2012daily's blog

Even the most successful and well-respected "parapsychologists" have been reluctant to assume such a title. Perhaps their struggle was viewed as a cautionary tale by anthropologists thrown into the boiling pot of traditional shamanic practices, such as shamanic flight, paradoxical healing, warring sorcerers, and disturbing supernatural occurrences in field work. Such overdue efforts should be heartily welcomed by the transdisciplinary community. Anthropology has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. So does paranthropology, which focuses on the persistence and reproduction of anomalies with correlated myths, ideology, cultural grammar, and social logic.

In the words of its editors, "Paranthropology: Journal of Anthropological Approaches to the Paranormal is a free on-line journal devoted to the promotion of social-scientific approaches to the study of paranormal experiences, beliefs and phenomena in all of their varied guises. The journal aims to promote an interdisciplinary dialogue on issues of the paranormal, so as to move beyond the skeptic vs. advocate impasse which has settled over the current debate, and to open new avenues for inquiry and understanding."

We can hark back for more than nostaligia to the classic chronicles of the psychedelic revolution. In 1974, creativity expert John C. Gowan published “Development of the Psychedelic Individual: A Psychological Analysis of the Psychedelic State and Its attendant Psychic Powers.” Gowan extracts the philosophical gold from such X-Events or "extreme events". This article is not about drug-induced psychedelia, but about the natural psychedelic state of consciousness, as accessed through the process of self-actualization. Gowan's orientation is summarized, including his concepts of escalation and developmental dysplasia, and the creation of the Northridge Developmental Scale, a test for self-actualization.

Gowan's work and taxonomies remain useful to the transdisciplinary community, including the fields of parapsychology, paranthropology, consciousness studies, psychotherapeutics, neurobiology, psychology of religion, neurotheology, child development, and more. In developing creative talent, imagery is more fluid and malleable to processing than language. He collates research from several then-new fields and provides valuable bibliographies of foundational works. While not widely known and applied, Gowan's work remains a vital resource, deserving curation within the literature of all sciences researching psi, nonordinary, and exceptional experiences (anomalous, transpersonal; neither or both). Gowan's work is invaluable for navigating the universe of meanings. Symbols are the currency of consciousness. They open the way for "ultraculture", wherein we become conscious co-creators of reality.

Part I of this article contains: A Prospective Retrospective; Gowan’s Orientation; The Psychedelic Stage in Experiential Therapy; and The Tree of Life: An Ancient Model of Escalation.

Part II this article contains: Discussion; Conclusions; Appendix and References.

Reissner's Fiber, Quanta & Consciousness (by Lawrence C. Wile): Reissner's fiber, a strategically located, glycoprotein, thread-like structure, consisting of 2-5 nanometer fibrils which runs through the center of the cerebral ventricles and central canal of the spinal cord is a unique site for investigating the interaction between quanta and consciousness. An intriguing possibility is that the degeneration of Reissner's fiber which is typically unconsciously perceived during the period of early separation and individuation of the ego, mirrors the primal origin of our religious and mystic and traditions which witnessed the destruction of the unity of man, God and the cosmos. The "subtle anatomy" from ancient Hindu, Jewish and Chinese mystical traditions, which describes a cosmic energy within a hollow tube in the spine, may not be merely a metaphor for man's quest for God, but a description based on introspection of the degenerating. The emerging fields of quantum biology and epigenetics now offer the possibility of rediscovering lost secrets and reawakening dormant potentials of human consciousness.

Articles

Does the Sum Rule Hold at the Big Bang? (by Andrew W. Beckwith)

From Fractality of Quantum Mechanics to Bohr-Sommerfeld Quantization of Planetary Orbit Distance (by Victor Christianto)

On Lorentz-invariant Theory of Gravitation Part 3: Optical-mechanical Analogy and the Particle-wave Duality in the Theory of Gravity (by Alexander G. Kyriakos)

Quantum Hall Effect and the Effective Hierarchy of Planck Constants (by Matti Pitkänen)

Updated View about the Hierarchy of Planck Constants (by Matti Pitkänen)

On The Cosmological Constant and the Higgs Mechanism (by B. G. Sidharth)

GR Articles

Kantowaski–Sachs Dark Energy Model in f(R,T) Gravity (by Shivdas D. Katore, A. Y. Shaikh)

Bulk Viscous Fluid Hypersrface-Homogeneous Cosmological Models in Barbar's Second Self-creation Theory (by Kishor S. Wankhade)

Essays

Who Will Tell Us How Space & Time Are Non-existent for Light? (by Himangsu S. Pal)

News

LHC Update for September 2012 (by Philip E. Gibbs)

This article explores the works of creativity experts, promoting deep understanding of the complex territory of human expression, including perception, metaphor, narrative, praxis and theory. Creativity reveals the deep connection between mind and matter that modern physicists are just beginning to explore. The crisis of a global turning point demands something extraordinary from the best and brightest of us. A new model of research must not only include but encourage divergent or "Out of the Schrödinger's Box" thinking. It is often the artist not the academic that the public listens to, along with their own observations of changing thoughts and attitudes. This creates new environments and restructures the cultural ambiance.

Part I "An Artful Look at Science & a Scientific Look at Art" of this article contains: The Minority Report; Double-Edged Gifts; Awesome Beauty; Self Regulatory Process; and Perceptive & Silenced Minorities.

Part II "The Nature of the Creative Process" of this article contains: The Nature of the Creative Process; Roots of Artistic Expression; Homo Lumen; Global Architectronics; and Conclusions.

Part I of this article contains: Introduction; 1. Non Lipschitz Terminal Dynamics of Single Neuron Activity; and References; 2. Quantum Mechanical Properties of Neuron Dynamics; and 3. A Quantum Model of Consciousness I.

Part II of this article contains: 4. A Quantum Model of Consciousness II; 5. The Quantum Model of Conscious Experience; and References.

Exploring Quantum, Classical and Semi-classical Chaos in the Stadium Billiard (by Chris King): This paper explores quantum and classical chaos in the stadium billiard using Matlab simulations to investigate the behavior of wave functions in the stadium and the corresponding classical orbits believed to underlie wave function scarring. The simulations use three complementary methods. The quantum wave functions are modeled using a cellular automaton (CA) simulating a Hamiltonian wave function with discrete (square pixel) boundary conditions approaching the stadium in the classical limit. The classical orbits are computed by solving the reflection equations at the classical boundary thus giving direct insights into the wave functions and eigenstates of the quantum stadium. Finally a simplified semi-classical algorithm is developed to show the comparison between this and the quantum wave function method.