03:10:2012 -- Fear of Death

Dear Friends,

http://www.mondovista.com/Fear-Of-Death.html

Be Well.

David

© 2012 by Gary Vey

WARNING!

Scientific experiments have proven that if you read the following story, you will likely be changed. Your ideas about religion, politics -- yes, even your appreciation of art and beauty will be changed... at least temporarily. So if you like the way you feel about life right now, maybe you should skip this article.

I'm going to tell you something that you already know. It's something obvious. But it's also so horrific and terrible that it must quickly be forgotten or it could literally drive you insane. Just the reminder of this fact will be enough to change your behavior, your outlook on the world and the look on your face [1].

"The all encompassing blackness..." --William James 1910

I'm going to describe the cutting-edge of psychological theories, called Terror Management Theory or TMT. It's been known for a while but has been kept off the radar by the media. And that's partially because TMT has been used against us (you will see how). It's a theory that explains human behavior and its most basic psychological motivator.

"In the day that you eat from it you shall surely die."
--Genesis 2:17

Are YOU afraid to die?

Terror Management Theory (TMT) states that all human behavior is motivated by the fear of our own mortality. The fact that you and I will eventually die and be "no more" is a fact known and understood only by humans. Although animals have an avoidance of death, they live in the present. They don't comprehend their destiny. Only humans have the capacity to project reality in time and imagine the future. Only humans realize the significance of being "no more".

The theory originated with anthropologist Ernest Becker's 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning work of nonfiction, The Denial of Death, in which Becker argues:

All human action is taken to ignore or avoid the anxiety generated by the inevitability of death.

The terror associated with our unstoppable annihilation creates a subconscious conflict or anxiety called cognitive dissonance. We try to cope with having to accept two contrary ideas. On one hand, we want to become involved with life and think of ourselves as a meaningful part of the world. On the other hand, what does anything matter anyway if we ultimately become "no more" -- if all this wonderment of life is temporary?

If this is all temporary, what does it matter?

According to Becker, people spend their entire lives trying to make sense of these conflicting thoughts. We are so afraid of death that we create alternate realities -- realities where we won't "cease to be". We take comfort in the fact that others share this alternate reality. 

Often symbols are used to reinforce our confidence in what psychologists call our worldview. 

Reminders of death: Mortality Salience

Psychologists speak of an event which stimulates awareness of our own death as mortality salience. Scientists are often curious how these reminders of death can change our thinking and behavior. They have done many experiments on this.

Mortality salience is usually achieved in experiments by inserting questions about such things as the subjects death plans (last Will & Testament or Life Insurance beneficiaries) or how old his grandfather was when he died. Half of the experimental subjects get the mortality salience and half get benign questions, then they measure the difference. Other times they flash the word DEATH at one twenty-forth of a second on a screen -- so fast that the subjects cannot see it even when they're told it is there. Yet, somehow it works. Their behavior changes.

The basis of human culture!

TMT psychologists view human culture as a belief system constructed to explain and give meaning to life and resist confronting the horror of death. One of the requirements of a successful culture is to substitute the reality of existential death with an achievable afterlife (i.e. belief in heaven or reincarnation). If not literally, then symbolically. Cemetery stones and burial monuments are examples of this. Cultures also reward enduring accomplishments to civilization with material awards, namesakes and inclusions in human history (Like naming a building or street after someone).

The worldview is the foundation of all human culture. History records that various symbols [above] that have been used to represent different worldviews. Each one offers its unique explanation of how we can coexist with death and attempts to lower our death anxiety.

The following research will show that when your worldview is threatened by another worldview, you will be so anxious that you will fight to defend your own belief system -- in fact, this is the basis of religious and political wars. It doesn't matter what you think consciously either. It's such a primal reaction that it happens anyway.

TMT Is Being Used Against Us!

When the idea was first introduced to psychology, a plethora of research was conducted with the idea of "Tell me it ain't so!" But multiple experiments have shown that TMT is able to predict and explain most of the behavior we both promote and experience.

TMT theorists believe that an individual will be so freaked out by being reminded of his death, or mortality salience, that he will invest even more belief in his worldview and resist or violently attack anything perceived as a threat to his worldview. So how did they test this?

Two famous experiments illustrate this phenomenon. 

The Judges & the Prostitute Research has shown that reminding subjects of their mortality encourages negative reactions towards others whose behaviour or attitudes deviate from the subject's cultural worldview [8]. According to TMT, these findings result from a heightened need for faith in the cultural worldview that is activated by reminders of one's mortality.  In this first study, a group of judges were asked to participate in answering a questionaire. The judges were divided into two groups. Each group was given more questions to answer but one group had subtle reminders of death contained in the questions. Both groups were then asked to review the case history of a hypothetical prostitute and to suggest a bail bond amount in dollars. Not surprisingly, the group who had received the mortality salience came down harshly on the "deviate", assigning an average bond of $455, while the control group averaged only $50. But, it was argued, bad news of any kind could produce the same effect if it got the judge in a bad mood. Experimenters responded that the subjects did not report feeling any negative reaction, but they did more experiments anyway. This time they reminded one group of their death and the other group received exposure to some other worrisome concern about the future. The same results were achieved with the mortality salience as before. The group that was reminded of death charged more for bond than the group who received other worrisome ideas [9]. The interesting fact was that the group who received the worrisome ideas reported feeling negative -- not the group who were reminded of their death. [2] Thus, consistent with Terror Management Theory, mortality salience effects seem to result exclusively from thoughts of death. TMT interprets these results as the need for an individual to invest more faith and belief in their worldview when they are reminded of their mortality. Individuals will need to become more cohesive with their groups, such as religious or political affiliations. Imagine, you can be made to be conservative and conform to the status quo by being exposed to the fear of dying. Is this a good thing? Hot Sauce Laboratory experiments investigating aggressive behavior pose a problem. If the aggression is directed towards a real person there is the risk of someone being hurt or injured. Psychologists have invented numerous means of assessing aggression in indirect ways. A group of experimenters recently developed a new method for measuring aggression, specifically, the amount of hot sauce administered to a target known to dislike spicy foods [10]. In this study, the experimenters induced participants to write about either their own death (suggesting mortality salience) or a control topic, presented them with a target who either disparaged their political views or did not, and gave them the opportunity to choose the amount of hot sauce the target would have to consume. As predicted by TMT, participants who were reminded of their death allocated a particularly large amount of hot sauce to their worldview-threatening target. In additional studies, the authors found that following MS induction, if the subjects were given the opportunity to verbally express a negative attitude toward the critical target, their allocation of hot sauce decreased. These results showed that if the subjects could express their negative attitudes verbally towards their politically opposite targets, they were less likely to give them extra hot sauce (i.e. reduced aggression). This suggests that verbal degredation and acts of aggression are two alternative modes of responding to MS. [11]

 

Back in 2004, an experiment was conducted to assess the effect of a subtle reminder of death on voting intentions for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. On the basis of Terror Management Theory it was hypothesized that a mortality salience suggestion would increase support for President George W. Bush (the incumbent) and decrease support for Senator John Kerry (the challenger). 

This would happen because the incumbent president represented the status quo -- the worldview as we knew it. Kerry was a threat to this.

In late September 2004, after receiving either a death reminder or a neutral suggestion, registered voters were asked which candidate they intended to vote for. In accord with predictions, Senator John Kerry received substantially more votes than George Bush in the control condition, but Bush was favored over Kerry following a reminder of death, suggesting that President Bush's re-election may have been facilitated by unconscious concerns about mortality in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the anthrax attacks (which originated from a government lab) and the constant manipulation of security threat levels attributed to vaguely described "chatter" among ill-defined "enemies" of America.[3]

Are similar fears being used to control us today? While the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are winding down, threats of WWIII with Iran and Israel are keeping the mortality salience going at full speed. According to the TMT theory, this should benefit Obama's re-election, since he represents the status quo.

Death Anxiety Fuels Conservative Ideas

Increased prejudice toward worldview violators has been measured in a number of experiments assessing TMT. Following death reminders, anti-gay discrimination and affective prejudice toward gay men increased significantly. This is, according to the study, because being homosexual is not perceived as part of the standard world view. Deviation is a threat to the system that helps repress the knowledge of our certain death.[7] 

In studies where men were exposed to a mortality salient event, they preferred a more earthy, domestic and ordinary looking woman over a sexy and seductive one. [6] 

Terror management research has shown that after reminders of mortality, people show greater investment in and support for groups to which they belong.

In one study, subjects were presented two images of persons talking about their own race with pride. One was black and one was white. The White person expressing pride in his race was viewed by White participants as particularly racist relative to a Black person who gave a similar presentation. However, after White participants were reminded of their own mortality, they viewed the White presentation as less racist.[5] Even though the subjects were of different ancestral nationality, their identification with their own race was amplified by their reminder of their own inevitable death. 

Skulls and Bones in the Whiskey In my college years when the Vietnam war was raging, we used to all read and collect Playboy magazine. We were young and so mostly we didn't pay much attention to the ads -- that is until someone pointed out that all the liquor ads seemed to have subliminal messages in them. Our favorite hobby, well maybe not our favorite, was looking for hidden images in the ice cubes. Normally, ice cubes have a montage of shadows, reflections and odd shapes. While we found occasional nude women in some of them, most seemed to portray images more suitable for Halloween. Skulls, skeletons and faces screaming in agony were the most common motifs. For years I wondered why advertisers would put such horrific images in liquor ads. How could this possibly sell whiskey or bourbon? TMT was obviously known to these ad men. Most addictions are diversions from the real horror -- the reality of our eventual demise. It seems plausible that by causing readers to experience mortality salience their death anxiety would increase to the point where... where... where did I put that drink?

 

It's all about self-esteem

As I hinted earlier, our appreciation of beauty has two tiers. First, we are hard-wired to be attracted to sexual partners by evolution. We can accurately determine good genes and fertility by our concept of what makes a beautiful person (i.e. symmetry of facial features, good proportions, etc.). But our appreciation of other forms of beauty seems to have origin in our preference for pattern, repetition, organization and symbolism. These are phenomenon in our environment associated with replication and growth -- signs of life. This appreciation of beauty -- esthetics -- results from our avoidance of entropy -- the breakdown of order which is characteristic of our own death.

Julian Jaynes, in his acclaimed work, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, showed that much of what we think and do is devoid of consciousness. He gives strong examples of how we can drive a car while thinking about another time and place; talk and write without awareness of the complex process going on to produce the vocabulary. Even learning does not require consciousness -- the phenomenon of self-awareness [12]. Or, "Being conscious of the fact that you are conscious." In fact, our recognition and reaction to mortality salience is without our conscious involvement. 

But something feels the "ouch!" when we get a sub-conscious reminder that we are mortal.

In Jaynes' book, he credits the development of language as the prerequisite for the "inner dialog" that creates our awareness of the "I" and "Me". Language is made from metaphores. Each new concept or word is "sort of like" some other word. That's how dictionaries function. So in order to have a concept for selfhood, a previously understood "it's sort of like..." had to be available. We needed language before we could develop consciousness and selfhood. The concept of "self" is therefore not that old. Jaynes suggests it has its origins about 3000 BCE.

While it is true that there are earlier texts showing language in cuneiform, these are mere ledgers, records of land boundaries and crop tallies. There is no hint of self awareness until The Epic of Gilgamesh.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems and was written just about five hundred years shy of Jaynes' assertions. Even more telling is what the epic is all about.

The protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, has a close friend who shares adventures with him and unexpectedly dies. Gilgamesh becomes depressed and embarks on a journey to find "eternal life" -- the solution to death.

Ultimately the poignant words addressed to Gilgamesh in the midst of his quest foreshadow the end result: "The life that you are seeking you will never find. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping." -- [13]

Death anxiety targets our self-esteem. It motivates us to keep busy and attempt to seek "eternal life" symbolically through our actions. An experiment which confirmed this was conducted as follows:

Death and Self-Esteem: The Experiment

The subjects were 603 soldiers who first reported on the relevance of automobile driving to their self-esteem. Then half of them were exposed to various reminders of death, and the remaining to a control condition. 

Experimenters then tested each group in a driving simulator to assess their risk taking. The measures were either self-reported behavioral intentions of risky driving or driving speed in a car simulator. As expected, the subjects who linked their self-esteem to driving and also received death reminders took more risks in their driving than the control group. But what was happening here?

Another experiment had half of the participants in each condition receiving positive feedback about their quality of driving. Presumably this would bolster their self-esteem. Findings showed that being reminded of death led to more risky driving than the control condition -- but only among individuals who perceived driving as relevant to their self-esteem. Even more significant, the introduction of positive feedback elevated self-esteem and eliminated this effect.[4]

And besides self-esteem, mortality salience has one more conscious manifestation: evil.

Evil (Death) & The Hero

If we are conscious of ourselves, we are conscious of all that we will have to "give up" upon our death. There is tremendous anxiety over this and some of it is relieved in symbolic conquests where the real demon is substituted with lesser foes. 

Some of this anxiety can be exhorcize in sports or games but more often the demons are symbols of a threat to our personal and collective self-esteem. A threat to a group that reduces our death anxiety is a real threat. I suspect this motivated the cruelty of Roman gladiators, the deadly ball games of the Mayans and the demonization of Hitler and binLaden. We need enemies to reduce our own death anxiety.

Terror Management Theory is really the theory of human culture and our many attempts to be conscious about "something else" -- anything but our death. That "something else" is often associated with maintaining our self-esteem. Our self-esteem improves when we receive confirmation from other people that we are meaningful and relevant in life. This counteracts the powerful anxiety that comes from our absolute surety that we will someday die and our "self" will not exist. So organizations, political parties and religions have developed to fill our need. Each offers a means to symbolically avoid non-existence. 

St. George's defeat of the dragon [right] is a strong symbol for the fight against death.

The town had a pond, as large as a lake, where a plague-bearing dragon dwelled that envenomed all the countryside. To appease the dragon, the people of Silene used to feed it two sheep every day, and when the sheep failed, they fed it their children, chosen by lottery. It happened that the lot fell on the king's daughter, who is in some versions of the story called Sabra.[8] The king, distraught with grief, told the people they could have all his gold and silver and half of his kingdom if his daughter were spared; the people refused. The daughter was sent out to the lake, decked out as a bride, to be fed to the dragon.

Saint George by chance rode past the lake. The princess, trembling, sought to send him away, but George vowed to remain. The dragon reared out of the lake while they were conversing. Saint George fortified himself with the Sign of the Cross, charged it on horseback with his lance and gave it a grievous wound. Then he called to the princess to throw him her girdle, and he put it around the dragon's neck. When she did so, the dragon followed the girl like a meek beast on a leash. [14]

Live it... or live with it

The lesson of St. George and the Dragon is that we may not be able to defeat death, but we can tame it. We can make the most of our life and forget about the inevitable. Death can become a quiet and subdued creature that follows after us like a pet. Rather than triumph over death, we can learn to coexist with it. 

To recapitulate: Consciousness, the concept of "I" and "me", evolved only recently as a result of our development of language. With consciousness came the discovery that this "self" was mortal and would someday be "no more."

The most basic motivator of human culture is to create alternate realities in which we can achieve victory over the anxiety of our recognition of eventual death. This death anxiety is repressed in normal consciousness but is fully "awake" subconsciously. It influences our behavior and thoughts, makes us appreciate order and affirm life. It creates our worldview, which we share with other humans. Different worldviews sometimes conflict, resulting in wars and aggression.

When we are consciously reminded of our mortality, we invest more belief in our own worldview. We attempt to have victory over our environment, our bodies and even our instincts as a means to separate ourselves from the natural, animalistic creatures in the hope that we are something more permanent and worthy of immortality. This drive to symbolically overcome death is the primary driver of human culture and influences what we like and dislike, what is beautiful and ugly, and what is good and evil.

 

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Notes:

[1] "Traces of Terror: Subliminal Death Primes and Facial Electromyographic Indices of Affect", Jamie Arndt, John J. B. Allen and Jeff Greenberg, Motivation and Emotion, 2001, Volume 25, Number 3, Pages 253-277 [2] Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Harmon-Jones, E., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T. and Lyon, D. (1995), "Testing alternative explanations for mortality salience effects: Terror management, value accessibility, or worrisome thoughts?" European Journal of Social Psychology, 25: 417-433.
[3] "Age-related differences in responses to thoughts of one's own death: Mortality salience and judgments of moral transgressions", Maxfield, Molly; Pyszczynski, Tom; Kluck, Benjamin; Cox, Cathy R.; Greenberg, Jeff; Solomon, Sheldon; Weise, David, Psychology and Aging, Vol 22(2), Jun 2007, 341-353.
[4] The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: A test of terror management mechanisms. Ben-Ari, Orit Taubman; Florian, Victor; Mikulincer, Mario Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 76(1), Jan 1999, 35-45.
[5] "The siren's call: Terror management and the threat of men's sexual attraction to women", Landau, Mark J.; Goldenberg, Jamie L.; Greenberg, Jeff; Gillath, Omri; Solomon, Sheldon; Cox, Cathy; Martens, Andy; Pyszczynski, Tom, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 90(1), Jan 2006, 129-146.
[6] Sympathy for the Devil: Evidence that Reminding Whites of their Mortality Promotes More Favorable Reactions to White Racists, Jeff Greenberg, Jeff Schimel, AndyMartens, Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszcnyski, Motivation and Eotion, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2001
[7] Russell J. Webstera; Donald A. Sauciera, "The Effects of Death Reminders on Sex Differences in Prejudice Toward Gay Men and Lesbians", Journal of Homosexuality, Volume 58, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 402-426
[8] Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Rosenblatt, Veeder, Kirkland and Lyon 1990; Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon and Chatel 1992; Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski and Lyon 1989
[9] European Journal of Social Psychology Volume 25, Issue 4, pages 417-433, July/August 1995
[10] Joel D. Lieberman, Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Holly A. McGregor, "Advertising Opportunities with Wiley Online Library -- A hot new way to measure aggression: Hot sauce allocation", Aggressive Behavior, Volume 25, Issue 5, pages 331-348, 1999
[11] McGregor, Holly A.; Lieberman, Joel D.; Greenberg, Jeff; Solomon, Sheldon; Arndt, Jamie; Simon, Linda; Pyszczynski, "Terror management and aggression: Evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 74(3), Mar 1998, 590-605.
[12] Jaynes, Julian, "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" (1976), ISBN 0-395-20729-0
[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon

03:10:2012 -- Singularity Now: Is “Daydream Learning” Possible?

Dear Friends,

http://myth-os.com/2012/09/30/singularity-now-is-daydream-learning-possible/

Be Well.

David

Singularity Now: Is “Daydream Learning” Possible?

September 30, 2012 in Laura Magdalene Eisenhower, Linda Moulton Howe, Michio Kaku, New Age Science, Nick Pope, Oprah, TED, Uncategorized, Uri Geller by theadmin

Sleep-learning, or presenting information to a sleeping person by playing a sound recording has not been very useful. Researchers have determined that learning during sleep is “impractical and probably impossible.” But what about daydream learning?

 

Subliminal learning is the concept of indirect learning by subliminal messages. James Vicary pioneered subliminal learning in 1957 when he planted messages in a movie shown in New Jersey. The messages flashed for a split second and told the audience to drink Coca-Cola and eat popcorn.

A recent study published in the journal Neuron used sophisticated perceptual masking, computational modeling, and neuroimaging to show that instrumental learning can occur in the human brain without conscious processing of contextual cues. Dr. Mathias Pessiglione from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at the University College London reported: “We conclude that, even without conscious processing of contextual cues, our brain can learn their reward value and use them to provide a bias on decision making.” (“Subliminal Learning Demonstrated In Human Brain,” ScienceDaily, Aug. 28, 2008)

“By restricting the amount of time that the clues were displayed to study participants, they ensured that the brain’s conscious vision system could not process the information. Indeed, when shown the cues after the study, participants did not recall having seen any of them before. Brain scans of participants showed that the cues did not activate the brain’s main processing centers, but rather the striatum, which is presumed to employ machine-learning algorithms to solve problems.”

“When you become aware of the associations between the cues and the outcomes, you amplify the phenomenon,” Pessiglione said. “You make better choices.” (Alexis Madrigal, “Humans Can Learn from Subliminal Cues Alone,” Wired, August 27, 2008)

What better place for daydream learning than the Cloud? Cloud computing refers to resources and applications that are available from any Internet connected device.

 

The Cloud is also collectively associated with the “technological singularity” (popularized by science fiction writer Vernor Vinge) or the future appearance of greater-than-human super intelligence through technology. The singularity will surpass the human mind, be unstoppable, and increase human awareness.

“Could the Internet ‘wake up’? And if so, what sorts of thoughts would it think? And would it be friend or foe?

“Neuroscientist Christof Koch believes we may soon find out — indeed, the complexity of the Web may have already surpassed that of the human brain. In his book ‘Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist,’ published earlier this year, he makes a rough calculation: Take the number of computers on the planet — several billion — and multiply by the number of transistors in each machine — hundreds of millions — and you get about a billion billion, written more elegantly as 10^18. That’s a thousand times larger than the number of synapses in the human brain (about 10^15).”

In an interview, Koch, who taught at Caltech and is now chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, noted that the kinds of connections that wire together the Internet — its “architecture” — are very different from the synaptic connections in our brains, “but certainly by any measure it’s a very, very complex system. Could it be conscious? In principle, yes it can.” (Dan Falk, “Could the Internet Ever ‘Wake Up’? And would that be such a bad thing?” Slate, Sept. 20, 2012)

There has been some speculation about what it would take to bring down the Internet. According to most authorities, there is no Internet kill switch, regardless of what some organizations may claim. Parts of the net do go down from time-to-time, making it inaccessible for some — albeit temporarily. “Eventually the information will route around the dead spots and bring you back in,” said IT expert Dewayne Hendricks.

“The Internet works like the Borg Collective of Star Trek — it’s basically a kind of hive mind,” he adds. Essentially, because it’s in everybody’s best interest to keep the Internet up and running, there’s a constant effort to patch and repair any problems. “It’s like trying to defeat the Borg — a system that’s massively distributed, decentralized, and redundant.”

“Pausing for a moment to reflect, Hendricks closed our conversation by saying, ‘The only way to bring down the Internet is to get rid of all the people.’” (George Dvorsky, “Could someone really destroy the whole Internet?” io9.com, Sep 19, 2012)

The Cloud has outwardly surpassed the human mind and is unstoppable. But can it boost human responsiveness? The Vertical Browser Autosurfing Player is the result of over 5 years of research in daydream learning. It employs a large screen monitor to absolutely flood a participant with subliminal learning events from the Internet.

(The Autosurfing try-out is at http://www.verticalbrowser.com) Participants pre-select the subject matter they wish to be exposed to and can be working or resting during the non-stop experience.

Never before has information been available in such large capacity and at such high speeds. What once took weeks of library research can today be accomplished in a matter of minutes. But how much captured data is actually being used?

“While companies are gathering all manner and volume of data — structured and unstructured, terabytes and petabytes — when it comes to getting insights from that data to the frontlines, where insights really matter, many organizations are losing their way.

“Having insights flow to the front-line is more about having a data-aligned culture than overcoming some sort of technology barrier — it requires an organizational mindset that can nurture data’s metamorphosis from insight to value.” (Renee Boucher Ferguson, “Data Analytics and the Information Transfer Gap,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Sept 21, 2012)

Autosurfing is an innovative way of bringing information to the front line. By using “daydream learning” to disseminate information and make better choices, the Cloud may in fact boost a participant’s rate of learning.

By Peter Fotis Kapnistos

02:10: 2012 - Earth is undergoing true polar wander, scientists say

 Dear Friends,

http://earthsky.org/earth/earth-is-undergoing-true-polar-wander-scientists-say

Be Well.

David

 

Earth is undergoing true polar wander, scientists say

Scientists developed a computer model to identify four possible instances of true polar wander in the past. And, they say, true polar wander is happening now.

Scientists based in Germany and Norway today published new results about a geophysical theory known as true polar wander. That is a drifting of Earth’s solid exterior – an actual change in latitude for some land masses – relative to our planet’s rotation axis. These scientists used hotspots in Earth’s mantle as part of a computer model, which they say is accurate for the past 120 million years, to identify four possible instances of true polar wander in the past. And, they say, true polar wander is happening now. These scientists published their results in the Journal for Geophysical Research today (October 1, 2012).

The scientists – including Pavel V. Doubrovine and Trond H. Torsvik of the University of Oslo, and Bernhard Steinberger of the Helmholtz Center in Potsdam, Germany – established what they believe is a stable reference frame for tracking true polar wander. Based on this reference frame, they say that twice – from 90 to 40 million years ago – the solid Earth traveled back and forth by nearly 9 degrees with respect to our planet’s axis of rotation. What’s more, for the past 40 million years, the Earth’s solid outer layers have been slowly rotating at a rate of 0.2 degrees every million years, according to these scientists. 

Diagram showing solid-body rotation of the Earth with respect to a stationary spin axis due to true polar wander. This diagram is greatly exaggerated. According to Doubrovine and his team, Earth’s solid outer layers have been slowly rotating at a rate of 0.2 degrees every million years. Diagram via Wikimedia Commons.

True polar wander is not:

• A geomagnetic reversal, or reversal of Earth’s magnetic field, known to have happened before in Earth history.
• Plate tectonics, which describes the large-scale motions of great land plates on Earth and is thought to be driven by the circulation of Earth’s mantle.
• Precession of the Earth, whereby our world’s axis of rotation slowly moves, tracing out a circle among the stars, causing the identity of our North Star changes over time.

True polar wander is a geophysical theory, a way of thinking about Earth processes that might happen and that these scientists believe do happen. The theory suggests that if an object of sufficient weight on Earth – for example, a supersized volcano or other weighty land mass – formed far from Earth’s equator, the force of Earth’s rotation would gradually pull the object away from the axis around which Earth spins. A supersized volcano far from Earth’s equator would create an imbalance, in other words. As explained at Princeton.edu:

If the volcanoes, land and other masses that exist within the spinning Earth ever became sufficiently imbalanced, the planet would tilt and rotate itself until this extra weight was relocated to a point along the equator.

That’s the theory of true polar wander. It would cause a movement of Earth’s land masses, but for a different reason than the reason the continents drift in the theory of plate tectonics (formerly called “continental drift”). In the theory of plate tectonics, the continents drift because Earth’s the layer of Earth underlying our planet’s crust, called the mantle, is convective. That is, it circulates, slowly – like water about to boil. In true polar wander, on the other hand, a similar-seeming movement of land masses on Earth’s crust happens in order to correct an imbalance of weight with respect to Earth’s spin.

Scientists’ understanding of true polar wander overlaps with their understanding of plate tectonics in various ways. That’s understandable, since it’s all the same Earth. 

Scientists delving into true polar wander want to know when, in which direction, and at what rate the Earth’s solid exterior might be rotating due to true polar wander. To sort it out, they say, you would need a stable frame of reference to which observations of relative motion might be compared. Doubrovine and his team say they found one: volcanic hotspots.

Hotspot forming an island chain. As land plates drift, a successive of volcanoes form over the hotspot. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

In geology, hotspots are volcanic regions fed by Earth’s underlying mantle. For example, the Hawaiian islands are believed to have formed over a hotspot in the mantle. The hotspot created a volcano, but then – as that land plate drifted over time, as described by the theory of plate tectonics – the volcano drifted, too, and was eventually cut off from the hotspot. Gradually, another volcano begins to form over the hotspot, right next to the first one. And then it moves on … and another one forms … and so on … and so on. Earth’s crust produces first one, then another volcano over the hotspot until a long chain of volcanoes forms, such as in Hawaii. Hotspots have long been used to understand the motion of tectonic plates.

Doubrovine and colleagues went a step further in order to understand true polar wander. Instead of treating the hot spots as static – frozen in place at one spot above Earth’s mantle – their computer model let the hotspots’ positions drift slowly. According to these scientists, this drifting is what produced a model of a stable reference frame, which in turn let them draw conclusions about true polar wander. 

They say their model does a good job of matching observations of real hotspot tracks on Earth – the path drawn by each hotspot’s island chain – which gives them confidence their results about true polar wander are accurate.

The Hawaiian islands are believed to have formed over a hotspot – a particularly hot place in Earth’s underlying mantle. Scientists expanded on previous thinking about hotspots to suggest that Earth’s solid surface is drifting, minutely, with respect to our planet’s rotation axis.

Bottom line: German and Norwegian scientists have incorporated hotspots in Earth’s mantle into a computer model being used to study true polar wander. They say their work established a stable reference frame for this study that lets them conclude Earth is undergoing true polar wander today. 

Read the original paper: Absolute plate motions in a reference frame defined by moving hot spots in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans

01:10:2012 -- NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong'

 Dear Friends,

http://phys.org/news/2012-10-nasa-spacecraft-earthsong.html

Be Well.

David

NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' October 1, 2012 by Dr. Tony Phillips NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' The Radiation Belt Storm Probes are on a two-year mission to explore the Van Allen Belts. Credit: Science@NASA Nobody ever said anything about singing, though. A NASA spacecraft has just beamed back a beautiful song sung by our own planet.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-nasa-spacecraft-earthsong.html#jCp

NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' October 1, 2012 by Dr. Tony Phillips NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' The Radiation Belt Storm Probes are on a two-year mission to explore the Van Allen Belts. Credit: Science@NASA Nobody ever said anything about singing, though. A NASA spacecraft has just beamed back a beautiful song sung by our own planet.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-nasa-spacecraft-earthsong.html#jCp

NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong'

 October 1, 2012 by Dr. Tony Phillips

The Radiation Belt Storm Probes are on a two-year mission to explore the Van Allen Belts. Credit: Science@NASA Nobody ever said anything about singing, though. A NASA spacecraft has just beamed back a beautiful song sung by our own planet.



"It's called chorus," explains Craig Kletzing of the University of Iowa. "This is one of the clearest examples we've ever heard." Play the audio Chorus is an electromagnetic phenomenon caused by plasma waves in Earth's radiation belts. For years, ham radio operators on Earth have been listening to them from afar. Now, NASA's twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes are traveling through the region of space where chorus actually comes from—and the recordings are out of this world. "This is what the radiation belts would sound like to a human being if we had radio antennas for ears," says Kletzing, whose team at the University of Iowa built the "EMFISIS" (Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science) receiver used to pick up the signals.

 He's careful to point out that these are not acoustic waves of the kind that travel through the air of our planet. Chorus is made of radio waves that oscillate at acoustic frequencies, between 0 and 10 kHz. The magnetic search coil antennas of the Radiation Belt Storm Probes are designed to detect these kinds of waves. "Chorus emissions are front and center for the Storm Probe mission," says Kletzing. "They are thought to be one of the most important waves for energizing the electrons that make up the outer radiation belt.

Each of the two Storm Probes is bristling with sensors to count energetic particles, measure plasma waves, and detect electromagnetic radiation. Credit: NASA In particular, chorus might be responsible for so-called "killer electrons," high-energy particles that can endanger both satellites and astronauts. Many electrons in the radiation belts are harmless, with too little energy to do damage to human or electronic systems. But, sometimes, these electrons can catch a chorus wave, like a surfer riding a wave on Earth, and gain enough energy to become dangerous—or so researchers think.

The Radiation Belt Storm Probes are on a mission to find out for sure. "The production of killer electrons is a matter of much debate, and chorus waves are only one possibility," notes the Storm Probes' mission scientist Dave Sibeck.

Launched in August 2012, the two probes are orbiting inside the radiation belts, sampling electromagnetic fields, counting the number of energetic particles, and listening to plasma waves of many frequencies. 

"We hope to gather enough data to solve the mystery once and for all," says Sibeck.

 At the moment, the spacecraft are still undergoing their 60-day checkout phase before the main mission begins. So far, things are checking out very well. "One of things we noticed right away is how clear the chorus sounds in the recording," notes Kletzing.

That's because our data is sampled at 16 bits, the same as a CD, which has not been done before in the radiation belts. This makes the data very high quality and shows that our instrument is very, very healthy."

 Eventually, Kletzing hopes to release unprecedented stereo recordings of Earth's chorus. 

"We have two spacecraft with two receivers," he says, "so a stereo recording is possible." Such a recording would not only sound wonderful, but also have real scientific value.

 "One of the things we don't know is how broad the region is over which chorus occurs. The widely-separated 'stereo capability' of the Storm Probes will give us the ability to figure this out," he explains. With a two-year mission planned for the Storm Probes, the chorus is just getting started.

NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' October 1, 2012 by Dr. Tony Phillips NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' The Radiation Belt Storm Probes are on a two-year mission to explore the Van Allen Belts. Credit: Science@NASA Nobody ever said anything about singing, though. A NASA spacecraft has just beamed back a beautiful song sung by our own planet. Ads by Google Já conheces o MINI ID? - O novo MINI ID é mais igual a ti Mas diferente dos outros. Sabe mais - www.mini.pt/miniid/ "It's called chorus," explains Craig Kletzing of the University of Iowa. "This is one of the clearest examples we've ever heard." Play the audio Chorus is an electromagnetic phenomenon caused by plasma waves in Earth's radiation belts. For years, ham radio operators on Earth have been listening to them from afar. Now, NASA's twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes are traveling through the region of space where chorus actually comes from—and the recordings are out of this world. "This is what the radiation belts would sound like to a human being if we had radio antennas for ears," says Kletzing, whose team at the University of Iowa built the "EMFISIS" (Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science) receiver used to pick up the signals. He's careful to point out that these are not acoustic waves of the kind that travel through the air of our planet. Chorus is made of radio waves that oscillate at acoustic frequencies, between 0 and 10 kHz. The magnetic search coil antennas of the Radiation Belt Storm Probes are designed to detect these kinds of waves. "Chorus emissions are front and center for the Storm Probe mission," says Kletzing. "They are thought to be one of the most important waves for energizing the electrons that make up the outer radiation belt." NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' Enlarge Each of the two Storm Probes is bristling with sensors to count energetic particles, measure plasma waves, and detect electromagnetic radiation. Credit: NASA In particular, chorus might be responsible for so-called "killer electrons," high-energy particles that can endanger both satellites and astronauts. Many electrons in the radiation belts are harmless, with too little energy to do damage to human or electronic systems. But, sometimes, these electrons can catch a chorus wave, like a surfer riding a wave on Earth, and gain enough energy to become dangerous—or so researchers think. Ads by Google Brain Training Games - Improve memory and attention with scientific brain games. - www.lumosity.com The Radiation Belt Storm Probes are on a mission to find out for sure. "The production of killer electrons is a matter of much debate, and chorus waves are only one possibility," notes the Storm Probes' mission scientist Dave Sibeck. Launched in August 2012, the two probes are orbiting inside the radiation belts, sampling electromagnetic fields, counting the number of energetic particles, and listening to plasma waves of many frequencies. "We hope to gather enough data to solve the mystery once and for all," says Sibeck. At the moment, the spacecraft are still undergoing their 60-day checkout phase before the main mission begins. So far, things are checking out very well. "One of things we noticed right away is how clear the chorus sounds in the recording," notes Kletzing. That's because our data is sampled at 16 bits, the same as a CD, which has not been done before in the radiation belts. This makes the data very high quality and shows that our instrument is very, very healthy." Eventually, Kletzing hopes to release unprecedented stereo recordings of Earth's chorus. "We have two spacecraft with two receivers," he says, "so a stereo recording is possible." Such a recording would not only sound wonderful, but also have real scientific value. "One of the things we don't know is how broad the region is over which chorus occurs. The widely-separated 'stereo capability' of the Storm Probes will give us the ability to figure this out," he explains. With a two-year mission planned for the Storm Probes, the chorus is just getting started. Provided by NASA search and more info website

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-nasa-spacecraft-earthsong.html#jCp

NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' October 1, 2012 by Dr. Tony Phillips NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' The Radiation Belt Storm Probes are on a two-year mission to explore the Van Allen Belts. Credit: Science@NASA Nobody ever said anything about singing, though. A NASA spacecraft has just beamed back a beautiful song sung by our own planet. Ads by Google Já conheces o MINI ID? - O novo MINI ID é mais igual a ti Mas diferente dos outros. Sabe mais - www.mini.pt/miniid/ "It's called chorus," explains Craig Kletzing of the University of Iowa. "This is one of the clearest examples we've ever heard." Play the audio Chorus is an electromagnetic phenomenon caused by plasma waves in Earth's radiation belts. For years, ham radio operators on Earth have been listening to them from afar. Now, NASA's twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes are traveling through the region of space where chorus actually comes from—and the recordings are out of this world. "This is what the radiation belts would sound like to a human being if we had radio antennas for ears," says Kletzing, whose team at the University of Iowa built the "EMFISIS" (Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science) receiver used to pick up the signals. He's careful to point out that these are not acoustic waves of the kind that travel through the air of our planet. Chorus is made of radio waves that oscillate at acoustic frequencies, between 0 and 10 kHz. The magnetic search coil antennas of the Radiation Belt Storm Probes are designed to detect these kinds of waves. "Chorus emissions are front and center for the Storm Probe mission," says Kletzing. "They are thought to be one of the most important waves for energizing the electrons that make up the outer radiation belt." NASA spacecraft records 'Earthsong' Enlarge Each of the two Storm Probes is bristling with sensors to count energetic particles, measure plasma waves, and detect electromagnetic radiation. Credit: NASA In particular, chorus might be responsible for so-called "killer electrons," high-energy particles that can endanger both satellites and astronauts. Many electrons in the radiation belts are harmless, with too little energy to do damage to human or electronic systems. But, sometimes, these electrons can catch a chorus wave, like a surfer riding a wave on Earth, and gain enough energy to become dangerous—or so researchers think. Ads by Google Brain Training Games - Improve memory and attention with scientific brain games. - www.lumosity.com The Radiation Belt Storm Probes are on a mission to find out for sure. "The production of killer electrons is a matter of much debate, and chorus waves are only one possibility," notes the Storm Probes' mission scientist Dave Sibeck. Launched in August 2012, the two probes are orbiting inside the radiation belts, sampling electromagnetic fields, counting the number of energetic particles, and listening to plasma waves of many frequencies. "We hope to gather enough data to solve the mystery once and for all," says Sibeck. At the moment, the spacecraft are still undergoing their 60-day checkout phase before the main mission begins. So far, things are checking out very well. "One of things we noticed right away is how clear the chorus sounds in the recording," notes Kletzing. That's because our data is sampled at 16 bits, the same as a CD, which has not been done before in the radiation belts. This makes the data very high quality and shows that our instrument is very, very healthy." Eventually, Kletzing hopes to release unprecedented stereo recordings of Earth's chorus. "We have two spacecraft with two receivers," he says, "so a stereo recording is possible." Such a recording would not only sound wonderful, but also have real scientific value. "One of the things we don't know is how broad the region is over which chorus occurs. The widely-separated 'stereo capability' of the Storm Probes will give us the ability to figure this out," he explains. With a two-year mission planned for the Storm Probes, the chorus is just getting started. Provided by NASA search and more info website

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-nasa-spacecraft-earthsong.html#jCp

30:09:2012 -- Researcher says Army scientists secretly sprayed cities with radioactive particles for years

Dear Friends,

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/09/researcher-says-army-scientists.html#more

Be Well.

David

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Researcher says Army scientists secretly sprayed cities with radioactive particles for years

In Corpus Christi, Texas the chemical was dispersed over large portions of the city from airplanes while in St. Louis, the U.S. Army placed chemical sprayers on schools and public housing projects, among other buildings, as well as on station wagons for mobile spraying.

Even local politicians were kept totally out of the loop with St. Louis residents simply being told that the Army was testing smoke screen technology to protect American cities from a potential Russian attack.

“The study was secretive for reason,” said Martino-Taylor to St. Louis’ KSDK. “They didn’t have volunteers stepping up and saying yeah, I’ll breathe zinc cadmium sulfide with radioactive particles.”

“It was pretty shocking. The level of duplicity and secrecy. Clearly they went to great lengths to deceive people,” she said.

Personally, I find this level of duplicity and secrecy far from shocking given that we are talking about the American government here.

Martino-Taylor had to file hundreds of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to get a hold of the once-classified documents confirming the spraying program.

Her research determined that the greatest concentration of spraying was focused on the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex, which is located northwest of downtown St. Louis in the Carr Square neighborhood.

This complex, which was destroyed in 1972, housed some 10,000 people with low incomes, an estimated 70 percent of which were children under the age of 12.

“This was a violation of all medical ethics, all international codes, and the military’s own policy at that time,” Martino-Taylor said.

The earlier evidence emerged in the 1990s when then-Congressman Richard Gephardt called on the Army to open their records and given an explanation for their testing in St. Louis.

“We want to make sure nothing went on that would harm anyone, and that all the fact[s] are out on the table,” Gephardt said at the time.

The documents which were eventually released revealed that the United States Army actually placed sprayers on various buildings, although the Army continued to insist that the chemicals were totally safe.

Martino-Taylor’s research shows that this is far from the truth.

“There is a lot of evidence that shows people in St. Louis and the city, in particular minority communities, were subjected to military testing that was connected to a larger radiological weapons testing project,” said Martino-Taylor.

Martino-Taylor’s findings link the program to U.S. Radium, a company infamous for being hit with lawsuits over their workers getting contaminated by radiation.

“US radium had this reputation where they had been found legally liable for producing a radioactive powdered paint that killed many young women who painted fluorescent watch tiles,” Martino-Taylor said.

The U.S. Army does, in fact, admit that they added a fluorescent substance to the compound they sprayed, but the details of the radioactivity of the added substance remains completely secret and likely will for quite a while.

The documents uncovered by Martino-Taylor show that the Army never so much as conducted a single follow-up study to see if the compound they sprayed did long term damage to the people unwittingly subjected to their experimentation.

Through this case study, the author explores how a large number of participants inside an organization will willingly participate in organizational acts that are harmful to others, and how large numbers of outsiders, who may or may not be victims of organizational activities, are unable to determine illegal or harmful activity by an organization, Martino-Taylor wrote.

Indeed, hopefully this case will help strengthen the now massive body of evidence which proves that “our” government, in fact, regularly treats us like nothing more than lab rats, cannon fodder and collateral for loans.

See Martino-Taylor’s interview:


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This article first appeared at End the Lie.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on Orion Talk Radio from 8 pm -- 10 pm Pacific, which you can find HERE.  If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com