phrase, survival of the most fitting, in response to Darwin’s erroneous conclusion that evolution came down to survival of the fittest. The fact is that the environment of the ecosystem is an intelligent growth environment. Like the growth mindset described by Khan, it gives equal billing to success and failure.

What we know for certain is that evolution takes time. Ecosystems are patient; far more patient than individual organisms. Nature tests…nature experiments…nature explores…nature discovers and surprises itself.

Nature is not just always about ripping the throats out of prey, chasing off competitors, etc.  Evolution tries new directions with new species, and abandons species which longer serve the “superorganisms”—ecosystems, biosphere. Ecosystems function on collective harmony and symbiosis. Darwin’s model would turn nature into nothing more than a bleak free-for all and terrible chaotic anarchy.

Perhaps it’s no wonder that our world, fixated as it is on “fixed mindsets,” on success, on glorifying and rewarding winning while denouncing and punishing failure, on competitiveness and “survival of the fittest” is looking more and more like a bloody mess. And why, all too often, has degenerated and degraded into scenes right out of Pink Floyd’s legendary Rock Opera.

So here we’ve come full circle and wound up back in the dark, cold classroom of that rock and roll hell. Before we sign off, let’s do so on a positive note about the growth mentality, and receive some valuable advice and a hearty “Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll!” by a true expert on learning, and what it means to succeed.

Video: Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll! 
Source: YouTube: http://youtu.be/eaIvk1cSyG8


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Thursday, September 4, 2014

Is FEAR of the Natural World our Future!?
Indoctrination, Education & FEAR

Video: Soldiers VS Camel Spider

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
~ Marie Curie, As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v.

Image: Nothing in Life is to be feared…

Just what are these two soldiers afraid of? Behold, ladies and gentlemen, the camel spider:


Image: “The camel spider is a very fast member of the arachnid family, able to reach up to 10 miles (16 km) per hour. It is also not at all deadly to humans although its bite is very painful. Despite this, they are hugely vicious predators when it comes to prey they can handle which includes insects, lizards, small birds and sometimes rodents. They thrive in desert locations and have large powerful jaws which are sometimes up to 1/3 of their body length. They use this great weapon to seize their prey and smash them up with a chopping motion. They are not venomous but use their digestive fluids to dissolve their victims’ flesh which makes it much easier to get what remains into their stomachs. Their main prey are termites and beetles. … Camel spiders only bite in self-defense if they’re disturbed or alarmed. If you happen to be bitten by one you should definitely consult a doctor but as they are not venomous so you need not worry about dying!” 

Now don’t get us wrong, we recognize that arachnophobia and other animal phobias are real psychological phenomena in that many people have “irrational fears,” particularly of creepy crawly things. And seeing images of camel spider bites on the internet likely only disturbs people even more:

Image Collage by GenesisEcoFund.org: Effects of Camel Spider Bites

Clearly, what makes these particular bites appear so nasty is that they were allowed to become infected. They almost certainly hurt a lot, but being that camel spiders are non-venomous, it’s much ado about very little (not the spider, they can grow fairly large as described above).

But irrational fears are irrational fears, fed usually by folklore and myth, of which allow us to debunk a few right now:

Image: Myth vs. Truth 


TOP 5 MYTHS ABOUT CAMEL SPIDERS:
  1. Camel spiders run after humans: Desert dwellers, Camel spiders don’t run after humans per se; they just want some shade. If you run, your shadow runs with you and the camel spider will chase your shadow to stay in the shade. If you stand still, the camel spider will, too. At night, they are attracted to light and will run towards it.
  2. Camel spiders scream: Apart from a few species of Solifugae which may hiss, most camel spiders are silent.
  3. If under a camel, they leap into the air and disembowel it, eating its stomach: This old myth is probably where the name “camel spider” comes from. Camel spiders may stand under camels for the shade, but they have no taste for camel meat (or human flesh for that matter).
  4. Camel spiders eat or chew on people while they sleep. Their venom numbs the area so people can’t feel the bites: Camel spiders are not venomous, and though their bites are painful, they are not deadly to humans. They also only attack in defense. It is conceivable a camel spider might bite you if you threatened it while sleepwalking or tossing and turning, but they would just as likely just run away.
  5. Camel spiders can run up to 30mph and jump up to a height of three feet: The fastest camel spider clocks in about 10 miles per hour. They don’t do any significant jumping.
Source: LiveScience Camel Spiders: Facts & Myths

Media and Pop-Culture Bake Such Myths into the Psyche

Let’s not forget how much Hollywood likes to take such “scary” folklore and myth and completely blow it out of proportion for the sake of “entertainment”—cheap thrills, chills and gags—for profit.

Image Collage by GenesisEcoFund: Hollywood’s Love-Hate Relationship with Spiders (movie posters) Image Sources: http://wewatchsoyoudonthaveto.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/movie-recap-horrors-of-spider-island/, 

From “Horrors of Spider Island” and William Shatner’s not-so-famous “Kingdom of the Spiders” to “Arachnophobia” and “Spiders 3D” (movie posters depicted above) Hollywood’s enduring love-hate relationship with creepy crawlies sees no end in site…well, except perhaps for this big REAR END…

Video: ‘Big Ass Spider’ Trailer 

Does it not beg the question? If all this is for “shits and giggles” (it’s all just old fashioned myth; harmless entertainment), then explain to us the reaction of the two soldiers in the video which opened today’s blog!? The answer lies hidden in the fact that these are SOLDIERS…

 Institutions Indoctrinate “How Things Should Be” and Dogma Replaces Reality; Rationality

There is no question that the military is one of the most powerful, potent and ubiquitous forms of indoctrination there is. It is also without question that apart from certain fanatical religious organizations, there are few institutions which can match the military for indoctrination into strict codes of conduct…dogma by any definition. (Is this the hidden reason why soldiers wear “dog tags”?)

There is no authentic “education” in the military (despite there being military colleges and universities). The entire structure and programming of the military is designed to achieve one goal: a robustly constructed, finely tuned, well-oiled machine ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice…
…unless there happens to be a ‘big-ass spider’ in the barracks.

Indoctrination and dogma lays down track for the train follow. Sure, it can be a powerful locomotive, carry the weight of an entire nation, and run like clockwork (especially if it’s in Japan or Germany), but it’s not so good when it comes to flexibility and dealing with elements which don’t run on the rails…don’t follow arbitrary schedules…aren’t machines.

In other words, indoctrination leads to fear of NATURE.

Nature is the antithesis of indoctrination. Nature, as science now know, functions on “chaos” a lot more than “order.” Whereas indoctrination and institutionalized education seek to define all the possible parameters and acceptable possibilities within said parameters, nature constantly surprises and amazes.

No matter how often science thinks it has nature nailed down, something new and incredible is revealed which blows the lid of everything we knew was “out there” (or “in here,” as the case may be).

But our minds are so programmed, so conditioned into a certain “set pattern” of thinking and doing; so digitally, mechanically geared, we have the natural reaction to the appearance of anomalies in nature: WE FREAK!!! (Again, like our soldier friends in the video which opened today’s blog).

Our institutionalization, mechanization and digitization of minds (via indoctrination, education and entertainment) creates fear of the new; fear of the unknown; desire for “order” and fear of the natural world which is “chaos.” And the result?...

EVERYBODY IS WOUND UP TIGHT

Is it just us, or when watching the video of the soldiers, you’re kinda worried that these are the same people armed to the teeth with fully automatic firearms and have in their hands some of the most sophisticated and destructive weapons systems ever conceived of?

Maybe this video is an exaggeration; maybe it’s the canary in the coal mine…a stark reminder of the slippery slope of indoctrination leading to tension, anxiety and fear from that which is all but completely harmless!

What’s the answer? Ecosystems of course!

What if our soldier friends had access to (or grew up living in; studying in) a vibrant high-order ecosystem? What if part of their education and training included being in an environment of mutual harmony and symbiosis, with a positive relationship with all living things?

Image by GenesisEcoFund.org & PeapodLife: It’s a Jungle out there, so get used to it with a jungle in here.

Now, no-one is saying ecosystems should come equipped with camel-spiders! (They wouldn’t like all the water anyway). But a spider or two may move into an ecosystem over time. There will be little tiny shrimp in it, almost certainly. Maybe some crabs. Fish. Maybe other animals (as per size of the system, comfort levels of the home/building owners/managers, etc).

If our educational system is already so institutionalized, we must carefully look at the current educational system and examine what role ecosystems can play in changing educational paradigms.

In contrast to a steaming locomotive, authentic education, modelled on nature and taking its cues from ecosystems, provides individuals with the equivalent of an off-road vehicle, enabling them to go exploring their world and be much better equipped to changing circumstances, adapting situations, and unknown, unforeseen encounters.

And possibly avoid rather embarrassing viral videos of the internet. (C’mon dudes…it’s only a spider. And we guarantee he’s more afraid of you than you are of him!)


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Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Intelligence vs. Fanaticism;
Education vs. Indoctrination

Video: Expelled: Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Super Trailer)   
Source: YouTube: http://youtu.be/xGCxbhGaVfE
“All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer

The evidence haunting the materialistic Darwinian scientific establishment is mounting; and so, as in all other such cases in times passed, the establishment is making a concerted effort to snuff out the possibility of even considering alternative paradigms—particularly those related to the origin of life.

No one described it better than Arthur Schopenhauer, the tragicomedy of the human condition that we tend to vehemently oppose that which threatens our established belief systems.

Today, GenesisEcoFund is doing just that, and intends to support all scientists in their endeavor to evolve our understanding of biology and the origin of species beyond the established, dogmatically held theory known as Neo-Darwinism.

To start with, like Ben Stein, we are appalled and disgusted at the hypocrites who call themselves “champions of evidenced-based objective truth”—materialist scientists and their backers with very particular economic interests and agendas—who systematically suppress the debate; not just on intelligent design, but also on the nature of consciousness.

Clearly, both intelligent design and consciousness are interpreted as being “euphemisms for religion” by mainstream scientists—hear that? Interpreted…subjective, selective analysis—though truly, nothing could be further from the truth; and there is evidence to back that assertion up.

Any debate, if it is backed by experiential evidence, is worth having; particularly if the new evidence—or past evidence re-examined in light of new knowledge—lead to a more accurate conclusion and understanding of our nature and the nature of reality.

This evidence is not only physical. The word “experiment” shares the same root as “experience” and are usually conducted in a “laboratory” which has as its root word, “labour” (“work”—a word that is intimately connected to experience). In other words, pure science is meant to be experiential.

The conscious experience of the laws of nature are the basis for evidence—the word means “to have experienced.” To limit accepted evidence to empirical evidence is to limit the debate, and any hope of understanding. For starters, we experience less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum:

Image: The electromagnetic spectrum, showing range of visible light spectrum

This is what we experience. As for the rest, we experience effects of the remainder of the spectrum only. Our so-called evidence is limited to how certain types of unseen energies on the spectrum affect material reality—that part of the spectrum we can directly experience.

For example, we have instruments which detect and measure types of radiation. We have machines which generate types of radiation, etc. Yet, our understanding of such energies is completely limited to their material effects; and, of course, the mathematics and physics equations which describe them.

As for our theories—like the theory of evolution as it relates to the origin of species (which has never been proven)—they exist only as belief systems. Interpretations of the empirical evidence at hand.

But there is another kind of knowledge which relates to pure experience; conscious experience. It is what science originally began as, with greats like Sir Isaac Newton consciously observing motion, gravity, etc. and comprehending the underlying forces at work responsible for their behavior. He then described said forces mathematically and thus were born our comprehension of the Laws of Motion: Mechanics.

But Newton didn’t then extrapolate his experience to say that Mechanics were the cause of movement, or the origin of mechanical objects. That would be absurd. There is no evidence to support the theory that mechanics account for the origin of matter.

Yet that’s exactly what Darwin did. He rightly observed the phenomenon of evolution: the gradual change of a species over time through the process of natural selection. The Law of Evolution and Devolution is a real Law. Mind you, Darwin only observed half of it: evolution; to this day scientists have not bothered to look for devolution, and thus it remains a mystery to them.

Then, having observed and explained evolution by natural selection, he chose, quite arbitrarily, to subject all of life and the question of the origin of life itself to the same law. This was, is, and shall forever remain a subjective act of intellectualism—a belief. It is no more pure science than any religious fable about the origin of life. That is why the origin of species by evolution remains only a theory. It has never, ever been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, and can and never will be proven. It is incorrect.

What is our basis for such a bold—if not downright arrogant—assertion? Evidence. Experiential evidence. Our knowledge of ecosystems comes not from theory, nor from the authority of “peer-review” (pure science is not a democracy; experience is not a consensus question or statement of majority condition).

Anomalies can very well be real. A million people failing to see/hear something because of the condition (and conditioning) of their consciousness tells us nothing about reality.  One who sees/hears something they cannot is not automatically “wrong” because of the state of the million. The anomaly is not “imagined” because the million assumes the one’s condition must be the same as their own (and then the statisticians come to talk probabilities, the psychologists come to talk about motive, etc). Meanwhile, it’s precisely the individual’s different condition which allows him/her to experience what a million cannot.

Of course, the reverse is possible. Not everyone speaks the truth; and not everything that we experience (particularly under the influence of mind-altering substances) is reality—far from it. But if that is the case, what about the reality we experience through the framework of material existence and 5 senses?

Our mental condition is conditioned by existence within an experiential framework of electromagnetic energy equal to less than 1% of what’s currently detectable; what we “know” exists…here and now.

But what if, by some miracle, we could expand our consciousness to begin to experience reality beyond the 1% of visible light? What if we could experience, consciously—or perhaps better put, “access”—other laws at work, here and now, which do, in fact, have a direct impact on physical reality, but are more subtle; that is, their effects are not detectable empirically as such.

Consider the Fibonacci sequence and its impacts on physical reality…

 
Image Collage by GenesisEcoFund Fibonacci Foundations

This somewhat simple mathematical phenomenon (known as a recursive sequence, following the simple rule that to calculate the next term you sum the preceding two)… 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, etc…produces much of the phenomena we observe in nature. Not just beautiful geometric patterns like the ones we see above, but also growth patterns for everything from plants to rabbit populations. (Source: Light Grid: The Fibonacci Sequence, the Golden Mean and the nautilus shell).

It’s simple, subtle, yet to the Greeks and many other ancient cultures—foundational.  Mathematicians are fascinated by it and other such equations which begin to describe phenomena in nature which have huge implications on the reality we know.

Another example? How about E=MC2? An equation which allowed us to—on a very primitive level—work with the energies within the atom…

Image: Atomic Bomb; Fukushima Disaster

We’re inching closer to the question at hand. But first, let’s bring it back to biology for a moment and a look at the CELL…the smallest unit of life (as defined by empirical biology).

The film Expelled briefly touches on this, but we feel it’s important to highlight it for the obvious questions it raises.

Video: Inner Life Of A Cell - Full Version Credit: Harvard

Now, if watching that you are not questioning the likelihood/possibility that such an intricate and complex world could arise spontaneously or by accident, then consider watching the narrated version of the same video. 

Again, Neo-Darwinism would have us believe that the super-complex mechanisms taking place inside the first living cell spontaneously and naturally self-organized via random interactions of molecules.

The simple fact is there are forces, subtle yet utterly foundational forces, responsible for the operation and management of a living cell…a living organism…a living ecosystem. These forces are not yet detectable by empirical science, and thus it ignores their possibility of existence

This, despite the fact that all living things possess an electro magnetic field existing beyond the physical light spectrum…a field scientists choose to assume is generated by the matter existing on the physical spectrum, as opposed to even considering the reverse: that the invisible spectrum of energy present actually precedes and is foundational to the material, physical, visible matter constituting the body of the living thing.

This, despite the fact that physicists know that all matter is energy, and that at the heart of every atom of matter, there is no matter as such. But why don’t we let someone more qualified speak through the ages on the matter…
As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.

From evolutionary biologists to neurologists, most will admit in private that they can’t begin to understand how life emerged from insentient molecules, or how consciousness emerges from something as unconscious as matter. These are some of the “hard problems” known very well to science.

But they are problems which are quietly and expeditiously swept under the carpet, along with anyone trying to do any sort of rigorous scientific exploration—pure science—to get at the answers. Like a mother yelling at a child to stop picking at a scab, for fear of uncovering a lot of pus.

Maybe it’s because the establishment is infected. But what’s really scary is that the establishment has control over education. That means whatever it is infected with, it is almost certain to infect the next generation with (this, by the way, is an example of the law of devolution in action).

There’s really only one way out of this quandary; and that is to expand the scope of the current paradigms…but not just the paradigms, but the metaparadigm in which all other paradigms exist and condition established ways thinking—and permit/disallow alternative approaches.

Watch Peter Russell’s excellent talk, The Primacy of Consciousness to get a much better handle of where we’ve been in terms of established world views science, and where it’s all headed, despite the current effort by the establishment at “epi-cycling” its way out of the anomalies which it cannot ignore and it cannot deny. Here’s a taste of said talk:

Video: Peter Russell - The Primacy of Consciousness (Excerpted)


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