Re: Precognition observed in hippocampus of mice
Thanks Sono and you're right - torturous. I'll give it another try .
Let me see if I can spark any interest in this mice hippocampus thing. To me, the actual observation of precognition under controlled conditions raises the question of the nature of our other-than-physical bodies. What these mice are telling me is we need maybe to drop the word 'body' and adopt 'being' in its place - our energy beings, or better, wave-functions.
Let me explain. We have an experiment that involves two tracks joined at the ends at right angles to each other - an angle icon. A track is simply a strip of various colored tiles aligned end-to-end. There is a sight barrier dividing the two uniquely designed tracks so that a mouse on one cannot see the other. The mice are allowed to run a track and the firing of 'place cells' in the hippocampus is recorded. The mice are then allowed to rest and sleep. The researchers were then able to compare the sequence of place cell firings during rest and slow-wave sleep with the 'learning' sequence and discovered, as expected, the hippocampus was rehearsing or replaying the sequence of firing during discovery - consolidating the memory.
Then the mice were allowed to run the unseen track. They noticed that during rest and slow-wave sleep following the run on the novel or new track the replay of the experience matched place cell firings that had occurred during R and SW sleep previous to the encounter with the novel track. The unique sequence associated with REPLAY of the novel track were present as PREPLAY during R and SW sleep of the first or familiar track.
They then took the experiment to another level. This time the researchers took mice that had never seen a track, kept them in a box with high sides and placed them in the room with but a single track. The mice could not and did not SEE the track, and yet during R and SW sleep the mice PREPLAYED the firing sequence of the track in the room!
The is real M.I.T. science, people. What can we make of it? As I suggested before, the simplest explanation for Preplay would be that the novel track wasn't actually hidden from the mice; somehow they saw it with something other than physical sight. Furthermore, if we assume that in order for the hippocampal cellular assemblies to fire, the track must be experienced (mere 'seeing' would not activate this process) the mice must have 'run' it with something other than their physical body.
First of all, I can hardly picture little astral mice walking through the partition or leaving the box to explore another track. That seems ludicrous to me, though not impossible. What I'd rather suggest is mice awareness simply extends a good deal beyond the physical body. Moreover, this awareness need not take the form of an energy body at all - it need not be confined, defined or in any way restricted. The mice are telling me (haha) that they behave in a quantum fashion in the same way that an electron may be a particle (body) or a wave (no body).
This idea would certainly add a twist to our understanding of energy bodies. As humans with well developed sense of self and identity I wonder if it isn't just a matter of convention that we create a body for our other energy selves? Mice, on the other hand, are prob more like Borg with no self-conscious concept of identity and likewise have no 'need' for an astral or mental body. The physical body of a mouse may be simply a locus within the wave functions of higher energy bodies.
What is true of mice is prob true of men and all other creatures. I've often wondered how huge schools of fish manage to swim as one. When they change direction, they all change at the very same instant. We can explain this under the wave theory of energy bodies.
Obviously, I don't have this all hammered out, but what do you think?
Matter is only mind in an opaque condition; and all beauty is but a symbol of spirit.
- E Hubbard
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