Ingo Swann (15May96)
Based on the extent of my accumulated understanding so far, there
is little doubt that the topic of SENSORY TRANSDUCERS constitutes
about 70 percent of what one needs to know about all or any of
the superpowers of the human biomind.
*
An additional 20 percent is involved with the topic of mental information processing grids, and which more or less equate to our mental "software" programs or networks. This topic will be partially considered in Part Four of this mini-series of essays.
*
This leaves about 10 percent which involves special knowledge concerning the nature and structure of the "hard drives" of our species biomind and the fundamental faculties inherent in them.
*
The "accumulated understanding" referred to above
is drawn from over thirty years of research, eighteen of which
were spent in laboratory work, testing and strict oversight confirmation.
For the most part, the laboratory work was conducted at Stanford
Research Institute (SRI), funded by the intelligence community
upon instructions to do so by congressional committees. The whole
of the eighteen years of research then proceeded under the direct
auspices of many thorough-minded scientific oversight committees.
*
The SRI project was the most extensive, intensive and longest
in duration ever mounted to inquire into the nature and functions
of the so-called "paranormal" aptitudes.
Even so, in this present essay the resulting information can only
be offered for what it's worth to those who chance to read it.
For in the absence of tutored exercises it can only be theoretically
considered.
*
The only real problem (among many lesser ones) is that the
three topics noted above have not been identified before. And
so they have never heretofore taken on a broad reality basis --
at least within the concepts utilized by the cultures of the modern
West.
When cast against the enormous amount of popular and professional
literature of all kinds which has accumulated on the general topic
of "psychic abilities," the reduction of what is involved
to only three major topics will at first seem unreasonable.
I will therefore depend on the old axiom that it is what is NOT
understood which seems complex and complicated, perhaps even unsolvable.
But when it is finally understood it becomes easy and people wonder
why they hadn't understood it before.
*
To help launch into this essay, and to help make it as internally complete as possible, it seems advisable to remind of the working definition of the superpowers -- and which has already been presented in other essays in this database.
*
Generally speaking, the usual powers can be seen to involve the physical and tangible which our basic five physical senses inform us of. These powers are not considered "psychic" ones because it is thought that they can be "explained" within the terms of physicality -- even though a number of the usual powers actually belong in the superpower category.
*
The superpowers of the biomind involve sensory and perceptual
faculties which transcend the extent and limits of physicality
and inform us of factors by ways which cannot be explained by
its known "laws."
SOME of these aptitudes have been identified, and are grouped
together under the generic term "psychic."
*
In the modern West, psychic aptitudes are considered "paranormal" or "parapsychological." But other and earlier cultures did not make this strange and unfortunate distinction -- and which led to the Western mainstream condemnation of the paranormal as abnormal and irrational.
*
It is much more profitable to consider that specimens of the
human species possess arrays of sensory receptors.
We should also consider that the sensory receptors detect "signals"
and enter the signals into the biomind identifying mechanisms
which convert them into feelings, perceptions, impressions and
etc., and which ultimately interact within the individual's intellect.
*
In Western technical concepts and jargon, mechanisms which convert one form of input energy to another form which can be utilized by different systems are referred to as TRANSDUCERS.
*
If we extend the concept of transducers to include biomind situations, then we can very easily arrive at the concept of SENSORY TRANSDUCERS (a term which has been coined by others than myself.)
*
In the case of the human biomind, the enormous number of sensory
receptors function in various ways which input various signals
(forms of energy information) into the vast complex of the sensory
systems.
But the input signals need to be transduced into other forms in
order to be utilized by the various biomind systems.
*
The following is exceedingly important.
It would appear that the human biomind sensorium possesses the
inherent hard drive faculties TO CONSTRUCT an enormous variety
of sensory transducers.
But it also appears that beyond the inherent hard drive faculties,
the transducers are constructed only as a result of repeated exposure
to the signals in some kind of cognitive way.
*
This is to say that although the biomind systems are bombarded,
as it were, with signals of all kinds, sensory transducers appear
to form only if the intellect in some fashion recognizes a need
or usefulness for them.
Since perceptions of needs or usefulness are usually determined
by environmental and social factors, human specimens will usually
elect to form only those sensory transducers which integrate them
with those factors.
*
And it is at this point that the concept of sensory transducers
becomes immeasurably complicated -- and for the following reasons.
For the most part, those sensory transducers which are typically
constructed, more or less follow the lines of local environmental,
social and educational influences.
*
As but three examples, people who spend their lives in the
high mountains have no need of the sensory transducers formed
by those who spend their lives majorly on water or the oceans
-- and vice versa.
Urban dwellers have no need of the particular sensory transducers
needed by farmers -- and vice versa.
Intellectuals have no need of the sensory transducers formed by
those who depart from the intellectual armchair and go out into
the "field" to work within hands-on situations.
*
This is to say that our species, and very probably every specimen
born of it, possesses the inherent faculties for sensory transducer
formatting. But the general, overall result is the formatting
of a wide variety of sensory transducers in given individual and
socio-educational groupings.
This is the same as saying that different people format different
sets of sensory transducers -- meaning that some form sensory
transducers which others do not.
*
It is now necessary to introduce the concept that there are differences between what might be called the "gross" and the "subtle" sensory receptors. I don't particularly like those two terms, but they are about the only ones we have in order to convey the ideas of the concept.
*
The gross sensory receptors inform us of the tangible. The
subtle ones inform us of the intangible.
But there is an added distinction which is enormously important.
For the tangible can only be experienced locally and regards the
physical vicinity which the individual biomind is most accustomed
to.
But the intangible can be experienced non-locally and will concern
matters not dependent on the physical vicinity of the biomind
specimen.
I will extend consideration of these concepts ahead. But in this
way we can distinguish between the gross physical sensory receptors
and the subtle refined sensory receptors.
It's worth while, here, to point out that most human specimens
build a lot of sensory transducers regarding the tangible sensory
receptors (i.e., the famous five so-called physical senses.)
What forms in the way of intangible sensory transducers is open
for wondering about.
*
In order to get deeper into the topic of this essay, sensory transducers, it is necessary to undertake some background discussions so as to establish a broader information basis which will ultimately aid in comprehension.
*
To get into this, I will begin by giving the formal technical
definitions of TRANSDUCER taken from a reasonably authoritative
source -- VAN NOSTRAND'S SCIENTIFIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, Fifth Edition.
The exact definitions are very important, for the concepts of
transducers not only underlie the entirety of the human biomind
sensorium, but ALL of the superpowers of the biomind.
You may bear in mind, however, that the definitions refer to physical
mechanisms and equipment -- and that we will be converting the
definitions so that they refer to the human biomind sensorium.
I will help elucidate and simplify after the definitions have
been given.
*
"TRANSDUCER: 1. A device by means of which energy can
flow from one or more transmission systems to one or more other
transmission systems. The energy transmitted by these systems
may be of any form (for example, it may be electric, mechanical,
or acoustical), and it may be of the same form or different forms
in the various input and output systems.
"2. For some purposes the transducer is defined (more narrowly)
as a device capable of being actuated by waves from one or more
transmission systems or media, and of supplying related waves
to one or more other transmission systems or media. It is sometimes
implied that the input and output energies shall be of different
forms. For example, an electroacoustic transducer accepts electrical
waves and delivers acousting waves.
"Among the types of transducers in addition to those designated
by nature of energy change, such as electroacoustic or electromechanical
transducers, are:
"The ACTIVE TRANSDUCER, whose output waves are dependent
upon sources of power, apart from that supplied by any of the
actuating waves, which power is controlled by one or ore of these
waves.
"The CONVERSION TRANSDUCER, an electric transducer in which
the input and the output frequencies are different. If the frequency-changing
property of a conversion transducer depends upon a generator of
frequency different from that of the input or output frequencies,
the frequency and voltage or power of this generator are parameters
of the conversion transducer.
"The HARMONIC TRANSDUCER, a conversion transducer in which
the useful output frequency is a multiple or a sub-multiple of
the input frequency. Either a frequency multiplier or a frequency
divider is a special case of harmonic conversion transducer.
"The HETERODYNE CONVERSION TRANSDUCER, a conversion transducer
in which the useful output frequency is the sum or difference
of the input frequency and an integral multiple of the frequency
of another wave.
"The PASSIVE TRANSDUCER, whose output waves are independent
of any sources of power which is controlled by the actuating waves.
"The IDEAL TRANSDUCER, a hypothetical passive transducer
which transfers the maximum possible power from a specified source
to a load. In linear electric circuits and analogous cases, this
is equivalent to a transducer which (a) dissipates no energy and
(b) when connected to the specified source and load, presents
to each its compliance."
I trust you understood all of the above.
*
But now to elucidate and simplify a little, first by saying that I've given the entire definitions in order to show that there are different kinds of transducers. If we apply the concept of transducers to the human biomind, it is quite probable that hundreds or thousands of different kinds of sensory transducers can be formed.
*
More simply speaking regarding the basic definition, a transducer
is a device that is actuated by power from one system and supplies
power in some other form to a second system.
Another way of putting this is that a transducer converts power
or energy of one system into a different form so that it can be
utilized by a second system which can't utilize the first form
of the energy or power.
*
All of this might seem alien to you -- unless it is pointed
up that the telephones we use every day are transducers -- actually
two of them.
The speaking end of the telephone converts our voice sounds into
electromagnetic signals which can travel through wires or the
atmospheres. These signals are then received at the listening
end, but are reconverted by another kind of transducer into the
sound vibrations we hear and recognize as words.
The same can be said of radio and television broadcasting. What
is to be broadcast is converted into electromagnetic signals which
travel (i.e., are propagated) along various bands of the electromagnetic
spectrum -- and which signals are received by the reception transducers
in radios and TVs and which convert the EM-signals into the sounds
and images we see and hear.
*
The only reason we are unfamiliar with the existence and functions
of the transducers is that we experience only the end-products
of the transduced information by our radios and TVs.
We usually have no knowledge that broadcast information is first
converted into EM-signals which are what are broadcast, and then
reconverted by the receiving transducers into the sounds and images
we hear and see.
*
But almost exactly the same things go on when we speak words
and our ears receive them.
Our voice box and larynx produce not words, but sonic vibrations
which are modulated in various ways by our tongues, lips and jaws.
The sonic vibrations have meanings to those who "speak"
the sonic vibrations.
The spoken sonic vibrations propagate across a distance and are
received by our ear mechanisms not as words but as sonic vibrations,
i.e., sonic signals.
If we have not formed biomind transducers which reconvert the
sonic signals into word meanings, then the sonics will not take
on the form of words -- and we will not understand the sound vibrations
and they will seem like garbled language or meaningless noise.
*
Here is the essential problem of languages. In different languages
the same thing can be sonically rendered via a vast number of
sonic signals. But those who have not formed specific transducers
to render them into meaning will not understand them.
In this precise sense, then, sonic vibrations are information-signals
which need to be recognized (transduced) as having particular
meaning -- and obviously it takes a vast array of sensory transducers
to result in this.
*
Our species, and every specimen born of it, has the universal
hard-drive faculties to emit and receive sonic vibrations. But
the meanings to be attached to them reside within the formative
influences of the environments, social groupings and cultures
each specimen lives within.
Again the reason why we are unfamiliar with the sonic signal processes
is that we do not perceive the vibrations themselves. The sonic
vibrations are so quickly converted by our biomind transducers
into meanings and/or noise that we are aware only of experiencing
the end products.
There can be no doubt that words, as emitted and received sonic
vibrations ARE vibrations (signals) because our species has invented
mechanical equipment to display the characteristics of the vibrations.
*
The sense receptors we collectively refer to as eyesight are
quite similar regarding vibrations. We do not literally or actually
see what is out there. Rather light causes light frequencies (another
form of vibrations) to bounce off of what is illuminated.
Our eye mechanisms do not receive pictures of the things themselves,
but receive the bounced light frequencies instead. These frequencies
are recombined into images by some undiscovered transducer function,
and it is these images we perceive in our heads -- and with the
astonishing adjunct that we feel we are directly seeing what is
out there.
We have no sense at all of experiencing that what we are looking
at is a reconstituted image in our own heads, not really something
"out there."
*
Again, light frequencies are information signals propagating
along a particularly narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum
-- referred to as the visual light spectrum.
These signals are received by the eye-brain mechanisms as a spectrum
of information signals. They are not received as images. Another
step is required. The signals need to be transduced into the images
which the biomind perceives.
*
Now, it is generally thought and taught that we are receiving
visual images. This is not true. What the visualizing parts of
our biominds are receiving, via our eye systems, is not visual
images but light frequencies -- while the images are reconstituted
by some kind of transducers into the images we see.
The problem here is that the whole of this takes place in a micro-fraction
of a second -- so fast indeed that the images which appear in
our heads seem simultaneous with what our visual sense receptors
are sensing "out there." So we think we are seeing what
is out there. We have no conscious awareness of the existence
of the mysterious transducers involved.
*
As an added situation, it is well known that people see things differently, and that some see tangible things completely missed by others. And here is the situation regarding which and what kind of sensory transducers have or have not been formatted at the individual level.
*
There is an enormous complexity involved here. As has often
been said, scientists today know everything there is to know about
our physical eyesight mechanisms. But with one exception: How
the light frequencies which travel through the eye mechanisms
"register" somewhere unknown within the biomind and
result in transduced images.
For those who might want to read in more detail of what I have
summarized just above, I refer you to a particular book, probably
hard to find but well worth the effort: BEYOND ALL BELIEF, by
Peter Lemesurier (Element Books, Great Britain, 1983).
*
In common parlance we refer to hearing and seeing as two of
the major physical senses.
I suppose this is OK -- as long as one does not look into the
mechanisms and processes involved. But in fact, such looking into
was not possible before the modern sciences invented refined equipment
to do so.
After the invention of such equipment, and the applying of it
to the dissecting of the physical senses, the definitions of the
senses really ought to have radically changed -- because by now
the earlier concepts of the senses are almost completely antiquated.
*
Indeed, it is quite possible today to say that we do not have
SENSES at all -- unless we utilize the term "sense"
as "to make sense of something."
What we actually have are vast arrays of SENSORY RECEPTORS of
all kinds quite busy receiving an even vaster array of information-signals.
We also have vast arrays of EMITTERS, equally busy sending out
all kinds of information-signals.
*
Various problems concerning concepts and nomenclature about
remote viewing and the other superpowers were discussed in Part
One of this series of essays.
The general point was made that once the concepts and nomenclature
have become established, they also enter into our mental information
processing grids -- and thereafter we think of the superpowers
only within those terms.
As a result, our sensory load inputs and subsequent thinking processes
and their extent can become trapped within the limits of the concepts
and nomenclature.
*
Some few researchers have agreed that the modern West has only
a very limited number of concepts regarding the superpowers and
the paranormal, some of which are quite superficial while others
are not correct and therefore are misleading.
For example, the fabled out-of-body experience appears to have
a number of different states or gradients, some of which are not
completely independent of the biobody.
Yet we tend to think of the OOBE only within one context having
to do with the two-part division typical of Western philosophical
dualism. Dualism divides the human biomind entity into only two
parts, the biological part and another part commonly thought of
as The Spirit and/or the Mind.
*
If one digs deeper into this two-part simplicity, it becomes quite clear that the human biomind is multi-aspected, multi-dimensional, and capable of many gradient sensory states and conditions that can find no home or reality within the Western two-part concept of dualism.
*
In Part Two, an attempt was made to discuss the SIDHIS of ancient India -- and this topic must now be expanded a little since it leads directly into the topic of sensory transducers and the superpowers of the human biomind.
*
Descriptions of the sidhis will definitely identify them as
superpowers of the human biomind. However, although descriptions
of the various sidhis have been recounted in many sources published
in the modern West, what they actually consisted of in their ancient
terms past remains foggy in modern terms.
But it is clearly implied in the ancient Yoga texts that the sidhis
are the products of learning and deliberate development. It would
appear that one cannot develop or enhance any of the sidhis merely
by reading about them.
In the context of this essay, obviously would have been needed
is the development and strengthening of specific kinds of sensory
transducers.
However, what additionally would be involved in developing them
is not explained in the ancient Yoga texts -- apparently because
the Yogins felt that the superpowers should be developed only
by those who had attained certain moral and ethical levels.
*
The Yoga literature of the past, however, does, with some certainty,
distinguish between the "gross" and the "subtle"
senses.
We in the modern West would distinguish between the physical and
the psychic senses -- and assume that our distinction exactly
corresponds with what was meant in the ancient Yoga tradition.
*
But within my many years of experience and research, the Western
division can only be an approximate one at best. Our modern distinction
carries the overtones of Western dualism, and which makes our
enormously limiting two-part distinction possible.
But there is hardly any evidence that the ancient Yogins leaned
on any format of dualism. Good translations (there ARE bad ones)
of the Yoga Sutras seem to indicate the ancient presence of an
overall formative philosophy focused not on TWO aspects but on
the many different multi-levels and multi-channels of the human
biomind potentials.
It would seem that it was this overall philosophy of multi-aspects
which released the ancient Yogins from our present modern dichotomy
of material versus non-material.
*
If anything, the ancient Yogins might have assigned a good
part of what we call "psychic" to the physical senses,
since they identified many more than five physical senses.
And indeed, recent research in neurophysiology has located the
sensory receptors for at least seventeen physical senses, a number
of which we would call psychic, such as magnetic directional sensing.
[See, for example, DECIPHERING THE SENSES, THE EXPANDING WORLD
OF HUMAN PERCEPTION, Robert Rivlin and Karen Gravelle, Simon &
Schuster, 1984.]
*
One Western error of interpretation that has probably been
made is in exclusively associating the Yoga "gross senses"
with the physical senses. And with this, the distinction between
gross and subtle senses begins -- and which we today would identify
as the physical and psychic senses.
Yet many of the physical senses of biobody can qualify as subtle
ones. The Yoga texts show that the ancient Yogins were completely
aware of this in that they advocated the development, refinement,
extending and honing of many of the physical senses.
*
There is only one possible conclusion here -- that "gross"
and "subtle" must have meant something else in those
ancient times.
It is my conclusion that the two terms referred not to the senses
at all, but referred to how any or all of the senses were USED
-- which is to say, to what ends they were used.
*
Within this context, and as IS stated in the Yoga texts, the
most fundamental "gross" aspect was to utilize one's
senses only to gratify physical passions, lusts or even physical
needs.
Any number of what we would call "telepathic" senses
can be used to those ends, and which powers we Westerners would
certainly view as subtle ones in nature. {In a forthcoming essay
I will discuss the telepathic capabilities of the astonishing
biobody itself.]
*
Likewise, the ancient Yoga meaning of "subtle" must
have meant something different.
The ancient Yogins understood that there was an immediacy in physical
affairs, a direct immediacy which trapped or at least focused
the awareness of people in it -- leading to the gross usage of
all of their manifold senses for physical end.
*
Yet the Yogins also understood that there were intangible matters
(influences?)which impacted upon physical affairs, and were even
interwoven among them.
Such intangible influences certainly qualify as subtle ones, while
the USAGE of the combined biomind senses to perceive THEM would
certainly be of a different order than merely perceiving anything
strictly physical.
*
It thus follows that the Yoga distinction was at least more between the USAGE of the senses in regard to gross and subtle GOALS than between a strict division of tangible and intangible -- or, as we would say, exclusively between the physical and the psychic sensory receptors.
*
That the USAGE of the senses, whatever they were, was the principal
focus of the Yogins is inordinately pronounced if one studies
the discursive passages in the ancient texts.
The Yogins clearly indicate that a focus of the senses exclusively
into physicality permits gross and familiar formats of behavior,
sometimes quite disgusting and heinous.
But they also held that the introduction of perceptions of the
subtle intangibles brought about beneficial changes in behavior
based in the principle that humans behave according to the limits
or extents of what they perceive.
*
Even in bad Western translations of the Yoga texts, this basic
"message" is quite clearly put, and there is little
way around it. We today, of course, might transliterate this as
"lifting one's consciousness into higher realms."
But we would do so on the basic dualistic assumption of more departing
from the physical and entering more into the spiritual -- in other
words distinguishing, rather unforgivingly, between the physical
and spiritual life which we dualistically see as diametrically
and permanently opposed to each other.
*
But there is hardly a trace of such diametric opposition in
the Yoga texts -- and in this the general Western and Eastern
foci differ completely.
The ancient Yogins clearly valued the physical as the embodiment
of the enduring Life Principle -- and which, to them, was perhaps
the most intangible, but the most sustaining Principle of all.
*
It was the reduction or collapse of the biomind sensory equipment and mechanisms into the limits of the purely physical purposes which disturbed them, and which collapse could be seen only by restoring the sensory subtle faculties into functioning efficacy.
*
We in the modern West today do not have a very good picture
of this -- and for a very surprising reason.
You see, we tend to judge the efficacy of psychic functioning
mostly in regard to physical parameters.
For example, parapsychologists use only physical targets in testing
for psi.
Psychics are used to solve physical crimes and find lost or dead
bio-bodies.
Psychic readers, sometimes very good, are required to address
physical situations for their clients -- sex or matrimonial partners,
money, when physical circumstances will get better.
Even foreseeing the future has no real importance unless its outcomes
can be judged against future, but quite physical manifestations.
Our concepts of telepathy exclusively involve physical situations,
most specifically minds in bio-bodies.
Even spiritualistic mediums are expected to be in touch with departed
bio-BODIES, and other remarkable seance phenomena have to be very
near to being physical in order to be appreciated.
*
Indeed, we in the modern West SAY that psychic faculties are
non-material and non-material in origin. But we test and utilize
them against physicality aspects.
Even when psychic faculties are used, hypothetically speaking,
to spot extraterrestrials, the result is that we assume that the
ETs are somewhere in physicality and themselves are physical entities
of some kind.
In this sense, then, we are trapped within the "gross usage"
which the ancient Yogins most likely were referring to.
*
And even the development of controlled remote viewing, of which I was a full part, it was exclusively designed to spy on foreign "hard targets" -- physical facilities of physical military importance.
*
Indeed, we view psychic perceptions as subtle and intangible in nature -- but if and when we attempt to use them it is in regard to mundane physical situations.
*
The ancient Yoga texts can be interpreted in many ways, and
as they have been. But one of the ways seems to hinge on the modern
Western assumption that the Yogins taught that an increase in
psychic powers (as we would call them in the modern West) was
the goal.
But this was not the case at all.
The Yogins unambiguously taught that an overall INCREASE or EXPANSION
of sensory awareness was the principal goal -- and that as increases
of sensory awareness took place, various sensory mechanisms equivalent
to some of our conceptualized Western psychic powers could automatically
become activated or reactivated.
*
But here we again trip across a Western conceptual inadequacy
-- for we habitually refer to "awareness" without prefixing
it with "sensory."
And this is very important regarding the development of sensory
transducers.
This inadequacy us to the false assumption that awareness is something
of and in itself, something sort of independent of sensory inputs.
Indeed, within the contexts of this inadequacy one can easily
say that one is an aware person -- while at the same time being
completely unaware of a great deal.
I'm sure you might see the larger overall situation in this regard
-- the one composed of aware people who are not aware of a whole
lot.
*
In its most basic Western definition, "aware" means
alert, and so "awareness" means having or possessing
the state of alertness. Most dictionaries let it go at that.
But "alert" means alert to some kinds of input, and
all of which have to consist of sensory somethings (and which
"somethings" are in these essays being referred to as
"signals.")
After all, it does defy logic to say that one is aware of something
which has not been sensed in some kind of fashion.
*
In any event, the Yoga texts advocate an OVERALL increase of SENSORY AWARENESS -- while such an increase obviously must be the result of finding out what one is NOT sensing so as to become aware of it. And finding this out obviously would involve a series of processes of some kind.
*
And here we encounter a real snarl, one both delicate and gross,
and which could use several essays to discuss. I will therefore
postpone entering too deeply into it here, reserving extended
discussion to the forthcoming Part Five of these mini-essays --
REMOTE VIEWING AND THE HUMAN SUPERPOWERS OF MIND.
The reason for the postponement is that one should have the prerequisite
information regarding both sensory transducers AND mental information
processing grids (the topic of Part Four.)
*
So we will consider only the distinction (in Western terms)
between the gross and the subtle sensory receptors.
And here, for the first time, we encounter certain subtle sensory
(psychic) factors which, by definition, ARE subtle ones, but which
are not called "psychic" here in the West -- in that
they are considered normal, not non-normal.
*
Since the conventional concepts of the basic five senses are
usually focused only on the physical and tangible, they also tend
to focus the intellect on the psychical and tangible, and sometimes
exclusively so.
In such a case, it might be concluded that the full extent and
entirety of the human biomind perceptions regard only what is
physical and tangible -- and which is the general case within
the major Western philosophies of materialism and the physical
sciences.
*
But intellect has a certain number of powers which are never
exclusively based in perceiving only what is physical and tangible.
For example, intellect can perceive connections or relationships
between physical and tangible aspects, even though the connections
and relationships are nowhere directly visible or identifiable
exclusively via the basic five senses.
*
In such a case, intellect has transcended the parameters and
limits of the physical and tangible, and has perceived something
for which there is no DIRECT physical or tangible evidence.
In other words, and well within the ancient Yoga formats, the
intellect has perceived a subtle factor. This relationship factor
may indeed be "suggested" by the physical, but of and
in itself it is not tangible.
*
In such a case, the intellect, not normally thought of as psychic, has performed a function which we in the West would call psychic -- for if the term "psychic" refers to perceiving what is tangibly invisible, then this simple process of perceiving relationships certainly should be entered into the lexicon of things psychic.
*
If this concept bumps around in one's mental information processing grids, not to worry -- for the perception of relationships is a full beginning part of that endemic superpower called intuition.
*
It is true that the connections and relationships can be confirmed in tangible and physical ways. But the impetus for undertaking the confirmation has arisen from this particular transcendental faculty of intellect.
*
In the cultural West this particular faculty of intellect is majorly referred to as the DEDUCTIVE faculty, and sometimes as INDUCTIVE. But since it involves something not perceptible to the physical five, it involves something invisible -- at least within the contexts of telling the difference between the visible and invisible.
*
Thus, one is left to wonder about where ARE the senses of intellect
which obviously must underlie the perception of something which
is invisible to the physical five -- and which perception transcends
the limits and parameters of the physical and tangible.
For, you see, deduction itself must be based in some kind of sensory
equipment in that deductions don't exist of and in themselves,
but are always sensed and constructed by the individual biomind.
*
The term used in the cultural West for this kind of thing is
deduction. But it could quite as easily be referred to as intuition,
since the several forms of intuition are all based in some kind
of deduction.
In the West, intuition is generally taken to mean "direct
perception, cognition or knowledge of something which is not physically
or tangibly available or in evidence." But a deduction is
also the same thing. The perceptions of relationships are not
tangibly in direct evidence -- unless one deduces them.
*
To try to ensure complete understanding here, the things between
which the invisible or not obvious connections and relationships
are perceived may well be physical and tangible. But the perceived
connections and relationships themselves are not of physical and
tangible origin. They are "contributed" by the biomind
systems.
And furthermore, they reside only in the intellects which do perceive
them -- while they may not at all be perceived by or reside in
the intellects of others.
*
By way of example here, inventors proceed by the intellect power of "logical" deduction of invisible relationships and meanings -- but many inventors will insist that they were more inspired by episodes of intuition and the products of which at first seemed entirely illogical.
*
In any event, if the intellect powers of deduction and intuition
are not the same thing, there is at least a linked and very close
connection between them.
If, however, the full spectrum of the different kinds of intuition
was identified, it would be quite difficult not to include deduction
as perhaps the first and most basic form of it.
*
And every specimen of our species is born with the hard drive rudiments of deductive faculties. Whether they are developed and enhanced, though, is a different matter. But this matter (or problem) has very little to do with the fact that our species as a whole certainly does possess the biomind hardware of the deductive faculties.
*
In fact, it can be offered that deductions are EXTENSIONS and ENHANCEMENTS of the physical senses -- almost exactly as advocated in the ancient Yoga texts.
*
But we need to be very precise here in order to ensure understanding.
Step-like functions are involved between perception of physical
objects and deducting relationships between them. As has already
been stated, even our five physical senses do not themselves perceive
things as they are.
What is perceived are sensory recreations of what is input via
the sensory receptors -- and then only if sufficient sensory transducers
have been erected to process information from the absolutely physical
gross to increasing levels of subtly and which increasing levels
at some depart from complete dependence on the physical gross.
*
We are now in a position to consider the following three factors:
1. The physical senses are made up of arrays of sensory receptors
which, in the first instance, receive some kind of signals. These
signals are converted into the sensations we experience, and which
sensations are then converted into what we see, hear and etc.
2. Then further conversions take place until the process comes
to include information loads resulting in intellect understanding.
3. Then, in the case of deducting, further conversions must take
place dealing with information loads that are invisible to the
five physical sense receptors.
In other words, we are looking at arrays of increasingly specialized
sensory transducers -- and which include transducers which can
deal with information which is not drawn from contact with one's
local environment of physicality.
*
Each conversion requires a series of SENSORY TRANSDUCERS which
convert something to something else -- such as signal into information.
Thus what begins as sensory signals can be converted into a number
of outputs, of which deducting is one.
The whole of this passage will be enlarged upon just ahead.
*
All sensations received as inputs by the biomind are signals
in their first form -- while the conversion from signal state
to the meaning condition would require sensory transformation
of the signal into sensed information the biomind could comprehend.
In other words, the biomind might be equipped with the rudimentary
sidhi sense receptors. But in the case of the sidhis the biobody
sensing arrays alone will not suffice except insofar as spontaneous
manifestations might occur.
*
But in the ancient Yoga texts, the sidhis are NOT identified
as spontaneous manifestations. Rather, they are identified as
highly developed skills under the volitional control of their
possessors.
And, as is well known, such development requires the cognitive
cooperation of the intellect part of the biomind -- and which
part obviously would have to erect sensory transducers of its
own in order to deal with sidhi development.
This can only mean that although the biomind specimen possesses
rudiments for constructing refined sensory transducers, such transducers
have to be constructed by repeated cognitive exposure to the precise
subtle signals.
*
The only modern Western concept which fills the bill here is that involving the TRANSDUCER -- and, in the case of the developed sidhis, a series of them beginning with signal-sensing receptors ending up with the cognitive transducers. This consists of a series of transducing processes which convert signal into recognizable information which can be accurately understood.
*
The reason I've gone on at such length regarding the sidhis
is that through the long-duration of the research work at SRI,
the functional discoveries made there increasingly seemed to emulate
the meanings and contexts of the ancient Yoga Sutras in which
the sidhis are discussed in ways which equate with the superpowers.
Thus, there was every reason to assess the ancient Yoga texts
in light of our own work -- and in this sense the ancient texts
became a treasure trove of additional information.
*
In this sense, the old axiom that there is nothing new takes
on renewed meaning. If one discovers or rediscovers what is already
there -- well, what else can ever be discovered except what it
already there?
The controlled, volitional form of remote viewing is clearly comparable
to the ancient volitional and controlled sidhi described as distant-seeing.
The remote-viewing discovery work uncovered very delicate sense
receptors which, when properly transduced into accurate intellect
meaning resulted in controlled remote viewing.
Thus, if perhaps not exactly so, the discoveries of the delicate
sense receptors and proper sensory transducers must closely resemble
the knowledge of the ancient Yogins and their concepts of the
distant-seeing sidhi.
*
The concept involving proper sensory transducers, however,
is not unique to the controlled remote viewing processes.
Indeed, the need for sensory transducers is not only an individual
biomind necessity, but clearly underlies the whole of all our
species powers and superpowers of the human biomind.
*
The question now emerges as to which subtle signals need to
be recognized so as to erect suitable sensory transducers for
them.
The answer to this belongs in the 10 percent special knowledge
category indicated at the beginning of this mini-essay. And one
could be told what the signals consist of.
But, as indicated in the Yoga texts, it would be repeated, precise
exposure to them which would cause the necessary transducers to
format. And this is only possible by precise tutoring -- again
as indicated in the ancient Yoga texts.
*
We will now leave the discussion of the sidhis and enter into a preliminary discussion which will aid in making visible the importance of sensory transducers. This discussion is needed largely because few will ever have heard of sensory transducers.
*
Largely speaking, even the basic five senses are useless unless their sensory inputs are mitigated and analyzed by the intellect or some other analyzing part of the biomind -- after which a great deal seems to depend on the loads of information accumulated and actively contained in the intellect at the individual level and via which the sensory inputs are analyzed.
*
Be pleased to read the above rather long sentence with great
care and attention.
The meaning here is that one's sensory receptors may indeed be
receiving certain kinds of signals. But if one's intellect is
not prepared to deal with their information loads, then the signals
will remain invisible -- at least to one's non-sensitized, unaware
cognitive intellect.
I will expand upon the "loads of information" in the
contexts of the following mini-essay dealing specifically with
the mental information processing grids, or networks, if you prefer.
*
During the modern epoch (roughly from about 1845 to about 1970),
it was thought and taught that the five physical senses must correspond
exactly to the known laws of the physical and tangible.
It was also thought that the basic five were themselves exclusively
of physical and tangible origin, and their ultimate "explanations"
would eventually be discovered to be physical in nature.
*
It is only during the post-Modern period to the present that
the answer here has been found to be both Yes and No -- in that
the bio-organic functions of the five physical senses have been
mapped.
But what is still missing is how, or even why, the physical or
any of the sensory signal receptors result in the TRANSFER from
biomind sensations into information.
*
But rather than get brainlocked into this mystery, we should
consider what happens from another viewpoint.
The most obvious and perhaps the only purpose and function of
any or all of the sensory receptors is to deal with information
-- to INFORM us of the various aspects of the physical and tangible.
And INFORMATION is always invisible until it is transduced into
some "hard" form such as words, codes, mathematics,
voice, printed or computer formats, deduction, and, last of all,
into intellect cognition.
*
How and why this was not earlier noticed is something of a complete mystery.
*
But here is the incredibly important distinction between what
our senses ARE and what they DO.
Indeed, debates and polemics about what our senses ARE can go
on indefinitely.
But when it comes to the matter of what they DO... well, here
we encounter an entirely different perspective -- one which opens
onto quite wide panoramas and unambiguously comes to include the
subtle extensions of a wide variety of sensory receptors pointed
up by the ancient Yogins.
*
For starters, if our senses, no matter what they are, did nothing for us, then they would be quite useless.
*
It is extremely difficult to consider that the essence of information
is exclusively physical and tangible in its basic nature.
It is true that information can be conveyed via physical means
-- the most common forms consisting of sonics, images and linguistic
and mathematical codes which make it intelligible to those who
can hear, look, or comprehend.
But information itself has to be converted into human thoughts
and concepts in order that one can perceive what it consists of.
*
Information theorists now hold that information is always available,
and all the time available, whether human specimens perceive it
or not.
"Always available" clearly implies the essential invisibility
of information -- until it becomes "visible" within
the deductive/intuitive cognitive powers of the intellect in the
form of "perceptions," and then in thoughts and concepts.
*
It is exceedingly difficult to consider that thoughts and concepts are exclusively physical or tangible in nature.
*
It is true that thoughts and concepts can be stimulated into
existence because of physical and tangible sensations. But it
can easily be shown that the thoughts and concepts are not the
stimulations themselves, but only this or that consideration of
them.
Furthermore, this or that consideration can produce, as they automatically
tend to do, entire chains of additional considerations -- until
a point might be reached which is far removed from anything physical
or tangible.
*
On the other hand, though, the human biomind can produce considerations, thoughts and concepts which have no origin in anything physical or tangible at all -- but which rather have their origin in matters for which there is no "explanation" within the on-going tangible factors of time, space, matter and energy.
*
The most omnipresent type of this is often called intuitive
foresight -- and which deals with information, or deduced information,
which is not derivable from any existing situations regarding
the physical and tangible.
And, indeed, whether intuition be of deduction, insight or foresight,
it defies the "laws" of the physical and tangible --
so much so that it easily and unambiguously can be said to transcend
them.
*
And it is at this point that we must consider that our species does possess senses and cognitive faculties the information function of which is to transcend the parameters and limits of the physical and tangible -- and, so to speak, plug us into the information which is available all of the time.
*
It is almost completely certain that all of the superpowers
are based in two principal factors.
These are SYSTEMS of SENSORY RECEPTORS and systems of SENSORY
TRANSDUCERS (both gross and subtle), which result in information
which is meaningful to the experiencer -- IF (here a BIG word)
proper sensory transducers have been formatted.
A third important factor is found in MENTAL INFORMATION PROCESSING
GRIDS, the central topic of the next mini-essay.
*
We will be quick here to define between "the senses,"
as they are commonly referred to, and sensing SYSTEMS which are
far more complex than "senses."
Even our common five physical senses are not "senses."
If we get beyond the simplistic use of the term "senses"
and deeper into the anatomy and dynamics of the physical five,
then we find that what we call a "physical sense" is
actually made up of extraordinarily complex interactions among
a vast number of sensory receptors.
*
These interactions involve the electromagnetic level, the behavior
of atoms which comprise our molecules and cells, the functions
of our bio-organic materials and the synapses and chemical electrons
comprising our nervous systems and brains, as well as our biomind
energy fields and our sensoriums.
Upon inspection of the sensing systems and their extensive arrays,
it is their apparent major duty to detect and input and process
information -- and this arouses considerations as to how and in
what ways information is processed.
*
If we persist in utilizing the term "a sense," then we are reducing all of our wondrous and fantastic sensing SYSTEMS to a simplistic concept -- one which defeats a comprehension of the larger factors of our biomind sensing systems.
*
Every specimen of our species is a walking, talking array of sensing systems -- and these are so wonderful and astonishing as to boggle even those who study them scientifically.
*
The idea that our biominds process only physical information
is foolish, and thus the concept that born specimens of our species
have only five physical senses serves only to reduce one's awareness
of one's OWN vast arrays of sensing systems.
As it is, even those who believe and teach that we have only five
physical senses are themselves always utilizing extended arrays
of sensing systems which cannot be confined into or explained
by the physical five.
*
There is no doubt that we DO have sensing systems which principally
process information relevant to the physical factors around us
or wherever we go.
But even the most average person knows and experiences that we
process various kinds of sensed information which is not physical
in origin or source and which cannot even be deduced from physical
factors.
*
As it has transpired during the last three decades, roughly
beginning in the late 1960s, cutting-edge research scientists
have come to accept that we possess many more than the five physical
senses, and that the human biomind deals with various categories
of information which cannot be fitted into the normal five-senses
explanation.
In this context, I again refer you to the book I've already mentioned:
DECIPHERING THE SENSES: THE EXPANDING WORLD OF HUMAN PERCEPTION
(Robert Rivlin and Karen Gravelle, Simon & Schuster.)
In this book the arcane complexities of many scientific papers
were clarified for the popular reader -- and who would be surprised
to find SEVENTEEN senses cogently described in it.
*
In Part Five of these mini-essays, I'll begin an extended but
preliminary listing of various of the additionally identified
senses and compare them to various superpowers of the human biomind.
But at this point, in Part Four we need to turn our attention
to those complicated factors called, in this database, the mental
information processing grids. Therein we'll have something of
a chance at considering how and why sensory transducers either
do or do not become functionally formatted.
(End)