Dear all,

Can anyone explain this to me:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1425188397%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAIUHVTL3RWMSQFY4A%26tag%3Dwikio01-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D386001%26creativeASIN%3D1425188397

I have asked for $16.00 (US) as minimal price, but to see the price doubled defies sanity. Unless, of course, I wasted paper and reselling my book costs more than buying a new one :)

Kind regards,

Damir

Dear all,

My book can be now purchased online. Here are few larger online retailers:

Abe Books: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1510501771&searchurl=an%3DDamir%2BIbrisimovic%26sts%3Dt%26tn%3DMy%2BStories%26x%3D40%26y%3D17

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/My-Stories-Damir-Ibrisimovic/dp/1425188397/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258705106&sr=8-1

Barnes & Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/My-Stories/Damir-Ibrisimovic/e/9781425188399/?itm=1&usri=Damir+Ibrisimovic+My+Stories

A1 Books: http://search.a1books.com/cgi-bin/mktSearch?act=showDesc&code=gbase&rel=1&ITEM_CODE=1425188397

Since the book’s roll out started in October, I do not expect to see it in traditional bookstores soon. I also do not expect a large success in initial sales. I rather hope for a gradual raise based on word of mouth.

For your amusement, I’m adding one of the stories from the book. It is a bit funny, but it does shed a new light on all of us; a new perspective that should make us think. If you like it, please forward this to your friends that might also like it.

Kind regards,

Damir

Shovels & Chickens

Split-brain patients offer a wealth of data for how we see.[1] The halves of the brains of split-brain patients do not talk to each other. And if the left eye does not see the same the right eye does, what is seen is recognised by each of the halves separately. Knowing this, psychologists devised a clever experiment. For example, they presented a picture of a shovel to the left eye only. At the same time they presented a picture of a chicken to the right eye. The subject was then presented with toys that included a shovel and a chicken to choose what they have seen. They chose correctly, but the reasoning they offered for the choice was perplexing. All the answers were in style – “you need a shovel to clean up a chicken shed”…

Most of us do not have our brains split. Our halves talk to each other and we do not have many shovels and chickens – do we? Hmm… We (pedestrians) stop at a red light even if there are no cars to be seen on both sides. What kind of answers will we give if asked why we do not cross the road? The first will be that the light is red. If pressed with the fact that there are no cars, we would probably say that we did not look. And if pressed about why we did not look, we would probably say that we were thinking about something else. We probably would not say that we stopped first and then started to think about something else…

Our “red light behaviour” is only a tiny example of a symptom we all demonstrate. And we demonstrate everything, with all contradictions, that is happening in our closed eyes world in every manner we can: faster heart beat, odour, sweat, involuntary micro twitches of facial muscles, body posture etc. etc. In theory, we could build equipment that would measure all these demonstrations of our stories – and pinpoint the conflicting ones.

Unfortunately, we do not have such equipment to help us pinpoint answers in the style – you need a shovel to clean up a chicken shed… We will probably not have anything like this imagined equipment in the foreseeable future – and even if we have it, how to interpret the mountains of data will be a problem. The only feasible path to detection of shovels and chickens in our stories is introspection and reconciliation between stories.[2]

But, our individual stories full of shovels and chickens are just a minor issue when compared with the volumes of stories full of shovels and chickens generated by our culture nowadays…

This is also true for our scientific disciplines divided by iron curtains. We have no choice but to roll up our sleeves, take the shovel and clean up the chicken shed…

Dear David,

Bull’s eye.

Aldous Huxley experimented with LSD (late 40s/early 50s) and described his experiences in a long essay “The Doors of Perception” (1954). He chose to quote William Blake (“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything will appear to man as it is, infinite.”) as opening. And I tend to agree with both of them almost entirely. My doubts stem from two questions: 1. Is there a difference between perceived infinite and infinite as is? 2. Are we “lost” in one infinite and unable to relate it to other infinites (not our memories of them)? Only negative answers on both could fully justify the quote and Huxley’s conclusions. (An indication to an answer on 1 could be given by people who have visual perception based on four basic colours compared to our that is based on three. If we do not get a difference here, finding a reliable answer on 2 will be quite difficult.)

That said, I do not wish to exclude emotional verification. But that is beyond words and reasoning. Here’s everybody on his own, but keeping oneself in check is always well advised. (Blind believes into anything always lead into a trouble.)

There is also a much less known (and explored) fact. Practically all of the substances you listed (+ some you missed) can be naturally synthesised in our bodies. (Biological potential is there in possible expressions of our genome sequences.) In addition, these substances can be synthesised in variants our bodies could tolerate much better. And many of these synthesised variants can be naturally combined by our bodies for enhanced effect. (Few combinations have been already detected and analysed. And, surprise-surprise, all of them have been detected in our brain. Their sources have not been fully identified, but the blood in the rest of subjects’ systems did not contain them.)

But there is a catch. Apparently, the state of subject’s mind needs to be “in sync” with synthesised substances. These substances do not only get us into “higher” states of mind, they can also destroy it. (Some, replicated substances never passed experimental stage. Errors in replication are not conclusively excluded, but...)

To me, the safest and the most rewarding method is a deliberate change in the state of my mind through meditation. I’ll probably never have all of the “fun” other people might have, but I’m quite sure that they will never have all of the “fun” I have. I do not know which drugs my body synthesises, but some of my experiences surpass even those Huxley expressed. (There is a limit in expression though.)

My favourite is defocused meditation: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=meditation-on-demand-nov09. (Please note that in Key Concepts, defocused meditation is erroneously identified as deep meditation; but not so in the article itself. Defocused meditations is, however, central to other types of deep meditations.) Experienced practitioners of defocused meditation (Buddhist monks in this case) demonstrated a remarkable ability to synchronise rhythms of their alpha, beta and gamma brainwaves. Taking blood samples was considered too intrusive for a successful meditation and we do not have data here.

In everyday life, bursts of gamma brainwaves are very rare, very short (.4 sec in average, I think) and likely limited to moments when we find a solution to a problem. In fact, that was how they were discovered - by recording brainwaves of students solving problems. Since then, several experiments/measurements were conducted with very small variances in results. The nature of problems was rather mathematical/logical, but I heard of a team that is trying to recruit students from an academy for visual arts. (The most of painters, for example, have a picture in their mind before the first stroke of the brush. Drawing a sketch, however, would probably be the best for testing purposes.)

It is worth to note that bursts occurred .6/.7 sec (again, I think) before students reported finding a solution (button pressing). Libet’s .5 sec delay should be taken in account here. There were also cases of significant delays in reporting from students that were tending to re-evaluate, but I do not remember figures and methods used to average them or discard them. (Sorry to be imprecise here, but my access to these studies expired.)

Defocused meditation integrates visual, audio and olfactory experiences. (I call it open eyes meditation that can have varying depth.) Other sensory input is also integrated, but in rather passive way, like a “platform”. Some say that defocused meditation can be performed with our eyes closed, but I have serious doubts about this. I have tried it few times, but all I could manage is to “degrade” visual component and experience itself. (j implies otherwise, but...)

I already described in some detail my experiences with defocused meditation and will not repeat here. I will, however, say that deepest defocused meditations cannot be performed in any environment and on demand. In my case, the environment and my responses to it are critical. (Once, my experiences matched Huxley’s, but not entirely. He also seems to have been rather a passive observer only, while my voice revibrated in everything I observed. I cannot go further since words would not make any sense.)

I would also add something I did not mentioned before. I sometimes, but rarely, fall deliberately into a “light” defocused meditative state, others interpret as “lost in thought”. While I do get lost in thought occasionally, there is a difference. And this difference is always confirmed by puzzled reactions of others if I speak in this state.

As for Gödel et al. discussion. I maintain that the whole company probably never faced (sensory) infinity. In any system of thought (philosophy), infinity must be reduced to a manageable finite. (Only Hume, in his denial of definitive answers, is a probable exception.) In the science also. The evidence must be measurable and an experiment must be replicable. As result, we have philosophers and scientists still running in 17th century circles. (And, as Gödel, they are very touchy...)

Kind regards,

Damir

Dear Cindy (?),

For a meaningful answer, I have to summarise the current status of genetics and emergence of the epigenetics. I guess that you have enough resources for the former and I offer you a source for the later: http://www.epigenie.com/index.html.

Geneticists appear to be in state of confusion lately; last decade approximately. And the confusion seems to have a single source. In short, the belief in random changes/mutations (error in copying) within genome lost its ground. In addition, the most of results, they were hoping for, failed to materialise.

Fourteen years ago, a question was raised: How is genotype translated (expressed) in phenotype? And the answers were entirely unexpected. The same genome sequence could generate quite different proteins (phenotypes) as its expression. Moreover, these expressions were found to differ not only between different individuals. They were found to differ in time within the same individual as this, easy to follow, video illustrates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV8FM_d1Leo. And recently, we have finds that even genome can differ between identical twins: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080215121214.htm.

The current thought, not yet contemplated by majority of (confused) geneticists, could be outlined as follows: (Hopefully, I did not oversimplify.)

In the process of fertilisation, parents’ epigenome facilitates pairing of parents’ genome (sequences) into child’s genome (sequences). In this, phenotype of a parent with “better” experiences in an environment probably has a better chance to copy a sequence of originating parent. I know of four teams now that are working on this independently. The field is quite competitive and it is hard to get some details from them. However, what I know for certain is that all of them are struggling to identify environment related sequences of phenotype. (This is now changing original timetables and results are now expected to be published in May/June, instead of January/February.)

I am in favour of an additional thought, although it may be hard to devise an experiment to verify it. I think that a significant change in phenotype can induce a change in genotype during the life of a single organism. This would explain those minute differences in genotypes of identical twins. To capture a change in genotype of an organism, we need to relate environmental factors and their reflections in sequences of phenotype and genotype first. And that might need few years.

The virus is a special case here. As you know, a virus is rather (a fragment of) a genome. Without a cell’s enclosure, it is rather a lifeless particle; like a molecular dust. Only when it finds its way into a cell, the virus could become active. (I stress this “could”, since the virus does not always become active. And that is at heart of the matter.)

For a virus to become active, it has to find compatible sequences within host’s genome and epigenome. In the most of the cases, this is not difficult since the compatible sequences are mostly basic sequences typical to the most of susceptible organisms. But there is a catch. The sequences required for the virus to become active have to be compatible between themselves also. If they are not, the virus is weakened or fragmented (active vaccine).

The active H1N1 vaccine counts on incompatibilities between sequences the virus is trying to activate. This eases the task of our immune system. The production process is rather a brute intervention into virus’ genome, but it works in the most of the cases if administered before infection. (Another method is to select a set of toxic proteins that will mimic the presence of a virus and spur our immune system into action. This method, however, works for quite limited number of viral infections that do not generate enough toxins that will alert our immune system. Note that vaccines obtained by this method could be administered before and after infection.)

The passive H1N1 vaccine can be administered before and after infection occurs. Apart from being a bit more expensive, it may be less durable since antibodies are not always well tuned to mutated forms of a virus. A virus may undergo significant genetic changes within hours in an organism; with most of them being viruses’ attempts to avoid detection by introduced antibodies. Fortunately, the introduced antibodies may buy enough time for our own immune system to start generate its own antibodies.

The danger of H1N1 is in its rapid evolution that may render current vaccines ineffective. And the speed of its evolution is hugely augmented through cross-species infections that are also making H1N1 more durable.

In short, H1N1 is here for a long time (decades?) to be fought against. I suspect that we will have many seasons ahead that will require new vaccines until we establish “guards” on the most of evolutionary paths H1N1 may take in future.

I also think that we will be mistaken to narrow epigenetics to proteins that constitute the cell only. (This would be equivalent to the mistake genetics did by narrowing everything into genome only.) There is a solid reasoning (complemented by some findings) that our experiences are reflected in phenotype on the cellular level also. And as such, they may facilitate or inhibit activities of viruses within our metabolism. Our fear of H1N1, for example, can make it more contagious and destructive than it would otherwise be.

This thought gave me the idea to seriously consider our emotions, that are also contagious, as a factor in immunology and epidemiology: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Emotional_Epidemiology/. I know that this kind of thinking may sound too farfetched. Solid scientific indicators (findings) are still in the making. However, if we do not have anything to look for... And it does seem that the most of geneticists have nothing to look for (see confusion, above).

The thought that a joke, for example, could be an effective (complement to) vaccine for H1N1 (or something else) is still quite strange to minds of many. And the mechanism of how a joke could alter specific proteins within our cells is still in the realm of imagination. But, the thought that our emotions could trigger production of extremely complex combinations of proteins that influence the state of our metabolism should not be so strange. After all, we do use a variety of drugs to alter emotions and behaviour of some patients. The reverse is also confirmed in some cases. And the fact that emotions could generate extremely complex combinations of proteins within our bodies could be behind placebo/nocebo effects.

I invite you again to join me. Emotional Epidemiology/Immunology could be a funny implementation of our imagination, but with quite probable and serious results. (I already devised a small component for emotional vaccination against H1N1 there.)

Kind regards,

Damir Ibrisimovic