This is your brain on neuroscience
by Jon Rappoport
February 20, 2013
The Obama administration has just announced a far-reaching 10-year program to map the human brain down to the last neuron of activity.
So let’s begin with this:
“The mind is not a material object at all. The mind is not the brain.”
If you made that statement to a modern neuroscientist, the odds are overwhelming he would look at you as if you were visiting from the Stone Age.
“The brain emits the electrical consequences of what the mind originally produced.” Same response from the neuroscientist: you’re crazy.
Backing up still further, you could say that mind is a series of spaces the person himself creates, in order to think, in much the same way a canvas is a space on which the painter imagines and creates.
From at least the time of the classic Bhagavad Gita (written perhaps 2000 years ago), and in ancient Egyptian texts, writers and philosophers have been describing the soul, the spirit, the psyche in various terms.
In the Gita, as Krishna engages Arjuna in their famous debate about war and duty, Krishna moves back and forth between depicting the individual as distinctly and separately and powerfully immortal—and then as part of a greater spiritual Whole.
In either case, the individual is not physical, but inhabits a physical form, and after the body passes away, the individual survives and usually returns for another incarnation.
The soul or spirit or mind are not explainable in physical terms. This is the basic view expressed over and over by philosophies and religions from the dawn of time on this planet.
In the 20th century, that view was subjected to the bulldozer of science.
The chief implication of scientism is: freedom is an illusion.
If you assert that all of life’s processes are ultimately reducible to tiny particles in motion, you are saying this is true of the brain and the mind as well. And that means everything we believe and experience about our own freedom and choice is nothing more than an absurd dream.
And how is that delusional dream produced? It is somehow fired up by these tiny cause-and-effect particles that swim through the universe. The particles are not free. Therefore, neither is the brain, which is made up of such particles.
It gets worse. The tiny particles that compose rocks and concrete and plastic and stars and galaxies have nothing in them that could be called alive.
No research discovers anything in the electron or quark or wavicle that can be identified as Life.
These are the same particles that constitute our brains and our DNA.
The rarely expressed neuro-scientific conclusion? We are all robots made out of flesh with no freedom and no “extra quality” called life.
People profoundly fail to understand this conclusion of neuroscientists and others who tinker with the brain, who now intend to map the brain and its activity down to the last neuron. These scientists don’t care what changes they make in the brain, to render it more “normal and healthy.”
There is, as far as conventional science is concerned, nothing inviolable about the brain.
I’m not talking science fiction. This is the way most neuroscientists, if forced to admit it, see us.
And they are the ones steering the ship of research. They are the ones who will guide the newly announced government Manhattan Project of the brain for the next 10 years. It’s called Brain Activity Map (BAM).
Under the banner of “improved mental health,” BAM looks benign. But it isn’t. It looks like the way to stop the next James Holmes or Adam Lanza, but it isn’t.
It is a far-reaching State program to create The Neurological Society. This is the goal. It now has a major jolt of funding and the blessing/mandate of the federal government.
Think about this. We have a problem posed by the Constitution versus the underlying premises of modern brain science.
On the one hand, we have the founding document which guarantees freedoms. On the other hand, we have the assumptions of science, which cannot affirm the existence of those freedoms.
Well, I can tell you with certainty that the government has just taken a giant step toward Brave New World, and again, this isn’t science fiction. It’s real. BAM is unconstitutional, of course. The notion of the central government using monies to fund a program that will map the brain is so far outside the powers granted to it, it’s absurd.
But why should federal neurological scientists care? They don’t really believe the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution exist or could exist or might exist. As far as they’re concerned, freedom is a dead issue. It was just a story we told ourselves to feel stronger, better, happier.
Now they have drugs for that. They can change the brain. They will develop new drugs and new electromagnetic strategies for brain alteration. They will develop the ability to remotely observe the brain in much, much greater detail. And from this will spring the means to tweak and change what they observe, on the level of neuronal activity.
Their basis for making those changes will remain obscure, hidden in a welter of technical language. But we know what their fundamental premises will be.
They will involve control of behavior. Parameters will be drawn. Any person whose brain registers activity beyond those boundaries will be judged as a danger, a threat. The threat will be curtailed by limiting and diverting neuronal/synaptic processes.
Thus, good citizens of the State will be created and monitored.
But if soul and spirit and psyche and freedom do exist (and they do), they will be beyond control, since they are non-material.
Thus, efforts at control will have to be more radical and destructive, in order to induce deeper levels of physical stress and glue the consciousness of the individual human being to these artificially created brain states.
And that’s where the gloves come off and the mask comes off. Then we see the real controllers. Far from being sophisticated and subtle and humane guides into our future, they are just the old tyrants in new costumes.
Their major trump card is this. They have, through sheer propaganda, hypnotized a significant percentage of the population into believing that science and research are always good things.
The mere mention of the word “science” is connected with “help.” A better day is coming. More knowledge is always beneficial. People’s needs will be met.
Nowhere is this propaganda more successful than in the arena of medical science.
That is why most people will shrug off the federal brain mapping project as a promising development. “Sure, sounds good.”
Does it? Does a future, up the road, in which all brains are monitored for “problematic activity” sound like a humanitarian system?
Does it suit your personal view of life, soul, spirit, freedom?
Consider this quote from neurologist VS Ramachandran. Read it carefully:
“How can a three-pound mass of jelly that you can hold in your palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning of infinity, and even question its own place in the cosmos? Especially awe inspiring is the fact that any single brain, including yours, is made up of atoms that were forged in the hearts of countless, far-flung stars billions of years ago. These particles drifted for eons and light-years until gravity and change brought them together here, now. These atoms now form a conglomerate- your brain- that can not only ponder the very stars that gave it birth but can also think about its own ability to think and wonder about its own ability to wonder. With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, is the greatest mystery of all.”
No, the greater mystery is how a scientist can believe the brain alone is really capable of all these things—the brain that is nothing but atoms in motion.
Here’s another statement from a well-known neuroscientist, David Eagleman:
“Imagine for a moment that we are nothing but the product of billions of years of molecules coming together and ratcheting up through natural selection, that we are composed only of highways of fluids and chemicals sliding along roadways within billions of dancing cells, that trillions of synaptic conversations hum in parallel, that this vast egglike fabric of micron-thin circuitry runs algorithms undreamt of in modern science, and that these neural programs give rise to our decision making, loves, desires, fears, and aspirations. To me, that understanding would be a numinous [spiritual] experience, better than anything ever proposed in anyone’s holy text.”
It might be a numinous experience if it were true. But it isn’t. The brain, composed of tiny particles, isn’t producing our decision- making or our greatest thoughts. It can’t. There is nothing about atoms that allows for those grand realities.
For the numinous experience, we need spirit, psyche, mind, soul.
And these two neuroscientists I’ve just quoted? They’re the good guys. They’re the people within that community who even try (wrongheadedly) to make something poetic out of the brain.
One of the two bonuses in THE MATRIX REVEALED is my complete 18-lesson course, LOGIC AND ANALYSIS, which includes the teacher’s manual and a CD to guide you. This is a new way to teach logic, the subject that has been missing from schools for decades.
The overwhelming majority of their colleagues are mechanics, obsessed with tinkering and tweaking and derailing and re-channeling brain activity.
Into their hands, the federal government has just dropped the task of mapping everything that goes on inside our skulls—as a prelude to changing it.
These scientists are, despite their education, Luddites of consciousness. Instead of studying the great works of human history, the art and literature and invention, and trying to grasp our greater non-material faculties, neuroscientists jump to the naked assumption that it all proceeds from the brain.
They believe it must be so. They then dedicate themselves to mapping and charting.
Who is the real threat, the real danger?
They are.
If any monitoring should be done, it should be of them.
Coda: To take this even further, were we to acknowledge our own non-material aspects, beyond the physical, it would imply that we have capabilities that exceed the so-called normal range.
We would realize that, beneath the surface of our social relationships, beneath this culture, we are concealing powers that not only make us free and independent, but open out into creative vistas where we invent formidable and awesome realities.
This is still largely unexplored territory, and it makes what the neuroscientists are doing look like child’s play in a demented sandbox.
For us to understand what we are actually capable of is the controllers’ worst nightmare.
In a subterranean psychic landscape, this is the crossroads where a prime struggle has been taking place for at least 20,000 years of human civilization.
Jon Rappoport
The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
[…] Jon Rappoport February 20 2013 […]
Well, medical science is very corrupted, by not knowing the kingdom of god, is the physical body and being, severly reduced from human. They dont call horses and dogs, dog beings and horse beings? No the human has been altered into being, in which, totalitarianism doesnt examine
Luddites of consciousness, isn’t that the truth. Mapping and charting – how about empathy and compassion? How far down are ‘they’ trying to take us? I think we already have hit rock bottom. Scientists and experts in their tunnel vision fail to realize that their bubble will burst. There is no way to contain the human spirit. Might be a while for everyone to catch up, but catch up we will.
[…] Jon Rappoport | No More Fake […]
Yes! Beautifully stated. I was discussing this very issue this morning within a forum. We have switched off our true abilities via participation with propaganda, religion and material science so that we cant demonstrate we are much much more than physical, spastic degenerative puddles of flesh. I don’t know if you are familiar with robbert van den broeke but he demonstrates the ability we all have but have turned off to switch dimensions . I believe if more of us can learn to trust as he does what he senses, then through resonance we can all do what he does and more. In the past few years there has been an explosion in the amount of people who are able to photograph with simple digital cameras orbs and light waves. Enough people now know this can happen that it is easy or others to achieve as well. Sooner rather than later we will not need cameras to see these dimensions. Next it will be sight only. And then we will practice shifting ourselves. http://www.bltresearch.com/robbert.php
“The overwhelming majority of their colleagues are mechanics, obsessed with tinkering and tweaking and derailing and re-channeling brain activity.”
“Into their hands, the federal government has just dropped the task of mapping everything that goes on inside our skulls—as a prelude to changing it.”
Since Tavistock and earlier, those who are bent on power, driven by evil, have wanted to have “change they can believe in.” It is not to our own good. Even the face of war, as despicable as it has always been, has become more damaging to the pasties who do their dirty work. Based on what I have read, it probably isn’t just PTSD as was the experience and result of previous wars. The spike in suicides suggest something more sinister.
Being a mechanic is worthy job that helps mankind. Those who are obsessed with tinkering, tweaking, derailing, and re-channeling brain activity have a psycho-pathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence. They are megalomaniacs.
I think that, like the Human Genome Project did for molecular biology, this may indeed lead to a better understanding of brain biomechanics. And, like the HGP, may bring the dogmas of science that much closer to a better appreciation of their shortcomings regarding an explanation of the nature of Mind. The human genome was thought to be the definitive blueprint of every detail of morphogenesis. However, the subsequent Chimpanzee Genome Project, upon completion of mapping, found that there is just a 1% difference between the chimp and a human leading the director of the project to comment that “We cannot see in this why we are so different from chimpanzees”. In fact there are so many issues that are not explained by DNA alone that science has started looking around for epi-genetic theories to explain it all.
No doubt the same fate awaits this brain mapping expedition. They will document the electrochemical manifestation of thought and mind with great zeal and detail. The most conservative mechanists, believing in “eliminative materialism”, will attempt to argue that this is the definitive understanding of human thought. Other scientists will take this opportunity to connect the dots to quantum mechanics and morphic resonance and pursue the bigger mysteries that have been a matter of routine understanding to ‘primitive’ peoples for millennium.
The problem is not the scientists, the problem is the greed and venality of the corporations that fund the science. Monsanto is the poster child of a corporation exploiting great science for private gain at the expense of humanity and perhaps life on this planet. This is evil and this is what Jon has artfully described and what I fear most out of these type of projects.
We need to use our MINDS, our WISDOM and our COURAGE, not just synapse activity, to ensure that knowledge of the nature of the universe and of existence are not exploited for perverted private gain or exploitative public power.
Thanks for your blog note. It is not freedom that is illusory but the certainty of scientists. I have developed a view of freedom and have followed a path that is an alternative to the “modern scientific view” that authoritatively declares that everything is made of atoms and particles and that Laws of Physics govern the universe. In my view, Laws of Physics fail to explain how steel is actually made or how snowflakes actually form. They also fail to explain muscular movements and related bodily feelings of actual life. My approach leads to new brains models that are based on new principles aimed at actual life. I hope that you will allow me to suggest that my approach answers many of the questions you raise. Please see “How to Solve Free-Will Puzzles and Overcome Limitations of Platonic Science” and “Feelings, Forms and Freedom” at http://www.quadnets.com/freewillpuzzle.pdf (1.6 MB) and http://www.feelingsforfreedom.com
Every seven years or so, the atoms that make us up are all replaced by others. I think I got some from the fire hydrant down the road a few days ago. Hate to think of other things I could be getting atoms from, but they come and go. What holds everything together?
[…] Although the American School of Naturopathy in New York City, founded in 1901, was the first naturopathic school in the world, it was based on natural medicine which dates back centuries and even millennia. “Science-based” doesn’t mean that you have to cook up synthetic medicine in a lab and mix it with various genetically modified DNA, bacteria, and viruses in order to shock the human immune system into reaction. (http://nomorefakenews.com/) […]
Ignorance is bliss.
The brain map…A dangerous new tool for tyrants? Of course it is. Soul, gods, spirit etc. are simply dangerous old tools. It is always kind of humorous to hear the pot calling the kettle black. It seems lots of us are always drawn to these kind of tools. Really, it comes down to whether we can live in stories that keep us reproducing and living in a sane environment more or less filled with freedoms. Or we opt for histories far more traditional and successful model…tyrants on top…and everyone else on the bottom. And of course, lots of ugly upheavals in-between. Today’s world definitely seems to be tilting toward a return to tyrants with America as a true wolf in sheep’s clothing. Since tyrants are always paranoid, it is only natural they constantly search for new ways to protect themselves. That’s why conspiracy theorist make such good tyrants when they come to power. In spite of that Mr. Rappoport, I find you a wonderful example of a Cassandra Voice for the Early 21st Century.
[…] Obama’s Manhattan Project of the brain (known as The BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, also commonly referred to as the Brain Activity Map Project)), launched in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, is a sop to make suckers think science can stop murders by making accurate predictions based on some mo…. […]
[…] Obama’s Manhattan Project of the brain (known as The BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, also commonly referred to as the Brain Activity Map Project)), launched in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, is a sop to make suckers think science can stop murders by making accurate predictions based on some mo…. […]
[…] Obama’s Manhattan Project of the brain (known as The BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, also commonly referred to as the Brain Activity Map Project)), launched in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, is a sop to make suckers think science can stop murders by making accurate predictions based on some mo…. […]
[…] Obama’s Manhattan Project of the brain (known as The BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, also commonly referred to as the Brain Activity Map Project)), launched in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, is a sop to make suckers think science can stop murders by making accurate predictions based on some mo…. […]
[…] Obama’s Manhattan Project of the brain (known as The BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neuro-technologies, also commonly referred to as the Brain Activity Map Project)), launched in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, is a sop to make suckers think science can stop murders by making accurate predictions based on some mo…. […]
[…] What technocrats of the modern age hope to do is translate the gaps into detectable processes, which can be described as brain activity at a micro le…. […]
[…] What technocrats of the modern age hope to do is translate the gaps into detectable processes, which can be described as brain activity at a micro le…. […]
[…] What technocrats of the modern age hope to do is translate the gaps into detectable processes, which can be described as brain activity at a micro le…. […]
[…] The mind is not a material object at all. The mind is not the brain. (Source) […]
[…] The mind is not a material object at all. The mind is not the brain. (Source) […]
[…] for psychiatric treatment in a number of statements. He’s also launched the so-called “brain mapping project,” which aims to detect more “mental problems” that need fixing by drugs and other invasive […]
[…] preference for psychiatric treatment in a number of statements. He’s also launched the so-called “brain mapping project,” which aims to detect more “mental problems” that need fixing by drugs and other invasive […]
[…] La mente non è, per nulla, un oggetto materiale. La mente non è il cervello.(Fonte) […]
[…] Jon continua suggerendo che l’approccio riduzionista nei confronti del cervello umano non è altro che una pia illusione dei controllori. La mente non è, per nulla, un oggetto materiale. La mente non è il cervello. (Fonte) […]
[…] http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/this-is-your-brain-on-neuroscience/ […]