We have already left behind the idea that the brain produces consciousness like the liver produces bile. The brain is better presented as a receptacle which reacts to the signals of the surrounding space, including signals from the collective field. Hairs can act as the antenna of these signals, as they react to the external field and transmit these signals to the cutaneous covering, possibly with some intensification. The numerous results of our experiments testify to this process with human hair [Vainshelboim et al, 2005].
The heart is another organ which takes part in the processes of consciousness. This is not merely a pump for blood, but an organ which regulates the blood flow and, accordingly, oxygen, in all areas of the human body. There is data showing that after a heart transplant, a person takes on many behavioral characteristics of the donor. So we can conclude that the heart, at least, has a memory, i.e. it takes part in consciousness processes.
The experimental observations measure the influence of consciousness on physiological processes. In this regard the EPI method is very sensitive, because it reacts to subtle changes in the working of the ANS. These sensitive measures make it possible to register subconscious and emotional processes.
Another method is the registration of the influence of human consciousness on physical sensors. One of the most recent is water, or specially constructed systems. Many experiments have proved that such an approach is highly effective [Science of Whole Person Healing, 2004].
Modern science has only just begun to research consciousness. Following the remarkable insights of Fechner, Helmholtz, Jung and Freud, a significant process was set in motion to study the brain’s neuron mechanisms, especially using modern methods of computer mapping. Yet we are still only in the early stages of the process of researching consciousness, and the most important thing at the moment is the set of experimental data. Their meta-analysis at a specific stage will provide an awareness of new concepts and lead us toward a new understanding.
Can a bird fly across the Atlantic?
How does an organism exist and develop? We commonly speak of the number of calories in different types of food products. The main idea seems to be that the more calories we consume, the more weight we gain. Simple Western dietary systems are based on the calculation and restriction of calories. However, after initial enthusiasm for this system and after thousands of pages published on the subject it was discovered that in most cases it simply did not work. An individual organism is much more complicated than an oven, where you can calculate heat produced from the fuel loaded. Some people can eat quite sparingly and stay active and healthy; some need a lot of food all the time. Many families suffer from the permanent hunger of growing children.
On the other hand, we need to ask the question: do we produce physical energy only from food? If this was the case, then how could little birds fly across the Atlantic? Let us make a simple calculation. A direct measurement of energy expenditure for free-flying songbirds migrating from Panama to Canada by using doubly labeled water was reported by a big international group [Wikelski M., et. al 2003]. In accordance with their measurements migratory flight used 15.5 kJ* h-1 total energy while flying, which agrees with predicted values estimated from multiple models and wind-tunnel studies [Lindström Å., et.al. 1999; McWilliams S. R., et.al 2004]. For songbirds, one nocturnal non-stop flight for up to 600 km lasts about 7.7 h, which takes 119.35 kJ of energy. At the same time researchers found by direct measurements that individual birds had roughly the same body weight and fat content in the mornings before and after their migratory flights (6% body-weight loss), no change in fat content. For a 30 g bird, 6% is 1.8 g. Each gram of carbohydrate provides four kcal of energy (16.75 kJ), one gram of fat provides nine kcal (37.68 kJ). Direct transformation of 1.8 g of body mass to energy provides from 30 to 68 kJ of energy. In reality only part of weight loss generates energy, so this number would be even less. As we see, from 119 kJ spent less than half would be covered by body mass. For birds flying through Atlantic for 3000-4000 miles non-stop, these calculations demonstrate that they should have lost more than half of their weight during flight, which they do not. So the typical belief that “a few grams of fat can be enough to fuel a hummingbird or a warbler for a thousand miles over the Gulf and beyond” is wrong. Birds need fat to protect their body from the low temperatures and winds, which they meet at high altitudes, but this fat is not enough to fuel their flight.
From the classical point of view migrational flights are impossible. Technically and scientifically speaking, they should fall into the sea halfway across and be drowned but they do not.
But birds do not know this, so they do and have been doing so for thousands of years!
Do they follow another set of physical laws than those affecting inanimate objects?
We do not believe that cells work as a “nuclear reactor,” but we assume that birds may extract energy directly from the air. Birds breathe using a unique system in which air follows a one-way route through the respiratory system. This system is unlike our lungs, in which the air backtracks where it came from. Their system of respiration (breathing) is very efficient - much more efficient than our system. Birds have two relatively small lungs (where gas exchange occurs), but the lungs are augmented by bellows-like air sacs (where no gas exchange occurs). These air sacs keep the lungs perpetually inflated (even when the bird is exhaling). Our lungs alternately fill and empty out. The bird's respiratory system takes up 20% of a bird’s volume (our respiratory system takes up only 5% of our volume). In the bird's respiratory system, air first flows through air sacs (located even inside their hollow bones) that direct fresh, oxygenated air into the tube-like lungs (parabronchi, where gas exchange occurs) both when the bird inhales and when it exhales. We assume that together with molecular oxidation there should exist some alternative way of O2 utilization, which provides metabolic energy.
Radical chain reactions indeed damage important biological molecules in vitro, and ROS are traditionally regarded in biochemical literature as highly hazardous particles. However, a lot of old and recent data urge to assume that ROS are eminently needed for normal vital activity. According to some estimates, 10-15% of oxygen consumed by an animal at rest is routed to the univalent pathway of reduction, along which ROS are generated [Souza, H.P., et.al. 2002]. Under the stressful conditions, when activity of ROS-generating enzymes is amplified, the total oxygen consumption increases by nearly 20%, and supposedly all this excess is univalently reduced [Vlessis A.A. et al. 1995]. Therefore, ROS should play a very important role in normal physiology [Voeikov V. 2001].
Oxygen takes part in chain processes in the organism, which may be presented as follows [Voeikov V. 2001]:
