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Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

qualiacomputing.com

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Re: Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

#11

Post by bglazer »

api wrote: post #4
bglazer wrote: post #2

I'm having a really hard time making sense of the whole enterprise of Qualia Computing/Qualia Research Institute. Like this particular subject (the nature of conciousness!) is rife with cranks, so they're starting at a disadvantage. They cite some real research published in Nature Communications, that seems at least somewhat related to their ideas, so that's promising. But then they're really (really!) focused on DMT…

It has a very Monroe Institute / Esalen at the peak of its history when Terrence McKenna and Timothy Leary were around vibe. Think of it as smart people with wide interests and often heterodox views shooting the shit but with some funding and a quasi-academic structure. I don’t know a ton about it but I’ve followed it for a while and that’s what it looks like to me. We should have more of this. Much of what this kind…

Yeah it seems pretty harmless. I like the comparison to the Santa Fe precursors, and I definitely agree that a certain degree of more or less sanctioned weirdness is good for the environment. I think what I was trying to convey (a bit harshly) was just a sense of like “what is this??” that I got from looking through their sites.

Re: Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

#12

Post by Jarwain »

abeppu wrote: post #9

If our attention was based on the shape of magnetic fields, then shouldn't fMRI studies basically not work? Our attention modulation mechanisms would be swamped by a much larger field right? But people have normal attention near powerful magnets so this seems like a nonstarter?

My interpretation (from a quick skim) is that it's not Literally based on the shape of magnetic fields, but rather they're applying the abstract "model" of how fields work to try and model how attention works

Re: Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

#13

Post by Jarwain »

Jarwain wrote: post #12
abeppu wrote: post #9

If our attention was based on the shape of magnetic fields, then shouldn't fMRI studies basically not work? Our attention modulation mechanisms would be swamped by a much larger field right? But people have normal attention near powerful magnets so this seems like a nonstarter?

My interpretation (from a quick skim) is that it's not Literally based on the shape of magnetic fields, but rather they're applying the abstract "model" of how fields work to try and model how attention works

Jk on a second glance they're taking it a bit more literally than I initially thought

Re: Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

#14

Post by HumanOstrich »

MrMcCall wrote: post #3

Some few years ago I did a YouTube dive into earthing/grounding tech setups, but never created a grounded mat to use while sleeping or programming. We don't use wifi for our computers (chips removed from machines and cable modem's wifi turned off) and spend very little time on cellphones in our residence, so we experience very little locally-generated EMF radiation (AFAIK), but I've not measured it for a very long ti…

This is all pseudoscientific nonsense and irrelevant to this post.

Re: Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

#15

Post by rramadass »

MrMcCall wrote: post #3

Some few years ago I did a YouTube dive into earthing/grounding tech setups, but never created a grounded mat to use while sleeping or programming. We don't use wifi for our computers (chips removed from machines and cable modem's wifi turned off) and spend very little time on cellphones in our residence, so we experience very little locally-generated EMF radiation (AFAIK), but I've not measured it for a very long ti…

This study, Earthing the Human Body Influences Physiologic Processes seems to have some data but am not sure how valid they are (the whole field is considered pseudo-science) - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3154031/

Re: Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

#16

Post by MrMcCall »

rramadass wrote: post #15
MrMcCall wrote: post #3

Some few years ago I did a YouTube dive into earthing/grounding tech setups, but never created a grounded mat to use while sleeping or programming. We don't use wifi for our computers (chips removed from machines and cable modem's wifi turned off) and spend very little time on cellphones in our residence, so we experience very little locally-generated EMF radiation (AFAIK), but I've not measured it for a very long ti…

This study, Earthing the Human Body Influences Physiologic Processes seems to have some data but am not sure how valid they are (the whole field is considered pseudo-science) - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3154031/

Thanks, but we are electrical beings whose bodies have developed over eons within the Earth's magnetic field. All cell-biologic functions are electromagnetic from the folding of proteins to how molecules are flowed into and out of cells and their organelles.

Vulcanization of rubber in the 1940s has left us mostly disconnected from the Earth ground. It is worth exploring. The unscientific call this fundamental connection with the Earth "pseudoscientific". All science is worth studying to find out what the effects are, my friend.

Re: Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

#17

Post by MrMcCall »

mathgladiator wrote: post #6
MrMcCall wrote: post #3

Some few years ago I did a YouTube dive into earthing/grounding tech setups, but never created a grounded mat to use while sleeping or programming. We don't use wifi for our computers (chips removed from machines and cable modem's wifi turned off) and spend very little time on cellphones in our residence, so we experience very little locally-generated EMF radiation (AFAIK), but I've not measured it for a very long ti…

It blows my mind that it should be very easy to test and validate benefits of grounding but I haven't done it yet. The experimental design is to sleep on a grounding pad with a control device that blinds whether the pad is grounded. For me, if you can wake and tell if you were grounded or not or have some other measure that can correlate with the historical grounding circuit then cool.

The biochemical effects may not be consciously apparent, at least to most people.

All I know for sure is that up to, pehaps, 100ya, most people were in contact with the Earth for many or even most hours of their day. 200ya, we were almost all nearly always grounded. That's but a blip in our bodies' developmental history.

Re: Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

#19

Post by aithrowawaycomm »

abeppu wrote: post #9

If our attention was based on the shape of magnetic fields, then shouldn't fMRI studies basically not work? Our attention modulation mechanisms would be swamped by a much larger field right? But people have normal attention near powerful magnets so this seems like a nonstarter?

I agree this specific write up is pretty unscientific, but the idea is that it’s a largely electrostatic field - obviously not literally static, but the impact of magnetism should be relatively small w.r.t. Maxwell’s equations.

I am not sure people have normal cognition/consciousness around strong magnets: MRIs are associated with slower response times and cognitive fog https://www.nature.com/articles/npre.2008.2443.1 But at least some of that might be related to magnetic dipoles at a cellular/micro-level vs. “field disruption.”

Re: Attention as the management of electromagnetic field lines

#20

Post by rramadass »

MrMcCall wrote: post #16
rramadass wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study, Earthing the Human Body Influences Physiologic Processes seems to have some data but am not sure how valid they are (the whole field is considered pseudo-science) - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3154031/

Thanks, but we are electrical beings whose bodies have developed over eons within the Earth's magnetic field. All cell-biologic functions are electromagnetic from the folding of proteins to how molecules are flowed into and out of cells and their organelles. Vulcanization of rubber in the 1940s has left us mostly disconnected from the Earth ground. It is worth exploring. The unscientific call this fundamental connect…

Sure, studying with an open mind but a critical eye. The problem is that this field attracts more than its share of cranks and woo-woo theorists and so there is a lot of sifting to do. My personal interest in this subject comes from Yoga/Qigong and seeing how it might be mapped to modern studies in bio-electricity and bio-energy.

As usual, wikipedia makes a good starting point for study - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioelectromagnetics

Incidentally, Sergey N. Makarov at Worcester Polytechnic Institute researches "human body interaction with EM fields" and has written a book Brain and Human Body Modeling available for free here - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-21293-3 You might find some of the chapters relevant.

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