ON a farm in Wyoming, USA, goats are being milked for their spider webs.
And if that sounds bizarre, molecular biologist Randy Lewis claims that within two years, spider silk milked from goats could replace your body's tired or strained tendons and ligaments - maybe even bones.
Professor Lewis and his team at the University of Wyoming have successfully implanted the silk-making genes from a golden orb spider into a herd of goats and are now, finally, producing one of nature's strongest products in useable quantities.
The technology is cutting edge, but the science isn't. Spider silk has been used for centuries to dress wounds with varying degrees of success, but the problem has until now been how to get it.
"We needed a way to produce large quantities of the spider silk proteins," Prof Lewis told news.com.au.
"Spiders can't be farmed, so that route is out and since they make six different silks, even that would not work if you could."
Spiders also had a tendency to eat each other, so milking one thread from six out of a solo spider was clearly never going to service the entire human race.
Prof Lewis and his team singled out the "dragline" - the outer strand of the web - as the strongest of the six types of silk.
They spliced the DNA that creates the silk into a female goat's DNA, then waited for it to give birth and start lactating.
"(The splicing) turned out to be relatively easy as there are known gene promoters that only produce expression in the mammary gland during lactation," he said.
"Those were hooked up to our spider silk genes."
After the milk is collected, it's taken back to a laboratory where the silk protein is filtered out. It solidifies when exposed to air and is wound onto a roller.
Prof Lewis said the team collected about four metres of silk for every four drops of protein they gathered.
The pure material had a wide range of medicinal applications as sutures and binding agents - including ligament replacement - but its use could extend well beyond our hospitals.
"If it works, frankly one of the first applications is maybe fishing line," Prof Lewis said.
"I think we will be testing real world applications in less than two years (but) when they reach market is really beyond my control."
And in case you were wondering, no goats were harmed during the making of spider silk milk.
Prof Lewis said there was no evidence to suggest the goats in the experiment behaved any differently to regular goats, in either physiology or "psychology".
One day, the burden could be lifted even from goats.
Prof Lewis said the technology could have farm applications - he told Science Nation they were developing the same technology for alfalfa.
But some people are remarkably charismatic: They build and maintain great relationships, consistently influence (in a good way) the people around them, consistently make people feel better about themselves--they're the kind of people everyone wants to be around...and wants to be.
Fortunately we can, because being remarkably charismatic isn't about our level of success or our presentation skills or how we dress or the image we project--it's about what we do.
Here are the 10 habits of remarkably charismatic people:
1. They listen way more than they talk.
Ask questions. Maintain eye contact. Smile. Frown. Nod. Respond--not so much verbally, but nonverbally.
That's all it takes to show the other person they're important.
Then when you do speak, don't offer advice unless you're asked. Listening shows you care a lot more than offering advice, because when you offer advice in most cases you make the conversation about you, not them.
Don't believe me? Who is "Here's what I would do..." about: you or the other person?
Only speak when you have something important to say--and always define importantas what matters to the other person, not to you.
2. They don't practice selective hearing.
Some people--I guarantee you know people like this--are incapable of hearing anything said by the people they feel are somehow beneath them.
Sure, you speak to them, but that particular falling tree doesn't make a sound in the forest, because there's no one actually listening.
Remarkably charismatic people listen closely to everyone, and they make all of us, regardless of our position or social status or "level," feel like we have something in common with them.
Because we do: We're all people.
3. They put their stuff away.
Don't check your phone. Don't glance at your monitor. Don't focus on anything else, even for a moment.
You can never connect with others if you're busy connecting with your stuff, too.
Give the gift of your full attention. That's a gift few people give. That gift alone will make others want to be around you and remember you.
4. They give before they receive--and often they never receive.
Never think about what you can get. Focus on what you can provide. Giving is the only way to establish a real connection and relationship.
Focus, even in part and even for a moment, on what you can get out of the other person, and you show that the only person who really matters is you.
5. They don't act self-important…
The only people who are impressed by your stuffy, pretentious, self-important self are other stuffy, pretentious, self-important people.
The rest of us aren't impressed. We're irritated, put off, and uncomfortable.
And we hate when you walk in the room.
6. …Because they realize other people are more important.
You already know what you know. You know your opinions. You know your perspectives and points of view.
That stuff isn't important, because it's already yours. You can't learn anything from yourself.
But you don't know what other people know, and everyone, no matter who they are, knows things you don't know.
That makes them a lot more important than you--because they're people you can learn from.
7. They shine the spotlight on others.
No one receives enough praise. No one. Tell people what they did well.
Wait, you say you don't know what they did well?
Shame on you--it's your job to know. It's your job to find out ahead of time.
Not only will people appreciate your praise, they'll appreciate the fact you care enough to pay attention to what they're doing.
Then they'll feel a little more accomplished and a lot more important.
8. They choose their words.
The words you use impact the attitude of others.
For example, you don't have to go to a meeting; you get to go meet with other people. You don't have to create a presentation for a new client; you get to share cool stuff with other people. You don't have to go to the gym; you get to work out and improve your health and fitness.
You don't have to interview job candidates; you get to select a great person to join your team.
We all want to associate with happy, enthusiastic, fulfilled people. The words you choose can help other people feel better about themselves--and make you feel better about yourself, too.
9. They don't discuss the failings of others...
Granted, we all like hearing a little gossip. We all like hearing a little dirt.
The problem is, we don't necessarily like--and we definitely don't respect--the people who dish that dirt.
Don't laugh at other people. When you do, the people around you wonder if you sometimes laugh at them.
10. ...But they readily admit their failings.
Incredibly successful people are often assumed to have charisma simply because they're successful. Their success seems to create a halo effect, almost like a glow.
Keyword is seem.
You don't have to be incredibly successful to be remarkably charismatic. Scratch the shiny surface, and many successful people have all the charisma of a rock.
But you do have to be incredibly genuine to be remarkably charismatic.
Be humble. Share your screwups. Admit your mistakes. Be the cautionary tale. And laugh at yourself.
While you should never laugh at other people, you should always laugh at yourself.
People won't laugh at you. People will laugh laugh with you.
They'll like you better for it--and they'll want to be around you a lot more.
By Gary Vey for viewzone (http://www.viewzone.com/greed.html)
I've lived through the best of times and the worst of times. A little over a decade ago, America was prosperous. Unemployment was at record lows. McDonald's was happily paying nearly $10 an hour to burger chefs. The government actually worried about how to spend its surplus tax revenue. There was talk of using the surplus to permanently secure Social Security for the aged or providing every American citizen with medical insurance.
Unfortunately that dream didn't last long, ending not coincidentally with the Supreme Court ruling that put George W. Bush in the Whitehouse on a technicality, despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore in 2000.
A decade of useless wars followed, designed to siphon trillions of tax dollars to military contractors like Halliburton and numerous mercenary armies like Blackwater. Not wanting to be left out of the feeding frenzy, bankers and financial institutions designed elaborate schemes to rip poor people from their homes, decimating the finances and futures of millions of American families. Adding to the insult, these same bankers used our tax money to pay lavish bonuses to their executives who designed and implememted this financial rape. Then it was the energy corporations turn at the game. While gas prices soared to $5 a gallon for no logical reason, oil companies like Exxon announced 500% increases in annual profits. Today, America is technically bankrupt.
We're now faced with many years of austerity with double digit unemployment, homelessness and hopelessness. The gap between the extremely wealthy and the average struggling American has never been wider.
How bad will it get? Entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare -- designed to protect those who are most vulnerable -- are now on the budget chopping block because wealthy politicians and rich corporations arrogantly refuse to pay their fair share of taxes.
No, this isn't going to be a political story. I'm not going to be blaming anyone for the ills that are consuming the world. I want to make the point, however, that all of these ills -- and many more -- are the result of GREED.
Wars, genocide, starvation and corruption are all symptoms of human greed. But what causes this source of evil and suffering? Do we know?
The Psychology of Greed
Most people think that greed is just an extension of the survival instinct. Like animals, people are concerned about having enough resources to survive times when those resources are scarce. Squirrels hoard nuts for the winter and humans hoard wealth as a guard against an uncertain future. But this view is wrong.
Animals in the wild cooperate in hunting prey. The kill is then eaten by members of the pack in order of group hierarchy. While the pack leaders get the choice pieces, all of the group eventually get their fill. Only when the natural order is disrupted (i.e. being fed by humans in captivity), do we see competitive behavior that we interpret as greed. In reality it is the animal's fear that it will not get enough.
Human greed is inherently different. It is characterized by non-cooperation for the common good and the realization that the greedy behavior hurts others. Indeed, greed is uniquely human.
In the 1980s several experiments [1,2,3] were specifically designed to evaluate why people do not cooperate for the collective good. Is it because of selfish greed or, like animals, because they fear they will not get enough through the cooperation?
Subjects were given an identical number of coins and separated in groups of six. They were told that they could contribute or remove coins from a common pool. After every trial the number of coins in the pool would be multiplied by 1.25 and at the end of the experiment the number of coins in the pool would be divided equally among the subjects. Naturally, it should benefit each subject to make the pool as large as possible since the experimenters would multiply and contribute to its size.
False feedback was provided indicating that in some phases the size of the pool was increasing, decreasing or remaining constant. This was a clue to each subject about what other contributors to the pool were doing. If the size of the pool decreased, it could be implied that other participants were selfishly taking coins while an increase in the pool would imply that other participants were trying to increase the final shared portion.
Subjects contributed significantly less to the common pool when it increased than when it decreased. This showed that greed and not fear of not getting enough or being gypped was the major motivation behind not contributing to the common pool. [1]
Humans have the intellect and empathy to realize when their behavior hurts others. This superior insight separates humans from animals and should foster a sense of social responsibility. Psychologists have tried to understand what motivates a person to ignore the social consequences of accumulating resources that go beyond reasonable future needs. Their studies have revealed some surprising facts about greed.
Greed and Self-Esteem
A breakthrough in understanding human motivation came by way of the Terror Management Theory (TMT) which proposes that humans, by virtue of our superior intellect, are uniquely capable of understanding our mortality. This fact directly opposes our survival instinct and sense of self-preservation to the extent that it causes subconscious terror. Terror is defined as an unresolvable conflict that causes anxiety.
Psychologists have evolved the Terror Management Theory [5] to include what they call the Anxiety Buffer [6]. This buffer mediates the terror of mortality by cultivating self-esteem. The devastation of being a temporary being, with all of its ramifications of worth and purpose, is mediated by our sense of being a meaningful part of the world we live in -- our world view.
This theory has been well tested [7,8,9,10,11,12] by subjecting people to subtle reminders of their mortality, then measuring such things as their propensity for greed and their increased need to feel part of some larger culture that perpetuates a world view in which our mortality is insignificant. Our self-esteem is measured by the degree to which we conform to this cultural world view .
"Experimental research has revealed that this desire for self-esteem has wide-ranging effects on cognition, emotion, and behavior. Terror management theory explains that this desire for self-esteem results from a fundamental need for psychological security, which is engendered by humans' awareness of their own vulnerability and mortality. A large body of evidence has supported this explanation. Specifically, substantial lines of research have shown that self-esteem buffers anxiety and reduces defenses against death and that reminders of mortality increase efforts to defend and bolster self-esteem. [17]
It has been argued that our present culture places a high value on greed, materialism and wealth (Greenburg 1990). It is only natural then that, when we are reminded of our mortality, we should unconsciously strive to achieve the goals of this culture. So potent is the terror of our mortality that we are blinded to the detrimental effects of our greed on others. All of this happens as a function of our Anxiety Buffer which minimizes death anxiety before it reaches consciousness.
Near Death Experiences: Death Reflections
Psychologists refer to subtle reminders of death as Mortality Salience. These can be questions about a dead family member, inquiries about our own funeral plans, photographs of dead people shown for only 1/24th of a second -- in one experiment, Mortality Salience was measured merely by interviewing subjects near a funeral home. In most experiments the subjects do not consciously know that they have been reminded of their own mortality and report feeling no change in emotions. But the effects of Mortality Salience on their behavior are sometimes quite dramatic.
In studies dealing directly with human greed [12,13,14,15], Mortality Salience has been found repeatedly to elicit selfish, non-cooperative behavior when dealing with finite resources. But psychologists were puzzled by the reactions of Mortality Salience on a particular group of people who have at some time had a near death experience (NDE). These people did not show the typical responses [18]. Rather, they were characterized by unselfishness, cooperation towards the common good and were markedly non-material.
It is theorized that Mortality Salience elicits fear of the "unknown" in most people. But in people who have experienced death already, this is a known phenomenon -- what has been termed a Death Reflection. With the Death Reflection, the Anxiety Buffer is not needed, implying that the terror of death has been overcome.
Top 7 Reasons People Fear Death
1: Decomposition of the body, being consumed by insects or worms.2: Loss of consciousness and awareness of self.
3: Fear of how death will effect loved ones.
4: Fear of being forgotten forever.
5: Fear of an unknown reality awaiting us in the afterlife.
6: Fear of the consequences of our acts when we were alive.
7: Fear of not having achieved our life's goals. [4]
Anxiety Buffers and PTSD
"The war in Vietnam is not like these other wars. Yet, finally, war is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their time. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in this world."-- President Lyndon Johnson
While we are faced with reminders of our mortality on a daily basis, properly functioning buffers are quite efficient at reducing or eliminating death anxiety before it reaches consciousness. But for a particular set in the population, this anxiety is more or less constant. Psychologists have postulated that this condition, known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is brought about by a disruption of the Anxiety Buffer, due to some horrific trauma, which has damaged one or both of the essential elements the buffer uses to divert attention on our mortality: self-esteem and faith in our world view.
We are perhaps most familiar with PTSD in war veterans who live with depression and anxiety -- often characterized by over-reactions to everyday stress. What we are just beginning to understand is that this condition arises from an extreme life event that has destroyed one of the most basic aspects of human self-esteem: that humans are superior to animals.
We generally regard the lives of animals as having less value. We use them for food and labor and take pride in our superior intellect and morality; however, in times of war we see many atrocities which can shatter this basic tenet. Human life is devalued. We see that we are no better - often worse- than animals and our self-esteem can be forever shattered.
Our faith in cultural institutions that form our world view can also be shaken by the dissonance of inhumane policies and practices. Patriotism can often conflict with religious beliefs; propaganda can conflict with reality.
With the disruption of one's Anxiety Buffer, death anxiety is unchecked. Sometimes the pain and depression results, somewhat ironically, in suicide or drug abuse as a means of ending the pain.
"The disruption of the Anxiety Buffer is posited to occur when traumatic life events undermine one's ability to maintain fundamental aspects of one's cultural world view that provide a sense of safety and security in an otherwise frightening world. [16]
Resolving the Terror of Mortality
Religious beliefs usually provide an explanation of human mortality that includes a means to continue existence following death. Belief in a heaven or hell is the most common argument against mortality but other faiths describe a "soul" or spirit that will become part of a reality that we are assured will be adequate (although perhaps not understood in our lifetime). Several studies have shown that religion is only effective in mediating death anxiety in intrinsic individuals (i.e. people who are introspective and internally motivated) and that it has only minimal effects in extrinsics (i.e. people who are externally motivated). [19]
Some religions do not address the afterlife and therefore foster world views where greed is the only functional means of coping with death anxiety. These religions contribute to the sequelae of war, racism, conflict, and materialism despite attempts to foster cultural morality.
Nationalism and patriotism strive to be effective buffers through the elevation of self-esteem. Pride in one's country or political group, belief that one is part of a "chosen" people or engaging in a social movement all serve to promote the idea that an individual can attain symbolic immortality and rise above the transient, insignificance of human mortality.
Psychologists have noted that people generally prefer to invest their self-esteem in an established group rather than individually. In fact, according to the Terror Management Theory, groups arise from the need to establish self-esteem. Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, Liberals, Conservatives -- all these serve to accommodate a particular world view that reduces the death anxiety while supporting greedy behavior. In other words, it becomes socially acceptable to behave selfishly and hurt others as long as the "others" are outside one's special group.
"In the presence of a vulnerable opponent, group members tend to provide social support for immediate self-interests." [14]
Could this explain the selfish acts that we see in the world?
Institutional Greed: Game Over!
An event that would change our lives passed with little or no fanfare on January 21, 2010. It happened silently. Hardly anyone knew until it was too late. Now it is too late.
On that date the Supreme Court of these United States decided that corporations, be they American or foreign, are afforded the same rights as a single individual when it comes to contributing money to a political cause (like a piece of legislation) or candidate running for a political office (like a Senator or president).
Let me say it again. Under the January 21, 2010 ruling, a corporation -- be they American or foreign -- can use UNLIMITED funds to support a specific government policy or candidate running for political office. Stop and think about that.
Democracy before and after January 21, 2010
The word comes from the greek demokratia, which means "rule of the people." I won't insult you by defining what it is. In school we learned about the Greeks who voted by raising their hands and being counted, or by writing on clay shards that were secretly collected in a large vase. This kind of democracy can still be seen in small town meetings where citizens vote on such things as zoning, new roads and raising taxes for the local school. It's what sets America apart from other countries -- rule of the people, by the people, for the people.
One vote, one person
For about 100 years now, the strength and power of an individual's single vote has been protected by laws that regulated the amount of money that a large group, like a labor group or corporation, could use to influence votes.
Why? Sometimes the needs and goals of particular groups often do not mesh with the needs and goals of a majority of citizens. For example: Nuclear power companies might seek a profitable action that requires changes to government safety policies, endangering the people living around them. To do this they might have to enter their own chosen candidates for the Senate, or make sure that loyal Senators are re-elected.
Corporations are not human
Corporations have a charter that their business plan must yield a profit for shareholders. This is institutionalized greed in its purest form. A corporation is a process, started and maintained by people, yet able to outlive them and go against the people it serves. Of course, individual citizens who are members of a labor group or a corporation have their single vote, so they still have influence, but the influence of groups can surpass their collective influence through their ability to generate huge amounts of cash.
So for about 100 years the government has limited the amount of money that a corporation or group can donate to a candidate running for political office to represent the people. This made perfect sense, since the candidates are supposed to be representing "the people" and not the interest of a group. Right?
How it works now
On January 21, 2010 the Supreme Court decided that corporations have the same right to influence political elections as you and I. It's wide open for them now. OK, let me get specific.
Imagine that a drug company has new medicine for high blood pressure. They have tested it and think it works pretty good, but there have been some side effects and some people have died. Let's say that under the present laws regulating drug companies there is the possibility that people who take this medicine and get ill or die can result in costly law suits against the company for millions of dollars. The drug company knows that this will be a reality but they have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing this medicine and owe it to their shareholders to recoup a profit.
Imagine that certain senators have proposed a bill that would limit or dissolve the ability of an average citizen to sue a large drug company for negligence. Imagine that they are up for re-election. Imagine that other senators, or candidates seeking a senate seat, who will eventually vote on this bill are in need of campaign funds. The new ruling does not prohibit the drug company from spending millions -- even billions -- to influence these decisions which are clearly in the interest of the corporation and contrary to what is morally right for the American citizen.
The media will be inundated with propaganda about these supportive candidates, competing with their millions of dollars against grass roots candidates with funds limited to the contributions of their fellow citizens. Money talks and millions of dollars shouts very loud.
Halliburton and the Carlyle Group will now be able to buy candidates to promote more wars and weapons production. Food producers will support candidates who lower standards and jeopardize our health for increased profits. We might even see a resurgence of cigarettes -- this would benefit both the tobacco corporations AND the health industry.
What can we do?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It has been said that "the supreme court is not final because it is supreme -- it is supreme because it is final." It is the end of the road as far as legislation goes. Even an Executive Order by the president cannot reverse this. It is like the doctor telling the patient he is terminal and inoperable. Democracy has ended for America. Greed has triumphed.
But it's not just America that has been dealt a lethal dose of capitalism -- others will go down with us. Corporations are often multi-national. They will begin altering the trade laws like some virus that exists only to perpetuate more profits and greed. Soon there might be no more America, or England, or China. There will be Halliburton-Carlyle Enterprises, The Global Pharmaceutical Corporation, Universal Oil, Nuclear Energy & Coal... Corporations will run everything for their own profit and the citizens of the world will be significant only as consumers -- the necessary "eaters" to provide labor and to buy the products we are told that we need.
God help us all.
Please share you comments and views on this topic.
Notes: [1] Matthijs Poppel and Lisbeth Utens, Tilburg University, The Netherlands, Journal of Economic Psychology,Volume 7, Issue 1, March 1986, Pages 61-73.
[2] Amnon Rapoport and Dalit Eshed-Levy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 44, Issue 3, December 1989, Pages 325-344.
[3] Ramzi Suleiman, Provision of Step-Lelev Public Goods Under Uncertainty: A Theoretical Analysis,Rationality and Society May 1997, Vol. 9, No. 2, 163-187.
[4] Helplessness: A Hidden Liability Associated with Failed, Defenses against Awareness of Death, Mario Mikulincer, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Phillip R. Shaver, University of California, Davis
[5] Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Rosenblatt, Veeder, Kirkland and Lyon 1990; Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon and Chatel 1992; Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski and Lyon 1989
[6] T. Pyszczynski & Pelin Kesebir, Anxiety, Stress & Coping, Vol. 24, Issue 1 (2011)
[7] Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Harmon-Jones, E., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T. and Lyon, D. (1995), "Testing alternative explanations for mortality salience effects: Terror management, value accessibility, or worrisome thoughts?" European Journal of Social Psychology, 25: 417-433.
[8] "Age-related differences in responses to thoughts of one's own death: Mortality salience and judgments of moral transgressions", Maxfield, Molly; Pyszczynski, Tom; Kluck, Benjamin; Cox, Cathy R.; Greenberg, Jeff; Solomon, Sheldon; Weise, David, Psychology and Aging, Vol 22(2), Jun 2007, 341-353.
[9] The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: A test of terror management mechanisms. Ben-Ari, Orit Taubman; Florian, Victor; Mikulincer, Mario Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 76(1), Jan 1999, 35-45.
[10] "The siren's call: Terror management and the threat of men's sexual attraction to women", Landau, Mark J.; Goldenberg, Jamie L.; Greenberg, Jeff; Gillath, Omri; Solomon, Sheldon; Cox, Cathy; Martens, Andy; Pyszczynski, Tom, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 90(1), Jan 2006, 129-146.
[11] Sympathy for the Devil: Evidence that Reminding Whites of their Mortality Promotes More Favorable Reactions to White Racists, Jeff Greenberg, Jeff Schimel, AndyMartens, Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszcnyski, Motivation and Eotion, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2001
[12] Russell J. Webstera; Donald A. Sauciera, "The Effects of Death Reminders on Sex Differences in Prejudice Toward Gay Men and Lesbians", Journal of Homosexuality, Volume 58, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 402-426
[13] Philip J. Cozzolino, University of Minnesota, Angela Dawn Staples, Lawrence S. Meyers, Jamie Samboceti, Greed, Death, and Values: From Terror Management to Transcendence Management Theory, (http://psp.sagepub.com/content/30/3/278.short)
[14] John Schopler, Chester A. Insko, Kenneth A. Graetz, Stephen Drigotas, Valerie A. Smith, Kenny Dahl, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , "Individual-Group Discontinuity: Further Evidence for Mediation by Fear and Greed"
[15] Greenberg, Jerald, Effects of reward value and retaliative power on allocation decisions: Justice, generosity, or greed?, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 36(4), Apr 1978, 367-379
[16] Pelin Kesebir, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs; Aleksandra Luszczynska, Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities; Tom Pyszczynski, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs; Charles Benight, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs; Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Involves Disrupted Anxiety-Buffer Mechanisms, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Forthcoming
[17] Greenberg, Jeff, Understanding the vital human quest for self-esteem, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol 3(1), Jan 2008, 48-55.
[18] Philip J. Cozzolino, University of Minnesota; Angela Dawn Staples, Lawrence S. Meyers, Jamie Samboceti, California State University, Sacramento; Greed, Death, and Values: From Terror Management to Transcendence Management Theory (http://psp.sagepub.com/content/30/3/278.short)
[19] Jonas, Eva; Fischer, Peter,Terror management and religion: Evidence that intrinsic religiousness mitigates worldview defense following mortality salience, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 91(3), Sep 2006, 553-567.
Prepared by Dan Eden for viewzone.com (http://viewzone.com/cognitivedissonance.html)
When "Robbie" the robot was told to shoot a weapon at a man in the movie Forbidden Planet, his electronic brain sparked and short-circuited. His creator had programmed him to never harm a human and so the conflicting ideas paralyzed him.
Human beings often are presented with opposing thoughts also, but our brains have developed a way of resolving these conflicts through a process call cognitive dissonance.
We are taught, like "Robbie," that killing is prohibited -- but what about war? And many anti-abortionists support the death penalty... conflicting behavior is all around us. So how exactly does that work?
Simply put, congitive dissonance theory states that when you have two opposing ideas (or ideologies) at the same time, you will act upon the one that causes the less distortion to your ego.
According to Wikipedia:Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, and also the awareness of one's behavior. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
Dissonance normally occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency among his or her cognitions. This happens when one idea implies the opposite of another. For example, a belief in animal rights could be interpreted as inconsistent with eating meat or wearing fur. Noticing the contradiction would lead to dissonance, which could be experienced as anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment, stress, and other negative emotional states. When people's ideas are consistent with each other, they are in a state of harmony or consonance. If cognitions are unrelated, they are categorized as irrelevant to each other and do not lead to dissonance.
Let me give you some examples.
There are lots of schemes and con-artists trying to get your money these days. Almost every day I receive dozens of e-mails from people like Abada Muzoola from Nigeria, who just happened to get my e-mail address and wants me to help him transfer 70-million dollars to my bank in return for a 10 percent commission. Wow, I could use 7-million dollars! All he needs is my bank account number and pin-code. He is even willing to transfer the total amount to my account because he trusts me so much.
I continue to receive variations of this scheme every day. Why? Because they work. Somewhere in the world is a victim who will have cognitive dissonance.
On a more sophisticated scale, Bernie Madoff [ right] bilked hundreds of wealthy people out of an estimated 50-billion dollars by manipulating the same mental process (and would have continued doing so had he not bragged to his sons, who turned him in).
So how is it that people are able to convince others to give them access to their funds or to willingly give them their cash? First, one more example:
You're walking down a busy street deep in your own private thoughts. All of a sudden a smiling woman jumps out of somewhere, stands in front of you, and puts a flower in your hand. "Hello dear... isn't it a wonderful day today? I want you to have this flower!," she says.Now you have a beautiful flower in your hand. It's a nice gift and she seems friendly. She begins to walk with you, telling you that you have nice, kind eyes. She says she noticed right away that you were special and so wanted to meet you. You forget your previous thoughts about work, bills or your own life. Suddenly you feel good... appreciated... uplifted.
Then, in the same friendly voice and bright smile, she says, "I know you are a good person and you can help me by giving me a something for the beautiful flower -- right?"
What happens inside your head at that moment is cognitive dissonance.
The dissonance or dis-harmony comes from two conflicting ideas or decision paths. One path tells you that you should just say "No thanks!" and keep on walking; maybe return the flower and feel insulted even if it means she will become disappointed with you. The other path tells you that she has made you feel good and has earned your friendship and a couple of bucks. She has been friendly and you don't want to ruin the brief relationship you have formed. Heck, you should probably even give her back the flower so she can use it on the next victim.
Which decision will cause the least damage to your ego?
In cognitive dissonance theory the outcome of these opposing thought paths will be the one that requires the least emotional stress. Most victims will pay up rather than feel they are being cruel or disrespectful to someone who has made them feel so good.
In the case of the Nigerian philanthropist, Abada Muzoola, it is often less stressful to believe that you are the lucky "chosen" beneficiary than to believe you are one of the thousands of e-mails he has sent this offer to.
Later, after their bank account has been cleaned out, most people realize that they should have known better and are puzzled by their own vulnerability. Many feel so embarassed that they don't report the crime to the authorities.
Psychologists refer to this vulnerability as the "willful suspension of disbelief," where one can easily see the potential manipulations and evil motives of ther perpetrator, but, because they have already made some prior committment to go along with this, it is easier to continue than to back out.
The investors of Mr. Madoff knew that a 10% to 12% annual return on an investment, especially in the current bear market, was impossible. Something dishonest or illegal had to be going on. But because they had been made to work so hard to let him take their money -- often begging him to please allow them to invest millions of dollars -- they had made the psychological investment that "locks in" the cognitive dissonance. After that, it was more stressful to admit that this was a ponzy scheme than to just avoid worrying about it.
In Festinger and Carlsmith's classic 1959 experiment, students were asked to perform boring and tedious tasks (e.g. turning pegs a quarter turn, over and over again). The tasks were designed to generate a strong, negative attitude. After an hour of working on the tasks, participants were asked to persuade another subject (who was actually a confederate) that the dull, boring tasks the subject had just completed were actually interesting and engaging. Some participants were paid $20 for the favor, another group was paid $1, and a control group was not asked to perform the favor.
When asked to rate the boring tasks at the conclusion of the study, those in the $1 group rated them more positively than those in the $20 and control groups. This was explained by Festinger and Carlsmith as evidence for cognitive dissonance. The researchers theorized that people experienced dissonance between the conflicting cognitions, "I told someone that the task was interesting", and "I actually found it boring." When paid only $1, students were forced to internalize the attitude they were induced to express, because they had no other justification. Those in the $20 condition, however, had an obvious external justification for their behavior, and thus experienced less dissonance.
Are you beginning to understand how this works now?
In for a dime, in for a dollar
Cognitive dissonance has been used to control larger groups and populations also. In World War II there was a famous campaign where citizens were asked to donate all their old pots and pans, supposedly to be melted down to make tanks, munitions and war planes. The collection was highly effective and the psychological "investment" initiated solidarity and nationalism for the war effort. Of course, all those pots and pans ended up buried in landfills.
Here's a modern day example: When the US invaded Afghanistan, ex-President Bush came on the television asking families to donate whatever they could to help the school children in Afghanistan who needed paper and pencils. Thousands of school kids collected coins in classrooms across the nation and sent the donations to the White House. The funds ended up being put in to some vague account that never did what it was donated to do. But the "investment" was enough to gain support for a far-away war in an obscure land for vague reasons.
Sometimes, as with the tragic collapse of the World Trade towers on 9-11, the "investment" is made for us. In this way an entire nation can be made to feel that they have already sacrificed something and that they should choose the path of war over peace forgetting about the Iraqi civilian casualties -- or even that Iraq was not responsible.
I once belonged to an Episcopal church in New Mexico that collected oil for M-16s to send to the troops in Iraq! They also invested the church funds with Raytheon and Haliburton.
Cognitive Dissonance in Advertising and Marketing
In advertising there is a theory that a consumer may use a particular product because he or she believes the advertising for that product, which claims that the product is the most effective of its kind in the job that it does.
Then the consumer may see a competitor's advertisement that seems to prove conclusively that this competitive product is better. This creates dissonance. The consumer must now relieve the uncomfortable feeling that the dissonance brings about and will often do so by switching products. The theory acts as a double-edged sword, though, because while advertisers want to create dissonance for nonusers of their product, they do not want to create it for those who do use their product.
This is why advertisers use their logos on things like NASCAR and sports arenas. They want you to become loyal to their brand. This will create distrust when you see the same product -- even an apparently better product -- with a different and unfamiliar brand.
Cognitive dissonance most often occurs after the purchase of an expensive item such as an automobile. A consumer who is experiencing cognitive dissonance after his or her purchase may attempt to return the product or may seek positive information about it to justify the choice. If the buyer is unable to justify the purchase, he or she will also be less likely to purchase that brand again. Advertisers of high-priced durable goods say that half of their advertising is done to reassure consumers that in purchasing their product the right choice was made.
Some good uses of cognitive dissonance
Congitive therapists use this technique to change bad behavior and decisions. The technique is called a "yes set."
Getting a patient to agree to treatment for addiction or to initiate some beneficial behavior is difficult. There is often a fundamental "batting of heads" between the patient and people trying to help. The breakthrough is achieved when the therapist purposely initiates a series of statements to which the patient can agree. After repeatedly agreeing with the therapist on a multitude of minor decisions, the patient begins to feel good and the therapist allows the patient to "invest" in this positive relationship. Then, with skill, the therapist introduces the crucial decision. "So don't you think it's really time for you go to rehab?" Faced with the option of agreeing or offending the therapist, the patient often continues the "yes" response.
The example above is highly effective because the patient not only agrees to change the bad behavior but is immediately rewarded by the continuation of their positive self-esteem and good feeling.
Cognitive dissonance requires some skill to work
The concept doesn't always work. Especially if it's poorly executed.
I was once shopping for a car and, after selecting a possible make and model, found myself sitting in the little room with the salesman, haggling about the price. At one point he asked me for my driver's license or credit card and told me it was a "gesture" so that I would trust him. At the time, I just said "No way," and split.
For many customers, this simple act would be enough to form a psychological "investment" with the dealer, who could then use this to manipulate and close the sale. It might be more difficult for the customer to demand his lecense or credit card and storm out of the office than to sit there and be intimidated until they signed the sales contract.
Eliminating Cognitive Dissonance
(from www.beyondintractability.org)
There are several key ways in which people attempt to overcome, or do away with, cognitive dissonance. One is by ignoring or eliminating the dissonant cognitions. By pretending that ice cream is not bad for me, I can have my cake and eat it too, so to speak. Ignoring the dissonant cognition allows us to do things we might otherwise view as wrong or inappropriate.
Another way to overcome cognitive dissonance is to alter the importance (or lack thereof) of certain cognitions. By either deciding that ice cream is extremely good (I can't do without it) or that losing weight isn't that important (I look good anyway), the problem of dissonance can be lessened. If one of the dissonant cognitions outweighs the other in importance, the mind has less difficulty dealing with the dissonance -- and the result means that I can eat my ice cream and not feel bad about it.
Yet another way that people react to cognitive dissonance is byadding or creating new cognitions. By creating or emphasizing new cognitions, I can overwhelm the fact that I know ice cream is bad for my weight loss. For instance, I can emphasize new cognitions such as "I exercise three times a week" or "I need calcium and dairy products" or "I had a small dinner," etc. These new cognitions allow for the lessening of dissonance, as I now have multiple cognitions that say ice cream is okay, and only one, which says I shouldn't eat it.
Finally, perhaps the most important way people deal with cognitive dissonance is to prevent it in the first place. If someone is presented with information that is dissonant from what they already know, the easiest way to deal with this new information is to ignore it, refuse to accept it, or simply avoid that type of information in general. Thus, a new study that says ice cream is more fattening than originally thought would be easily dealt with by ignoring it. Further, future problems can be prevented by simply avoiding that type of information -- simply refusing to read studies on ice cream, health magazines, etc.
Cognitive dissonance is all around us. We live in a world full of contradictions. Children are killed in Gaza in the name of peace. Feminists wear makeup, short skirts and high heels. Conservationists like Al Gore fly around in private, fuel guzzling jets. Anti-gay Christians tap their feet in public bathroom stalls... these opposing ideologies are all resolved somehow, somewhere, deep in our human psyche with cognitive disonnance.
by Gary Vey for viewzone (http://www.viewzone2.com/light.html)
The Ultimate Mystery: What is light?
In the 19th century, scientists began to delve into the basic structure of the universe in an attempt to understand how it was put together. In one very simple experiment they sought to determine the nature of light, but the results were unexpected and created a mystery that the greatest minds have been unable to solve to this day.
To a physicist, light means an energy that is anywhere along the electromagnetic spectrum, from ELF waves to gamma radiation. Visible light is only a narrow part of the spectrum that is most familiar to us because our eyes can detect it. In the Newtonian model of the universe everything is made of particles, including light. Scientists began to think of light as being made from tiny "balls" of energy called photons.
In 1803 a physician named Thomas Young had been studying sound waves and thought that light was also a phenomenon involving waves. This contradicted the current theory. Young noticed that light could be slowed as it passed through a prism and the observed spectrum of colors seemed to be more easily explained as wave phenomenon rather than that of light "particles".
Young decided he would conduct an experiment that would finally resolve the conflict. What he could not have known is that this experiment would open up a pandora's box of brain-twisting enigmas that contradict our understanding of the universe and our own reality.
As you will see, the result o this experiment is a glimpse into another dimension where time itself can move backwards or stand still. This mystery has been with us for over 200 years now and we are no closer to solving it today. But when and if it is finally understood, civilization will dramatically change and our reality will have to be reconstructed.
The Double Slit Experiment (1803)
Thomas Young tried to keep things simple. He looked for examples in our everyday experience that revealed if things were solid particles of oscillating waves. I will attempt to explain his experiment using more modern analogies so that it will hopefully be easier to understand.
Let's imagine that you have a wide cement wall with an open, rectangular window cut in it. At some distance beyond the cement wall there is second wall. This second wall is made of thin wallboard and has no window. You're going to stand at some distance in front of the first wall and the window. You have a pistol [represented by the triangle below] and you begin shooting through the window. As you do this, you notice that the bullets are passing through the open window and hitting the second wall where they make holes.
Because you are at some distance from the window (and presumably not a marksman), your bullets vary in their direction with each shot you take. After you have taken hundreds of shots you notice that the pattern of holes in the wallboard resemble the shape of the rectangular window. This is really not surprising and makes perfect sense.
Now we are going to add a second rectangular window a couple of feet to the left of the first window and begin shooting again [see below]. Because we are at some distance from the two windows, some of our bullets will randomly go through one or the other window. Some may even hit the wall and not go through either window. Some will hit the edge of the window and their trajectory will be slightly altered. But enough pass through either window so that there is a pattern of holes on the wallboard that now resembles two rectangles. Again, this is not surprising and is what we would expect in the world with which we are familiar.
Bullets are solid objects, all the same size and weight and, although their trajectory through one or the other window is somewhat random, we nonetheless can see a distinct pattern on the wallboard.
Next, Young imagined the same two walls immersed in a pool of water. Instead of bullets, let's imagine we have something that generates a wave in the water. Like the example above we will start with only one open window.
As illustrated below, when the wave reaches the open window it passes through it and begins again on the other side, heading for the wallboard [2]. This time we will not have holes from bullets so we will have to find a way to measure the intensity of the wave. I suggest we imagine floating pin-pong balls that can move up and down against the wallboard so we will know when the wave hits the second wall.
With just the one window we have the strongest part of the wave hitting the area in back of the window with less intensity on each side. Again, there is nothing surprising here.
Lets go ahead and use a wall with two windows, like we did before (see below illustration). The initial wave approached the windows [1], is stopped by the wall but becomes two new waves as it emerges on the other side of the windows [2]. These two waves continue towards the back wall [3], but something interesting happens. Sometimes the peaks of the two waves combine and become a stronger wave. Sometimes the troughs of both waves combine and become a deeper trough. Sometimes a peak and a trough combine and cancel each other and there is no wave. The resulting waves [4], as measured by our ping-pong balls on the wallboard will show a series of bands where the peaks have combines and no wave activity where they have cancelled each other.
Unexpected Results Baffle Scientists, Even Today
What Thomas Young did was establish two distinct patterns that would happen in the two slit (or two windows in our example) experiment. If the energy directed towards the two slits was a solid particle, it would make two distinct (yet a little fuzzy around the edges) patterns. If the energy was in the form of a wave it would form bands, called an "interference pattern" by experimenters since the two waves from the windows interfere with each other.
What happened next freaked him out and it has freak scientists and theoreticians like Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, Richard Feynman and many others for over 200 years.
The Unexpected Happens
Many of you may have learned about this experiment in your physics class. But there is a new twist that I will tell you about later that will totally blow your mind...
When a single beam of light was directed at the single slit (or window), the light cast a pattern of a fuzzy rectangle -- the same shape as the window. This is a clear example that light is made of individual particles. We call these particles photons. In physics a photon is an elementary particle (meaning it is not made up of smaller bits and pieces) and it has a unitary size and charge.
So when a single beam of light is directed at a double slit (or two windows) we would expect it to behave much like the bullets in our imaginary experiment and cast two fuzzy rectangles. But it doesn't. Instead we get the interference pattern, indicative of a wave (see below).
For an interference pattern to happen, we assume that something went through both slits (windows) at the same time. Scientists first thought that two photons are somehow passing through the two windows at the same time, then interfering with each other after they have passed through their respective window and before they strike the back wallboard.
To eliminate this possibility, they managed to fired a single photon at the windows... then another... then another. The wallboard was designed so that the location of each photon could be marked, much like the bullet holes. They were now certain that only one photon was passing through either window at any time. But after a while they noticed the same interference pattern. The places where the photons had hit the backboard were arranged in a pattern of bands and gaps. How could this be happening?
This was so strange that some theorists suggested the photon had somehow split itself in two, gone through separate windows and then recombined. Since it is an elementary particle, this is not possible. So the next idea was to try and see where each photon was going, one at a time, and try to undersand what was happening to it before it hit the wallboard.
The experimenters decided to place some photo-electric cells on the back sides of the windows so that they cold "see" which window the photon went through, then they would monitor where it landed on the backboard. Since light travels in a straight line they would be able to plot the photon's course and see what was causing the interference pattern.
But that just created more problems (see below).
As soon as a detector was turned on to see the photon pass by, the arrangement of the photons striking the back wall were indicative of a particle. They tried turning one detector on, then the other, then both -- no matter what combination they tried, if they knew which window the photon passed through the experimental results were always indicative of a particle. As soon as they stopped trying to see which window the photon went through, the wave interference pattern appeared.
It appears that whenever we know which window/slit the proton passed through, the result will always be the characteristic pattern of a particle. If we do not know which slit the proton passed through, the result will alwaysbe characteristic of an interference pattern.
Why Observation Changes The Results
To measure the photon passing through the window, the apparatus used a detector that shot its own photons across the gap and collected it on the opposite side. If this beam of photons encountered the experimental photon that had passed through the window, its trajectory would be changed and this change would be noted. But experimenters knew that the experimental photon would also be changed, ever so slightly.
Apparently there is no way to observe the experimental photon passing through the window without altering its path. They soon learned that any time they could detect through which window (or slit) the experimental photon passed, this detection would somehow make the photon behave as if it were a particle.
At one point they reduced the photons in the detector to the point where the detector sometimes would catch the experimental photon and other times it would pass undetected. They noticed when they did this that if the detector could track the experimental photon it landed inside one of the two fuzzy rectangles but for those that escaped detection they would land in one of the interference bands.
Somehow the act of observation was changing the experimental results. But how?
It gets even stranger!
When does the photon change from one form to the other? Does it happen when the particle is being detected? Could the mere act of detection be enough to collapse the wave and form a particle pattern?
To test his hypothesis a man named John A. Wheeler designed an ingenious way of altering the double slit experiment that would, he thought, prove that the process of detection was not responsible for the change from particle to wave patterns.
First, Wheeler had two powerful telescopes -- one focused on each slit. If a photon went through one or the other slit, the telescopes could see it. The telescopes were placed where the fuzzy rectangles would register a photon hit from a particle pattern. Since the light had to travel to the telescopes, they served as a detector.
Wheeler then devised a detection screen that could be very quickly placed in front of the telescopes, preventing them from seeing the slits but recording where the photons landed.
The mechanism was constructed so that the distance between the wall with the slits was quite far from both the removable detection wall and the telescopes.
Becase these distances and speed of light were known, it was possible to know when a photon had been released, passed through either or both of the slits and was somewhere between the slits and the detectors. We call this time =x in the animation below. At this precise moment the detection screen could either be placed in front of the telescopes or removed.
[See animation below]
The idea was that the photon should have already decided if it was going to react like a particle or a wave after it had passed through the slits. And this decision by the photon should be irreversable.
Wheeler tried to force the photon to be a particle because, at the time it passed through the slits, it was being watched by the telescopes. By putting up the screen after the photon passed the slits, but before the telescopes received the light, he expected the photon would act like a particle. (Is your head spinning yet?)
In the actual experiment, when the photons passed through the slits, if the detector wall was quickly put in place, they displayed the wave pattern on the wall. But, if after the photons passed through the slits, the detector wall was suddenly removed, the telescopes would capture the photons in the area where two fuzzy rectangles would be -- indicative of a particle.
In other words, the decision on which type of detection is used (screen or telescopes) is being made after the photons have passed through the slits -- presumable after they have already decided to be a wave or a particle. Yet, the later decision seems to somehow influence the photon in the past. Huh?
Ordinarily we have "cause--effect" timelines in nature. But this experiment seems to show that the effect can change the cause.
In other experiments, the detectors were used to determine which slit the photon passed BUT the electronics that reported or recorded the result were turned off. This is the so-called Earasure Paradox because, despite being detected, the interference pattern resulted. It seems that it is not the detection that matter as much as whether a person (human being) is aware of it or not! More weirdness: Electrons and Buckyballs
Not surprising, when electrons are used in a vacuum environment instead of photons, the results are identical. But what astonished me was that something as large as a 60 atom molecule -- a so-called "buckyball" -- also displayed this mind-bending feat!
Just how big a molecule needs to be before it continually displays the particle pattern is something that is currently being explored.1
What is a buckyball (C60)?
Buckyballs, also called fullerenes, were one of the first nanoparticles discovered. This discovery happened in 1985 by a trio of researchers working out of Rice University named Richard Smalley, Harry Kroto, and Robert Curl.
Buckyballs are composed of carbon atoms linked to three other carbon atoms by covalent bonds. However, the carbon atoms are connected in the same pattern of hexagons and pentagons you find on a soccer ball, giving a buckyball the spherical structure as shown in the following figure.
The most common buckyball contains 60 carbon atoms and is sometimes called C60.Other sizes of buckyballs range from those containing 20 carbon atoms to those containing more than 100 carbon atoms.
The covalent bonds between carbon atoms make buckyballs very strong, and the carbon atoms readily form covalent bonds with a variety of other atoms. Buckyballs are used in composites to strengthen material. Buckyballs have the interesting electrical property of being very good electron acceptors, which means they accept loose electrons from other materials. This feature is useful, for example, in increasing the efficiency of solar cells in transforming sunlight into electricity.
[Excerpt from Nanotechnology For Dummies (2nd edition), from Wiley Publishing]
Things To Remember...
While you are trying to get your mind around this, it's perhaps time to answer some frequently asked questions about the wave and particle patterns. Remember that even with the wave pattern, the detector wall in the photon experiments is detecting whole, single photons which are all of uniform size and charge. The detector can only detect these uniform particles -- and they are most certainly particles when they are detected -- however it is the pattern which appears over time that forms the distinct interference bands and gaps or the fuzzy rectangles.
So before they are detected, it would seem, they are influenced by something to land randomly in a pattern of either wave or particle. Once they are detected they are particles. Yet, as we saw in the last experiment -- incidentally called the "delayed choice" version of the Double Slit Experiment -- the decision appears to have been made prior to detection yet dependent upon the subsequent choice of the detection method... whew!
Yes, there's more, if you can handle it. That will be in the next installment on light.
In the meantime, a reader sent me a link to a lecture by Tom Campbell on YouTube. I thought I'd heard almost all of the explanations for the paradox of the Double Split Experiment and Delayed Decision stuff but Campbell surprised me by stating the obvious conclusion that most scientists come to when trying to explain things on the quantum level: it's not real! We are part of a simulation. Reality is either a digital simulation itself, or reality is running on some larger system of things we cannot have knowledge about.
It's cutting edge thinking and it will expand your ideas about reality beyond your imagination. I'll try to get a hold on it and write more. Meanwhile, here is that video. Enjoy.
The Present and The Past: Causality
Perhaps the weirdest things that happen in the quantum world -- the world of very small particles of matter and energy -- is that time often seems to be either meaningless, or it travels in the opposite direction. There are several excellent examples of this, like Schrodinger's Cat (which I will discuss later) but this is one that I think best illustrates the reverse time phenomenon.
The Punch Card Problem
A team of scientist design the Double Split Experiment using singe photons which are eventually collected on a detector screen. Aside each slit there is a detector which can determine which slit the photon went through. The detectors are connected to a computer that makes note of the trial number (0001 to 1000) and the slit (left or right) and immediately creates an old IBM punch card with this information encoded on it. The data is then erased from the computer memory.
When the photon eventually hits the back detector screen, the x,y coordinates are picked up and sent to the computer, along with the trial number, and a different IBM punch card is printed with this information encoded on it. The data is then erased from the computer.
So far, no human has seen the cards or monitored the computer. When 1000 trials are completed the two stacks of 1000 IBM punch cards are locked away for 50 years.
Remember: the photon will always have a wave pattern unless the slit that it went through is known by a conscious mind. Even if detectors are used, if the information is not observed by a conscious mind then it remains in wave form.
After decades the box is opened. The stack of cards containing the trial numbers and the slit that detected the photon are shuffled in the dark, then half of the cards are removed randomly and burned.
When the cards are sorted, those of the same trial numbers are put in one pile and those who do not have a corresponding trial number (because their mate was burned) are in the remaining pile.
We know from the Double Slit Experiment that a particle will create two fuzzy rectangles while a wave form will create several fizzy bands. We can determine the x,y coordinates of these rectangles by letting photons enter through one, then the other slit (one slit at a time). When the IBM punch cards are examined for the x,y coordinates it is possible to say that the coordinates are either within the rectangle (a particle pattern) or fall outside of it (a wave pattern).
We also know from the Double Slit Experiment that if a human mind (consciousness) is aware of which slit the photon went through then the resulting pattern will be that of a particle.
Quantum mechanics therefore predicts that the cards with matching trial numbers will all fall within the two fuzzy rectangles of a particle pattern, since we have now consciously detected which slit the photon passed through. Because the cards that were destroyed no longer contained the information on which slit the photon passed through, the result is that we never observed this information and so the expected pattern will be that of a wave.
What has happened here is that a random decision (which cards to burn) made in the present has caused a photon 50 years in the past to decide to be in the form of a wave or a particle.
Or, from the perspective of the photon, it has seen what will happen in 50 years in the future and has decided to take the form of a wave or a particle. This is the weirdness of the quantum world of light.
I've gone to sleep many mights trying to imagine a way to use this reverse-time phenomenon... if there was a way to send lotto numbers back in time. After all I only need one day of reverse-time communication -- not 50 years. But the logic does not yet allow for such things. Or does it?
In the above example, two events (the slit information and observation 50 years in the future) are entangled. In the famous experiment below, the decay of an atom is entangled with a cat.
Schrodinger's Cat -- Observation By An Animal?
In the standard model of how stuff is made, commonly called the Copenhagen Interpretation, an atom like uranium would be considered as both having decayed and not decayed -- two superimposed states -- until it was actually observed by someone. This is analogous to a photon being both a wave and a particle until observed.
While this dual-state mathematical condition exists in the quantum world, it makes no sense in the larger world where we exist. Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger in 1935 to illustrate how absurd the quantum world can be.
We begin with an atom that is capable of radiation, like uranium. Uranium atoms have so many electrons that the ones in their outer shell, furthest from the pull of the nucleus, tend to escape and fly off in space. A geiger-counter is designed to detect this escaping electron and produce a "click".
While we know about how many "clicks" we will detect with a good size chunk of uranium, we have no idea when a single atom of uranium will shed an electron. It could be the next second or many years from now. But we are confident that, eventually, this will happen.
In Schrodinger's thought experiment a single atom of uranium is placed in a glass jar with a geiger counter. Instead of just making a "click" when it detects the flying electron, the geiger counter also breaks open a tablet of cyanide gas... Oh, yes. We're going to put this whole contraption inside a metal box that also contains a live cat, close it and wait.
After some time has passed we might wonder if the uranium decayed and ultimately killed the cat, or perhaps that has not happened yet and the cat is doing fine. Schrodinger was trying to show that, according to the rules set by the Copenhagen Interpretation, until you open up the box and look, the cat can exist in two states: dead and alive. His argument was that the cat's fate would not be "real" until an observer looked at it, which is of course quite absurd.
In our rational world, the cat is either dead or alive, not both. Of course, the cat knowns if it is dead or alive -- doesn't that count as an observation? It's crazy, but such things exist in the quantum world.
Here's a brief video that explains the paradox.
The Unexpected Happens... Again!
Get ready for another light paradox. This is an experiment you can do yourself. It involves polarizing filters of the type used in sunglasses and on camera lenses to reduce glare.
The polaroid filter is made of long molecules that are arranged in parallel in a specific direction. The filter takes advantage of the fact that a traveling light wave will have an undulating wave that extends perpendicular to the direction of travel. This wave travels at a specific angle of rotation. Actually, light travels in tiny discrete packets of energy and each packet has its own unique rotation angle. Collectively, like in a beam of light, it all seems random.
The parallel cells in the polarizing membrane allow light that is similarly aligned to pass through but blocks all the other rotation angles. So after light passes through a filter it is said to be polarized in a specific direction.
Here is a short video that will explain this better than I can:
So here is the paradox. In the illustration below you can see three different observations being made with three different arrangements of polarizing filters.
In the top row you see that a filter has been arranged to allow a vertical rotation angle. The light that passes through is visible and has a vertical orientation. [a]
The second row shows the same light passing through the first filter but being stopped by the second one because it is allowing only horizontal rotation of light to pass. There is no light visible to the observer. [b]
In the bottom row you see what happens when a filter is placed at a 45° angle between the vertical and horizontal filters. [c] Surprisingly, light now passes through all three filters.
If you can explain this, please get ready to collect your prize in Physics. Many have tried. But it remains an enigma.
But there IS a solution!
There is a modern physicist named Dr. Sylvester James Gates who is known for being the top string-theory (M-theory) theoretician. His world is usually immersed in math formulas but he enjoys relating his ideas to ordinary people in venues like the 2011 Issac Asimov discussions [below]. Dr. Gates is an speaker and used the occasion to announce a new and shocking discovery.
Gates claims that while he was solving a basic equation in the sub-quantum world of the tiniest bits that make up stuff (because they are so tiny -- smaller than quarks -- they aren't even stuff yet...) he came across a basic formula that, when solved with numbers, yielded a long stretch of 1s and 0s.
These were not random 1s and 0s. Gates immediately recognized this unique pattern as being a computer code discovered by Claude Shannon in the 1940s and used to transfer digital signals without errors.
Claude Shannon was the person who decided to send analog voice transmissions by digital means (1s and 0s) for AT&T. This successfully eliminated the noise that plagued telephones in their early days. Shannon eventually really got into digital communication and defined the limits of digital data transmission with formulas that are basic to digital communication today.
CDs, DVD, your cellphone and hard drive -- anything that sends digital information from one point to another sends it in packets. Even voice signals and skype are made up of thousands of packets a second passing through wires or space -- each has it's own "envelope" if you will -- a beginning and an end -- and something the sending device adds to it as it sends it out. This extra piece of data is something that the receiving end of the communication checks after it receives the digital package. It's a thing call an "error check code".
In its basic form, the error check code gives the count or number of bytes in the package it just sent. If the count of all the 1s and 0s is wrong, it means something got lost along the way and the receiver usually sends a message back to the sender that says "we didn't get it all, please send it again!" And a new packet is re-sent.
More advanced systems, ones that just send out the digital data and never hear back from the receiver, do something even more remarkable.
Claude Shannon devised a small addition to the packet of data that contained samples of the data in the packet. This way, if a small piece of digital information was lost, the packet from the previous successfully sent data would be used to fill in the missing data. It's all complex and you would have to be Einstein to even begin to understand it... but this whole process was reduced to a specific series of 1s and 0s that give the instruction to make the repair. This is exactly what S.J.Gates found embedded in the basic formula of string theory!
Gates stated what he found and it was confirmed. He has made no further disclosures about how it got there, if he has a clue. In one interview he apologized for being the person to suggest that the movie, The Matrix, was more true than fiction.
Is our reality a digital simulation?
Don't laugh or smirk at this idea. It has been entertained by some of the greatest minds who know the quantum world intimately. The idea that our reality is made up of discrete bits is a fact. You may be surprised to learn that there is a smallest unit of time and smallest unit of space. It's as if reality is made of pixels, which have a refresh rate (the constant velocity of light) and the ability to preserve rendering until it is observed by someone -- the avatar in the game.
Dr. Brian Whitworth has been the most outspoken theorists to "flesh out" this theory. If you have understood any of these light paradox examples in this article, you should be able to understand a little of this important paper. I've included it here so you can read it at your leisure.
Whitworth makes a compelling case for the Matrix! Things like Young's Double-Split paradox and the Delayed Choice phenomenon have a chance of making sense in a simulated world but the simulated world theories pose a threat to things like religion, "God" and free-will. It is perhaps these paradigms (including the Terror of Death that we anesthetize with religious beliefs) that keep the simulation theories at bey.
The Similarity of Quantum and Simulated worlds
A simulated (digital computer) environment will have a maximum velocity determined by the pixel density and refresh rate of the screen. In the quantum world this frame of time is the time required for the smallest unit (Planck length) to change its position with the smallest bit of energy. Like a video game, continuous time is made up of very small moments that only appear to be continuous.
In a computer game, the velocity will appear uniform in all reference frames and can be computed by dividing the pixel size by the refresh rate. In the quantum world, the same applies: Planck length / Planck time = velocity of light (1.616 X10-35)meters / (5.39 X10-44)seconds = C
In video games, objects are only rendered when they are being looked at (observation). The photon exhibits this phenomenon by being a probability wave until observed by a conscious mind.
In a video game, time slows when massive programming is required. Quantum time also slows in the presence of mass.
The Single Avatar Solution
One interesting simulation theory postulates that the "game" involves only one avatar at a time, to conserve processing. The same consciousness inhabits all of the characters in the universe, sometimes being a homeless man in New York, another time being Vladimir Putin... or YOU... and so on. You are reading this article right now because it was your turn to be who you are right now. There is only one reality for each run of the game.
This would limit the need to code everything in the universe, from every possible perspective and time. And the lifetime of an avatar could be just a small moment of time in some other reality -- where the program is running. The number of avatars is finite, so it is possible.
In the quantum world one learns that if something is possible then it is.
In this simulation example, everything that is behind you and your field of observation is not rendered -- is not "real" yet, until you turn and observe it. This explains why a photon will be a wave probability -- essentially programming variables -- until it is observed and the wave is said to "collapse" and produce a discrete particle.
If you are not familiar with computer games these days, ask your children to show you the state of the art. You will understand that this is not a fantasy.
When I described this to my good friend in Australia, John McGovern, he replied with the following youtube video which appears to say it all:
"Do unto others as you would have done to you," seems to take on new significance in this simulated world. So do things like reincarnation and karma... "We are all one!" Notes:
1 - New Scientist: Quantum wonders: Corpuscles and buckyballs, 2010 Nature: Wave-particle duality of C60 molecules, 14 October 1999. Abstract
Not wanting to be left out of the feeding frenzy, bankers and financial institutions designed elaborate schemes to rip poor people from their homes, decimating the finances and futures of millions of American families. Adding to the insult, these same bankers used our tax money to pay lavish bonuses to their executives who designed and implememted this financial rape. Then it was the energy corporations turn at the game. While gas prices soared to $5 a gallon for no logical reason, oil companies like Exxon announced 500% increases in annual profits. Today, America is technically bankrupt.
How bad will it get? Entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare -- designed to protect those who are most vulnerable -- are now on the budget chopping block because wealthy politicians and rich corporations arrogantly refuse to pay their fair share of taxes.
In studies dealing directly with human greed [12,13,14,15], Mortality Salience has been found repeatedly to elicit selfish, non-cooperative behavior when dealing with finite resources. But psychologists were puzzled by the reactions of Mortality Salience on a particular group of people who have at some time had a near death experience (NDE). These people did not show the typical responses [18]. Rather, they were characterized by unselfishness, cooperation towards the common good and were markedly non-material.
Several studies have shown that religion is only effective in mediating death anxiety in intrinsic individuals (i.e. people who are introspective and internally motivated) and that it has only minimal effects in extrinsics (i.e. people who are externally motivated). [19]
Imagine that a drug company has new medicine for high blood pressure. They have tested it and think it works pretty good, but there have been some side effects and some people have died. Let's say that under the present laws regulating drug companies there is the possibility that people who take this medicine and get ill or die can result in costly law suits against the company for millions of dollars. The drug company knows that this will be a reality but they have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing this medicine and owe it to their shareholders to recoup a profit.
On a more sophisticated scale, Bernie Madoff [ right] bilked hundreds of wealthy people out of an estimated 50-billion dollars by manipulating the same mental process (and would have continued doing so had he not bragged to his sons, who turned him in).
In for a dime, in for a dollar
In advertising there is a theory that a consumer may use a particular product because he or she believes the advertising for that product, which claims that the product is the most effective of its kind in the job that it does.
There are several key ways in which people attempt to overcome, or do away with, cognitive dissonance. One is by ignoring or eliminating the dissonant cognitions. By pretending that ice cream is not bad for me, I can have my cake and eat it too, so to speak. Ignoring the dissonant cognition allows us to do things we might otherwise view as wrong or inappropriate.
