Cloudscape

Perhaps elementary particles can behave both like waves and particles because they are actually waves that consist of particles. These waves of particles can appear to be at two places at the same time because they are effectively in several places at once. On the other hand, the particles themselves are not.

A zygote differentiates into an embryo and then into a fetus through epigenesis, a process in which certain chemical reactions within different cells turn certain genes on or off. At one place, the embryo will turn on genes for the hands, at another for the lungs, and so forth.
This process happens gradually. The cells first differentiate into an entire system. The cells of this system then differentiate into an organ, and the cells of the organ then differentiate into tissues. When the cells form into a system, all cells in this system are still identical, and the same counts for the cells in the organ as it is first formed.
It would be far too much for the cells to take if they were to give exact specifications for every cell descended from them. Instead, they leave their daughter cells to tell what their daughter cells what to do, which may include in turn telling their daughter cells to do.
It's like the hierarchy of an army. The general cannot give instructions to every soldier, but he can give instructions to the lieutenant generals. Every rank is supported by their superiors. The totipotent stem cells are the generals. The pluripotent and multipotent stem cells are the higher-ranking officers, the oligopotent stem cells are the sergeants, the unipotent stem cells are the corporals, and the non-stem cells are the soldiers.
In this way, the differentiation of the human body works like a fractal, and our DNA is nothing more than the code for a series of intertwining fractals: the operations of the fractal's function is repeated for every cell throughout differentiation, and every operation is a detail of the former. In this the body can be said to be a vastly more complex version of the Mandelbrot set, except that the function of the body's fractals is not just a few characters, but billions of characters long. Of course, there is more to differentiation than those billions of characters, but there is also more to the Mandelbrot set than those few characters, that is, the entire field of complex mathematics.
Who knows, if we had a perfect physics engine, there would be a mathematical function for the human body just as there is for the Mandelbrot set. With the right code, we could actually calculate a simulation of the entire human body. Genetics is but biology's informatics, and like informatics, genetics obeys mathematics, even though those mathematics are subject to the chaos of nature, just as informatics may be subject to the chaos of random number generators.
As the systems and then the organs forms, certain of its cells will lie more toward the outside while others will lie more on the inside. This will result in interacts with the environment which will trigger chemical reactions which will in turn cause differentiation. As the outermost layers of cells differentiate, they will release signaling molecules to other cells which will in turn cause them to differentiate, so that a chain reaction is caused. The same counts for the innermost layers, which will interact with chemicals in the blood vessels. It is also possible that physical pressure, either from the amniotic fluid or the blood, is a cue in differentiation.
Moreover, as the cells differentiate, they will form blood vessels which in turn allow the interaction with blood, which may in turn trigger differentiation, including the formation of angiogenesis, so that, again, a chain reaction is caused.
At the time the zygote becomes a morula, it still doesn't know what cell will become what organ. Even when the morula becomes a blastula, all cells in the inner cell mass are still epigenetically identical, that is to say, all cells have activated the same genes. The only differentiation that has happened so far is that between the inner cell mass and the trophoblast, a single-celled membrane. It is easy for the cells of the blastula to tell if they should differentiate into a trophoblast: they're the cells that lie on the outside. However, at this point, the embryo still can't tell where its head or where its feet will be, and at this point it may be anywhere. When the blastula becomes a blastocyst, it is the endometrium which causes the first signal that breaks the embryo's symmetry: the inner cell mass becomes attracted by signaling molecules secreted by the endometrium. Meanwhile, intercellular communication between the trophoblast and the inner cell mass will cause the two to become detached from one another, so that all cells are gathered near the endometrium.
However, the inner cell mass is still a mass of identical cells. It now knows inside and outside and front from rear, but it knows neither left and right nor up and down. This time, it is the pulse of the mother's blood vessels that delivers the embryo from this dilemma.
Upon implantation, the embryo connects to the mother's circulatory system through arterioles that will later be replaced by the umbilical cord. This is by far the most crucial step in the whole process of differentiation. Up till now, where the head would be could just as well be where the arm would be, because the embryo is symmetrical. Now, suddenly, everything becomes fixed. Below the arteriole, where the pulse is strongest, will be the head, which needs most oxygen, and which will be directed downwards throughout the embryo's and later the fetus' development.
This crucial stage is concurrent with gastrulation: as the embryo connects to the mother's circulation, it will determine the shape of the embryo. The flow of the blood gives the embryo the form of a bean and eventually forms it into a gastrula. At this point, all of a sudden, the base of the body is now fixed, and the cells already know into what systems they are to differentiate. At this point, three germ layers are formed: the ectoderm, the mesoderm and the endoderm. The ectoderm, the outer layer, will later forms the integumentary system and the nervous system, the mesoderm or middle layer will form the bones, muscles, circulatory and excretory systems and the endoderm or inner layer will form the respiratory, digestive and endocrine systems.
The rest is child's play. Now the embryo is no longer symmetrical, it can use its own asymmetry to orient itself. The head and arms will form at the lower end of the embryo, the legs and genitals will form at the other end, and the rest in between. Once it knows where the extremities will be, it has but to align each body part in the mesoderm next to these extremities, upon which it aligns the body parts in the endoderm next to the body parts in the mesoderm.
The embryo can tell which side is up and which is down either through the pulse of the mother, which is weaker when it curves back up to the upper end of the embryo, or, possibly, through a form of gravitropism, or orientation in response to gravity. Gravitropism is normally caused by organelles, so it could certainly be caused in a single cell. Gravitropism has only been observed in plants, but the gravitropism that would take place in an embryo is a different kind than that which occurs in plants. Plants need gravitropism to know in which indirection to grow. Embryos would need gravitropism merely to know what genes to activate, which is a far less complex procedure.
As the fetus grows, it could be that gravity has another important role: because of gravity, more blood and therefore more nutrients collects in the lower part of the fetus, which is the head, which furthers its development. A large part of the fetus' mass is comprised of the head. The head needs to develop faster than the rest of the body because it has no time to fully develop before parturition, and if it does not grow as fast as it can, its fontanels will be too weak upon birth to provide sufficient protection to the brain. The position of the fetus may promote this exceptionally rapid development.
The fetus' is only positioned with the head downward in animals in a standing position, such as humans. In quadripeds, it is positioned to the rear. It is possible that, in this way, the standing position of humans contributed to the evolution of human intelligence. When man started to walk upright, this caused the fetus to lie with the head downwards, so that the brain became more developed. Only when the fetus leaves the womb, the rest of the body starts to overtake the head in growth, and eventually, most of the body's weight is in the lower half. Another similar hypothesis posits that, as the human adopted a standing position, the brain needed to increase its formation of blood vessels, which would be correlated to increased intelligence.
Another animal which spends much of its time in a standing position is the meerkat, which is known for its intelligence and even possesses a primitive language.
Once the embryo knows which side is up and which is down, it can soon tell which way is inside and which is outside: the inside is the the side which receives the embryo's own signaling molecules. The outside is the side which receives the mother's signaling molecules. As the embryo forms a gastrula, the extremities of the embryo nearly touch. Where they touch, there is a high level of interaction which tells the embryo exactly where to place what organs.
At the innermost side of the extremities, the arms and legs will form. At the outermost side of the lower extremity, the head will form, and at the outermost side of the lower extremity, the genitals will form. It might seem paradoxical that the genitals form on the outermost extremity, and not on the innermost side, but keep in mind that at this stage, the embryo will grow in fetus position. Later, as the baby stands, the genitals will appear in front. Even in a fetal photograph this is hard to tell, however, because of the glutes, the muscles of the buttocks, which make legs appear more posterior than they really are: the leg really begins at the acetabulum. It might be more intuitive if one considers that the embryo starts out as female, and that, in addition, it starts out as being similar to other animals.
Yet, the question remains how so many different body parts can form from the same genome. However, our body parts might not actually all be as different from one another as they seem.
We can observe symmetry throughout our bodies, but it could be that there is far more symmetry in our bodies than there seems. Sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle.

Most body parts have a symmetrical twin, that is, there is either an identical or very similar organ on the other half of the body. Symmetrical twins include the arms and legs, the lungs, the brains, the muscles, the kidneys, the ovaries/testicles, the eyes, and so forth. The body partly uses the same DNA for these organs, even if there are differences: for instance, the right and left brain halves have different cytoarchitectures, and the left lung is different than the right lung.
There is no reason for the genome to use two times nearly the same DNA for each of these lungs, and neither would this be possible, for in this case the lungs would have to evolve separately, which would dramatically reduce the change that it would happen at all: it is unlikely enough for a positive mutation to happen. For the same positive mutation to happen two times in the same generation is practically impossible. The same counts for the brain halves, no matter how differently they might work. It is obvious that the genome uses the same DNA for the base of these organs and then uses separate DNA for their differences.
I theorize, however, that symmetrical twins are not the only form of symmetry to be found in the body. We have already seen relatively great differences between obviously symmetrical organs, such as those between the brain halves. Perhaps there are symmetrical organs with even greater differences, differences that are so dramatic that the symmetry between them can no longer be discerned — that is, unless one is looking for them.
For instance, such symmetries can be observed in the digestive tract. This is most apparent in the intestines, especially in the colon, which lies around the small intestine in a symmetrical "M" form. It seems that the colon was originally connected to the rectum at the site of the appendix, as it is at the side of the sigmoid, but, as this made the colon useless, the ascending colon became detached from the rectum.
It is generally believed that only positive mutations are passed on to next generations, while negative mutations are soon eliminated from the species. However, if a mutation is only mildly negative, it may still have a chance of being passed on for long enough for the mutation to come to its use through another mutation, in combination with which it becomes positive. It appears that the colon arose in this way.
The small intestine is basically a more or less symmetrical mass. The stomach seems to be a larger version of the duodenum, and the combination of the two forms a symmetrical S. In fact, the digestive system was originally nothing more than a single (symmetrical!) tube, which in lower organisms such as earthworms, is still the case.
Because higher organisms require so much more energy and therefore nutrients, however, this no longer sufficed, and so the intestine had to curve so as to become long enough to filter enough nutrients. Apparently, the intestines curve in a series of S's. The first S is that of the esophagus from the mouth into the stomach, which is more obvious in fetus position. The second S is that of the stomach and duodenum, and after this, the S's succeed one another rapidly up till the cecum. The acceleration of this succession of S's suggests that, like many systems in our body, it uses the Fibonacci series: in this case, the ratio of the length of each S seems to approximate the ratio of the numbers from the Fibonacci series.
The spleen appears to be the symmetrical analogy of the liver: both filter the blood, both degrade red blood cells, and, in the fetus, both produce red blood cells for some time. Both are contiguous to the digestive system. The liver is larger than the spleen, and the duodenum is proportionally smaller than the stomach.
The galbladder seems to be the symmetrical analogy of the fundus, the uppermost part of the stomach, which has apparently split up from the duodenum.
The pancreas appears to be a symmetrical analogy of the thymus, both of which are endocrine glands. The pancreas is roughly at the same distance from the diaphragm as the thymus. The pancreas lies above the aorta while the thymus lies above the heart, which is basically a mutated section of the aorta. The esophagus lies behind the heart whereas the duodenum lies above both the aorta and the pancreas, but because of how it curves, it was possible that it has twisted its way from behind the aorta to its position before the pancreas. In this way, the pancreas was able to connect with the digestive tract, so that, in addition to being an endocrine gland, it could also become an exocrine gland.
Originally, this connection was an abnormal, congenital fistula, although the fistula did not fully penetrate into the medulla of the pancreas and so the pancreas remained functional. Later, the Brunner's glands in the duodenum at the locus of this fistula mutated and became overgrown, a mutation favored by the fusion of blood vessels with those of the pancreas.
The most obvious symmetry in our body is between the left and right halves of our body, but to a lesser extent, there is also symmetry between the upper and lower halves of our body. For instance, our legs are analogous to our arms. In octopuses, which are some of the most ancient marine animals, this symmetry is particularly striking. Perhaps our entire body is symmetrical not only between the left and right halves, but also between the upper and lower halves.
We have already discussed this symmetry in the intestines, as well as in the pancreas and thymus. Another possible analogous symmetry may be that between the kidneys and lungs. It may seem far-fetched, but if one looks closely, significant similarities can be found between the two, both in structure and function.
As regards function, the lungs collect oxygen-poor blood rich in carbon dioxide and take the carbon from the blood while filling it with oxygen, while the kidneys collect oxygen-rich blood rich in waste compounds and take the waste compounds from the blood while filling it with carbon dioxide.
As regards structure, the pelvis of the kidneys are similar to the bronchia of the lungs, and both are connected to the outside of the body. Even the microscopic structure of the organs are similar: the Bowman's capsules are similar to the alveoli, the main difference being that the glomerulus is inside the glomerular capsule, whereas the alveolar arterioles are outside the alveoli. The collecting tubes are similar to the bronchioli. Furthermore, the lungs and kidneys are the only organs in the abdomen that occur in pairs.
The adrenal glands are likely to have split up from the pancreas as the kidneys shrank in relative size. The ureters are analogous to the bronchia, the bladder analogous to the pharynx.
The face and genitals are the most innervated places on the body, in particular the lips and glandes, but that is apparently as far as any obvious analogies go between the head and hips. This does not mean that there are no other analogies at all, but that they are very ancient. The more subtle the symmetrical analogy, the more ancient it is.
However, the pelvis is possibly analogous to the scapulae and cranium. In early embryonic stages, the cranium is fused to the scapulae, and the scapulae are similar to the ilia of the hips. The ischium, meanwhile, shows similarities to some of the facial bones. The sacrum, which consists of fused vertebrae, may be analogous to the neck, and the coccyx may be analogous to some of the cranial bones. In that case, the ischium would originally be connected to the coccyx in the embryo, and the bones in the hip would form a bowl, as would the bones of the skull and shoulder blades.
Proof of these symmetrical analogies could be found in developing embryos based on Haeckel's principle: the embryo goes through the same development as the species has in the past. If the body really uses these symmetrical analogies in differentiation, it should be observable during differentiation itself.

The killing of a human, even humans of exceptionally low intelligence and therefore of proportionally low sentience, is considered the worst possible crime, yet the killing of other animals which scientists have confirmed to be highly intelligent, and certainly appear to be more sentient than many humans (such as those that are mentally retarded), deserve no trial. Mental retardation can sometimes reduce IQ to below 20. If people who are profoundly mentally retarded are protected by law, it only seems reasonable that dolphins, as well as elephants and some primates, should also be protected by law, yet there is no international law that protects them.

This has nothing to do with ethics. This distinction is made purely out of our instinctive urges to preserve the human race. Animals of near-human sentience should have the same rights as humans, all the more as there are many people whose intelligence is barely above that of some animals. Our need to preserve our own race is so strong that we will keep even people in permanent vegetative state alive, yet most people see the killing of sentient animals as being as innocent as a sport.

We have invented law at least partly to protect ourselves, and not just out of respect for others. Someone who kills humans is a threat to humans and may therefore also be a threat to ourselves, but if someone kills animals, even highly sentient animals, this does not pose a threat to us.

We have no instinct for the preservation of nature as we have an instinct to preserve our own species, and any respect we do show for nature comes forth from our own sentience. A respect, as has been shown, that dolphins, one of the most sentient species in the world, actually share, as evinced in the risk they are willing to take to save humans. The only other species that is known to possess such levels of empathy, high enough to spontaneously save a being of another species, are humans.

We are inclined to underestimate other sentients because, unlike ourselves, they have no civilization. This is not because of their lack of intelligence, however, but rather because of their lack of efficient manipulatory appendages — that is, hands. Aside from our intelligence, our hands are the most important thing that set us apart from other animals, and while they may seem to be less significant than our intelligence, this is actually quite misleading.

One is inclined to assume that our civilization proves our intelligence, but it is important to remember that our neocortex has no longer changed in morphology in the past hundred thousand years, as our civilization, rather than furthering its evolution, made it unnecessary to our survival.

It would not be fair to compare the complexity of dolphins' lives to that of our own, as dolphins have never had the chance of achieving the complexity of environment as that in our civilization. Rather, because our brain as it is now isn't very different from what it was before civilization was formed, we should compare it to how complex our lives were before we formed civilizations. Comparing our own way of hunting with theirs, it would seem that theirs is more complex. It is our ability to use tools that at this point really distinguishes us from dolphins.

Consider how dolphins organize their hunting, surrounding gigantic shoals, dispersing them and driving them to the surface. This isn't as simple as doing the same with a herd of terrestrial animals, a feat that any pack of wolves can manage. The fish in shoals are enormous in number, and in shoals of Atlantic herrons can number up to 3 billion. As a result, shoals act as very complex systems, and it isn't possible to pick fish out of the shoals until they have been dispersed numerous times, neither is a single fish enough. The shoal has to be of just the right size so that it is enough for the entire group, but not so large that it becomes impossible to catch any. If a smaller group escapes, it is lost.

To disperse a shoal as a singleton predator is one thing, but to surround a large shoal in a group is another entirely. Hunting in this way is comparable in complexity (though not in danger) to a high-profile military operation, the significant difference between the two being that this particular operation is in 3D.

This seems like a minor detail, but it multiplies the level of complexity involved. For a pack of hunting wolves, the only directions from which to choose are left and right. To a group of dolphins, it is far more complicated. Every move has to be carefully coordinated, and this requires a high degree of cooperative and language abilities.

Because of the disparity in brain morphology, it is hard to compare dolphin to human intelligence, but the most relevant finding is probably the number of synapses in dolphin cortices: dolphins have 0,87 · 10¹⁴ cortical synapses, compared to 1,3 · 10¹⁴ in the human cortices (Encyclopedia of Marine Animals, page 147). The estimates of the latter cipher vary, however, and the estimates of the cortical synapses in dolphins would likely also vary if more research went into it. However, based on these ciphers, dolphins would have 67% the number of synapses humans have. This does not mean that they would have 67% of our intelligence, but rudimentary as it is, this would probably be the best approximation we have so far.

We seem to be biassed against animal intelligence because out of instinct we want to be special, despite ever more research pointing to the contrary. If our image of the intelligence of animals changes, however, so should our ethics about deciding about their lives. Ethically, the killing of animals of near-human sentience is tantamount to homicide.

There have been thousands of researches into global warming, and for some reason, they all contradict one another. This may mean three things about part of these researchers: either they're careless, they're biased, they're frauds. According to recent research 2% of scientists admit having falsified data, while as much as 34% of scientists admitted having omitted data contrary to their assumptions. Since we cannot know which of the three it is, and we can hardly do our own research all by ourselves, the best thing we can do is to combine the results from all these researches and take the average from their results. It's surreal that we can trust scientists so little that we have to resort to such primitive methods, but it's the best we can do. If the disparity in these results shows us anything, then it is that we should not be too quick to trust researchers. Either how, we can best trust the results that have been replicated the most.

Look up graphs of global temperature, gather a large number of them together, study them carefully and compare them. You will find some sources that claim the last ten thousand years have been exceptionally warm, others that say the last ten thousand years have been exceptionally cool. You will find some sources claiming that the Middle Ages have been warmer than now, others that claim that it is warmer now than in the Middle Ages.

Furthermore, you will find sources that place today's temperature on graphs of the past millions of years, and you will find graphs that show only the past hundred-and-fifty years, so that in either case you cannot tell if man was the cause.

You will also find sources that compare solar activity with temperature claiming it to prove that the increase in solar activity causes the increase of temperature, but either minimize or ignore the deviations in temperature, while you will also find sources that show only temperature, while ignoring solar activity.

And finally, you will find sources comparing temperature with carbon dioxide concentrations. Some will selectively choose periods in which the increase of temperature follows the increase of carbon dioxide as a proof that carbon dioxide is the main cause of temperature increase, while other sources will selectively show periods in which the increase of carbon dioxide increases temperature, claiming this to be proof that carbon dioxide does not increase temperature at all.

If, like these scientists, you are biased, then you will choose whichever source you want to believe and ignore all others. If you are a seeker of truth, then you will search a compromise between these sources. The truth is most likely to lie somewhere in between, as it usually does.  The world is not doomed to turn into inferno, nor is everything perfectly fine.

The average, most replicated results are most likely to be correct, while the extremer, rarer results are the most likely to have been influenced by bias. This is a direct accusation of the scientists that brought these results, and I believe that they should be given any credence (or, for that matter, a license). I write this to warn anyone who does research on any field whatsoever to consult different sources, and conclude that their evidence is correct only if there are no other sources presenting evidence to the contrary. Meta-analysis is highly useful. Some meta-analyses calculate averages between the data of different studies, which likely provide the most accurate and reliable results.

Studies that combine data from different studies indicate a relatively mild increase of temperature — not high enough to portend doomsday, but high enough to be a reason for concern, in that it will have a major impact on the diversity, richness and beauty of the biosphere, and therefore as well as on the quality of our own lives.

Either how, all studies thus far have reveal that anthropogenic greenhouse gases (AGGs) are responsible for the increase of temperature, even the studies that claim the opposite. Some studies have been able to minimize the increase of temperature due to AGGs with the popular "3 watts per square meter" number, but none have come to an actually low number — 3 watts per square meter is actually quite a lot if one does the math, enough to cause an increase in global temperature of 0,9 kelvin (see article below).

That they arrived at this number, without realizing its significance, shows that it is likely to be correct, as these results are not distorted by bias towards the idea of global warming.

See also:

Holocene Extinction Event

Some futurists predict that, just as evolution was able to create conscious brains, we might, by emulating evolution, be able to create conscious computers. Since evolution has already done this, there seems no reason to assume that we can't. Evolution has no intelligence. We do, and because of this, we are able to evolve billions of times faster than anything else in nature. Moreover, since there are already conscious computers, all we need to do is to reverse-engineer it.

It may seem far too much work for us to decode every signal in our brain, but we must remember that our computers can already do a lot of work for us. The USNO-B1.0 catalog, for instance, cataloged a billion stars in 3 billion observations — far too much for a human, but not for a computer. Likewise, we might one day be able to program a computer that will decode the signals of the brain for us.

Some futurists go so far as to say that we will be able to build computers that  will be similar enough to our brain that we might be able to transfer our consciousness into it, a process called "uploading" or "mind transfer." The most important issues with this today, however, are philosophical: what causes consciousness, and therefore, how can we know how to transfer it?

It seems, somehow, that our consciousness is spread across all our neurons, and the continuity of that consciousness seems to be formed through the connections between them. Somehow, it therefore has to be possible through some technology to channel consciousness from one conscious computer (such as the brain) into another, since our own brain possesses this very technology. Somehow, our brain can channel our consciousness through a great number of neurons at the same time, even though those neurons are wide apart, so that our consciousness can be present in a great number of neurons at the same time.

Yet, if we connected a computer to our brain, like one neuron is connected to another, our consciousness would apparently be left behind in our own brain: while we could be conscious of information the computer would interchange with our brain, we could not be conscious of any information in the computer itself. Thus, if we would connect a billion computers with our brain, it would apparently not be possible to be conscious of all information being processed in all these computers, since not all this information could be contained in our brain. Or would it?

We are ourselves little more than this, billions of computers which are our neurons, connected to form our brain. How can we be conscious of the information processed in all those computers at once? How can we be conscious of our entire brain? If our brain could not be conscious of a billion computers connected to it, how does our brain manage to be conscious of the billions of computers within itself? How is one neuron conscious of the information being processed in other neurons? Most of these neurons aren't even directly connected. It appears that an indirect connection is enough.

If an indirect connection is enough, then if our brain would be connected to a network of billions of computers, like one neuron is connected to a network of billions of other neurons, would that also be enough to become aware of those billions of computers and every bit of information being processed in them, even though our own brain would have no direct connection with them, nor contain that information?

When two conscious computers (such as brains) are connected and then disconnected, what determines which way the consciousness of the two computers goes anyway? Or does it remain in both? If consciousness is determined by connections, then what determines when there is a connection anyway? As said, most neurons are not directly connected. Why is an indirect connection enough? Does consciousness permanently spread to another computer as soon as it connects with it, even if the connection is itself not permanent, and will the consciousness remain in both computers even when the two are disconnected (though neither of both can still be self-conscious of the part of their consciousness ? And if not, then in which of the computers will it end up, and why?

Either how, if our brain were connected to a computer which imitates our brain, then whatever is connecting the consciousness between our neurons will also connect the consciousness between the brain and computer, even though we don't understand how it works.

The only thing we therefore need to do to is to make a computer similar enough to our own brain; how similar it needs to be is hard to say, but suppose that we made a computer more and more similar to the brain step by step, and tried to connect it to our consciousness all the while, we might eventually make the right step.

The irony is, however, that even if our consciousness would flow into the network of computers, our brain would itself still believe that this would not be the case, and because of this, there could be no objective way of knowing whether it would work; the only way you could find out would be to try it for yourself.

Once connected to the network, it is unlikely that the brain would still have a consciousness of itself, because that would mean that, by analogy, our neurons would also have a consciousness of their own, and, what is more, so would any combination of neurons. Yet, of the infinitely many possible combinations of neurons I could be, I happen to be conscious of the entire brain, or, more accurately, I am the entire consciousness of the brain. This apparently proves that consciousness automatically spreads across the entire computer it is in, like gas spreads over the entire space it is in.

Also, as soon as the brain would connect to a network, any information it would process would be part of a greater processing of information, so that it would have little or no meaning of itself. Because of this, the brain would cease to be an individual, as it would be part of something greater.

Again, note that by the word "computer," I may also refer to the brain, and the network of computers with which the brain would connect could include other brains plugged in to the network. In fact, through this network, all brains in the world could be connected.

If a brain were then disconnected from the network, the same thing would happen as there would happen if a neuron was disconnected from the rest of the brain: a separate consciousness would form in the brain, but the original consciousness, which had once been in the brain, would now remain in the network, as the network is far greater. After all, we do lose neurons from time to time, yet our consciousness remains in our brain, rather than being lost with the neuron. The question remains what happens to the consciousness of people with split brain, in whom the corpus callosum has been severed. Probably, the consciousness of these people ends up in the dominant brain half, and a separate consciousness is formed in the other. It can be seen as an extreme case of dissociation.

Once connected to the network, the body would still be valuable and should not be disposed of, so that issues such as those met in "uploading" are avoided: if the brain's consciousness were simply duplicated into another computer, then the consciousness would not be transferred into the computer because the two are not connected.

The idea of uploading goes from the principle that consciousness is caused by patterns, but this principle (by some called "patternism") causes problems. For instance, suppose that rather than one, two duplicates of the pattern are made, upon which the original is destroyed. According to patternism, the consciousness should now transfer into the duplicate — but which of the two? The consciousness cannot be transferred into both duplicates, since the two cannot interact, much as the consciousnesses in people with split brain cannot interact, thus the consciousness should be transferred into one of the two. But if consciousness is determined by patterns, then the transfer cannot be random, as this would mean that it would be determined by randomness and not patterns, and in that case, the consciousness might as well be transferred to an entirely different brain. There must be something which determines to which of the two duplicates the consciousness is transferred, as the determination of consciousness would otherwise be acausal. If it would have no cause, it would have no reason to be what it is, rather than something else, which is unscientific.

Consciousness is caused by patterns, but location is one aspect of those patterns. Producing a copy of one's brain elsewhere does not produce a complete copy of its patterns.

Another problem would be that this would mean that consciousness is not bound to anything physical, as it would automatically be transferred across the distance between the the original and duplicate, which once more poses the problem of acausality. Also, being non-physical, the consciousness could then also instantaneously travel an infinite distance. However, if the universe is infinite, there should already be an infinite number of duplicates in the universe because of ergodicity, meaning that we should already be transferred from one duplicate to another at random. Since there are an infinite number of duplicates, probabilities would break down (every probability would be infinity by infinity, therefore, undefined), and since everything still happens according to well-defined probabilities, this cannot be the case, unless the universe is finite.

Whatever causes consciousness, it cannot be patterns. However, it does seem that consciousness, although not caused by it, is determined by connections. But why can only the connection between one neuron and another make use conscious, and not the connection between one atom and another? In other words, why can only the patterns of our neurons produce consciousness, and not the patterns of random atoms? Why does consciousness attribute a specific meaning to those patterns, rather than one entirely different?

Perhaps consciousness could be compared to the interpretation of a book, the book we are reading being our brain. Though it is possible to write a book out of random strings of letters, such books could not have any meaning, even if a meaning were attributed to every string of letters. In order for it to be possible for a meaning to be attributed to it, there has to be a pattern in it.

If, in trying to decipher a book written in an unknown language, we would attribute a meaning to every string of letters, there would only be one, or at most a few, possibilities for most words, since most words will be repeated throughout the book in different contexts, each of which eliminates certain meanings. The longer the book is, the more words and phrases will be repeated, and so the fewer possible interpretations there are. If the book is of virtually infinite length, then only one interpretation makes sense.

Perhaps consciousness is an interpretation of patterns, and not so much the patterns themselves; ie, consciousness is the translator, the pattern is the language. If consciousness were patterns, after all, there would have to be a universal language for consciousness, as there would otherwise still be infinitely many ways in which the same patterns could cause different consciousnesses.

But if consciousness is the interpretation, then this should actually be the case: every pattern would be interpreted by consciousness in infinitely many ways, and therefore there should be infinitely many consciousnesses beside those of living beings, as there are, after all, infinitely many patterns in nature. Most of these consciousnesses, however, would be simple, random, meaningless, and irrelevant. Many of these patterns could also overlap, and almost all of these patterns could have multiple meanings.

Either how, these consciousnesses would be irrelevant to us, as we could never observe them. Moreover, they would have no connection to reality, nor a will of their own. They would be just like the dead matter that causes their consciousness.

Most patterns would produce a very chaotic kind of consciousnesses, and any pattern that would produce consciousness that has any order would have been organized for this purpose (through evolution), possibly with the exception of very rare coincidences. Therefore, the only consciousnesses with a will of their own would be consciousnesses that would have been organized with a goal (such as keeping the organism alive). All the rest would be little more than a whirling soup of random qualia.

I wrote my hypothesis of a brain connecting to a network as though I expect that people will do this overnight, but I actually think this will be a gradual process, in which people will gradually expand their consciousness both through informatics and neurology. As this happens, both elements will continue to grow, and we will keep having use of both.

I do not expect there will be a world in which we all be computers, as some say, but I do expect that computers will be part of us — as will our organisms — and that, through computers, we may all become part of one another, united into one superorganism. This does not, however, mean that we should lose our individuality to do so, as the fact that we could connect with one another fully does not mean that we would have to do so.

There has long been controversy about whether or not marihuana causes psychosis. The correlation that has been found between marihuana and psychosis is indisputable, but it is unclear whether marihuana causes psychosis or vice versa.

It is probably a bit of both: marihuana use can be out of a need to flee from reality, meaning that beside marihuana, the person will also seek other ways of fleeing from reality, which is basically synonymous to psychotic diathesis. It can also be because of isolation, or to find distraction from stress. Stress, isolation and a tendency to flee from reality happen to be the three most important factors of psychosis. At the same time, however, marihuana may also cause a person to flee even further from reality, become even more isolated, and because of this, eventually go through even more stress.

As a result of this, the increased risk of psychosis caused by heavy marihuana use is probably not as high as anti-drug activists are inclined to believe, but also not as low as marihuana users are inclined to believe. Studies indicate that the risk of psychosis in marihuana users is 2 to 8%, compared to 1% in the general population — an increase of 100 to 800 percent. If the correlation is bidirectional, the risk of psychosis would increase with heavy marihuana use, but not by 800 percent.

It may seem hard to find out by how much the risk of psychosis is really increased by marihuana, since there is no way one can subject a random sample of the population to heavy marihuana use and see what happens, but there can be another way:

The researchers should ask not for subjects who are already using marihuana, but for subjects who claim to be interested in using marihuana but have never used it. The subjects would then be split in two groups, both of which would be subject to regular drug tests. In one group, the control group, subjects that are found to have used marihuana are eliminated from the study. In the other group, subjects that have found not to have used marihuana will be eliminated from the study, though not before the end of the follow-up. To prevent the study from manipulating the subjects' behavior, all subjects would be paid the same amount of money at the end of the study, even if they were eliminated at an early stage. At the study's conclusion, it is important that the user group (that is, the group where all non-users have been eliminated) is subdivided into separate groups according to how heavily they used marihuana, and the percentage of psychosis be mentioned for each subdivision. This study would last for at least years and at most decades.

As machines become more advanced, more and more humans lose their jobs as machines replace them, until only creative jobs will be left, but there will likely also be a time when machines may also become creative. However, as and when our computers become creative, they will become part of ourselves and so of our own species, for either we will already have found a way of uniting them with our own brain, or we would set these computers to the one task of finding a way to do so until they would, since this would be the most important thing we would need at this point.
There might be a chance that by this time, many people who remained unemployed would have become so decadent that they would no longer care to set these computers to any other task than to find better ways of stimulating the pleasure centers of their brain, but, fortunately, they would be in the hands of the scientists that invented them, and they would certainly choose otherwise.
Thus, even if humans and computers will not yet have united by the time that computers become creative, humans will still be needed for creativity until then, and, because creativity gives meaning to life and our need for meaning is so great, then as soon as they are more creative than we are ourselves, they would be fully focussed on the task of enabling us to have their creativity by unifying them with our brain.
As long as computers are not conscious, our own lives as humans could still have meaning, and as soon as they would become conscious, we would become one with them. In a time when the only work that is left is creative, everyone could likely achieve an equal level of creativity through cognotechnology, as the creativity of someone altered through that time's cognotechnology would be vastly greater than that of anyone who has ever lived anyway. This does not mean that everyone would become identical, however, as there are infinitely many ways of being creative; these need not be scientific or artistic, as they can also be social.
By the time when man and machine will become one, both will be quite different from what they are now. Machines will no longer be the contraptions we see today, as their machinery, just as our own, will entirely have advanced to molecular levels, whereas men will no longer be the animals that we are now, as our abilities will have advanced to cosmic levels. Machines will become more like organisms in structure as they achieve nanotechnological levels, as they will then make more use of analogous media like chemistry, rather than relying only on black-and-white digital media as they do now. Meanwhile, men will also become more like machines in power, as they, as well, integrate aspects of their mechanical counterparts into their bodies. Our computers will become subtler and more complex, whereas we will become stronger and more skillful.
It would seem that a unification of man and machine would make society shift further towards the material and away from the spiritual, but the opposite is true. Our spiritual as well as our material world will grow, but they will also grow toward one another. It's just that spiritual evolution comes more subtle than material evolution.
Moreover, when man and machine will become one, we will still have use for our biological aspects as well as of our electronic aspects, as both have their own unique qualities. Both man and machine will keep evolving, and either evolution will help the other, but both evolutions will themselves unify.
The unification of man and machine is only one aspect of a greater unification, that of mind and matter. Our power to change reality becomes so great that reality becomes like a dream, while virtual reality become so immersive as to become like reality.

When communism rose in the previous century, as is now clear, it was much too early for the world to be ready for it, and thus it remains to this day. The failure of communism has shown that people are too self-centered for it to work, and unless people change, it can never work. People work out of necessity or out of greed, but not out of love, at least for now.

Communism is bound either to fall or turn into despotism as long as it is not the choice of the people themselves, and because of this, the communism we have seen so far has little to do with its actual ideals. Nonetheless, it is probable that communism will be the next step in the evolution of society, though in another form than is seen today. However, today, it is still too soon for us to take that step.

Every kind of government has its place in the evolution of society, and when it is time for one to succeed the other, this happens almost spontaneously, not through revolution. There was a time that democracy could not have succeeded, or even republicanism. When a nation tries to get ahead of itself in this evolution, it is bound to turn either into despotism or into anarchy, and so evolution is usually the best way of change.

In the beginning of this evolution, despotism is the only viable government: at this time, republicanism cannot or barely succeed, as there is too little cooperation between people for it to work. At this point, cooperation must be imposed by a despot. It is crude, but the only thing that works at this point. Without a single ruling power, everyone would become a despot. There is, fortunately, the mercy that the worst despots are often the quickest to be overthrown by the people.

Every society begins in anarchy, and, if it lives long enough, it eventually ends in anarchy, in much the same form, but on a larger scale. Anarchy is viable in the beginning of the formation of a society, when people still live in small clans, which are much alike to a large family. Sometimes, these clans are communistic. Superficially, it seems that these clans are more cooperative than most societies, but this is only so because they are so small; so small, in fact, that every or almost every member of the clan usually knows every other. As these groups grow, this level of cooperation is no longer possible, because although they may be cooperative towards people they know, they are quite uncooperative towards strangers. The people of a clan are so little used to strangers that they will often kill them on sight. Wars between neighboring clans are frequent. If the people of ten clans were put into one tribe overnight, most would be dead before long.

There is a lot of cooperation in early societies, but little cooperativeness. The cooperativeness in societies grows as they evolve, until they eventually achieve the level of democracy and eventually (though this has never happened so far) anarcho-communism. So far, however, anarcho-communism is not feasible, as people have yet to achieve the level of unity for it to work.

However, we live in a world were everything is being automatized through robotics and informatics. This is already posing problems in many developed capitalistic countries as more and more people become (or remain) unemployed as they are being replaced by computers. Because of this, many countries already find themselves to be forced into a compromise between capitalism and communism, in which unemployed people receive benefits during the time they are unemployed.

As work in the primary and secondary sector continues to be automatized, and not everyone can or wants to work in the tertiary sector, more and more people will become unemployed. Eventually, the rate of unemployment will become so high that it can no longer be resolved in any sensible way, forcing the government into offering people benefits in order to help them survive.

With the trend of robotization, it is only a matter of time before we achieve a state where our necessities are provided for automatically or largely so, and so become almost free. Eventually, it will be possible to produce anything through software, and since software can be duplicated freely, this will mean that all necessities will be available in sufficient amounts without any work being done. In such a society, it would be nonsensical to still pay for software, as everyone could as well have all software there is if no one asked money for it. In a society where everyone has enough to survive and where software offers so many possibilities, many people will see software (which by then would encompass all art, science, and culture of civilization) as being more important than money. It only takes a certain percentage of the population to believe this before the system collapses, all the more because many of these people would themselves be artists and programmers. The more people would believe spiritual values to be more important than material ones, the more the capitalistic system would be subverted, and software would be hacked and shared illegally. Moreover, artists and programmers who would be of this view would release their works for for free, so that, eventually, those who would still charge for their works would be likely to be ignored, all the more because their work would be motivated purely out of greed, rather than out of love, and therefore be seen as being of lower quality. It is therefore inevitable that, at this stage, software would become free or practically free.

The need for socialism will increase with unemployment, and eventually, artists, scientists and social workers will be the only people left to be employed. Most scientists, many social workers and some artists (in some countries) are already being paid by the state, but in future, all will depend on the state for payment. For now, scientists, artists and social workers are still required to work in order to be paid, but this is only because much of their work is not fully creative and involves routine. However, as the routine component of their work will eventually be done by computers (robot scientists already exist for genetic research, for instance, as do computer programs for educations), only the creative and social components will be left, and neither can be done on demand. Ideas come best when they are not forced, which is the only thing scientists (and, of course, artists) will still be needed for, and the same counts for compassion, which is what social workers will still be needed for. When I say creativity, I'm not talking about the ability to remember the right idea at the right time, but the ability to think of new, unique ideas that have never been used before, as anything less can be done by computers. With compassion, I'm not talking about commitment, patience or politesse, but genuine and heartfelt sympathy, as, again, anything less can be done by computers. Attempting to enforce creativity will lead to loss of inspiration. Attempting to enforce compassion will lead to detachment (as is seen in many psychologists and psychiatrists today). Either how, the best ideas will come from people who seek them because of their passion for the idea, not from people who seek them because they must. The same counts for compassion. The true scientists, social workers and artists of the future will not need money as an incentive to work. Those that would, would be incompetent anyway.

Obviously, the unemployment would also put many people before the problem of finding meaning in their lives, or rather, it would confront them with that problem which was already there, now they could no longer seek distraction in vacuous mind-numbing routine. By and by, people would learn to find meaning either in love or some form of creativity.

Uncreative people who would want to become more creative could be made more creative through cognotechnology (technology applied on cognition). Because of the significance cognotechnology will have on humanity, it is extremely important that everyone be given equal chances, and here, we are once more faced with a need for socialism: the means of cognotechnology should be equally allocated among those who desire it, for if this does not happen, a disastrous technological divide will result which is so great that, over time, humanity itself would actually split up into two separate groups, one being vastly more intelligent than the other. The intelligent group would become more successful, so acquire increased access to cognotechnology, and so forth. Of course, the more intelligent group would eventually realize the necessity to give the other group equal chances.

In the past, communism has failed because the interests of the individual are capitalistic. In future, capitalism will fail because the interests of the individual will be communistic.

It might be that many psychoactive plants, such as Saint John's wort, a herbal antidepressant, did not evolve their psychoactive substances through mere coincidence. If it was coincidental, it might have occurred in a few plant specimens, but it wouldn't have come to be present in every single specimen of the species. Evolution does not happen without reason. If a mutation occurs and it is useful, then there's a chance that it is passed on onto next generations, but if it has no use at all for the species, then it will disappear.

Obviously, it must have been some use for these substances. Thus, either the psychoactive effect of these substances on animals was useful for the plant, or the psychoactive effect of these substances is a side effect of the substance's real use to the plant. However, as no other use of these substances has been observed, and the plant only wastes energy on producing them, it is obvious that we should assume otherwise.

Moreover, most plants containing psychoactives contain several psychoactives with a similar effect, even though these psychoactives are very different in structure and composition, so that they are unlikely to have been produced in the same chemical pathways. For instance, compare the substances hyperforin and hypericin found in Saint John's wort: hyperforin is aliphatic, whereas hypericin is cyclic. Hyperforin is derived from phloroglucinol, while hypericin is derived from anthraquinone. Either psychopharmaceutical cannot be produced through the combination of the other with other molecules present in the plant, contrary, for instance, to the substances found in Rhodiola rosea, an antidepressant and alleged adaptogen.

Why would a plant produce two different psychoactives with similar effects in entirely different ways? It might therefore be that for some reason, their psychoactive effect increased their odds of survival.

Perhaps these plants, much like the silk worm do today, have always depended upon human cultivation, and developed their psychoactive effect from the artificial selection of humans, much like livestock developed their increased body mass from human selective breeding, or like dogs developed their obedience. As selective breeding shows, human influence can cause evolution to accelerate dramatically, so that it is very well possible for thousands of medical and psychoactive plants to evolve in only tens of thousands of years. What is clear is that herbalism has existed for at least 5.300 years, based on a body found in the Swiss Alps with medicinal herbs among his personal effects.

When some plants of a species developed a mutation causing them to produce psychoactives, someone would have discovered it eventually, especially if their effects were short-term. If the effect was pleasant or interesting, the discoverer might have decided to find more of the plant, and grow some for later. As the plants which were grown were selected according to their potency, they became more and more distinct from their original species generation after generation, so that they eventually formed an altogether separate species.

It is also likely that many medicinal plants evolved in this way. However, it might also be that certain plants containing medicinal substances might themselves have had uses for it, for although plants have no nervous system which might react to psychoactives, they do have a biochemistry, which, though it differs immensely from that of animals, nonetheless also has many things in common with it.

Plants whose effects were long-term were probably only cultivated in later periods, in the Neolithic, since it was unlikely for anyone to discover the effects of long-term working psychoactive or medicinal plants unless they happened to grow amidst the crops. In this case, the plants were likely to be reaped along with the crops, and parts of the plant may have been eaten by accident, or their substances where inhaled during threshing.

While the first Agrarian Revolution happened only 10.000 years ago, a more primitive form of cultivation might have been possible much earlier, since it requires no actual agriculture to grow psychoactive plants for consumption. After all, psychoactive plants can be used at relatively low amounts to have their desired effect, whereas agricultural plants need to be grown in much higher quantities to provide for food. The Amazonians have almost no agriculture, yet they cultivate ayahuasca using cuttings. In fact, despite their lack of agriculture, they call the Amazon a "cultivated forest," that is, a forest that they helped shape. The existence of ayahuasca might be an indicator that to some extent, the Amazon might indeed be called a cultivated forest. It seems that, at the least, they did help one particular plant to come into being, though the liana, as one might expect, is rare.

Among the psychoactive plants, there are two types: some are symbiotic, and some are parasitic. Basically, a psychoactive plant is parasitic if it is addictive, because the cultivators then no longer use the plant out of their own volition, and therefore, it no longer matters whether the plant has any actual benefit to them; whether it benefits them or not, it is already ascertained that they will continue to cultivate it. The cultivators do not base their selection of addictive plants on whether or not it is healthy, but merely on how well it satisfies their addiction. It might therefore be said that, as a rule, addictive psychoactive plants are never healthy.

The symbiotic plants are the kind that are cultivated because they are of benefit to the users, and are invariably not (or barely) addictive. Most of these plants either act on long-term, such as herbal antidepressants. Among the short-term acting varieties, the overwhelming majority are entheogens.

For instance, the Amazonians use ayahuasca as a medicine for physical and mental illness, enabling the user to find the cause of the illness. Similar plants are found to be used by other Native American tribes for the same reason, such as the San Pedro cactus. Because of the medicinal use of these plants, it was, of course, important in their selection that they were healthy, and relatively safe to use. Those who cultivated these plants for medical use or as a means of self-improvement obviously choose those strains that proved to be the least harmful and most beneficial.

One could say that this could be vaguely compared to a clinical trial, except that the guinea pigs were actual humans, usually the shamans or the natives themselves, and without the procedures of scientific method, such as double-blindness or follow-ups. Moreover, the results were only passed on through folklore and were never written down, and because there was never a careful analysis of the users' health, only the significant findings were noticed: in people who lived in such primitive conditions, such petty symptoms as a skin rash were easily overlooked. Despite all these drawbacks, however, I believe that these trials were not without merit, for they were repeated countless times over thousands of years. Because any strain of the plants that proved to be less toxic than the rest, they evolved until they became of the very low toxicity of which they are today.

For instance, cannabis, unlike tobacco, causes no lung cancer, and there even appears to be a negative link between cannabis use and lung cancer, indicating a protective effect. It has been hypothesized that cannabis contains substances which protect the lungs, because any inhalation of smoke would normally cause an increased risk of lung cancer. It seems very unlikely that a plant which is smoked would spontaneously develop substances which negate the damage caused by smoking by pure chance.

Also, it has been found that marihuana contains substances, such as cannabidiol, which are antipsychotic. Heavy use of marihuana can increase the risk of developing psychosis, and the presence of cannabidiol in marihuana could counter this effect. Unfortunately, modern commercial cultivation of dealers, unlike the wiser cultivation of the shamans, has overlooked this danger. Instead of choosing the strains of cannabis based both on safety and potency, they based it solely on potency, ignoring safety altogether. Because of this, the ratio of cannabidiol to the other cannabinoids in marihuana has decreased, which might in part be responsible for the increase of psychosis among seen among heavier users of marihuana today. That this ratio has changed again so quickly because of human cultivation is an indication that the selective breeding of marihuana had once been based on the presence of the cannabidiol, for if it would always have been based solely on the concentration of THC in the thousands of years it had been cultivated, as it is now, the cannabidiol would by now have disappeared or nearly disappeared.

Ironically, another way in which some plants proved to be safer than others was through a bitter taste. Almost any psychedelic plant there is known tastes extremely bitter: kratom, san pedro, peyote, psilocybe, salvia divinorum and ayahuasca are all renowned to be thoroughly disgusting. Marihuana is very bitter when eaten, which might have been how the plant was originally used. Of all psychedelic plants, the most disgusting of all is ayahuasca, and it is accordingly also the most potent. In addition, the psychedelics can also cause vomiting if too much is used, and new users of ayahuasca almost invariably vomit, although more experienced users are able to keep from vomiting the brew. It appears that this bitterness is meant as a warning to those who use it. New users are more likely to be stop eating early, repelled by the taste, while experienced users, being more used to the taste, would be better able to conquer their disgust for it. Aside from this, the bitterness is also an indicator of the plant's potency and the dosage the user takes in. To unprepared users, it can be a foretaste of the suffering it might bring about if they are not ready for the experience.

A German and Dutch proverb actually says that what tastes bitter is healthy: "Was bitter dem Mund, ist dem Herzen gesund," which is also used in Dutch as "Bitter in de mond maakt het hart gezond." While it is true that many medicines taste bad, this is only an issue in herbal medicines, which need to be eaten or swallowed as a viscous brew. It is very likely that this bitterness is meant to ensure that the right dosage is used. It seems too coincidental that practically every psychedelic plant there is is bitter in proportion to their potency.

Everything should be in moderation, and anything that is in excess will be dangerous. The thing is that it is far easier to use drugs in excess than it is to do something else to excess. Usually, it is very hard to do something to an excess, as it will become harder the more we then do it. When we do something to excess, our body usually warns us of this, but this is not the case with drugs. For instance, if one trains too hard in the gym, one will eventually be stopped by fatigue and cramps, but there is only a very small step between swallowing a single pill and an entire bottle. The most important reason why drugs are so dangerous is that our body does not stop us from using too much. If our body did not stop us from feeding or drinking too much, it would be equally dangerous.

Ergo, for herbal psychedelics to be safer, they needed something to replace the body's own feedback mechanisms, such as a bitter taste. It is unlikely that the shamans consciously choose the psychedelics for their bitter taste in the knowledge that this would moderate usage. Instead, they probably merely observed that people who only used the bitter variety were healthier.

Most psychoactive plants which aren't addictive appear to be harmless or even beneficial to health. On the other hand, some plants might also use psychoactives as a poison like any other, either to warn animals not to eat them them or to kill those that did. Datura stramonium, for instance, is quite dangerous, and none that were so bold as to try to use it thought the experience so pleasant as to even consider cultivating the plant. Hallucinogens as a warning might be a pretty drastic warning compared to nettle sting, for instance, but may imprint a permanent traumatic memory even on an animal's inefficient memory. It is possible that the Amanite uses this same strategy, as an addition to its physical toxicity.

Aside from those meant either to keep animals from eating the plant or psychoactives meant to coerce the user into cultivating the plant through addiction, however, most psychoactives found in plants seem to be largely beneficial.

The notion that these plants live in symbiosis with humans is reminiscent of the Gaia hypothesis, which posits that all organisms in the biosphere are part of a greater superorganism; and although there is clearly not by far as much union between the organisms of the biosphere and the cells of a single organism, there do seem to many symbiotic relations between different species. In the end, any species depends on countlessly many others, and many depend even on us.

Envision microscopic permanent supermagnets dissolved in water, coated with a material which adheres to water and having a microarchitecture which furthers its absorption of water: perhaps it could then be possible to quickly repel the water itself with a larger magnet. This could be used to dry something or, perhaps, to remove the water from an area around the magnet so as to do something beneath where the water surface had been.