Ingo Swann (17May96)
There is probably no easy way to get into this, having considered and dealt for many years with the topic of mental information processing grids.
For here, finally, we depart from theories about what the senses ARE, what our species and its individual specimens ARE -- and we come to the topic of how and why the specimens think and believe as they do in any given way and in any given time and place or situation.
Almost everyone believes that what they think (about things)
is the proper way to think about them, and some believe that it
is the only way. So, discussions as to why human specimens (sometimes
called "human beings") think as they do can sometimes
achieve volcanic dimensions.
Thus, the central and associated issues involved are usually avoided like the plague. Even in psychology it is the objects and subjects of thinking which are most usually studied, not the thinking processes themselves.
This overall avoidance is somewhat understandable, however
-- because the thoughts one experiences are the end-products of
the processes that produce them, and few are ever really aware
of those processes.
It is quite probable that the products of one's thinking processes are based exclusively in whatever sensory transducers have been formatted -- or NOT been formatted.
The processes are therefore invisible and, usually intangible. For example, the topic of deduction or deducing was briefly discussed in the preceding essay regarding sensory transducers. One is usually aware of the products of deduction -- but hardly ever aware of the invisible processes which produce them.
Indeed, various so-called "human beings" can deduce
a wide variety of conclusions or opinions regarding the SAME things
-- and then sometimes even go to war over their deductions which
they tend to value as enormously important.
In the end, though, the SAME things continue to exist and persist while the various deductions tend to pass into history and oblivion when their "makers" do.
Since there is no easy or delicate way to get into this without stepping on someone's toes, we just as well bite the bullet. In a certain sense we are here discussing "how one's head is wired" -- and the term "wired," of course introduces the concept of wired networks or grids.
Very few human specimens make decisions based solely on what
Rather, the decisions they make are based on the MEANINGS assigned to what they perceive -- while it is possible to presume that the meanings themselves are the products of wiring, cross-wiring or absence of wiring.
If what they perceive has no meaning to them, then what is perceived is meaningless -- and often invisible as well.
Additionally, when people perceive things they do not understand, then they sometimes shoot first and ask questions later.
The substances of the above four passages are quite well known here and there. And from them it has often been deduced that people are trapped in the limits of their perceptions.
But such is not actually the case. They are trapped within
the sensory transducers which apparently produce the meanings
which have been assigned to what they perceive -- and then only
IF they perceive it and actually HAVE assigned some kind of meaning
to the perceptions.
Most people perceive a number of things they don't know the meaning of -- and if the perceiving is strong enough this tends to confuse them.
The most common perceptions regard the tangible, the gross signals of physicality. Beyond that, one can perceive the subtle signals of the intangible realms if appropriate sensory transducers are formatted to do so.
Environmental and socio-educational factors favor the formatting
of sensory transducers regarding physicality. But many environments
do not favor the formatting of sensory transducers regarding the
subtle or the intangible.
But in any event, it can be observed by direct observation that all specimens of our species format whatever they do in the way of sensory transducers -- and which thus serve as the basis regarding the extent, or the limits of their "perceptions."
In Part Three of these mini-essays, I suggested that the biomind
is constantly being "bombarded" by signals of all kinds,
and that the biomind possesses sensory receptors for receiving
a vast spectrum of those signals.
I can now suggest, but ONLY suggest, that individual specimens of our species format only a limited number of sensory transducers -- and which leaves them "blind" to those signals which need special sensory transducers.
On the other hand, it is quite well accepted that the subconscious,
for example, receives many kinds of signals. But the information
of such signals is not forwarded to the cognitive intellect because
the intellect has not formatted the appropriate sensory transducers
IT needs to assign meaning to such signals.
Many of the avoided signals involve subtle kinds of information, some of which can be categorized as belonging to the superpowers of the human biomind.
On the other hand, such signal-information often "leaks through" into cognitive awareness -- especially if the specimen is undergoing some kind of altered state. Then the specimen might experience a "spontaneous" manifestation of the signals -- probably stemming directly from the rudimentary faculties in the biomind's hard drive.
Our dream-making processes are but one example of this. We
dream during sleep, but the meanings of the dreams are often unintelligible
to the intellect when it is awake. Which is to say, we perceive
the dreams -- but often find it difficult or impossible to assign
meanings to them.
But in a certain sense, dreams are a type of deducing which is processed from other sensory receptors and transducers than those which characterize the awake intellect -- and the processes are outside of the arenas of awake intellect.
Various rudiments of one's indwelling superpower faculties
usually appear in dreams -- for the dream content often has the
appearance of dealing in non-time, non-space dimensions.
Like deducing and intuition, dreaming is a constituent of our species which is universally shared by all of our individual specimens. The topics and content of dreams can widely vary, of course. But the biomind faculties for dreaming are apparently the same in every born specimen of our species.
However, even in the case of dreams, the perception of them
within the biomind awareness systems is the end-product of the
processes which produced them.
Nothing just happens, you know. Everything that "happens" is preceded by the processes which result in the happening.
To get into the larger topic of this essay, it seems advisable to establish the formal definitions for the term PROCESS.
By far and large, people tend to deal only with the end-products
of biomind processes -- because on average the processes which
produce the end-products are so rapid that they do not enter awareness
as discrete sensations.
The speed we would be talking about here is "instantaneous," especially regarding the basic five physical senses. Our responses to the end-products are also quite fast -- mostly so, at any rate.
In other words, our biomind systems can, in a split second, processes from signals, through signal (sense) receptors, thence through a large number of information transducers -- and do all of this between eye-blinks with time to spare.
None of this astonishing processing is either felt or sensed
by the awake intellect, which operates on a much slower basis.
Most usually, the intellect processes perceived information by "considering" it -- this a format of information processing which can take some time, and which is not all that dependable regarding ITS end-products.
One of the better areas to take note of process speed is to
consider those who, without any intellectual comprehension at
all, automatically jump out of the way of danger just milliseconds
before the danger manifests and would have clobbered them if they
had not jumped.
Literature and records are stuffed full of such accounts. This kind of phenomenology is usually attributed to intuition or gut feelings -- and this kind of "explaining" is usually let go at that.
However, intuition and gut feelings can be shown to be the result of much slower processes, relatively speaking -- and which always tend to involve the "considering" factor, anyway.
In any event, intellect is not involved in this jumping thing,
for if it were then the clobbering would have taken place.
If one dissects the jumping thing, a number of items are found to be necessary.
Some aspect of ourselves, possessed with acute sensory receptors, FORESEES imminent danger. In a flash, this aspect commandeers the autonomic responses of the nervous system, stimulates the muscular and bone mechanisms, and the jump takes place.
But this indicates that something other than our intellect can process incoming signals, can think and make deductions and decisions.
And indeed, those who have studied such phenomena beneath their
surface apparencies are obliged to attribute this kind of activity
to the autonomic nervous systems of the biomind.
The autonomic nervous systems are deemed entirely physical in nature -- but as such, they apparently can ACCURATELY process information-signals with a rapidity and elegance not entirely characteristic of the intellect itself.
Biologically speaking, the autonomic nervous system is relatively well understood, except when it comes to something such as the jumping thing. For it is not understood at all how the autonomic systems can FORESEE. And, furthermore, not only foresee, but assign meaning to what is foreseen.
Hence, an entire category of very specialized phenomena is missing here, or at least is submerged beneath the collective terms of intuition and gut feeling and which themselves are not inspected very deeply.
But the jumping thing vividly demonstrates that our biomind
organisms possess subtle superpower sensory receptors and sensory
transducers which our intellects are not at all aware of.
And I, for one, am completely comfortable in calling anything a biomind superpower which gets me automatically out of the way of being clobbered.
I have attempted to utilize the jumping thing as an example
of subtle biomind information processing which takes place in
a fraction of a second, and which is independent of the awake
This was done to help illuminate the fact that the human biomind is apparently possessed of various levels of information processing -- not just ONE -- and which is usually attributed to the awake intellect in which the whole of one's thinking, cognitive phenomena and decision-making are supposed to be isolated.
The jumping thing, if attributed only to the physical autonomic nervous system, shows that the bio-body itself is capable of thinking and making split-second decisions -- and which is to say that the bio-body itself has a "mind" independent of the "mind" of the intellect.
If this would be the case, then the focus of our interests should shift from what we think about things within the scope of our awake intellects -- shift to identifying sensory receptors and sensory transducers in general.
But there is a great difficulty here.
With the exception of the autonomic processes, nothing is valued by an individual specimen of our species except what has meaning within the precincts of its information-processing intellect. Indeed, on average nothing will be valued or acquire reality unless it takes on such meaning.
Aside from our bio-bodies themselves, there is nothing so clearly
existing as our species rudimentary faculties of intellect --
and which, during the modern-age epoch, was discriminated as being
separate from the bio-body as "the mind."
Under the modern-age conceptions, now in decline, it was held that the functions of body and mind were different -- and many of us who are now advancing in years were actually taught that the bio-body was mindless.
This peculiar teaching, however, is not true.
I'll not bother to debate whether this was a right or wrong
teaching -- because the actual issue is neither body nor mind,
but how information is processed by either or both.
And, indeed, regardless of how body-mind is interfaced or not interfaced, it is still the blatant fact that how and what information is processed that is of superior importance to any and all biomind organisms.
It is extremely clear, as it always was, that our species is
an information-processing one collectively speaking. And it is
equally clear that each born human specimen is MEANT TO BE an
information-processing organism -- completely and naturally equipped
with vast arrays of biomind sensory receptors and transducers.
And these range along a spectrum from the gross physical five systems to increasingly refined ones entirely capable of dealing with exceedingly subtle information contexts.
And indeed, if all of the facts were put on the table, our species is actually and vividly super-endowed along such lines.
It is not unusual, however, to find this actuality not considered
in its actual sense, but rather held up as an ideal one.
But in turning the actuality into only an idealizing one, we are admitting to our information defaults at the individual and social levels.
There are two subtle facets about information which seems to escape many.
Thus the problem becomes one not so much dealing with "new"
information, but with "old" information already acquired
and accepted as meaningful by this or that individual biomind
organism or collective social organism.
And old information, perhaps composed of millions of data bytes, needs to be held in some kind of a biomind meaning system(s) established precisely for that purpose.
New information would need to find a home or place within the meanings of the old information.
If the new information cannot find such a home or place, it will be rejected as information.
The question before us, though, doesn't concern old or new
information, or even what kinds of information we process.
The question involves not WHAT the information consists of, but HOW we process information in the first place.
During the middle earlier part of the modern age, scientific
knowledge held that information was processed in the physical
brain and the brain's anatomy took on increasing definition --
at least regarding its major lobes.
After the invention of electron microscopes in the 1930s, it could be seen that the brain was composed of a vast variety of features among which were neurons and synapses.
These were interconnected by pathways -- and the concept of "neural networks" or "nets" came into existence.
Although there has never been complete agreement as to how the brain functions, it was generally accepted that information "must" be processed by and within the brain. Various portions of the neural nets become stimulated or active when information is being processed -- while the activity is thought to be caused by electro-chemical exciting.
Indeed, artificial stimulating by electrodes of various synapses
and neurons produces sensations, feelings, sounds and images as
if the senses were themselves actually experiencing them.
This was considered desirable evidence for the functional physicality of the brain, and this evidence was acceptable.
But electrode stimulation of certain parts of the brain sometimes produced "evidence" which was not acceptable -- and so this kind of "evidence" is hardly to be found in official scientific reports and papers.
As but one example, under artificial electrode stimulation,
the experiencers sometimes reported vivid visual images and sensations
which they interpreted as past-life memories.
These are reasonably similar to past-life regressions under light or deep hypnosis -- and are also somewhat similar to what has been called déjà vu, or at least one variety of it (the "I've been here before" kind of thing).
Some people who were undergoing open brain stimulation also reported certain kinds of experiencing which had something to do with clairvoyance or telepathic faculties (some of the subtle "senses.")
Since there is no place to fit these peculiar perceptual phenomena in the modern scientific paradigm, they were of course set aside and very little in the way of official reference has ever been made to them.
Beginning somewhere before the 1970s, various researchers began
to understand that the not only the neural nets of the brain process
information. It increasingly became understood that the neurological
networks throughout the whole bio-body itself also process information.
And since the 1970s it has become understood that certain kinds
of information are processed at the cellular level throughout
the surface and internal organs of the bio-body.
How information is processed within the human biomind has thus become a vastly more complex picture than was earlier conceptualized -- and, it might as well be put, conceptualized as THE explanation.
It has long been conceived that memory is the key to information
storage and thus to information processing.
And for many of the modernist decades it was firmly believed that memory and its storage vehicles would be found in the brain.
But to date, the brain has been exhausted as the explanation for memory -- and no one anywhere knows how, why or where memory occurs. It doesn't even appear to be a basic function of any neuro- or neurological nets, and neither does it appear to consist of electro-chemical processes -- although such processes do become active when memory is present, so to speak.
And, indeed, this situation is contrary to "what we expected
to find" -- as scientists like to say when they are "surprised"
by evidence which differs from their major hypotheses or assumptions.
The whole of this situation regarding memory is a somewhat amusing story. Those who might want to follow up on it might read IN THE PALACES OF MEMORY by George Johnson (Vintage Books, Random House, 1992.)
Our present official sciences do not accept clairvoyance as
a suitable format of information gathering -- although achieved
clairvoyants have said many things which appear as having to do
with information processing not only within the bio-body but within
the various kinds of energy fields which surround and extend out
There are several kinds of these fields (commonly referred to as "auras.") The one extending a couple of inches just outside of the bio-skin covering may be electromagnetic in nature. But others farther outward may not fit into bio-electromagnetic realities.
Good clairvoyants often see what they call "thought forms"
everywhere within the bio-body itself and in the auras, but often
especially around the head and shoulders and just over the top
of the head. Some of these seem somewhat permanent, but others
emerge and vanish with great rapidity.
These "findings" give the impression that memory and information processing is a whole-body phenomenology -- but in this case, the "whole body" would consist of its auras as well.
The clairvoyantly seen thought forms and other phenomena seem
to resemble holograms since they are perceived as being three-dimensional.
And which, if true, would indicate that both gross and subtle energy-produced holograms are significant not only to memory but how energy (or signal) is processed as information exchanges.
If this would be the case, then it is possible that the neural-synapse
nets of the brain and body are composed of information transducers
which convert thought form information into what the bio-body
can respond to and with. In other words, memory is a function
of energy wave forms -- wave forms being one generic kind of signal.
For those who might wish to read deeper regarding the "holographic mind" concepts, I recommend THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE by Michael Talbot (HarperCollins, NY, 1991.)
I must point out that scientists who believe there is a physical
explanation for all things have never made the effort to collect
clairvoyant reports -- dating, say, from the late 1700s to the
It takes a little work to make this collection, as I have found out. But it is not impossible. If enough of the reports are compared and analyzed, similar patterns become distinctly visible -- as if the clairvoyants have seen the same things from differing viewpoint, but are reporting on the same phenomena nonetheless.
There are a number of different kinds or formats of clairvoyance, all of them of course being various superpowers of the human biomind.
In the contexts of all of the foregoing, I would have liked
to use the terms "net" or "networks" via which
to enter into a discussion as to how information is processed.
But these two terms are firmly ensconced in connection with synapses and neurons -- and in any event "net" or "networks" are somewhat passive in character and in themselves give no hint of what they DO.
Especially, they do not explain the meaning thing with regard to information -- and no biological explanation has been discovered as to how the human biomind assigns meaning to signals which are transduced into identifiable information and thence transduced into meaning.
The word which seems most suitable here is "grid,"
for in the case of electrical grids it is understood that they
distribute electrical power energy to users -- and that parts
of the grids can change the amps and wattage of the energy.
Thus, I have opted to utilize the phrase "mental information processing grids," since "mental" implies the meaning thing -- in that we consider meanings via our mental faculties.
It is important to point out, though, that this phrase is only
a metaphor selected to make discussion possible -- but it has
proven to be a very functional one regarding all of the superpowers
of the human biomind.
Controlled remote viewing, for example, is in part an exercise in formatting specialized sensory transducers. But in another way, it is also a series of exercises involving mental information processing grids -- an exercise of assigning correct meaning to in-put signals via the whole biomind sensorium (the topic of a forthcoming essay).
Most dictionaries define GRID first as a grating, which in
turn is defined as a frame of parallel bars or a lattice of crossed
ones blocking a passage.
And in this sense, it is understood through common experience that certain mental information processing grids can block the passage or integration of certain kinds of information signals -- especially, but not only, of the subtle type.
Second, a GRID might be a perforated or ridged metal plate
used as a conductor in a storage battery.
Again through common experience, we know that memory is stored and conducted from somewhere -- since it often takes an amount of time to recall certain things.
Third, a GRID may be a network of uniformly spaced horizontal and perpendicular lines for locating points by means of coordinates. This definition is a little more complex when transliterating it into the contexts of information and meaning.
Basically speaking, a coordinate is a precise point at which
specific information will be found.
We utilize geographical coordinates to specify a precise place on Earth's surface, and the precise information characteristics of that place will differ from all others. Likewise, although on a much grander scale, star-system coordinates will enable the astronomer to quickly locate a precise star or galaxy.
In other words, where the horizontal and perpendicular lines intersect will be found a specific thing, or a specific category of information.
With a little leeway we could consider the intersections as "information points."
Metaphorically speaking, in-coming information could be processed
through a series of grids composed of information points until
one is found which is compatible with the in-coming information
-- if there is meaning already installed in the existing information
point within this or that grid.
If there is no already-installed meaning point, then the chances are that the in-coming information will not be recognized as meaningful. Grid-like gratings might altogether block the in-coming information if it is extensively incompatible with various of the mental information processing grids.
Here it seems necessary to remind that information is not considered
information unless it is meaningful -- at which time it is considered
to be information.
We can say, as advanced information theorists do, that information is available everywhere and all of the time. Technically speaking, then, meaning would also be available all of the time.
But in the case of meaning, it seems that our species has to
deduce meaning within the terms and limits of their experience
That our species has the fundamental faculties to deduce meaning is unambiguous.
But WHICH meanings become incorporated as information points in an individual specimen's mental information processing grids appears to be an entirely different matter.
But there is a further glitch in this. For meanings assigned may not be correct meanings, or the meanings may not be consistent with the real information inherent in the in-coming signals.
To discuss this further, it is almost certain that we have
consider the real existence of meaning transducers -- and which
transform the products of sensory transducers into meanings.
In other words, our sensory receptors input signals into the biomind systems.
The signals are then converted by sensory transducers into energy forms the various systems can deal with.
The various systems then transduce the sensory signals into information formats which can be utilized by various systems within the whole biomind apparatus -- technically referred to as the Sensorium (see forthcoming essay).
But unless information is further rendered into meaning by meaning transducers then the information will not interact with our installed meaning points and our cognitive transducers will be unable to produce meaning to the intellect.
IF, and only IF, the incoming information is rendered into meaning, will the signals take on what is commonly referred to as "understanding" -- whose literal meaning, believe it or not, is to "stand UNDER information so as to grasp the meaning of something.
In this sense, then, information transducers MUST be accompanied
or surrounded by collections of meaning transducers.
And if so, then this arrangement would be what grid information points consist of -- while the end product would approximate what we mean when we refer to mental understanding when the intellect is in its awake and dynamic state.
Actually speaking, though, the whole of this is probably far
more complex than the simple characteristics given above -- even
if we are speaking of the awake intellect alone.
You see, it is quite certain by now that the biomind also possesses a vast number of subconscious information and meaning transducers -- hardly any of which are accessible to the awake intellect except under certain circumstances.
And beneath, so to speak, the subconscious exist a vast number of signal-information-meaning transducers having to do only with cellular matters -- i.e., which nutrients an organ or cellular system need or do not need, and which either are "sent" to the destinations, or excreted as waste nutrients.
Thus, the overall picture here becomes inordinately complex.
But it also becomes inordinately majestic and full of wonder -- if one thinks of the born biomind as a system of arrays of sensory receptors followed by arrays of sensory information transducers, and then by arrays of meaning transducers at all levels of its existing whether consciously perceptible or not.
But I digress -- as I'm always tempted to do when I contemplate the remarkable, astonishing and exquisite nature of our biomind species.
We now must come to the definition of MEANING, and in doing
so to the NATURE of meaning.
And if there has ever been a philosophical swamp, outback or cesspool, trying philosophically to determine the nature of meaning is certainly one of the most prominent contenders.
And as an aside here, it is probably advisable to point up
that the modern sciences AVOID this issue ALTOGETHER -- because
there is not even a theory available which hypothesizes that the
nature of meaning will be found in the realms of physicality and
You see, meaning is entirely INTANGIBLE -- and yet everyone deals with meaning all of the time (or at least they try to do so).
In this sense, then, if one needs to be psychic in order to perceive the intangible, then everyone is psychic every time they deal with meanings.
And, indeed, if the FULL SPECTRUM of the superpowers of the
human biomind was delineated and made visual as a chart, the perception
of meanings would constitute one of the superpowers -- and have
its place in the spectrum BEFORE the several types of intuition.
There can be little doubt that intuition itself is built out of or upon perceived meanings. If we would permit the perception of meanings, always invisible and intangible, to be called a psychic power, then every specimen of our species would in some sense be a PSYCHIC.
Now, through the years I've read my brain and mind into bits
by consuming every philosophical excursions I could find on the
nature of meaning.
With a few notable exceptions, most of these excursions end up in the same swamp -- but for only one reason.
And this reason has to do with relevancy -- i.e., WHICH meanings are meaningful and which are not, or which meanings are more important than other ones.
In this way, the nature of meaning descends out of the universal stratospheres into the pits of meaning preferences and debates arising because of them.
Naturally, EACH philosopher would like his or her meanings to take precedence so that his or her philosophical speculations or theories will take on more social, political, religious or economic relevance and other whatnot relevancy.
This is to say that philosophers (and anyone else who desires
to fall into this particular pit of no return) argue not about
the nature of meaning, but for or against preferred meanings.
And as we shall see just ahead, this is also the "nature" of individual mental information processing grids.
In spite of all the debates, polemics and hubris which go on
over the philosophical "nature" of MEANING, meaning
itself is simple and usually simply defined in most dictionaries
as: THAT WHICH IS CONVEYED.
Most dictionaries, however, specify "that which is conveyed, especially by language."
As it is, though, that which is conveyed can also be conveyed
by music, visual images, intimations of the weather, sounds, tactile
sensations, sexual awareness, body language, sensations or feelings
of love or hate -- and on and on until we find we live in one
gigantic environment of things that are conveyed all of the time
And in demonstrable fact, language of and in itself cannot convey meanings unless one has formatted the sensory and meaning transducers to stand under its particular words and vocabulary. Otherwise a given language will be heard merely as meaningless sonics.
Indeed, if we comprehend that our biomind organisms and their
sensoriums exist within information signals of every and all kinds,
but have not developed meaning transducers regarding them, then
nothing is CONVEYED by the information signals.
We consider the printed word as the principal carrier of information and meaning. But indeed, even if the printed words are in one's own language, but one cannot transduce their meaning anyway, then nothing is conveyed. The common phrase "I don't understand what I've read" means that nothing was conveyed.
And here by now in this essay we should be able to accept,
at least for hypothetical purposes, that information points installed
in our mental information processing grids MUST have meaning transducers
-- or the information points probably will not form.
But this is practically the same as saying that everything we experience is experienced not only as sensation, but also must be experienced as meaningful in some kind of way.
Otherwise the billions of signals inundating our arrays of sensory receptors might go unnoticed as meaningless -- and it is rather standard practice NOT to notice what is meaningless.
We will also not notice recorded information which is meaningless to us, even if others do value it.
One of the bottom lines here is that our mental information
processing grids must have information points consisting not only
of sensory transducers, but also consisting of meaning transducers.
If it is a case of becoming aware of gross and subtle signals, then appropriate meaning transducers must be established to cope with both kinds.
And it must follow that the LACK of such meaning transducers will leave what might be called "experiential holes or pits" in one's mental information processing grids. I prefer to call these "meaning defaults," though.
The lack of appropriate meaning transducers implies meaning defaults -- which is the same as saying that nothing exists in one's mental information processing grids though which to process incoming information into that stuff which is of extraordinary value to everyone and anyone: meaning.
It has been commonly taught that our senses rule our lives.
But this can be true only in a limited way -- for our lives are
more ruled by the meanings we assign to our incoming sensory loads.
It is meaning which governs our understanding. And when we experience something we don't understand we find ourselves staring into the face of a meaning default somewhere within our grids.
And meaning defaults will "mean" that we will not
know or understand what has been experienced -- or we will either
not experience it or perhaps know that we have.
Or if the experience is vivid enough, the lack of adequate meaning traducers will render our grids into that state commonly referred to as "confused." And it is not unusual to find this or that grid in such a state.
The whole of this, of course, is tremendously complex with
nuances which can go on forever. And I, for one, certainly do
not know the full extent of it all.
But the basis and justification for entering into this tremendous complexity exists in the fact that if one wishes to activate one's latent faculties regarding any of the superpowers, it would be obvious that one's grids cannot continue to have meaning defaults regarding the many aspects of the superpowers.
Further, one must install ACCURATE information points, for
inaccurate ones equate to meaning defaults also.
It would be obvious that inaccurate meaning transducers would distort signal-information being input into our sensing systems. Such distortions equate to noise in the signal lines -- as any radio, TV, radar or sonar expert knows.
Due to the enormous complexities involving mental information
processing grids, it would be impossible in a mini-essay to consider
all of their nuances. And such an attempt would probably be boring
But there are a few major sources regarding information and meaning defaults which might be pointed out for anyone who chances to have the interest and patience in noting what they are.
I, as well as others writing in other contexts, have already
pointed out that the modern West is conceptually impoverished
when it comes to information about our species superpowers.
Even the few glitzy, stereotyped concepts descending out of psychical and parapsychological research are neither enough or accurate enough.
All of which is to say that our modern West is possessed of a high degree of information and meaning defaults along these lines.
Where meaning defaults exist, one can be relatively sure that information and meaning confusions exist, although one might not understand what is being confused.
But the fact exists that although many how-to books exist regarding ostensible development of one's superpower faculties, few of them really do very much along those lines. Otherwise we would already have witnessed the emergence of many superpsychics.
As it happens, and as perhaps the first of the major factors
involved, most human specimens do not tolerate the state of confusion
very well -- or more exactly put, do not tolerate matters which
induce such confusion.
And indeed, since the state of confusion is not at all desirable, about the only way to protect one's self from experiencing it is to construct very strong grids which reject all incoming information-signals except those which fit with one's already installed information-meaning points.
It's worth noting that modern psychology does recognize this, and refers to such mental structures as "psychological defense mechanisms." The line-up of typical defense mechanisms is a rather amusing read. The defense mechanisms were earlier referred to as "psychological and emotional armor" which encapsulated the mental awareness and prevented the intrusion of unwanted signal-information.
There are two very interesting factors regarding defense mechanisms, in that one possesses them without knowing that one does, and that they work automatically at some information-meaning level external to the awareness of the awake intellect.
The source of cause of the formation of defense mechanisms
is not understood.
But it is understood that one of their principal functions is to reject awareness of information and meanings which are not consistent with what in psychology has been identified as the "realities" of the psychological ego.
Another principle function is to prevent the intrusion of signal-information which would restimulate past memories of physical and mental anguish or fear.
There are many aspects regarding defense mechanisms which pertain
to mundane, everyday matters of living (the "gross"
matters referred to by the ancient Yogins).
But regarding the superpowers of the biomind, it is easy enough to see why defense mechanisms against them might get dynamically set up within the grids of given individuals.
We in the cultural West tend to idealize the superpowers as
highly desirable. But, for example, the superpowers of intuition
and future-seeing can easily inform one of dreadful things as
well as benign things.
For instance, I recoil from psychically sighting, as it were, stuff like cruelty, murders, locating dead and decomposing bodies, and other forms of carnage -- because contacting and reliving those events wrecks not only my emotions but even impacts on my physiology. Thus I don't make for a very good psychic crime detective in the way other more stalwart psychics do.
I don't have grid defense mechanisms against such "seeing." But there is another way of avoiding the psychic reliving of the horrors -- just not do it, and which, I suppose, is one form of defense mechanisms anyway.
One way of NOT looping into the horrors is to close down the
superpower sense receptors and signal channels altogether, and
this is a well-known function of defense mechanisms.
In this sense, we can picture a mental information processing grid as a grating which permits only certain signals through it, and prevents the intrusion of others.
In any event, if one becomes psychic, one WILL "see" horrors, and it is this aspect which is never mentioned in how-to psychic development books. In this sense, many achieved psychics realize that psychic superpowers are both a blessing and an agony as well.
Another major factor having to do with grids and meaning transducers
is a little more complex.
One of the true, and exact, but unfortunate aspects of the superpowers is their all-seeing nature -- seeing the terrible as well as the benign.
One defensive way of avoiding this is to construct information points based not on real reality, as it were, but based on meaning grids and transducers which do not include real reality in the first place.
It is not unusual, however, to find grids set up this way regarding almost everything.
Now, at this point we might benefit from identifying the difference
between primary and secondary meaning transducers.
Secondary meaning transducers consist of those meanings established by some other source as meaningful, and which we emulate in our own mental information processing grids.
Primary meaning transducers are derived from direct experience of signals, and their responding sensory and meaning transducers.
One can say that secondary meaning transducers are artificial
ones, in that we have imbibed, absorbed or sucked them in from
other sources. Such secondary meaning transducers can range along
a spectrum from correct to wildly in error.
But, all things considered, they tend to focus only on what makes us feel good about things as considered by the society in which we live.
However, it is important to consider that secondary meaning transducers may not be directly linked to sensory transducers or to sensory receptors.
Primary meaning transducers, being formatted because of direct experience, are probably linked directly to sensory transducers and sensory receptors.
Now, we must admit that most societies insist that secondary
meaning transducers must take precedence over primary ones, and
this, as it is often advertised, is best for the society.
And it could easily be demonstrated that the educational practices of most societies prime and pump secondary meaning transducers so that their educated recipients will better fit into the social needs and demands -- and also lest one be in "conflict" with the society.
It's worth mentioning here that secondary meaning transducers can equate to one kind of mind control -- albeit sometimes only indirectly so.
As it is, most social organisms like their individuals to emulate and share specific secondary meaning transducers so that all of them will work as a whole or as a team. The success rate, however, varies.
In any event, one's information points within one's mental
information processing grids have to do with how "one's head
is wired," as put into one of today's language metaphors
and as was mentioned in the introductory materials of this series
In this sense, we can visualize that the bio-body you see is, at one level, a walking, talking series of sensory receptor systems.
At another level, it is a walking, talking series of sensory transducers.
But at the ultimately visible level, it is a walking, talking
series of mental information processing grids, equipped with installed
primary or secondary meaning points -- with the latter probably
predominating in most cases.
In other words, direct, raw experience is replaced with secondary, predigested forms of experience.
One of the problems here is that secondary meaning transducers
usually do not result in the vivid lucidity provided by primary
ones, so much so that individuals whose meaning systems are dominated
by secondary meaning transducers often demonstrate the appearance
of being secondary meaning androids -- sometimes unkindly referred
to as replicas of the faith.
This kind of thing can only mean that direct access to primary meaning transducers has been cut back, or perhaps terminated altogether -- and this would mean, as well, that their cognitive connections to their own sensory receptors and sensory transducers can only be wobbly at best.
Excepting, of course, for piecemeal sensory connections to the basic five senses, but which anyway are controlled by the autonomic nervous system more than the awake intellect.
Now, it is desirable to mention at this point that when we use the metaphor of MENTAL information processing grids, we would be referring, of course, to the awake state of the intellect -- the intellect being the factor or sector of the biomind which mentally analyses information and ostensible meanings of it.
It is an oddity of the modern Western culture to envision only the awake intellect mind as capable of analyzing information and meaning. It thus follows that none of the other analyzing phenomena which go on within us at other levels and in other states of awareness are MENTAL in nature. Our dreams and intuitions, for example, are not considered of mental origin because they are not products of the logic and reason of the awake intellect mind.
This kind of situation of course induces confusions into one's
mental information processing grids in the event that one directly
experiences some kind of sensory inputs which cannot at all be
fitted into the extent, scope, limits or narrow corridors of one's
This situation is made even more confusing in that philosophers and scientists of the modern era concluded that the awake intellect, and ONLY the awake intellect, was the seat of logic and reason in their purest sense.
I have tried to trace the origins of this particular conviction, to little avail -- with the possible exception that it was somehow derived from the ancient Greek philosopher named Aristotle.
The attribution to Aristotle, however, is terribly wobbly -- for even he recognized that logic and reason were variable and closely tied to relative environmental, educational and secondary meaning transducers (although the famous philosopher, of course, did not utilize that particular phrase).
By "relative" is meant that what is accepted as logic
and reason (the rational) closely conforms to what one ALREADY
assumes to be logical and rational -- and this is based on information
points already installed in one's grids.
But as I recently heard in a recent TV movie, "Assumptions are the Mother of all F _ _ _ -ups." You can insert the four-letter word.
The point is that what is accepted as logic and reason is relative to what has already been assumed to consist of them. And this is always relative not only to individuals and social pressures, but characteristic of the various epochs of our historical past.
We can bypass, at least in part, this particular situation
by wondering if logic and reason are, in themselves, ever directly
experienced via the biomind's sensory receptors and sensory transducers.
If logic and reason can be directly experienced within the contexts of primary signals and sensory transducers, then one would think that there would never be the problems which have arisen around logic and reason.
About the only thing that might be true here is that logic
can be deduced, and so the essential nature of logic is in properly
organizing REAL information and attributing EXACT meanings to
But doing as much would probably require the omission of secondary meaning transducers -- which tend to be error prone.
The problems regarding reason, however, are more complicated -- for reason seems to be a function of meanings alone rather than one of primary signals and sensory transducers.
Thus, within overall human experiencing, it is difficult to
present a "logic" which is illogical, for many are ready
to point up its flaws.
But it is rather easy to present reason as rational, for this is an excursion in meanings only and such excursion need not be founded on even one iota of fact -- and meanings can be looped together so that they form a closed loop which will not admit the perception of flaws.
This at least regarding various mental information processing grids which are closed loop-like in structure.
By way of beginning to end this mini-essay, it is within mental
information processing grids that information-meaning points become
lodged and fixed.
When sensory transducers convey perceptual information from the various sensory receptors and then into the biomind organism, that information is thence processed through the individual's meaning transducers -- and produce the outputs noted.
If the grids do not possess proper information points relevant to the input sensory information, or if the information points are inadequate for accurate processing of the information, then widely variable outputs are manufactured. These outputs are often referred to as "interpretations."
One of the most notable quirks regarding information is that
unless it has meaning then it doesn't exist -- or at least is
uninteresting and disregarded or ignored.
One of the quirks of our species is that only that which appears to be meaningful is considered important, and meaning-transducers are probably built only along some kind of priority in this regard. Certainly all have to quickly build language sonic-recognition transducers, and then additional meaning transducers which more or less give exact meaning to our tangible sonic environments.
The next most probable set of meaning-transducers, in so far as I have been able to study the matter, is the need for, of all things, STATUS meaning-transducers -- in order that we should be aware of who's who and why so in our environmental, psychological and social surrounds.
Beyond these principal three sets of meaning-transducers, it seems that much of anything else is left to what locally passes for education and knowledge among this or that society -- and to the enormously variable secondary meaning transducers formed by "students" regarding what is taught as education and knowledge.
In the end, though, almost everyone interprets what they encounter
and/or experience through whatever meaning-transducers they have
managed to format.
It is our species, however, which has the faculties to format meaning transducers. Beyond that, whatever is formatted in the way of meaning transducers usually has relevance only to local societies and cultures -- and sometimes only to this or that individual specimen.
If we accept, at least hypothetically, that we live in environments fundamentally made up of information-signals, all of these will be found as waves, frequencies and vibrations -- and perhaps in some undiscovered forms. These will include both gross and subtle signals.
The arrays of our signal receptors will input these signals
into the biomind systems. But the signals will be useless unless
the signals are separated into categories by sensory transducers
and there after transduced into meaning.
Indeed, if we should receive a set of signals and have no idea of what they mean, then the signals represent only so much noise or "silence."
Thus, the categories of signals have to be forwarded by the sensory transducers to the meaning transducers in which the signals are converted into categories of meaning.
This is to say that via the arrays of receptors the signals
are input into the biomind as waves, frequencies and vibrations.
But ultimately the output into cognitive consciousness has to
be in the form of meanings -- at which point, as we usually say,
the signals can be recognized.
The assignment, as it were, of meaning to signals appears to be a very complicated process -- and is something which is not successful all of the time and/or regarding certain categories of signals.
Much seems to depend on what kind of signals the biomind has
been in some way prepared to recognize -- or has been prepared
to reject as meaningless.
Such preparation can be the result of experience and/or social programming -- with the latter usually dominating.
Every specimen of our species is born with a wide array of
sensory receptors, and with faculties commensurate to them.
On the other hand, each specimen of our species is also born into specific environments -- natural and social -- which emphasize certain meanings and de-emphasize other ones.
And most specimens will adapt their meaning-making transducers so that they accord with the demands of their natural, social and even artificial environments.
Emphasized meanings will result in high recognition thresholds.
De-emphasized meanings will result in low recognition thresholds
-- or perhaps no recognition thresholds at all.
If the meaning-recognition thresholds are low or non-existent, then the biomind specimen will be functionally "blind" to the signals being input via his or her own signal receptor arrays -- "blind" at least in the intellect cognitive sense.
In the case of low-threshold recognition of those signals our
superpower faculties can deal with, then traces of the superpower's
activity will not be found in logical, rational intellect cognition,
but in dreams, altered states of awareness, inexplicable hunches
and deductions, spontaneous intuitions and etc.
And, except for the rare occurrences of highly skilled natural psychics, it is exactly in these other areas of sensory reception where we in the modern West have historically found our species-wide traces of the superpowers.
To end off now, in all of the foregoing mini-essays, plus the
introductory materials, I have introduced the major concepts and
nomenclature which seem necessary for a deeper consideration of
the nature of the superpowers themselves in Part Five forthcoming.