Background:

Short Talk: Archaeology from space... 

Related Blog posts:

Ancient Mysteries: The World's Earliest Cities

The Fragmentation of Knowledge Part 1 [Or, The case against over-specialization in theory based academics i.e. Archeology is an outdated field)]  {Proof the archaeology is an outdated field as far as theory based academics (PH.Ds) goes. Almost all of a PhD's work in archaeology can be done by undergrad students or sherpas.}

Images: Neanderthals - Proof that the artist's perception influences his or her art 

There are many different theories as to why the last civilization of the time of Plato's Atlantis (which has apparently been found) ... ended.  I think it was us. In other words, regular Homo Sapian Sapiens who lost control in some way and their civilization and culture collapsed. A comet wouldn't explain the rise of the sea levels for the underwater ruins that have been found in Japan and India over several centuries. (Not saying there wasn't a comet strike in North America, for example, just saying the complete disintegration of a civilization by that one comet strike GIVEN that there seems to have been civilizations after that... though the comet strike - as was explained in the PBS documentary -  works for the sudden disappearance of large mammals, such as mammoths, in North America. Though small pockets may have survived upto recent times.).

Also, I think Archaeologists are good at mechanical tasks (read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) but not theoretical tasks. So if you want an archaeologist to understand what something was made of or you want them to dig something out for you, then they can accomplish that task. Ask them to put a culture in context and they can't do that cause their training isn't in culture or civilizations. Nor do they read anything outside of their field so they can't know anything about the cultures they study as they start from assumptions which are often inaccurate (though there are exceptions in the (4000BC-2000AD period). Probably the best outline of our type of "civilization" would be Arnold Toynbees Outline of History. 

For example: Ask an archaeologist and they will give you a ton of different reasons for why they classify neanderthals as a different species. The major one is the head/brain size...

Here is a graphic example of this theory (the one on the right is supposed to be Neanderthal)...

Is there a scientific theory to explain the huge variation in skull shapes and sizes in ancient humans and modern humans (of the various races) in a simple manner?

Yes, for Neanderthals in particular but it applies to all theories connecting humans to apes and other species through skull sizes, for example: pygmies will have smaller heads than a gorilla but its doesn't mean a gorilla is smarter, ...

ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2007) — Chance, not natural selection, best explains why the modern human skull looks so different from that of its Neanderthal relative, according to a new study led by Tim Weaver, assistant professor of anthropology at UC"For 150 years, scientists have tried to decipher why Neanderthal skulls are different from those of modern humans," Weaver said. "Most accounts have emphasized natural selection and the possible adaptive value of either Neanderthal or modern human traits. We show that instead, random changes over the past 500,000 years or so – since Neanderthals and modern humans became isolated from each other – are the best explanation for these differences."

Weaver and his colleagues compared cranial measurements of 2,524 modern human skulls and 20 Neanderthal specimens, then contrasted those results with genetic information from a separate sample of 1,056 modern humans.

The scientists concluded that Neanderthals did not develop their protruding mid-faces as an adaptation to icy Pleistocene weather or the demands of using teeth as tools, and the retracted faces of modern humans are not an adaptation for language, as some anthropologists have proposed.


Instead, random "genetic drift" is the likeliest reason for these skull differences.

All ancient human classifications are based on a few fossils and the variations in skull shape and size seem to be within modern day variation of our species to some extant [there is also mention of a bone here or there which is supposed to be further evidence of an evolutionary change but the main arguments are based around the skull sizes and the size of the brain that these cranial cavities could hold]

"Archaic forms of Homo sapiens first appear about 500,000 years ago. The term covers a divers...e group of skulls which have features of both Homo erectus and modern humans. The brain size is larger than erectus and smaller than most modern humans, averaging about 1200 cc, and the skull is more rounded than in erectus. The skeleton and teeth are usually less robust than erectus, but more robust than modern humans. Many still have large brow ridges and receding foreheads and chins. There is no clear dividing line between late erectus and archaic sapiens, and many fossils between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago are difficult to classify as one or the other. "

(Ancient dog skull unearthed in Siberia)

Let me give you an example of how easy it is to make up theories:

When you find one bone, according to statistics, you have a sample size of 1 (you can extrapolate from there the same way a fiction writer extrapolates part 7 of Star Wars, it can be done. It shouldn't be in the news section of a website). You can't make any conjectures about what a culture or society was like based on finding a bone. It's why I always say, "If you want to hear some good bullshit from someone who genuinely believes what they are saying, despite the tremendous amount of evidence proving them to be wrong, talk to an archaeologist or..." well, lets end it there shall we?

Ancient dog skull unearthed in Siberia: Although the snout is similar in size to early, fully domesticated Greenland dogs from 1,000 years ago, its large teeth resemble those of 31,000 year-old wild European wolves."This indicates a dog in the very early stages of domestication, says evolutionary biologist Dr Susan Crockford, one of the authors on the study." "The wolves were not deliberately domesticated, the process of making a wolf into a dog was a natural process," explained Dr Crockford of Pacific Identifications, Canada. This indicates a dog in the very early stages of domestication, says evolutionary biologist Dr Susan Crockford, one of the authors on the study. "The wolves were not deliberately domesticated, the process of making a wolf into a dog was a natural process," explained Dr Crockford of Pacific Identifications, Canada.

Based on one bone the guy literally describes a whole lifestyle and makes a historic determination i.e. that this was the "early stages of domestication", despite the tons of evidence showing a much older origins to humanity than textbooks will admit to.

I can make up theories based on one data point myself.

... Another dog found in the 'early stages of domestication' but DIDN'T make it into theories of the great Archaeologists...

"An illegal wolf-dog hybrid was found roaming wild in a residential neighborhood in Brooklyn, authorities said Thursday."

Police found the approximately 3-year-old, 53-pound female wearing a collar and chain near Elton Street and Vandalia Avenue in East New York on Tuesday evening, according to Richard Gentles, spokesperson for New York Animal Care and Control. "She's not a wild animal," Gentles told the New York Post. "Nobody's come forward to claim her," he added, noting that it is illegal to possess a wolf-dog hybrid in New York City. The animal, which was apparently being kept as a pet, will not be put up for adoption or be freed into the wild. She will be probably be sent to a sanctuary for unwanted wolf-dogs, a spokesman for Animal Care and Control told The Associated Press.

THEORIES: 

1. A person gets zapped back into the deep past with his dog and it mates with a local wold and his kid inherits one of their half-dog/half-wolf hybrid who then goes out into the forbidden forest where there is a strange device. He accidentally trips a wire on the device and the last spurt of energy it had left was used to zap his poor pet dog into the future where he got caught by authorities. 

2. This wolf-dog was frozen in ice with his prehistoric owners. When they came out and discovered society had changed they bought their hunting companion a collar as it turns out he's just a pet. Then they find out you can't even keep dogs in the early stages of evolution. SO they got rid of it. 

My theories uses just as much evidence as a modern archaeologist uses, only I'm saying things that are absurd for an average person/thinker/observer (well, for about 95% of the US population). However, since I am only looking at one data point (i.e. one piece of evidence)... I literally have the same amount of evidence as the archaeologists who made up his random theory from finding one skull. So the key to a good story by an archaeologist is simply to keep it within the parameters of the accepted history books (which tend to originate, in some way, from Texas - though in the 1800's and early 1900's it was the British "archaeologists"). And you will be believed even if what you are saying contradicts good sense, why? Only because of the degree. Nowadays, literally anyone can become an archaeologist as the art of understanding culture & civilizations IN ANY HISTORICAL CONTEXT comes from reading AS MANY OF the best scholars on the subject that exist. Period. Not some school textbook. 

It actually makes more sense (as per occam's razor law) that dogs already existed alongside humans and one inter-mated with a wolf. Rather than positing evolution of an entire species based on finding one skull.

Even if it wasn't for the following simple discoveries, assuming this skull wasn't an early part of dog evolution would still be absurd. But let's go on...

Here's how far back our finding of organically made clothes goes (we call them furs today and charge allot of money for them)...

'Amazing' bronze age burial site treasures on DartmoorSamantha Smith looks at what has been called the most significant historical find ever on Dartmoor - the discovery of an internationally important prehistoric burial site.

The 4,000-year-old remains of the Bronze Age grave or cist, which were found in a peat bog, are set to rewrite the history books.

BBC Inside Out has been given exclusive access to the results of the dig on White Horse Hill, which include an intact cremation deposit, an animal pelt, textiles, ear stud and beads.

Experts say it is unusual for so many organic objects to survive for this length of time in a grave from the Bronze Age period. 

Dartmoor National Park Authority, the Wiltshire Conservation Service and other specialists have begun to piece together the story of this important discovery.

Work has moved to laboratories where painstaking investigation is taking place which, it is hoped, will reveal more about the lives of prehistoric people on Dartmoor.  


Another report...

The discovery of a bronze age granite cist, or grave, in 2011 in a peat bog on White Horse Hill revealed the first organic remains found on the moor and a hoard of about 150 beads. As the National Park's archaeologists levered off the lid they were shocked by what lay beneath. The park's chief archaeologist, Jane Marchand, said: "Much to our surprise we actually found an intact cremation deposit [human bones] which is actually a burial alongside a number of grave goods. "What was so unusual was the survival of so many organic objects which you never usually get in a grave of this period, they've long since rotted away." Amongst the grave goods was an animal pelt, containing a delicate bracelet studded with tin beads, a textile fragment with detailed leather fringing and a woven bag .


Here is how far back our finding of spears goes...

400,000 year old spears found in Germany!: Little is known about the organic component of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic technologies, particular with respect to wooden tools. Here I describe some wooden throwing spears about 400,000 years old that were discovered in 1995 at the Pleistocene site at Schöningen, Germany. They are thought to be the oldest complete hunting weapons so far discovered to have been used by humans. Found in association with stone tools and the butchered remains of more than ten horses, the spears strongly suggest that systematic hunting, involving foresight, planning and the use of appropriate technology, was part of the behavioural repertoire of pre-modern hominids. The use of sophisticated spears as early as the Middle Pleistocene may mean that many current theories on early human behaviour and culture must be revised.

Think about it: If man was hunting 400,000 years ago... how far back could he have made friends with wolves? Isn't this evidence to support the simpler theory that this ancient skull was a chance mating between already present species of dog and wolf a simpler theory? Afterall, to go with the mainstream theory you not only have to use just one skull as your sample size you have to ignore a ton of physical evidence. 

Archaeology as a degree in a university should be banned. With the above information in hand lets look again at the Neanderthal skull that I began this post with...

Image source

Image source

Image source

Simple explanation for why skull/brain size doesn't affect intelligence. i.e. its the INTER-CONNECTIVITY between brain cells that explains intelligence. (More indepth look at intelligence, from my perspective, here.)

Simple explanations for why archaeologists have so many different classifications of "Humans":

Images: Neanderthals - Proof that the artist's perception influences his or her art 

The Fragmentation of Knowledge Part 1 [Or, The case against over-specialization in theory based academics i.e. Archeology is an outdated field)]  {Proof the archaeology is an outdated field as far as theory based academics (PH.Ds) goes. Almost all of a PhD's work in archaeology can be done by undergrad students or sherpas.}

Ancient Mysteries: The World's Earliest Cities

Squidoo Page: Ancient Civilizations: Underwater Ruins of Ancient Civilizations? 

Question by Colbert: 'How can the caves be 32,000 years old when the world is only 6,000 years old?'

Answer: Colbert is referring to the dating system derived from the Gregorian calander and the Genesis version of creation (i.e. everything was created in 6 days and the 7th day God rested). The problem here can be solved from the New Testament ... 

2 Peter 3:8 (KJV 1900) 8 - "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

 I.e. To say the earth was created in a 'day' is a metaphor. In other words , if you must be literal, it means 'one unit of time'... this leads to the possibility that the big bang theory is mythological projection (looking for ways to validate your childhood beliefs in different ways - such as the modernly accepted "scientific method" - often implied but rarely, if ever - or so it seems - used.)

 The following is an abstract of a study done by Japanese scientists about an underwater structure off the coast of Japan followed by hsome pictures that show that these structures are man made (the extract below indicates that these structures date back to at least 10,000 years ago, i.e. 8,000 BC).

Abstract;Submarine research surveys using SCUBA and sonic surveys reveal detailed topography similar to submarine, pyramidal features looking like a stepped pyramid off Yonaguni in Okinawa, Japan. The site is called Iseki Point(ruins site) as a leisure diving spot. Yonaguni Submarine Pyramid(YSP) is the major structure that stands under approximately 25 meters of ocean. Essentially, it has a cliff face like the side of a stepped pyramid, and dimensions of about 290m(length) by 120m(width) by 26m(height). Flat terraces, straight walls and its surface structure of walls with scars of tool marks driven in by a wedge on the structure are identified to be artificially fabricated. Appearance and size of YSP are similar to the biggest, ancient castles such as Shuri and Nakagusuku Castles in Okinawa Island, where they are called 'gusuku'. Roads associated with drainage canals were recognized, surrounding YSP, and that a retaining wall was found along a road. The southern point of the wall is composed of huge rock fragments. Stone tools and other artifacts were discovered from the sea bottom. Those evidence strongly shows that the YSP has not been manufactured by nature. It is identifie to be man-made. The formation age is estimated to be about 10,000 years ago based on 14C and 10Be age determinations. (author abst.)

"Very deep." Wrote Thomas Mann at the opening of his mythologically conceived tetralogy, Joseph and His Brothers. "is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?" And he then observed: "The deeper we sound, the further down into the lower world of the past we probe and press, the more do we find that the earliest foundations of humanity, its history and culture, reveal themselves unfathomable." Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell page 5  

With this quote Joseph Campbell began his study in mythology. What I want to examine in this post is just how far back we can trace civilization, cities or even just large communities.

During Joseph Campbell’s time certain excavations (such as Catalhoyuk) had just been uncovered which was beginning to push back the horizon of when our civilization actually began. Since the discoveries were made after he had finished his books he wrote about these recent archeological finds in his forward to the book on Primitive Mythology and pointed out how these discoveries had pushed back the timelines he had outlined in this book. In addition to this, other fascinating discoveries have completely destroyed the original timeline of civilizational development outlined in Campbell’s early overview. However, this was something he expected as he noted, "there will, no doubt, be as many astonishing disclosures during the seventies and eighties as there were in the decade of the sixties."(Forward from Primitive Mythology)

With the discovery of Catalhoyuk we now have evidence of an established villages cluster of at least 10,000 people living together over hundreds of years. The village life is firmly established around 7,500 B.C. So this spreads out the cradle of civilization from the fertile crescent more towards Central Asia and it also pushes back the dates of the earliest cities. The first examples of developed pottery is actually found (rather suddenly) in catalhoyuk which suggests that its was a growing and innovative society.

With the Mesopotamian civilization firmly established in textbooks as the source of civilization everyone has heard of the later cities of Babylon and Egypt. The newer archeological finds, such as Catalhoyuk from the 1960's, haven't quite made it into school or college textbooks. However,museums seem to be catching up to the discoveries of the last century.

Next is a group of cities made of brick which seem to have materialized from nowhere;

"The so-called Harappa stage of the great cities of Mohenjo-daro, Chanhu-daro, and Harappa (c. 2500-1200/1000 B.C), which bursts abruptly into view, without preparation, already fully formed and showing many completely obvious signs of inspiration from the earlier high centers of the West (i.e. fertile crescent), yet undeniable signs, also, of a native Indian tradition – this too already well developed. As professor W. Norman Brown has suggested, a native Indian center (i.e., a mythogenetic zone) somewhere either in the south or in the Ganges-Jumna area would seem to be indicated, where the characteristically Indian traits, unknown at this time farther west, must have come into form." [Ibid - Page 435]

Other interesting facts about the cities of Mohenjodaro and Harappa is that the bricks used in making them are uniform, i.e. they had a system to measure and weigh stuff accurately. They had their own sewage system, public baths and the structure of the architecture suggest an egalitarian society, but there are no signs of architectural development. That means these cities arrived fully developed and then went into decline. There are no in-between cities or towns where the Mohenjodaro/Happan style of architecture is first used. In other words, these are colonies or offshoots from some main civilization which was, possibly, already in decline as the architecture quality went down over time later appearing fully developed. Some off these potential "root cities" probably lie beneath the Indian Ocean. Such as this one...

"The carbon dating of 7500 BC obtained for the wooden piece recovered from the site changes the earlier held view that the first cities appeared in the Sumer Valley [in Mesopotamia] around 3000 BC," said B Sasisekaran of India's National Science Academy.The images gathered over the past six months led to a surprising discovery - a series of well-defined geometric formations were clearly seen, spread irregularly across a nine-kilometre (five-mile) stretch, a little beneath the sea bed."

Some of them closely resemble an acropolis - or great bath - known to be characteristic of the Harappan civilisation.

The Gulf of Cambay is one of the largest tidal areas in the world - with a current of very high velocity - and so it is conceivable that the area may well have submerged an entire ancient settlement, Mr Ravindran said to the BBC.

I have covered a bunch of evidence of underwater structures in an earlier post called Underwater Ruins. It also has a video of an Indian Archeologist who finds evidence of some underwater structures and links it to the Mahabharata which describes a city that was submerged in some long ago time with vibrant images of life in the city as well as some romanticized images of a city of gold.

You don't believe there could be buried underwater cities off the coast of India? Then you may not have heard of the recently disovered anient carvings...

Take a look at these amazing pillars that were recently uncovered just short distance from Catalhoyuk called Gobekli Tepe; [Images of Gobekli Tepe and article quotes are from here]

Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years.

Background (news report related to the neurological lesson from the 1970's, i.e. habits form in about 3-4 weeks) :

From The BBC: The brain's wiring diagram is not like that of an electronic device which is fixed. It is thought that changes occur after each experience, and so each person's brain map is different - an ever changing record of who we are and what we have done.

"Some of the connections between different parts of the brain might be different for people with different characters and abilities, so for example there's one connection we already know about in people who like taking risks and (a different one) for people who like playing it safe.

"So we'll be able to tell the type of people who like skydiving and who would rather watch TV from their brain scans.

The idea is that depending on what we focus on develops those parts off the brain... so when we have enough scans we should, generally speaking, be able to tell a person who has race car driving experience VS one who has only driven a bicycle. 

Once upon a time we believed that IQ was set for life. We believed that your brain, though it developed till a certain age, it ceased to develop after we reached adulthood. Yet studies with stroke patients (an extreme example) has shown that the brain CAN repair itself. In the following talk you will see evidence of how the brain can grow new areas in response to a skill. This is called "brain plasticity":

Michael Merzenich: Growing evidence of brain plasticityMichael Merzenich studies neuroplasticity -- the brain's powerful ability to change itself and adapt -- and ways we might make use of that plasticity to heal injured brains and enhance the skills in healthy ones.Neuroscientist Michael Merzenich looks at one of the secrets of the brain's incredible power: its ability to actively re-wire itself. He's researching ways to harness the brain's plasticity to enhance our skills and recover lost function.

Notice at 9 minutes how when a monkey learns to use a tool to get food he develops new areas of/in the brain, same thing happens when a kid learns language i.e. massive brain change

This means that neuronal development and restructuring is possible with training. Since lack of brain exercise can increase the "noise" in your brain and make it less efficient over time, a type of brain gym for older people is likely in the future as part of daily activities.


Brain Plasticity--An Overview "What is brain plasticity? Does it mean that our brains are made of plastic? Of course not. Plasticity, or neuroplasticity, describes how experiences reorganize neural pathways in the brain. Long lasting functional changes in the brain occur when we learn new things or memorize new information. These changes in neural connections are what we call neuroplasticity.

To illustrate the concept of plasticity, imagine the film of a camera. Pretend that the film represents your brain. Now imagine using the camera to take a picture of a tree. When a picture is taken, the film is exposed to new information -- that of the image of a tree. In order for the image to be retained, the film must react to the light and ?change? to record the image of the tree. Similarly, in order for new knowledge to be retained in memory, changes in the brain representing the new knowledge must occur.

To illustrate plasticity in another way, imagine making an impression of a coin in a lump of clay. In order for the impression of the coin to appear in the clay, changes must occur in the clay -- the shape of the clay changes as the coin is pressed into the clay. Similarly, the neural circuitry in the brain must reorganize in response to experience or sensory stimulation."

This means that the way you can build your muscles is the same way that you can build your brain i.e. with exercise. 


Here is an introduction to neuroscience for beginners by Win Wenger PhD.
Mature Learners 

Other things equal: the older you are, the more readily you should be able to learn.


This is because human learning is by association. We make sense of current stimuli by relating them to previous experience. The older you are, the more experiences and the more aspects of more experiences you have ready to tie in with incoming new experiences, to recognize them in terms of previous concepts and experiences and to make sense of them.

You are not about to run out of memory capacity, either, in this lifetime or in a thousand lifetimes. You have more different possible connections available in your brain than there are atoms in the universe.

Alas, other things are not equal.

One of the regards in which they are not equal, is in the millions upon millions of brain cells you’ve allowed to languish unstimulated and unexercised, eventually to die, compared with the number of cells you’ve developed and the number of cells you’ve replaced.

Yet you know that only a tiny percentage of your physical brain is developed. So much is this the case that even when you are an octogenarian you could, with a little effort and direction, have several times more of your brain developed, online and firing, than when you were a youth!

This aspect, so counter to popular expectations of inevitable dwindling into senility, deserves at least two sidenotes:

2. There is science behind the folklore you‘ve heard so often - to the effect that only 5-10% of the physical brain is developed. It always helps to go back to original sources and this instance is certainly a good example of this principle. Going back to original sources is what so many leaders of workshops in creativity and/or self-development failed to do, passing along instead what became mere folklore in this context. Folklore which is now being shrugged aside AS mere folklore, so that people don’t have to think about the enormous implications. A look at this 5-10% figure, and how that was arrived at, is pretty instructive. J.Z. Young (A Model of the Brain. Oxford Univ. Press, 1964) was the one who sampled brain cells in various parts of the brain, and who literally counted what proportion of the cells in his samples were developed compared with how many were not developed...
   
   ...It IS true that only 5-10% of the cells in the human brain are developed at all. That part of his findings was correct. It is NOT true, however, that 5-10% or even 1% of the brain is developed. Consider....
   
   ...A neuron is considered developed if it has developed an insulating myelin sheath and has synaptically linked in to other neurons. That was what Young was counting. The method made no allowance for the DEGREE of development. Neurons have been counted with upward of 60,000 synaptic connections with other neurons - but most of the developed neurons in your brain or mine have only a dozen or so such connections. Factor together the percentage of cells developed with their degree of development, and the brain clearly is not 5% or so developed - but more like one ten-thousandths of one percent developed! In other words, there is some bit of room for improvement.
    
3. Besides stimulus and feedback, a primary factor driving the percentage and degree of development in the brain is the amount of circulation reaching it. A substantial portion of the people who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, when examined turn out instead to have been launched into an Alzheimer’s-like spiral dwindling of their faculties through a failure of circulation in key areas of their brain, or even more frequently an onset of anemia, conditions for which some other treatments could be more appropriate than some of the treatments which they are receiving as misdiagnosed Alzheimer's victims. Very occasionally, reports have surfaced of restoration of limb function after paralyzing spinal chord injury, after extra arterial circulation has been routed through the site of injury for some while. In any event it stands to reason that if one improves the physical circulation of oxygen, energy, food energy and nutrition TO the brain and removal of fatigue products and toxic wastes FROM the brain, the physical condition and functioning of the brain will improve.
   
   ...HOW does one improve circulation to the brain? Come now: even if you’ve not looked into this topic previously, you can probably brainstorm a half dozen or more ways, half of which would successfully work. However, unless you’ve read our work on this point, the most powerful of all known ways probably would not have made it into your brainstormed list of methods for improving circulation to the brain. That most powerful way is held-breath underwater swimming—please see Two GUARANTEED Ways to Profoundly Improve Your Intelligence; "Did You Know? A Few Specific Points" (Winsights No. 77); and Breathing and Personality Traits: A Hypothesis (Winsights No. 61)—that combines the CO2-Carotid Effect (the more carbon di-oxide, within reason, that you have conserved in your bloodstream, the wider the Carotid arteries open to allow more circulation through to the brain) with the Mammalian Diving Response (we mammals have a reflex which powerfully sends more blood circulating to the brain and internal organs when we are under water). Also improved by this held-breath underwater swimming is one’s span of attention, allowing one to better see relationships and make sense of things.
    

Some people still are caught up in the old belief that brain function and intelligence are unchangeable quantities, fixed at or near birth, that one is pretty well stuck for life with the level of intelligence he was born with - or with the lack thereof. Clinicians have no trouble with recognizing trauma and processes which reduce intelligence, but cling to the antique conviction that nothing can increase it. Yet the subject of brain plasticity has become a frequent object of published scientific research. The phenomenon of brain plasticity: the tendency of the brain (which is, indeed our primary organ for adapting!) to change its circuitry, its structure, its shape, its size, even its mass, to better handle the levels and types of information it has been coping with over the previous year or so. Google for “brain plasticity,” sample the many studies which come up, and draw your own conclusions about the supposedly fixed nature of one’s intelligence.

The last few years in brain research have seen the discovery that the brain, all the time, is replacing some of its old cells with new neurons, and that the quality, speed and focus of this process is susceptible to many different kinds of influences as to stimulus and feedback, circulation, nutrition, select chemicals, and the “cognitive program” running in your necktop computer.

Educators in recent years have come to emphasize the value of feeding experience into a young child’s growing brain. They have described the condition of having a small amount of experience providing little “surface area” to which incoming new experiences can be linked and associated and made sense of - hence the desirability of enriching experience in a young child’s growing brain so that he instead has many ways to attach to and associate his ongoing new inputs. The case for this model is persuasive except for one thing:

• The observed phenomenon of the slowing of one’s learning with age.

I believe the “sticky surface area” model of associative learning is correct, and that means that our learning SHOULD become much easier and faster as we grow older. What more than offsets this positive tendency, however, is what we allow to happen to our brains as we grow older. We compound this physiological deterioration by neglecting entire sectors of brain function and types of thinking and learning and perceiving which we had as children and which were an important part of our intellectual performance and growth. These neglected sectors DE-myelinate and eventually die out of our brains.

I wonder what wonderful ranges of perception, understanding and experience could await us if we did not allow these losses or even reversed them, and the expanded “sticky surface area” of our mature lifetime-accumulated experience continued to make sense of our ongoing world unabated.....

Comments to:
Win Wenger



Intelligence Enhancement? 

This is an introduction to how you can increase your intelligence using what you have learned about brain plasticity...


Pole-Bridging in the Brain:Why and how it builds intelligence
by Win Wenger, Ph.D.

The key to building intelligence is to get widely different, separate regions of the brain to work more closely together. 
John Ertl's EEG brainwave analyzer, the most purely physiological "I.Q." test ever devised, found that intelligence is usually high when left and right sides have tightly knit phase relationships, low when they don't. Later evidence also suggests that the same is true for phase relationships (how quick an interval between the time one side is stimulated and the other side shows response) for front and back of the brain as well. 
How to get different regions of the brain into such closer phase relationships? Consider that most of our learning and development depends upon our sensory feedback upon our own actions. Now let's look at the speed of that feedback — 

External/Internal 
Through millions of years of our mostly challenging history as a species, and before, we've had to be able to respond very quickly to external sensory information. Tiger! — quicker than thought we're running toward the campfire or shelter or grabbing a weapon. But internal perceptions — adjusting a cramped position, say, or adjusting for warming or cooling of the day, or developing a gradual feeling about a situation... These internal sensory perceptions have not been subjected to the same pressures for speed as have our external perceptions. Processing our feelings, say, takes a while. 
So the feedback we get on our own externally expressed actions is immediate. Our internal awarenesses are less immediate. To set up a closer phase relationship between two or more very different, remote regions of the brain, take the characteristic activity of each of those parts of the brain and express those activities externally. Coordinating these with immediate sensory feedback will force those regions of the brain into a much closer phase relationship. Practice — exercise of that closer relationship — builds intelligence. 


How Closer Phase Relationships Mean Higher Intelligence 
Processing a stimulus or sensory datum that has come into one part of the brain — much rides with how quickly other parts of the brain also get in on the act. If phase relationships are slack, the first region of the brain has done with it before the others receive it, so what they receive is a message of "job done, go back to sleep." If other regions receive the stimulus or datum faster than the first part of the brain can finish it, they get more involved with it. The person with close phase relationships in his brain characteristically will see more aspects to things, notice more, get more out of each experience because more of his brain is actively involved with it. 
Characteristically, powerful pole-bridging activities include: 

• Image-Streaming, drawing on subtle awarenesses from all over the brain, sorting them through the right temporal lobe as meaningful imagery, and describing them to focus them through the left temporal "word box." For how to Image-Stream, see last part of You Are Brighter Than You Think
• Sight-reading and playing music, especially for very young children. See Winsights No. 14,"A Fun Way to Teach Your 2-Year-Old to Sight-Read and Play Music".

We also propose specific Pole-Bridging methods to rehabilitate brain-injured patients and stroke victims. Please see Winsights No. 67, "Proposal for Rehabilitation of Stroke Patients" — especially the discussion in the section titled 'Integration of Brain Functions' and the section titled, 'Pole-Bridging Around Specific Injury Sites in the Brain.' 


Comments to:
Win Wenger 


Short extract from another article about how you can increase your IQ by learning how to hear pitch...

Another Brain-Boost through Music

Does it strengthen your intellect to hear better the pitch and tone of musical notes? If so, what can you do about it? And what does it mean for our schools?


At Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1994, Gottfried Schlaug, Lutz Jancke, Yanxiong Huang and Helmuth Steinmetz established that the main part of our brain for understanding nuances of word-meaning, the left plenum temporales, in people with perfect musical pitch is double the physical size of the same organ in people without perfect musical pitch! 
      — (Science, Feb. 3, 1995, vol. 267, 699-701.)


Related links on my blogs explaining "intelligence" in more detail:

Male vs. Female Brains - Brain Differences and What We Can Learn from Them

Learning and Education With The 'Socratic Method'

Book Review: What Is Intelligence? - The Flyn Effect (Studies showing that culture creates it's own brain/intelligence/IQ processing speed - This means that people of other races will automatically adjust to any dominate alpha culture over time and match what that particular culture considers to be "intelligent" (IQ tests measure a small band of intelligence that the Rain Man would have scored wonderfully on. Strange but true.)

Guns, Germs & Steel (to understand distribution of wealth & it's lack of relationship to race/ethnicity) - Alternative site Guns, Germs & Steel 1 and Guns, Germs & Steel 2.

First published by me here.

Notice how a Mexican Revolutionary General was robbing trains (as it is, non-whites were not appreciated in the South - especially upto the 1960's).

From Wikipedia: in 1916, U.S. Army General John J. Pershing tried unsuccessfully to capture Villa in a nine-month pursuit that ended when the United States entered into World War I 

More complete extract from Wikipedia: 

José Doroteo Arango Arámbula (5 June 1878 – 20 July 1923) – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or his nickname Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominentMexican Revolutionary generals.

As commander of the División del Norte (Division of the North), he was the veritable caudillo of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua which, given its size, mineral wealth, and proximity to the United States of America, provided him with extensive resources. Villa was also provisionalGovernor of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914. Although he was prevented from being accepted into the "panteón" of national heroes until some 20 years after his death, today his memory is honored by Mexicans. In addition, numerous streets and neighborhoods in Mexico are named in his honor.

Villa and his supporters seized hacienda land for distribution to peasants and soldiers. Herobbed and commandeered trains, and, like the other revolutionary generals, printed fiat moneyto pay for his cause. Villa's men and supporters became known as Villistas during the revolution from 1910 to roughly 1920.

Villa's dominance in northern Mexico was broken in 1915 through a series of defeats he suffered at Celaya and Agua Prieta at the hands of Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles. After Villa's famous raid on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916, U.S. Army General John J. Pershingtried unsuccessfully to capture Villa in a nine-month pursuit that ended when the United States entered into World War I and Pershing was called back. Villa retired in 1920 and was given a large estate which he turned into a "military colony" for his former soldiers. In 1923, he decided to re-involve himself in Mexican politics and as a result was assassinated, most likely on the orders of Obregón.

This is the standard description for this cartoon from a movie database:

Realty can be stranger than fiction.

(Video Source)

In the early part of the last century there was a boy named William James Sidis who became known as a child prodigy. He entered Harvard at age 11 (as they wouldn't let him in when he was ready - at age 9) and everyone expected him to do big things. And he did. In the world of ideas. He was the first to predict the existence of black holes and wrote many books on many different topics.

How could Native American perspectives influence the early American pioneers?

The pioneers, or the people who moved west, always contained individuals who kept to themselves and made friends with the natives. They traded and made friends with many different tribes. Besides goods such as furs that these individuals would get from the natives, they also learnt their ways. These types of people are represented in the western novels written by Louis La'more. 

The immigrants who came to settle and farm the land hated the natives. For territorial as well as cultural reasons. However, they respected the mountain men. Since all the immigrants were new to this strange and untamed land they had to develop new ways of living to deal with this. Ways that were different from their original land. They copied the very self assured and well established mountain men and traders. 

Do you see the chain? Since these mountain men learnt from the natives and the new immigrants learnt from the mountain men, the ideas being absorbed by the new people to this land (and the founding fathers) were from the people that most considered to be ‘savages’.

In fact, the cowboy gunslinger is the western version of a native american warrior. Both are calm upto the very moment of battle. When they stike it’s sudden and decisive. Both have a code of honor. The perfect example for this kind of man, which is honored in American society (and rightly so) can be seen in the Louis La'more books. 

Here are some quotes by Native Americans that exemplify their steadfast perspective on individuality, freedom and equality - concepts as much a part of America and it's founding fathers, as it once was a part of the Natives who lived there. Notice the continuity in perspectives from Native Americans to modern Americans (the other side of the American mind set is inherited from the Old World and is beyond the scope of this post).

All birds, even those of the same species, are not alike, and it is the same with animals and with human beings. The reason Wakan Tanka does not make two birds, or animals, or human beings exactly alike is because each is placed here by WakanTanka to be an independent individuality and to rely upon itself. - Shooter Teton Sioux

If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace.....Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.......Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade....where I choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty. - Chief Joseph, Nez Perce

I do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of concrete are, 
But rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man. - Sun Bear of the Chippewa Tribe

All birds, even those of the same species, are not alike, and it is the same with animals and with human beings. The reason Wakan Tanka does not make two birds, or animals, or human beings exactly alike is because each is placed here by WakanTanka to be an independent individuality and to rely upon itself. - Shooter Teton Sioux

When a child my mother taught me the legends of our people; taught me of the sun and sky, the moon and stars, the clouds and storms. She also taught me to kneel and pray to Usen for strength, health, wisdom, and protection. We never prayed against any person, but if we had aught against any individual we ourselves took vengeance. We were taught that Usen does not care for the petty quarrels of men. - Geronimo [Goyathlay], Chiracahua Apache

Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations. - Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux Chief

If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself. - Minquass

Sharing and giving are the ways of God. – Sauk

Man's law changes with his understanding of man. Only the laws of the spirit remain always the same.- Crow

Man has responsibility, not power. - Tuscarora

Do not judge your neighbor until you walk two moons in his moccasins. - Cheyenne

Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance. - Lakota

Music: Dust In The Wind...

Realted satirical blog post: The Book Of Flint

This teaching is brought to you by... Flintism: New Political Party Based on "The Book Of Flint"

"Long ago he had heard of an old Chinese saying to the effect that any man who could concentrate for as much as three minutes on any given problem could rule the world. The thought had remained in his mind, and he had cultivated the ability to apply all his intelligence to any given situation. To close out everything from his mind but one idea to be considered had taken long practice, but much of his success had been due to that ability to concentrate, to formulate the problem, to bring to it all the information and knowledge he had, and to reach a decision." The Book of Flint Page 73


Training for attaining focus and concentration of Flint...


Prep:

Basic breathing meditation tips

-Inhale and exhale slowly, taking full deep breaths.

-Keep your attention only on your breathing. Be aware of each inhale and exhale.

-If you notice your mind drifting (i.e. if you start thinking about something) then just return your attention back to your breathing. It doesn’t matter if your mind wanders as long you bring your attention back to your breathing as soon as you notice your attention is not solely on your breathing.

-Do this for 5-15 minutes.

This meditation is very simple yet very powerful. Studies have shown that this simple form of meditation increases your brain size in areas such as attention and memory. The following extract is from an article from Time Magazine:

"Everyone around the water cooler knows that meditation reduces stress. But with the aid of advanced brainscanning technology, researchers are beginning to show that meditation directly affects the function and structure of the brain, changing it in ways that appear to increase attention span, sharpen focus and improve memory." from Time Magazine's article "How To Get Smarter One Breath At A Time"

This next meditation technique is more difficult and is considered to be an advanced technique designed to increase your ability to concentrate on a problem for 3 minutes...

This technique is from the ancient yogis(who were in the Himalayas and so thier teachings exist on both sides of the great divide)... it’s called dhyana. It involves focusing your mind on an object or image without distraction. In other words, the goal of this meditation practice is to focus unwaveringly on your chosen object/image. Nothing should be able to distract your mind. An accomplished yogi is expected to be able to hold his/her concentration on an object for several hours at a time. 

To get to a point where you can practice dhyana meditation for even a short while requires mastering the simple breathing meditation first. If you can focus on your breathing – without distraction – for over 5-10 minutes then you are ready to practice dhyana for at least a few minutes a day.