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EDITORIALS: Patrick Bracken and Philip Thomas Time to move beyond the mind-body split BMJ 2002; 325: 1433-1434 [Full text]

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Time to move beyond linear physics

Sergio Stagnaro   (20 December 2002)

time we consider mind-body complex as a unit.

Dinkar D. Palande, Renganadh Rao, K.V.Desican   (20 December 2002)

Mind-body split: the Alice hypothesis

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (21 December 2002)

Splitting Descartes' Body-mind split

Serge I. Liberman   (21 December 2002)

BEYOND THE MIND-BODY SPLIT (AND WESTERN THOUGHT)

Saroj Jayasinghe   (21 December 2002)

Re: Splitting Descartes' Body-mind split

John P Heptonstall   (22 December 2002)

Body-mind split and brain death

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (24 December 2002)

MATTER OF THE MIND.

Belle M. Hegde, Nil   (24 December 2002)

Don't blame Descartes

Michael Peel   (24 December 2002)

Re: Body-mind split and brain death

CELIO LEVYMAN   (25 December 2002)

Bioreductionism and Cartesianism

Patrick G Coll   (28 December 2002)

looking at a patient whole

khalid A haiba, khartaum sudan   (28 December 2002)

Descartes, Damasio and the astrocentric hypothesis.

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (31 December 2002)

Self or Mind-Body?

susanne stevens, none   (3 January 2003)

Philosophy can be detrimental to doctors

Philip A Sugarman   (3 January 2003)

The Social Mind

Matthew R Broome   (3 January 2003)

Descartes and mind-body dualism

Peter Morrell   (5 January 2003)

Madness, hyperhomocysteinemia, metabolic rate and body temperature

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (7 January 2003)

Philosophy and Cognitivism

Matthew R Broome   (8 January 2003)

The Neural Basis of Consciousness

Bidi M. Evans   (10 January 2003)

Externalism and Psychiatry

Mark A. Turner   (10 January 2003)

The fragmented minds of hatters

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (18 January 2003)

A marriage made in heaven?

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (26 January 2003)

An unavailing dualism

David Morgan   (31 January 2003)

Re: time to move beyond linear physics

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (16 February 2003)

Nazi redux

James A. Kliewer   (19 February 2003)

Protecting Einstein's reputation with weasel words

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (3 September 2003)

"God is dead":

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (9 September 2003)

Re: "God is dead":

Peter Morrell   (11 September 2003)

Jung's out-of-body experience

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (26 September 2003)

Mind-body split: genetic considerations

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (23 October 2003)

Alice hypothesis: gravitational implications

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (15 November 2003)

Alice hypothesis: a violation of Newtonian physics?

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (21 November 2003)

The Aztec "sacred visions" evoked by human sacrifice.

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (4 December 2003)

Special relativity and the body-mind split

Richard G Fiddian-Green   (12 December 2003)

Time to move beyond linear physics 20 December 2002
Sergio Stagnaro, Specialist in Blood, Gastrointestinal, and Metabolic Diseases. Researcher in Biophysical Semeiotics Via Erasmo Piaggio 23/8 16037 Riva Trigoso (Genoa) Italy Send response to journal: Re: Time to move beyond linear physics	Sirs, Patrick Bracken concludes his intriguing editorial (BMJ 2002;325:1433- 1434, 21 December) stating that “medicine will require a deeper relation with philosophy”. That is clear, of course, in the sense that physicians are faced with “human” problems. However, speaking about cartesian dualism and mechanical determinism, I should like to say that we have to move beyond both of them, because they proved not be able to help us in solving our essential medical problems, e.g., preventive medicine essential questions: in my opinion, based on 45-year-long “clinical” experience, medicine will require, rather, an urgent and deeper relation with non- linear physics” (1, 2, 3). See my site, HONCode 233736, http://digilander.libero.it/semeioticabiofisica). 1)Stagnaro-Neri M., Moscatelli G. Stagnaro S., Biophysical Semeiotics: deterministic Chaos and biological Systems. Gazz. Med. It. Arch. Sc. Med. 155, 125, 1996. 2)Stagnaro-Neri M., Stagnaro S., Deterministic Chaos, Preconditioning and Myocardial Oxygenation evaluated clinically with the aid of Biophysical Semeiotics in the Diagnosis of ischaemic Heart Disease even silent. Acta Med. Medit. 13, 109, 1997. 3)Stagnaro-Neri M., Stagnaro S., Deterministic chaotic biological system: the microcirculatory bed. Theoretical and practical aspects. Gazz. Med. It. – Arch. Sc. Med. 153, 99, 1994 Competing interests:   None declared
time we consider mind-body complex as a unit. 20 December 2002
Dinkar D. Palande, Vicechair Lepra India All over India, Renganadh Rao, K.V.Desican Send response to journal: Re: time we consider mind-body complex as a unit.	Time indeed that such an article is published in a medical journal. "We bring meaning to the world that we inhabit: we construct our world as we live in it." this is the central message.It is time that medicine accepts the mind-body complex as a unit and that the mind is constantly developing as a part of human evolution. That most of the illnesses not only have a mental counterpart but have their origin and cure in the mind to start and end with. The last paragraph of the article is indeed very apt. I congratulate the author. Dinkar D. Palande Competing interests:   None declared
Mind-body split: the Alice hypothesis 21 December 2002
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Mind-body split: the Alice hypothesis	“You’ll see me there” said the cat and vanished. Alice was not so much surprised at this, she was getting so well used to queer things happening”. While she was still looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again. (Alice’s adventures in wonderland by Lewis Carroll). Einstein’s equation, e=mc2, if it is indeed valid does not seem to apply to everyday events, such as playing tennis. His theories of special and general relativity would appear to be flawed by over reliance upon the Lorentz transformation equations and the troublesome infinities that introduces. It is extrapolation from these infinities that have lead to the conclusion that travel at speeds approaching the speed of light is not possible. Furthermore the notion that space and time travel might be accomplished by using Einstein-Rosen bridges or wormholes as short cuts across the gaps in the pretzel-like configurations of the twisted tubes of spacetime, as illustrated in Hawking’s latest book “Universe in a nutshell”, is as far removed from my observations of nature as is imaginable. Einstein proposed that we lived in a four dimensional rather than a three dimensional world, the fourth dimension being time and the four dimensional world being called spacetime. Spacetime has a shape says Hawking, hence the fanciful illustrations conveying his interpretation of the mathematical predictions of the latest formulation of M theory in his quest for the theory of everything (ToE). The ToE has eleven dimensions, one being time. Barbour, however, suggests that time is an illusion in his book “The end of time”. He proposes that when his cat Lucy jumps into the air to catch swifts she is a series of different cats in a succession of instants or nows in a vast land he calls Platonia. The instant is in time he says. Time is not in the instant. Lucy he suggests exists in a special now he calls a time capsule in which everything about Lucy including her history is contained. There is no such thing as movement he says, that too is an illusion derived from the time capsule. Nothing happens in Platonia. Lucy just exists timelessly. Particularly difficult for me to accept is Barbour’s notion that Lucy leaves a string of Lucys behind her and that there exist in the vast realm of his Platonia billions and billions of nows of Lucy. His case is, however, well argued and certainly raises questions about the validity of Einstein’s and indeed Hawking’s interpretation of the data. A most important point that Hawking stresses is that these visual representations of spacetime, Einstein-Rosen bridges and wormholes are merely attempts to describe in everyday terms the mathematical predictions. They are most certainly not caste in iron and one is at liberty to consider other possibilities provided that they conform to the mathematical predictions. In this respect it should be noted that the predictions made with the formulae the theoretical physicists have devised are accurate to within a billionth of an inch, far more accurate than the predictions ever made with Newtonian physics. Quantum theory, which is incorporated in the latest ToE, comes with a lot of “metaphysical baggage” says Wheeler. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, for example, states that it is not possible to known position and speed or momentum at the same time. If one measures the one the other cannot be measured. Hence the notion that the cat in a box with cyanide which he might or might not take, in Schrodinger’s thought experiment, exists as a wave function and a probability of being either dead or alive until the box is opened when the wave function collapses and the cat is seen to be either dead or alive. Einstein could not accept this explanation saying that “God does not play dice”. And asking “You mean that the moon only exists if I see it?” Indeed Shrodinger devised his thought experiment to prove that quantum theory was invalid. The problem is that all the data that have been obtained support the theory, but Einstein died before it was obtained. Wheeler’s fellow, Everett, proposed what has become known as the multiple worlds hypothesis. In terms of this hypothesis the cat could be both alive and dead at the same time but in different worlds. Wheeler subsequently rejected it because of the metaphysical baggage. I cannot accept it for it appears to demand that Schrodindinger’s cats would collectively have an infinite mass, a reductio ad absurdum. An integral part of quantum theory is what is called wave-particle duality. It is the notion that particles may exist either as waves or as quanta, the term Einstein coined to describe light. Schrodinger’s wave equation that describes these properties includes, however, a time function. These, as I see it, are persistent sources of error in ToE and responsible for some of the more fanciful interpretations of the current embodiment of ToE, which incorporates holographic theory. Hawking says all the particles in the universe are either bosons (energy waves or forces) or fermions (ordinary matter). Gribben says the difference between them is simply geometry rotation through differing degrees being needed to change from one dimension to another. Indeed Einstein’s equation, e=mc2, indicates that mass and energy are the same and not that one is transformed into the other. It would seem from my reading of the literature, without going into the complex mathematical details which are beyond me, that we are as Hawking suggests indeed just holograms, but holograms that are coloured, visible and tangible. That the holograms are solid is, as Smolin says, simply a manifestation of a higher dimension. Collectively bosons and fermions are now considered information and information processing is currently thought to be the essence of nature. The important feature of holograms is that they compact information from three dimensional objects into two dimensional images. This property enables 1000 gigabytes of information to be stored on a crystal compact disc as compared to some 100 gigabytes storage capacity on the hard drive of the most modern of conventional computers. More importantly the compaction enables information to be transmitted over a phone a trillion times faster than is currently possible. The image of an object as it appears on the retina is inverted and rotated through 180 degrees. This distortion is accommodated instantly by the brain so that we perceive objects as they really are. For the holographic information contained within Barbour’s jumping cat in one now to be transferred to successive nows an intermediate distortion is also required. Thus transfer holography, as it is called, requires the transformation of the orthoscopic hologram into a pseudoscopic hologram to create another orthoscopic hologram. The orthoscopic hologram has the normal appearances but the pseuodscopic hologram is inside out and fragmented so that it looks like a lattice. The orthoscopic hologram has, in effect, been digitised. Thus for the succession of holograms to give the appearances of a jumping cat the orthoscopic holograms would have to be converted into pseudoscopic holograms which would have to be invisible. ALICE HYPOTHESIS. It is proposed, therefore, that all objects are orthoscopic holograms and that they alternate with pseudoscopic holograms at an extremely rapid rate somewhere in the order of once an attosecond. The orthoscopic holograms are composed of fermions (ordinary matter) that can be seen, felt and measured but are completely static as Barbour proposed. The pseudoscopic holograms are bosons (energy waves or forces) that can neither be seen nor felt, travel at the speed of light and are timeless. The orthoscopic hologram is the coherent form of existence and the pseudoscopic hologram the decoherent form. As in quantum leaping both coherence and decoherent are instantaneous. Coherences occur in time with the ticks of a quartz crystal or light-pulse clock, which occur at the same rate, and determine an observer’s perception of the passage of time. The actual amount of time passed is, however, the sum of the times spent in both coherent and decoherent phases of existence but that spent in the decoherent phase of existence is timeless and therefore not appreciated by either the individual or the observer. All movement occurs at light speed during the decoherent phase of existence, speed being determined by the distance travelled during that period as determined by the positions of the coherent phases of existence. All information is lost with decoherence and transferred from orthoscopic to pseudoscopic holograms in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. This entropy, as the irreversible loss of information is called, is essential for the arrow of time to exist. Thus unlike Barbour’s proposal there is never more than one Lucy in the ALICE hypothesis. In terms of this hypothesis thought and executive decision making are bosonic events that occur at the speed of light in a different dimension from the fermionic events and indeed are the sole determinants of coherence. More importantly the location in which coherence will occur is different at different speeds as perceived by an observer. As it is only the fermionic phase of existence that is capable of receiving sensory input from the external environment keeping track of the fermionic phases of existence is essential for effective information processing in the bosonic phase of existence. Memory is thus encoded in the fermionic phases of existence but processed in the bosonic phases of existence. It is proposed that every particle has a memory and that this memory is transmitted to all other in the universe in its bosonic phase of existence. The memory is encoded in the catalysis of coherences and decoherences that has evolved since the Big Bang, first with the formation of atoms, then molecules, then chemical compounds and ultimately biochemical compounds, multicellular organisms and social organisations. Thus cosmic evolution has been accompanied by a progressive increase in the rate at which increasingly complex compounds are able to cohere and decohere in time with the tick of the atomic clock. So what is the difference between a living being and an inanimate object? Its memory, that in a living being augmented by its interaction with the environment. This assumes that the energy that preceded the appearance of ordinary matter in cosmic evolution is intelligent and has the capacity to store memory and process the information. In which case the origin of intelligent life in our universe began with the Big Bang and the origin of living matter began by spontaneous generation, or possibly seeding from the universe, after the environment had evolved to the degree that permitted it. So do we live on a brane world or are we just holograms as Hawking asks? If indeed we do live on a brane world there is a shadow brane world in close proximity that can neither be seen nor felt apart from its gravitational influence. The purpose of this shadow brane world would appear to be to conserve energy in accordance with the first law of thermodynamics and the mechanism by which this is accomplished is the Casmir effect. We would indeed appear to be just holograms or more specifically just information. It might, however, be more appropriate to conclude that we live on a brain world rather than a brane world for, as Sir James Jeans observed, “The universe is best pictured ..as consisting of pure thought….If the universe is a universe of thought then its act of creation must have been an act of thought”. The ALICE hypothesis would appear to deal with the contentious issues very satisfactorily. These include the Schrodinger thought experiment, the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, Bell’s inequality theorem, entropy, locality and causality. What is more it provides a rational basis, for the speed of thought, the mind-body split, and for space and time travel. All that is needed to exploit it is an ability to transmit holographic information over a cell phone as one would sound. It is, for example, the ability to transform sound into waves that travel at the speed of light that enables us with the assistance of a cell phone to have a conversation with someone in the antipodes. If it were not for this ability it would take longer than the Concord flying for sound emitted in Australia to reach the UK destroying any chance of a meaningful conversation. If holographic information could be transmitted in the same way, and I can so no reason why it should not, then teleportation would be an easy and practical proposition. The twins paradox would still apply but the ability to go back in time would depend upon the ability to transfer information encoded in pseudoscopic holograms faster than the speed of light as is said to occur with Cernokov radiation. Competing interests:   None declared
Splitting Descartes' Body-mind split 21 December 2002
Serge I. Liberman, General practitioner 678 Sydney Rd., Brunswick, Victoria, 3056, Australia Send response to journal: Re: Splitting Descartes' Body-mind split	"Conceptualising our mental life as some sort of enclosed world residing inside the skull does not do justice to the lived reality of human experience. It systematically neglects the importance of social context. Signs are encouraging that psychiatrists are becoming interested in philosophy. But the rest of medicine also needs to get beyond the legacy of Descartes. For this, medicine will require a deeper relation with philosophy." From Patrick Bracken & Philip Thomas (BMJ Editorial, 21 December) I have long had a problem with Descartes' restricted and restrictive conceptualisation of body and mind - certainly if, by this, he meant strictly a division into the physical and the mental, the external and the internal, the acting and the thinking/feeling components of homo sapiens. Even this is only part of my reservation. Another is his much-cited, almost mantra-like “I think, therefore I am”, to which my simple (perhaps simple-minded) response is: whatever I do, I am. For, were I not, then there would be nothing I should be able to do. Drs Bracken and Thomas’ BMJ editorial rightly recognises that talking of "mind" as a "thing" - as if it possesses material dimensions - is erroneous. But am I alone in stating very simply that homo sapiens does not rightly separate into body and mind, but into body as the integrated structure of all its parts, of which the brain in our skulls is but one such very physical part, and mind is not an independent “thing” but the very definite physiological function exclusive to that brain. Hence, in the nature of a complex, intricately-wired and well-oiled machine possessing many parts each with highly-specialised roles (more complex and minutely-interactive, of course, than we could ever devise), as distinct components of the body, the intestinal tract, functioning through neural mechanisms, hormones and enzymes, absorbs and eliminates; the liver metabolises through its own enzymatic ways; the kidneys filter; the heart propels the circulation; muscles move; endocrine glands maintain metabolic and sexual homeostasis; the lymphatic system protects and defends; eyes see, ears hear and so on - every organ's function being ineluctably affected by the sum of the body's internal operations and, as stated by the authors, by its external surrounds or inputs: in their physical expression by temperature, atmosphere, foods, pathogens, chemicals, toxins, noise, sights and a host of other environmental agents. In a wholly comparable and integrated way - for why should it differ physiologically? – and at the risk of repeating myself, it is the brain which mediates what, to me, is the true definition of mind; namely, the brain in action, the brain in operation, mediated through no-less analogous processes than any other organ, its own neuro-chemical operations themselves subject as much to the composite internal functioning of all other organs as also to the mass, in addition to the ones already itemized above, of external social, cultural, political, economic, aesthetic, religious, inputs in the widest sense that every human being is subject to. Hence, in keeping with the body’s division of labour, to the mind are assigned learning, experiencing, language, memory, recognition of detail, pattern and rhythm, and also thought, belief, reasoning, interpretations of perceptions, discernment, values, determinations of purpose (and purposefulness), meaning, and more, in an elaborate constellation which, in their sum – and in tandem with the other more bodily states – yield, in some ways understood, in other ways not yet so, the stuff of highly individualised human qualities and emotions: culture and boorishness, stoicism and neuroticism, fortitude and fear, mental stability and emotional chaos, depression and mania, cheerfulness and sadness, balance and schizophrenia, integration and alienation, altruism and criminality, creativity and barrenness, genius and ordinariness, humanity and fanaticism, placidity and aggressiveness, the various qualities and pathologies noted here ranging, throughout humanity, through a wide distribution range between. I cannot claim to have dented Descartes’ much-touted wisdom in any way. But the model I have outlined here works for me in a far more practical way than does his. To me, it brings into medical research and eventual practice a recognition that the mind is not some “thing” beyond eventual fuller scientific understanding, probing, analysing, correlating physico- chemically with mental states, devising less hit-and-miss pharmacological (or other not-yet-known) intervention. Piecemeal, the technologies (PET scans, stem cells, genetic splicing, etc) are evolving or being refined, newer more precise ones, not yet envisaged will in time emerge. As a non-psychiatrist, I can’t say whether psycho-analysis will still have a role to play in the future, or psychotherapy, behaviour therapy, group therapy, gestalt, and the whole present-day plethora of therapies on offer to palliate personal and – in some ways, public - distress. New discoveries will, I am sure, bring new dilemmas and controversies in their applicability as therapies which, initially designed for individuals, may yet (in science-fiction mode made fact) be administered to the mass. But the bottom line, as I see it, is this: with the progressively increasing unraveling of the brain’s micro-anatomy accurately correlated with neuro- chemical assaying to diagnose mental states and the evolution of newer treatments, psychiatry will yet emerge more assertively from what seems still to be a groping of the way a generation or two behind microbiology, say, or cardiac surgery, vascular surgery in its own progress to equivalent effectiveness. As a coda, I’m not so sure that the subject truly belongs any more so exclusively in the hands of philosophers. Molecular biologists and medical men are by far its more natural heirs. Serge Liberman. Competing interests:   None declared
BEYOND THE MIND-BODY SPLIT (AND WESTERN THOUGHT) 21 December 2002
Saroj Jayasinghe, Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine University of Colombo, Colombo 08, SRI LANKA Send response to journal: Re: BEYOND THE MIND-BODY SPLIT (AND WESTERN THOUGHT)	EDITOR-The editorial on “Time to move beyond the mind-body split” is timely and thought provoking though the authors have focused on Western philosophical thought and all but ignored other traditions of knowledge1. While Western thought haggled over the body-mind split, Eastern traditions such as Ayurveda (with its lineage to Vedic systems of knowledge in India) have emphasized the interaction between the two. For example the classical Indian texts of Susrutha and Charaka (200BC-400AD) describe the interaction of the body and mind in the causation of disease2. Buddhist philosophy (600 BC) too takes a similar view and describes the mind and body as “neither separate nor identical, not even alternatives but inseparable, like two bundles of reeds, supporting each other”3. However, there are distinct differences even within this rich Eastern traditions of knowledge. The Vedic systems describe a distinct soul in addition to the mind-body continuum, which I see as somewhat similar to res cogitans of Descartes. The Buddhist view on the other hand lacks an immutable soul and is closer to the ideas expressed in the editorial. Reality is stated to be a construct (using information arising from the sense organs), which gives an illusion of an identifiable “self”4. This “self” is in effect “a stream of cognitions….a series of successive mental and bodily processes which are impermanent”. Experiencing and gaining insight of this “reality of the illusion” and pathways to liberate from the illusion are given prime of place. These Eastern “models” of reality could result in a paradigm shift in most of us, who are otherwise conceptually “locked-in” to a dualistic model of reality. These in turn could encourage one to explore “new psychologies” based on meditation, mindfulness and imagery techniques3. Unfortunately, we Western oriented medical professionals (including psychiatrists), living in Asian countries, have by far failed to tap into our own indigenous systems of knowledge, and instead have embraced Cartesian dualism (and the culture which goes with it) lock, stock and barrel! Saroj Jayasinghe Associate Professor Department of Clinical Medicine Faculty of Medicine University of Colombo SRI LANKA saroj@sri.lanka.net 1. Patrick Bracken, Philip Thomas. Time to move beyond the mind-body split. BMJ 2002;325:1433-4 (Editorial) 2. Ramachandra Rao, SK. Mental Health in Ayurveda: Source Book of Charaka & Susrutha samhita. National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore: NIMHANS Publications, 1990. 3. Goonatilake, S. Towards a Global Science. New Delhi: Vistaar Publications, 1998. 4. Bikkhu Bodhi. The Great Discourse on Causation: the Mahanidana Sutta and its Commentaries. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1995. Competing interests:   None declared
Re: Splitting Descartes' Body-mind split 22 December 2002
John P Heptonstall, Director of The Morley Acupuncture Clinic and Complementary Therapy Centre LS27 8EG Send response to journal: Re: Re: Splitting Descartes' Body-mind split	Sir The description of human physiology by Serge Liberman excludes any reference as to how this could explain 'near death experiences' - the out of body experiences recently given stronger support by researchers. The 'hard problem', explanation of consciousness, requires far greater consideration of the many theories arising from scientific and philosophical/theological sources - that is the breadth of human experience. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) identifies different levels/aspects of 'spirit or soul', some of which would be considered part of body hard wiring and others which can exist outside the body. For example, schizophrenia may have different origins depending which 'aetheric aspect' of the whole has become disturbed. One can induce classic schizophrenia by eliminating Vitamin B3 from the diet, restoration of this vitamin returns the subject to normal. Schizophrenia arises through neurochemical imbalance other than by insufficiency of B3. The condition can also arise as a consequence of 'possession' by an aspect of another's aetheric consciousness....although this is denied in modern medicine it is well understood in traditional medicines and various religious institutions - for example I have spoken to Anglican priests who accept this. If we only look at hard wiring, we'll miss the whole picture. If discussion is dominated by the biochemical cohort, answers will elude us. Applying current scientific logic to any problem is interesting, and the more scientific disciplines involved the better, but should not be considered in any way to represent the truth. Regards John H. Competing interests:   None declared
Body-mind split and brain death 24 December 2002
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Body-mind split and brain death	My GP father had an out of body experience (OBE). He described it to me some forty years ago before I had qualified and learned anything of them. It happened after he had a cardiac arrest in his consulting rooms and was successfully resuscitated by his GP partners. He told me he had been on the ceiling and had watched his partners examining him, a scene I have since learned that many others who have had OBEs have described. He appeared to have been intelligently aware for he told me he had wondered why his partners had been fussing over him. He gave me no indication that he had any sensory awareness of his condition. My father was not religious and believed that when he died he would “push daisies”. There has never been any evidence to suggest that he has done anything more than that in the decades since he died. OBEs suggest that people can be intelligently aware of their circumstances and might even be able to view themselves from a distance even though their brain may have ceased to register sensory input and function in clinical terms. Although the brain has ceased to function it has clearly not been irreversibly damaged for all who have had OBEs have been able to relate their experiences after they have recovered. OBEs are consistent with a body-mind split as proposed in the Alice or Lucy hypothesis, if the mind indeed exists in a bosionic form and relies on the holographic appearances of the fermionic form to provide sensory input from its environment. The fermionic form of a person’s existence might be integrated with the fermionic forms of all objects within that person’s immediate vicinity. In his book, “Dogs that know when their masters are coming home”, Sheldrake called the integrated unit a morphic field. Within the bosonic phase of existence in the Alice hypothesis all objects within the morphic field would, in this case, be visible to a person in that morphic field regardless of where he or she might be. In terms of Schrodinger’s thought experiment that would mean the probability of existence anywhere in the field whilst in the bosionic form and actual existence and location only in the fermionic form i.e. when the box in his thought experiment has been opened. Sir James Jeans is not the only person to have concluded that the universe might be composed of thought. The Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin and the Buddhist Sri Ramana Maharshi, who died in 750, held similar views. Indeed Teilhard de Chardin proposed there might be an “evolution to an omega point at which conscious individuals minds will be subscribed…into an integrated conscious whole, all fused together in a cosmic divine consciousness”. Furthermore it was Eddington, who had gained fame by claiming to have proved Einstein’s theory of general relativity to be correct, who concluded that every particle in the universe has a memory of its own, as I have proposed in the Alice/Lucy hypothesis. Indeed Eddington coined the axiom “it from bit” to describe it. The late neurophysiologist Professor Sir Charles Sherrington believed that each person had a spirit which returned to a cosmic spiritual pool upon his/her death. His view is consistent with the Alice/Lucy hypothesis and with Eddington’s axiom, the bosionic form of existence disintegrating into its each component parts or “bits” upon death and decomposition. If so memories of human and worldly events might have evolved in each “bit” from the inception of the universe by following a very simple Wolfram rule for cellular automata, as outlined in his book “A new kind of science”. In which case memory would include random events as subatomic particles first then as molecules, chemical and biochemical compounds, and ultimately as social groups and their environments. In terms of the Alice/Lucy hypothesis and Sheldrake’s concept of a morphic field the images or memories of an individual might conceivably be recaptured after death if sufficient particles or “bits” that had formed a deceased individual and his/her immediate environment were present. In which case the apparent ability of clairvoyants to describe a person and the location and/or circumstances of his/her death, given an object or environment with which he/she was familiar, would have a rational basis in theoretical physics as would the appearance of ghosts and the resurrection of Christ. Whether a ghost might be intellectually aware of his/her circumstances after death as my father and others have been in OBEs is an open question. One chapter in Hawking’s book, “Universe in a nutshell”, is entitled “protecting the past”. In this chapter he writes: “it is tricky to speculate openly about time travel. One risks either an outcry at the waste of public money being spent on something so ridiculous or a demand that the research be classified for military purposes. After all, how could one protect ourselves against someone with a time machine? They might change history and rule the world. There are only a few of us foolhardy enough to work on a subject so politically incorrect in physics circles. We disguise the fact by using terms that are code for time travel”. The same may be said for issues concerning the body-mind split. They are politically contentious and there is a real possibility that information that might shed more light upon them might have been suppressed or disguised for ethical, religious, political and/or strategic reasons. The more the medical profession knows of the body-mind split the better for patients particularly in relation to the validity of the legal definitions of brain death being applied in organ procurement for transplantation and turning off ventilators (1). Concerns have been expressed about the negative impact that the practice or organ procurement might have had upon the evolution of management of head injuries and other acute intracranial pathology (2). The possibility that an intelligent and aware spirit might continue exist in a bosionic form when a person has been declared brain dead adds to these concerns(3). 1. Brain death David W Evans and Michael Potts BMJ 2002; 325: 598. 2. Forty years later Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7364/598/a#27780, 12 Dec 2002 3. Time to move beyond the mind-body split Patrick Bracken and Philip Thomas BMJ 2002; 325: 1433-1434 Competing interests:   None declared
MATTER OF THE MIND. 24 December 2002
Belle M. Hegde, Vice Chancellor MAHE University, Manipal-576 119. India, Nil Send response to journal: Re: MATTER OF THE MIND.	Dear Sir, "Where is the mind?" asks a little boy of a wise old man in a cartoon in 1945 issue of the Punch magazine. "Never Mind" is the learned answer. The boy asks again: "What is matter?" "No Matter" is the final answer. This editorial does not take us too far from that! Medicine did not keep pace with the real progress in quantum physics, starting in the early part of the 20th century. It is still hanging on to the conventional physics of deterministic predictability in a dynamic system where predictions of the future are well nigh impossible. Mind can not be confined to an organ. In the quantum concept man is but a bundle of jumping lepto-quarks. The mind is all pervasive and is present in every single cell( there are ten to the power fourteen in all) at its sub-atomic (quantum)level. One example here would suffice. One could see how the memory T cell behaves in the transplanted lung bringing with it the memory of an old asthma that the donor suffered to be restarted in the recipient! If the brain were to have the total mind inside it, one could not even grasp a grain of salt, which has more than hundred billion atoms! In the ancient Indian system of "Ayurveda" there is an exhaustive description of the human mind and also the methods by which one could evolve to higher levels of human development starting from the simple "manas" of a child to the highest "Ishwara". It is worth a detailed study by an ardent student of human health. It goes on to show how the mind initiates all the major illnesses. One could control the mind to promote health. This has been borne out by the latest studies in modern medicine that clearly show that it is not what we eat that kills us. It is what eats us (negative feelings) that kill us. Hostility and the heart, depression and cancer, and anger and stroke are some examples. Quantum physics also shows us that pq need not be equal to qp (Uncertainty Principle of Werner Heisenberg)The only certainty in this world is uncertainty. Medicine has to learn a lot from quantum physics to unravel the mysteries of the mind. Mind is definitley not a "thing" separate from the body. Some of the best books in that area that give the medical people a "keyhole" view of the real world are the following: 1) In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin. 2) Doubts and Certainty. by Tony Rothman and EVGeorge Sudarshan. 3) Turning Point by Frtizoff Capra., and 4) Mind in Ayurveda by David Frawley. I have avoided all Indian references. Hope this editorial opens up a debate to let us go further. There is "Plus Ultra" bmhegde 2) Competing interests:   NIL
Don't blame Descartes 24 December 2002
Michael Peel, Doctor medical foundation, london, nw5 3ej Send response to journal: Re: Don't blame Descartes	Descartes asked the question "Of what can I be certain?". His answer was that he was certain that he was thinking. Hence "I think, therefore I am." Could he be certain that his body existed? No, there could be a demon creating the illusion for him (we might instead say we could be connected to a virtual reality matrix). Thus the mind and body are different, because he could be sure of one, but not the other. The idea that we call Cartesian dualism is the secularisation of the concept of the soul. Long before Descartes, there was the belief in the immutable soul that lasted after death, in heaven, hell or purgatory. We might now use the term “consciousness” for something that persists after our bodily death. Descartes would suggest that we cannot be certain whether or not the two are linked. And the mind? Bracken (1) argues that the body is not separate from the mental processes (which may be the soul, or the way it relates to the body). He says that because our minds are influenced by external events (those outside the body), it must be associated with the body. Yet because our experiences are internalised and not objectively identifiable, they are therefore not physical. We should admit that we do not know whether there are two functions or one, and whether what we are measuring in neurophysiology is consciousness or some artefact created by consciousness. We need to be open about our assumptions, in the same way that Descartes assumed that his body was real (because life was impossible if he didn’t), even though he could not completely ignore the possibility of his devil. We must also be clear what we mean by terms such as “mind”, “body”, and “consciousness”. Otherwise we get ourselves even more confused. And in the unlikely event of Descartes’ consciousness still functioning in his grave with the remnants of his skeleton, it will be turning. Michael Peel (1) Bracken P and Thomas P. Time to move beyond the mind-body split. BMJ 2002;325:1433-1434 The opinions in this letter are my own, and not those of any organisation with which I is associated. Competing interests:   None declared
Re: Body-mind split and brain death 25 December 2002
CELIO LEVYMAN, Staff Neurologist,MD Albert Einstein Hospital,Sao Paulo,Brazil,01124-010 Send response to journal: Re: Re: Body-mind split and brain death	The subject of brain death come again in this body-mind approach ,and in a very unusual form:the OBE cases.We have not enough knowledge about the physiology of the death process,but is reasonable to thing that the brain could perform such sensations,by neurotransmission and other ways,to make this situation more pleasant.However,OBE and even religious dogmata do not prove that a death of a body remain a spirit or even that those kind of experiences have sufficient evidences to not permorf tests and declare a brain death in a person.I think that is another way to claim counter the brain death criteria,but OBE is the more strange way I have been see to do not declare brain/brainstem/whole brain death.We live in a very complicated world,that's not doubt.And more:the father of the author do not filled any brain death criteria:he suffered a cardiac arrrest,as we can believe in the short explanation of his son,and was sucessuflly recovered.That is nothing to link cases lake cardiac arrest to brain death. Competing interests:   None declared
Bioreductionism and Cartesianism 28 December 2002
Patrick G Coll, Clinical assistant professor, Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Calgary Suite 272N, Heritage Square, Box 35, 8500 Macleod Trail S., Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2H 2N1 Send response to journal: Re: Bioreductionism and Cartesianism	Bracken and Thomas's analysis of the mind-body split is a challenge to the biomedical model that dominates Western medicine in general and modern psychiatry in particular. The subject of their criticism - the depiction of our mental life as "some sort of enclosed world residing inside the skull" - is actually a central tenet of modern psychiatric orthodoxy. The distorted and exaggerated claims of the pharmacological "revolution" have narrowed the focus of psychiatry to a primitive bioreductionistic model, despite the continued absence of any convincing evidence that patients with psychiatric problems have "chemical imbalances". (1) Arthur Kleinman summarises some consequences of the new Cartesianism: "Thus mind-body dualism, with its supporting ideas of the body as a machine and rejection of matter (physical stuff) encompassing spirit, points the way towards the transformation of medical care into industrial models such as servicing automobiles or the training of airline pilots in safe practices". (2) As Bracken and Thomas point out, this technical approach to dealing with human reality and human suffering is an inadequate one, and a consequence of regarding the mind as a "thing" - Descartes' res cogitans. An example of the social context that the authors correctly identify as being neglected in bioreductionist approaches to human suffering is the effect of poverty on mental illness. Living in poverty has the most measurable effect on the rates of mental illness. People in the lowest socioeconomic strata are about two to three times more likely than those in the highest strata to have a mental illness. (3) The term "mental illness" is a metaphor that refers to undesirable thoughts, feelings and behaviours, which biological psychiatry tries to equate with biological disease. (4) Psychiatry is the only medical specialty that does not have biological markers for its core disorders. Classifying thoughts, feelings and behaviours as diseases is a classic philosophical error, which has led psychiatry down a blind alley, chasing its tail in ever decreasing circles. The debate that Bracken and Thomas have pioneered is a refreshing philosophical escape from bioreductionism, which is the current incarnation of Descartes' legacy. (5) References: (1)Valenstein, E. Blaming the Brain, Free Press, New York 1998. (2)Kleinman, A. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, editor: Peterson, G.B., University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1999.(p.410) (3)Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity. A Supplement to Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General 2001. (4) Marinoff, L. Plato not Prozac. Quill Publishers, New York 1999.(p.27) (5)Bracken, P., Thomas, P., Postpsychiatry: A New Direction for Mental Health. BMJ Vol. 322 24 March 2001, (p.724-727.) Competing interests:   None declared
looking at a patient whole 28 December 2002
khalid A haiba, house officer police univercity hospital, khartaum sudan Send response to journal: Re: looking at a patient whole	dear sirs, i hope that this article will aid us in finding direction when dealing with patients. Patients who exist in our mind as mental labels of disease, mr x the patient with carcinoma of the colon. it would be useful to see beyond cancer that has ravaged his res externa, into the sentiments and biochemistry of the res cogitans which can have enourmous effects on patient motivation and outcome. Competing interests:   None declared
Descartes, Damasio and the astrocentric hypothesis. 31 December 2002
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Descartes, Damasio and the astrocentric hypothesis.	Consciousness has been descibed as “self awareness” and equated with the “remembered present” other memories encoded in the brain being brought back into consciousness for problem solving (1). Hence Damasio’s conclusion, reported in a recent interview publish in the New Scientist, that “I feel therefore I am” may be more accurate than Descartes’ axiom “I think therefore I am” (2). The conventional neurological view, Damasio being a neurologist in Iowa, is that consciousness resides in the network of cerebral neurons and that thought and executive decision making are the products of complex synaptic and neuronal exchanges. This view does not explain the rapidly of thought or that executive decision making appears to occur far more quickly than neural and synaptic transmissions. Executive decisions appear to precede by milliseconds the sensory confirmation of that decision or awareness that the decision having been taken. This is a perfectly reasonable arrangement for if one were aware at almost the same time of both the executive decision that one had taken and the sensory confirmation of it one might become as confused as some schizophrenics who claim that their actions are being directed by a third party. The speed at which thought and executive decision making occurs, and it appears to be instantaneous, have lead some including the Cambridge physicist Roger Penrose, to conclude that there might be another means of cellular communication possibly occurring within microtubular “optical highways”. Some have even suggested that thought and executive decision making might be quantum field effects (3). Whatever its nature where might consciousness reside and thought and executive decision making take place? If one looks at the anatomy of the brain the astrocyte would seem ideally located to receive chemical and humoral messages from the blood and cerebrospinal fluid in addition to receiving and transmitting neuronal messages from the peripheral and central nervous system. Astrocytes literally have fingers applied to all the relevant pulses, the capillaries, the ependyma, nodes of Ranvier, and synapses. What is more they play an integral part in the regulation of neuronal metabolic and neurotransmitter activity (4,5,6). The “astrocentric hypothesis” is not unreasonable for there are ten times as many astrocytes as there are neurons in the brain. What is more the ratio of astrocytes to neurons increases from 1:1 to 10:1 from flat worms to humans (1,7). It has even been reported that the highest ratio seen in man was in the hippocampus of Einstein’s preserved brain! The out-of-body experiences, such as that described to me by my late father, would seem highly relevant to this discussion for they appear to show that awareness and thought may exist in the absence of sensory awareness and clinical evidence of consciousness (8). In other words they are consistent with Descartes’ axion “I think therefore I am” but not with Damasio’s axiom “I feel therefore I am”. Indeed the common description by patients including that of my late father of seeing themselves from the ceiling is consistent with them being in a superposition of states as in Schrodinger’s box or in terms of the Alice hypothesis doing all their thinking and decision making in the bosonic phases of their existence (9). Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance” or entanglement is apparently a real phenomenon, the evidence for which is reviewed in a very recent book written by a professor of mathematics as Bentley College in Boston. This phenomenon suggests that the hypothetical bosonic phase of existence might extend beyond the confines of the room to include an entire morphic field that incorporates fermions in every person met and every place visited and might even extend instantly to all the bosons in the universe. Whether this means consciousness and thought can persist and engage in some form of social interaction after brain death as Celio Levyman would define it or after decomposition remains an open question (10). 1. Robertson JM. The Astrocentric Hypothesis: proposed role of astrocytes in consciousness and memory formation. J Physiol Paris. 2002 May-Aug;96(3-4):251-5. 2. DamasioA.R. Descartes' Error, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1994 3. Daviss C. Body talk. New Scientist 23 February 2002, pp 30-33. 4. Dietmer JW. Acid/alkaline transients and pH regulation. In Glial cells: their Role in Behaviour. Laming PR, Sykova T, Reichenbach A, Hatton GI, Bauer H. Cambridge Univeristy Press, Chapter 11, pp 210-36, 1998. 5. Sykova E, Hansson E, Ronnback L, Nicholson C. Glial regulation of the neuronal microenvironment. In Glial cells: their Role in Behaviour. Laming PR, Sykova T, Reichenbach A, Hatton GI, Bauer H. Cambridge Univeristy Press, Chapter 11, pp 130-163, 1998. 6. Magisretti PJ. Brain energy metabolism. In: Fundemental Neuroscience. Sigmond, Bloom, Landis, Roberts, Squire, Eds. Academic Press, 1999, Chapter14, pp389-413. 7. Kast B. Best supporting actors. Nature 2001;412:674-676. 8. Body-mind split and brain death Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com, 23 Dec 2002 9. Mind-body split: the Alice hypothesis Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com, 21 Dec 2002 10. Re: Body-mind split and brain death CELIO LEVYMAN bmj.com, 25 Dec 2002 Competing interests:   None declared
Self or Mind-Body? 3 January 2003
susanne stevens, researcher cardiff cf24 3pf, none Send response to journal: Re: Self or Mind-Body?	Phil Thomas and colleagues are highly respected for the work they have carried out in Bradford and for their relationships with people who use mental health services. It is encouraging to see that there are such trusted groups of health workers prepared to challenge the next invasive experiments into peoples lives, eg. the use of brain scans to monitor potential changes brought about by psychotherapy.(see United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy web site for a desription of this type of proposal as advocated by Score and supported by members of the Richard Bowlby Foundation. Whether Bowlby, someone interested in human relations, himself would have approved is another speculation.) That these are being proposed by the very practitioners who should be promoting the concepts discussed in this article is very sad. Unfortunately researchers go where the money is. It is not in philosophy departments but in places such as the Institute of Psychiatry biological research units. Some members of the college of psychiatrists' psychotherapy division are keen to encourage their colleagues to get involved in this 'exciting new development'. As ever though those who will be used for the research are not being consulted, their wishes as to where they wish precious funding to be used is not taken into account. If they wish to rush ahead with research of this nature before attending to the demand for developing more rounded and humane services which respond to the meaning of individual lives, maybe these enthusiastic therapists could use themselves and their colleagues and trainees as the guinea pigs this time round. Competing interests:   None declared
Philosophy can be detrimental to doctors 3 January 2003
Philip A Sugarman, Medical Director St Andrew's hospital, Northampton, NN1 5DG Send response to journal: Re: Philosophy can be detrimental to doctors	Sir Bracken and Thomas1 raise the old chestnut of the Cartesian mind-body split and offer some formidable names e.g. Wittgenstein, Heidegger in order to address it. However the suggestion that patients would benefit if more doctors studied the philosophy of mind is neither appealing nor evidence-based. Unfortunately the histories of psychiatry, philosophy and politics are alike in their domination by radical intellectuals, many of whose contribution has been largely to sow confusion and conflict. It is all to easy to believe that these intimidating authorities and their followers give weight to one's own views, and justify preaching one's own prejudices. The authors of the editorial are prone to this fault - indeed they are the self-proclaimed gurus of British "post-psychiatry"2, named to imply that they have moved on from "anti-psychiatry". Now they claim to have moved on from the mind-body split. If Bracken and Thomas followed more helpful philosophers, perhaps they would know that, just like many of the other problems they offer solutions to, this was not a real problem in the first place. Gilbert Ryle's famous phrase "the Ghost in the Machine3" was an attack not just on Cartesian dualism but on philosophizing about the mind in general. One of the Oxford "ordinary language" school, he showed in helpful, detailed examples that intelligent consideration of what people actually do and say, think and feel is productive, whilst mental philosophy is not. He advised that we not consider a man as a machine - with or without a ghostly mind - but as a an animal, in fact a higher mammal, namely man. I contend that human physical and social biology are far more relevant areas of study for doctors than philosophy. Reading the content of post-psychiatry leads me to consider that study of philosophy (and politics) may be detrimental to doctors, and therefore to patients. Perhaps the BMJ should run a campaign against it. 1. Bracken P and Thomas P. Time to move beyond the mind-body split. BMJ 2002; 325: 1433-1434 2. Bracken P, Thomas P. Postpsychiatry: a new direction for mental health. BMJ 2001 322: 724-727. 3. Ryle, G. The Concept of Mind. Oxford University Press. London. 1949. Competing interests:   None declared
The Social Mind 3 January 2003
Matthew R Broome, Clinical Research Worker Institute of Psychiatry, SE5 8AF Send response to journal: Re: The Social Mind	I enjoyed reading Bracken and Thomas' editorial regarding the mind- body split and agree that research in cognitive neuroscience and psychiatry works with the assumption that classical cognitivism is correct, whereas we do not know, empirically, whether this is the case or not. Criticisms of the paradigm have come from within psychology and neuroscience themselves in the form of connectionism but philosophy has also made a profound critique. The authors allude to Heidegger's critique of Descartes as elaborated in his 'Being and Time' but other critics of the position include the major luminaries of the analytoic tradition of philosophy - Wittgenstein, Quine and Davidson. For these authors meaning is in the world - bound up with one's concerns, one's social context - are propositional attitudes are not atomistic but inter-related in a network. As Putnam memorably puts it, 'meanings ain't in the head'. Competing interests:   None declared
Descartes and mind-body dualism 5 January 2003
Peter Morrell, freelance researcher, history of medicine, UK ST4 2DG Send response to journal: Re: Descartes and mind-body dualism	Sir, In essence, by saying that mind and matter are very different, and dividing “the aspects of single experience into separate entities – the fatal doctrine of Descartes…spoke of mind and body, thought and its object, matter and mind, as though they were independent existents.” [Berlin, 381] Unfortunately, since that time, science has proceeded in the blind belief that he thought mind is entirely reducible to matter; he did not. They are blatantly different things. For example, physical substance [res extensa] is composed of matter, propelled by energy, extensive in space and locatable in time and though we might say mind [res cogitans] also consists of mental matter, propelled by mental energy and occupying mental space, yet mental time is a wholly different thing than time as we know it in the physical universe. There is a fundamental incompatibility between the two categories: one which is conscious and perceives and one which is unconscious and unperceiving, which “lacks subjective awareness, purpose or spirit.” [Tarnas, 278] Descartes sought to reveal that “an immaterial reality exists alongside the material…[and] some way of connecting the two worlds,” [Rogers, 236] must be found. Mental matter does not resemble physical matter, as it does not seem to occupy space or have any measurable mass or location. Even on this basis the differences between the two are clear: “Descartes’ dualism, the sharp differences he draws between mind and body with their irreconcilable attributes of thought and extension, [Rogers, 236] define them as different things, which behave differently. The notion of “matter on the one hand and of mind or spirit on the other were brought into sharp relief,” [Rogers, 236] through his meditations on this problem. By this separation, which Descartes initiated, “science was left to follow its bent in the physical universe.” [Rogers, 236] Locke, Newton and their successors tended only to see the material aspects of Descartes’ views and that is a pity because the stark freshness and originality of Cartesian dualism is still obvious when stated simply. Though both are real, they each operate under very different ‘rules:’ “mind and matter so totally different in their nature.” [Rogers, 250] One might therefore easily argue that, “Descartes and Locke are evidently mistaken, mind is not a wax tablet…it is not an object, but a perpetual activity which shapes its world.” [Berlin, 569] However, what is obvious is that some relationship between brain and mind must exist, forming a two-way street with traffic moving freely in both directions. To believe wholeheartedly that solely the brain, and chemical changes in it, causes all mental events, and that mind disappears like smoke at the point of death, then I am sorry but these never were the views of René Descartes. Maintaining that there must be “a mutual influence between the soul and the body,” [Rogers, 253] and that it is in “the human organism that matter and mind come into closest contact,” [Rogers, 250] thus it is this “relationship of mind and body that justifies a distinction between two classes of conscious fact.” [Rogers, 252] Cartesian dualism still allows for mind as a spirit-like immaterial being that can survive death and have some kind of afterlife; such is certainly permitted by Descartes and many philosophers even after 1700. If mind were solely a product of molecules, then clearly its genetic component would be much more prominent than it is. Within families, for example, it is not possible to show the type of strict determinism of personality the theory would require. Instead of mental conformity of close relations, we find diversity. Therefore, the genetic basis of mind remains doubtful and unproven. Likewise, identical twins would show very little mental differences. Again, this is not observed and indeed, many such twins show remarkable differences in personality in spite of being identical at the molecular level. Due to the above considerations, mind-body dualism and molecular basis of mind are fraught with problems. The current scientific fancy that mind is solely a product of matter, that mental activity must be reducible solely, and exclusively to brain events and brain chemistry, never did flow from Descartes, but from the materialistic science of his successors. The argument for a strict molecular basis of mind remains an act of pure belief no different from the religious belief that mind is an immortal soul that transmigrates from body to body and lifetime to lifetime, or belief in angels or fairies. In spite of all claims pinned to him by his successors, Descartes remained a basically religious man. By asserting “the undeniableness of consciousness,” [Rogers, 246] and expressing a belief in “God as a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient, omnipotent,” [Rogers, 247] Descartes had actually “left the world divided into three constituent parts – the two substances, mind and matter, and a third more ultimate reality, God,” [Rogers, 253] being quite insistent that “mind and matter…are not to be conceived apart from God,” [Rogers, 253] who Descartes regarded, perhaps old-fashioned, as “a perfect infinite being.” [Tarnas, 277] Sources Sir Isaiah Berlin, The Proper Study of Mankind an Anthology of Essays, London: Pimlico, 1998 Arthur K Rogers, A Student’s History of Philosophy, New York: Macmillan, 1960 Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind, London: Pimlico, 1992 Competing interests:   None declared
Madness, hyperhomocysteinemia, metabolic rate and body temperature 7 January 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Madness, hyperhomocysteinemia, metabolic rate and body temperature	In addressing schizophrenia in his recent book (1) David Horrobin observes that the more experienced a clinician becomes the greater the difficulty he has in distinguishing schizophrenia from other psychotic disorders and even from normality. The point he makes is that there is a little bit of madness in everyone and that it should not be interpreted as a disease and be subjected to empirical pharmacological therapy. In making his argument Horrobin observes that the symptoms of schizophremia will often abate during a febrile illness and return when the febrile illness resolves. He proposes that schizophrenia might be a disorder of lipid metabolism and has developed a nutritional cocktail including omega-3-fatty acids to treat it (2,3). He reports that this nutritional cocktail reduced and even eliminated the treating psychiatrist’s perception of the need for psychotropic drugs in a significant proportion of patients to whom it was prescribed. The proportion of omega-3 fatty acids in the phospholipid composition of mitochondrial membranes of fish is said to change linearly as the temperature of the ambient environment changes and omega-3 fatty acids increase the fluidity of phospholipid membranes. These changes are accompanied by a change in the rate of the proton leak across mitochondrial membranes determined from the rate of flux per unit surface area (3). The proportion of oxygen consumed for ATP resynthesis by oxidative phosphorylation decreases inversely as the proton leak increases as oxygen is used to generate heat rather than ATP. Reptiles whose temperature changes with their environment, poikilotherms, have a much lower rate of proton leakage across their mitochondrial membranes than mammals because they do not have to generate heat to maintain their body temperature in environments whose temperature is less than theirs. The amount of ATP they generate, and hence their alertness and activity, changes as their ambient temperature changes reptiles being lethargic and sometimes almost comatose at low temperatures. In mammals the degree of proton leakage increases as the surface area/body mass increases because smaller animals have greater difficulty in maintaining their body temperature in cool environments. It is said, therefore, that one could boil water on an elephant if it had the same proton leakage as a mouse. Thus elephants maintain their body temperature at the same level as mice by decreasing their endogenous production of heat. The change in proton leak seen in mammals is said to be induced by changes in the rate of thyroid hormone release, thyroid hormones increasing basal metabolic rate by increasing the rate of enzymatic reactions, and increasing the rate of proton leak, generation of heat, and ultimately mitochondrial mass. When the body temperature increases in a febrile illness the tissue pH falls (alpha stat) inducing translational, membrane channel and spike arrest and thus reducing the demand for ATP resynthesis. Pari passu the increase in body temperature decreases the amount of energy needed to power active transport processes by increasing the rate of enzymatic reactions. If the temperature continues to rises mitochondrial permeability must presumably increase at some point because of the continuing fall in pH, accompanying rise in ionised calcium and/or generation of free radicals (4). The increase in the degree of unreversed ATP hydrolysis induced will compound the severity of any tissue acidosis present and may inhibit ATP resynthesis by precipitating a reversal of the action of ATP synthase. At this point the energy released by the hydrolysis of the remaining ATP in mitochondria is used to pump protons out of the mitochondria in an effort to re-establish the pH gradient across the mitochondrial membrane. Ultimately, as in malignant hyperthermia or “hot pigs”, the severity of the tissue acidosis and accompanying impairment of ATP resynthesis becomes untenable and organ failures and ultimately death ensue. In patients in whom thyroid hormone is deficient and who have myxoedema the reverse occurs (5).Mitochondrial dysfunction and even damage occur. Uric acid and homocycteine levels rise (6,7). Cholesterol levels and fatty acid metabolism becomes deranged. Eventually atherosclerosis, organ dysfunctions, lactic acidosis and organ failures may develop (8). Not the least of these are the mental impairment associated with hypothyroidism. Thus disorders of the mind, such as they are defined by psychiatrists, in addition to those disorders of intermediary metabolism associated with atherosclerotic and other vascular diseases (9) may all be the product of mitochondrial dysfunction (10). In which case it is may be the metabolic engine rather than translational, membrane channel and spikes it powers or the mind that directs it that needs to be corrected in patents who are incapacitated by what psychiatrists consider to be psychotic illnessess. Errata 1. Sir Roger Penrose the mathematician at Oxford was incorrectly referred to as a Cambridge physicist (11) but has worked with Hawking. His views on mind, microtubules and quantum coherence are summarised in the last two chapters of his book (12). 2. An attosecond is ten to the minus eighteenth of a second not ten to the minus eight of a second. References: 1. Horrobin D. The madness of Adam and Eve. 2002. 2. Horrobin DF. Omega-3 Fatty Acid for Schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry. 2003 Jan 1;160(1):188-189. 3. Hochachka PA, Somero GW. Biochemical adaptation. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2002. 4. "Lactic acidosis": the common denominator? Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7374/1202#28322, 2 Jan 2003 5. Mohr-Kahaly S, Kahaly G, Meyer J. Cardiovascular effects of thyroid hormones] Z Kardiol. 1996;85 Suppl 6:219-31. Review. 6. Ryckewaert A, Masse C, Jurmand SH, Caroit M, Durieu J, Guerin C, de Seze S. Gout and myxedema] Sem Hop. 1967 Nov 26;43(49):3059-62. 7. Toft JC, Toft H. Hyperhomocysteinemia and hypothyroidism Ugeskr Laeger. 2001 Aug 20;163(34):4593-4. 8. Monaci R, Meoni S, Morandini M, Giacalone G, Bernardini C, Pii F. Primary myxedema in an adult. Notes on a case] Minerva Med. 1989 Nov;80(11):1241-3. 9. Homocysteine and cardiovascular disease: evidence on causality from a meta-analysis David S Wald, Malcolm Law, and Joan K Morris BMJ 2002; 325: 1202-1206 10. Re: Preventing closed minds Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7375/1255#27528, 2 Dec 2002 11. Descartes, Damasio and the astrocentric hypothesis. Richard G Fiddian- Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7378/1433#28292, 31 Dec 2002 12. Penrose R. Shadows of the mind. Oxford University Pr Competing interests:   None declared
Philosophy and Cognitivism 8 January 2003
Matthew R Broome, Clinical Research Worker and Honorary Specialist Registrar Section of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, London, SE5 8AF Send response to journal: Re: Philosophy and Cognitivism	I enjoyed the recent editorial regarding philosophy of mind and psychiatric research (1). However, there were a few disingenuous statements that may be worth correcting. The Churchlands and Jerry Fodor have radically different projects philosophically – the former advocate the position of ‘eliminative materialism’ whereby there is no a priori assumption into the validity of folk and scientific psychology. The entities and mechanisms employed in such discourses may vanish once a full neurological explanation of the brain is provided by neuroscience. In contrast, Fodor elevates folk psychology to the level of a scientific model and tries to reconcile this with neuroscience. His ‘computational theory of mind’ (2) is also referred to as ‘classical cognitivism’ and was strongly influenced by Chomsky’s work on language acquisition. The paradigm of classical cognitivism is essentially that which cognitive neuroscience and biological psychiatry has inherited, and has been employed to great effect in studying psychopathology (3). As the authors (1) note there are fundamental criticisms of this position, which were made by Heidegger (4), although I would disagree with their rather idealist interpretation of his work, but have also been made by Fodor himself. Recently, Fodor has limited the scope of mental life to which he feels the computational model of mind can apply (5). Needless to say, in addition to criticisms from the continental tradition (Heidegger) and from Fodor’s own later work, ‘classical cognitivism’ has been attacked both from within psychology and neuroscience in the formulation of a non- modular model of cognitive processing, namely connectionism (6), as well as having severe detractors from within the Anglo-American ‘analytic’ tradition. The authors allude (1) to Wittgenstein’s (7,8) criticism of conceptions of mind as somehow ‘inner’ and providing representation of the outside world. Such work has echoes in the philosophy of Quine (9) and Davidson (10) who stress the interconnection of beliefs, holism of action, and the notion of interpretation of behaviour. Thus, as with Wittgenstein and Heidegger, one is left with a conception of mind that can only be coherent when considered in terms of an individual’s social world, a world full of meaning that we are born into and manipulate. As Hilary Putnam memorably put it, ‘meanings ain’t in the head’. The cognitive paradigm remains dominant in research at present and is used as a tool whereby the phenomenological psychopathology we have inherited from Jaspers can be ‘translated’ into a language of cognitive mechanisms and neural localization. At present, we do not know, crudely, whether the classical cognitive model, as described by Fodor, is empirically correct. Certainly, there are sufficient concerns to suspect it may not be the whole story, but in the interim it is has certainly yielded impressive results in the scientific study of psychopathology, which in turn improve both psychological and pharmacological treatment design, and alter our understanding of mental illness – psychosis is no longer ‘un-understandable’ (11). Sufficient use of the paradigm may reveal that it lacks explanatory power, in which case the scientific community, as Kuhn teaches us (12), will adopt an alternate or modified paradigm. In the interim, an awareness of the philosophical issues can only be of benefit to cognitive neuroscientists and psychiatrists – it may aid us avoid philosophical bugbears that contaminate our thinking and aid study design in the development of more sophisticated and holistic methodologies. 1 Bracken P and Thomas P. Time to move beyond the mind-body split. BMJ 2002 325 1433-1434. 2 Fodor JA The Language of Thought Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press 1975. 3 Halligan PW and David AS Cognitive neuropsychiatry: towards a scientific psychopathology. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2001 2 209-215. 4 Heidegger M Being and Time Trans Macquarrie Oxford: Blackwell 1962. 5 Fodor JA The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way – The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press 2001. 6 Cain MJ Fodor: Mind, Language and Philosophy Polity 2002 7 Wittgenstein L Philosophical Investigations Oxford: Blackwell 1953. 8 Williams M Wittgenstein, Mind and Meaning – Towards a Social Conception of Mind Routledge 2002. 9 Quine WVO Word and Object Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press 1960. 10 Davidson D Essays on Actions and Events Oxford: Clarendon Press 1980. 11 Jaspers K General Psychopathology Trans Hoenig and Hamilton Johns Hopkins Press 1997. 12 Kuhn T The Structure of Scientific Revolutions University of Chicago Press 1962. Competing interests:   None declared
The Neural Basis of Consciousness 10 January 2003
Bidi M. Evans, retired Honorary consultant Kings College Hospital Send response to journal: Re: The Neural Basis of Consciousness	In spite of some considerable lapse of time there has been very little work from mainline neuroscientists on the neural basis of consciousnes. This may be because of reluctance to become involved with questions of religion or philosophy with which many scientists and doctors are uncomfortable. Nevertheless some advances have been made and a return to dualist thinking is very premature. An obvious candidate for examination is the sleep wake system. Sleep is a state of physiological unconsciousness (1) and wakefulness in the normal brain is associated with instant awareness,sometimes called core consciousness (2,3). Awareness requires the addition of short term and biographical memory together with intact emotional responses to become full consciousness (3,4). The rostral part of the sleep wake mechanism is a thalamocortical network which seems to exist in two parts. One part is dedicated to the various cortical areas and the other part is generalised (5,6,7). This may provide a means whereby all areas of cortex can intercommunicate at all times and therefore provide the neural basis for awareness.The most fruitful areas of research may be the spontaneous and evoked electrical and magnetic activity of the brain (7,8), coupled with functional imaging. Another possible source of information could be the autonomic nervous system because emotional responses often have an autonomic component which it is possible to quantify. It is important for both psychiatry and neurology that attempts continue to be made to gather information and not take refuge in ideas from non scientific disciplines. 1. Evans BM.JSRM. 2002:95;591-597 2. Damasio AR. Descartes Error. Picador 1994. 3. Evans BM. Neurophysiol.Clin. 2003 (in press). 4. Damasio AR. The Feeling of What Happens. Heinemann: London 1999. 5. Coulter DA. Thalamocortical Anatomy and Physiology.In Engel J. and Pedley TA. Lippincott-Raven, Philadelphia 1997; 341-351. 6. Jones EA. In: Advances in Neurology. 1998:49-72. 7. Llinas R and Ribary U. In: Advances in Neurology 1998:95-103. 8. Crick F. and Koch C. Seminars in Neurosciences. 1990a: 2;263-275. Competing interests:   None declared
Externalism and Psychiatry 10 January 2003
Mark A. Turner, Consultant Psychiatrist Duchess of Kents' Psychiatric Hospital, Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, DL9 4DF Send response to journal: Re: Externalism and Psychiatry	In a recent editorial entitled ‘Time to Move Beyond the Mind-Body Split’ (1) Bracken and Thomas argue that the mind is not inside the head but out there in the world. They suggest that both neuroscientifically- informed eliminative materialism and broadly functionalist views of the mind are philosophically untenable, and conclude that whilst the signs are encouraging that psychiatry is moving forward “the rest of medicine also needs to get beyond the legacy of Descartes”. On the substantive philosophical issues, like, I suspect, many who have been raised on a diet of Donald Davidson (2), I am broad agreement with the authors. Indeed, I even find their reliance on hermeneutics refreshing. I wish, nonetheless, to suggest firstly that that the authors claim to have moved beyond the mind-body split needs qualifying, and secondly that, if their view is correct, when the implications are fleshed out they will not necessarily be perceived as encouraging for psychiatry. Contrary to what the title of Bracken and Thomas’ paper suggests, placing the mind in the world will surely appear to non-philosophical readers to make the mind-body problem even more intractable, because it rules out once and for all the possibility of basing an account of the mind on an account of brain function. The ultimate source of the authors somewhat confusing claim lies in the fact that they have failed to make explicit the distinction between two strands of ‘Descartes legacy’, which act as the horns of a dilemma on which any potential solution to the mind- body problem risks being impaled. These are firstly that the mind is a thinking non-physical thing, which is the basis of the ontological dualism, and secondly that thinking is essentially independent of the world, which is the basis of internalism. According to the authors,the approach which they reject avoids ontological dualism but “keep[s] alive the essential features of Descartes philosophy”. By this they mean internalism and in response they propose a radical externalism, which, unfortunately, risks reintroducing ontological dualism because it offers no account of how their admittedly non-Cartesian mind relates to the brain. The authors’ apparatus obviously needs supplementing and a connectionist model of brain functioning stands out as being the obvious candidate(3). Whether or not this, or indeed any, dual approach is a successful “move beyond the mind-body split” will however depend precisely on the respective accounts of the mind and brain being made to fit together in a way that avoids reduction. This, of course, is precisely what neuroscientific eliminative materialists deny is possible. For my own part, I think the account can be made to work but I do not share the authors belief that the implications are likely to be encouraging for psychiatry. The difficulties for psychiatry arise when one tries to define exactly what the authors’ claim that meaning is social entails. They hint that the answer will be found in the work of Wittgenstein who is, unfortunately, so unsystematic that one is drawn to the interpretationism of Donald Davdison for clarification. I have elsewhere discussed the difficulties that are likely to ensue from this (4) Essentially speaking, the process of interpretation is based on the non-empirical idea of agreement and involves making sense of individuals in a way that is obviously dependent on the assumption that those individuals are similar to oneself. In other words, it is implicit in the idea of interpretation that one is trapped inside a ‘hermeneutic circle’ where the best one can hope for is not the truth that most psychiatrists take themselves to be aspiring to, but more fruitful interpretations. With this in mind, by availing itself of a dual theory Bracken and Thomas view of the mind may avoid the horns of the anti-Cartesian dilemma mentioned above. Psychiatry itself, however, because it deals with mental states as mental states, does not have this theoretical luxury available. In other words, ignoring the fact that if Bracken and Thomas are wrong then psychiatry will be subsumed by neuroscience or cognitive psychology, if they are right psychiatric expertise will amount to a kind of wisdom akin to that that one might expect from senior members of the judiciary, for example. I am not, of course, suggesting that Bracken and Thomas do not recognise this, only that most psychiatrists will not find it “encouraging”. 1.Bracken P. and Thomas P. Time to move beyond the mind-body split: The “mind” is not inside but “out there” in the social world. BMJ 2002; 325:1433-4. 2.Davidson D. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. 3.Clark A. Associative Engines: Connectionism, Concepts and Representational Change. Cambridge: MIT press, 1993. 4.Turner MA. Psychiatry and the Human sciences. BJPsych 2003 (forthcoming) Competing interests:   None declared
The fragmented minds of hatters 18 January 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: The fragmented minds of hatters	The neuropsychiatric disorders seen following chronic exposure to mercury and arsenic has been attributed to inhibition of pyruvate dehydrogenase activity. Hatters were especially prone to mercury poisoning, hence the expression “mad as a hatter”. Pyruvate dehydrogenase catalyses the conversion of pyruvate into acetyl CoA. This is an essential step in having glucose, the primary source of fuel in the brain, metabolised in the Krebs cycle and replenishing ATP stores by mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation. Fatty acids cannot be used as a metabolic fuel by the brain. Thus the conversion of fatty acids to either acetyl CoA or succinyl CoA for metabolism in the Krebs cycle does not appear to occur in the brain. Succinyl CoA may, however, still convert ketones to acetyl CoA by reacting with acetoacetate to form succinate and acetoacatyl CoA which is then converted into acetyl CoA for entry into the Krebs cycle. Ketones may be used as fuel by the brain during starvation and the ketoacidosis that develop in uncontrolled diabetics. If fatty acids cannot be metabolised by the brain then any succinyl CoA synthesis must be the product of other sources such as the alpha ketoglutarate generated in the Krebs cycle and homocysteine generated from methionine. As inhibition of methylmalonyl CoA mutase causes a severe metabolic acidosis and neuropsychiatric disorders (1) the synthesis of succinyl CoA from methionine via homocysteine must presumably still be an essential part of cerebral metabolism. The neuropsychiatric disorders seen in methylmalonic acidosis do not appear to be due to the toxics effect of methylmalonyl per se, as it may be in rats, for it may be present in high concentrations in patients without neuropsychiatric disorders (2). It appears, rather, to be the acidosis that causes the problem or rather the unreversed ATP hydrolysis presumably causing the acidosis (3,4,5). The biochemical abnormalities in the madness of hatters and all other neuropsychiatic conditions I have examined, including hypothroidism, are consistent with the hypothesis that they are the product of an energy defict and its consequences. The ability to generate in a timely manner the ATP hydrolysed to release energy for intracerebral cellular activities would appear, therefore, to be essentiual for the miond to be able to express itself. 1. Narasimhan P, Sklar R, Murrell M, Swanson RA, Sharp FR. Methylmalonyl-CoA mutase induction by cerebral ischemia and neurotoxicity of the mitochondrial toxin methylmalonic acid. J Neurosci. 1996 Nov 15;16(22):7336-46 2. Dudley J, Allen J, Tizard J, McGraw M. Benign methylmalonic acidemia in a sibship with distal renal tubular acidosis. Pediatr Nephrol. 1998 Sep;12(7):564-6. 3. Fiddian-Green RG. Gastric intramucosal pH, tissue oxygenation and acid- base balance. Br J Anaesth. 1995 May;74(5):591-606. Review. 4. Fiddian-Green RG. Monitoring of tissue pH: the critical measurement. Chest. 1999 Dec;116(6):1839-41. 5. Madness, hyperhomocysteinemia, metabolic rate and body temperature Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7378/1433#28469, 6 Jan 2003 Competing interests:   None declared
A marriage made in heaven? 26 January 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: A marriage made in heaven?	Holography was invented by Dennis Gabor in 1947 and reinvented by Emmett Leith of the US and Yuri Denisyuk of the USSR in about 1962. In the introduction to a recent book on holography (1) it is written “We opticists were doing quantum mechanics before we knew those words”. The “opticists” were in effect looking at the superposition and coherence of waves emitted by lasers just as the quantum physicists were looking at the superposition and coherence of waves in the box in which the cat had been placed in Schrodinger’s thought experiment. There are three possible reasons why holography has been incorporated into the embodiment of the Theory of Everything (ToE) in the lay public’s domain. The first is the established ability of holography to compact three dimensional information into two dimensions, store it on a photographic plate, magnetic tape or crystal compact disc, and make a copy from the stored data. The second might be that it provides a rational explanation for entanglement, the instant communication at speeds infinitely greater than the speed of light between pairs of particles on opposite sides of the universe. The third might be the ability to recover in transfer holography all of the information about the object from each fragment of that object encoded in the pseudoscopic hologram. The pseudoscopic hologram is that which is inverted, fragmented and rotated and/or turned inside out. In the Alice hypothesis it is that hologram which is invisible and which permits Julian Barbour’s jumping cat Lucy to be composed of a succession of orthoscopic ( normal-looking, feeling and smelling ) holograms (2). Entanglement is what a sceptical Einstein referred to as "spooky action at a distance". Indeed he had concluded that either quantum theory was wrong or that it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light and general relativity was wrong. The existence of entanglement has been established since he died and yet Hawking still maintains it is not possible to travel faster than the speed of light and devotes a large part of his latest book “On the Shoulders of Giants” to Einstein. The problem for all scientists including Einstein and especially for the Church is that causality would be lost if it were possible to travel faster than the speed of light. The problem for the military is that the ability to travel faster than the speed of light should make it possible to travel back in time and change the course of history. The penny appears to have dropped when the theoretical physicists realised that three dimensional information about a black hole could be encoded in the surface area of its event horizon. They had been contemplating the fate of an object that fell into a black hole. It was thought that the object would stripped of its information layer by layer and collapse into a line of infinite mass and length to become a naked singularity, the point at which the Big Bang occurred in cosmological terms. It was initially thought that nothing could escape from a black hole. Hawking showed that black holes were not quite so black and that Hawking’s radiation could escape to “infinity” (Hawking’s term) or the opposite side of the universe carrying with it the information encoded in the surface area of the event horizon (3). Simultaneously its invisible “virtual” pair would be lost in the hole. In the process the event horizon would disappear and with it the black hole. Hawking uses the term “antimatter” once in his book observing that that 10 to the minus forty three after the Bog Bang the “balance of matter/antimatter tips in the balance of matter. At ten to the minus thirty five of a second the “electroweak era is dominated by quaks and antiquarks. By ten to the minus ten of a second matter predominates and three minutes after the Big Bang matter and radiation couple and the first stable nuclei form. In terms of the Alice hypothesis Lucy in effect falls into a black hole everytime she becomes a pseudoscopic hologram and the loss of information about her from a black hole exactly her dimensions occurs instantly before being changed , again instantly, into the next orthoscopic hologram composed of what Hawking calls “ordinary matter”. If the Alice hypothesis is valid, therefore, the question is whether the pseudoscopic phase is composed of bosons as orginally proposed or antimatter, that is a photino instead of a photon and a neutrino instead of a neutron and so on. If it is the latter then the shadow brane world held by the Casimir effect to which I referred would exist in the pseudoscopic phase of existence rather than the fermionic phase as originally proposed and the bonic phase of existence might be better called the antimatter phase and the fermionic phase the matter phase. Simple holograms may be seen in the Science museum. These are created by shining a "coherent" light, a laser beam, through a beam-splitter which creates an object light source and a reference light source. A two dimensional pseudoscopic (turned in-side-out, inverted and/or rotated) hologram is encoded on a photographic plate by focusing the object and reference beams onto the plate and developing it. It is also possible to make holograms using two electromagnetic waves of different wavelength, the difference in times of arrival of the two wave forms being the discriminating factor that allows a hologram to be constructed but these holgrams are said to contain compacted information and not to have any visible form (4). The technology has evolved over the past decades to the degree that it is possible to capture within a few seconds all the information encoded in a pseudoscopic hologram on a magnetic tape or crystal compact disc. Quantum state holography and even entangled states have since been incorporated into the technology (5,6). Nobody, it is claimed in this authorative book in which the re-inventor Leith wrote one of the chapters, has succeeded in making a hologram composed of matter. Furthermore in addressing the future of holography Leith makes not reference to this possibility. To create a three dimensional orthoscopic (normally oriented) holographic copy of the original object a light is shone through the developed plate. To create a hologram, such that of Princess Leia giving the verbal message recovered from R2D2 in "Star Wars", the same principles would apply but the hologram would be a movie with sound bites. To create a hologram that could not only be seen and heard but also had mass and could be felt, and smelt would, according to Lee Smolin, simply require operating in a higher dimension. There are ten or eleven dimensions in the embodiment of ToE that encorporates holographic theory one or more of which might fit the bill. If then Lucy is a succession of three dimensional orthoscopic (normal -looking) holograms of a cat interspersed with invisible pseudoscopic holograms, as proposed in the Alice hypothesis, how might these holograms be created? From what we know of holograms it would require two sources. In which case might Hawking's radiation might be the reference source and anti-matter the other? Teleportation has been demonstrated to occur at the subatomic level, as reviewed in a relatively recent issue of Scientific American. It is said by McEvoy in his booklet to require entanglement, that is the instantaneous and certainly infinitely faster than the speed of light passage of information, together with the passage of bosons or possibly anti-matter at the speed of light (7). Teleportation would appear, therefore, to be proof of the validity of holographic theory certainly at the subatomic level. In other words the second reason for incorporating holographic theory into ToE might have been that it provides a rational explanation for entanglement without violating causality. No particle including a gravitron has ever been shown to travel faster than the speed of light, as inferred from recent reports in the lay press of the results of experiments measuring the speed of gravity. Chernakov radiation does travel faster than the speed of light in the atmosphere but apparently not in a vacuum which is the conditions (i.e space) under which its predicted speed has evidently been conformed. Thus Einstein’s and Hawking’s very form views on the subject are satisfied. But what of entanglement which still allows pairs of “virtual” (invisible but with measurable effects) particles on opposite sides of the universe to communicate with one another instantly? As observed above all information about the original object may be obtained from just one fragment of the pseudoscopic hologram, although definition might be poor as in the earlier TV images. The implication, therefore, is that in the hypothetical bosonic (or anti-matter) phase of existence the history of the universe is encoded in each particle or anti- particle. This is in effect what entanglement is. It is also a property said to exist in what some have called zero point field (The evidence for the existence of the zero point field is reviewed in McTaggart’s recent book “Field”). The sharpness of the three dimensional holographic image that could be obtained in the fermionic (or ordinary matter) phase of existence might, however, be compromised as was the two dimensional image in the earlier TV images. Holographic theory provides, therefore, a rational explanation for Sheldrake’s (Dogs that know when their masters are coming home) morphic field and paranormal phenomena such as telepathy and ghosts. It would seem from this discussion that holographic theory as incorporated into the Alice hypothesis, or modified as mooted above, should satisfy to varying degrees atheists, agnostics, Christians, Islam, Judaism and even those religions believing in reincarnation in some form. Causality would not exist in the bosonic (or antimatter) phase of existence for it would be timeless but that would apply only if that phase of existence were continuous which in terms of the Alice hypothesis it is not. By the same token travel back in time in the bosonic (anti- matter) phase with the hypothetical opportunity of changing history would not be possible for time would not exist, so the military would be satisfied. In a sense, therefore, the marriage of holography and quantum theory was made in heaven. 1. Preface in: Holography for the new millenium. Ludman J, Caulfield HJ, Riccobono J Eds. Springer, New York, 2002 2. Mind-body split: the Alice hypothesis Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7378/1433#28056, 21 Dec 2002 3. .Hawking S. The universe in a nutshell. Bantam Press, London, 2001. 4. Chapline G, Gravik A. Quantum holograms. In: Holography for the new millenium. Ludman J, Caulfield HJ, Riccobono J Eds. Springer, New York, 2002, Chapter 15, pp301-315. 5. Chapline G, Gravik A. Quantum state holography. . In: Holography for the new millenium. Ludman J, Caulfield HJ, Riccobono J Eds. Springer, New York, 2002, Chapter 15.3 6. Chapline G, Gravik A. Entangled states and quantum geometry. . In: Holography for the new millenium. Ludman J, Caulfield HJ, Riccobono J Eds. Springer, New York, 2002, Chapter 15.5 7. McEvoy. Introducing Steven Hawking. Ikon Press Competing interests:   None declared
An unavailing dualism 31 January 2003
David Morgan, Senior Research Fellow University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NY Send response to journal: Re: An unavailing dualism	The correspondence following Bracken and Thomas’ editorial (‘the mind-body split’) demonstrates the case for psychiatrists and psychologists to take philosophy seriously. The legacy of Cartesian dualism which separates mind and body - ‘inner’ (unobservable) processes from ‘external’ (objectively measurable) stuff - has led to intractable problems in medicine and the human sciences. Yet attempts to get rid of this unavailing dualism by reducing mental life to cognitive computations or biological functions involves yet another kind of category mistake. The question is not whether mind is some kind of entity distinct from the body, but what concepts are appropriate for understanding thoughts and feelings and emotional distress. Bracken and Thomas offer a timely reminder that the interpretation of human actions invariably takes place in a context of meaning. That is not to say emotional and cognitive processes cannot be represented by biochemical or computational models, but it does suggest the concepts which render human actions intelligible are logically different from those we use to explain the behaviour of molecules, molluscs or machines. For instance, the significance of Descartes’ famous statement ‘cogito ergo sum’ is not susceptible to biological explanation; its meaning is embedded in a wider discourse of contemporary philosophical debates. Whilst physical processes (eg. writing) are open to mechanistic accounts, such accounts do not explain what is going on or why. Particularly when observed activities appear unfamiliar or strange, explanation involves identifying an intersubjective context of beliefs, assumptions, symbols, conventions and norms that render the activity meaningful to the subject and hence empathetically more understandable to us. Once it is seen that the problem of making sense of thinking, feeling and acting relies upon interpretations of meaning (what Weber called 'verstehen') and not biochemistry and brain scans, the patient’s own account of their experience becomes indispensible in clinical practice and research. David Morgan Senior Research Fellow School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research Competing interests:   None declared
Re: time to move beyond linear physics 16 February 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Re: time to move beyond linear physics	It is right to move beyond linear physics and to consider the influences of biochemical abnormalities in our efforts to understand disorders of the mind. Rational efforts to manage "disorders" of the mind must surely depend upon defining both the physical and the biochemical determinants of "normality". In The Sunday Times on February 9th 2003 "Light Years Ahead" David Smith reported that Joao Magueijo has declared that Einstein was wrong and that the speed of light was much faster at the beginning of the universe immediately after the Big Bang (1). Indeed in his book, which arrived in bookstores at the end of this week, Magueijo suggests that the speed of "liquid" light might have been as fast as 10 to the thirty two km/sec and slowed to 200,000 km/sec over billions of years by which time it had become the "icy" light we have today. In the absence of experimental proof this is a controversial theory for it permits "matter to be created and destroyed". The theory is especially controversial because it violates the first law of thermodynamics, that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Indeed as Magueijo says his theory of variable speed of light (VSL) implies that "is only logical that energy should not be conserved". Indeed he says that his theory predicts that "Every time that the speed of light decreases sharply lamda (Einstein’s cosmological constant) is converted into matter and a Big Bang occurs". Magueijo's VSL theory requires the Einstein's famous formula, E=MC2, be modifed to E=MC2/1 + MC2/Ep After my review of theoretical physics as presented in the popular science literature I concluded that Einstein's theory of "special ... relativity would appear to be flawed by over reliance upon the Lorentz transformation equations and the troublesome infinities that introduces"(2). I also observed that Schrodinger’s wave equation inappropriately included a time function. I added that this was a " persistent source(s) of error in ToE (Theory of Everything) and responsible for some of the more fanciful interpretations of the current embodiment of ToE, which incorporates holographic theory". I formulated the Alice hypothesis to address these deficiencies (2,3,4,5). The Alice hypothesis, which is a modification of Julian Barbour's hypothesis presented in his book "The End of Time"(6), calls for a fermionic orthoscopic holographic phase of existence alternative with a bosonic (waves of energy) pseudoscopic phase of existence at a frequency in the order of an attosecond or less. The orthoscopic is visible, tangible and local but static and the pseudoscopic phase invisible, intangible and universal but timeless. Time elapsed is the sum of that "time" spent in the orthoscopic phase of existence, which is real time, and that spent in the pseudoscopic phase of existence, which might be called what Steven Hawking calls imaginary time. In terms of this hypothesis all movement occurs as waves of energy within the pseuoscopic phase of existence. What I did not appreciate in formulating the Alice hypothesis is that Einstein's theory of special relativity does not permit either energy or matter being created and then destroyed in alternating sequence. Magueijo's theory of VSL does. What is more Magueijo's but not Einstein's theory is compatible with the sequential transformation between orthoscopic and pseudoscopic holograms collectively giving the appearance of movement in a static world as in a movie, as proposed in the Alice hypothesis and illustrated by Julian Barbour's jumping cat Lucy. More importantly it would appear that Magueijo's theory in conjunction with the Alice hypothesis can account for my observations of Nature, submitted elsewhere, whereas Einstein's theory of special relativity cannot. Neither for that matter can quantum theory for that applies to the subatomic world and not the macroscopic world. I am lead to conclude, therefore, that Einstein was indeed wrong or rather not completely correct. Afterall Einstein's theories of special and general relativity improved greatly upon the ability to predict cosmological events with Newtonian physics. There is, however, nothing new under the sun. In 1973 Tiller of Stanford University is said to have written "The radiation or energy coming out of a leaf or human finger tip actually might be coming from whatever was present prior to the formation of solid matter..this….may be another level of substance, producing a hologram, a coherent energy pattern of a leaf which is a force-field or organising matter"(7). It was also reported that there is evidence suggesting that plants might be able to detect what humans are thinking even when miles away. This contraversial observation is consistent with Rupert Sheldrakes concept of a morphic field and morphic resonance and also with the Alice hypothesis. 1. Magueijo J, "Faster than the Speed of Light", William Heinemann, London, 2003. 2. Mind-body split: the Alice hypothesis Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7378/1433#28056, 21 Dec 2002 3. Descartes, Damasio and the astrocentric hypothesis. Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7378/1433#28292, 31 Dec 2002 4. Mind-body split: the Alice hypothesis Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7378/1433#28056, 21 Dec 2002 5. A marriage made in heaven? Richard G Fiddian-Green bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7378/1433#29038, 23 Jan 2003 6. Barbour J. The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Our Understanding of the Universe, The Orion Publishing Group, London, 1999. 7. Tiller WA. In Tompkins and Bird, "The Secret Life of Plants", Harper Rowe, New York, 1973, pp 223. Quoted by: Redfield J, Adrienne C in " The Celestine Prophecy: an Experimental Guide". Bantam Books, London, 1995. Competing interests:   None declared
Nazi redux 19 February 2003
James A. Kliewer, King's Daughters Clinic, Temple, Texas, USA 1905 SW Dodgen Loop, Temple, Texas, USA 76502 Send response to journal: Re: Nazi redux	I thought we killed Hitler, but I guess his ideas of eugenics are alive. You are concocting your philosophy from your own will's notions. This is an abuse of intellective function, since the intellect rightly motivates the will to serve the good. Since your rational meaning for society is defective, possibly you can begin to do meaningful experiments on your body, and thus be of some use for the good. Competing interests:   None declared
Protecting Einstein's reputation with weasel words 3 September 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Protecting Einstein's reputation with weasel words	In the concluding chapters of the penultimate chapter in his very recent (2003) and well written book, "Alpha and omega" (Transworld Publishers, London), Charles Siefe quotes John Carlstrom as having said that "such an observation [spirals in the sky--the signature of gravitational waves] could make or break inflation theory". He also quotes PJE Peebles of Princeton as having said that "gravitational waves might tell us whether inflation is right, or if something else, like the big splat, is". Siefe concludes that "within a decade we may see the face of God". Steven Hawkings had previously suggested that we might see the face of God when we knew the cause of the "Big Bang". The data upon which the validity of the inflationary hypothesis, upon which this eventuality depends, will Charles Siefe writes be established from data that have yet to be gathered from experiments performed at the laser inferometer gravitational wave observatory (LIGO) opened in Washington state in October 2000. If it were ever to be shown that the universe was not expanding the credibility of the "Big Bang" hypothesis would be debunked and the hopes of seeing the face of God lost. Siefe appears to say the very opposite in his footnote and appendix on tired-light. The objection to the inflationary hypothesis he states is the claim that "reddening [the red shift upon which the inflationary theory is based]is due to tired-light [light slowing down as it passes through spacet]rather than objects moving away [as claimed in the inflationary hypothesis]". "The idea [tired-light] has been thoroughly debunked" he concludes thereby seemingly contradiciting the opinion he expressed in the text of his book by implying that the Hubble's inflationary hypothesis is proven. Siefe bases his opinion on tired-light upon two facts. First clocks of distant galaxies are slower because of time dilation. As speed is distance divided by time that should make the speed of old light faster than that of new light for the same distance would appear to have been travelled in a shorter time. Indeed in his recent (2003) book, "Faster than the speed of light" (William Heinemann, London), Joao Magueijo concludes that old light or liquid light as he calls it was very much faster than new light at alpha, the hypothetical origin of the universe. The second fact, upon which Charles Siefe bases his rejection of tired- light, is relativistic abberration which distorts shape. "These two effects", Siefe adds, "apply only to moving and not to stationary objects" as the tired-light hypothesis would have it. The central issue in this difference of opinion would seem to revolve around whether or not theoretical physicists believe Einstein was correct in stating that the speed of light was constant. Siefe evades the issues in stating that it is the fabric of spacetime that is exanding faster than the speed of light [in the inflationary hypothesis]. This, he states, does not violate Einstein's law which "reflects speeds of things along the fabric of spacetime". But entanglement [that is the instant communication between pairs of particles located on opposite sides of the universe] has been verified experimentally since Einstein's death. Furthermore Einstein himself acknowledged that his theory of relativeity would be wrong if entanglement, or "spooky-action-at-a-distance" as he called it, were ever shown to be real for it would mean that it is indeed possible to travel faster than the speed of light. In effect, therefore, Siefe is contradiciting himself in stating in the text of his book that the inflationary hypothesis remains unproven and in his footnote and appendix that the speed of light is constant and Einstein's theories of special and general relativity remain intact. Is Einstein's credibility so important that it is necessary to protect his reputation by disguising its failings with weasel words? This is an important issue vis-a-vis understanding the nature of the body-mind split. If the laws of physics are obscured by the weasel words of the theoretical physicists and popular science writers and the results of experiemts and their translation into new technology is hidden from doctors what hope is there of them understanding the workings of the mind and its pathological disortions? Perhaps it is those privy to classified information and wishing to manage it for political ends that are responsible for the this disinformation. Steven Hawking said as much in discussing time travel in his book "Universe in a nutshell". Competing interests:   None declared
"God is dead": 9 September 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: "God is dead":	1988 was a period of supreme productivity for Nietzsche, the German philosopher born in 1844. His last essay concerned the Anti-christ. He collapsed on the street shortly after it was published and is said to have lost control of his mental faculties. He was just 44 at the time but had apparently suffered from dysentery and had never been free of some degree of ill health. His creativity ceased and he died prematurely 11 years later in 1900. A conflicting account claims that Nietzsche became mentally ill after he had been observed hugging a horse in the street. His landlady added fuel to the fire after watching him though a keyhole and claiming to have seen him dancing naked but alone in his room. Another conflicting account claims that Nietzsche was never ill and he had just pretended to be mentally ill. It is difficult to ascribe a modern psychiatric diagnostic label from these accounts. God is dead, proclaimed Nietzsche, because people realise they invented him. "The God-hypothesis as a notion is utterly without warrent", he claimed, "owing its acceptance only to naivety, error, need, or ulterior motive". But "the death of God is an awful yet exhilerating thought" he asserted. "Awful because we feel abandoned by our .. protector, yet exhilerating because suddenly our world opens to infinity. Anything is now imaginable". "The God outside of man may be dead but the God who is known to live through him and in him is still alive. God is a name for the creative power of man". Certainly the view of God from a religious perspective has been rigidly fixed for millenia and leaves little or no room for speculation and new hypotheses. In declaring God is dead Nietszche was, therefore, opening the door for speculation and invited new hypotheses. Modern physics, space exploration and the Hubbel telescope's dramatic images including the "pillars of creation" have certainly done that. There exists, therefore, an ever increasing conflict between religious dogma and scientific facts. Nietzsche was highly critical of Darwinism claiming that people tended to use it as a source for atheism and that the monkey had replaced God as an object of enquiry. "If evolution has lead to man", he wrote, "why should it stop with man?...Why might there not be an even higher form of life, an Ubermensch [literally meaning above man]as a higher biological type?" Hence his notion of man and a superman, a new species, or a higher caste. "Ubermensch is free of religion", he wrote. [I interpret this as meaning freed from the religion]. "He has not lost it, but reclaimed it for himself". Nietzsche also claimed, however, that Christianity had sapped the will to life. "It is only a symptom of this deterioration, a monumental revolt of the weak against the strong", he wrote. Certainly not words that would have been pleasing to the Church or to most Christians in his day and age. Does that mean he was an atheist or an enlightened theist? Whatever Nietsche himself might have thought decades after this death some Nazis interpreted his thoughts very differently even though Neitzsche himself had been strongly opposed to nationalism. Was Nietzche in effect saying that man must be allowed to evolve into a higher form or caste or was he saying that man had already evolved into a higher life form or caste? If he was saying that man had already evolved into a higher form he would in effect have been saying that he had evidence that he had evolved into that form or caste. But caste is an Indian term. Nietzche's use of the word raises the possibility, therefore, of there being a logical connection between the Nazis and the Indian caste system. The swastika is the mirror image of an ancient Indian sign. The sign may be found at the beginning of some of the earlier editions of Rudyard Kipling's books about India. Why did the Nazis choose it? The circumstances surrounding the aquisition of Nietzsche's mental illness are reminicent of those surrounding Nash's [a beautiful mind]. Nash attributes his recovery from his extended "mental illness", and his rehabilitation culminating in his receipt of a Nobel prize for his work on game theory, to his suppressing or modifying his views so that they were no longer considered politically incorrect. He did not state what these views were. They might, however, have been related to his reconciliation of Einstein's theories and quantum theory. Nash worked with Einstein and had devoted considereable efforts to these issues just before developing his mental illness. This and other seemingly suppressed scientific evidence or interpretation of it, such as that concerning time travel to which Steven Hawking has alluded, suggests that Nietzsche's mental illness might have been voluntary or was imposed upon him. In which case what was it that might have been considered politically incorrect? His views on God and/or Christianity or evidence that an Ubermensche or superman [innate or acquired] already existed? George Bernard Shaw's play, Man and Superman, may have been inspired by Nietzsche's writings (1). 1. Richard G Fiddian-Green This is no George Bernard Shaw comedy. http://bmj.com/cgi/eletters/326/7402/1287#33373, 16 Jun 2003 Competing interests:   None declared
Re: "God is dead": 11 September 2003
Peter Morrell, Hon Research Associate, History of Medicine Staffordshire University, ST4 2DE, UK Send response to journal: Re: Re: "God is dead":	Sir, God is not dead he is only resting! Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it! Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting. [1] [1] dead parrot sketch, Monty Python, 1969 http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/dead-parrot.htm Competing interests:   None declared
Jung's out-of-body experience 26 September 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Jung's out-of-body experience	Jung , who died in 1961, had a pulmonary embolus after he had fractured his ankle and nearly died (1). During this illness he had an out -of-body experience. He himself did not know if it was “a dream or ecstasy”. In his wonderous vision, as he called it, he ascended into the heavens and looking down saw the wide curve of the ocean and seas bathed in a “gloriously blue light”. Later he "discovered how high in space one would have to be to have such an extensive view— altitude was approximately a thousand miles”. The reminder of his wonderous vision, which included him visiting an Hindu temple, was much more fanciful. Jung’s vision of the earth is strikingly similar to the photographic images of the earth taken from space particularly in regards to the blueness. One might argue that Jung’s wonderous vision was in part an image from his memory of a National Geographic photograph of the earth taken by an astronaut. If so why did Jung, or rather the person who told him the altitude he would have to have ben at to have such a vision, say 1000 miles and not 160 miles? Surely the who told him that must have known the altitude at which astronauts have taken their photographs of earth. The answer is clearly not for Jung had his vision in 1944 and had documented it years before the first photographs of earth was taken from space. Yury Gagarin, the Soviet cosmonaught , was the first man to travel into space in 1961. His maximum altitude was just 187 miles. John Glenn was the first US astronaut to travel into space in 1962. The highest he got was 162 miles, much lower than the 1000 miles Jung had been told he would have to have been to have had his wonderous vision of the earth. One possibility is that Jung might have seen photographs of the earth taken by an astronaut but they were top secret photographs. In which case one would have assumed that his wonderous vision was partly the product of his memories. This seems a most unlikely explanation given our understanding of the technology available at the time. Another possibility is that it was known in 1944 how to place someone in space using a space elevtor created out out a beam from a laser or more realistically from eletromagnetic waves on the lines that Clarke has proposed. This too is unlikely given the need for a space suit which was not developed until decades later. Out-of-body experiences have been reported many times since, but none that I have read is as vivid or as credible as that of Jung. In terms of the Alice hypothesis, which postulates that fermionic (ordinary matter) phases of existence alter with bosonic phases (waves of energy), they are bosonic events (2). The bosonic phases of existence are analogous to the cat being in the box, in Schrodinger’s thought experiment, and the fermionic phases being analogous to those seen when the box is opened. In which case a person might exist as a superposition of states anywhere in the universe in the bosonic phases of their existence be they on the ceiling, as hypothetically in my father’s out-of-body experience, and some 160 miles above earth as in Jung’s out-of-body experience. The bosonic phase of existence also appears to be analogous to the timeless values [values in a timeless world], addressed by Lord Dahrendorf in his discussion of the Blair/Schroder paper on the Third Way published in Foreign Affairs. The fermionic phase is analogous to the timely values [values in a timely world]. These terms, timeless and timely, appear to be references to the claims that the bosonic phase of existence is universal and timeless and that the fermionic phase is local and timely. In other words timeless properties apply to an existence as waves of energy extending throughout the universe and timely properties to a static existence as ordinary matter in one location. I have observed, defined, classified and reconfirmed the existence of events that I was unable to explain in terms of my understanding of physics. They can be defined as “paranormal” events but appear to be normal. Hence my formulation of the Alice hypothesis. This in effect states that Julian Barbour’s jumping cat Lucy is a succession of timely Lucys interspersed by a succession of timeless Lucys. Changes in the speed at which Lucy appears to be jumping are the product of timeless events observed and measured in our timely [ordinary] world. [Steven Hawking might consider them events occurring in imaginary as opposed to real time]. A striking feature of these “paranormal” observations in humans is that they seem to be either voluntary or induced by a third party in a manner that achieves precisely co-ordinated events in which those involved are not in the least bit aware of them being “paranormal”. It would appear, therefore, that “paranormal” events might be induced by pathological changes in the brain, such that have occurred in persons having in out-of-body experiences, by volition or be induced by a third party. The latter includes physical actions and might include thoughts and words. If Jung indeed saw the earth from a vantage point is space in what form did he exist when he saw it? It cannot have been as ordinary matter because he would have died in an instant unless protected by a space suit that had yet to be developed. He had to have existed as a conscious wave form. The same applies to my father’s out-of-body experience in which he watched his partners attend to him from a vantage point near the ceiling. If earthy events can be witnessed whilst in a timeless existence might astral projection be a reality? More importantly might teleportation of macroscopic objects be a reality? From my observations the answer to the second question unequivocally “yes”. Causality is a property of the timely world for it is only in the timely world that events can be seen to happen and be measured. Causality cannot be a property of a timeless world because events cannot be seen or measured and are, by definition, timeless unless timelessness a timely property of a timeless world in another dimension. In this case this timeless world might well be a timely property of yet another timeless world and the cycle might be repeated ad infinitum. In which case it is not possible to prove that causality does not exist in a timely world because we see it every day. Neither is it possible to conclude that causality does not exist in a timeless world because the probability of it not existing will tend to zero as the number of hypothetical cycles and dimensions in which it might exist increases. It is never statistically correct to claim that treatments have no effect or that there is no difference in the effects of treatments for although the probability might tend to zero it too can never reach zero (3). If causality exists and cannot be proven not to exist it is irrational to be an atheist. Being an agnostic is not an intelligent option as argued in a recent issue of a popular British journal of Philosophy. Being a theist is the only rational option even if in claiming to be a theist a person were to claim that he/she were the Son of God. Given the little the authors of the New Testament are likely to have known of modern physics some of their claims are remarkably apt. “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost” (Corinthians Ch 5, v7). “The kingdom of God is within you” (St Luke Ch 17, v1). “When two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (St Matthew Ch18,v20). These and other Biblical quotations could easily have been referring to a timeless existence, or the effects of what Jung has called a collective conscious, Sherrington called a has called a spiritual pool or words to that effect, and what Sheldrake has called a morphic field. I have no doubt that the same applies to selected quotations from other religious texts. As Jung was unable to determine whether he had a “dream or ecstasy” might a psychoanalyst, psychologist or psychiatrist have done so? Not if they did not appreciate the possibility that he might have indeed seen the earth from space whilst in a timeless form. Might then he have indeed visited an Hindu temple in an astral form? It is not possible to answer that question with the same confidence because there must undoubtedly have been visions of Hindu temples amongst his memories. 1. A life of Jung. Ronald Hayman, Bloomsbury, 1995. 2. Richard G Fiddian-Green Body-mind split and brain death http://bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7378/1433#28128, 23 Dec 2002 3. Phil Alderson and Iain Chalmers Research pointers: Survey of claims of no effect in abstracts of Cochrane reviews BMJ, Mar 2003; 326: 475. Competing interests:   None declared
Mind-body split: genetic considerations 23 October 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Mind-body split: genetic considerations	It is difficult to imagine how the genes present in the ovum and spermatazoum that fertilises it or first cells forming the morula can dictate just when an animal’s limbs will stop growing let alone how it will look and behave. It is also difficult to explain with our current understanding of genetics how identical twins can have such different personalities. It is especially difficult to explain in terms of gentic inheritance the findings in the classic studies on flatworms [genus plantaria], performed by Morgan in 1901, reviewed by Rupert Sheldrake’s recent book “ The sense of being started at”, and the migration of Monarch butterflies. Morgan found that when he cut a flatworm in half the tail grew a head and the head grew a tail forming two new worms. When instead he divided the worm longitudinally one whole worm was formed. The Monarch butterflies migrate up and down the American coast returning to their origin but after the passage of several generations. To explain these phenomena it is necessary to ascribe a paranormal quality, precognition, to DNA. Whilst this may be untenable in terms of conventional physics it can be easily explained in terms of the Alice hypothesis (1). This hypothesis proposes that a timeless, bosonic (waves of energy extending throughout the universe) form of existence alternates with a timely fermionic (static phase of existence consisting of ordinary matter) form of existence in the order of once every attosecond. Whilst in the timeless form there is no distinction between past, present and future. The timely form, in which DNA exists, exists in the present only. Thus precognition is the norm in the timeless bosonic form but not possible in the timely fermionic form of existence. The evolutionary cosmologists would have us believe that energy density, or an energy density rate [bosons], preceded the development of ordinary matter [fermions]. They would further have us believe that the amount of energy density in the universe has decreased steadily since the Big bang and that the amount of ordinary matter has increased. In which case a timeless bosonic phase of existence may have preceded, and therefore determined, the timely fermionic phase of existence encoded in DNA. In other words all the information present in an adult is encoded within the timeless, bosonic phase of existence from conception. Additionally all of the deficiencies in the conventional understanding of genetic inheritance listed above, including the difference in personally in identical twins, may be explained in terms of the Alice hypothesis. Jung proposed that the collective unconscious might be genetically determined. In which case the personal unconscious, and the consciousness actions Libet’s studies suggested it might dictate, is acquired from interactions with others and with the environment in the course of aging. In which case Descartes mind-body split is an integral part of understanding the psyche and its pathological perturbations. 1. Richard G Fiddian-Green Mind-body split: the Alice hypothesis http://bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7378/1433#28056, 21 Dec 2002 Competing interests: None declared
Alice hypothesis: gravitational implications 15 November 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Alice hypothesis: gravitational implications	Whilst the mass of an object is said to be constant the weight of that object is said to change with gravity, a man weighing less in space than on earth. If the basic principle underlying the Alice hypothesis (1), that a fermionic (ordinary matter) state alternates with a bosonic (waves or energy) state about once every attosecond, this thinking will have to be revised . Power may be increased either by increasing the amount of energy being delivered to, for example, lift a boulder or by reducing the time in which the energy is applied. Of these two ways the latter has infintely greater potential to increase power than the former (2). The implication is that the same applies to mass for Einstein's equation states that E=MC2. In which case the mass density rate of the boulder would be the same as its weight if the basic principle underlying the Alice hypothesis were valid. The mass density rate would, in these circumstances, have to increase in accordance with the laws of gravity in direct proportion with the product of the mass of the boulder and the mass of the earth and in indirect proportion with the square of the distance between them. The mass density rate would also be expected to decrease in proportion with the absolute temperature for as absolute zero is approached liquid gases defy gravity by flowing out of their containers. Defining quantum gravity is one of the remaining obstacles in search for the elusive Theory of Everything, a theory which Steven Hawking believes will have to include some exotic modification of the laws of thermodynamics (3). Might including the effects of changing mass density rate in accordance with the Alice hypothesis help to overcome some of the remaining obstacles? 1. Patrick Bracken and Philip Thomas Time to move beyond the mind- body split BMJ 2002; 325: 1433-1434 (Electronic responses). 2. Mourou GA, Umstadter D. Extreme light. Scientific American updated from May 2002, pp77-83. 3. Steven Hawking. The universe in a nutshell. Bantam Press, London, 2001. Competing interests: None declared
Alice hypothesis: a violation of Newtonian physics? 21 November 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Alice hypothesis: a violation of Newtonian physics?	Unlike mass, which is not a function of gravity, weight is. Thus whilst the mass of an object is that same on the moon as it is on earth the weight is not, the object in question being lighter on the moon than it is on earth. Mass possesses inertia, that is the force require to get it moving. In terms of Newtonian physics the inertia of the mass of an object should be the same on the moon as it is on earth. The Alice hypothesis suggests otherwise. The Alice hypothesis proposes that a fermionic [ordinary matter] phase of existence alternates with a bosonoinc [waves of energy] phase in the order of once every attosecond, that is some 10 to the eighteen times a second. If this hypothesis and Einstein's equation, E=MC2, are valid then within each second of time elapsed for each mass: E.t1+ MC2.t2 = constant where E is energy present in each bosonic phase of existence and M the mass present in the fermionic phase of existence and n t1 is the number of times E appears each second and t2 the number of times M appears each second. If then an amount of energy, Y, were to be applied to the object for a period of t3 within each second to move it E.t1 would increase to E.t1+Y.t3 to fulfill the reqirements of the first law of thermodynamics [conservation of energy]and M would be reduced proportionately to MC2 (t2- t3). As the weight of the object in question is equal to Mg, where g is the gravitational constant, the weight of the object would be reduced from M.t2.g to M(t2-t3).g. In other words the weight of the moving object would be less than that of the stationary object. In the absence of gravity the weight would be reduced from M.t2 to M.(t2-t3) and the energy or force required to move it horizontally would be reduced proportionately. This would be a violation of Newtonian physics. From my observations of life in space, which is limited to photographs and television clips, it is much easier to move large objects, such as the Hubble telescope or a satellite, horizontally than it is on earth. If this is true then the Newtonian concept of inertia is false. The observation would, however, be consistent with the Alice hypothesis and would provide support for the proposal that weight is a gravitational function of mass density rate rather than mass alone. Competing interests: None declared
The Aztec "sacred visions" evoked by human sacrifice. 4 December 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: The Aztec "sacred visions" evoked by human sacrifice.	Like the Incas, the Aztecs, sacrificed many young and old. The earlier Spanish chroniclers claim that thousands were sometimes sacrificed in a day. Theconventional understanding of these sacrifices is of victims being laid out on a stone and having their hearts cut out whilst still alive. A terrifying thought. Why would a ruler allow so many healthy people young and old to be sacrificed? What a waste of precious manpower. How could a ruler remain in power without losing the support of his peoples if he had so many sacrificed so often? It transpires that autosacrifice was practiced by severing an artery. The appeal of autosacrifrice appears to have been that it induced "sacred visions" (1). If, as would appear from the discussion in these electonic responses, vivid dreams, visions, near-death and out-of-body experiences are different manifestation of different degrees of impairment of cerebral tissue oxygenation the "sacred visions" might have included these manifestations. In which case victims might have been able to relate to bystanders not only the content of their "sacred visions" but also that of near-death and out-of body experiences for these have also been experienced by persons who are meditating or simply asleep. Its an appealing hypothesis because it would account for the apparently irrational behaviour of the Aztec and Inca communities at the time. One feature of these mental states, which may also be induced by hypnosis and pharmacological means, is sensory loss and even the loss of appreciation of pain. Indeed the pharmacological effects of alcohol, recreational drugs and more recently anesthetic agents have been exploited to enable painful procedures to be performed on patients. Many patients have, however, reported having been aware of what is going on during modern operations. They have reported conversations and even an awareness of the surgeon pulling but surprisingly few have complained of pain even though the experinces have usually been frightening for them. As some point in autosacrifice the victim would lose sensation and their appreciation of pain making it possible, if still conscious, for someone to perform an operation on them and even remove their heart without them complaining. How much of the sacred experiences a victim, possible prepared with some form of drug, could relate to bystanders in these circumstances is anyone's guess. With the enormous experience gained it is possible, however, that those performing the sacrifices had learned to optimise any articulation of the "sacred" experiences for the benefit of bystanders. Another practice of the Aztecs was exo-caniballism, the eating of parts of enemies, and endo-cannibalism, the consumption of parts of relatives ground up and inserted into drinks. The purpose of the former was to benefit from the power, prowess, accomplishments and skills of the person being consumed. In this context the details of a paper published in the Scientific American decades ago are of interest. As I recall flatworms were taught to respond to stimuli and having learned to respond to the stimuli were killed and an extract containing RNA prepared and given to untrained worms to consume. It was reported that the untrained worms had acquired the skills of the trained worms from which the extract had been obtained. If so there is a rational scientific basis for cannibalism. Kosher and Halal meat is prepared by bleeding animals to death. The practice raises the possibility that the human sacrifices performed by Jews before the birth of Christ might have employed the same means for the same purposes. Christianity has incorporated many aspects of these sacrificial practices into their liturgy and protocols. They take bread and wine when taking communion in rememberance of Christ as instructed by him before his crucifiction. Roman Catholics believe that the bread and wine they consume during communion actually changes into Christ's body and blood (trans-substantiation). Protestants do not. Might Christ and/or the early Christians have intended to stop people performing human sacrifices and even autosacrifices with the intent of having spiritual experiences? Christianity, and indeed western civilisation, has condemned suicide. Might the Christians who outlawed suicide have been aware of the large numbers of Aztecs and Incas apparently willing to sacrifice themselves and wished to avoid the same happening to Christians? Whatever the motives there is a distinct possibility that the Aztecs, Incas and even the early Jews might have been very familar with a dissociation between the mind and body that, contrary to Braken and Thomas's assertion, appears to be increasingly real. 1. Jones DM. Mythology of the Aztecs and Maya. Southwater, London, 2003. up to be sacrificed. like the Incas Competing interests: None declared
Special relativity and the body-mind split 12 December 2003
Richard G Fiddian-Green, None None Send response to journal: Re: Special relativity and the body-mind split	Understanding inertia would seem to be central to establishing whether the hypothetical Cartesian mind-body split is false, as Braken and Thomas claim, or true as proposed in the Alice hypothesis. Inertia is the amount of force required to get a mass moving, that amount of force being greater than the amount needed to keep it moving and giving it momentum. Before Einstein's theory of special relativity the momentum of a moving object (p) was thought to be equal to m (mass).V(velocity) and E=Eo +1/2mv2, where Eo=rest energy. In special relativity adjustments are made for an increase in Mo (mass at rest) which is said to be equal to E/C2 where C is the speed of light, which is said to be constant in a vacuum. When speeds are very small relative to the speed of light, and that includes all speeds on earth and even in space travel, Lorentz transformation simplify Galilean formulas and the laws of Newtonian physics hold sway. As the speed of light is approached, however, the mass of an object is predicted in terms of Einstein's theory of special relativity to increase exponentially to infinity. To the best of my knowledge the proposal in special relativity that mass increases in proportion to the amount of energy being applied to it has not been verified for the simple reason that it has not been possible to increase the speed of an object to the levels necessary for a significant increase in mass to be detected. From a lay perspective the mass of the space shuttles, satellites and even Gallileo would appear to have remained exactly the same. In any event the notion of a mass increasing to infintity as it approached the speed of light is contrary to any observation in Nature. "The Alice hypothesis proposes that a fermionic [ordinary matter] phase of existence alternates with a bosonoinc [waves of energy] phase in the order of once every attosecond, that is some 10 to the eighteen times a second. If this hypothesis and Einstein's equation, E=MC2, are valid then within each second of time elapsed for each mass: E.t1+ MC2.t2 = constant where E is energy present in each bosonic phase of existence and M the mass present in the fermionic phase of existence and n t1 is the number of times E appears each second and t2 the number of times M appears each second". In addressing the problem of inertia in terms of the Alice hypothesis it was concluded that "the weight of the moving object would be less than that of the stationary object". "If then", it was added in earlier communications on this subject, "an amount of energy, Y, were to be applied to the object for a period of t3 within each second to move it E.t1 would increase to E.t1+Y.t3 to fulfill the requirements of the first law of thermodynamics [conservation of energy]and M would be reduced proportionately to MC2 (t2- t3)". This conclusion is in direct violation of Einstein's special theory of relativity but would appear to be the more rational alternative. In terms of the Alice hypothesis all movement occurs at the speed of light in the intermittent bosonic phases of existence. If it is assumed that the speed of light is constant in a vacuum as the theory of special relativity proposes then speed is in terms of the Alice hypothesis a function of the proportion of time spent in the bosonic phases of existence during the course of a second and will approach the speed of light exponentially as the energy-density-rate increases towards unity and the mass-density-rate decreases to zero. The mass of an object would, however, remain exactly the same but should become invisable as the proportion of time spent in the fermionic phases of existence decreased to zero. Although the mass should remain the same during each fermionic phase of exsistence the weight would not, for it might decrease in proportion with the reduction in mass-density-rate. Contrary to what I suggested earlier the inertia of an object would remain the same in space as it is on earth unless its mass-density-rate were reduced by energy other than that being applied to move it. In terms of the Alice hypothesis the momentum of an object is an illusion created by a succession of static fermionic images, much as Julian Barbour has proposed. Inertia is the amount of energy required to decrease the mass-density-rate to a degree that gives it momentum relative to the position on earth or space from which it is being moved. This conclusion evades the unreal notion of the mass of a moving object increasing to infinity as the speed of the object approached the speed of light as proposed in special relativity. If the Cartesian mind-body split is false as Braken and Thomas claim the mass of a moving body should approach infinity as its speed approaches the speed of light. If it is true as proposed in the Alice hypothesis then the mass should remain the same until it became invisible. Competing interests: None declared