http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english English version of Darío Salas Sommer's Blog Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:35:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 en http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=36 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=36#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:29:11 +0000 Administrator General http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=36 What is certain is that very few individuals in the history of the world have fulfilled Nature’s primordial requirement by reaching a superior level of humanity. The rest seems only to be interested in making war, destroying, corrupting, or experiencing an orgasmic pleasure in life even at the cost of slavery or total destruction.
In this manner the human being has become, at the level of the species, a corrupted animal, with natural instincts dirtied by passions, and unable to raise oneself up to a real human condition.
For the same reason science has not managed to find the moral foundation belonging to a superior civilization and has instead fallen into the materialistic utilization of knowledge placed at the service of money and power. Frequently there is no money for research without profit, no matter how important it may be, creating a materialistic and utilitarian culture.
We have made the mistake of developing the intellect as much as possible without possessing consciousness of good and evil from a higher point of view, oblivious to the fact that intelligence without consciousness can fall off the tracks onto the dark side of existence, perverting the essence of things. A good example is the industry of public health, which in most countries has become one of the most profitable businesses; not that profitability is a bad thing, but the dehumanization that this carries with it is bad indeed.
The last century was characterized by long wars and incredible arms development by the best representatives of science, who thus also make themselves responsible for the destruction caused. In the past, however, there were other scientists who faced the tortures and burnings of the Inquisition rather than renounce the truth, and they gave the world hope for a better life.
How did modern science come to place itself at the service of the ideology of consumerism and fear-mongering, making itself a slave to politics and to the type of industry whose objective is the creation of wealth regardless of the true development of the person?
We know that in ancient Egypt the laws of Nature and the Universe were only revealed to people with superior moral qualities who had passed difficult tests, conquering their animal egoism and demonstrating the purity of their thoughts and their willingness to serve humanity.
What do we know about the internal world of contemporary scientists? What are their standards and their aspirations? Are they capable of managing their emotions and destructive impulses? Are they different from other people, whose internal world has not changed all through the centuries, whose passions are not sublimated nor submitted to their willpower but have instead become stronger and more dangerous than they were in the days of the cave-dwellers?
It is not possible to reach a profound opinion about contemporary science unless we examine science and scientists in relation to society and its physical ailments and mental shortcomings.
The traditional definition of science is the body of knowledge obtained through observation and reasoning, systematically structured, from which principles and general laws are deduced. It is systematized knowledge, worked out through observations, reasoning and methodically organized tests. Based on this activity new knowledge is generated that not only describes the observed phenomena but also permits the making of concrete, quantitative and provable predictions, building up the relationship between cause and effect and, as a result: to make the right decisions.
Common sense and a simple analysis of the situation that has been created on our planet proves that the objective of science—the establishment of the relationships between cause and effect and behaving consciously on the basis of this analysis—is not being fulfilled, which has a lamentable effect on the world and on the quality of life.
One could compare the condition of a contemporary person to a kindergarten, in which firearms and explosive or poisonous substances are the toys. In reality we have a complete arsenal of such” toys”: nuclear energy, ballistic missiles, lasers, artificial satellites and geophysical and climatic arms with which human beings amuse themselves by risking the destruction of the planet (and this is no mere metaphor).
In August of 2009 the scientific magazine Nature published an article on the militarization of biology and the necessity for a rigorous control of this process, raising the dilemma of science being responsible for the creation of weapons of mass destruction. The article began with a cry of alarm from the Medical Association of Great Britain: “If we continue our neglectful behavior and the use of biochemical arms is not rigorously regulated, we will be on a slippery slope, at the end of which we will reach the militarization of biology and the intentional manipulation of emotions, memory, immune reactions and even people’s ability to reproduce.”
We will cite some statements from the scientific community, which reflect what is happening in this area:
Jonathan Moreno, professor of ethics at the University of Pennsylvania: “Today, the militarization of the natural sciences is not only causing a deterioration of the right to ‘freedom, independence and the preservation of confidentiality’, but also of the U.S. system of justice, which is not prepared to function in such a situation, in which the state controls the totality of the activity of the citizens finds itself with new ways of keeping people under its control. With this objective biological research is made secret in the name of a mythical “national security”. Little by little biological or medical research under the egis of DARPA and the Pentagon are becoming a new branch of weapons development, while interactive technologies seem to ‘perfect’ the capacities of human beings, but are in reality applied to invade the thoughts and minds of citizens.”
Freeman Dyson, one of the founders of quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory (the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.) writes:
“Fifty years ago in Princeton the mathematician John von Neumann figured out and built the first computer that followed coded instructions inserted into it, that is, computer programs. The computer was not invented by John von Neumann, but he figured out the programs. John von Neumann understood that his invention would change the world. He understood that future generations of these machines would become the basis for the development of science, of business, and of the state. But he never managed to foresee that in the end computers would become so domesticated that they would serve as toys for three-year-olds. He could not imagine that in the 21st Century computer games would be such a part of everyday life. Through computer games our grandchildren are growing up with an incurable dependency on the computer. Whether this is good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, human beings and computers are joined together ‘until death do them part’ more closely than husbands and wives. We must now expect something similar with biotechnologies.”
Dave DeWalt, the president of McAfee, says: “Today virtual weapons are more dangerous than nuclear weapons. Cyberwarfare has become a reality, given that the U.S., Russia, France, Israel and China are very well armed with information technology and virtual weapons. The international arms race is moving slowly but surely from the physical world to the on-line environment, where cyber-attacks can have so much influence that they destroy the infrastructure of an entire country, including its energy systems, water supply and financial markets . . . .”
Victor Holstoy, a Russian military scientist, organizer of the process for the destruction of chemical arms, maintains: “It seems strange, but the development of different technologies and scientific knowledge constitutes the principal threat for humanity. The most sophisticated discoveries in the fields of chemistry, biology, pharmacology and nanotechnology have two sides, since they can bring good or the most terrible misfortune. Most likely the greatest scientific/technological discoveries in the area of human development will be made on the border between chemistry and biology, that is, in spheres which already influence the ecology of our planet.”
It is clear that the abyss between the level of technology and the scant development of the internal world of persons has reached an alarming level, since contemporary scientific knowledge lacks the wisdom necessary for superior ethical and spiritual behavior. There are still scientists who comprehend these problems, but will governments listen to their opinions and change the existing situation? Will they comprehend that the well-being of the state depends first and foremost on the level of consciousness of each individual, and one’s comprehension of one’s role as a cell within a single organism?
In my book Morals for the XXIst Century, I expressed my opinion that states should invest in education based on wisdom, not on information; on education based on the responsibility of each person for what happens on the planet. The amount of knowledge accumulated in a culture, as we can see from many examples, has nothing to do with its accumulation of wisdom.
The greater the quantity of information, the less capacity there is for comprehension, and the entropy of the knowledge increases, growing intellect but not wisdom. We can make intellectual giants of ourselves, build the most sophisticated and powerful computers, and even travel to other planets, but in the world of consciousness we are impotent children, unable to foresee the catastrophic consequences of our actions and inventions.
The world reminds us of a scorpion that kills itself with its own stinger, and the educational system of a mental manipulation that never achieves its fundamental goal, which is to obtain a sufficient dose of wisdom to get within a few centimeters of human excellence.
It is important to point out that science has brought many things that have made human life better, but every coin has two sides. Many “technical achievements” have turned into time bombs: the submarines that have sunk carrying nuclear missiles on board; the toxic influence of dioxins, which form when garbage is burned; the pollution of the Earth’s orbit, which already looks like a trash can; the success in organ transplants, which has led to horrendous crimes such as the sale of living persons and murder to obtain their organs. And this happens in practically every area of science: there is something that helps us, but it has another side that kills and destroys.
Why should modern science be moral? Of what use is it for the scientists that build weapons of mass destruction or of biological warfare?
In our society there is a lot of propaganda about morals and ethics, but nobody perceives it seriously, in a profound and conscious way. Most interpret moral norms as heavy duties, performing them grudgingly, just to the point where they start to take away from our habitual pleasures.
I refer to morality as a state of Nature in which everything maintains an unstable equilibrium, in which every event provokes a response that maintains the homeostasis of the Universe. Unfortunately, in our culture people do not know how to make conscious decisions, because they are unaware of the method of viewing reality objectively and formulating predictions on this basis.
Human beings are raiders that dirty and destroy their planet without thinking of the consequences. They accumulate money that comes from unsustainable resources without considering that this is leading to the final extinction of the species due to a lack of true human development, which cannot be obtained through material wealth or from mere information.
Could it be necessary to undergo a succession of catastrophes so that mankind can be awoken from its cataleptic stupor and recognize the necessity of investing its material and human resources in the achievement of individual evolution, instead of inventing new ways to destroy the planet and its inhabitants?
According to public information, worldwide military spending in 2008 were around 1.5 trillion dollars. With just 0.01% of these costs we could develop fundamental scientific directives concerning the interaction of human beings and Nature in order to demonstrate that each person and all of Humanity depends on the development of the internal world of man.
I invite the world’s scientists to join in this great work.
Darío Salas Sommer
]]> http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?feed=rss2&p=36 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=32 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=32#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:43:26 +0000 Administrator General http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=32
Now that 2009 is ending, the time is right to ask yourself: what have you really done for yourself this year? Maybe you will say that you achieved many things, a, b, and c, and that you are very satisfied because of that.  Perhaps, the other letters of the alphabet did not let themselves be conquered and you feel frustrated because of all the things that got away from you.
Your list of achievements will probably be long and generous perhaps you will even decide to treat yourself to a holiday at some privileged place of the planet.  Your love life is doing well, financially your are stable, and your health is not too bad.
Your children, if you have any, are behaving themselves, your partner is wonderful.  Soon you will be able to move into a bigger house and install a Home Theater with a giant High Definition Full plasma screen and a games room for your children so they will install their console table and be able to fully enjoy all that this technology can do.
All in all, the world isn’t that bad, global warming is nothing more than a game.  If you are lucky enough to have an outdoor space or yard perhaps you’ll put up a hammock and savor your own satisfaction.
Again: What are you doing for yourself?
Do you know who you are, and what you are like? Do you behave as a human being or like a robot?
For a being that shares 98% of its genes with chimpanzees, it would seem that you are doing all right.  In any case, don’t worry if your life is not ideal and you are not able to do what you want, or if you end up doing something you don’t want to do.
Neuroscience has proven that we have no free will and that our brain is never in the present because it is always half a second behind in time.
Perhaps therefore we should content ourselves with the levels of pollution, poverty, crime, child abuse, violence, war and depredation of the planet’s natural resources.
In any case, if we have no free will, then we aren’t guilty of anything, since, “something” we are not aware of, thinks for us and chooses for us, which means that we are “obliged to do.” The truth is that our own identity is fake, and our brain belongs to an unknown being that controls our lives.
Worrying, don’t you think? We move like puppets, and we ignore who the pupiteer is.
In any case, we must not lose hope as there is this guy who goes around saying that it is possible to know thyself, recover your real identity and cut loose the strings.
This is why, this Christmas, I wish you all the highest good: know thyself, find your real identity, and all that this entails.
Fraternally,
Dario Salas Sommer,
Philosopher,
December 2009.

]]> http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?feed=rss2&p=32 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=28 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=28#comments Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:35:27 +0000 Darío Salas General http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=28 I am only a modest philosopher and therefore my offering is not of the material kind.  It is just a small piece of wisdom extracted from the nature of earth and the heavens using the tools of “significant” cognitive capacity, the skills of higher consciousness that come from processes of cognitive perception at an increased level of vigilance.
Irreverently, my perception in this case was not inspired by the great philosophers, but instead by two well-known magicians, or more accurately “illusionists”:  the celebrated Harry Houdini, who died in 1926, and the North American Chris Angel, who levitates at will and constantly eludes death.

It all started when I comprehended how simple it is in this world to make things appear or disappear at will:  to change black to white and white to red or green.
I wondered how I could make a rabbit disappear right before everyone’s eyes without them understanding how I did it, and I suddenly realized it wasn’t a problem of illusion but of semantics, that is, of the meaning of the linguistic signals.  It’s simply a matter of modifying the identity of the rabbit by assigning its name to an exotic fish or a giant tortoise, and then inserting the new meaning into the standard or popular dictionary, which would lead in a few years to the rabbit itself disappearing and being forgotten.  Pay attention:  by changing or manipulating the semantic identity of X, the original object or situation irretrievably disappears.
It is thus possible to understand how a lax or self-interested use of semantics is constantly robbing “rabbits” from us in order to kidnap our minds and transport us to a virtual reality that is given the name of truth.  In this world we will accept many things without discrimination or comprehension, since the strongest messages circulating about will easily penetrate our minds, “making us want what perhaps we do not desire,” or else reject what we truly enjoy.
And what could be the purpose of this manipulation?
Simply, to convert us into submissive consumers of the material or conceptual merchandise that self-interested purveyors want to force on us, so that at a certain point our brains will belong to the entities that are interested in controlling our behavior, allowing them to persuade us to consume submissively ideologies, merchandise, people, music, films, life-styles, etc., firmly convinced that we are choosing freely.
Matrix Today?  Perhaps.
 
I believe Mr. José Ortega y Gasset had it right when he maintained that only when we have experienced the shipwreck of our illusions and fantasies do we become able to know a deeper reality—the delight of the true philosophers of antiquity, whose lost truths still survive hidden within ancient myths that we never bother to unravel because we suppose them to be simple fantasy stories invented by people with overactive imaginations.
Couldn’t the opposite be true, in the sense that right now, in the workaday present, our most treasured beliefs constitute mere myths?  And contrary to ancient mythology, which had a higher and deeper meaning, today’s mythology is nothing more than a virtual “matrix”?
Could ancient philosophy contain the master key that can deactivate the current “matrix” and lead us to real happiness?
The spurious nature of modern currents of thought is in any event a bit suspicious, in that unlike the ancient ones, they lead to be mired in fantasies that are custom-fitted to the interests that have been created for us; and they are focused on appearances, since they know nothing of a deeper reality.
Is Sophia (Wisdom) dead?
It would seem so, unless she has hidden herself very deeply to avoid being destroyed by the exorbitant quantity of meaningless information that circulates profusely throughout the world spreading all kinds of fallacies, probably with evil intent. 
One example among many such fallacies:  the IHD or Index of Human Development put out by the UNPD, or United Nations Program for Development
Upon analysis it is clear that this index is based on a semantic trap that amounts to a cruel joke, defining “human development” as mere economic development, which implies that the poor are incapable of developing themselves.  Let’s look, for example, at the article on page 12 of the newspaper La Tercera of Thursday November 29, 2007, headlined, “The Dramatic Differences Between Life in Countries With a Better or Worse Human Development Index.”  Among other things, it says here that according to a U.N. report the country with the best quality of life is Iceland, and the worst is Sierra Leone.
The report shows that the GDP [gross domestic product] per capita in Iceland is US$36,510.00, while the GDP of Sierra Leone is US$806.00 per capita, which certainly is shocking.  Further down, there is a text box indicating that “Of every thousand Icelanders 869 are internet users,” while in Sierra Leone, “only two people of every thousand have access to the internet.”
In this text box, which is the most prominent one (pictures and red-lettered captions), quality of life is erroneously confused with money, material goods, and internet access.  I wonder, however, if these high-GDP people are happier or if the “matrix system” makes them believe in an à la carte model of happiness.  Do they really possess a higher level of human development?  If we take material wealth as the reference point the answer is YES, but if we comprehend that true human development is identified with spiritual wealth and the evolution of consciousness the answer is, without any doubt, NO.
We cannot maintain that happiness depends on material wellbeing, since this would be like asserting that we “see with our eyes,” when in fact we see with our brain, which is what decodes the signals of the “eye-sensors”; this is why a Hindu beggar who has deep faith in his gods may be quite happy without any great need for material goods.
I believe that pleasure has become subtly confused with happiness, which is like putting the body and the soul on the same level, forgetting the religious creed and popular legends that hold that the Devil is only interested in carrying off the souls, and not the bodies, of the unfortunates who lose their way (he must have a reason).  Although many may believe that we have no soul, this could be due to the vagueness of this expression; the mere fact that its existence has not been scientifically demonstrated proves nothing, since the subtlety of its composition is perhaps beyond the analytical reach of conventional instruments.  I would like to know if people who have more televisions, computers, cell phones, MP3 players, and all the other electronic baloney that exists, are happier than those who are deprived of material possessions but are rich in spiritual possessions.
Authentic happiness is not experienced by the body; it is an experience of the inner world that comes from the fact of knowing oneself, discovering oneself, and owning oneself (the true self of one’s being, and not the personality.)
It emanates from real human development, which refers to the level of humanization of the Homo Sapiens.  We cannot deny that we are animals in the process of humanization, which can only be achieved through the evolution of our consciousness.  To explain this requires the exposure of another semantic trap:  consciousness is not “consciousness” as the dictionary describes it, as “the property of the human spirit of self-recognition in its essential attributes and all the modifications that it experiences within itself,” and also “internal knowledge of good and evil.”
In turn, “spirit” is defined as “an immaterial being possessing reason.”  At this point the density of the semantic foliage makes it difficult to move forward because the definition of the spirit as “an immaterial being possessing reason” leads us to conclude that if we have a spirit we possess reason, which should enable us to see reality as it is, which is a belief that has been demonstrated to be false by, among others, Humberto Maturana.
The fact is that the world will not be developed or sustainable so long as Man does not considerably increase his superior consciousness, which is almost impossible because of the very high level of mental alienation resulting from the saturation of the brain with information.  In reality, there are times when “abundance leads to scarcity,” and this is one of them, given that the immense magnitude of the information that we receive daily fragments our minds so as to cause incoherence among all of their parts, and as a consequence “enlightened cognitive misery.”
We are a society based on information and not on wisdom, and this is the true reason for the problems in the world:  we have no idea how to convert information into wisdom, and this situation causes the most intelligent people to do the stupidest things.  I really do not think that this explanation helps much, since the word “wisdom” is one of the many “rabbits” that mysterious hands have made to disappear, being converted in practice into a synonym for “abundance of information” and therefore it will not be possible to understand its real meaning and importance. 
Our daily level of mental perception is shockingly deficient with regard to the perception of reality because we live in a twilight state of diminished vigilance that has also been called a “waking dream” (between asleep and awake), which, without any doubt, represents a generalized pathological condition that inclines us toward cognitive misery, as bad or worse than economic misery.
Speaking in a more transcendental sense, it constitutes an obstacle that prevents us from evolving in harmony with life, which surely is the reason for our existence.
This is perhaps a good time to ask ourselves what is the essence of the human condition, in order to clarify whether we are embodying it or avoiding it—to ask ourselves whether we are the same as a chicken or a bird that is born a bird and dies a bird and if we also, like them, are born complete and are human simply because we have the bodies of such.
Is it not more realistic to accept that the creator makes us incomplete and puts us on this world as rough sketches so that each of us can complete himself?  If such is the case we can conclude that our personal and worldly problems emanate from the fact that we exist only in the form of “human projects”, unaware of the happiness and wisdom that awaits us as a result of completing ourselves and reaching a truly human stature and condition.
What percentage of humanity lies within a person?  Is it the body that determines his human condition?  Or some other, more subtle thing?  Is it perhaps intelligence or reason?  Observation of real life demonstrates that in the course of history Man has not evolved with regard to his internal world, since his passions, vices and shortcomings are the same or worse than they were in antiquity.  Greater capacity for destruction, corruption, betrayal, dishonesty, arrogance, cruelty, physical or psychological torture, etc.  The salvation of our planet, troubled as it is with global warming and other ills caused by Man, depends without any doubt on the true development of the human being, which is not achieved by stuffing ourselves with memorized information or accumulating riches.
Excess information leads inexorably to enlightened ignorance, that is, to the possession of a lot of “meaningless” information, that is, information the meaning of which we do not comprehend deeply.  In our current state of evolution we lack the capacity for meaning, which unlike informational skill is not inborn; we possess it only as a latent ability that must be developed by each individual.
So long as this does not take place education will continue to be a failure, and it will hide its failure by manipulating its semantic content, claiming educational qualities for systems that ignore the most important things in life:  knowing onself, understanding the difference between animal and human consciousness (animals have a primitive state of consciousness), understanding that nature is not to be dominated and plundered of her goods, but rather we are obliged to live in harmony with her if we want the world to be sustainable.
Education is ignorant when it comes to teaching us to live consciously; it does not know the difference between wisdom and information; it knows nothing at all about what we should do to really “humanize” ourselves, that is, to become completely human.
Semantic illusionism constantly fools us, because we are merely animals that have achieved a certain percentage of human attributes.  How much is this percentage?  20%, 30%, or 40%?
Personally, I would say it’s a more modest percentage, based just on reading the newspapers and asking myself if the reality they reflect is more consistent with a rapacious and violent animal or with a wise and conscious real human being.  By the smoke and mirrors of semantic illusionism “quality of life” is not quality of life; “education” is simply the mastering of memorization; “liberty” is not liberty; “happiness” is not happiness; “justice” is not justice; “love” is not love, and so on to infinity.  Matrix has colonized our minds in such a way that “we are not able to distinguish between a virtual hamburger and a real one” (reference to the movie “Matrix.”)
I believe that today (any day can be today) is the best moment to comprehend the measureless magnitude of the gift we can give to ourselves and to the world if we manage to evolve.  The salvation of the planet depends on true human development, the transcendental meaning of which was known in ancient Greece, and the level of quality of life that we can reach through the evolution of our consciousness exceeds all known parameters.
You, who are reading this, own the decision whether you will live as a “rough sketch” or will try to complete yourself.  You decide your own future:  to break the chains of illusion by developing your superior consciousness to gain access to a deeper reality or to remain asleep, dreaming of a better future.
You own the decision whether to accept or reject this small gift.
In any case, I wish you a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year 2008 so that you may find peace, wisdom and happiness.
.
Darío Salas Sommer
December, 2007
]]> http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?feed=rss2&p=28 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=27 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=27#comments Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:28:56 +0000 Darío Salas General http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=27 I have always been fascinated by Chinese culture, by its high level of comprehension of nature, its philosophical conception of human existence and the imperative of striving for spiritual and moral perfection.  A profound mysticism cuts across its endeavors, deeply influenced by the teachings of Confucius, of whom I am a great admirer, y by other philosophers and scientists such as Lao Tze.  I therefore was deeply pleased by the recognition that I recently received from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Not long my book Morals for the 21st Century was published in that country, through the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RAEN), and it was very well received by the Chinese Academy of Natural Sciences, whose president Mr. Hasn was kind enough to send me a very thoughtful letter in the form of a beautiful and delicate diploma with Chinese characters and symbols, which was presented to me by the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in Chile, Mrs. Liu Yuqin, at a lovely event to which I was invited last October 11 (see photos). 
.
  
 
         
The text of the letter is as follows:
Dear Mr. Darío Salas Sommer
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences hereby expresses its respect for you and for your scientific achievement.  Your works have been presented in China by RAEN, which indicates the existence of international recognition for your endeavors. 
We have studied your works and the content of the book Morals for the 21st Century with profound attention.  The problems of morality and human conduct examined in this book concern every inhabitant of our planet.  You are engaged in an enormous task, reopening these questions, leading people to become true human beings.  And this is most difficult because the principal focus in our times is the development of the economy.
There is a lot of talk these days about the ecology of the environment but nonetheless it is important to sustain the equilibrium of the yin-yang and internal order of the individual.
Irrespective of the country in which we live, we are all united within the morality and the universal laws of conduct, which are the same for all inhabitants of the Earth who have the ability to think.
The evolution of the human being must not cease.  The principle objective of Man consists in the development of consciousness, and it is necessary to go deeply into knowledge and to hoard wisdom, to help the people who surround us.
When a person studies his own nature he draws closer to it and conducts his life consciously and reasonably.
Such people show merit at all levels – in the family, at work, in the state, and in nature.
The issues involved in the study of consciousness are similar to traditional Chinese thought.  We are quite familiar with the works of Lao Tze, The Book of Changes, etc.
Only through our combined efforts is it possible to reach success in a matter as large and important as the evolution of the human being.
It is necessary to bring together all of our energy and knowledge in order to walk together down this complex but very interesting path.
Sincerely,
the President of HASN
TSju Vej
]]> http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?feed=rss2&p=27 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=24 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=24#comments Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:16:36 +0000 Darío Salas General http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=24 Extreme poverty, war, depletion of non-renewable energy resources, global warming, delinquency, terrorism, violence, all are the work of Man, not of Nature: clear evidence of a global dislocation in education which focuses on material progress and excludes human development.
There are many in the world who possess a good formal education; intelligent people who, paradoxically, tend to behave foolishly when they apply their knowledge to daily life. 
Regardless of the excellence and quantity of his academic diplomas and his success in the formal aspects of his particular profession, the truth is that the educated man, like the ignorant, maintains a fragmentary mental position, behaving as if he were shipwrecked on a tiny island of knowledge that separates him from the rest of the world.
Success, in its broadest sense, implies opening oneself to a wider vision of real life that transcends the theoretical information of the classroom.  No professional who guides himself strictly by what he learns in the university will be able to be successful in unusual situations (of which there is no shortage) unless difficult circumstances oblige him to submit himself to a “mental reengineering” that is more in tune with reality.
Teaching programs, logically enough, come from within the limits of what is known and accepted; but, unfortunately, the most serious problems in the world persist because they do not have a known solution within the prescribed framework, and the elite corps of intelligent men who work to solve the problems of environmental pollution, extreme poverty, hunger, crime, illiteracy, epidemic disease, unemployment, exhaustion of natural resources, war and terrorism, fail miserably in their effort to put an end to these woes because they employ common tools to confront emergency situations, as if a flight mechanic tried to repair a major breakdown using only a monkey wrench.
I think that one of our principal mistakes consists of looking for typical solutions to atypical problems, and in some cases, limiting ourselves to copying formulas that applied in other places and times.
I am convinced that despite the huge educational effort that is made worldwide, education is in crisis; and that it has been successful only with respect to the theoretical study of traditional materials of a cultural or professional nature, but not in applying this knowledge to the solution of chronic problems.
There is persistent or increasing corruption, depression, stress, and drug addiction, an absence of life-awareness, and a decline or absence of traditional values such as honor, being true to one’s word, personal merit, and respect for one’s neighbor.  The true meaning of knowledge is found in the ability to apply it, not only to satisfy basic needs and personal goals, but also to build a better world.
Educational advancement generally does not stimulate the development of discretion, good judgment, ethics, and empathy with our fellow man, since intelligence is generally at the service of uncontrolled passions and emotions, and not of superior rationality.
The mind of the student is programmed from the outside by teachers who, in their turn, underwent the same learning process and mass production of duly socialized people who behave in accordance with what the society and the state expect of them, paying their taxes without protest, consuming the greatest possible quantity of goods and services and behaving in an obedient and submissive manner.
By means of this system of “passing material on” the point of comprehension is generally never reached, so it is highly probable that our minds turn into containers for autonomous information that is not subordinated to the “I”, with its own dynamic that comes from its original source.
The result:  far too often each individual acts as a mere resonator of extraneous information, wrongly interpreted as his “own” in the sense of “my ideas,” “my values,” or “my feelings,” without taking into account the alienating nature of these messages, which provoke a total disconnection with the essential I or selfhood. 
Formal education does not nourish the development of a higher level of social and natural consciousness, but is limited to training people who, as in the platonic allegory of the cave, can only see and appreciate the shadows that surround them and not things as they are in full daylight.
Formal knowledge has neither compass nor sextant, condemning us to wander without knowing where we are going, because we have no solid points of reference in human and natural reality, and we cannot know for certain the direction in which we will find the wellbeing and happiness that we seek, without realizing that the road is inside our own selves.  In truth, the subliminal learning process that we are accustomed to fills our brains with alienating information that comes to control our behavior, pushing us into a state of drowsiness similar to the “waking dream” defined by psychologists, which refers to being between sleep and wakefulness, a twilight state of scant perception of reality, chasing dreams and fantasies that lead nowhere.
This functional disorder is not the birthright of the ignorant; on the contrary, it is a plague that affects equally the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned.
To be accurate, what gives value to our lives is the deep significance of knowledge and not its appearance, but formal education does not know how to grasp the essential meaning of things, which was the primordial ambition of the sages of other times.  We are not taught to think; there are no courses for the development of the capacity for voluntary attention, which in practice barely exists, being replaced by attention that is captivated by external sensations and stimuli.  Nor are we shown how to develop our character and will power, fundamental tools in order to be successful in life.
Finally, there is a central problem from which all the others originate:  “anti-education” which shipwrecks us on islands of information disconnected from total reality.  For this reason we do not succeed in solving the most burning problems, or in making the right choices to achieve a real quality of life, based on Being more than on Having.
Let us implement a kind of education that can sustain the individual as a real human being and, most assuredly, the world also will be sustained.
Darío Salas Sommer
Academy of Sciences Raen
Russian Federation

]]> http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?feed=rss2&p=24 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=22 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=22#comments Wed, 16 May 2007 20:28:41 +0000 Darío Salas General http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=22
A group of Chinese scientists from the University of Science and Technology of Shandong has succeeded for the first time in directing by remote control the flight of a pigeon.  The work team, part of the Center for Technological Research of the Robotic Engineering Department of that university, developed an electronic technology that had already been used with mice to implant a series of micro-electrodes n the bird’s brain, through which they stimulated different zones of the brain.  In this way, they forced it to fly to the left or the right, up or down, according to the whim of the remote control.  According to the specialists who participated in the experiment, the electronic impulses simulated the signals generated by the brain to control the movements of the bird’s body, so that it obeyed them as if they were coming from its own brain.  This is the first experiment of this type that has been applied successfully to a pigeon.  The objective is to “improve the mechanism” in order to “apply it in the future in a more practical form,” although no one has yet specified what that may be.  In fact, this initiative is pretty disturbing when we consider that the micro-electrodes could be implanted in a human being.
 
EFE (Spanish news agency) News – February 2007

]]> http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?feed=rss2&p=22 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=21 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=21#comments Wed, 16 May 2007 20:23:36 +0000 Darío Salas General http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=21 By Jeremy Rifkin 
Washington Post, Sunday, December 17, 2006; Page B07 
 
The coming year marks a great milestone in the human saga, a development similar in magnitude to the agricultural era and the Industrial Revolution. For the first time in history, a majority of human beings will be living in vast urban areas, many in mega cities and suburban extensions with populations of 10 million or more, according to the United Nations. We have become “Homo Urbanus.” 
Two hundred years ago, the average person on Earth might meet 200 to 300 people in a lifetime. Today a resident of New York City can live and work among 220,000 people within a 10-minute radius of his home or office in midtown Manhattan. 
Only one city in all of history — ancient Rome — boasted a population of more than a million before the 19th century. London became the first modern city with a population over 1 million in 1820. Today 414 cities boast populations of a million or more, and there’s no end in sight. 
As long as the human race had to rely on solar flow, the winds and currents, and animal and human power to sustain life, the population remained relatively low to accommodate nature’s carrying capacity: the biosphere’s ability to recycle waste and replenish resources. The tipping point was the exhuming of large amounts of stored sun, first in the form of coal deposits, then oil and natural gas. 
Harnessed by the steam engine and later the internal combustion engine and converted to electricity and distributed across power lines, fossil fuels allowed humanity to create new technologies that dramatically increased food production and manufactured goods and services. The unprecedented increase in productivity led to runaway population growth and the urbanization of the world. 
No one is really sure whether this turning point in human living arrangements ought to be celebrated, lamented or merely acknowledged. That’s because our burgeoning population and urban way of life have been purchased at the expense of vast ecosystems and habitats. 
Cultural historian Elias Canetti once remarked that each of us is a king in a field of corpses. If we were to stop for a moment and reflect on the number of creatures and the amount of Earth’s resources and materials we have expropriated and consumed in our lifetime, we would be appalled at the carnage and depletion used to secure our existence. 
Large populations living in mega cities consume massive amounts of the Earth’s energy to maintain their infrastructures and daily flow of human activity. The Sears Tower in Chicago alone uses more electricity in a single day than the city of Rockford, Ill., with 152,000 people. Even more amazing, our species now consumes nearly 40 percent of the net primary production on Earth — the amount of solar energy converted to plant organic matter through photosynthesis — even though we make up only one-half of 1 percent of the animal biomass of the planet. This means less for other species to use. 
The flip side of urbanization is what we are leaving behind on our way to a world of hundred-story office buildings, high-rise residences and landscapes of glass, cement, artificial light and electronic interconnectivity. It’s no accident that as we celebrate the urbanization of the world, we are quickly approaching another historic watershed: the disappearance of the wild. Rising population; growing consumption of food, water and building materials; expanding road and rail transport; and urban sprawl continue to encroach on the remaining wild, pushing it to extinction. 
Scientists tell us that within the lifetime of today’s children, the wild will disappear from the face of the earth. The

Trans-Amazon Highway

, which cuts across the entire expanse of the Amazon rain forest, is hastening the obliteration of the last great wild habitat. Other remaining wild regions, from Borneo to the Congo Basin, are fast diminishing with each passing day, making way for growing human populations in search of living space and resources. 
It’s no wonder that (according to Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson) we are experiencing the greatest wave of mass extinction of animal species in 65 million years. We are losing 50 to 150 species to extinction per day, or between 18,000 and 55,000 species a year. By 2100 two-thirds of the Earth’s remaining species are likely to be extinct. 
Where does this leave us? Try to imagine 1,000 cities of a million or more just 35 years from now. It boggles the mind and is unsustainable for Earth. I don’t want to spoil the party, but perhaps the commemoration of the urbanization of the human race in 2007 might be an opportunity to rethink the way we live. 
Certainly there is much to applaud about urban life: its rich cultural diversity and social intercourse and its dense commercial activity. But the question is one of magnitude and scale. We need to ponder how best to lower our population and develop sustainable urban environments that use energy and resources more efficiently, are less polluting and better designed to foster living arrangements on a human scale. 
In the great era of urbanization we have increasingly shut off the human race from the rest of the natural world in the belief that we could conquer, colonize and utilize the riches of the planet to ensure our autonomy without dire consequences to us and future generations. In the next phase of human history, we will need to find a way to reintegrate ourselves into the rest of the living Earth if we are to preserve our own species and conserve the planet for our fellow creatures. 

 
]]> http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?feed=rss2&p=21 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=12 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=12#comments Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:47:18 +0000 Darío Salas General http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=12 The most recent issue of the prestigious journal Archives of General Psychiatry published the results of a U.S. government study that is almost beyond belief.  It concerns the results of a study that was performed over the course of one year based on a study group of 10,000 adults of both sexes.  The conclusions are truly troubling.  Using sophisticated statistical calculations based on highly selective control protocols, researches from among the most prominent North American universities and psychiatric institutions have concluded that half the U.S. population is suffering from some type of mental disorder. 
It seems like a joke, but it certainly is not.  The figures in fact indicate a collective drama on a scale never before seen in the history of psychology.  In the year in which the study was done, 41.1% of the research subjects received treatments aimed at controlling significant psychological injury; 12.3% were seen by psychiatrists; 16% received various kinds of psychotherapeutic treatments; 48.3% of those treated received no benefit from mental care, while only 12.7% showed a positive response to therapy.
The study by the National Institute of Mental Health is the most complex yet performed by a U.S. government research center and is sure to raise the bar for those working in the field of mental illness research:  “what you have to remember is that mental disorders are highly pervasive and chronic,” asserts Thomas Insel, Director of the federal institute that directed the study, stressing that “a high percentage of the victims of depression in the U.S. are young:  of the half of Americans who suffer from mental problems, 50% began to show symptoms by age 14 and 25% by age 24.”  “Mental disorders are currently the most prominent chronic illness for U.S. youth,” declares Ronald Kesler, a Harvard epidemiologist and one of the authors of the study. He says that “unfortunately the appearance of symptoms is not accompanied by early diagnosis, and even less so by a cure.”
The most common problems recorded by the researchers are depression (17%) and alcoholism (13%).  Phobias (13%) have also become common.  More than a quarter of those questioned reported feeling distress recognizable as a mental disorder within the previous year.  The report of the National Institute of Health comes amid a debate that is taking place in the U.S. concerning the necessity of “screening” for mental disorders in adults and children and also concerning the fine line between illness and health.  The answers are bound to have an enormous impact on treatment methods and on the types of conditions insurance companies will cover.  According to researchers, the problem at this point in the United States is a conspicuous underestimation of the level that psychological illness has reached throughout the nation.
 Date:  16/06/2005  
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2005;62:629-640  Twelve-Month Use of Mental Health Services in the United States Results From the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, Philip S. Wang, MD, DrPH; Michael Lane, MS; Mark Olfson, MD, MPH; Harold A. Pincus, MD; Kenneth B. Wells, MD, MPH; Ronald C. Kessler, PhD  
 
Posted Monday, January 15, 2007 10:56

]]> http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?feed=rss2&p=12 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=1 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=1#comments Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:37:30 +0000 Darío Salas General We depend completely on our perceptions to carry on normal existence, but the truth is we never see reality as it really is, since we are unable to see the outside world directly, seeing only into our own psychological consciousness.
The familiar argument “I only believe in what I see and touch” is a fallacy because we do not see with our eyes or touch with our fingers; we do these things with our brains, which are subject to innumerable restrictions, filters and controls.
In the following article I have tried to show how fallible, limited and fragile our perceptions are.
                                      Darío Salas Sommer
                                      Academy of Sciences
                                      Raen, Russia

 Perception:  A Resource and A Limitation
Our sense of our lives, of the world, depends upon the way we perceive and experience it.  In general, people tend to give almost infallible credit to what they perceive through their senses.  We normally believe that what we think is the truth; that our minds faithfully describes what is really out there . . .  even though we know this is not so.
From the time a stimulus activates our brains until we become aware of it and attribute an interpretation to it, numerous physiological processes take place that show that, in reality, the result of this perception is highly edited to fit the way these processes operate, and brings us a version of reality that is far from being reliable, far even from following our conscious intent.
What is Perception?
Psychology defines this phenomenon as awareness at the sensory level of an object that is physically present.  The sensory stimuli act as signals and perception is the result of the evocation by these stimuli of more complex patterns of perception, such as the analysis and interpretation that organize them and give them significance.
Perception of one’s surroundings depends on multiple factors that take place physiologically, leaving us little room to intervene.  Sensory receptors send messages in the form of neurological currents that reach internal structures of the brain:  the thalamus, the hippocampus, and the amygdale . . . where they are interpreted based on the cerebral memory banks.
Following the results of this process the ascending mesodiencephalic reticular system, the regulator of the cycles of sleep and wakefulness, will either allow the perceived stimulus to blossom into consciousness or maintain it at a subliminal level where it will be added to the cerebral memories that will continue to influence future perceptions.  Attention, which is key to conscious perception, is similarly regulated by the reticular formation, which determines its activation or inhibition.
A perception is the result, therefore, of the confrontation of the sensory image with the experience, needs and expectations of the individual, from which he selects, interprets and even corrects the sensations.  This confrontation takes place primarily at a physiological level, at the margin of our conscious intent, and subsequently when the subject becomes aware of the perceived stimulus and voluntarily sets in motion his interpretive mechanisms.
The search for truth is for human beings an inherent necessity, and it has been the priority objective of all schools of philosophical, psychological and scientific thought throughout the ages.  Theoretical frameworks offer a guide and at the same time imply a limitation, and one works doggedly to break free of the limitations of the available tools.  In recent times quantum physics has raised considerable doubts about the scientific method, demonstrating the extent to which the observer influences what is observed, which suggests also that a hypothesis may itself skew the results of an experiment.
The search for truth is for human beings an inherent necessity, and it has been the priority objective of all schools of philosophical, psychological and scientific thought throughout the ages.  Theoretical frameworks offer a guide and at the same time imply a limitation, and one works doggedly to break free of the limitations of the available tools.  In recent times quantum physics has raised considerable doubts about the scientific method, demonstrating the extent to which the observer influences what is observed, which suggests also that a hypothesis may itself skew the results of an experiment.
In the same manner, understanding in depth the phenomenon of perception shows us how our vision of reality depends on the points of view we adopt, on the functioning of our cognitive instrument and even on the language that we use to interpret and communicate what we perceive, resulting in a fragmented understanding that is limited to the contents of our own minds, of our psychological consciousness.
Have confronted and accepted how difficult it is for human beings to reach awareness of true reality, modern currents of constructivist thought are based on the idea that knowledge is not a copy of reality, but a construction of human beings, which they create using the formats that they have at hand, using what they have already constructed in relation to the environment that surrounds them.  From this point of view, these currents of thought assert that it is not possible to arrive at absolute truth, but only to aspire to a functional, utilitarian understanding that ensures the best possible interaction of the individual with his environment. 
Nonetheless:  could it be possible to see reality without projecting our own fantasies and ideas onto it?  Quantum physics states that the observer influences the thing he observes, and this appears to be true, but what if the person were able to maintain himself in a neutral state?  Could there be a way to see reality in which the person does not overshadow, does not startle, does not disturb, does not leave an impression . . . in which the person remains cool in the face of reality . . . internally centered?
How can we optimize our vision of reality?
The only way to see reality better is to perfect our instrument of understanding, so that our true self can access reality as it really is, without mixing it up with the subjective and biased contents of our heads.
First, it is important to understand that an inadequate state of vigilance limits even more the results of our perceptions, limiting them to the automatic functioning of the brain and influencing analysis and interpretation with subliminal information that has not passed through the filter of consciousness.
At the same time, and keeping in mind that the meaning of things is not found in the sensory data, but flows instead from the mental ability to attribute to them a correct value so as to arrive at a superior judgment of the truth, it is necessary to optimize our capacity for processing, for “mental digestion,” which refers to the type of profound mental reflection in which, after having performed the most complete analysis possible by means of an awakened intelligence, we manage to grasp the intimate secret of the thing we are contemplating.
Truth is only susceptible to being understood in this manner.  Through normal thought we arrive only at the surface of things.  Still, fatigue, worries and the inclination to comfort, generally make people tend instinctively to “believe” in something in order to avoid the work of thinking, sometimes going through life without truly realizing what is happening around them, or even inside them.
We can easily see how each person has a different world in his head, and how he seeks to believe, to acquire security by aligning himself with majority opinions even if he knows that these too do not embody the truth.
This amounts to an instinctive self-defense behavior, a movement from the I to the We in order to feel socially integrated.  We commonly play a social role, we try to please or to be able to affect others in a concrete way in order to reach a particular goal.  Our true I remains hidden behind the passwords, the messages, the outside information that has penetrated our minds and that we ingenuously believe are at the root of our decisions, our desires, our limitations.
At a profound level objective opinions can only exist when one connects them to reality, free of the conditions and limitations that interfere with this process of understanding:  which is only possible when one achieves a superior level of consciousness, based on a biological, cerebral awakening and on the activation of a state of alertness.  Consciousness is not feeling things, but understanding at a level beyond cerebral programming, which is the only way to get to the root of understanding:
-          Elevating our level of vigilance and acquiring the capacity to manage our own attention minimizes subliminal perception and the stupor that informational material “residing” in our brain brings to the interpretation that we give to our perceptions.
-          Self-awareness, remembering our own identity, is the entrance hall to superior consciousness.  Remembering that we are something more than our bodies, and that we must liberate ourselves from our psychic machinery so that our true Being can access the real meaning of things and relate to the world in a positive and constructive way.
-          Control of one’s own attention is a priority objective.  To stop having one’s attention captivated by the stimuli that impact upon our nervous systems implies the recovery of control of our I, which otherwise is permanently sucked in and hypnotized by external stimuli.
-          Avoiding preconceived ideas, superstitions and beliefs, which impede reflective and rational thought.  In order to evolve one must break out of established molds or, at least, know how to doubt; one must fight against the tendency to stick with the majority, promoting reflective thought in order to find wisdom in accordance with reality and our understanding of it.
-          Maintaining impersonality, since only with impersonality can one open one’s eyes and see reality from a position beyond the opposing poles.  This implies having no position, not giving an opinion, maintaining neutrality.  A neutral vision means forgetting about oneself when trying to understand something, not giving an opinion.  If one is not neutral, one contaminates what one is looking at.
-          Going deeper, going beyond appearances, which are always deceptive, paying attention to the red flags, the incongruities and contradictions that warn us that there is more remaining to be discovered.
-          The development of consciousness requires the processing of daily experiences, observing people’s behavior and overcoming one’s own defects and automatic functions, which manifest themselves as thoughts, emotions and reactions.
-          Not believing that we think, when in reality we are “reading” from our cerebral archives.
-          Not confusing automatic emotion with genuine impulses.
-          Not using intellectual exercises to justify to the bitter end our reactions.
-          Dismantling the false image that we have of ourselves, without fearing to discover the truth, because spirituality is based on reality, and that which has value is to be found in the real world, in real life
Regarding Perception and Knowledge (Kreitner, R., Kinicki, A. (1997)
Organizational Behavior.  Madrid.  McGraw-Hill.
They describe perception as a process that consists of four stages:
1.      selective attention and comprehension,
2.      codification and simplification,
3.      warehousing and retention
4.      recuperation and response.
And the following observations stand out:
-         We do not perceive everything, but only things that stand out, whether because they are original or because of some other characteristic that the person finds remarkable.  Information should be structured and presented so that what we consider relevant stands out above the rest. 
-         When one is in a state of need, stimuli related to deprivation are more eye-catching.  It is easier to find what one is looking for when it is needed, or one believes that it is needed.  Moreover, the greater the perception of need for something, the quicker one begins the search for it.
-         Observed information is not stored in memory in its original form, but is codified by the individual in a personalized manner.  Each person has a unique history.  Factors like childhood caregivers, education, role models, prior experiences and states of mind consciously or unconsciously influence the conception a person has of others, of his world or of himself.  For this reason, although the stimuli of a situation may be the same, the meaning (the perception) may vary for two observers, and even for the same person in two different moments of his life.
-          This personalized interpretation of reality is what characterizes human perception.  Agreement of the senses does not guaranty agreement of perception.  Two people can concur that what they observe is a car (sensation), but, nonetheless, for one it may signify discomfort and expense and for the other sportiness and exclusivity (perception). 
-          Perception has a strong influence on behavior.  That is, people do not behave according to objective characteristics of the reality around them, but in accordance with the perceptions they form of this reality.  This at least partially explains why, given the same elements in a situation or problem, two people may behave in very different ways.
-         Perception has implications concerning the acquisition of knowledge.  Knowledge has previously passed through the human perceptual filter and therefore is susceptible to error, distortion or controversy.
-         Perceptions as formed are intermediated by different variables:  values, attitudes, motivations and knowledge.  Thus two people with different values, attitudes, motivations and knowledge can have different perceptions of the same thing, person or situation and, for the same reason, different behaviors.
NAÏVE REALITY
Only in recent years has the world of science opened itself to the broad field of sensoriality.  This new field constitutes a cross-over discipline, not exclusive to science, dedicated to the study and evaluation of functions, both normal and as altered by the senses.
Currently, an understanding of how the different senses take part in different human “learnings” is being developed through the broad field of sensoriality.  Our senses are the medium through which exterior and interior stimuli can be captured.  Senses are also tools for evaluating individuals’ states of health, so that navigating the sensorial world requires certain basic knowledge.
The first consideration starts from the premise that everyone lives life from within his own personal reality.  We will call this “naïve reality.”  There is another reality, absolute reality, which is responsible for generating an infinite number of events that can be captured in the form of a multitude of stimuli.  This reality is unreachable by man or any other living being on our planet.  Only the most limited part of that reality, only an infinitesimal part of it, reaches us.  And only the smallest part of what reaches our senses will be converted to a captured stimulus, of which a miniscule fragment will be converted into emotion that will be processed in the form of sentiment.
The explanation for all this narrowing down of the number of stimuli to which we can have access is found in our senses, to be understood as both our sensory organs and as externalized extensions of our central nervous system.  The senses are in charge of capturing stimuli.  But not all stimuli, only those that are ready to be detected.  Our senses thus become filters of reality, creating the appearance of this second reality that we have called naïve.  We speak of naïve reality when we believe that that which we see, hear, touch, smell or taste is absolute reality.  But it only amounts to a sensorial interpretation of a part of reality.  We living beings are made up of a collection of filters that, at the same time that they separate us from reality, join us to it, like a bridge that joins two riverbanks and is at the same time their most conspicuous divider.
Levels of Sensorial Filters
First Level
Our brain is made up of a hundred trillion neurons, whose principal mission is to reject 99% of the informational stimuli that we receive.  Only 1% of all the information that reaches us, that surrounds us in the form of stimuli, is stored, from which we see the first level of reality filter or of reality reducer.  Only 1% of the information that reaches us is accepted by our brain.
Second Level
The only stimuli that man can capture are those that activate his senses.  And there are only two kinds of stimuli.  First, those derived from waves, whether electromagnetic (light, color . . .) processed by the sense of sight, from pressure (sound, tactile stimuli . . .) processed by the senses of hearing and touch, or thermal (hear, cold) processed by the skin.  And second, chemical substances, processed by the senses of smell and taste.
Outside of these paths of perception any other type of stimulus ceases to exist; the events generated by reality that give rise to stimuli different from these cease, as far their perception is concerned, to be captured:  they are non-existent.  Therefore, the senses are the second filter of reality:  only stimuli for which the senses are prepared (smell for odors, hearing for sounds, sight for light, touch for tactile sensations . . .) will be captured.
Third Level
The third level of narrowing of reality is found at the operational fringes of the functioning of each of the senses.  Sight sees light and colors, but only some colors, not all.  It cannot see infrareds or ultraviolets.  Nor can it see all intensities.  Hearing captures sounds, but not all of them:  it cannot hear ultrasounds or infrasounds.  Smell captures odors, but not all of them . . .
Fourth Level
The fourth filter of reality, or of reduced reality, comes down to the senses’ capacity to perceive the only the variations in the stimuli for which they are adapted.  A constant stimulus is categorized as null, non-existent.  If a sound remains constant in intensity and frequency it ceases to be captured as such:  the ear ignores it.  If a light has the same intensity and frequency the sense of sight ignores it.  And the same goes for touch.
Fifth Level
Another reality filter that trips us up consists of information that the senses send to the brain, where it is processed in the form of emotions (a huge set of stimuli and responses).  Each person functions differently at the moment of capturing and processing stimuli that are converted into emotions.
Sixth Level
On the sixth level, reality is filtered when emotions become sentiments.  The brain makes a selection of the information reaching it that will be allowed entry, partially storing it.  This means that not all emotion gives rise to sentiments.  For example, spoken language is a magnificent faculty that we use to transmit our thoughts from one brain to another:  it is the principal medium of communication to connect concepts to words, permitting us to share thoughts, sentiments, conceptualized emotions, and to transmit knowledge, customs and values.  It is accepted that people communicate with the outside world by means of the word.
Nonetheless, this idea is incorrect, since communication through verbal language only conveys7% of the total information.  The remaining 93% is non-verbal.  Included in this non-verbal communication are tone of voice (a 38% share) and visual aspects such as eye movements, facial expressions, body movements or postures (with a 55% share).  Communication is complemented by the rest of the senses:  taste, smell and touch.  In other words, emotions that are recorded in the form of sentiments spring from the different sources of stimuli that we have mentioned, so that language ceases to be the principal medium of communication, and therefore collapses as the principal pathway for the production of emotions.
Seventh Level
This level of filtration of reality operates as a function of the channels of perception that predominate in the individual.  Each person has an unconscious system of references that causes mainly visual, auditory or kinesthetic-tactile (relating to sensations and touch) to be captured.  This means that each person captures more easily information that comes to him through his predominant channel:  some people capture first visual or auditory stimuli, or internal sensations . . .
We can illustrate the filtration that takes place at this level using a hypothetical situation:  suppose that three people go to the Prado Museum to “contemplate” the Nude Maja by Goya.  If, after their contemplation, you ask each of them how he would define the experience, one might say, “it’s like a gush of colors,” another might explain that “it’s like a waltz of life” and the third might respond, “it gives me a feeling of softness and heat.”  Each would have seen the same picture, but would have allowed himself to be subjugated to the channel to which his personality was most sensitive.  In the first the visual channel would predominate, in the second the auditory and in the third the kinesthetic.  In any case, it must be stressed that in real life such purity of perception does not exist, but instead perception combines all of these, with one predominating over the rest.
Eighth Level
Another filter of reality has its roots in the attitude of the person toward stimuli, which he constructs from his perceptive abilities based on the experiences he has lived.  Such experiences generate one of the internal filters that we will call metaprograms, which are responsible for the beliefs on which he will base his standards.  These standards, in turn, will conform to the values of the individual, which each person sets up as signs to mark his path, stimulating himself to pay more attention to the characteristics of the road he has set off on and everything that keeps him on it.
Ninth Level
All the information that remains after passing through the foregoing filters is directed to a ninth level of filtration.  Information that reaches the brain is stored in two distinct areas:  the conscious, which only takes in 10% of the data, and the unconscious, which takes in the remaining 90%.  Remember that, habitually, people work with the conscious area, that is, with only 10% of the information received.
Tenth Level
To all the foregoing it should be added that the human brain functions with only 10% of its possibilities, which constitutes a tenth level of filtration of reality.
Eleventh Level
This last level of filtration of reality acts on the basis of three groups of factors:  that of phylogenetic factors, which set the conditions for the evolution and adaptation of our species; the group of ontogenetic factors, which condition sensoriality beginning from gestation and pregnancy, by means of the genetic packages of the parents and the incidents of the pregnancy.  From the first weeks of gestation the senses of the fetus begin to activate themselves (he sees, hears, smells, touches and tastes), capturing external stimuli from the surroundings in which his mother is immersed, and the life stimuli that she experiences (emotions, sentiments) by means of variations in the physiological state of the mother.  The third group, sociogenic factors, which appear massively after birth, during the stage from childhood to old age, are those that are affected by sex, age, clinical history, habits, working life, culture and climate, among others.
Everything discussed here converts reality into a naïve reality, so long as we forget the filtration processes that our senses generate and from which they suffer.
Ref.
“LA REALIDAD INGENUA”
 Joseph de Haro Licer
 Hospital Municipal de Badalona
 Mayo 2006
  http://www.percepnet.com//perc05_06.htm
]]> http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?feed=rss2&p=1 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=11 http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=11#comments Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:31:46 +0000 Darío Salas General http://www.dariosalas.com/blog_english/?p=11
At year end, we repeat the same ritual celebration as the year before, in the hopes that the new year will be much better and more fortunate than the last one.
Some people get depressed because when they take a look at the balance of their life they realize that they haven’t really gained much, or worse, it seems to reflect a painful loss.
The faithful pray fervently for good fortune.  The Superstitious have their Tarot cards read.  Atheists and Materialist prepare to numb themselves for the holidays with an avalanche of Christmas presents and champagne bubbles.
The poor make offerings in church and place all their hopes in the government in power to help them improve their lot. On the other hand, the government crosses its fingers so that all will go well in the new year. 
Children get confused with everything that is going on around them, because underneath it all no one really understands anything.  In their own way, children also prepare themselves for things to get better, without realizing that their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents did the same thing before them.
Adults say: “Children are the hope for the future…” forgetting that their own parents said the same thing about them, and despite all the good intentions “the world is still the same,” a bit like a scratched tango record, on an old fashioned record player…
Students demand a better education but no one is able to define exactly what this is, nor how to go about achieving it.  Some naïve people think the solution is to have a bigger budget and classrooms full of computers.
Christmas and the New Year is a time of great sorrow or great happiness; fortunate or painful events; a time of joy or a time of sadness.
All in all another year has gone by on the wheel of time – ever moving and ever creating great changes in the world.
The only thing that doesn’t seem to change is the human race - as current events show us in the media. Human passion, appetites and mistakes are the same as they were 4.000 years ago, only that now these weaknesses entail a much greater danger to the world, because of the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the advancements in technology that on the one hand create solutions and on the other, side effects that are much worse than the original problem.
Progress can be deceitful and creates so much confusion that we have a tendency to identify it with Human Excellency.
Although there is one thing that is undeniable: our internal world has not significantly changed for the better.  On the contrary, traditional values are declining, due to the outrageous violation of the individual’s mental intimacy, due to the increase of subliminal advertising everywhere.
I believe that the best slogan for this year’s end should be: “desperate situations call for desperate measures.”
What I mean is that it is  useless to seek solutions on the outside, when the real solution lies within each and every person.
Until we understand that “the more we look without, the blinder we become,” it will be difficult to attain a higher quality of life.
Let us not make the same mistake of looking on the outside for what is within. As it is not the eye that sees but the brain that perceives. We do not see reality as it is; we only see the images our brain attempts to put together and the result is a “multi-universe” meaning that everyone lives in their own separate universe.  Huberto Maturana, states that objective reality - independent from the observer - does not exist, as the universe is put together by the observer.  This adds to the concept that the brain “fails” in its intent to put together a deeper reality, complete in the sense of communication with the universe and the everyday micro reality of the individual who becomes unable to find the path to real happiness.
This is the reason for our problems of communication with others, and by the way, the common cause of all our problems is communication.  We only see an infinitely small part of reality and yet we walk through life incrusted in our small egos, without being able to perceive reality in a deeper, wiser and more coherent manner.
Obviously, the universe has a life of its own, separate from human beings. Nevertheless, we are inseparably joined to Nature and our quality of life depends on the harmonious communication with the all.
The skeleton key that opens all doors to the solutions of our problems lies in the development of the inner world, learning to perceive internal and external reality in a higher state of vigilance.
The greatest treasure of all is to “have oneself” resulting in a more faithful and objective capacity to perceptive reality.  Only by “having oneself” is it possible to be freed from the passion and violence of the reptilian brain, in order to learn to use it constructively.
Those of you who read this article this Christmas can give yourself the gift of the most important thing on earth: “The “I” house” a place within to find order, peace, and coherence. A place to experience uninterrupted happiness.
This is not a utopia.  The “I” House was well known to Philosophers such as Epictetus, Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras and many other  seekers of truth who through introspection would often go within, to their inner world to unite with their essential “I” which is part of the Creator.
When the “I” lives projected to the outside we are not happy. When the “I” lives within, we cannot be unhappy.
Dario Salas Sommer
Raen Science Academy
Russian Federation
December 1, 2006.
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