Ephemera? I don't think so

Brain Wars the scientific battle over the existence of the mind and the proof that will change the way we live our lives
Mario Beauregard
Non-fiction 250 pages
HarperOne. 2012

Mario Beauregard introduces his book stating, that according to materialist science only the brain exists; that mind, soul, and consciousness are ephemera produced by the brain and as such, cannot exist independently of the brain. The Cartesian model of brain/mind dualism is false. Only the brain exists, nothing more.

This is essentially the view taken by several materialist theories. The author argues, however, that none of these theories provide a satisfactory answers to what David Chalmers calls the "hard problem "of consciousness which ponders how experience arises from brain processes.

Chalmers is a philosopher. I am not. I wonder if subjective experience isn't just another ephemera produced by the brain. On the other hand, my subjective experience seems real enough that I wonder if those who question the materialist view are correct after all. Beauregard claims that, "multiple lines of hard evidence show that mental events do exist and can significantly influence the functioning of our brains and bodies. They also show that our minds can affect events occurring outside the confines of our bodies, and that we can access consciously transcendent realms—even when the brain is apparently not functioning."

I'm not sure that I buy the first of Beauregard's premises, that mental events exist and can influence body and brain. In the first chapter, "The Power of Belief to Cure or Kill" he shows how Voodoo can kill and placebos can cure. But how does this refute the materialists? Why can't mental events and beliefs be products of the brain, and therefore ephemera?

In his sixth chapter, Beauregard cites psychic (or psi) phenomena such as extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis as evidence that consciousness exists apart from the brain. Since psi phenomena are non-local, how can they be produced by a local mechanism such as the brain? Although Beauregard's argument has become more compelling, I am still inclined to reject it.

Many skeptics reject the existence of psi phenomena. However, Beauregard and others make a compelling case for its reality. Although early psychic researchers were sometimes taken in by charlatans, contemporary researchers use more rigorous methods. Using sophisticated procedures to insure accuracy, they still achieve results that are highly unlikely to be due to chance.

Today, it is not the psychic researchers but the skeptics who are biased. Psi is an established fact. However, the fact that it occurs does not mean that it occurs frequently and dependably. It remains a rare human experience. Does it prove that consciousness can exist independently of the brain? I don't think so. People have claimed to pick up radio stations through the filings in their teeth. Perhaps the brain occasionally acts like a radio and picks up non-local information. That wouldn't prove that consciousness exists apart from the brain.

In his seventh chapter, Beauregard makes his most persuasive point. If consciousness is merely a phenomena of the brain, how is it that people report being conscious during near death experiences? More remarkably, how is it that they report such vivid experiences when their brains are working at greatly reduced capacities?

Other books have addressed these questions. One such book, "The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience", examines near death experiences (NDEs) in great detail. Author, Kevin Nelson neatly explains all the phenomena associated with NDEs as products of the brain responding to particular conditions. Although he dissects each phenomena thoroughly, his cumulative explanations do not adequately explain the detailed and complex narratives that some people have reported after returning from the brink of death.

It is because NDE narratives can be so complex and detailed that I am inclined to think that diminished brain function can only explain the grosser aspects of NDEs and not their details. However, other factors may be involved. Perhaps in some cases NDE memories are simple confabulations, false memories invented by troubled brains to explain what they can't understand.

Beauregard presents several very compelling cases of NDEs. One such is the case of Pam Reynolds. Prior to brain surgery she was chilled to a point of near-death. Blood no longer pumped through her brain. Her eyes were taped shut, yet she reported observing her operation while outside her body. Is this a case of invented memory, or did it actually occur? If so, does this prove that consciousness exists independently of the brain?

For his final arguments, Beauregard looks toward mysticism and quantum physics. In 1976, biomedical researcher and atheist, Dr. Allan Smith had a life changing mystical experience while observing a sunset. While NDEs are often reported after body and brain trauma, there was no apparent cause for Dr. Smith's experience. Throughout history people have had mystical experiences in which they perceive themselves to be one with everything and no longer confined by a mortal human existence. Psychiatrist, Richard Maurice Bucke, gave the phenomena a name. He called it Cosmic Consciousness.

Early in its development, quantum mechanics encountered a problem—one that remains a mystery to this day. The problem is this: the act of observation influences the phenomena that is observed. Scientists have attempted to explain this in a number of ways, but never to everyone's satisfaction.

Some people claim that consciousness affects external phenomena, yet this is only one way of viewing the interconnectedness of observers with observations. It may be that the human mind lacks sufficient language or logic to understand the reality. It may be that the theory of quantum mechanics is missing an undiscovered piece. This is what Einstein thought.

Einstein knew that quantum mechanics allowed for the possibility of entangled particles. These are particles that mirror each other, seemingly instantly and at any distance. Einstein and his two collaborators wrote that because non-locality, or "spooky action at a distance" isn't possible, then something must be missing from quantum mechanics.

Einstein was wrong. During the final years of the 20th century, non-locality was proven to exist. The implication of non-locality is that everything is connected and indivisible. That means the mystics are correct. Each of us is indeed one with everything. Consciousness is not dependent on the brain.

Yet countless books on neuroscience make it plainly clear that if certain regions of the brain are damaged, then profound changes in personality emerge. The same can be said for changes in sense perceptions, speech, mobility, etc. How then, can it be said that consciousness does not depend on the brain?

Books like this, as well as those which attempt to prove an opposite view, often fail to define consciousness in a thorough manner. An initial omission of definition flaws the ensuing discussion. Whether consciousness is ephemera produced by brains, or whether it is non-local and nondependent on brains, is a question that can't be resolved until we agree on just what consciousness is.

Cut them down to size

USA wealth curve 2016

When shrubbery gets overgrown it must be pruned. Same goes for big corporations sprouting monopolistic tendrils. But it's easier to prune a garden than an economy. About half a dozen companies buoy up the value of the stock market. Of those, five are major tech companies. They trade as AAPL, MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL and FB. Most, if not all, of these engage, or have engaged, in monopolistic practices.

Now and then these companies come under scrutiny, but little ever gets done. If one political party has a good idea, the other calls it a partisan ploy. One big reason our politics is so partisan comes down to the influence of large unregulated corporations. Today there are no fairness doctrines to constrain broadcast media, and no rules at all for social media.

Aside from partisan politics, trust-busting doesn't come easy. To tilt at financial monoliths without regard as to where their rubble will topple would be dangerously quixotic. Monopolies must be disassembled carefully. Adding to a hesitancy to disassemble them is the unspoken fear of unleashing the Invisible Hand.

I hope some day to be able to prove my belief that bad old ideas become parasites that stunt the growth of new thoughts. Adam Smith used the term Invisible Hand only twice in his writings and never in the context in which it's popularly used. The idea that an Invisible Hand will balance financial markets in lieu of regulating them has never been tested. That's because financial markets have always been regulated. When regulations were weakened to allow the Invisible Hand more freedom to balance markets, lenders and borrowers got greedy. The result was the Great Recession of 2008. When the government realized that banks were too big to fail — that if the banks failed the greater economy would collapse — it rescued them financially. Institutions were enabled while common folks lost their homes. Enamored of their bonuses, bankers quickly returned to believing in the balancing Invisible Hand.

Because they were too big to fail, the largest financial institutions should have been reorganized. They weren't. Small competitors can play a bit dirty without disturbing the economic order, but when large companies do so, they have become monopolies, and must be cut down for the social good.

It's high time for companies like AAPL, MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL and FB to face regulation and partial disassembly into companies designed to collaborate and compete with smaller entrepreneurs. Just like the Tooth Fairy, there is no Invisible Hand. It's a myth the greedy promoted while grabbing advantages for themselves.

America needs a more balanced economy; one with a larger middle class and reduced levels of both poverty and opulence. Pruning monopolies like the big five will help achieve this but it's not enough to rebalance our economy. According to Economic Policy Institute:

"In 2019, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 320-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 293-to-1 in 2018 and a big increase from 21-to-1 in 1965 and 61-to-1 in 1989."

In 1965, a worker in 1965 whose boss made 21 times his salary could be invited to his boss' home for dinner. In 2019, a worker earning 320 times less than his boss is unlikely to ever meet him. Not only has the degree of income inequality increased enormously, class distinctions have grown, and our sense of community has shrunk. Back in 1965 the wealthiest paid high progressive taxes. They may have complained, but they didn't suffer all that much. We need to tax wealth to prevent it from growing into a weed that disrupts social harmony.

Lastly, a Hands-On effort to balance our economy will work faster and more efficiently than an Invisible Hand ever will. Yet we need to be cautious. The Soviet planned economy didn't work well. It might work better today because of our abundance of internet driven consumer data. Still, we shouldn't attempt it. When Capitalism excels it 's because competing businesses create innovation. Innovation stops happening when companies grow too large. We need to encourage innovation and that means more entrepreneurs and fewer corporate monoliths.

But we won't have more entrepreneurs without the right economic conditions. While many entrepreneurs start with little capital, they can't start at all if they live from one paycheck to the next. Universal Basic Income (UBI), or similar stimulus programs could allow people to take entrepreneurial  risks without risking everything. Larger organizations could receive government startup funding. A helping economy unleashing creativity and innovation is what we need to reverse climate change and restore American prosperity.

V.O Diedlaff is author of, We Can Fix It: Reclaiming the American Dream.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle
Steven Pressfield
Non-fiction, 167 pages

"The War of Art" like Sun Tsu’s similarly named, “The Art of War,” is about winning battles. Both brief volumes address their themes through a series of short chapters which build upon and clarify earlier chapters.

While Sun Tsu addresses war on the battlefield, Steven Pressfield addresses the artist’s battle against resistance. Although artists, particularly writers, comprise Pressfield’s primary audience, the problem of resistance is universal. Resistance can prevent anyone from achieving life’s higher purposes, whether those be artistic, altruistic, educational, entrepreneurial, healthful, moral or spiritual. Resistance is a force that inhibits those activities which lead to personal growth but not activities performed to appease our lower nature. Some of these activities (think instant gratification) are themselves symptoms of resistance.

Symptoms of resistance include: procrastination; instant gratification, through abuse of alcohol, junk food, television, etc.; attention getting through trouble-making, grandstanding, etc.; creating life complications by creating personal dramas, playing victim or martyr, etc.; and being cruel to, or critical of, others. Procrastination is resistance’s most typical symptom. Resistance’s closest ally is rationalization; procrastination is extremely easy to rationalize. Once rationalized, procrastination becomes habitual. We may even find ourselves believing our rationalizations.

Resistance causes personal dissatisfaction; a sense of boredom, antsiness, listlessness, joylessness and self-loathing. As resistance mounts, bad habits and mood or behavioral disorders begin to emerge. Our consumer culture further complicates the resistance problem. Consumerism fans the flames of resistance while selling us panaceas offering temporary relief.

Fear underlies resistance, and though, Pressfield doesn’t dwell upon it, it also underlies consumerism. We fear no one will like us if we don’t buy the right deodorant or laundry soap. We fear boredom; that’s why the radio and television are always on. We fear being alone; that’s why we take our cell phones everywhere.

We fear many things. We fear rejection. We fear failure. We even, and especially, fear success. Fear, in all its forms, drives resistance and resistance prevents us from achieving personal growth. Borrowing from Jungian psychology, Pressfield considers the self to be the source of creativity and personal growth, while the ego is the source of resistance.

Resistance can be countered through the act of “turning pro.” The difference between a professional and an amateur is that for the amateur the stakes are small making it easy to rationalize procrastination and other forms of resistance. The professional treats his art like most people treat their jobs. People may not like going to work every day but they go anyway, arriving on time and staying the entire eight hours. Professionals don’t permit themselves excuses when it comes to their art. They stick to their art regardless of criticism, lack of remuneration, and setbacks. They stick to their art out of love, because it’s important to their self-development, and they stick to it even when it’s unpleasant and difficult.

Pressfield’s book is more of a ‘challenge’ than a ‘how-to.’ It’s earthy, and it de-glamorizes the artistic life. Still, Pressfield’s arguments make sense, and his style is engaging. “The War of Art” is well worth reading.

*Title is a quote from Walt Kelly's Pogo comic strip

Keeping its secrets

Incognito: the secret lives of the brain

David M. Eagleman
Nonfiction 290 pages
Pantheon. 2011

You may think you know who you are, but according to David Eagleman it’s a case of mistaken identity. We consider the contents of our awareness as belonging to ourselves. Yet, that awareness, what we call consciousness, is only a small part of what goes on in our brains. Consciousness is like an iceberg’s tip – visible above the water’s surface. Much of what runs us is below the surface and well beneath our awareness.

Most of us realize this to some extent. After all, our hearts pump and our lungs breathe without our awareness most of the time. But most of us don’t realize the extent to which non-conscious mental activity controls our behavior.

Eagleman tells us that the brain is composed of interacting systems, running a myriad of mental routines, and very little of this activity makes it into our awareness. It’s as if our brains are run by a team of rivals with different viewpoints to match different circumstances. When teammates interact appropriately, we make good decisions most of the time.

It’s natural for us to prefer people like ourselves over those who look different. But, the dark side of this preference may be behind xenophobia and racism. Psychologists have used word association tests to tease subjects’ inner-racists into showing themselves. Most people keep their inner-racists well under control, but brain dysfunction or alcohol use can disturb the balance between the rivals in our brains. After visiting a Jewish friend, actor Mel Gibson, was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. Later, a sober Gibson apologized for the anti-Semitic remarks he made while intoxicated. The question arises, which is the real Mel Gibson, the sober or the drunken one?

Eagleman’s answer is that both are real, because Gibson’s brain, like everyone’s, is composed of interacting rivals. Most of us behave in socially appropriate ways most of the time. But, there are exceptions. One of the symptoms of Tourette’s syndrome is coprolalia, that is, inappropriate vocal outbursts. While a normal person might experience an inappropriate thought, a Tourette’s sufferer might involuntarily vocalize it, much to his embarrassment.

People suffering from frontotemporal dementia act out socially inappropriate impulses that they formerly kept well controlled. For example, they may shoplift, make unwelcome sexual passes, act aggressively, and even publicly remove clothing. They lose the ability to know that this behavior is inappropriate.

Eagleman argues that legal systems need to be reformed to take into account criminals’ capacity to change their behavior. While society should be protected from criminal behavior, punishments having no effect on those unable to change, should be replaced with other interventions. Eagleman discusses the case of a man who committed murder while sleep walking. Although, this seems unlikely, electroencephalogram findings demonstrated an abnormality that caused the man’s brain to attempt rapid transition from sleep to wakefulness without passing through the intermediate stages that most people pass through. This occurred 10 to 20 times per night. The man was acquitted.

As neuroscience discovers more precise ways of uncovering brain abnormalities, the legal system will need to accommodate these new findings. Asking if a criminal is blameworthy will ultimately become an irrelevant question, Eagleman believes. Instead we should be asking how to prevent him from committing future crimes. An experimental technique, called the prefrontal workout, shows promise for eliminating undesired behaviors. The technique uses real-time biofeedback to reduce the strength of unwelcome urges.

In 1848, a premature explosion sent a tamping rod through Phineas Gage’s head. He survived, but his personality did not. After his accident, he was no longer capable of socially appropriate behavior and judgment. Those who knew him described him as, “no longer Gage.”

Who was he then? Did he lose his soul along with some of his brain? Do we even have souls to begin with or are we simply collections of parts? Eagleman tells us, “If there’s something like a soul, it is at minimum tangled irreversibly with the microscopic details. Whatever else may be going on with our mysterious existence, our connection to our biology is beyond doubt.”

Eagleman’s first book was “Sum: forty tales from the afterlives.” One might expect a man who constructed 40 possible afterlives to have more to say about the soul. Alas, he only writes a few words on the topic in “Incognito: the secret lives of the brain.” So let me offer up a theological question or two. If part of the brain is injured, does part of the soul vanish? If a good man turns evil after a brain injury, will he be eternally punished or spared through God’s mercy? Just which pieces of the brain house the soul, anyway?

Eagleman discusses a type of epileptic seizure in a “sweet spot” in the temporal lobe that causes religious conviction, writing on religious topics, voices from apparently divine sources, and a sense of divine presence. Is the sweet spot a gift from God that allows Him to communicate with his prophets or merely the reason the prophets invented Him?

Eagleman concludes his book with a discussion of the weaknesses of reductionism as a means of understanding the brain. It isn’t practical to break the brain down into a collection of parts. Regardless, he tells us, it’s the model that most neuroscientists bring with them into the lab. I wonder how a sense of personal identity can arise from a collection of parts.

Allied Alchemists

137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession

Arthur I. Miller
Nonfiction 363 pages

Despite the title, you’ll have to read the final chapter before you learn much about the number 137. But that doesn’t hurt this double biography. Along the way you’ll learn about the numbers three and four and what they meant to Johannes Kepler and Robert Fludd, one a pioneer of science, the other a mystic.

While three is the number of the trinity, four is that of the cardinal directions. C. G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli both examined the symbolism of these numbers.

Their relationship began when Pauli approached Jung for therapy. Although, Jung referred him to one of his pupils, Jung took an active interest in Pauli’s analysis. As their friendship developed, Pauli found an outlet for his mystical, intuitive side. Jung hoped that Pauli could lend a more scientific foundation to Jung's brand of psychology.

Jung believed that the human psyche was populated by archetypes which supplied symbolic meaning. Certain numbers, among them three and four, could take on archetypal qualities in dreams and visions. Just as these numbers appeared in myth and alchemical texts, they also appeared in Pauli’s dreams and in his efforts to discover the structure of the atom.

Early in his career, Pauli worked with Niels Bohr whose theory of the atom hinged on three quantum numbers. But the theory wasn’t complete until Ralph Kronig proposed that electrons had a spin of one half and others provided evidence. Spin became the fourth quantum number, but its addition meant that electrons could no longer be visualized.

Pauli and Jung both believed in the paranormal, unlike Jung’s mentor Sigmund Freud. Once while arguing with Freud about parapsychology, Jung experienced a feeling like his diaphragm was turning into hot iron. Just then, a loud noise came from Freud’s bookcase and both men jumped. Jung remarked that the event was an example of “a physical effect brought about by a mental thought.” Freud was merely dismissive.

Pauli was a believer in what his colleagues named the Pauli Effect. The frequent failure of equipment in the presence of Pauli made the theoretician unwelcome in physics laboratories due to his Pauli effect. People suffered from the Effect as well. On one occasion the chairs to Pauli's right and left of Pauli simultaneously collapsed, dislodging the women seated upon them.

Jung coined the term “synchronicity” to account for a type of paranormal phenomena. Synchronicity is what Jung calls meaningful coincidences that have no apparent cause. For example, on one occasion a woman was discussing her dream of a scarab when one tapped on Jung’s office window. The coincidental appearance of a real scarab profoundly affected Jung’s patient and allowed her to benefit from her therapy. Telepathic and precognitive dreams are other examples of synchronicity.

The causal universe of Newtonian physics was displaced early in the twentieth century by the arrival of quantum physics. Events at the quantum level could no longer be said to be causal – they are probabilistic. Both Pauli and Jung were well aware of this and Pauli had no difficulty accepting the possibility of synchronicity.

The friendship between the two resulted in the 1952 publication of “The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche,” a volume containing two essays — Jung’s "Synchronicity: an acausal connecting principal" and Pauli’s “The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler.”

Returning to 137 — the number occurs several places in the book. Bohr’s theory was tested by examining the spectral lines created by the light emitted when an electron drops from a higher to a lower orbit. Some of these were found to consist of closely spaced individual lines known as the “fine structure.” The distance between the lines of the fine structure of a spectral line, Bohr called “the fine structure constant.” Pauli was able to determine that this constant is a pure number equal to 1/137 or 0.00729. He wondered why 137 and not some other number — a question that was to occupy much of his professional life.

In addition to being a prime number, there are several other interesting facts about this number. The values of the Hebrew letters which spell the word Kabbalah total 137. So do the Biblical phrases, “The God of Truth” and “The Surrounding Brightness,” and the Hebrew word for “crucifix.”

But perhaps the oddest coincidence was that the hospital room in which Pauli died was number 137. When Charles Enz visited Pauli, he informed Enz that the room was number 137, “I’m never getting out of here alive.”

Miller’s book is an interesting mixture of biography and science and very hard to put down. For those who understand the math, Miller supplies a bit to ponder. But for the most part, the book can easily be enjoyed by non-scientists.

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett
Nonfiction, 180 pages, 2020

This is a book of essays. It could have been a textbook, but in that case, it would have been far lengthier. The essays make up two thirds of its length. Detailed footnotes fill the final third. Although brief, this book will change the worldview of many readers. This summary can’t do it justice.

The author begins with the half lesson:

• Your Brain Is Not for Thinking

It was designed to aid in predicting and regulating bodily processes and ensuring survival.

• You Have One Brain (not Three)

As I learned somewhere, we have a dinosaur brain, a cat brain, and a rational neocortical brain all piled on top of one another. This theory is bunk. Lisa Feldman Barrett shows us why.

• Your Brain Is a Network

Have you heard that we’d be geniuses if we used our whole brains instead of a mere ten percent? That is also bunk. The parts of the brain’s network are always connected, and functioning a part of a whole. Neurons that don’t connect are pruned from the network.

Older, less accurate brain models point to locations where special functions occur. But the brain behaves holistically as well as locally.

“Your network is also dynamic in another way. As neurons change conversation partners, a single neuron can take on different roles. For example, your ability to see is so intimately tied to an area of the brain called the occipital cortex that the area is routinely called the visual cortex; however its neurons routinely carry information about hearing and touch.”

Neurons multitask and some are multitasking pros, “Some neurons in your brain are so xibly connected that their job is to have many jobs.”

Little Brains Wire Themselves to Their World

Many animals are able to walk shortly after birth. It takes baby humans about a year to start walking. Human brains aren’t fully wired until about age 25. Perhaps because our brains wire slowly we have unique intellectual advantages. Barrett describes in detail the ways baby’s wire themselves to their environments.

• Your Brain Predicts (almost) Everything You Do

"Neuroscientists like to say that your day- to-day experience is a carefully controlled hallucination, constrained by the world and your body but ultimately constructed by your brain. It's not the kind of hallucination that sends you to the hospital. It's an everyday kind of hallucination that creates all your experiences and guides all your actions."

She continues,

"I realize that this description defies common sense, but wait: there's more. This whole constructive process happens predictively. Scientists are now fairly certain that your brain actually begins to sense moment-to-moment changes in the world around you before those light waves, chemicals, and other sense data hit your brain. The same is true for your body—your brain begins to sense them before the relevant data arrives from your organs, hormones, and various bodily systems. You don't experience your senses this way but it's how your brain navigates the world and controls your body."

Following further explanation, Barrett concludes:

"If your brain has predicted well, then your neurons are already firing in a pattern that matches the incoming sense data. That means the sense data itself has no further use beyond confirming your brain's predictions. What you see, hear, smell, and taste in the world and feel in your body in that moment are completely constructed in your head."

When a police officer mistakes a cell phone for a gun and fires, his brain has likely responded to its prediction and not to its incoming sense data. Sadly such mistakes get innocents killed. The triune brain theory originated with the ancient Greeks, as did our notions of human rationality. While rationality is a prized quality, people don't always behave rationally, especially in tense situations. Our culture and legal system are still influenced by ancient Greeks and Roman notions about rationality. We need to update our old ideas to reflect our new knowledge about the brain. Perhaps we can rethink and restructure our policing methods to prevent unnecessary deaths.

Three more chapters tell us what else is unique about the human brain.

• Your Brain Secretly Works With Other Brains - It’s "A brain that regulates other brains so invisibly that we presume we’re independent of each other""
• Brains Make More Than One Kind of Mind - Your brain is "A brain that creates so many kinds of minds that we assume there’s a single human nature to explain them all"
• Our Brains Can Create Reality - Your brain is "A brain that’s so good at believing its own inventions that we mistake reality for the natural world."

The reality our brains create is largely a social one.

"The human brain misunderstands itself and mistakes social reality for physical reality, which can cause all sorts of problems. For example, humans vary tremendously, like every animal species does. But unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, we organize some of this variation into little boxes with labels such as race, gender, and nationality. We treat the labeled boxes as if they're part of nature when in fact we built them."

It's useful to know how our brains work instead of just trusting how we think they do. Once you know how your brain works, you can tap its strengths and dodge its illusions. But you cannot look at your world in the same way ever again.