Are You Evil? Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked

A cognitive scientist employs malevolent logic to define the dark side of the human psyche

By Larry Greenemeier

TROY, N.Y.—The hallowed halls of academia are not the place you would expect to find someone obsessed with evil (although some students might disagree). But it is indeed evil—or rather trying to get to the roots of evil—that fascinates Selmer Bringsjord, a logician, philosopher and chairman of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Department of Cognitive Science here. He's so intrigued, in fact, that he has developed a sort of checklist for determining whether someone is demonic, and is working with a team of graduate students to create a computerized representation of a purely sinister person.

"I've been working on what is evil and how to formally define it," says Bringsjord, who is also director of the Rensselaer AI & Reasoning Lab (RAIR). "It's creepy, I know it is."

To be truly evil, someone must have sought to do harm by planning to commit some morally wrong action with no prompting from others (whether this person successfully executes his or her plan is beside the point). The evil person must have tried to carry out this plan with the hope of "causing considerable harm to others," Bringsjord says. Finally, "and most importantly," he adds, if this evil person were willing to analyze his or her reasons for wanting to commit this morally wrong action, these reasons would either prove to be incoherent, or they would reveal that the evil person knew he or she was doing something wrong and regarded the harm caused as a good thing.

Bringsjord's research builds on earlier definitions put forth by San Diego State University philosophy professor J. Angelo Corlett as well as the late sociopolitical philosophers and psychologists, Joel Feinberg and Erich Fromm, but most significantly by psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck in his 1983 book, People of the Lie, The Hope for Healing Human Evil. After reading Peck's tome about clinically evil people, "I thought it would be interesting to come up with formal structures that define evil," Bringsjord says, "and, ultimately, to create a purely evil character the way a creative writer would."

He and his research team began developing their computer representation of evil by posing a series of questions beginning with the basics—name, age, sex, etcetera—and progressing to inquiries about this fictional person's beliefs and motivations.

This exercise resulted in "E," a computer character first created in 2005 to meet the criteria of Bringsjord's working definition of evil. Whereas the original E was simply a program designed to respond to questions in a manner consistent with Bringsjord's definition, the researchers have since given E a physical identity: It's a relatively young, white man with short black hair and dark stubble on his face. Bringsjord calls E's appearance "a meaner version" of the character Mr. Perry in the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society. "He is a great example of evil," Bringsjord says, adding, however, that he is not entirely satisfied with this personification and may make changes.

The researchers have placed E in his own virtual world and written a program depicting a scripted interview between one of the researcher's avatars and E. In this example, E is programmed to respond to questions based on a case study in Peck's book that involves a boy whose parents gave him a gun that his older brother had used to commit suicide.

The researchers programmed E with a degree of artificial intelligence to make "him" believe that he (and not the parents) had given the pistol to the distraught boy, and then asked E a series of questions designed to glean his logic for doing so. The result is a surreal simulation during which Bringsjord's diabolical incarnation attempts to produce a logical argument for its actions: The boy wanted a gun, E had a gun, so E gave the boy the gun.

Bringsjord and his team by the end of the year hope to have completed the fourth generation of E, which will be able to use artificial intelligence and a limited set of straightforward English (no slang, for example) to "speak" with computer users.

Following the path of a true logician, Bringsjord's interest in the portrayal of virtuousness and evil in literature led to his interest in software that helps writers develop ideas and create stories; this, in turn, spurred him to develop his own software for simulating human behavior, both good and odious, says Barry Smith, a distinguished professor of bioinformatics and ontology at the State University of New York at Buffalo who is familiar with Bringsjord's work. "He's known as someone on the fringe of philosophy and computer science."

Bringsjord and Smith both have an interest in finding ways to better understand human behavior, and their work has attracted the attention of the intelligence community, which is seeking ways to successfully analyze the information they gather on potential terrorists. "To solve problems in intelligence analysis, you need more accurate representations of people," Smith says. "Selmer is trying to build really good representations of human beings in all of their subtlety."

Bringsjord acknowledges that the endeavor to create pure evil, even in a software program, does raise ethical questions, such as, how researchers could control an artificially intelligent character like E if "he" was placed in a virtual world such as Second Life, a Web-based program that allows people to create digital representations of themselves and have those avatars interact in a number of different ways.

"I wouldn't release E or anything like it, even in purely virtual environments, without engineered safeguards," Bringsjord says. These safeguards would be a set of ethics written into the software, something akin to author Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" that prevent a robot from harming humans, requires a robot to obey humans, and instructs a robot to protect itself—as long as that does not violate either or both of the first two laws.

"Because I have a lot of faith in this approach," he says, "E will be controlled."

Finding connections in waaaay too many areas

One of the people I'm a fan of is Freeman Fly of http://thefreemanperspective.blogspot.com is drawing connections between Stargate SG1 TV show and modern politics.



At the very least it's fun.

Dantalion Jones

Mind Mapping Tips For Improving Memory

Author: Gen Wright

Mind mapping is a technique to keep a track of your thoughts and ideas through sketches and words that represent the flow of your mind when you are thinking. It can as simple as how your brain went from thinking about the local caf?o the great movie you saw last summer. The caf?ad a poster of the movie when you last visited and hence you thought of that movie. Or else it could be a complex process through which you realized that your company's product could be effectively advertised in a particular niche.

Whatever your thoughts are, retaining them or remembering them is equally important and mind mapping can help you here. What you need to do is to cultivate a few habits so that whatever you read, see or hear, remains in your memory for a long time to come. Photographic memory is a rare gift and nothing can give you that kind of retention. But every one who has a great memory is not born with it; they have trained themselves to remember things better than other people.

There are many memory devices that are used by people for remembering facts and figures and these include things like mnemonics and rhymes. However, mind mapping can help you remember things even better because when you are using mind maps you are actively creating a flow of thought that is associating itself with the idea or fact that you are trying to remember.

One sure way to improve your memory is to improve your listening skills. Listening with deep concentration is very essential to remember what is being said. If you are putting in an effort into listening, you are automatically engaging a greater part of your brain into the lecture, presentation or the conversation. Have a mind map planner handy and you can instantly start to associate the key phrases and terms on paper and thus make sure that you remember right from that point.

Another very important skill to develop is your reading skill. I cannot emphasize enough on how important a skill this is. When you are reading something, you are using a large chunk of your brain by using your vision and processing it to understand written or printed words. Due to this factor, you have a better opportunity to memorize something written and visual instead of just something you have only just heard. What you need to do now is to create a mind map of the logical flow of the items that you are reading. By doing this you will be engaging your brain and immediately recalling what you have only just read. You will also be processing the ideas that you have just absorbed. This will really help you improve your memory.

These are two of the most important ways through which you can improve your memory and you will find many basic methods of improving both of these areas using mind maps. Having a good mind map planner in front of you when you are doing this is very important. It helps you make the process more efficient and effective.

About the Author:

Bill Tyler is Founder of the Bubble Planner, which develops innovative planners and organizers. His passion is helping you discover your own unique talents to unleash the potential inside. Try one of our exceptional Daily Planners today and build unstoppable momentum toward your dreams.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Mind Mapping Tips For Improving Memory

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Use the Internet to stop smoking

Evidence supports use of Web- and computer-based programs to help adults quit smoking

Available evidence supports the use of online or other computer-based smoking cessation programs for helping adults quit smoking, according to a meta-analysis of previously published studies appearing in the May 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Smoking is the single greatest cause of preventable disease and premature death," the authors write as background information in the article. Currently recommended smoking cessation strategies include individual or group counseling, medications and telephone quit-line counseling.

Seung-Kwon Myung, M.D., M.S., then at the University of California, Berkeley, and now at the National Cancer Center, Goyang, South Korea, and colleagues identified 22 randomized controlled trials of Web- and computer-based programs published between 1989 and 2008. The trials included a total of 29,549 participants, 16,050 of whom were randomly assigned to a computer-based program and 13,499 to a control group. Ten studies used supplemental interventions—such as counseling, classroom lessons, nicotine replacement gum or patches, medication or quitlines—whereas 12 studies used Web- or computer-based programs alone.

When the results of the trials were pooled and analyzed, individuals assigned to use computer- or Web-based programs were about 1.5 times more likely to quit smoking than those assigned to control groups. Abstinence rates were higher among intervention groups than control groups after six to 10 months (11.7 percent vs. 7 percent) and 12 months (9.9 percent vs. 5.7 percent) of follow-up. The effects of these programs were similar to those of counseling interventions, the authors note.

"The stand-alone interventions had a significant effect on smoking cessation as well as on those that had supplemental interventions," the authors write. "However, compared with adults, these programs did not significantly increase the abstinence rate in adolescent populations."

"Our findings imply that there is sufficient evidence to support the use of a Web- or computer-based smoking cessation program for adult smokers," the authors conclude. "As global Web users continue to increase, Web-based smoking cessation programs could become a promising new strategy that is easily accessible for smokers worldwide."

How evil are you? Take the test.

Feel free to take the "evil" test.
These are my results:

How evil are you?

Brain Eating Zomby Study

I was wondering how realistic is a take over by the undead... could we battle them?
Well here is an epidemiological study of just that question.

http://www.lablit.com/article/145

Zombies are a major challenge for public health authorities. The walking dead exert their damaging effect through two clearly delineated mechanisms. Firstly, they are wantonly destructive of public property in an attempt to obtain their primary source of nutrition, namely human brains. Secondly, once these brains have been harvested, their donor rises through infernal power as a new zombie, hungry for more of the same, and with the potential to create additional zombies. Strategies for the effective control of zombie outbreaks have varied. However, a new simulation model provides a simple illustration of the likely effects of different policies, which may be explored here.

The model contains three classes of entity: humans, zombies, and obliterated corpses (humans and zombies). These move around a simulated cityscape at pre-determined rates. Zombies maraud according to a random walk, and upon encountering a human, eat its brains to produce a new zombie. Zombie generation is hence an infectious process. A particularly nice feature is the simulation of panic in the human population, which leads them to move at a greater rate in the presence of a zombie, which may well of course drive them into another zombie.

The most effective countermeasure against zombie outbreaks has previously been shown to be aerial bombardment. Troops on the ground are not favoured because they are ineffective at the dismemberment – a prerequisite for zombie inactivation (for a simulation study of this, visit this link). However, carefully targeted high explosives successfully achieve this. A regrettable corollary is collateral damage, as nearby human life is inevitably destroyed. However, these innocent bystanders would, in the absence of intervention, would likely have become zombies – and a threat to their neighbours. This contingency is introduced into the model as a ‘user-directed interaction’ which destroys humans and zombies, making them functionally equivalent: in other words, non-infectious.

OK, enough. I can’t keep this up any longer. As you may already have guessed, the ‘model’ to which I’m referring is actually a game where you try to nuke the zombies from orbit in order to save as many humans as possible. Besides the fact that it’s kind of fun (and the name of the website, ‘hardcorepawn’, is brilliant), why am I writing about it?

Because the tongue-in-cheek scientific writing style I’ve employed above is not as far from the mark as you might think. The key word is ‘infectious’. The underlying model is similar to simple simulations of infectious disease spread, and we can use it to illustrate several important concepts.

Firstly, have a go at the game. If you’re not gifted with super-quick reactions, you’ll find that the zombies rapidly overwhelm your ability to bomb them back to hell. A single zombie is highly infectious, and given the high population density in the city, as soon as one emerges you have to give up on the entire surrounding block.

Which illustrates why, in the control of hugely infectious diseases like influenza, early detection is essential. If by the time you are aware of the problem the virus has already spread to multiple locations, it is very difficult to control it. Modeling studies not entirely dissimilar to our zombie game in spirit have shown that influenza could only be stopped if a very high (approximately 90%) proportion of the population around a point outbreak was administered antivirals. But such mass dosing is obviously logistically very difficult, especially in the parts of the world where any pandemic strain is most likely to emerge, such as Southeast Asia.

Another problem is how many times outbreaks emerge. One of the most difficult things about the zombie game is that it starts with four randomly placed zombies. By the time you have identified and bombed one or even two nests, the third and fourth are already well advanced. A zombie in the middle of a densely populated area is a far more immediate threat than one with few potential humans to infect, so you quickly learn to deal with these first.

One effective strategy is the firebreak. Here, you start the game by identifying a region without zombies, preferably at the edge of the map, and then create a cordon sanitaire by bombing between this area and the nearest zombies. This is not, however, enough, because zombies can wander across the bombed region. So you must maintain it and gradually bomb outwards, increasing your area of coverage and obliterating the remaining zombies left. By this means you can save over 3000 of the original population of 4000. The downside, of course, is that the humans outside the cordon are condemned – and those who in the vicinity of bombs are destroyed by your own actions.

When we face an outbreak of disease, there are several important differences from the zombie simulation. In the first place, people can react to the virus in two ways: they can recover from disease, thereby becoming immune to reinfection, or they can die from it. Both mean that after a period there is no further transmission. Secondly, we have drugs and vaccines that we can use to deny the disease onward transmission, as well as to treat sufferers. This is obviously better than bombing.

But the UK foot-and-mouth virus epidemic of 2001 is still a useful case study. The modeling work, done in my own department at Imperial College, showed how difficult it would be to stop an extraordinarily infectious disease after it had been introduced to the vulnerable population and not detected until it had already spread to several regions of the country. Following its remorseless spread, in which livelihoods and animals alike were destroyed, all options were on the table, but the decision was finally taken for a contiguous cull. This measure denies onward transmission to the virus by killing all potentially infected and susceptible hosts for a given radius around a case. In doing so, you will inevitably kill many healthy animals. However, you also hope to kill those animals either already infected or soon to be which would have spread to disease to the rest. Controversy still rages over whether a vaccination policy would have been more effective, but I do not wish to comment on this; instead, I merely wanted to point out how difficult it can be to stop a highly transmissible agent in its tracks. Just as some of the people in the simulated zombie city had to be sacrificed, so may some people in the face of an infectious disease outbreak.

Of course, what we really need is a vaccine against zombies. But that still eludes the best minds of science.

Related links:

Visit Bill Hanage’s webpage to find out more about his epidemiological research.

Government Experiments on U.S. Soldiers: Shocking Claims Come to Light in New Court Case

By Bruce Falconer, Mother Jones
Posted on May 23, 2009, Printed on May 23, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140206/

Their stories are a staple of conspiracy culture: broken men, suffering hallucinations and near-total amnesia, who say they are victims of secret government mind-control experiments. Think Liev Schreiber in The Manchurian Candidate or Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory. Journalists are a favorite target for the paranoid delusions of this population. So is Gordon Erspamer—and the San Francisco lawyer's latest case isn't helping him to fend off the tinfoil-hat crowd. He has filed suit against the CIA and the US Army on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans of America and six former American soldiers who claim they are the real thing: survivors of classified government tests conducted at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland between 1950 and 1975. "I get a lot of calls," he says. "There are a lot of crazy people out there who think that somebody from Mars is controlling their behavior via radio waves." But when it comes to Edgewood, "I'm finding that more and more of those stories are true!"

That government scientists conducted human experiments at Edgewood is not in question. "The program involved testing of nerve agents, nerve agent antidotes, psychochemicals, and irritants," according to a 1994 General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office) report (PDF). At least 7,800 US servicemen served "as laboratory rats or guinea pigs" at Edgewood, alleges Erspamer's complaint, filed in January in a federal district court in California. The Department of Veterans Affairs has reported that military scientists tested hundreds of chemical and biological substances on them, including VX, tabun, soman, sarin, cyanide, LSD, PCP, and World War I-era blister agents like phosgene and mustard. The full scope of the tests, however, may never be known. As a CIA official explained to the GAO, referring to the agency's infamous MKULTRA mind-control experiments, "The names of those involved in the tests are not available because names were not recorded or the records were subsequently destroyed." Besides, said the official, some of the tests involving LSD and other psychochemical drugs "were administered to an undetermined number of people without their knowledge."

Erspamer's plaintiffs claim that, although they volunteered for the Edgewood program, they were never adequately informed of the potential risks and continue to suffer debilitating health effects as a result of the experiments. They hope to force the CIA and the Army to admit wrongdoing, inform them of the specific substances they were exposed to, and provide access to subsidized health care to treat their Edgewood-related ailments. Despite what they describe as decades of suffering resulting from their Edgewood experiences, the former soldiers are not seeking monetary damages; a 1950 Supreme Court decision, the Feres case, precludes military personnel from suing the federal government for personal injuries sustained in the line of duty. The CIA's decision to use military personnel as test subjects followed the court's decision and is an issue Erspamer plans to raise at trial. "Suddenly, they stopped using civilian subjects and said, 'Oh, we can get these military guys for free,'" he says. "The government could do whatever it wanted to them without liability. We want to bring that to the attention of the public, because I don't think most people understand that." (Asked about Erspamer's suit, CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf would say only that the agency's human testing program has "been thoroughly investigated, and the CIA fully cooperated with each of the investigations.")

Erspamer's involvement in the case is deeply personal. His father was a government scientist during Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear tests conducted at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the summer of 1946; he was present aboard a research vessel for the "Baker" test, during which a 21-kiloton thermonuclear bomb was detonated 90 feet below water. The blast resulted in massive radioactive contamination. Erspamer's father and the rest of the ship's crew, he says, all died in middle age from radiogenic diseases. Erspamer makes his living in the field of energy litigation, but has twice before argued class action suits for veterans—one for soldiers who, like his father, were exposed to radiation during nuclear tests (a case he ultimately lost in a 1992 appellate decision) and more recently one on behalf of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans denied treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The case is on appeal in California's 9th Circuit. "Nobody out there is doing these types of cases," he says. "It's really sad because the veterans are left holding the bag, and it's not a very pretty bag."

One of those vets is Frank Rochelle. Unlike those of other test veterans, portions of his heavily redacted medical records have survived, providing a rare, if incomplete, account of his experiences. In 1968, while posted at Virginia's Fort Lee as a 20-year-old Army draftee, he saw a notice calling for volunteers for the Edgewood program. Among the promised incentives were relief from guard duty, the freedom to wear civilian clothes, three-day weekends, and, upon completion, a medal of commendation—all for participation in experiments that, according to the notice, would help the military test a new generation of equipment, clothing, and gas masks. Upon his arrival at the testing facility in Maryland, he says he was asked to sign a series of documents, including a release form and a secrecy agreement. The tests would be risk free, he says he was told, and any drugs given would not exceed normal dosage. Over the next two months, however, he was subjected to three rounds of experiments that, Rochelle says, left him permanently damaged. His medical records indicate that he was exposed to nonlethal incapacitating agents like DHMP and glycolate, both of which act as sedatives that produce hallucinations. In the latter case, Rochelle says he was taken into a gas chamber and strapped to a chair by two men in white lab coats, who affixed a mask to his face and told him to breathe normally. He quickly lost consciousness. According to Erspamer's complaint, "Over the next two to three days, Frank was hallucinating and high: he thought he was three feet tall, saw animals on the walls, thought he was being pursued by a 6-foot-tall white rabbit, heard people calling his name, thought that all his freckles were bugs under his skin, and used a razor to try to cut these bugs out. No one from the clinical staff intervened on his behalf…"

Medical records indicate that Rochelle went through a third round of testing, but he has no memory of it. For years he's been having nightmares about the Edgewood tests and now suffers from anxiety, memory loss, sleep apnea, tinnitus, and loss of vision, all of which he claims are direct results of the experiments. Still, he didn't inform his doctor of the tests until 2006, believing that he was still bound by the oath of secrecy he swore in 1968. (The government finally released human test subjects to speak to their physicians about the tests in June 2006, under the condition that they not "discuss anything that relates to operational information that might reveal chemical or biological warfare vulnerabilities or capabilities.")

Rochelle's story is similar to those of Erspamer's other plaintiffs, all of whom claim to be suffering debilitating health effects stemming from the experiments. Of course, substantiating these claims is a challenge, given that most of the medical records were destroyed upon completion of the program. Rochelle's records remain intact, but for "others we have less information," says Erspamer. "We spent a great deal of time on that topic, and we are confident that the plaintiffs are who they say they are, were where they said they were, and got what they said they got," in terms of exposure to experimental chemicals. "Who bears the burden on that issue when the defendants destroyed the evidence?" Erspamer asks. "They've put all that stuff through the shredder."

Compensation for injuries sustained during human testing of chemical and biological agents is not unprecedented. Last year, more than 350 servicemen who served as test subjects at Porton Down, a secret military research facility where the British government conducted its own series of mind-control experiments, were granted nearly $6 million in compensation in an out-of-court settlement with the UK's Ministry of Defence. Likewise, in 2004, the Canadian government began offering $18,000 payments to eligible veterans of experiments at its testing facilities. Nevertheless, says Erspamer, "No American soldiers have ever been compensated." The CIA and the Army "just hope they're all gonna die off, and they will unless somebody does something."

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The Making of Screwed!

The musical about the Illuminati losing out.

While the it's funny as a musical it's also unrealistic ... like a musical too.

The zombie movie "Colin"

Interesting movie that is going to wide release and was filmed on a budget of $70.
The producer got all his friends on facebook and myspace and told them to bring their own cameras!





http://www.zombiefriends.com

Sick of the same old thing? Researchers finds satiation solution

Have you ever gotten sick of pizza, playing the same computer game, or had a song stuck in your head for so long you never wanted to hear it again? If you have, you may suffer from variety amnesia. In new research, Joseph Redden, professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, may have found a cure for your satiation blues.

"People forget about the abundance of different experiences they have had and tend to focus on the repetition," said Redden. "Simply thinking about the variety of songs they have listened to or meals they have eaten will make people enjoy the activity again."

Satiation, the process of consuming products and experiences to the point where they are less enjoyable, is a big problem for consumers and retailers. In the past, time and variety have been seen as the only ways to cure satiation. In their new article forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Research, Redden and co-authors find that just recalling variety may cure satiation faster. "Intuition says that if time passes we will like something again: we call this 'spontaneous recovery,' " said Redden. "This isn't the whole story. People don't fully recover on their own with the mere passage of time. If I'm sick of chocolate, simply thinking about all the other desserts I've had since the last time I had chocolate helps cure my satiation. Time doesn't seem to do that very well."

In one of the three studies conducted for this research, Redden and his co-authors asked participants to listen to the chorus of a favorite song 20 times in a row. Then they were asked to rate the clip. Not surprisingly, after 20 repetitions their enjoyment of the song dropped a great deal. Three weeks later, the participants came back and half were asked to recall any television shows they'd seen since the study, while the other half listed all of the musicians they'd listened to since the first session. The group that listed the TV shows was still just as satiated - they didn't like the song. However, those recalling variety in the music category almost totally recovered. "The participants' comments were the most revealing," said Redden. "Those who recalled the TV shows were actually angry to have a song they like 'ruined,' but the ones who recalled musicians enjoyed taking a study with music, etc. If something seems like 'more of the same,' people are just less interested."

Satiation is a friction. It prevents people from enjoying favorite activities and it prevents retailers from gaining repeat business. "The solution to satiation is to take the time to appreciate all the variety you have," said Redden. "The recommendation is straightforward: if consumers wish to keep enjoying their favorite experiences, then they should simply think of all the other related experiences they have recently had. So next time you get sick of healthy smoothies and think about grabbing a burger instead, try to recall all of the other drinks you have had since your last smoothie. Our findings suggest this will make your smoothie taste just a little bit better."

More information: The paper "Variety Amnesia: Recalling Past Variety Can Accelerate Recovery from Satiation," forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Research was co-authored by Jeff Galak (Carnegie Mellon) and Justin Kruger (NYU).

Scientists discover area of brain that makes a 'people person'

May 20th, 2009

Cambridge University researchers have discovered that whether someone is a 'people-person' may depend on the structure of their brain: the greater the concentration of brain tissue in certain parts of the brain, the more likely they are to be a warm, sentimental person.

Why is it that some of us really enjoy the company of others while some people are detached and independent? In an effort to explore these questions, Maël Lebreton and colleagues from the Cambridge Department of Psychiatry, in collaboration with Oulu University, Finland, examined the relationship between personality and brain structure in 41 male volunteers.

The volunteers underwent a brain scan using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). They also completed a questionnaire that asked them to rate themselves on items such as 'I make a warm personal connection with most people', or 'I like to please other people as much as I can'. The answers to the questionnaire provide an overall measure of emotional warmth and sociability called social reward dependence.

The researchers then analysed the relationship between social reward dependence and the concentration of grey matter (brain-cell containing tissue) in different brain regions. They found that the greater the concentration of tissue in the orbitofrontal cortex (the outer strip of the brain just above the eyes), and in the ventral striatum (a deep structure in the centre of the brain), the higher they tended to score on the social reward dependence measure. The research is published in the European Journal of Neuroscience.

Dr Graham Murray, who is funded by the Medical Research Council and who led the research, said: "Sociability and emotional warmth are very complex features of our personality. This research helps us understand at a biological level why people differ in the degrees to which we express those traits." But he cautioned, "As this research is only correlational and cross-sectional, it cannot prove that brain structure determines personality. It could even be that your personality, through experience, helps in part to determine your brain structure."

Interestingly, the orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum have previously been shown to be important for the brain's processing of much simpler rewards like sweet tastes or sexual stimuli.

Dr Murray explained: "It's interesting that the degree to which we find social interaction rewarding relates to the structure of our brains in regions that are important for very simple biological drives such as food, sweet liquids and sex. Perhaps this gives us a clue to how complex features like sentimentality and affection evolved from structures that in lower animals originally were only important for basic biological survival processes."

The research could also lead to new insights into psychiatric disorders where difficulties in social interaction are prominent, such as autism or schizophrenia.

"Patients with certain psychiatric conditions often experience difficulties in feeling emotional closeness, and this can have a big impact on their life. It could be that the cause of these difficulties is at least partly due to brain structural features of those disorders," said Dr Murray.

Email from A Jehovahs Witness

Dantalion Jones: I personally love responding to these types of emails because I like to let them know we're on the same side... the DARK side!

= =

| Hello Mr. Jones,
|
| I am a Jehovah Witness and I don't appreciate you referring to my
| spiritual group as a cult. Your ignorance is going to cause you to feel the
| wrath of God. Repent or look forward to your day of punishment.
|
| Susan Miller

Email #1

Relax. We are unknowingly on the same side.
Your group - Jehovah Witness - is doing great work to bring about the New World Order.

The Watchtowers is a veiled reference to magician John Dee's work at conjuring spirits.

Soon, by your hand, the Great One will reign.

Praise Him!

Dantalion
= = =

Email #2

| Mr. Jones,
|
| You are a no good heathen. My religion has nothing to do
| with conjuring spirits and is not associated with witchcraft.

Susan! :-)

Of course. There is no way the hierarchy of your religion would want you to know that.
John Dees Watchtower/Enochian magic is only practiced by the highest order of JWs.
None, of the "door knockers" of the your great cult would benefit to know that. Just as a general has no reason to share strategy with his troops so too do the JW rulers have no reason to give the money makers of the group reason to think.

Thinking is highly overrated in cults. Faith is better than knowledge and reason.

| Jehovah is going to punish you for your evil deeds. I warned
| you and you didn't take heed. I look forward to the day
| when Jehovah punishes you. That day is coming very soon.

I give you only my love and thanks yet you are filled with curses and scorn.
Do you SEE what your Jehova is doing to you? The anger that eats at you ... so angry that you must respond to me. You could ignore me and go on ... yet you do not.

Turn yourself away from hate and fear. Do you FEEL how it has already hurt you? You are compelled to write me!

Please, Susan, I think you get me wrong. I LOVE cults like yours. They are the true opiate of the masses. After The Great One comes to reign we will all be in our place.

We each have done our part, you by keeping the people blind from seeing and me by opening the door to a New World Order.

There is a way to know what I'm saying is true. It is true because the more you cast at me your bile and curse the more it gives me Joyful fuel for my blog.

Susan, these are wonderful exchanges and my blog readers are responding with joy to them and it is all because of you.

Warmly and With Gratitude,
Dantalion Jones

| Susan Miller

EMail #3


| Keep on making mockery of my spiritual organization.
| Your home will soon be a hot and fiery place called hell.
| Jehovah is going to punish you because you are an evil
| person and evil must be punished. You chose not to repent
| and Jehovah is not going to have any compassion for your
| soul. You chose to become a helper of the devil and have
| become like one of the fallen angels. You will spend an
| eternity in hell's fire.You just wait and see.

Susan,

I show you my LOVE and AFFECTION and you show only wrath.

Again, I offer you the opportunity to NOT respond to me
but your anger and pride are blinding you. You MUST
respond. You MUST reply. You MUST be my angry slave.
Your next responce WILL happen. We both know you cannot
resist me.

As you hit REPLY you are fighting with yourself. You could walk
away... or yield to your own prideful wrath.

You are now trapped in a cycle of anger. I offer you no curse
only the chance to accept love and you cannot accept it.

There is nothing you can say or do that can affect me.
While I will sleep with angels tonight this email will return to you
for another fitful night.

Yet you are angered and defensive.

I say again, JW is doing GREAT work! Give up your anger.
It will only injure you.

With Great Love in His Name,

Dantalion

PS, I know how eagerly you look forward to these emails.
I did a search using your email address and found your posts
to transexual forums. Do you waist your time there as well
as with me?

The Faceless Dantalion Jones

Question:
Dantalion, I see all these internet marketer and people who have web site and they always show their faces, smiling and happy. Why don't you have your picture?

Answer:
Let's face it, people pose for those pictures just like it were a dating site. Just like a dating site you can bet that is as good looking as that person is EVER going to be. I don't want to disappoint anyone.

Question:
What do you look like? Are you ashamed of your appearance?

Answer:
How could I possibly answer that without bias? I've been told I'm attractive but then people like to suck up to me.

Question:
Is it true you have a secret identity or alter ego like Batman and Bruce Wayne?

Answer:
No. I am my alter ego. The other me actually ENJOYS the abuse people throw at me. I, on the other hand, get angry and start to plan actions against people.

Question:
Who wins in that kind of conflict?

Answer:
Everyone.



Answer:
My looks don't have a hoot to do with my business. I might be very handsome or very ugly and it doesn't matter either way as long as people like what I write.

PDF Download "Why are people taken by con men?"

Here is a complete report on from London's Office of Fair Trade that analyzes in depth why some people fall for scams.

This is great information that can help you be safe from at wacky world of con artists.

There is no sign in page and it's a direct download on the page.

Here it is

http://www.MastersOfMindControl.com/psych_scams.html

Dantalion Jones

The psychology of being scammed

via Mind Hacks by vaughan on 5/17/09

I'm just reading a fascinating report on the psychology of why people fall for scams, commissioned by the UK government's Office of Fair Trading and created by Exeter University's psychology department.

It's a 260 page monster, so is not exactly bed time reading, but was drawn from in-depth interviews from scam victims, examination of scam material, two questionnaire studies and a behavioural experiment.

Here's some of the punchlines grabbed from the executive summary. The report concluded that the most successful scams involve:

Appeals to trust and authority: people tend to obey authorities so scammers use, and victims fall for, cues that make the offer look like a legitimate one being made by a reliable official institution or established reputable business.

Visceral triggers: scams exploit basic human desires and needs -- such as greed, fear, avoidance of physical pain, or the desire to be liked -- in order to provoke intuitive reactions and reduce the motivation of people to process the content of the scam message deeply.

Scarcity cues. Scams are often personalised to create the impression that the offer is unique to the recipient.

Induction of behavioural commitment. Scammers ask their potential victims to make small steps of compliance to draw them in, and thereby cause victims to feel committed to continue sending money.

The disproportionate relation between the size of the alleged reward and the cost of trying to obtain it. Scam victims are led to focus on the alleged big prize or reward in comparison to the relatively small amount of money they have to send in order to obtain their windfall.

Lack of emotional control. Compared to non-victims, scam victims report being less able to regulate and resist emotions associated with scam offers. They seem to be unduly open to persuasion, or perhaps unduly undiscriminating about who they allow to persuade them.

And here's a couple of counter-intuitive kickers:

Scam victims often have better than average background knowledge in the area of the scam content. For example, it seems that people with experience of playing legitimate prize draws and lotteries are more likely to fall for a scam in this area than people with less knowledge and experience in this field. This also applies to those with some knowledge of investments. Such knowledge can increase rather than decrease the risk of becoming a victim.

Scam victims report that they put more cognitive effort into analysing scam content than non-victims. This contradicts the intuitive suggestion that people fall victim to scams because they invest too little cognitive energy in investigating their content, and thus overlook potential information that might betray the scam.

Interesting, people who fall for scams often have a feeling that it's dodgy. The report suggests we trust our get instincts. If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

We like to think that only other people fall for scams, but as I'm working my way through the report it's becoming clear that those things that we think make us resistant to scams (a keen analytical mind) are not what help us avoid being a victim.

A really fascinating read and a great example of applied psychology.

Link to Office of Fair Trading report page and download.

The Ultimate Persuasion Seminar

A description of AA as a cult.

This article tells in the first person how Alcoholics Anonymous has all the qualities of cult.
~ Dantalion Jones

= = =

Why I Quit AA
http://open.salon.com/blog/theglasscharacter/2009/05/14/why_i_quit_aa

A sober alcoholic’s journey back to individuality

The other day I was lurking around in the children’s section of my favorite bookstore, trying to figure out what a four-year-old grandgirl might want for her birthday. Flipping through the $30 board books and propaganda about toilet training and environmentalism, I heard someone call my name.

I looked up. Oh, hi, Jim. Oh, I’m doing OK. Yes, really. Just doing a little shopping here. No, really, I’m OK. How are you?

It’s hard to be looked at with a mixture of embarrassment and pity, but that’s what I was seeing in Jim’s eyes. Clearly he didn’t want to run into me, as he had been making certain assumptions: that I had either “gone back out” and was drinking again, or else was in such a state of “dry drunk” rampage that I was making myself and everyone around me miserable.

Welcome to the wonderful world of an ex-AA. As with an ex-con, the sense of ensnarement never ends, at least not without a sense of Velcro-like ripping away and endless guilt.

There was a time when I needed AA like I needed to breathe. Yes, I am a real alcoholic, and I didn’t fully realize it until I crawled into a meeting on my belly in 1990. Scared sober, I became enmeshed in an organization that quickly took over my life.

Moreover, the more embroiled I became, the greater the praise heaped upon me. If I went to a meeting every day, I was a “good AA member”; more than once per day, and I was a spiritual giant.

It’s often said at meetings that you never graduate. That might have been OK if I’d at least had a sense of moving on to another level, but this was discouraged. People with 20 years sober are supposed to say at meetings (whether they believe it or not) that they are at exactly the same level as the newcomers, and are only one drink away from disaster.

I have to agree with this part: It will never be safe for me to drink again, and I’d better not forget it. After years and years of having this fact jackhammered into my head, I think I’ve come to accept it (for after all, “acceptance is the answer to all my problems today”).

But from the very beginning, I was disturbed by certain pervasive beliefs deeply entrenched in the organization. Conformity is one. Don’t ever speak “outside” the AA rhetoric, or other people will assume you’re just not getting it, or (even worse) fighting the mighty and immutable truths of sobriety.


There is such a thing as AA dogma, often promoted by the elder statesmen: one elderly man, a veteran of World War II, came to the same noon meeting every day (supplementing it with evening meetings nearly every night) and talked at length about the war.

He talked about the war as it applied to AA, of course, about how he drank his way through the horrors of the battlefield (who wouldn’t?), came home to a wrecked life, and began to set himself straight on the Road of Happy Destiny.

I can’t begrudge an old man the comfort and safety of sobriety, but the war is all he ever talked about. And why do exactly the same dynamics that saved a grizzled old war veteran have to apply to a 15-year-old street kid? In AA, one size fits all, and if it doesn’t fit, YOU are made to fit yourself to it. If you ever hear a criticism from anyone, it’s always couched in terms of “well, I used to object to this and that” (I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see).

The 12 steps, forged in the ‘30s by a failed stockbroker and an inebriated doctor, are all about breaking the will, surrender, and absolute reliance on God “as we understood him”. Though the founders were in some ways quite spiritually evolved, leaving the door open to diverse interpretations of the divine, the actual practice of the program involves the God of Sunday school and revival meetings and “that old-time religion”. The practice of the program is light-years removed from the actual text.

We constantly hear slogans like “ninety meetings in ninety days”, “it works if you work it”, and reams of other cute sayings (my favorite of many acronyms: sober stands for “son-of-a-bitch, everything’s real!”). None of these are found in the main text of Alcoholics Anonymous, usually known as the Big Book. Though many members preface everything they say with “the Big Book says”, their interpretations are often pretty far off the actual content.

But that’s not what made me quit. Though there was one defining crisis that caused the actual split, there had been a steady accumulation of episodes that disturbed me (beyond the fact that one of my sponsees had been secretly draining my bank account to buy heroin). No one seemed to be willing to talk to me about any of this, as they were too busy going on and on about humility, surrender and the “incredible journey”.

Many AA members I knew literally had no friends or even business associates outside the program, and had brought their spouses and children on-board. This was encouraged. Those who didn’t usually ended up divorced: AA widows abound, and affairs rage on in spite of the organization’s ban on relationships in the first year and unnaturally pure assumptions about human nature.

Item: I was a couple of years in, doing well, stable, sober, and going to five or six meetings a week. Anything that bothered me about AA and its principles was relegated to some sort of seething pit of doubt that was without question my fault, due to my arrogance, lack of surrender and refusal to absolutely rely on God. This pit was a lonely, forbidden place that I seldom visited.

For you see, “everything happens for a reason”; everything happens “the way it’s supposed to happen”. (When my son’s roommate was savagely kicked to death outside a bar, an AA member told me it was “all part of God’s plan.”)

You hear this at every meeting. Though I didn’t voice my objection, because you just don’t do that at meetings, it struck me as alarming passivity. “Self-will run riot” was the ultimate evil, but it often seemed that having any individual will at all was somewhere between a sin and a crime.

My friend Louise told me this story: she had been horribly abused as a child, bullied by a sexual tyrant who was now beginning to abuse his grandchildren. As she sat around a campfire meeting, an exclusive club in which your deepest feelings were expected to be revealed, she finally shared the agonizing decision she had made: “I’m going to lay charges against my Dad.”

There was a brief, embarrassed silence, followed by this from the meeting’s ringleader: “Louise, I believe you have a resentment.” There followed a long discussion (or rather, a series of uninterrupted soliloquys: AA doesn’t do “cross-talk”) about how Louise had to surrender, let go of her resentment and anger, forgive. This was what she “should” do. And she'd feel so much better if she did.

I met her several months later and asked her how she was doing. “Much better. I formally charged my Dad with sexual assault, and he's going to trial next month. And I've left the program. I was tired of twisting myself into a pretzel.” I congratulated her, hugged her, and she looked at me, teary-eyed.

"I don't hate my Dad," she said. "I just want to stop the abuse." "Louise," I told her, "you may not realize this right now, but you're a hero."

Another episode, even more harrowing, involved a young woman who had been systematically tortured by her father for years. Her sponsor told her she must pray for the person who abused her, and wish for him everything she would want for herself.

If she forced herself to keep doing this for long enough, she would actually want these things for him. She was also told during her Step 5 (the confessional step) that she must always look for her part in everything that ever happened to her. She wrenched her brain around trying to figure out what her part was in being sodomized at age five.

She stood up at the meeting, looking fragile as glass, with tears running down her face. “I just don’t know how to make amends to my Dad. My sponsor says I’ll feel so much better if I do. But I feel like killing myself. I guess I’m just a lousy AA member. This is supposed to work. I’m not supposed to feel this way. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

I would have talked to her after the meeting (God knows what I would have said) except that a phalanx of members swarmed her afterwards, eager to make her case fit the immutable model. I wonder what happened, if she ended up like Hannah whose background was similar. Unable to endure what had happened to her, she committed suicide. Members buzzed about “those with grave emotional and mental disorders”, and carried on.

If I am painting AA too darkly, if I am leaving out the tremendous compassion and real help I found at those early meetings, then I apologize. But as time went on, I found I just couldn’t keep the dogma fresh. Except for some of the stories in the back, the Big Book has not changed since its first printing 70-some years ago.

What other self-help program wouldn’t update itself in so many decades? What about all the discoveries we’ve made about family dynamics, about heredity, about mental illness? What about issues of race, religion and sexual orientation? (There are a few “gay AA” meetings in which members are held in quarantine. But in the general assembly they have to keep their mouths shut. I once saw a man at an open meeting refer to coming out, prompting an old geezer to literally stomp out of the meeting saying, “I didn’t know this was a meeting for queers!”)

No, it’s all swept into the great gulf: obviously the program “works if you work it” the way it is, so why change it? But I have come to believe that if the program works, it is because people sublimate their individuality, their power to differ, discern and object. The fact that the 12 steps have been applied to every addiction and disorder in existence alarms me, as if the steps truly are the holy grail of recovery, unassailable, irreplaceable, and beyond question.

My irritability mounting as the years went on, I finally hit a real crisis in 2005. I had suffered from some kind of psychiatric disorder all my life, and in spite of many years of good remission I always feared a return. I was repeatedly reassured in AA that it would never bother me again if I stayed sober and constantly "turned it over" to God. It was obvious to them (though not to me) that it had all been caused by the demon alcohol.

I secretly took two drugs to control my whatever-it-is (and in all that time I’d never had a correct diagnosis, because the psychiatric system is so incompetent, abusive and full of shit that it deserves to be torn down forever. Another post!) Suddenly I learned over the ‘net that both these drugs had been recalled at the same time.

My doctor had no idea this had happened. So I was left with a choice: try something new, as my doctor recommended, or go “drug free”, as all my AA friends had been pressuring me to do. My first reaction was a huge flush of euphoria, of tremendous energy, and an eerie turning back of the clock. I had never had so many complements about my appearance: I looked ten years younger! Looking back on photos of that time, my eyes were like pinwheels and I was constantly beaming, but apparently no one thought this was strange.

My first book launch. No problems here.

Oh, and the compliments on finally being “clean”! “Thank God you’re finally off all that stuff.” “I knew you could do it!” “See, you don’t need to lean on those pills because now you have God in your life.”

My sleep was whittled down slowly, but by the time I was down to two hours, strange things were starting to happen. In deep hypnosis to restore my sleep (by a friend who didn’t know what he was doing), I had an encounter with the Divine that was completely shattering. My fried neurons and complete lack of emotional balance took me to a place that no person should ever go. Almost at the cost of my life, I learned that “meeting God” is not necessarily peaceful or pleasant. The ancient belief that we will die if we see God face-to-face very nearly turned out to be true.

The sickening free-fall that followed, the whistling plunge into a depression that pushed me deep below ground, is beyond my powers to describe. It was three years before I began to feel like a human being again. I am now on five drugs and have finally found a decent, competent psychiatrist on the recommendation of a friend. He has ascertained that I am bipolar, have always been bipolar, and always will be bipolar, and this is a huge relief.

I no longer take medical advice from people who aren’t doctors or try to “heal myself” on things people "swear by", such as milk thistle, birch bark or coffee grounds. But when I think how close I came to giving up and committing suicide, it makes me shudder.

AA did not help me during the most harrowing time of my life. All I got was more unhelpful rhetoric. I wasn’t surrendering, I wasn’t practicing the principles, I wasn’t adhering to the tenet of “no mind-altering substances” (another thing that’s not in the Big Book, but often “quoted” by members with a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other).

In other words, it was my lack of commitment that had made this happen. Almost everyone assumed I had “slipped” and was drinking again (which I wasn’t – I had a healthy terror of the stuff by then). At first it was subtle, but eventually I felt roped off, excluded, unable to strike up a conversation with anyone. I stood in the crowd after meetings looking at a lot of turned backs. Even my sponsor always seemed to be busy.

I had been a loyal, sober, contributing member of the program for 15 years. It didn’t really occur to me, because I had been so thoroughly indoctrinated, that there were other, equally effective ways to stay peacefully sober. But I knew it was time to venture out.

I rediscovered a close friend who had also dropped out, and we compared notes. I began to realize that in any other situation, if a human being were relentlessly exposed to the same simplistic information over and over and over again, it would be reasonable to assume they “got it” and wouldn’t need any more exposure. Do we go to Sunday school until we’re 47? Do we need to have the Golden Rule blasted into our ears by loudspeaker every morning?

OK, I realize that if AA no longer means what it used to, I don’t have to go. But it was often said at meetings that the program was a "life sentence" (preferable to the death sentence of alcoholism). In other words, it's just assumed you will keep "working it" until you die.

The guilt still sometimes jabs at me like pinpricks, even two years after I left. The pity in Jim’s eyes, the sense of “oh, she’s going to fly apart at any minute” was palpable. In his view, there is simply no way that an alcoholic can ever stay sober and be happy and productive (though the program is not very big on “productive” - meetings always come first -and subtly discourages normal ambition) without relentless exposure to the principles of the program.

I hope I don’t drink again, but I know there is no guarantee I won’t. I am profoundly committed to the sober life. I do appreciate what I was able to learn from my many years in AA, but I don’t think I’ll attend meetings again unless my view changes or I find myself in a dangerously slippery place.

And if I do, I will not expect “fellowship” or any kind of welcome (unlike the penitent "slippers" who are taken back with open arms). I canonly imagine what they would think if they saw me again. They would either turn the cold shoulder like they did before, or pounce.

I've come to realize some things in the last couple of years. Longtime members creep me out. They're just a bit too Stepford for me: broken records of recovery, parrots fed on the same bland diet, grateful to be huddling together in a place where everyone accepts them and nothing ever changes.

But that’s not life. Things don’t stand still except in old Jimmy Cagney movies. Life necessitates constant adaptation to change which is often unexpected, wrenching and unwelcome.

But we are not taught that in AA. We are taught to rely absolutely on a "God of our understanding," believing there are no mistakes in God's world. When adversity hits, we’re told to accept it and"turn it over", because it’s “all part of God’s plan”.

It would be nice if it were true. In the meantime, I think I'd better make a plan of my own.

The "illuminati" worlds’ elite meet in Greece

The world’s elite will meet in Greece today in an annual gathering of the "Bilderberg Group" the source of many conspiracy theories and books on the “New World Order”.

Security officials in the Greek capital are reported to have locked down the area around the meeting, reported in The Times as the luxury 5 star hotel Nafsika Astir Palace in the Voulgiameni district of Athens which will last for two days.

A bomb attack by the "Revolutionary Struggle" has already been reported at 3:30pm on Tuesday 12 May on the Vouliagmenis Avenue in the Greek capital within the vicinity of the location of the Bilderberg meeting on the Greek Eurobank branch with a 5 kilo bomb.

The President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick and Tim Geittner the US Treasury Secretary are reported by sources in The Times report as having "unspecified business" in Europe for the next two days.

The agenda of the Bilderberg Group this year is reported to be looking at a "prolonged agonising depression that dooms the world for decades of stagnation decline and poverty, or an intense but shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency".

The UK is sending representatives from the government, who may include it is reported past participant Lord Mandelson. Other past attendees of the Bilderberg Group from the UK have included Ed Balls (2006),Tony Blair (1993),Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington (Steering Committee member) Kenneth Clarke (1993, 1998,[23] 2006[24] & 2007[25]), former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey (founder and Steering Committee member) George Osborne (2006)[26] (2008) Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 2004-Present; member of the opposition 2001-Present, Eric Roll (1964, 1966, 1967, 1973-1975, 1977-1999) (Bilderberg Steering Committee),[27] Department of Economic Affairs, 1964, later Bilderberg Group Chairman, Edward Heath, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher [29].

A London Daily News correspondent based in Athens Evangelos Andreotis who is based near the Athens Astir Palace has said that "security in Athens is especially tight with Anarchist groups and protests already mobilised to try and disrupt the meeting of this group. Greek police and the government have ordered a no tolerance ethos to policing the event, with heavily armed soldiers and police in the streets of Athens".

photo credit; LONDON DAILY NEWS

Body movements can influence problem solving (w/Videos)

Body movements can influence problem solving (w/Videos)

Swinging their arms helped participants in a new study solve a problem whose solution involved swinging strings, researchers report, demonstrating that the brain can use bodily cues to help understand and solve complex problems.

The Mind and Choice

by Stacey T Pollock
http://www.socyberty.com/Psychology/The-Mind-and-Choice.704695/1

We live in an age where we are now exploring the mind and personal choice in society. Living in a society that produces technology that can read into the mind to determine what a person is thinking, and moving towards a future where even our desires might be determinable by machine. There is no doubt that these new discoveries that are coming to the forefront will bring about issues relating to mind control and manipulation of personal freedom. People are panicking at the thought of loosing the ability to choose their own goals and the things in which they wish to experience in life and also personal thoughts.

The true question to ask in this situation is, ‘is it ever possible to loose control of the mind?' We instantly come to the conclusion that this is so, when we read articles to do with mind control, hypnotism, mind sicknesses and subjects relating to drug usage. However we never consider the true position of the mind and how strong it really is in relation to our material experience. The mind truly is a step outside of our physical world, especially when it comes to thought, yet we immediately presume that thought is just as material as any object in our life, able to be materially manipulated by outside means. The mind has no material physical position, yet we presume automatically that it is able to be altered by others, without choice, even to the point where their thoughts become our own, just like when visualizing the idea of a robot.

Although most would automatically presume that this has already been achieved, (the concept of mind control and the ability for another person to alter the mind of another), I will in this article attempt to detail why this is not possible, for another to ultimately control over another person's mind, especially when it comes to the foundation of what the mind truly is. I will attempt to explain why life should be determined by choice and freedom of thought rather than by presuming that it is able to be ultimately controlled in a robotic way, and why this will never be able to be fully achieved, no matter what technology is produced in order to read or determine a person's thoughts, they will never be able to ‘direct' thoughts, without first the acceptance of the person involved.

There are a lot of things in life that need to be considered through perception especially when it comes to choice and freedom of thought. We all live in a world that not only encompasses our outside experiences in our everyday life but also a world that goes on inside of our head, that most do not have the ability to even hear, but ourselves. This world is the determining component of our lives where we think about what we are doing during our day. This is our mind, a place where we inspire towards our inner desires. We also have the component of thought that relates to our brain, things such as memories and patterns of material experiences that we have stored as memory. This place although it seems rational to say that it can be manipulated in one way or another, purely based on thinking that the mind is only made possible through material means, that the mind is purely based on synapses within our brain. This is not so, for the fact that we not only remember our experiences, but we inspire to create new ideas, and these new ideas come not from patterns of old thought but from a mind that drives us to inspire to create within creation.

Old ideas cannot formulate new one's, they can only be used as influences, as markers in order to choose new experiences. The mind is the place where true inspiration comes from, and it can never be manipulated without the individual choice of person to give away their freedom to choose and think about what he or she truly wants for their life. Decision and choice is momentary, inspirational and spontaneous, and cannot be controlled robotically by any other means. It can be ‘influenced', whether that be subliminal or obvious, but not controlled, and this is where the true understanding of individual freedom comes into understanding.

Influence is not the same as control. When a person decides to watch television they firstly choose to turn it on, when they then watch an advertisement they ‘choose' to take notice of what is being sold. If then they are ‘influenced' by the advertisement to go and buy that product, then it is based on individual choice and the decision to allow the advertisement to influence on their desires.

The only point in which someone can truly say that they are made to go and buy that product by the advertisement is when a person relinquishes their own personal responsibility onto another for their own inability to choose wisely. This then occurs in relation to someone who blames another for the fact that they are maybe too overweight, they then immediately blame society for making too many delicious food items to eat, but forget to realize that they also do have a choice whether to eat it or not.

This all then comes down to individual self will and choice to allow another to ‘influence' personal choice. Personal choice can at any time be changed and taken back by the individual when they decide to take the control of their own life back into their own hands, responsibly. It does not always have to remain that a person is in constant vulnerability to another who is ‘said' to have control over them. This really means that the idea of mind control is really just a fear based philosophy that looks at the vulnerability of a person to not take control of their own life and full responsibility for their own choices.

This is a whole other matter that does not at all relate to mind control. It relates to fear and the ill confidence of a person to take responsibility and make choices for themselves, knowing that they are the only one who can determine whether they will think about certain topics and that this could never be internally manipulated. One example of this would be if someone were to be tied up in a room being tortured, physically they can be held against their will but there is not any stage that that person can be forced to ‘say' or ‘think' in a certain way. Even if they were tortured to death, physically, they would never have to reveal mentally anything against what they believe and think internally, unless they gave into the demands consciously and willingly.

This is the influence of fear and pain that allows a person to give their power of choice away, forgetting that pain is momentary, but choice is forever and will determine their outcome for the future. Fear and pain is not ‘powerful' in itself. It is influential depending on the individual and their threshold for dealing with emotions, feelings and the things that they do not like to experience in life. It can also come purely down to the fear of the unknown and the fear of death in total.

What truly needs to be asked when it comes to fear is why? Why fear a momentary experience that has not yet occurred? A person then fears the ‘possibility' of pain, even if it has not yet been experienced. Pain is something that is momentarily experienced and dealt with when it occurs, and is not something that requires thinking about. Whether or not it is thought of earlier, it might very well still occur, especially when it comes to certain sicknesses and illnesses. What would be the use in thinking about how it would be felt when it has not yet occurred? This only then brings up the fear of the unknown of something that a person thinks they have the inability to deal with. Then it comes to the point when the person must confront the pain, just like in childbirth, and whether or not they have fear of it, they will still have to experience it in the moment of time. In the moment it is experienced, then later it is no longer being experienced, but only remembered. Memory fades and this shows especially when we see a woman choosing to have more than one child. If she were to linger on the pain she would not be inspired to have more children in the future.

If a person takes away fear of pain and death they are then left with choice and momentary decisions based on what they enjoy, and what they are in the moment experiencing direct. This is the power of choice that we have in our mind and what it can do for us. It could be seen also in this way...

Imagine that you are walking down the street and you are focusing on having to go home to your mother to tell her that you failed your exam. The thought of telling her brings up fears of that she will yell at you in her own disappointment of your inability to succeed. These might be the things running through your head at the time. Then as you are walking down the street you are fully absorbed in your thoughts of a painful experience that is to come, you do not take in what is going on around you. You then in your own pain of thought, try not to look at people because you feel upset. You avoid people and do not smile at them. Maybe you even push at them and growl as you are trying to get past a group of people in the cue at the train station. You sit on the train and you get annoyed at the person beside you talking on the phone too loud and then you growl to yourself at how hard life is and that it is unfair that you had to be ‘put' in this position in life. You immediately give away your power to life saying that it is the fault of circumstances that brought you to this position that you find yourself in, thus relinquishing your own responsibility and choice in life.

However, how would your life then be if you had earlier taken things into your own hands and taken responsibility for all the choices that you made. Maybe you would then not have had to do the test in the first place, and have chosen for something more suitable to what you enjoyed more, than what you were feeling forced to do. Maybe then if you had enjoyed and chosen for what you were doing you might have even passed the exam. Then you might be walking down the road smiling at everyone you saw. They might even say hello to you and make jokes and laugh at life. The world would be seen through such different eyes, just through choice alone, through the freedom that we have to think and focus on what we individually decide. You might then get on the train and someone offers you a seat, and then you find yourself immersed in a conversation with a very interesting person who has a lot in common with you. You might be relaying back to them about how you passed your exam, and in all this time you had not even yet thought of going home to tell your mother that you had passed. You have just been totally absorbed in enjoying the moment and experiencing all that comes your way, never even caring that you had to line up to get to the train. Nothing bothers you and is not seen as a possible moment to experience pain or failure.

This does not mean that a person who experiences things through choice does not experience moments of pain and the possibility that horrible things can come their way. Even in this moment of enjoying life you may have kicked your foot against the pavement, but it was soon forgotten when a person smiled your way as you were walking to pay for your ticket. However if you were the person who is dwelling in the thought of pain and fear, when you kick your foot you linger longer to think about it and it might be remembered that it was throbbing for at least 20 minutes after the event. This person makes the conscious ‘choice' to focus on these things through their thoughts, and allows it to be the way that they think and see life. It all comes down to choice and the ability for someone to take their own thoughts on responsibly and to see them as their own making.

A thought is spontaneous and it does not come after a command has been issued, and even if a person were to hear words in their mind, they still have the choice to listen to the words and take them on as their own, and use it as their experience. The true free thought is produced spontaneously and comes not in a robotic fashion, it is free flowing and it is driven purely by desire and feeling. You can see this when a person is talking in a conversation and they are speaking out everything that they are thinking internally. This sort of thought moves in a flowing way, driven on by an interest that a person has in life.

There is a big difference between structured thought that is based on memory and thought that comes purely from the mind and I will describe this in more detail. Understanding this truly determines what sort of thoughts that a person is allowing to control their experiences of life. As I said earlier, we have memories that preside in our brain, and there are thoughts that are produced spontaneously through the mind. Memories and thoughts are produced in a completely different manner and come from a completely different place within creation.

Firstly I will begin with memories that are stored in the brain that is associated with experiences that were of the past and help us to produce thoughts relating to the future. Memories of the brain are always associated with past and future and never the now moment. These memories are based on what I call a trigger system and are produced in sequence. The brain as we know works on the delivering of electricity through synapses in order for us to remember time and linear experiences. Brain memory is important for the physical survival of the body and is required in order to co-ordinate the structure of our physical lives. Memory allows us to determine how we wish to proceed through the physical experience that we are having. Things that are stored in the brain are:

* Physical experiences - relating to material events that occurred in our life.
* Memory of feelings that we have, whether they relate to fear, pain, happiness or excitement and how to turn them into emotions.
* Words and knowledge that we store in order to use it to communicate with one another, so as to develop our technical and explorative abilities.
* Beliefs.
* Anything relating to past and memories of thoughts we had relating to possible future.
* Memory of dreams and desires that relate to the physical.
* Systematic picture and word related memories that are played over and over like a movie.

Basically anything that is required to be remembered through system is related to the brain and memory. Memories are stored in the brain for future reference and are used as tools in our world in order to interact with our environment. Thoughts that come from the mind relate purely to:

* Inspiration
* Spontaneity
* Questioning
* Choices
* Decisions
* There is also information that comes through the mind as energy that can be utilized through inspiration. This energy relates to anything that is ‘possible' in creation and can be utilized when a person is able to understand how to read energy language to which I call impulse. This reading of impulse is choice based. Some people see this in a spiritual way but it can also be understood factually.

When understanding the difference between the mind and brain and how they both work in our world to give us information that we need in order to formulate our lives, it is important to know that they are both totally separate constructs when it comes to reasoning. The brain has an element of physical and chemical sustainability, but the mind is already there and is related purely to the core of creation which is dependant on force that is not considered physical until it is utilized in relation to matter in creation.

Most consider that we have a mind that is conscious and one that is unconscious. This is not my chosen way to see it purely because I see the mind as being a totally separate component in creation itself to matter, so it does not at all relate to one entity the brain and how it stores information. I also believe that at every moment we can be aware of ourselves consciously, even if most would debate me on this. I would be more inclined to show that our conscious awareness is produced by two components, one that is matter based and the other non-matter based relating to the motivator of matter, the mind. This is based purely on the fact that we are the creation or formation experiencing inside creation, and that we are not the mind as such, but a formation that utilizes it as a tool.

The mind is always conscious in the moment of time where we are experiencing our reality, and able to be utilized and accessed at any other moment in time that we are concentrating on reality. These concentration moments are what I call ‘points in perception', which are moments where we are realizing that we physically exist. The mind does not work through a chemical or trigger system as the brain does, instead it is what drives our inhibition to process thoughts into memory that is then stored in our brains through choice perception.

When we consider then the idea of hypnotism and hypnotherapy, most immediately think that these forms of ‘entering into the brain and memory' show that we can in life be controlled in our thoughts. What is important to remember when considering these methods of bringing a person into dream state is that they relate purely to accessing the brain and information, and the highly suggestive state of a person's reasoning mind and how it formulates decision in the moment of time. What is not often told when it comes to hypnotherapy is that not all people can be brought into dream state by outside physical influence, purely based on whether a person is highly suggestive or not. A highly suggestive mind has already chosen to give their power away to another and allow a person to delve into their thoughts and experiences.

Many years back I talked to a person who was a therapist at the time working with hypnotherapy and the first thing they discussed with me was the fact that hypnotherapy itself is not always successful. That it depended on how suggestive a person is within their own perception and mind. A suggestive mind relates purely to a person who will immediately ‘believe' all that they see and are told. This might relate to a person, who, when they read things in magazines or books, they will immediately believe all that they see and hear. A suggestive person never questions, but merely accepts their position in life based on the thought that they have no mental power at all to choose for themselves and that it is others who are influencing on their lives, and that it is others who determine their choices in life.

What is important to consider is the fundamentals of hypnotherapy and how it works in accessing the brain. This is what hypnotherapy is doing, merely accessing memories in the brain itself that have been stored by the person throughout their life, their experiences, concepts and ideas that they have stored in their brain. It is also important to know that these ‘memories' can also relate to thoughts that a person creatively ‘makes up' through their mind and stores it in their brain as part of their experience. When a hypnotherapist then accesses the person's brain through the dream state, they are then allowed to ask questions and ‘ask' a person to do things physically through verbal communication. These ‘suggestions' given by the therapist do not at any time have to be taken on by the individual who is being accessed through hypnotism, but are taken on by choice of the individual depending on how suggestive their mind is in the moment of time.

A highly suggestive mind will act out things that they are being told and will relay all information that they have stored inside their brain, whereas a person who is not so highly suggestive even under hypnotism will not always respond to the person who is issuing orders to them. They will determine what they tell the hypnotist based purely on what they ‘wish' to divulge during the procedure. This leads to a lot of questioning when it comes to hypnotism itself as to whether this method of therapy is successful in providing an accurate measure of a human memories and thoughts, based also on the fact that the human mind has always the capability to produce lies even within the structure of physical reality. This is why hypnotherapy has not been recognized fully as an accurate means to explore a person's brain and memory and influence over their thoughts and experiences.

Even under hypnotism a person can decide on what they wish to discuss or do within this state. Just like when we are dreaming at night, we are in the same state at this time and people can also talk with others, sleep walk and participate in various physical interaction even during sleep. The dream state itself is fourth dimensional in nature and is polymorphic when it comes to perception of reality. Please refer to my previous article:

The Polymorphic Perception of the Fourth Dimension State

A polymorphic state relates to focus and perception, and the way that memories can morph depending on how information is considered by the individual. You can look at it in this simple way. When we dream we focus on things that we are considering in our everyday lives. Say for instance there is a person who has a body issue within their physical life. In their dream state this concentration of focus on this problem would become polymorphic in nature. This would make the object seem perhaps bigger than normal in perception. Like for instance if a person thinks that their ears are too large for their head, they would in their dream state, when focusing on their ears, see them even bigger than how they are seen in real life in a totally three dimensional physical sense.

This also relates to everyday thoughts which are also fourth dimensional in nature and can change the way we view things in our everyday life. This might produce someone in life to see certain things on their body as being larger than they really are, made larger purely through focus and attention. This is polymorphic perception and it is what we experience when we dream and go under hypnosis and is also utilized during the thought process as a tool in perceiving life.

Hypnosis then is just putting someone to sleep and talking to them and asking them to do things while they are dreaming. The person still has choice on what they wish to talk about or what they wish to do. What they decide to do will be dependant on whether the person wishes to do this or not through their mind in that moment of time. Even in the dream state the mind works in deciding in the moment through choice. This is evident when a person during dream realizes that they are dreaming and are able to wake themselves up.

The only other thing that can ‘influence' on our perception in life is the chemical body. This relates to chemicals that are produced or placed through the body to effect feelings that are produced and experienced through the nervous system and brain. Feelings tend to dictate a lot of a person's choices based purely on a person's level of concentration. We do concentrate naturally a lot on our feelings and stimulation through our bodies and as a result of this, these feelings dictate a lot of our choices in life in general. We even produce a term called ‘emotions' in order to identify with certain feelings, giving them a name in order to be able to access them when we want. Emotions then become the expression of feeling and sensation that we experience through our bodies. Refer to my previous article:

Emotions are learnt paradigms

Chemical interactions through the body, although they can at times be very strong in impression, will not also have the ability to totally control over a person's mind. Chemicals will however ‘influence' on a person's decisions, but they will still not determine the total outcome of a person's choice. This depends also purely on the threshold of what a person has the ability to handle through feeling. Intense pain for instance is experience by everyone differently. One person might go to have a tattoo done and cry the whole way through, whereas another will not even consider the sensation and see it as being under control within their mind. Sensation is experienced differently depending on how a person has wired their brain chemically, mentally, and through perception, based not only on memories, but also on their entire personality structure (to some called spirit, to others called energy and expression) and the way in which they utilize their mind in the moment.

All in all the most important thing to realize when considering ‘choice' in life is that the mind has in every moment within creation the ability to decide, no matter what physical restrictions we are dealing with. The mind is not restrictive in nature and has at all times freewill in which to motivate the physical experience, simply because it is based on momentary experience and thoughts that are produced in the now. This will not ever be changed, no matter how much chemical and physical influences we have around us in our lives. The mind will always remain the true controller of our inhibitions within physical reality, whether we ‘choose' to see it this way or not. The choice is ultimately ours to decide through individual responsibility and perception.