Conspiracies built upon brain myths

There's dozens of them and you all know what they are - mind control, programming, Manchurian Candidates.... Lots of conspiracy theorists grab onto the romanticism of this idea which is driven by movies and pseudo-investigation shows like Jesse Ventura. I once watched a show on some cable network which tried to "scientifically investigate" whether it was possible to create a Manchurian Candidate. As a scientist, I saw so many flaws in their control system that it became comical. I've been personally involved with television documentaries. First and foremost, they are ENTERTAINMENT. The networks care about numbers. Truth is always relative and subject to being "fudged" for higher ratings. Why do you think Ghost Hunters finds evidence of the paranormal in almost every episode? (Side note, we need that smiley back!)

I have worked with brain research in several capacities. First, the crossing of the blood-brain barrier. Second, with the effect of electromagnetics on the brain, behavior, physiology, etc... And third, with brain-computer interfacing such as microchips and the ability to recreate an electronic image from the "mind's eye." In numerous threads, I've explained why the ideas iterated in these conspiracies do NOT fit real science and physiology....so now I am dedicating a thread to this discussion.

ETA - the info posted below are common "myths" associated with the brain:

Brains are like computers.
We speak of the brain’s processing speed, its storage capacity, its parallel circuits, inputs and outputs. The metaphor fails at pretty much every level: the brain doesn’t have a set memory capacity that is waiting to be filled up; it doesn’t perform computations in the way a computer does; and even basic visual perception isn’t a passive receiving of inputs because we actively interpret, anticipate and pay attention to different elements of the visual world.

There’s a long history of likening the brain to whatever technology is the most advanced, impressive and vaguely mysterious. Descartes compared the brain to a hydraulic machine. Freud likened emotions to pressure building up in a steam engine. The brain later resembled a telephone switchboard and then an electrical circuit before evolving into a computer; lately it’s turning into a Web browser or the Internet. These metaphors linger in clichés: emotions put the brain “under pressure” and some behaviors are thought to be “hard-wired.” Speaking of which...

The brain is hard-wired.
This is one of the most enduring legacies of the old “brains are electrical circuits” metaphor. There’s some truth to it, as with many metaphors: the brain is organized in a standard way, with certain bits specialized to take on certain tasks, and those bits are connected along predictable neural pathways (sort of like wires) and communicate in part by releasing ions (pulses of electricity).

But one of the biggest discoveries in neuroscience in the past few decades is that the brain is remarkably plastic. In blind people, parts of the brain that normally process sight are instead devoted to hearing. Someone practicing a new skill, like learning to play the violin, “rewires” parts of the brain that are responsible for fine motor control. People with brain injuries can recruit other parts of the brain to compensate for the lost tissue.

“Flashbulb memories” are precise, detailed and persistent.
We all have memories that feel as vivid and accurate as a snapshot, usually of some shocking, dramatic event—the assassination of President Kennedy, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, the attacks of September 11, 2001. People remember exactly where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, what they saw or heard. But several clever experiments have tested people’s memory immediately after a tragedy and again several months or years later. The test subjects tend to be confident that their memories are accurate and say the flashbulb memories are more vivid than other memories. Vivid they may be, but the memories decay over time just as other memories do. People forget important details and add incorrect ones, with no awareness that they’re recreating a muddled scene in their minds rather than calling up a perfect, photographic reproduction.

reply to post by CIAGypsy


MKULTRA is a conspiracy???

Hmmmm, interesting that even after the declassified documents over the program were released, you want to actually say that it didn't........

BTW, just because the government said they shut it down, doesn't necessarily mean they did....oh but wait, it is just a conspiracy.........

So you don't think mind control is possible at all or you don't believe there has been any effort to control people through mind control?

Something as simple and obvious as propaganda and indoctrination are forms of mind control in my opinion.

You seem like a pretty narrow minded scientist, no offence. Perhaps that's a scientific trait.

reply to post by CIAGypsy


Allow me to be the first to flag your thread and star your OP. I doubt you'll receive many more of either, but shall be happy if I am proved wrong. You are providing an important mental-health service here on ATS.

But, as you see, the paranoid constituency won't give up its delusions in a hurry.

The brain is a mixed bag, from a material universe stand point we have yet to even understand it, there are several brain mysterious (things like neurons firing simultaneously in different sections of the brain faster than known physical laws would allow for) many of which suggest a "Quantum" Element to the brain.

With the above being said the brain has far more to it than simple Material, or "hardware" issues, there are for lack of a better word "software" involved. Which is best addressed (if woefully addressed by the field of Human Psychology.) Psychology and Psychiatrists.

I Would argue that things like "mind Control" Fall under the field of Psychology more than Neuroscience, Ill give that chemicals could be helpful in the process. But one need only look at someone like Charles Manson to see a successful "mind controler"

What is mind control if not getting someone to do something they wouldn't normally do, Manson used his peoples history, combined with his natural Charisma to "control" People.

The single most complex issue with understanding the human brain comes down to one thing, Ethics.

We are at a point medically speaking where medical science still falls short of other fields of research and study, few doctors are willing to do what would be needed to understand the brain fully. Short of Letting a Manson/Mengalla type scientist lose (who knows what the governments done) I think we are far away from truly understanding the brain.

reply to post by CIAGypsy


I'm going to have to agree with seeker1963 in that MK-ULTRA and the attempt at mind control very much did exist. Saying this idea that the government attempted to make Manchurian Candidates is all bunk is ignoring outright history. From our own US Senate: www.intelligence.senate.gov...

Page 10 lists the 15 categories of the CIA's research on behavioral modification including hypnosis research, effects of behavioral drugs, the "effects of electro-shock, harassment techniques for offensive use, analysis of extrasensory perception" and much, much more.

Page 11 and 44--they did some of this unwitting research on cancer patients. Nice.

Also on page 44: Senator Schweiker: "Subproject 54, MKULTRA, which involved examination of techniques to cause brain concussions and amnesia by using weapons or sound waves to strike individuals without giving warning and without leaving any clear physical marks. Someone dubbed it "perfect concussion"-maybe that was poetic license on the part of our staff rather than your poets over there."

Considering your particular field of research, as much as it would be more comfortable to pretend that research such as this didn't exist, it's very hard to dismiss the recorded and Senate hosted testimony of the MK-ULTRA program and the various "brain" fields that were involved in such a program across the nation. Although I will say that there is a fundamental difference between attempting to have a desired effect and whether they succeeded or not, the fact remains that they tried.

Honestly, considering some of the research that is still continuing such as the recently reported "amnesia drug", I find it rather hard to believe that some of the ideas behind MK-ULTRA just dropped off the planet. Rationally, if I was one of those universities or researchers, I'd probably find it difficult to drop what I had spent years researching, either wittingly or unwittingly, for the CIA. It's more rational to comprehend, perhaps though the intention behind continuing research may have altered because of a perceived benefit to the patient, that MK-ULTRA had a ripple effect throughout research that probably has persisted to this day.

SomethingsJustNotRight
So you don't think mind control is possible at all or you don't believe there has been any effort to control people through mind control?

There has clearly been scientific study to determine if it is possible to control the mind, such as MK Ultra. However, those studies were not sustained because of their ineffectual and inconsistent outcomes. As much as people want to believe it, the mind is not a computer. The undeniable truth is that there are cheaper and easier ways to get things done. Scientific research is very harsh when it comes to funding. Contrary to what the average person may think, they don't just dump billions of dollars down a black hole without any perceived and realistic outcome (unless it's Obamacare...). If your study or project doesn't show real movement and sustainability, your funding is axed in a new york minute. There are project waiting lists a mile long waiting for funding. They don't waste time, money, and effort just because the idea "sounds good."

SomethingsJustNotRight
Something as simple and obvious as propaganda and indoctrination are forms of mind control in my opinion.

Yes, propaganda is a generalized form of mind control....otherwise known as Psyops. However, psyops is all about persuasion. The individual still has every right to maintain free will and choice. The "mind control" and "programming" which is the subject of this thread is about the removal of free will and choice.

SomethingsJustNotRight
You seem like a pretty narrow minded scientist, no offence. Perhaps that's a scientific trait.

I'm sorry you think logical and hard facts are "narrow minded." As an inventor and engineer, I like to think I am actually pretty creative. I just don't waste time on hypotheses that prove fallible and inefficient.

The myth that one is born a Mozart or Einstein, or that IQ, musical skill, math capability are something that 'geniuses' are born with and the rest of us envy; rather than being things gained through struggle and hard work.

The myth that one could be 'right-' or 'left-brained,' and that this should dictate what subjects one takes.

The myth that brain chemistry is some fixed state that we fall mercy to. Your brain chemistry is a by-product of your past thoughts and activities, and it shapes future thoughts and feelings.

CIAGypsy

There has clearly been scientific study to determine if it is possible to control the mind, such as MK Ultra. However, those studies were not sustained because of their ineffectual and inconsistent outcomes. As much as people want to believe it, the mind is not a computer. The undeniable truth is that there are cheaper and easier ways to get things done. Scientific research is very harsh when it comes to funding. Contrary to what the average person may think, they don't just dump billions of dollars down a black hole without any perceived and realistic outcome (unless it's Obamacare...). If your study or project doesn't show real movement and sustainability, your funding is axed in a new york minute. There are project waiting lists a mile long waiting for funding. They don't waste time, money, and effort just because the idea "sounds good."

Yes, propaganda is a generalized form of mind control....otherwise known as Psyops. However, psyops is all about persuasion. The individual still has every right to maintain free will and choice. The "mind control" and "programming" which is the subject of this thread is about the removal of free will and choice.


I'm sorry you think logical and hard facts are "narrow minded." As an inventor and engineer, I like to think I am actually pretty creative. I just don't waste time on hypotheses that prove fallible and inefficient.

I think you are masking your misunderstandings as logic, all of the above is true if the goal of mind control is sci-fi fiction version. I tell you what to do, I push a button you do it, no free will.

But as Someone who has extensive history in Sales and Marketing, I put to you that you are already being controlled by a 1000 different sources and you never know it.

There are billions being spent around the world, right now on one thing, getting you to do something, and think it was your own free will.

Its called marketing and advertising, and its used to manipulate you every chance it can, from paying for shelf space at eye level (Humans are lazy, placing a product at optimal eye to reach range has a proven boost of sellability of a product) To labeling something with a .99 to that human psychology will kick in an tell you that its not 100, its only 99.99 so its okay to spend.

Mind control happens every day, just because its not your Science fiction definition of it doesn't mean its not being studied and researched constantly, and not by government, by places who firmly hold the fortune 500 list, with budgets that make the government jealous.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Yeah, so let's talk about amnesia...

Here's a good explanation of the different types:

there are two main forms of amnesia: anterograde (the inability to form new memories) and retrograde (the inability to recall past events). Science’s most famous amnesia patient, H.M., was unable to remember anything that happened after a 1953 surgery that removed most of his hippocampus. He remembered earlier events, however, and was able to learn new skills and vocabulary, showing that encoding “episodic” memories of new experiences relies on different brain regions than other types of learning and memory do. Retrograde amnesia can be caused by Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury (ask an NFL player), thiamine deficiency or other insults. But a brain injury doesn’t selectively impair autobiographical memory—much less bring it back.

Amnesia can occur as a result of head trauma, drug toxicity, stroke, Alzheimer disease, infection or even emotional shock. This last type is classified as psychogenic, or as having a psychiatric origin, and can result in the loss of personal memories and identity.

These memories can often be recovered through psychotherapy, but in cases where amnesia lasts for months or years, the subject may begin an entirely new life. This is called a fugue state, and if those affected didn’t have it hard enough, on recovering their memories of pre-trauma events they usually forget the fugue state!

Memory is also highly susceptible to emotion and even your genetic makeup. All that being said, it sounds very simple to say you can selectively remove bits and pieces of specific memory. It is another altogether to make that happen. If such a thing were possible, we'd have a real treatment for PTSD.

Yes...I agree that the scientific community has TRIED to study ways to "program" people or control the mind, but they soon found that the human body cannot be reduced to some digital equivalent of 1's and 0's. Every cell in your body is replaced within a six month span. Include normal disease and decay and you simply don't have a consistency there that would be necessary to maintain a formalized structure.

CIAGypsy

Memory is also highly susceptible to emotion and even your genetic makeup. All that being said, it sounds very simple to say you can selectively remove bits and pieces of specific memory. It is another altogether to make that happen. If such a thing were possible, we'd have a real treatment for PTSD.

Yes...I agree that the scientific community has TRIED to study ways to "program" people or control the mind, but they soon found that the human body cannot be reduced to some digital equivalent of 1's and 0's. Every cell in your body is replaced within a six month span. Include normal disease and decay and you simply don't have a consistency there that would be necessary to maintain a formalized structure.

There have been research in the area of disassociation from PTSD memories, removing the emotional trauma with the use of certain chemicals found in nature.

The dissociation specifically tied to psychotropic drugs that remove the traumatic emotions while leaving the events intact.

Neuroscience is still in the dark ages, and even the limited advancements we have had contradict your stance.

I imagine it akin to the Head of IBM saying no one will need a computer in their home ever, and frankly Id say you probably know less about Brain Science than the CEO of IBM knew about computers in the 50s.


All of your arguments come down to one thing: SCI-FI Mind control does not work.

Which while true, does not lead to the de facto response of YOU can not purposefully make someone do something they wouldn't want to do.

Thats semantics, if the end result is you did what I wanted, thats mind control if you admit it or not, its all about leveraging a position in your favor. IF the other person knows or not that you did, does not matter as long as the end goal was accomplished.

reply to post by benrl


Benri, the thread topic is 'conspiracies built upon brain myths', not 'mind control is a myth'. You're tilting at the wrong target.

reply to post by Astyanax

Benri, the thread topic is 'conspiracies built upon brain myths', not 'mind control is a myth'. You're tilting at the wrong target.

Please elaborate on that would you????

What you just wrote seems like right out of Bernays playbook.

I will go and make some popcorn while I wait for you to explain the difference......

Astyanax
reply to post by benrl

 

Benri, the thread topic is 'conspiracies built upon brain myths', not 'mind control is a myth'. You're tilting at the wrong target.

Oh please, thats one of the myths.

The myths of this thread seems to be that it has real information on Neuroscience and brain chemistry from someone who is an authority of some kind.

That human behavior is not so predictable that it can't be measured and controlled, that is a myth.

And Industries have been built on the fact that the human mind is fairly easy to manipulate and control, thread seems very dis-infoie for my taste.

SO I am engaging in open discourse contradicting some of the precepts the op puts out, something I have always assumed was the Goal and Purpose Of ATS.


ETA: If I am wrong, that the purpose of ATS is not to vet theories and information on a large user base to hold said Ideas to public scrutiny so that the truth can be ascertained through open debate Ill leave the thread. Ill leave you to one sided statements with no rebuttals, I just though ATS was better than that.

reply to post by CIAGypsy


What does that little blurb on amnesia have to do with the premise behind my post? And, btw, I am personally and extraordinarily aware of what amnesia is as a sufferer of a probable psychogenic amnesia for the last 30 years. And, to cut a possible ad hominem in the bud, I do not blame the government for my amnesia....I blame my family.

Yes...I agree that the scientific community has TRIED to study ways to "program" people or control the mind, but they soon found that the human body cannot be reduced to some digital equivalent of 1's and 0's.

Now this portion actually has more to do with my general premise, which to be absolutely clear, is that the fields of neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, and pharmacology have historically been used for unethical behavioral modification experimentation. Your emphasis is on the past tense. TRIED. Are you so absolutely certain that there is no one in your field continuing research that may have initially began in MK-ULTRA?

You see, I'm an accountant and like benri, I've had to take marketing. Marketing, by definition, is really the utilization and recognition of potential consumers' behaviors and attempting to apply psychology to get them to buy one's particular brand. Every time a person watches tv and commercials, they are basically being hit with attempts at behavioral modification. That is the most common form of "behavioral modification" out there and we're all hit with it. Also, as an accountant, as much as I would like to think that every single accountant within the US is doing the right thing and not behaving unethically, I would never vouch for every member of my field. That would be illogical and denying the reality that people are people. Not all of them are good. For my field, there will always potentially be an Andy Fastow and for your field, there were 30 different institutions and countless researchers involved (pretty confident that there are probably more accountants that did a no-no to be fair). People are not angels.

I also disagree that "the scientific community" was equating the human body as "some digital equivalent of 1's and 0's". First off, the ideas behind psychology, psychiatry, and pharmacology predate computers. Kind of a false premise there, isn't it?

Oh please, thats one of the myths.

What's one of the myths?

The myths of this thread seems to be that it has real information on Neuroscience and brain chemistry from someone who is an authority of some kind.

Why do you call it a myth? I am prepared, at this point, to accept the OP's claimed credentials. I reckon I'd know if he or she was talking nonsense, or bending the truth.

That human behavior is not so predictable that it can't be measured and controlled, that is a myth. Industries have been built on the fact that the human mind is fairly easy to manipulate and control.

I have worked in those industries. I spent decades working in advertising, public relations and the like. On and off, to make ends meet, I still do, as a freelance or consultant. And I tell you this from decades of experience: you most certainly cannot reliably control behaviour in individuals using their techniques. You can get useful statistical results — increase the number of people who buy Product X, for example, or who tick Opinion Y in a poll. It's called persuasion, and it is a very different thing from 'mind control'.

In this thread we are talking about controlling behaviour through direct electrical, chemical or mechanical manipulation of living cerebral tissue. The OP will correct me if I am wrong.

This thread seems very dis-infoie for my taste.

Why? Because it explodes a myth you want badly to believe in? Badly enough to insult the OP by calling his or her bona fides into question? Shame on you.

reply to post by Astyanax

you most certainly cannot reliably control behaviour in individuals

Your words! Not mine!

"RELIABLY"!!!!

Again, I ask you to explain the differences you are trying to say do or do not exist!

Your own words state, that it is "POSSIBLE" to control human behavior. Yet you dance along the line and try to use the word "persuasion" in preference to "mind control"......kind a like hosting a tug of war and hauling out a strand of spider web in place of the rope, don't you think?

I can "persuade" a drunken female to have sex with me, but does that make it right?

No worries, I'll bet money I can guess whom pays your salary......

MK-Ultra never ended, .....

Instead was expanded!

CIA / MK-ULTRA Hearings - Survivor Testimony 1996
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BINQ4jiQFsI
www.youtube.com...


My Brain is making up everything she is saying!!

Astyanax

What's one of the myths?


Why do you call it a myth? I am prepared, at this point, to accept the OP's claimed credentials. I reckon I'd know if he or she was talking nonsense, or bending the truth.


In this thread we are talking about controlling behaviour through direct electrical, chemical or mechanical manipulation of living cerebral tissue. The OP will correct me if I am wrong.

Why? Because it explodes a myth you want badly to believe in? Badly enough to insult the OP by calling his or her bona fides into question? Shame on you.

Ill break it down.

1st. Op asking about brain Myths, using a material explanation for the brain as a basis for discrediting myths about the brain including "mind control" Mk was brought up, op dismissed it but suggest Psyops as an alternative.

When Frankly at this point in Science we hardly have a working understanding of brain function, Psychology is much more Art than Science, and Neuroscience still can't explain why one chemical will effect one brain completely different than another.

2. Op is using semantics and obfuscation to differentiate types of "mind control".
My Point: All manipulation of human behavior could be considered as such.

3. SEE ONE, we do not know enough about human psychology and brain function to allow for only material causes for brain behavior. Even the most basic pre-med psychiatrist knows that.


Ill give you an example, I want to talk about what a computer can do, BUT I want to limit it down to a preset list of parameters that pre-support my own misconceptions about computers.

Is that okay with you? MOST would say no its not, unless I was really sold on the same misconceptions on the op.

Everyone has an agenda, Period, even if its as simple as pushing their own ignorance on others, the point of ats is to call such things out.

IF i am wrong, feel free to take apart my arguments, I take no offence in being proven wrong.

reply to post by seeker1963


Calm yourself, please.

I have already told you ('confessed', if you prefer) that I have spent most of my working life in advertising and related disciplines. I have been something called an account planner (look it up and feel your flesh crawl). If I were able to manipulate your mind directly through the media, I should be able do it with this post. But can I do it? No chance.

All the advertising, marketing and PR techniques you and benri are calling 'mind control' are simply refinements of the art of persuasion. They can get pretty sneaky at times, just like an unscrupulous door-to-door salesman can, but that's all they are.

Sometimes, our target consumers (you may call them 'victims', if it makes you happier) may not realise that they are being persuasively manipulated. The best persuaders — salesmen, preachers, con artists, messiahs, statesmen, demagogues, sexpots — have always been able to bamboozle people in this way; but that isn't mind control either.

These industries have no ways to turn you into an obedient puppet that will unquestioningly, unthinkingly do their will. That would be mind control, not persuading someone they need the latest iPhone. There is a world of difference between the two.