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The Soul of the Matter – A letter to Scientific American 10/08/07
By Glenn Kreisberg
Given Scientific American’s recent issue featuring stories covering the future of space exploration and the future exploration of our consciousness, it might be interesting to contemplate how at some point in the near future these two lines of exploration may converge. How, one might ask, could future research in these two apparently very different fields of science overlap? And the question might be answered with one word; electromagnetism.
In How Consciousness Happens?, the approach taken by both authors, professors Koch and Greenfield, is similar in that it considers the brain and its physiological makeup to be the singular source of our consciousness without considering a source might also come from outside our brain; from the space in which we all live. Recent research has shown that minute changes in ambient electromagnetic field strength can have a profound affect on our consciousness and that an absence of EM patterns and signals has been shown to diminish and compromise our state of consciousness. When delving into this subject we must remember our brains are not just transmitters of brain waves but act equally as transceivers capable of transmitting and receiving signals that co-mingle with ambient EM fields.
CEMI (conscious electromagnetic information) field theory proposes that when certain high level brain functions take place, the sharing of information between different parts of the brain may occur outside our brain through a highly complex, yet very weak electromagnetic field existing just outside our heads: The brains own generated EM field.
CEMI was proposed by Johnjoe McFadden, who published two articles on the theory in the Journal of Consciousness Studies and subsequently several other researchers have also recently proposed that brain EM fields are the substrate of consciousness, including: Dr. Susan Pockett, University of Auckland and E. Roy John, NYU Medical Centre, New York. (For more on CEMI see http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/cemi.htm )
Now, what does the future of space exploration have to do with all this? Well, another theory that’s gaining acceptance, base on a growing body of emerging scientific evidence, is that the Sun has a relatively nearby stellar object acting as a binary partner (see www.binaryresearchinstitute.com) This object would draw our solar system on a path that takes it through different local regions of our galaxy exposing us to changes in our ambient EM environment which, in fact, affects our state of consciousness. And, it may turn out that the interaction between our brains EM field and our ambient EM environment is a constituent component of consciousness itself. In other words, a physical brain existing without the presence on an EM field may not be capable of generating consciousness any more than an EM environment without a brain would be expected to.
However, the last part of that statement may hold the key to one of the, if not THE greatest mystery of humankind; does consciousness continue to exist after the physical body passes? And, of course, if it could be shown that our consciousness does continue to exist as part of the EM energy spectrum, without our material brain present, then it can be argued our conscious existence continues on after we’re physically gone from this physical world. I think that’s a hope every human being would like to hang their hat on.
So, as both your articles concede, there’s far more we don’t know than do when it comes to the exploration of outer space and the inner space of our mind, and nothing should be ruled out or overlooked, including that the source of human consciousness may come as much from outside our minds, as from within.
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