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Alternative Science

Quantum Entanglement stabilizes the DNA Molecular Structure

Feb 21

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Van der Waals force
In physical chemistry, the van der Waals force (or van der Waals interaction), named after Dutch scientist Johannes Diderik van der Waals, is the sum of the attractive or repulsive forces between molecules (or between parts of the same molecule) other than those due to covalent bonds or to the electrostatic interaction of ions with one another or with neutral molecules. The term includes:

- force between two permanent dipoles (Keesom force)
- force between a permanent dipole and a corresponding induced dipole (Debye force)
- force between two instantaneously induced dipoles (London dispersion force)

It is also sometimes used loosely as a synonym for the totality of intermolecular forces. Van der Waals forces are relatively weak compared to normal chemical bonds, but play a fundamental role in fields as diverse as supramolecular chemistry, structural biology, polymer science, nanotechnology, surface science, and condensed matter physics. Van der Waals forces define the chemical character of many organic compounds. They also define the solubility of organic substances in polar and non-polar media. In low molecular weight alcohols, the properties of the polar hydroxyl group dominate the weak intermolecular forces of van der Waals. In higher molecular weight alcohols, the properties of the nonpolar hydrocarbon chain(s) dominate and define the solubility. Van der Waals-London forces grow with the length of the nonpolar part of the substance.

The structure of the DNA double helix. The atoms in the structure are colour coded by element and the detailed structure of two base pairs is shown in the bottom right.

The Relevance Of Continuous Variable Entanglement In DNA

There was a time, not so long ago, when biologists swore black and blue that quantum mechanics could play no role in the hot, wet systems of life.

Since then, the discipline of quantum biology has emerged as one of the most exciting new fields in science. It’s beginning to look as if quantum effects are crucial in a number of biological processes, such as photosynthesis and avian navigation …
(Source: Quantum Entanglement Holds DNA Together, Say Physicists)

The new paradigm is called “Quantum Biology” and the evidence for quantum phenomenons occurring in “living things” at “room temperatures” is overwhelming. There is no way to deny how deep and profound the importance of quantum mechanics are in biological systems.

The structure of the DNA (helix) would vibrate and shake itself apart in a context where just pure classical laws of physics would reign. But all “base pairs” are hold together by “phonons“, which exists in a superposition of states and become entangled, just like other quantum objects. So the result is that the vibration is zero because of the superposition state of all phonons in the DNA helix. They form a kind of “standing wave“.

Please note that quantum mechanics is strictly related to the conscious observer. This has deep implication regarding the maximum life span for humans.

Further reading:
- Quantum entanglement between the electron clouds of nucleic acids in DNA
- Quantum Entanglement Holds DNA Together, Say Physicists
- Fibonacci numbers define key points in human aging

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Fred Alan Wolf

Feb 21

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Fred Alan Wolf (born December 3, 1934) is an American theoretical physicist specializing in quantum physics and the relationship between physics and consciousness. He is a former physics professor at San Diego State University, and more recently has helped to popularize science on the Discovery Channel. He is the author of a number of books about physics, including Taking the Quantum Leap (1989), The Dreaming Universe (1994), Mind into Matter (2000), and Time Loops and Space Twists (2011).

Wolf was a member in the 1970s, with Jack Sarfatti and others, of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory’s Fundamental Fysiks Group founded in May 1975 by Elizabeth Rauscher and George Weissmann. His theories about the interrelation of consciousness and quantum physics were described by Newsweek in 2007 as “on the fringes of mainstream science.”

Biography
Wolf’s interest in physics began as a child when he viewed a newsreel depicting the world’s first atomic explosion. Wolf received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from UCLA in 1963 and began researching the field of high atmospheric particle behavior following a nuclear explosion.

He has appeared as the resident physicist on the Discovery Channel’s The Know Zone, was a participant in the PBS series Closer to Truth, and has appeared on radio talk shows and television shows across the United States and abroad. He also appeared in the films What the#$*! Do We Know!? (2004), The Secret (2006) and Spirit Space (2008). He has lectured on subjects related to quantum physics and consciousness since the 1960s, often under the name Dr. Quantum or Captain Quantum.

His book “Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists” won the National Book Award as science paperback for 1980 from the National Book Foundation.

He has taught at San Diego State University, the University of Paris, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of London, and Birkbeck College.

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Collective unconscious

Feb 20

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Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is proposed to be a part of the unconscious mind, expressed in humanity and all life forms with nervous systems, and describes how the structure of the psyche autonomously organizes experience. Jung distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal unconscious, in that the personal unconscious is a personal reservoir of experience unique to each individual, while the collective unconscious collects and organizes those personal experiences in a similar way with each member of a particular species.

Jung’s definitions

My thesis then, is as follows: in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.

Jung linked the collective unconscious to ‘what Freud called “archaic remnants” – mental forms whose presence cannot be explained by anything in the individual’s own life and which seem to be aboriginal, innate, and inherited shapes of the human mind’.

Archetypes and collective representations
Jung considered that ‘the shadow‘ and the anima/animus differ from the other archetypes in the fact that their content is more directly related to the individual’s personal situation’, and less to the collective unconscious: by contrast, ‘the collective unconscious is personified as a Wise Old Man’.

Jung also made reference to contents of this category of the unconscious psyche as being similar to Levy-Bruhl’s use of collective representations or “représentations collectives,” Mythological “motifs,” Hubert and Mauss’s “categories of the imagination,” and Adolf Bastian’s “primordial thoughts.”

A iceberg is a good analogy for the difference between the individual unconscious and the collective unconscious. The "tip of the iceberg" above the surface of the water is the individual consciousness, which is full aware. The ice which is underwater is the individuals unconscious. But what really is interesting: All icebergs float in the same ocean. The ocean water is the collective unconscious.

Minimal/maximal interpretations
In a minimalist interpretation (or materialistic interpretation) of what would then appear as ‘Jung’s much misunderstood idea of the collective unconscious’, his idea was ‘simply that certain structures and predispositions of the unconscious are common to all of us…[on] an inherited, species-specific, genetic basis’. Thus ‘one could as easily speak of the “collective arm” – meaning the basic pattern of bones and muscles which all human arms share in common’.

Others point out however that ‘there does seem to be a basic ambiguity in Jung’s various descriptions of the Collective Unconscious. Sometimes he seems to regard the predisposition to experience certain images as understandable in terms of some genetic model’ – as with the collective arm. However, Jung was ‘also at pains to stress the numinous quality of these experiences, and there can be no doubt that he was attracted to the idea that the archetypes afford evidence of some communion with some divine or world mind‘ (idealistic interpretation), and perhaps ‘his popularity as a thinker derives precisely from this’ – the maximal interpretation.

Marie-Louise von Franz accepted that ‘it is naturally very tempting to identify the hypothesis of the collective unconscious historically and regressively with the ancient idea of an all-extensive world-soul’.

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Pluralistic Ignorance

Feb 20

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In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance, a term coined by Daniel Katz and Floyd H. Allport in 1931, describes “a situation where a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but assume (incorrectly) that most others accept it…It is, in Krech and Crutchfield’s (1948, pp. 388–89) words, the situation where ‘no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes.’”. This, in turn, provides support for a norm that may be, in fact, disliked by most people.

Pluralistic ignorance can be contrasted with the false consensus effect. In pluralistic ignorance, people privately disdain but publicly support a norm (or a belief), while the false consensus effect causes people to wrongly assume that most people think like them, while in reality most people do not think like them (and express the disagreement openly). For instance, pluralistic ignorance may lead a student to drink alcohol excessively because she believes that everyone else does that, while in reality everyone else also wish they could avoid binge drinking, but no one expresses that due to the fear of being ostracized. A false consensus for the same situation would mean that the student believes that most other people do not enjoy excessive drinking, while in fact most other people do enjoy that and openly express their opinion about it.

Consequences of pluralistic ignorance
Pluralistic ignorance was blamed for a perception (among American whites) that grossly exaggerated the support of other American whites for segregation in the 1960s. It has also been named a reason for the illusionary popular support that kept the communist regime in the Soviet Union, as many opposed the regime but assumed that others were supporters of it. Thus, most people were afraid to voice their opposition. Witch hunts in the past and during the Cold War (as recently as the 1950s) could be other cases of pluralistic ignorance.

In a series of studies conducted to test the effect of pluralistic ignorance, Prentice and Miller studied the consequences of pluralistic ignorance at Princeton University. They found that, on average, private levels of comfort with drinking practices on campus were much lower than the perceived average. In the case of men, they found a shifting of private attitudes toward this perceived norm, a form of cognitive dissonance. Women, on the other hand, were found to have an increased sense of alienation on the campus but lacked the attitude change detected in men, presumably because norms related to alcohol consumption on campus are much more central for men than for women. Research has shown that pluralistic ignorance plagues not only those who indulge, but also those who abstain: from gambling, smoking, and drinking and among some who follow vegetarianism. The latter has found that Pluralistic Ignorance can be caused by the structure of the underlying social network, not cognitive dissonance.

Pluralistic ignorance may partially explain the bystander effect: the observation that people are more likely to intervene in an emergency situation when alone than when other persons are present. If people monitor the reactions of others in such a situation, they may conclude from the inaction of others that other people think that it is not necessary to intervene. Thus no one may take any action, even though some people privately think that they should do something. On the other hand, if one person intervenes, others are more likely to follow and give assistance.

Further Reading:
- Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

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Cognitive Dissonance

Feb 20

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Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by altering existing cognitions or adding new ones to create consistency.

The diagram below shows a new cognition being integrated into a person’s belief system to resolve such a conflict.

Diagram of the theory of cognitive dissonance. Rationalization (making excuses) is often involved in reducing anxiety about conflicting cognitions.

An example of this would be the conflict between wanting to smoke and knowing that smoking is unhealthy; a person may try to change their feelings about the odds that they will actually suffer the consequences, or they might add the consonant element that the smoking is worth short term benefits.

The phrase was coined by Leon Festinger in his 1956 book When Prophecy Fails, which chronicled the followers of a UFO cult as reality clashed with their fervent belief in an impending apocalypse. Cognitive dissonance is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology. Cognitive disequilibrium is a closely related concept in the cognitive developmental theory of Jean Piaget: the inevitable conflicts a child experiences between current beliefs and new information will lead to disequilibrium, which in turn motivates the child’s progress through the various stages of development.

Cognitive dissonance theory warns that people have a bias to seek consonance among their cognitions. This bias gives the theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and even destructive behavior.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Doublethink

Feb 20

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Doublethink, a word coined by George Orwell in the novel 1984, describes the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. It is related to, but distinct from, hypocrisy and neutrality. Its opposite is cognitive dissonance, where the two beliefs cause conflict in one’s mind. Doublethink is an integral concept of George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.

…

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them….To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four“

Orwell explains that the Party could not protect its iron power without degrading its people with constant propaganda. Yet knowledge of this brutal deception, even within the Inner Party itself, could lead to the implosion of the State. Although Nineteen Eighty-Four is most famous for the Party’s pervasive surveillance of everyday life, this control means that the population of Oceania – all of it and including the ruling elite – could be controlled and manipulated merely through the alteration of everyday thought and language. Newspeak is the method for controlling thought through language; doublethink is the method of directly controlling thought.

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Memory Holes in Dystopian Societies

Feb 20

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Dystopia
A dystopia (from Ancient Greek: δυσ-, “bad, hard”, and Ancient Greek: τόπος, “place, landscape”; alternatively cacotopia, or anti-utopia) is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and more recently, The Hunger Games. Dystopian societies feature different kinds of repressive social control systems, various forms of active and passive coercion. Ideas and works about dystopian societies often explore the concept of humans abusing technology and humans individually and collectively coping, or not being able to properly cope with technology that has progressed far more rapidly than humanity’s spiritual evolution. Dystopian societies are often imagined as police states, with unlimited power over the citizens.

Memory Hole
A memory hole is any mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts, or other records, such as from a web site or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened. The concept was first popularized by George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In the novel, the memory hole is a slot into which government officials deposit politically inconvenient documents and records to be destroyed. Nineteen Eighty-Four’s protagonist Winston Smith, who works in the Ministry of Truth, is routinely assigned the task of revising old newspaper articles in order to serve the propaganda interests of the government.

For example, if the government had pledged that the chocolate ration would not fall below the current 30 grams per week, but in fact the ration is reduced to 20 grams per week, the historical record (for example, an article from a back issue of the Times newspaper) is revised to contain an announcement that a reduction to 20 grams might soon prove necessary, or that the ration, then 15 grams, would soon be increased to that number. The original copies of the historical record are deposited into the memory hole.

A document placed in the memory hole is supposedly transported to an incinerator from which “not even the ash remains“. However, as with almost all claims made by the Party in this novel, the truth is left ambiguous and the reader is not told whether the documents are truly destroyed. For example, a photograph which Winston throws into one early in the novel is produced later during his torture session by O’Brien, who then throws it back, moments later denying having any memory that the event had even occurred. This draws a direct parallel with the Party’s general philosophy of doublethink, of which the memory hole is in a sense the physical embodiment; as the novel describes it, “to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again“.

Further Reading:
- Condemnation of Memory – Damnatio memoriae
- Censorship
- Forced disappearance
- Black site
- Inquisition

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Spiral of silence

Feb 20

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The spiral of silence is a political science and mass communication theory propounded by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. The theory asserts that a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority.

Basic framework
The spiral of silence begins with fear of reprisal or isolation, and escalates from there.The fear of isolation is the centrifugal force that accelerates the spiral of silence. Individuals use what is described as “an innate ability” or quasi-statistical sense to gauge public opinion. The Mass media play a large part in determining what the dominant opinion is, since our direct observation is limited to a small percentage of the population. The mass media have an enormous impact on how public opinion is portrayed, and can dramatically impact an individual’s perception about where public opinion lies, whether or not that portrayal is factual. Noelle-Neumann describes the spiral of silence as a dynamic process, in which predictions about public opinion become fact as mass media’s coverage of the majority opinion becomes the status quo, and the minority becomes less likely to speak out. The theory, however, only applies to moral or opinion issues, not issues that can be proven right or wrong using facts (if there, in fact, exists a distinction between fact and value).

Noelle-Neumann describes public opinion as controversial opinions that one is able to express in public without becoming isolated. Noelle-Neumann has come up with ways to measure these controversial opinions. The first is the measuring of how the individual perceives the climate of opinion and what they believe its future development will be. The second measurement of public opinion is through one’s willingness to stand up for their opinion or lack of willingness depending on the majority and minority trends. Readiness to join in conversations under different circumstances shows the degree of confidence of being on the majority side. This confidence then influences the spiraling process. The third is to measure whether the opposite sides of each viewpoint ignore the other party and only listen to their side’s viewpoint.

Crucial points to the theory
1) People have a fear of being rejected by those in their social environment, which is called “fear of isolation.”
2) People are constantly observing the behaviors of those around them, and seeing which gain approval and disapproval from society.
3) People unconsciously issue their own threats of isolation by showing signals of approval or disapproval.
4) Threats of isolation are avoided by a person’s tendency to refrain from making a statement about something they think might attract objections.
5) People are more willing to publicly state things that they believe will be accepted positively.
6) The spiral effect begins because when people who are seen as representing majority opinion, often authority figures, speak out confidently. The opposition feels a greater sense of fear of isolation and is further convinced to remain silent, since they perceive themselves to be in the minority. The feelings continue to grow in either direction exponentially.
7) A strong moral component is necessary for the issue to activate the spiral.
8 ) If there is a social consensus, the spiral will not be activated. There must be two opposing forces.
9) The mass media has a strong influence on this process.
10) Fear and threat of isolation are subconscious processes.
11) The spiral of silence only “holds a sway” over the public for a limited time.
12) If a topic activates the spiral of silence, this means that the issue is a great threat to social cohesion.

Uses and limitations
It is as much a measure of protection as it is one of oppression. Since it only applies to moral issues, which tend to evoke passionate responses in even the most reserved individuals, it can be used to contain social unrest over highly controversial topics. Though it can aid in keeping civil order, attempts to employ it knowingly are essentially methods of manipulation and coercion.

Overcoming the silence
The theory explains a vocal minority (the complement of the silent majority) by stating that people who are highly educated, or who have greater affluence, and the few other cavalier individuals who do not fear isolation, are likely to speak out regardless of public opinion. It further states that this minority is a necessary factor of change while the compliant majority is a necessary factor of stability, with both being a product of evolution. There is a vocal minority, which remains at the top of the spiral in defiance of threats of isolation. This theory calls these vocal minorities the hardcore or the avant-garde. Hardcore nonconformists are “people who have already been rejected for their beliefs and have nothing to lose by speaking out.” While the avant-garde are “the intellectuals, artists, and reformers in the isolated minority who speak out because they are convinced they are ahead of the times.”

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Groupthink

Feb 20

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Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people. It is the mode of thinking that happens when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints. Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness, structural faults, and situational context play into the likelihood of whether or not groupthink will impact the decision-making process.

The primary socially negative cost of groupthink is the loss of individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking. As a social science model, groupthink has an enormous reach and influences literature in the fields of communications, political science, social psychology, management, organizational theory, and information technology.

The majority of the initial research on groupthink was performed by Irving Janis, a research psychologist from Yale University. In an influential 1972 book, his original definition of the term was “A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive ingroup, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.“:8–9 Since Janis’s work, other studies have attempted to reformulate his groupthink model. ‘T Hart (1998) developed a concept of groupthink as “collective optimism and collective avoidance,” while McCauley (1989) pointed to the impact of conformity and compliance pressures on groupthink decisions.

Causes
- High group cohesiveness
- Structural faults:
- – insulation of the group
- – lack of impartial leadership
- – lack of norms requiring methodological procedures
- – homogeneity of members’ social backgrounds and ideology
- Situational context:
- – highly stressful external threats
- – recent failures
- – excessive difficulties on the decision-making task
- – moral dilemmas

Although it is possible for a situation to contain all three of these factors, all three are not always present even when groupthink is occurring. Janis considered a high degree of cohesiveness to be the most important antecedent to producing groupthink and always present when groupthink was occurring; however, he believed high cohesiveness would not always produce groupthink. A very cohesive group abides to all group norms; whether or not groupthink arises is dependent on what the group norms are. If the group encourages individual dissent and alternative strategies to problem solving, it is likely that groupthink will be avoided even in a highly cohesive group. This means that high cohesion will lead to groupthink only if one or both of the other antecedents is present, situational context being slightly more likely than structural faults to produce groupthink.

Symptoms
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).

Type I: Overestimations of the group—its power and morality

Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.

Type II: Closed-mindedness

Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid.

Type III: Pressures toward uniformity

Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”
Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.

Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision-making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking

Incomplete survey of alternatives
Incomplete survey of objectives
Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
Poor information search
Selection bias in collecting information
Failure to work out contingency plans.

Janis argued that groupthink was responsible for the Bay of Pigs Invasion ‘fiasco’ and other major examples of faulty decision-making. The UK bank Northern Rock, before its nationalisation, is thought to be a recent major example of groupthink. In such real-world examples, a number of the above groupthink symptoms were displayed.

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Dean Radin: The Global Consciousness Project

Feb 19

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Laboratory scientist Dean Radin describes an experiment testing the relationship between mind and matter. In this experiment, random number generators are used to test whether collective human attention corresponds to a change in the physical environment.

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