The Future Is All In Your Head

This is something I've wanted to address many times, but thought it rather ponderous for a public Journal. Maybe you won't, so with my faith in your interest intact, I'll continue.

How little of our brain matter do we use, about 12% if that? Many people who use a few percentages more are usually very psychic when tested, and PET scans (positron emission tomography, a "map" of the brain drawn by throwing positrons at it - like sonar) reveal many "hot spots" or active areas during certain thought patterns. For instance, when we sleep, a separate center of the brain is active. But when we dream in our sleep, it activates another entirely specialized part of the brain never used during our waking state, not even when day-dreaming. That's most likely because we're still conscious. At the Memonides Sleep Center in New York, a research facility I've been following with fascination for decades, testing has continually been taking place to map the parts of the brain that seem superfluous, unused, or "cold". Most everyone understands the topography of the brain, the different parts we know and what they're called. Our pre-and-frontal lobes, our dura section, our cerebellum, our basal ganglia (the spaghetti-like strands separating the left and right brain) et als. We have a "reptile" brain, a remnant of the evolving human body, not unlike our appendix which anthro-anatomists believe was once a larger more useful organ. This appendix "remnant" is now something that can hurt and/or kill the host body, so I've no doubt that in less than 25,000 years of natural evolution, the host will shed this piece of toxic tissue and it'll cease to develop in the womb. Nature makes full use of what it can, sheds what it cannot use, and evolves what it comes to see is needed. For instance, if we keep polluting, we'll develop larger lungs to filter this poison. Smaller nostrils to take in less of it. We may become shorter in stature because we've ceased having to "reach" for what we need, it's all there at eye level. With more people and their accutrements comes more noise, hence our inner ear may develop a kind of specialized sound filter. We may lose our outer ear tissue altogether. And I doubt I need explain what could happen to our rump if we continue to sit at computer terminals for eons.

Back to the brain - it would appear we still require our reptilian brain, the part that most call the "autonomic system"of commands and responses. Neural synapses that occur without our having to initiate or "command" them, i.e. our ability to inhale and exhale, and our heart beating.

So I'm wondering - if so little of the brain is functional, why is there so much of it? My first inclination was to think this spongey tissue was there to protect the fragile inner organs like the thalamus and hypothalamus, the adrenals, so important for a human experience of the world. Then I thought a little outside the box and imagined that, since the host has proven to be a body most efficient and wise in its self-preservation, perhaps this "extra" brain tissue is not extra at all. Perhaps it is there because, 1.) humans once used all of their brain capacity (unfounded and very improbable) or 2.) humans someday will use most if not all of their brain matter. Imagine it.

If people with telekinetic abilities have "hot spots" that show activity during specialized CT-scans, etc., could it be that some parts of our brain are meant for future use in our evolving body, perhaps to strengthen our psychic abilities or dare I think it, our paranormal and psi tendencies? What of this ability, telekinesis? I've seen experiments where people with great, intense inner faith move inanimate objects, like pencils, you have too. There's a Zen belief that if one meditates deeply enough, has incredible faith, they can move a mountain with only the power of their mind. Brain power. Faith. Why not. There's so little we actually know for certain about what these over-large, cumbersome, incredibly complex organs can do, so why not a future use for what we don't use now? Again, nature uses what it has, and unless sheds it, eventually uses it all.

Could a certain percentage of unused brain matter be weapon-like? Will humans evolve the ability to "think" an enemy to death? The implantation of an idea, using evolved high-level thought power. Nothing new. Certainly we're well-conversed with subliminal messages, implanted thoughts and ideas we're not aware are happening. Like in commercials. You see an ad for a big fast-food chain and as you're watching this tripe, you don't see the super-fast blip on the screen "YOU ARE VERY HUNGRY". When these clips were slowed down, alas there they were, subliminal messages purposefully (and very criminally) injected into commercials to entice the buyer into buying more. This is, of course, illegal. It's still done, only with more subtlety and it works. Once again, the human brain fascinates and confounds.

If I were able to use, say, a tremendous 25% of my brain, that's still only l/4th of the whole. Yet imagine what might be possible! Perhaps my speech center would be so far advanced that I didn't need to speak when conveying a thought. Which would mean someone I was "talking" to would "know" my thoughts almost immediately without having to "hear" them. That means the hearing center of the brain would be extra hyper-involved, so what use the human ear? Will evolution dispose of that in some future era? Agreed, some of the prospects don't sound as progressive or even welcome. I love the language of speech, of words, that's partly why I'm here tapping away in this strange new land of public Journals, not quite a diary, certainly not private, my thoughts and ideas set out for all to inspect, critique, shun, argue with ... look at allwe risk by putting thought to public scrutinity! Yet we continue to do it, and why? These brains! I believe totally that we're compelled to disclose our most mundane, and most exciting, intimate ideas and acts. What part of the brain is more active during the posting of a Journal entry I wonder? Yes, it's as silly and simple as that. Something to do with curiosity perhaps? Or the need for emotional connection with another human? All originate in the brain. In fact the legal definition of death is when the brain ceases to release a signal. I've seen it. Brain-death is actual death. Our heart and lungs can cease yet by hooking the host to specialized machines, as long as the brain puts out a signal, we're considered to be alive. Interesting. Especially considering it was the evolved brain which developed those machines to begin with.

With so much more to say on this subject, I need to relate this one special thought: (see? Thought! Brain again). THE HUMAN BRAIN IS THE ONLY ORGAN WHICH CAN CONTEMPLATE ITSELF. Think about it. And while you are, remember that as you're thinking, you're using the very organ your thinking about to think about it. Get it?

Fascinating.