Identifying the soul.

Dr Stuart Hameroff, Professor Emeritus at the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology and the Director of the Centre of Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, has advanced a quasi-religious theory. According to this idea, consciousness is a program for a quantum computer in the brain which can persist in the universe even after death, explaining the perceptions of those who have near-death experiences. It is based on a quantum theory of consciousness he and British physicist Sir Roger Penrose have developed which holds that the essence of our soul is contained inside structures called microtubules within brain cells.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2225190/Can-quantum-physics-explain-bizarre-experiences-patients-brought-brink-death.html#ixzz2AsfYBwmz

A funny one; this. There has, over the millenia, been much made of the existence of souls so that one is tempted to think that there is some truth in the suggestion. That the very activity of the brain can generate some energy in the form of electro-magnetic radiation that persists even if the body subsequently dies. Some believe that this energy is the very essence of the being allowing it to live on in some afterlife.
Could the brain be generating some strange energy that is in some way responsible for the thinking of what are known as the 'ineffable' experiences of, for example, love.
I have this theory here that there exists another universe that pervades the one we as humans experience. The two universes ordinarily do not react but energetically sum to zero. There is however, a 'veil of reality' which seperates the two universes as the symbol 'zero' seperates the positive numbers from the negative and that is the clue. The energy of the 'unreal' or spiritual world can be described in terms of negative dimensions that include the term, 'i' or the square root of minus one.In the same way that humans cannot understand or describe love scientifically, so they cannot understand the nature of 'i'.
Is it the case that the brain operates in a medium that embraces the spiritual dimensions?

The end of Capitalism as we know it?

Michael Heseltine has issued a report in which he urges the Government to stop foreign firms buying up the 'Best of British'. This on a day when a Japanese company buys the firm that makes Branston Pickle. Presumably it bought the name and the recipe. How long will it be before production is switched abroad and the plant in England closed and the workers laid off?
Capitalism as we know it has brought the world to a better place from where it started two hundred or so years ago. It has transformed not only how we see the world but the very world itself in terms of its reach and impact.While some nations remain backward, those at the forefront have taken it to levels where it is surely unsustainable if the world is not to become held hostage to a few mega huge Corporations. The talk should now be of contraction and consolidation; the regeneration of local areas rather than a rush for globalisation. If that is being protectionist then so be it. It's no good having a concept of 'free trade' if the REALITY is all your people are starving for the want of a job! By all means encourage and reward enterprise and efficiency, but let's not throw away all that is best in Britain to a highest bidder who is only interested in profit that will be taxed (if at all) elsewhere.

It is also important that major industries such as Railways, Energy, Defence and Water be taken back into public ownership. These, as I've said many times before, are too important to be left in the hands of companies who'se first priority is the shareholder (Many overseas) profit. Ways must then be found to ensure that the public's interest is properly served by suitable management. To that end I believe that Mr. Branson, if he is interested, could bring experience to bear and to encourage him in this endeavour he should be awarded the East Coast Railway line to run as well as the Western line.

An Englishman's home is his castle?

I can't help but think that the couple who were recently fined for refusing to allow two gay men to share a bed under their roof are not themselves victims. I believe that it is wrong to deny them the right to pick and choose who they like to lodge in their house, on whatever grounds, without fear of persecution from whomsoever it annoys. What if a maiden needs to earn a living by letting rooms and has no desire to accept into her home a man with known record of abusing women?  This ruling is bad law.

Assumption of Innocence

Recently a man extradited to the US on charges of illegal arms trading has changed his plea to 'Guilty'. This after protracted legal arguments in court to stop the process. This cannot have been cheap whoever bore the costs. Why wasn't it possible for him to plead 'Guilty' from the start and save all this money and trouble? This is an abuse of the Assumption of Innocence concept that says that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
A convicted murderer later in prison admitted killing another person and led police officers to where he buried the body. Despite this the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) cannot convict because the police officer in charge did not follow correct procedure. Why should it matter if the criminal owns to having done it, the police know he did it and the CPS know he did it? This is an abuse of the Assumption of Innocence concept.
Two men are arrested, 'red handed' outside a public house they have just robbed by two policemen. They had, in their possession, a sock full of coins stolen from a gaming machine. The judge ruled that because the sock, part of the evidence, could not be found on the day of the trial the men couldn't be convicted. This is an abuse of the Assumption of Innocence concept.
Is it not time to stop pandering to the legal profession and their extortionately expensive trade and challenge the concept that in every case innocence is presumed unless proved, to a ridiculous degree, otherwise. There ought to be a means of bypassing the legal necessities in such cases, especially where the costs are met out of the public purse. Perhaps a special Home Office Order signed by the Secretary of State. Furthermore it ought to be possible for courts to be more lenient for an early guilty plea. By the time a case comes before a court the CPS should have satisfied themselves of a conviction. If the evidence is compelling a plea of 'Not Guilty' should attract double the usual tariff if the case is proved. You'd imagine that the legal profession would be keen to help because at the moment it all looks a shambles and the whole lot from the judge down seem to be money-grabbing charlatans.

Corporate strategy. Size matters!

Recently the merger between BAE Systems and European defence conglomerate EADS has fallen through. Thankfully the UK government wanted too much say in the running of the new Company which would have reduced to two the number of mega defence companies in the world. Recently the mining giant Xstrata and Commodities company, Glencore wanted to merge creating another giant Company that would have created a virtual monopoly in some important minerals. The confectioners are at it as well! Why did the Cadbury shareholders sell their shares to the US company Kraft if it wasn't for greed? What is the idea behind these mega international Companies if it isn't for power and ultimate domination of their sector that cannot be in the interests of the ordinary man and woman in the street. Ultimately this is all about the Polarising of resources, power and money in the hands of very few to the detriment of billions of worthy people around the globe, caught out by this inexorable dash for money orchestrated by the banking bandmasters.
These big Companies have so much power they can operate in Countries, making their profits by exploiting the populace but refusing to pay the taxes the Country needs. Recently it has been revealed that the giant internet companies are raking in huge profits in the UK but paying minimal taxes because they can threaten to move elsewhere if made to cough up.
If Tesco wanted to merge with Waitrose or Sainsbury's it wouldn't be allowed but there seems to be no way to stop International deals. Some industries such as defence need to be controlled by the Government. Recent huge hikes in the price of energy demonstrates clearly why the populace need better protection from the machinations of the power companies. It is no good having people freezing to death so that other people's share holdings can be maintained. Power is too important to be bought and sold on a whim. The UK people need to own its power producers and if we have no natural resources it needs to be nuclear and it needs to be NOW before the lights start to go out.
I don't know how it can be regulated but Companies should be restricted in size. Some Companies are worth more than whole countries. You can't tell me this is a healthy state of affairs. But we need the big companies for big projects I hear you say. Sure, allow some local and temporary amalgamation for specific projects but once complete, insist on a seperation.
The subject is large, involving the spectre of Nationalisation and lack of competition but in this short piece I'm only saying that the time has come to reign in the huge Corporations that think they are sovereign.

The end of the Big Bang theory?

Last night the BBC Horizon programme looked at recent cosmological theories about the origin of our universe.
I was initially amazed and heartened that the consensus amongst the scientists was that because of cause and effect considerations, the Big Bang theory was flawed. I have for many years argued that the Big Bang was simply implausible. My joy was relatively short lived however when I discovered that new, alternative theories involving 'branes' and 'bouncing' universes were ugly. When we finally approach the ultimate truth about the origin of the universe the theory must be beautiful, both in concept and in the mathematics that describes it.
However, towards the end, we heard from the only female contributor, Dr. Laura Mersini Houghton and I found her ideas had some resonance with my own. She believes that there are many universes and their impact on our own can be observed in the Cosmic Background Radiation. For an outline to my New Cosmology click on the link below:-

http://sites.google.com/site/kevilldavies/Home/6-new-cosmology

I have furthermore commented on the multiverse reality,  here 

I cannot comment on her research into string theory; it is too complicated for me, but I suggest she looks at the beginning of the programme where Michio Kaku discussed the meaning of nothingness. He saw two types; absolute nothing and vacuum nothing which was full of energy or maybe he meant potential energy. He missed a trick here by ignoring the first type; Absoute nothing. In my theory everything comes from a consideration of this type of 'nothingness'. One way of looking at 'nothing' is to consider that, like almost everything else in life, it is a duality of equal quantities of a positive and negative entity. Nature abhors a zero as much as it hates a vacuum. Therefore absolute nothing = 0 = +x & -x. I propose we live in the +x part of our universe. At the point of creation, a quantum fluctuation caused a break in the eternal and infinite nothingness which led to our universe, one of an infinite number. The universe grew from a point to the size it is now by natural growth in an exothermic reaction and acquisition of and by other universes.

Rules of Engagement

The news that seven Royal Marines have been arrested on the suspicion of murder will dismay many British fighting men who are putting their lives at risk on behalf of our country. Who are these faceless oafs that, acting out of the strangely abstract concept of Political Correctness, ask our fighting men and women to do battle with at least one arm tied behind their backs? Who, for the sake of their consciences t are asking these highly and expensively trained troops, in front of an enemy that has no understanding of the Geneva Convention but instead uses Satanic practices, to behave not so much as fighting machines but as bloody saints?
The detention of the Marines will send a message to the other troops that the Ministry of Defence, despite the Prime Minister's rhetoric at the despatch box, is not wholly on the side of the British Troops but wavers on the tide of hostile sentiment. There are craven bastards in the Ministry of Defence, the real barrack room lawyers, and it is they who ought to be rooted out.

Future of the Abrahamic Churches.

There has been a delay in announcing the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Those who are tasked with creating a shortlist to submit to Downing Street have been unable to agree with much speculation that opinions are divided about the future role of the Church and its world-wide canon. Where is God when you want him?
This comes at a time when we learn that the Pope's butler stole secret papers that he maintains embarrassed his beloved Church. I'm sure that hidden in the Vatican's vaults are papers secreted away because their contents threaten the very existence of the Church, proving that rather than having been built on the Rock of Peter the Roman Catholic Church is in fact built on shifting sands. In the last one hundred years, the present nuclear age, I believe that better education, particularly in the sciences, has brought a change in people's perception of the Christian Churches as manifest in the decline of traditional congregations. People are increasingly sceptical of the Transubstantiation and Resurrection although adherents of more evangelical movements have grown, to my mind reflecting a movement away from traditional feelings of faith towards a mood that better reflects an understanding of mankind's own innate spirituality. Love and altruism can be found in peoples without invoking a Creator or living God.
I can see a time, maybe a couple of hundred years from now, when the Abrahamic Churches, as we know them, will be no more. Because the peoples who follow Islam are not so scientifically aware it may be five hundred years before they finally see the light. By then the oil will have run out and I doubt very much that the Prophet will be able to help those countries which currently rely on it for income and two thousand years after its inception, Muslims will still not know whether it is better to follow the Sunni tradition or the shi'ite.

Responsibility in Office

The recent tragic ferry accident in Hong Kong seems to have been avoidable if the crew had kept better surveillence. Many people died because the crew became complacent doing what they have done many times. The became familiar with the routines and in this familiarity perhaps lost sight of the essential duty they owed their passengers.
We have, in the last couple of years, heard of pilots turned away from the flight decks of passenger aircraft smelling of drink. They have flown dozens if not hundreds of planes in the past and assume that no matter what, they can safely deliver, 300, 400, 600 people to their destinations in a blatant disregard of their passenger's rights.
This contempt of duty caused by familiarity with a position can be seen in politics and the BBC. It has come to public knowledge that very high paid BBC executives are routinely running huge expense accounts at the License payer's expense. They have become familiar with spending this money when they could easily spend part of their overblown salaries to stay at less expensive hotels, host their own farewell parties and travel non first class.
The Parliamentary expenses scandal was I'm sure only the tip of the iceberg. The thieving bastards, because that's what they are, are so brazen they pay their penance and then are returned to Office as if nothing has happened. Cameron and others say they served their time but it's not good enough. If you steal from the public purse you should never be allowed to serve in public office. I remember, a politician, Mr. Profumo, resigning from office for a misdemeanour and spending the rest of his life doing charity work. What chance of any of the present bunch of chancers, out for what they can get at the public expense, falling on their swords. They've all become comfortable in their world of sleeze and half truths; cosying up to the lobby and wilfully wasting public money. Today comes news that Mr. Branson has won his case over the West Coast Line. This cock-up is reputed to have cost the taxpayers £40 million. Who will resign or be sacked for this colossal blunder and has someone in public service sold his soul to Branson's enemies?
I don't expect any answers soon.

Qualification to be an MP

I've been quiet of late because although so much has been going on I felt that my comments would merely be repetitive. Having heard some of Ed Miliband's speech I thought I just might repeat something I said previously about Baroness Warsi. I quite like the Baroness but to my mind she shouldn't qualify to appear in either houses of Parliament on the grounds that her family has not been resident in the country for more than two generations. I learn now that Miliband's parents were immigrants too, not to mention raving communists. It should be the case that they have not been in the country long enough to qualify to represent people who have lived on these islands for generations past. Who are they to just turn up and tell the British people what we want?