Biological Fractals and the Never-Ending Story

One of the great secrets of our universe may be a biological fractal that nobody could see until recently.  Now that we have the ability to view microscopic images of the body and macroscopic images of the universe, an eerie synthesis has been discovered.  At first, I thought I was the only one who'd seen it back in 2006, but now there's an image circulating around the internet of a human brain cell juxtaposed with an image of a galactic cluster: 

 

 

Are we onto something here, or is this a miraculous coincidence?  Our brain cells look just like galactic clusters seen from a distance.  This could mean that our whole universe is one giant brain, and that all of our brains have universes inside them.  Well, not literally, of course.  Our brains aren't “accelerating” the way our universe is, but it's still interesting that they look so similar (to account for this, perhaps the speed of light distorts neurological dimensions). 

There are other biological fractals: cells and atoms in the body that look like objects in the universe.  I once made a mirror collage, where the left side was made up of microscopic images of biological building blocks, while the right side was made up of macroscopic images of the universe.  

 

 

 

Each image was intended to be a "mirror" image of something on the opposite side of the collage.  In the center, neural pathways in the brain looked like astral pathways in the universe.  Just above it, mitosis (cell division) looked similar to the Hourglass Galaxy.  Above them, a solar system looked like an atom.  Below, our own sun looked like an atomic nucleus with its planets as electron orbits.  At the bottom, a protein molecule looked like the Vela nebula. 

The concept of neurological fractals reminds me of The Never Ending Story.   In the story, a boy doesn't realize he's reading about his own universe, until it's nearly destroyed by despair.  He follows the adventure of Atreyu- his own creation- all the way to the boundaries of his world.  Atreyu's quest is to contact a human child, but he doesn't know how to find one because he in turn doesn't realize that the child is his creator.  Not only that, but it's implied that since we are also following the human child's adventures, he is a creation in our own minds.  If we are made of more than just matter, the metaphysical fractal in The Never Ending Story complements the biological ones above.  If we're part of someone's brain and our brains have their own universes, then perhaps the metaphysical fractal provided by The Never Ending Story is an accurate representation of the multiverse predicted by theoretical physicists. 

 

 

My reaction exactly!

Alternative Therapy: 14 Ways of Coping with Depression the Natural Way

Some people have called depression a disease.  The problem with this is that it assumes it isn't curable and can only be tamed through medical intervention.  As someone who's been misdiagnosed with depression and still defeated it, I can assure you that seeking a doctor's evaluation isn't always the best idea, and that it isn't always a disease. 

Not every doctor can tell if you have depression or not.  It could easily be mistaken for a normal response to life events, or worse: bipolar disorder.  There's a big difference, a life threatening one in which suicide ideation increases rather than decreases (sounds ironic, right?).  I would advise against anyone taking antidepressants who's just going through a hard time, as the side effects can potentially make matters worse.  I would only recommend them as a last resort.  That being said, here's a list of 14 things you should try to help cure your depression before seeking medical advice. 
 

1.    Get enough sleep.  Don't kid yourself by thinking 3-4 hours of sleep is enough.  Most people need 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep in order to feel energized and elevated.  Most importantly, it helps you feel motivated to do the other things on this list.  That's why I put it at number 1: because it should be the cornerstone of your well-being. 
2.    Eat a nutritious and balanced diet.  Often when there's something missing in our diets it affects our moods as well as our bodies.  Take everything you eat in moderation and never in excess, especially sugar and chocolate.  The mood swings caused by excessive sugar can show the same symptoms as people with rapid bipolar disorder (mood swings occurring 3-4 times a day).  That's not to say you should avoid all sugars.  Some sugars, like the ones in fruit, are in fact good for you.  Fruits and salads are essential to a well-balanced diet.  They rid the body of toxins like the way they seem to rid the mind of them. 
3.    Exercise.  When you exercise you release a large amount of endorphins, which are chemicals that reduce the perception of pain and contribute to your well-being.  Not only that, but it helps prevent all kinds of diseases (depression being the least of them).  You should be exercising for 30 minutes at least 4 days a week if you want to experience all the positive things it can do for you. 
4.    Talk to a friend.  If things happening in your life are getting really bad, sometimes it's a good idea to open up and talk about them with a friend.  After sharing your feelings with a good listener and someone you can trust, the feelings tend to sedate themselves and you have a clearer mind to think things over with.  A good friend will be there for you and give you the empathy you need to face your problems.  Don't be afraid to cry either; for many, weeping is the best way to release feelings of sadness. 

5.    Keep a journal or create some art.  Keeping a journal is a good way to release your thoughts when you have no one to talk with.  Creative people in particular show a heightened response to writing, or any of the other arts.  Expressing your feelings by writing poetry, drawing, or composing music can have a profound effect on the healing process, because you will have taken your sufferings and turned them into something meaningful that others can relate with.  It may sound strange, but internal suffering has helped create some of the best art the world has ever seen. 

6.    Seek counseling.  A professional counselor usually knows what to say and when to say it.  They can also help you understand the psychological basis for some of the feelings you may be confused about. 

7.    Abandon negative thoughts and train yourself to think optimistically.  Is there ever a tape in your head that constantly criticizes you for the decisions you've made?  Then it's time to erase that tape and record a new one.  Don't be too hard on yourself, we all make mistakes.  And don't make the mistake of thinking you're the only one in the world with problems.  This will isolate you and make you feel victimized.  Victimization makes you feel like the whole world is against you, and that you can't control your thoughts.  But you can, and you aren't alone in your suffering. 

8.    Face your fears and face your problems.  When you are unable to face your fears, you allow them to control you.  You stay hidden from whatever it is that's holding you back.  Never back away from a challenge unless the risk is too high. 

9.    Get a pet or seek a lover.  Nothing makes us feel more complete than having someone to love and having someone that loves us in return.  Pets are excellent at reciprocating the love we need when humans aren't always reliable. 

10.    Find meaning in your life through religion or spirituality.  All faiths have an equal ability to change our lives for the better.  Once we humble ourselves and realize that there are greater forces at work in the universe, we no longer feel like we're alone, or like slaves to our own minds. 

11.    Love yourself.  This may sound easier said than done, but there are things about you that you should love.  People need you around, and so does society.  If there's something about you that you hate then you should do your best to change it instead of letting it bring you down.  If it's something that isn't changeable then you should accept it for what it is, because nobody's perfect and you shouldn't expect yourself to be either. 

12.    Get some hobbies or find activities that interest you.  Keeping yourself busy is a great way to distract yourself from the feelings of depression.  The world is a beautiful place and there are so many things you could do with your life if you step outside the prison of your problems.  Read a book, start a collection, travel the world.  The possibilities are endless. 
13.    Take supplements.  Sometimes it isn't easy to find all the natural chemicals we need to feel good.  For example, vitamin D deficiency is common in places in the northern hemisphere where people don't get enough sunlight during the winter.  Supplements can help with that.  St. John's Wort is also a popular supplement for battling depression. 

14.    Find a balance.  One of the most important things in fighting depression is to find a balance between a number of things that make you happy.  That way you aren't completely dependent on one single thing.  That's what happens to addicts; they cling to the one thing that makes them happy, such as a drug, and they are destroyed by it due to overindulgence.  Codependency in a relationship is similar.  This is when you depend on someone else for your own happiness, which gives them an unhealthy amount of control over your feelings. 
 
Last Resort:  Medications 
 

If you've tried all of these and none of them work then medications may be your best option.  But before seeing a doctor you should try to figure out which type of depression it is yourself.  Ask yourself if you've been feeling down because of a recent loss or because of anything you might feel guilty about.  If not, then ask yourself if your depression has been long term or not.  If so, were there ever intervals of elation for long periods of time?  If that's the case then you may have bipolar disorder, which is the same thing as manic depression.  If you answered no to both of these and your depression has been chronic, you're more likely to respond positively to antidepressants.  What these do is elevate certain neurotransmitters in your brain, which causes you to become more active and feel more content.  If you're bipolar then this is the worst possible decision you can make, because the drugs will backfire and cause an excess of the neurotransmitter firing.  Your moments of depression may lessen, but the manic episodes will sharpen.  You will feel far more agitated, anxious, and desperate with all those excess chemicals in your brain.  An increase in suicide ideation isn't uncommon either. 

In my experience being around depressed people, it seems that the speed at which they think is the best indicator of the rate at which their neurotransmitters are firing, which also indicates how effective antidepressants will be for them.  After taking antidepressants, a fast thinker will end up thinking faster than they normally do, while slow thinkers end up thinking at a normal pace.  All pride aside, if you feel like you think slower than most people, antidepressants are probably more likely to work for you.  If you feel like you think faster than others then you should look into medications for bipolar disorder.  Lithium is usually the drug of choice, but bipolar people can also take a combination of antidepressants and antipsychotics.  The antipsychotic is meant to suppress the excessive firing of neurotransmitters after the antidepressant kicks in.  Once again, watch out for some unexpected side effects, like weight gain. 

Somebody once said the best things in life are free. But you can only have them if you find freedom from your desires first.  Buddha said it best: "Desire and ignorance is the root of all suffering."  Allow yourself to let go of the things not meant for you, and the world will become a better place.  Explore the world with all the curiosity that the universe blessed your mind with, and you shall know what it is that you were meant to be doing.  Depression will become a distant memory, like the darkness of a cave once inhabited by a bashful hermit. 

Souls in Cells: A History of Human Evolution

In the beginning, there was darkness.  The ocean stood still and lifeless, covering the crust of the Earth with its heavy waters.  Deep under the currents of our Precambrian world, volcanic vents ignited the ingredients that would create the first micro-organisms.  They were as small as could be, just single-cell prokaryotes living peacefully inside the vents.  But something about their genetic material was able to serve as a vessel for the most basic form of a soul as well.  Their bodies were for us, the oldest of souls, the first to be introduced to Earth.  Our motives were simple: to survive, seek energy, and reproduce through cellular mitosis.  Each mitosis created a new soul in a new cell, and supplied new bodies for older souls that wanted to return to our beautiful planet.  If there weren't any souls left to be reborn, a new one was created from its unique genetic blueprint. 

It was a long time before these cells found a way to group themselves together and form larger organisms. At some point in the Precambrian- roughly a billion years ago- the strongest of us found a way to latch onto the cells that had divided from us.  They tried to drift away, but we grabbed ahold of them by using a new material called collagen, saying, "Hold on there, partner, we've got work to do."  And so, two cells bonded together, and then four, and then tens and thousands, until the first multicellular eukaryotes began living on the ocean floor.  At that point we were still Protozoa, but we'd revolutionized the idea of trans-cellular interaction, and were able to build ourselves into bigger and better beings. 

A hundred million years later we became large enough to act as one body.  The oldest of us possessed these large bodies in order to familiarize all of life with the macrocosmic world.  We were only immobile sponges at this point, but soon we figured out how to arrange ourselves in geometrical proportions with great efficiency.  These geometries were fractal and orderly, because fractals allow for the greatest amount of construction in an organism by using the least amount of genetic code. 

Eons passed and the Earth cooled down.  At times it would cool so much that it was nothing but ice.  Even the oceans were covered by it.  Geologists call this the “Snowball Earth”, and it has happened at least twice.  Yet underneath the ice, life found a way to survive.  Certain bacteria found ways to warm itself; thus, if it weren’t for these survivors we’d never even be here.  After the ice melted away, roughly 550 million years ago, an explosion of life burst from the seams, in what has been deemed the Cambrian Explosion by Paleontologists. 

It was during this time in the Earth’s history that we grew into bodies with multiple organs.  First, we were just blobs of organic material, and once we got larger we became asymmetrical sponges, like the ones seen today.  Some of these sponges evolved into charnia, a fractal-like organism that looks more like a plant in today’s world.  At first, we were only able to move at an alarmingly slow rate.  The motivation to mobilize our bodies came from a hunger for the food that lay on the ocean floor around us.  After this our bodies elongated and we were able to move quicker.  We took on worm-like figures and developed brains, kidneys, and hearts.  From this, we evolved into comb jellyfish, fishes and tetrapods, including the ichthyostega- the first known tetrapod.  One of these swimming tetrapods, the tiktaalik, became the first animal to walk on land when it trudged out of the water and squirmed its way ashore.  Presumably, we’d developed these muscular legs in order to escape from predators roaming in the shallow waters. 

Then came the golden age of reptiles.  Dinosaurs evolved from land-dwelling amphibians that had risen from the ocean, and it’s likely that the first mammals branched off from them as well.  As dinosaurs dominated the world, mammals got smaller and smaller in order to hide from them- all the way to the dimensions of mice.  The last common ancestors of mice and humans was 100 million years ago, 45 million years before a mass extinction that wiped the dinosaurs out. 

Dinosaurs evolved into birds when they could no longer sustain themselves in an atmosphere unsuitable for beings their size.  Long after this extinction, primates arose in equatorial regions.  First, they resembled modern day shrews, and then grew larger, into lemurs.  Then came the apes and chimpanzees.  How we developed into humans from chimps is debatable, but most scientists agree that the advantages of having legs, hands, and a large brain played crucial parts.  What most likely happened was that a group of isolated chimps had access to a field that consisted of both prey and predators.  Their main source of food came from this field; they had to be quick if they wanted to avoid getting eaten.  Thus, our legs grew longer and we were able to run faster.  Eventually they grew longer than our arms and we were able to walk upright, making us become the first hominids.  The advantage of becoming bipedal was that it freed up our hands to become more dexterous and make tools.  This made it easier for us to hunt and eat.  It also allowed our jaws to slacken, which meant that our skulls could enlarge for brain development.  Once we learned how to use basic tools and create our own fire, these advantages helped our brains grow exponentially. 

Then came all the wonderful races of man, which were all isolated before interbreeding took center stage in the Age of Civilization.  If we hadn’t mixed with other races, it’s likely that each race would have evolved into different species.  Now that we’re mixing more, we’ve prevented such diversification and our species is more defined. 

The strongest evidence for evolution isn’t in the fossils we’ve recovered, but in Recapitulation Theory.  According to this, when we look at a developing fetus we can see the entire story of its genetic journey through the geological record.  This is why the shape of every mammal in a fetus looks the same until its genetic code alters it.  Our fetuses look like those of mice and primates until extra genes are added to make us human.  This is why we only use about 10% of our actual genetic material.  The 90% of genes we don’t use are instructions for creating all the other species we descended from.  We know this because of the discovery of switch genes.  Genes can switch on and off, making particular beings take on resemblances to species they were before their own.  Deformities and mental retardation are caused by genes that stopped developing and stayed the same as whichever ancestor they resembled. 

The cells of such deformed creatures seem to hold a hint of nostalgia for what they'd created long ago.  A cell is a living, breathing being.  It uses oxygen to function and contains energy to perform its duty.  Each cell is like a member of a team, performing special functions required to carry out the plan of a body.  They seem to have “minds” of their own, without having a central nervous system.  Inexplicably, they move by their own choosing, according to whatever code their DNA provided for them.  As they move through a body, they “smell” and “taste” certain chemicals and enzymes that they could benefit from.  Certain cells “communicate” with others to work in tandem; others fight infection and disease to keep a body alive.  Cells don’t process sensory information the way a brain does, but they do have sensors.  In this manner they are primitive forms of minds and souls.  From an evolutionary standpoint, you could say this metaphysical attribute means that souls, like bodies, evolved from primordial bacteria as well. 

Physically, our bodies are made of trillions of our ancestors, each working to help us in the fight for survival.  Yet the souls of cells are young, possessed by minds that have just been introduced to the chain of life.  They have a long way to go before they reach the advanced stage of human-hood.  Are they aware that they serve a larger purpose?  Might it be possible that we ourselves make up a constituent body that we aren’t aware of, a cosmic continuum in which one mind directs all the organisms it consists of into separate functions?  If this is the case, then we would be part of a cosmic fractal in which Intelligent Design plays a critical role, albeit an unconscious one.  In this respect, Intelligent Design doesn’t mean things are created at will, but by unconscious forces acting on tiny variations in complex systems.  The idea possesses a sense of symmetry that both scientists and men of faith might come to agreement with.