Questioning Consciousness

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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby Burnt Hill » Sat Jan 13, 2018 8:02 pm

All Your Memories Are Stored by One Weird, Ancient Molecule
We actually borrowed our ability to form memories from viruses.

By Peter Hess on January 11, 2018

How does memory work? The further we seem to dive in, the more questions we stumble upon about how the function of memory first evolved. Scientists made a key breakthrough with the identification of the Arc protein in 1995, observing how its role in the plastic changes in neurons was critical to memory consolidation.


This protein is already a big deal, but the Arc picture just got a lot more interesting. In a study published Thursday in the journal Cell, a team of researchers at the University of Utah, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, argue that Arc took its place in the brain as a result of a random chance encounter millions of years ago. Similar to how scientists say the mitochondria in our cells originated as bacteria that our ancient ancestors’ cells absorbed, the Arc protein seems to have started as a virus.

arc “infects” host cells
Much as a virus infects host cells, Arc can deliver genetic material to brain cells.
The researchers knew they were onto something when they captured an image of Arc that looked an awful lot like a viral capsid, the isohedral protein coat that encapsulates a virus’s genetic material for delivery to host cells during infection.

“At the time, we didn’t know much about the molecular function or evolutionary history of Arc,” says study coauthor Jason Shepherd, an assistant professor of neurobiology, anatomy, biochemistry, and ophthalmology at the University of Utah, in a statement. Shepherd has studied Arc for 15 years. “I had almost lost interest in the protein, to be honest. After seeing the capsids, we knew we were onto something interesting.”


The main issue that challenges neuroscientists’ understanding of memory is that proteins don’t last very long in the brain, even though memories last nearly a lifetime. So for memories to remain, there must be plastic changes, meaning that neuron structures actually have to change as a result of memory consolidation.

This is where Arc comes into play. Previous research on rats illustrated how Arc disrupts memory consolidation, suggesting that Arc is vital in neuronal plasticity.


But scientists never thought they would stumble on evidence that pointed to a viral origin for Arc, as these new findings suggest.

The research team needed to verify this theory, so they tested whether Arc actually acts like a virus. It turns out the Arc capsid encapsulated its own RNA. When they put the Arc capsids into a mouse brain cell culture, the capsids transferred their RNA to the mouse brain cells — just like viral infection does.


“We went into this line of research knowing that Arc was special in many ways, but when we discovered that Arc was able to mediate cell-to-cell transport of RNA, we were floored,” says the study’s lead author, postdoctoral fellow Elissa Pastuzyn, Ph.D., in a statement. “No other non-viral protein that we know of acts in this way.”

The researchers suspect this virus-mammal collaboration happened sometime between 350 and 400 million years ago when a retrotransposon — the ancestor of modern retroviruses — got its DNA into a four-legged creature. They also suspect that this happened more than once. If they’re right, this research complicates the picture of the evolution of life as we know it. Not only did many mutations happen by random chance to make us what we are today, but we actually borrowed biology from other cells and organisms to get here. A little bit of their history lives on in us today.

Abstract: The neuronal gene Arc is essential for long-lasting information storage in mammalian brain, mediates various forms of synaptic plasticity, and has been implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders. However, little is known about Arc’s molecular function and evolutionary origins. Here, we show that Arc self-assembles into virus-like capsids that encapsulate RNA. Endogenous Arc protein is released from neurons in extracellular vesicles that mediate the transfer of Arc mRNA into new target cells, where it can undergo activity-dependent translation. Purified Arc capsids are endocytosed and are able to transfer Arc mRNA into the cytoplasm of neurons. These results show that Arc exhibits similar molecular properties of retroviral Gag proteins. Evolutionary analysis indicates that Arc is derived from a vertebrate lineage of Ty3/gypsy retrotransposons, which are also ancestors to retroviruses. These findings suggest that Gag retroelements have been repurposed during evolution to mediate intercellular communication in the nervous system.


https://www.inverse.com/article/40113-arc-protein-ancient-mouse-brain-rna-capsid
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby Elvis » Sun Jan 14, 2018 3:21 am

dada wrote:the seat of consciousness is the heart, not the brain.


I, um...think...there is something to this, and will try to add some relevant articles later.

But consider this: When referring to ourselves in conversation, we might point at ourselves:

"Oh who cares?" shrugs one person.

"I care!" you reply, emphatically pointing your index finger at your chest—at your heart.


We don't point at our brain to identify ourselves, to assert selfhood—we point at our heart. Weird, huh.

And speaking of memories, it seems the heart has memory. More later if I can manage it.
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby Burnt Hill » Sun Jan 14, 2018 11:40 am

“The heart, like the mind, has a memory. And in it are kept the most precious keepsakes.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby BenDhyan » Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:23 am

Resonates with what I consider my consciousness.... :)

“Advanced Life May Exist in a Form That’s Beyond Matter” Astrophysicists Claim

Astrophysicist Paul Davies at Arizona State University suggests that advanced technology might not even be made of matter. That it might have no fixed size or shape; have no well-defined boundaries. Is dynamical on all scales of space and time. Or, conversely, does not appear to do anything at all that we can discern. Does not consist of discrete, separate things; but rather it is a system, or a subtle higher-level correlation of things.

Are matter and information, Davies asks, all there is? Five hundred years ago, Davies writes, ” the very concept of a device manipulating information, or software, would have been incomprehensible. Might there be a still higher level, as yet outside all human experience, that organizes electrons? If so, this “third level” would never be manifest through observations made at the informational level, still less at the matter level.

We should be open to the distinct possibility that advanced alien technology a billion years old may operate at the third, or perhaps even a fourth or fifth level -all of which are totally incomprehensible to the human mind at our current state of evolution.

Susan Schneider of the University of Pennsylvania appears to agree. She is one of the few thinkers—outside the realm of science fiction— that have considered the notion that artificial intelligence is already out there, and has been for eons. Her study, Alien Minds, asks “How would intelligent aliens think? Would they have conscious experiences? Would it feel a certain way to be an alien?”

While we are aware that our culture is anthropomorphizing, Schneider imagines that her suggestion that aliens are supercomputers may strike us as far-fetched. So what is her rationale for the view that most intelligent alien civilizations will have members that are superintelligent AI?

Schneider presents offer three observations that support her conclusion for the existence of alien superintelligence.

The first is “the short window observation”: Once a society creates the technology that could put them in touch with the cosmos, they are only a few hundred years away from changing their own paradigm from biology to AI. This “short window” makes it more likely that the aliens we encounter would be postbiological.

The short window observation is supported by human cultural evolution, at least thus far. Our first radio signals date back only about a hundred and twenty years, and space exploration is only about fifty years old, but we are already immersed in digital technology.

Schneider’s second argument is “the greater age of alien civilizations.” Proponents of SETI have often concluded that alien civilizations would be much older than our own “…all lines of evidence converge on the conclusion that the maximum age of extraterrestrial intelligence would be billions of years, specifically [it] ranges from 1.7 billion to 8 billion years.

If civilizations are millions or billions of years older than us, many would be vastly more intelligent than we are. By our standards, many would be super-intelligent. We are galactic babies. But would they be forms of AI, as well as forms of super-intelligence? Schneider says, yes. Even if they were biological, merely having biological brain enhancements, their super-intelligence would be reached by artificial means, and we could regard them as being “artificial intelligence.”

But she suspects something stranger than this: that they will not be carbon-based. Uploading allows a creature near immortality, enables reboots, and allows it to survive under a variety of conditions that carbon-based life forms cannot. In addition, silicon appears to be a better medium for information processing than the brain itself. Neurons reach a peak speed of about 200 Hz, which is seven orders of magnitude slower than current microprocessors.

http://www.corespirit.com/advanced-life-may-exist-form-thats-beyond-matter-astrophysicists-claim/
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby dada » Thu Jan 18, 2018 4:30 pm

I can't help but notice that it isn't very logical or reasonable to question consciousness using logic and reason. If we are truly and persistently logical and reasonable, we can't help but inevitably run smack into the illogical and unreasonable, or the infinite, or we just go around in circles.

"Who is consciousness?" is an endless "and who is that? and who is that?" What is consciousness? And what is that? And what is that? If we're logical, reasonable, and honest, we have to admit that we aren't going to get anywhere on that line. It's endless, like a fractal. An interesting excercise and pretty to look at, but we won't find an answer to our question.

Where and when is consciousness? In the universe, in time. So we guess, at least. And where and when is that. We don't know. No frame of reference. Even if we find a frame of reference, where and when is that? Another infinity, another eternity, another dead end.

How does consciousness work? The how chain leads to 'how does everything, everything,' or anything, anything. We're demanding of our hows that they describe processes on scales so grand and small that the laws of physics break down. Language, logic and reason soon follow. The answers we come up with make no "sense."

Finally, why is consciousness conscious. What's the meaning of meaning. What's the concept of this piece. The old ontological question. We're children, asking their endless "why? why? why?" Foolish, proud children with college degrees. Go to sleep, kid.

Should we question consciousness illogically and unreasonably? Why is a mouse when it spins, or a raven like a writing desk? Perhaps, perhaps. But I prefer the kind of questioning that is silent. Like the posture that says 'bullshit.' Folded arms, pursed lips turned up on one side. The dead stare that wins the battle of wills and elicits a response.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Fri Jan 19, 2018 9:36 am

I agree with your assessment of the problems. Perhaps we're looking at the question from an awkward point of view. My opinion is we should be looking within for the answer instead of outward, because this is where we are experiencing consciousness. The other problem may be thinking of events happening on a time line, but I have a strong intuitive feeling that there is no such thing apart from what we believe we are experiencing. I apologize that I don't have an adequate means of explaining my concepts which is a drawback of intuitive thinking, at least in my case. Difficult to translate into language. No wonder many ancient thinkers came to the conclusion that physical existence is an illusion created by consciousness and that consciousness (or the mind of god) is all there is. And, in that case, could we ever define it or determine it's origins? Why are some of us so driven to understand the nature of our reality? :shrug:
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby dada » Mon Jan 22, 2018 4:10 pm

Pele'sDaughter » Fri Jan 19, 2018 8:36 am wrote: Why are some of us so driven to understand the nature of our reality? :shrug:


I've been letting this question work in me for the last few days, and have come no closer to an answer than I was when I started. This in itself makes it a worthwhile exercise, in my opinion. Sitting with questions that have no answer creates inner tension, leading to frustration. This is not a bad thing, to me. It's the starting gate.

I think it's one thing to understand intellectually that we are inseparable from the universe, and another to understand it in the sense of 'feeling it in the marrow of one's bones.' The burning drive some of us have to understand, is the drive to feel this, to experience it, be it. Anyone with half a brain is casually interested in ultimate questions of life, death, meaning, and the like, but they don't put them high on their list of priorities. Others set themselves to these questions at the expense of all else. These 'others' approach truth in many different ways; religiously, scientifically, philosophically, Hegeliciously. The methods are different, yet they're all on the same path. Again, I'm no closer to an answer, here. I'm only trying to flesh out the question a bit.

I think it has something to do with critical thinking, and bravery. On the casual level, critical thinking is a style, a consumer brand, a way to 'win friends and influence people.' When one summons the courage to turn critical thinking back on itself, it opens up a space for something to grow. Perhaps what grows, pushes up against our boundaries. At our boundaries, we catch a fleeting glimpse of what is beyond. This flash of awareness fires up our drive, is what invites us to rearrange our priorities, putting 'unity with the absolute,' or whatever we want to call it, at the top of the list. One taste is all it takes, and we're hooked.

Still doesn't get us any closer to an answer. The question changes to, 'why do some have the drive to think critically about thinking critically, and the courage to do it?' This reminds of something AD suggests in the 'right hand of occupy wall street' thread, that perhaps a revolutionary moment was flooded with mind-drugs to get people to become self-absorbed, push them toward ineffective action. I would suggest that psychedelic drugs wouldn't cause this without something already present in people's mind-set (set and setting). Self-absorption and a tendency to ineffective action must already be present in those who become self-absorbed and ineffective. This leads me to non-rational speculation on things like reincarnation, levels of harmonic laws and soul-development. This is dangerous territory, and I want to be very careful I don't make a wrong turn.

Here, I'm reminded of something I posted in the 'Person and Persona' thread, Jung talking about 'the uncanny power of conviction.' Why is anyone driven to do anything? I suggest it's because they don't question this uncanny power of conviction critically. That's the spot we're we make a wrong turn. Social acceptance, addictions, procreation, approval/disapproval of one's parents, the destruction of an enemy, the love of a muse, the drive to make art and utter prophecy, all pull at us with uncanny power. At the place where critical thinking goes out the window is exactly where it's needed most. Instead, we give in to the uncanny power, letting the inner tension go slack.

I apologize for the 'going nowhereness' of this post. I guess I'm typing it in a spirit of experiment, since I suspect frustrating dialogue with no answers may be the right track.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby The Consul » Mon Jan 22, 2018 4:44 pm

The fish comes out of the fish. The frog is known to eat himself.
The horde they say changed the course of a river.
The soul fries at the sight of a billion suns. We are nothing but sky.
Yesterday in front of me, going over a bridge, a dog dropped his coat.
And I gave it back to his master who was lost.
The water was dark and slow. The clouds furled over the naked trees.
Black Elk said on the mountain he knew the mountain was the center of the universe
And in the quiet of the morning it is apparent the mountain is everywhere

Artwise, for me, nothing comes closer than this
" Morals is the butter for those who have no bread."
— B. Traven
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby Sounder » Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:42 pm

dada wrote...
Here, I'm reminded of something I posted in the 'Person and Persona' thread, Jung talking about 'the uncanny power of conviction.' Why is anyone driven to do anything? I suggest it's because they don't question this uncanny power of conviction critically. That's the spot we're we make a wrong turn. Social acceptance, addictions, procreation, approval/disapproval of one's parents, the destruction of an enemy, the love of a muse, the drive to make art and utter prophecy, all pull at us with uncanny power. At the place where critical thinking goes out the window is exactly where it's needed most. Instead, we give in to the uncanny power, letting the inner tension go slack.


People seem prone to adopting 'imperatives', it simplifies things, perhaps as a path to social acceptance, perhaps also as a way to maintain a self-righteous stance towards the external world. Either way imperatives are a bit like ideologies where they frame all thinking, thereby spoiling attempts at 'critical thinking'.

Still, picking imperatives may be instinctual so if we were more careful in our picking, maybe things can still yet work out, relatively speaking.

My vote is to suggest that humanity must and will shift away from a split model of reality and toward a continuum based model.
Last edited by Sounder on Tue Jan 23, 2018 6:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby DrEvil » Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:50 pm

Any chance you could explain in a bit more detail what you mean by split model of reality? Some quick googling and vague memories of things you might have said before lead me to think it's something like reality being split between the spiritual and the material, and you think we need to reconcile those two?
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby minime » Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:47 am

DrEvil » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:50 pm wrote:Any chance you could explain in a bit more detail what you mean by split model of reality? Some quick googling and vague memories of things you might have said before lead me to think it's something like reality being split between the spiritual and the material, and you think we need to reconcile those two?


Where have you been?

Sounder on the split model of reality...

Meanwhile though, great insult is heaped upon the ‘spiritual’ impulse by charlatans that commoditize (relatively) more refined impressions through the same old sieve of Dualism. The result, in my opinion, is a set of institutions on one side that is trying to ‘freeze’ the spiritual into the physical, while on the other side are forces that are trying to ‘split’ the ‘spiritual from the physical.

The void is only unfillable in the context of a split model of reality. Art plays a role in trying to ‘stuff the gap’, but as long as the gap is a feature of culture it will never be filled. The answer then is to collapse the gap by declaring allegiance to a model of reality (nature) that takes as its initial assumption the notion that the spiritual (subtle realms) and the physical are fundamentally the same thing.

From my POV a key element here is that the elite or the PTMB recognizes the how, why and wherefore of the maintenance of our split model of reality, while the rest of us do not understand the value of or how to integrate various layers of our psyche. (We play checkers while they play three-D chess).

OK, my basic theme lo these past seven years has been to assert; The power elite has learned through long experience that by imposing double binds, usually in the form of some variation of; ‘I am God, -you shut the fuck up’, will result in fractured psyches where most of our energy is spent trying to heal a split, that is a product of the pretzel logic required to live with the imposed double bind. Many then think it’s not worth it to create a conscious model that rearranges our unconscious drivers because exposure of our part in this play is too embarrassing to bear.

So my hypothesis is not mystic or even that complicated. It is simply to say; the power elite maintain their position by cultivating fractured psyches among the general population and conversely, by finding ways to integrate the different layers of our psyches, we do our proper and obligatory part to undermine false power and to re-place that power to where it belongs, which is the individual psyche.

Healthy now because it is willing to embrace the shadow.

Well that, but also because our ‘split’ modeling of reality greatly limits potential correspondences between categories. While the preceding might be thought of as obscurantist, my intention is allow others to do their own thinking. A fair measure of usefulness for a model is number and depth of the connections (correspondences) between our categories. We make sport of mocking some sub-models, but spend little time looking for (inherent) flaws of our own model.

Because a central element of my modeling is in using a continuum rather than split model, (where one class of elements has extension and another class has no extension), I tend to advocate for horizontal authority distribution systems and a many voices approach for looking at big issues.

My opinion is that élites have quite naturally created and support a vertical authority distribution system, because that is what (they think) makes them what they are. This process is facilitated through the suppressing of ‘enthusiasm’, or each individual’s potential connection to his/her genius. The split model of reality that we all function within also places our Source far away, or nonexistent even for the modern man.

When schismatic types did try to break away, as with the Romantics for instance, the rebels still maintained a sharp distinction between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’. They were so deeply imprinted by our split model of reality that they retained the very element that needs to be rejected in order to be a rebel in substance, rather than being a rebel merely in form.

Fear of the other is produced in spades by a split-model of reality. Indeed, this model is about objects with hard boundary conditions, an artifact of the system that makes analysis more convenient.

We created and accepted a split model of reality because we thought it would bring needed control over the physical world. Yet the bouncing baby has grown into a monster because it can never get enough to eat.

The split model of reality will be superseded by a continuum model.
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby Sounder » Tue Jan 23, 2018 7:04 am

Dr. Evil wrote...
..... lead me to think it's something like reality being split between the spiritual and the material, and you think we need to reconcile those two?


Not so much reconcile as recognizing that they are the same thing. The recognition opens totally new and novel worlds of possibilities.

Wow, thanks minime, :hug1:
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby DrEvil » Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:30 am

Sounder » Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:04 pm wrote:Dr. Evil wrote...
..... lead me to think it's something like reality being split between the spiritual and the material, and you think we need to reconcile those two?


Not so much reconcile as recognizing that they are the same thing. The recognition opens totally new and novel worlds of possibilities.

Wow, thanks minime, :hug1:


Huh, this is weird. That's the exact same thing I've been saying all along. I also heard cats and dogs are now living together. :shock:

I think we're looking at the same thing from (very) different vantage points. I'm not sure recognition of the problem will open any new and novel worlds of possibilities though. It will just be one more data point in a sea of competing data points. It might lead to new insights and progress in various aspects of human existence, but ultimately we're still human, and that usually ends with dead people and children crying.

We're already straining at the limits of what our nature will allow. We're seeing the backlash right now with the rise of the new right wing and their yearning for "traditional" values which is threatening to drag us all back down to the good old days where things weren't so confusing and scary.
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Re: Questioning Consciousness

Postby chump » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:21 pm

Speakin' of splits:


http://aanirfan.blogspot.com/2018/01/sp ... mitra.html
Sunday, 21 January 2018
SPIRIT POSSESSION - LUCY COTTIER, SUMITRA, SHIVA, LAO TZU


... Teenager Lucy Cottier, from Brisbane, has six different personalities -

1. Lucy (aged 17)

2. Bridgette, a 'sweet and cute' 11-year-old who likes to dress in pink

3. Avrel, an overtly 'sexual' 18-year-old who seduces her partner

4. Emily, 14-year-old who is 'sad and angsty'

5. Sam, a 12-year-old boy who is 'immature'

6. Void, a girl who is aggressive and harmful.

dailymail


https://youtu.be/j0bLJqH4Mp4
Slammed! 2016 Champion: Lucy Cottier


Trauma, as a child and young teen, led to Lucy suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder - aka Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Lucy was the victim of mentally and physically abusive relationships in her early teenage years.

Three months ago, Lucy woke up in hospital after overdosing.

She blames 'Void' for the incident.

Lucy says she has no control over her 'alters' (personalities) or when she switches between them

She says she often'wakens' in a completely foreign place, with no memory of how she got there.

'I woke up in a public bathroom at my local shops. I was just laying on the floor when beforehand I was just sitting in my bedroom,' she said...


... Where do Lucy Cottier's 'personalities' come from?

Image
Sumitra, from India


Sumitra Singh died, and then was revived.

Having revived, Sumitra apparently lost all awareness of her former personality.

Having revived, "Sumitra took on the knowledge, behaviours and personality traits of a quite different woman, Shiva, who had died by violence two months earlier."

Shiva-Sumitra...


-----------------------



https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/arti ... va-sumitra
Shiva-Sumitra


This is the case of a young Indian woman, Sumitra Singh, who appeared to die and then revived, but having apparently lost all awareness of her former personality, and now showing the knowledge, behaviours and personality traits of a quite different woman, Shiva, who had died by violence two months earlier. On visiting Shiva’s family, Sumitra made accurate recognitions of family members, relating to each in the appropriate manner for Shiva. The family accepted Sumitra as Shiva in a different body, and she retained the new identity for the rest of her life. This highly unusual case was investigated by multiple researchers, and has been interpreted variously as one of reincarnation or possession, or both.

Image
Shiva Tripathi


Shiva Tripathi was born on October 24, 1962 to a family of the Brahmin caste. Her father, Ram Siya Tripathi, was a college lecturer. Shiva grew up in the city of Etawah and graduated from college with a BA in home economics. At age eighteen, she entered into an arranged marriage with Chhedi Lal, and moved in with his family in the small town of Dibiyapur, according to Indian custom. The couple had two sons nicknamed Rinku and Tinku.

There was considerable animosity between Shiva and her in-laws. The researchers who first investigated the case speculated that the in-laws were irritated by Shiva’s superior education and more urbane manners.1 However an Indian psychologist, Sri Parmeshwar Dayal, who also investigated the case, wrote that Shiva’s family by marriage considered her dowry insufficient, and often complained about this verbally and in letters.2 Whatever the cause, the quarrel came to a head in late May 1985, when Shiva’s in-laws forbade her to attend an exam (or according to a different source, the wedding of a member of her birth family). On the evening of May 18, Shiva’s maternal uncle by marriage visited the family and was told by a tearful Shiva that her mother-in-law and one of her sisters-in-law had beaten her. He tried to calm matters, to no avail.

The next morning, the uncle heard that Shiva’s dead body had been found on railway tracks at a nearby station. Her in-laws said she had thrown herself in front of a train. Stevenson and his colleagues interviewed the uncle and four other people who said they had seen her body on the morning of May 19, prior to cremation. When discovered, it had been lying between the two rails, and was intact except for an injury to the head. According to Shiva’s sister Uma, she and her husband were the first to see the body: she said ‘the head was bashed and the brains were showing, almost like pulp’.3

The uncle requested that cremation be delayed until Shiva’s father could be brought, but while he was travelling to fetch Ram Siya Tripathi, the in-laws obtained permission from local authorities to cremate Shiva’s body, expediting the burning by adding fuel oil. There were rumours in Dibiyapur that people had seen Shiva’s in-laws carrying her to the railway station under cover of darkness.

By the time Ram Siya arrived at Dibiyapur, his daughter’s corpse was ashes and bone. He reported the death to police, who began an inquiry. Shiva’s husband and father-in-law were arrested but then released for lack of evidence. Her mother-in-law and sister-in-law went into hiding for some months, and were arrested when they returned in 1986. Eventually they too were released due to lack of evidence. Several newspapers ran stories about the death and the murder accusation.


Image
Sumitra Singh


Sumitra was born around 1968, the daughter of a male native of Angad ka Nagla in Etawah District. The family was of the Thakur (warrior/landlord) caste, one level below the Brahmin caste. Her mother died when she was eleven; earlier she was often separated from one or both parents, and lived for eight years with an older cousin in a neighbouring district. Sumitra never attended school but was taught rudimentary reading and writing by the cousin, who had attended school only for a year or two.

When Sumitra was thirteen, her family arranged a marriage with Jagdish Singh of the village of Sharifpura, and moved in with his family. Just as her father had been, her husband was often absent, sometimes for months at a time, pursuing employment in Delhi. After three years of marriage, she gave birth to a boy in December 1984.

A month or two later Sumitra began having episodes of loss of consciousness, or trance, in which her eyes would roll upward and she would clench her teeth. These events varied in duration from a few minutes to a full day. Sometimes she would say afterwards that she had been possessed by the goddess Santoshi Mata, of whom she was a devotee. On two occasions she was apparently possessed briefly by communicating personalities, one a Sharifpura woman who had drowned herself in a well, the other a man from another part of India. Her family sought the aid of local healers, to no avail.

On about July 16, Sumitra predicted that she would die three days later. On July 19, 1985, after an unexplained fever, she lost consciousness and appeared to die. Eyewitnesses agreed that her respiration and pulse stopped and her face drained of blood for at least five minutes. But as her family members began mourning her, she came back to life. However, her identity appeared to have completely changed. She now called herself Shiva Tripathi, and in the coming days and weeks showed such complete knowledge of Shiva’s life and relationships as to convince Shiva’s family that was actually Shiva, living in a different body. (See below, Contact and Recognitions)


Investigations


This case was first investigated by Ian Stevenson and Satwant Pasricha independently, having been brought to their attention in October 1985, when each was sent a newspaper article about it. Their principal method was to interview people who had witnessed Sumitra’s apparent death and subsequent transformation, and members of Shiva’s family. Pasricha carried out a series of interviews in November 1985, and in February and March 1986, Stevenson, Pasricha and McClean-Rice re-interviewed most of the same informants as well as numerous others in Sharifpura, Angad ka Nagla and four other towns and villages in neighbouring districts. In November 1986, February 1987 and October 1987, Stevenson and Pasricha interviewed informants who had not been interviewed before to ascertain that the two families had not had previous contact. Pasricha acted as interpreter and took notes in Hindi, while Stevenson and McClean-Rice took notes in English. Some tape recordings were also made.

The researchers also studied newspaper reports of Shiva’s death and the murder allegation, and viewed the photos of Shiva’s family members whom Sumitra had correctly identified, despite not having known them as Sumitra before the transformation.4

Psychologist Sri Parmeshwar Dayal carried out an investigation concurrently and presented it at a conference in India in March 1987. As well as interviewing Sumitra and the families, Dayal asked people who knew her well to complete a psychological questionnaire and performed a Rorschacht test on her; he also had a handwriting analysis performed on three letters, two written by Shiva and another said to have been written by Sumitra following the transformation.5

Two later attempts at follow-up investigations were made, but in both cases Sumitra and her husband Jagdish Singh could not be contacted. In 2009, Antonia Mills and Kuldip Dhiman learned from the Singh family in Sharifpur that Sumitra had died in 1998 and Jagdish in 2008. Mills and Dhiman were able to obtain two previous unpublished letters written by Shiva and by Sumitra after her changeover; they also interviewed Shiva’s parents, sister, brother and other relatives, Shiva’s husband, son and mother-in-law, and Sumitra’s brother-in-law, sister-in-law and other associates. The purpose of their investigation was to assess the case, learn whether Sumitra had continued to identify as Shiva, and compare the case with other cases both of possession and reincarnation. Mills and Dhiman also revisited Dayal’s handwriting comparison in the light of the two newly-found letters. They published their findings in 2011.6


The Transformation


As Sumitra’s father recounts in a film documentary on Stevenson’s research,7 when Sumitra awakened she appeared not to recognize her surroundings or the people around her. She spoke very little for a day, then began saying that her name was Shiva and she had been murdered by her in-laws in Dibiyapur. She wanted nothing to do with Sumitra’s husband and infant son, but wanted to be taken to see Shiva’s two children. She stated many details about Shiva and her life that the researchers learned from relatives who had been witness to the statements.

Sumitra’s family told interviewers that at this time they had known nothing of a woman named Shiva who had died in Dibiyapur. They first thought that Sumitra had gone insane, then that she was possessed, so they made no attempt to verify the stated facts. According to Dayal, because she was deemed possessed, she was ‘cruelly tortured continuously for a long period by Ohjas [exorcists or spirit healers] for redemption and cure’.8 It was to no avail; she remained in the Shiva persona, apart from a brief re-emergence of Sumitra when she ‘became confused for a few hours and seemed to resume her ordinary personality’9 in autumn 1986.


Intermission Period


Dayal noted that Shiva, once awakened in the body of Sumitra, claimed to have had memories from the intermission between Shiva’s death and her awakening. Sumitra’s father told Dayal that she had told him she had been brought before Lord Yama, the Hindu god of death. She saw people with their feet turned backward being punished according to their karma, some being whipped, some being thrown into boiling water. The goddess Santoshi Mata came to her aid, hiding her under the plank on which Yama sat and feeding her. After some days Sumitra begged for mercy from Yama, who agreed to send her back for seven years.10


Separation Between the Families


Stevenson and his colleagues were careful to ascertain that the two families had not been in contact prior to these events. Dibiyapur and Sharifpura are about 60 miles apart. Shiva’s family likewise maintained that they had known nothing of Sumitra’s family prior to the events. As well as being geographically separated, the two families were of different castes and educational levels, and followed very different lifestyles, one urban and professional, the other rural and agricultural.

However, some information was available in the newspaper reports about Shiva’s suspected murder. Stevenson and his colleagues were careful to compare her statements to these articles in order to identify information given by her that they did not contain.11


Verified Statements


Stevenson and his colleagues counted nineteen correct statements from Sumitra that were not given in any newspaper report. These showed apparent paranormal knowledge of

a particular yellow sari that Shiva had owned

a watch she had owned, and the box in which it was kept in the Tripathi home before she married and moved out

the order in which Shiva’s maternal uncles were born

a pet name for Shiva used by her family

the names of two schools where Shiva had studied

the pet names of Shiva’s two children

the names of two friends

the names of Shiva’s two brothers, two of her sisters, two of her maternal uncles, a maternal aunt by marriage and a nephew


Contact and Recognitions


While visiting Dibiyapur, Shiva’s father Ram Siya Tripathi heard a rumour that his deceased daughter had possessed a girl in Sharifpura. However, it was some three months before he visited Sharifpura, on October 20, 1985, having first had someone check the story; he was further delayed by monsoon rainfall. Sumitra wept when they met, although it cannot be claimed that she recognized him since she had been told he was Shiva’s father.

Ram Siya Tripathi now showed Sumitra some pictures in a photograph album. She correctly identified all six family members in a photograph that had been taken 18 years earlier: Shiva’s parents, grandmother, brother, sister, and Shiva herself. She recognized all five of the Tripathi children shown in another picture, and Shiva’s mother, brother and maternal aunt in a third. Upon seeing a photo of Shiva’s young son Tinku, Sumitra began to cry and asked where Tinku and Rinku were. Upon seeing a photo of Shiva’s sister-in-law, she said, ‘this is Rama Kanti, who hit me with a brick’. This statement convinced Ram Siya Tripathi entirely that Sumitra was his daughter returned. Of seventeen people in eight photographs, she identified twelve without hesitation and three with some hesitation, failing to recognize only two.

Stevenson and colleagues counted as twelve the number of friends and relatives of Shiva that Sumitra recognized without prompting or other cues. They included

Shiva’s maternal uncle by marriage (recognized on the second attempt)

Shiva’s mother, recognized on Sumitra’s visit to Etawah (Ram Siya attempted to confuse her by saying her mother was in a group of women near the house, but Sumitra declared she was not there, found her inside the house and embraced her in tears, as both Shiva’s parents describe in the documentary)12

a second maternal uncle

a third maternal uncle, who had grown a beard after Shiva’s death, whom she identified by name as soon as he spoke, recognizing his voice

Shiva’s nephew

Shiva’s sister

a friend from Shiva’s youth, whom Shiva had not seen in the eight years prior to her death, whom she happened to meet in a different town, and whom she addressed as ‘Jiji’, meaning ‘sister’, a form used by close female friends in India

All told, Sumitra recognized 23 of Shiva’s relatives and friends either in person, in photographs, or both.

Conversely, Sumitra no longer recognized people in her own family: her husband, her nine-month-old son, her in-laws, her father when he visited, the cousin she had lived with for eight years, and the cousin’s husband. She was also confused about places, commenting when told of a field that was used as a latrine, ‘We have a latrine inside the house’, which was true of both homes in which Shiva had lived.


Behaviours


Sumitra’s behaviours changed markedly after her transformation, being appropriate to a high-caste, educated woman – Shiva had been a Brahmin with a university degree – and not at all that of the rural village family Sumitra had been born into. Pasricha noted that Sumitra now wore her sari in a more dignified way and wore sandals instead of going barefoot.13 Sumitra also became an early riser, as Shiva had been.

Sumitra now refused to respond unless she was addressed as Shiva. She also became more formal in the way she addressed other people, including her husband and his parents. On the grounds of her higher caste, she behaved snobbishly towards her in-laws, even asking her husband to wash his plates and utensils while they were visiting a Brahmin home, since he was of a lower caste, whereas she was not.. She refused to participate in an important Hindu ritual in which a sister ties a string around her brother’s wrist, despite her brother begging her to do so.

Sumitra refused at first to be intimate with her husband or acknowledge her baby son, claiming he was a product of Jagdish’s previous marriage. Eventually, however, she accepted the roles of wife and mother, while still insisting she was Shiva. She is reported to have said ‘If I look after this child, God will take care of them [Shiva’s children]. If I neglect this child, would God not punish me?’


Literacy Levels


Prior to her transformation Sumitra’s level of literacy was rudimentary. She had never attended school and was taught only a little reading and writing by a cousin who herself had only one year of primary schooling: she was said variously to have been unable to write at all, or at best to write the occasional letter. Her husband said she wrote ‘a very little, like a child in kindergarten’.14 By contrast, Shiva wrote frequently to her birth family following her marriage. After the transformation, Sumitra’s ability to read and write improved strikingly. Stevenson and his colleagues wrote, ‘We observed her in both these activities and found her able to read and write Hindi with great facility.’ Her letter-writing became frequent, and she often wrote to the Tripathi family, just as Shiva had.15

... con'd
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/arti ... va-sumitra



https://youtu.be/scOQ7alpMBg#t=7m29s
(Shiva and Sumitra section begans at 7:29)

Professor Ian Stevenson at 12:46:
The average western parent regards his or her child as it's exactly the same as one regards an automobile coming off a factory line: There was nothing before these bolt and bits and pieces of the car were assembled and painted; and that is the standard view that western parents have of their children. They make the child. The attitude is quite different in countries where they show a belief for reincarnation. There, there is this third component of some existence before the conception of the current body - as they would see the matter. So, the child bears some responsibility for what he does and says and how he develops...



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Re: Graham Hancock - War on Consciousness

Postby chump » Wed Jan 24, 2018 12:45 pm

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