Ghetto Exercise Science and Hypertrophy Specific Training (for the lads)

So a lot of you guys have been asking recently about the new style of training myself and Matteo have taken up and swear by. I decided to write up a post going into fine detail about the training style, as well as some scientific background on the concepts and any other essential snips of information you need to know to train properly. There's a section at the end introducing the human nervous system in terms of overtraining that I think would be good to read. I feel overtraining is one thing not many people are educated on and don't have a clue about. Its a long read, so i've broken it up for you to skip any sections you don't care about.

HST (Hypertrophy Specific Training) and exercise philosophy

Introduction to a busy persons exercise mentality

These last two years I have spent a lot of time (combined effort with Matteo) learning and reading and improving our knowledge on exercise, nutrition and training. The main incentive was to try and maximise how efficient our training sessions were at the gym/park, and spend as minimal time there as possible, and reap the maximum reward from it. Once you get out of school, get a job, get some hobbies, the truth is were all too busy to devote a whole lot of time to exercise. That was our driving incentive- to be the most efficient guys in the gym. Get in, do everything perfectly, get out, and go on with other tasks. My goal with this post is to pass on all essential knowledge I have learnt, in the hope that it saves a bunch of you a few hours a week, as well as helping you achieve any fitness goals faster. Please note most of what I write will apply only to males, who are training for general size and strength. Girls bodies react very differently to exercise and nutrition. Also people training for a sport should get proper personal training as their needs are different. Think of the following information as a Ghetto Approach to packing on size and getting strong fast.

HST Philosophy

If I had to sum up everything I have learnt over the last two years in one sentence, it would be – You are what you know. Forget the old sayings of ‘you are what you eat’, or ‘Abs are made in the kitchen’, or ‘You are as big as you lift’. The truth is, you are as healthy or as big or as strong as your brain. People spend hours looking online for routines to use, and researching the ultimate number of sets or reps, and the best exercises to do. They try ten different routines and still don’t get very far. The truth is, there is no single routine out there for you. None of it will work extremely effectively for you. Every routine you read was made for somebody else, based on their initial fitness and strength, their goals, their timeframe, the amount of time they can spend in the gym, their lifestyle, how stressed they are, their vascular development, their levels of Hypertrophy and Hyperplacy, their energy levels, their diet, and more. If you try an exercise program that was developed for someone else, you will get some weird results. Often poor results resulting in less energy, or destroying one part of your body, or an injury making you stop training again. There is no single training program on the internet that is made for you. Can’t stress that enough. One person who lives a very stressful work life might train 3 times a week, and be overtraining, having very low energy levels across the week. One person might train 6 days a week, and be perfectly fine with the amount of training. They might not have a stressful day job, and be fresh for every gym session. They could potentially train every day for months without fear of overtraining. It depends on every element of your life. To be efficient and prepare an effective program for yourself, you need to know how your body reacts, how to tell the state your body is in, how to tell if you can push further, when to stop, when youre doing it correctly. Not by printing out a routine you found online and saying this is it- this paper is the winner!

During Uni there were periods where I would go to the gym 5 days a week, and see extremely slow results. They would plateau, and I would be stuck lifting the same weights for weeks or months before going on a holiday or something and ending the cycle. Gym sessions would often last 60-90 minutes. What a waste of time.

The truth is, you can get amazing results in much less time. To pack on size, all you need to do is buy my new book ‘Attila tells his secrets’… no im joking. All you need to do is train 45-60 minutes, 3 times a week, and you can achieve whatever you like. Length of a session depends on how fast youre trying to grow. Once you are the size you want to be, all you need is 2-3 sessions a week, 45 minutes a piece. That’s not much is it. Between 1.5-2 hours a week. That’s nothing! Funny how many people look at a big guy and think oh he must live at the gym. Truth is once you’ve put in the hard work of learning everything, and train hard for a period of growth, all you need is 2 hours a week to stay there. I spend longer than that staring at the wall in a week!

So the way I am going to structure this, is begin with the introduction of Hypertrophy specific training (HST), and explain the concept and how and why it works, and how you can write your own program. Everyone I know that has tried it to some degree has been amazed with their results by the 1 month mark. Following this I will add a few topics on basic nutrition and supplementation, to clear up a bunch of misconceptions and plain BS marketing out there, to stop you wasting money on shit which does nothing.

Also before negatively criticising, remember that there are a number of elements that add to muscle growth. If you are doing just one of these things, you will get bigger. I’ve read so many contradictory ideas out there from people saying fact A and fact B are not true, what you need to do is C and D- when in fact all of these things can make you bigger. So remember that if youre routine is different and it works for you, it doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do it J

Ghetto training (HST)

A quick bit of technical knowledge. Your muscles are made of a bunch of fibres strung together. When you train, there are two ways you can develop your muscle fibres.

Hyperplasia – the number of muscle fibres in the actual muscle increases.

Hypertrophy- the size of the existing muscle fibres themselves increase.

Generally Hyperplasia or an increase in the number of total muscle fibers will make you much stronger, without as much increase in size when compared to Hypertrophy. You have all seen that relatively small guy who is an absolute beast. Think of crossfitters, they are extremely strong and fit but not necessarily very big. People who train for hypertrophy however are not so focused on being functionally strong as they are focused on building mass. Don’t take this to mean they are not strong, just that they are more focused on size. So generally when training for a sport, you want functional mass, so train in higher rep ranges to promote cellular proliferation or Hyperplasia. If just training for ‘aesthetics’ or pure size then hypertrophy training or lower rep ranges are often more effective.

From now on, when you see ‘HST’, take it to mean Hypertrophy Specific Training, which is a mode of training used by bodybuilders to induce maximum muscle growth, as opposed to focusing on functional training like crossfitters or training for a sport.

HST is a method of resistance training that aims as maximising the speed of muscle growth, without the use of anabolic steroids, that doesn’t lose efficiency after following a program for a few months. It tries to surpass the need to get a new training program every few months when you have progressed. A solid HST program can be followed indefinitely with continual results. The fact that I don’t currently train for a specific sport, and the fact HST is aimed at efficiency, makes it perfect for my lifestyle. The speed of gaining strength is what surprises people the most. Strength gains in the order of 50% over an 8-12 week program are pretty standard, as long as you aren’t starting from a jacked state, and your nutrition and sleep are under control too.

Specifics of a HST Program

When people first start training at all, often they just do a little bit of everything in the gym. One exercise for legs, one for back, one for chest, one for shoulders etc. They usually don’t go very often, or lift very hard. Theyre just learning whats going on. When theyre a bit more confident, often what they do is break up their training into body groups. They will train Legs and Pullers (back and biceps) one day, and then the next day they will train Shoulders and pushers (Triceps and Chest). The idea is they can do a lot more with each bodypart, doing more exercises and sets for each, thus tearing them up more. This is a good training method if you go often, say two days in a row. You could break it up so you don’t do the same thing twice a day. For some timetables this might be the best. But the truth is, if you go twice a week, and break it up into two muscle groups, youre only really doing each muscle group once a week. That’s not very often.

The idea of HST is taking it back to the old school way of training everything each session. If you were previously doing 3 sessions a week, breaking it up into 3 groups. You were still only training everything once. If you do 3 days a week of HST, you hit everything 3 times a week. Over a month this is training everything 12 times as opposed to 4. As long as you know what you’re doing, and do it properly, this can speed up your gains by 300%! J *BS number

I’ll explain later all the science behind it all, and try to just mention program specifics here.

So you want to train every second day (3 times one week then 4 the next week), or 3 times a week with a longer weekend rest. Whatever suits your life timetable. Days cannot be consecutive. You need at least 48 hours between sessions for recovery (recent studies suggest 36 hours is ideal for quick gains in elite lifters).

Exercise Selection

The most critical part to writing a HST program is understanding the difference between a compound move and an isolation move, and writing your routine up accordingly. A compound move hits a whole muscle group, and thus exerts a lot more stress on your body. For example a wide grip- pullup. It uses mainly your back muscles, but also your Lats, and your Biceps, and your chest as well. So while you can say it is a ‘back exercise’ it is actually doing a bit of work on a lot of other things too.

Compare this to an isolation exercise, like a dumbbell preacher curl on a bench. This pretty much isolates only the bicep muscles, and nothing else is really doing any work.

For a pure HST program, you need to use only compound exercises, including at least ONE that focuses on each body part. i.e. squats for legs, pullups for back, bench for chest, dips for tris, chin-ups for bis, and shoulder press for shoulders. Done. Only compound exercises are used, and each muscle group is covered at least once (even though they actually overlap a lot).

This gives you your core HST movements. Don’t bother overlapping more than that. For example doing Back pulls as well as chin-ups. You’re just overlapping core movements unnecessarily. Stick to ONE of each!

Following this, if you want to add more you can pick one or two isolation movements. Think skullcrushers for triceps, or preacher curls for pure biceps. Think of this as an extra focus on top of the core HST movements. If you want your biceps to catch up to the rest of your body, add one or two isolation movements for them at the end. These should be slow, using advanced rep techniques like supersetting or drop-setting to make it harder. The core movements should be executed normally, while any isolation movements aim to push you till fail. The more lactic acid burn you get the better.

So in Summary, pick one core movement for each body part, and let that be your Core HST routine.

Stick to that for a while, and only add isolations at the end when sessions are quick, or you want to push something faster.

HST repetitions

The reps you do on each day are important, and change frequently. It is absolutely essential to have a training log when using HST to keep track of weights. Standard HST requires you to do two weeks of 15 reps for each set. The number of exercises you do depends on you. Typically, a few big whole body motions are used, with isolation exercises plugged in at the end if desired. Deadlifts, barbell bench, shoulder press, dips etc. How many exercises you do depends on your time schedule. As long as everything is hit properly by one compound exercise. So standard HST states that you do 2 sets of each exercise only, and 15 reps for each set. So 2 sets of 15. Then after two weeks, you change it to 2 sets of 10 and jack the weight up. Do the same for two weeks. Then you change it to 2 sets of 5 reps, with heavier weights again. Do this for 2 weeks, then that is the end of a single 6-week cycle. I will explain later the science behind changing the number of reps you do. You can play around with it to see what works best for you.

Personally, I change the reps every single day. This requires more detailed logging, but I think the benefits of such an eccentric rep schedule are much greater. In one week, I will train 3 times. I will do 2 sets of each exercise every session. But my reps on the 1^st day will be 15 for everything, on the 2^nd day 10 for everything, on the 3^rd day 5 for everything. So Day 1 is 2x15’s; Day 2 is 2x10’s; day 3 is 2x5’s.

So that’s it. Train 3 times a week, aiming for every second day. Hit every muscle each session. Do big compound movements that hit more than a single muscle group. Only do 2 sets of everything. Change the reps up either every two weeks, or every single session if you are really good with your training log. That is the basic structure of a pure HST routine.

Science behind why it works

Strength overcompensation after recovery

When you train, your muscles develop micro-tears in their fibres. During recovery, they will be repaired, and the body will make them a bit stronger. Your body responds to a sudden bout of intense training by making you temporarily stronger than you need to be in case it happens again. After a few days it realises it was a one-off and goes back to a stable point, which is still slightly stronger than you were before.

Here are two diagrams showing the concept. Disregard the number of days labelled.

This diagram shows the concept. After training, you get weaker, and your body starts recovering. After it recovers, your body overcompensates for the stress temporarily getting stronger than it needs to be to lift the weight, then it slowly drops back to the required level. It has been scientifically proven, that it is sustainable to continuously train in this overcompensated state. It is shown that you hit this point between 36-48 hours. Then after 72hours+ you are getting close to your original level. If you train every 3 days, you will still get the tail end of this compensation, and get a bit stronger. However, if you train every 48 hours, you will be stacking the top of these peaks on top of each other, making progress much faster than you would normally be.

That is the reason you train everything each time you train, and that you try and go every second or third day, 3 times a week is ideal. The overcompensation effect keeps stacking, and you can make extremely fast strength and size gains.

Now, why only 2 sets?

Because that’s all you need to cause the anaerobic cellular changes you want. Any more than that, and you start producing Lactic Acids and moving into the aerobic or power endurance zones where muscles will get stronger but not necessarily bigger. Two sets is all you need.

There are very good reasons for mixing up the number of reps.

Heavier low rep sets (5-8) product more Testosterone and are the sessions where you can really lift heavy and thus push strength boundaries. Higher rep days (10-15) cause a lot more Human Growth Hormone to be produced in the body, as well as Lactic Acid. The combination of exposing your body to higher levels of all three of these things lets you grow fastest. If you only did heavy heavy 6-rep days, your muscles would get stronger, and you would reach a point where your muscles themselves could take the heavier weight, but your soft tissues like tendons and ligaments could not keep up and are the weakest link. This is often when injuries occur, when the muscles can take the load, but the softer tissues cannot. Tendons and ligaments take much longer to strengthen. The reason for this is because there is less blood flow to these regions so nutrients required to repair/grow take much longer to have an effect. Lactic Acid stimulates bloodflow in these softer tissues, allowing them to recover and strengthen faster than usual. So on low rep days you are producing lots of Testosterone and pushing muscular strength, while on higher rep days you are producing lots of Growth Hormone and Lactic acid, stimulating and strengthening your ligaments and tendons to keep up with the muscles.

This is the reason for cycling between high and low rep days in a HST program. The way I do it, cycling number of reps every single session is a bit over the top, but I think my logbooking skills are up to the task. Using my method of switching reps every single session, in every week, I have a day of Lactic acid building to stimulate soft tissue growth, as well as pushing past the anaerobic threshold which boosts Growth Hormone levels. But also an anaerobic 6-rep day, in order to push strength levels, and boost Testosterone levels. I am not sure if it is more or less effective cycling reps each day compared to the standard HST program of two weeks at high reps, followed by two weeks at medium, and two weeks of low reps. I cannot comment on which is better, just pointing out the science behind it, and showing how you could mix it up.

Mandatory weight increases

Every time you complete a cycle, you should log what weight you did, or note down what weight WOULD have been ideal. For example on 15-rep day, if for a particular exercise you lifted 15kg, but could only manage 12 reps- you would note down either 15kg (heavy), or 12.5 (since that would have been ideal for 15 reps). You continue logging your ideal weights, and every time you complete a cycle, you jack everything up by one rung.

For example, using my method of training a 15, 10 and 5 rep day in a week- you would take notes for all weights used. Then the following week on 15 day I would lift one touch heavier for every exercise than I did the week before. While you might not be happy to increase the weight every single cycle, you will be surprised at how well you can actually manage the increase. That is the whole point of your body overcompensating and stacking these recovery periods.

Strategic Deconditioning

The best part of HST. Due to mandatory increases in weight every cycle, the weights get damn heavy damn quickly. As mentioned earlier, muscles can get stronger a lot faster than tendons and ligaments. So you don’t really want to keep getting heavier and heavier or you’ll start damaging things and injuring yourselves. There has been a bit of research recently on the concept of strategic conditioning that suggests it is effective.

The idea is that after every 6 or 8 weeks you will be lifting very heavy weights. At this point in time it is proposed that you take some time off to ‘decondition’ your body. It is commonly suggested to take between 7-10 days off from training completely. During this time, soft tissues have a chance to recover, as does the nervous system, and you get more time to catch up on other elements of your life.

The suggestion is that 7-10 days is enough for you to lose strength, but not long enough to lose muscle mass. So when you come back after the break, you are the same size, but a bit weaker. Then you continue your routine, with the weights pushed back a few notches. The progressive loading from hereon continues to induce growth in your muscle mass. The idea is that hypertrophic growth is induced from progressive loading.. even though you didn’t actually lose any mass. So essentially you trick yourself to getting bigger, even though you’re pretty much just cycling the same weights (will slowly get heavier as soft tissues like ligaments strengthen). So you can picture the whole scenario as your ligaments and tendons being the weak points, and developing very slowly. But rather than pushing too fast and getting injured, or gaining fast then plateauing hard when your ligaments hold you back, you reach this point then cycle back and forth slowly pushing up as ligaments/tendons strengthen. This way you are constantly experiencing progressive loading. On a cellular level it has been proven that you can trick your body and continue growing like this without lifting ridiculously heavy weights. In my experience when you reach your plateaus and are sure you’re training correctly, a 10-day rest every 6 weeks of proper training is effective. That sounds like a lot of time off, but they’re the numbers I stick to. The first cycle of HST would likely be a lot longer- however long it takes you to reach a plateau and feel like the weights are too heavy and your joints aren’t going to hold much longer. My first cycle lasted 12 weeks, after which I cut that in half and have a break every 6 weeks.

Overtraining and the Autonomous Nervous System

Thought I would add this in as there are so many misconceptions about overtraining out there. I decided to do my own investigating and read into the concept a lot more, looking into the science and chemistry behind it.

I was very surprised how much sense it all made, and how many episodes of fidgeting and drowsiness I’ve experienced and could now explain and remedy in the future.

The human nervous system is classified into two parts- the Somatic nervous system (voluntary responses) and the autonomic nervous system (involuntary regulation of body functions). The autonomic nervous system can be broken down further into two classes- the Sympathetic nervous system, and the Parasympathetic nervous system.

The sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for intense physical activity. The parasympathetic does the opposite, and effectively relaxes the body and inhibits high energy functions.

Both of these systems can be overtrained. The interesting fact to note is that factors such as Work, Study, Family, Relationships and Money problems all affect your overall level of nervous system activity. Lucky last on this list is your training in the gym. So if you are getting smashed at work, you are having troubles with your partner, and money is tight- you wont last very long at the gym. You know those days when you go and rather than it being a meditative activity you have zero energy and just want to slop on the couch.

It is important to listen to your body, and see what state of nervous stress you are under. Based on this, you can guage how often you should train. At some times you might happily train every 36 hours without issues. At others, every 3 days might be the maximum you should do. Overtraining will just slow you down further in the future.

The Table below shows some common effects of a particular part of your nervous system being overtrained. It will help you listen to your body and know what needs to change.

Sympathetic Nervous system over activated	Parasympathetic nervous system over activated
·         Restless ·         Higher Activity ·         Easily fatigued ·         Bad sleep patterns ·         Weight Loss ·         Associated with anaerobic exercise	·         Easily fatigued ·         Drowsy or sleepy ·         Depression ·         Sleep undisturbed ·         Weight remains constant ·         Low immune system function ·         Associated with aerobic activity

So most people would read the right column and think oh yeah that’s a generic low-energy state. It means you need more sleep. But the thing most people look past is the left column. Think about the number of times you’ve been lying in bed, with something important in the morning perhaps, or maybe the temperature is too hot- and you lie there kicking your legs. Or maybe you get home from work and you are really fidgety and over-excited. Most people would think that is the perfect time to go to the gym. But the truth is, that is just a case of Chronic sympathetic nervous system activation. Which is the proper description of a particular type of overtraining. If you are in this state, you might have plenty of energy, and go to the gym, but find you can’t lift your normal weights for some reason. When you are in this state, and find you cant lift proper weights, go home. It means you have overtrained.

The other thing to note is the last point in the Table above. Sympathetic nervous system overtraining is mainly associated with anaerobic exercise- or weight training/sprints. So gym junkies should look out for fidgety, fast, but weak states and understand this means they are currently overtrained. Conversely, Parasympathetic NS overtraining is usually associated with aerobic activity, like long distance running. That’s why after a long aerobic session you are exhausted and just want to lie on the couch. If you are in a chronic drowsy and slow unmotivated state, aerobic exercise will make it worse.

Nervous system over activation summary

In Summary, I think knowing the difference between these two types of overtraining is essential, so you can remedy or prevent the situation getting worse. If you are adamant on training, make sure you listen to your body and choose the right type of training.

If you are twitchy and jumpy and cant sleep, don’t go to the gym. Go on a long-distance run or a bike ride. It will stop you making the situation worse, and likely bring your balance back slightly. On the other hand if you are drowsy and fatigued, don’t go on a long-distance run thinking it will fix you up, because it will just make things worse. Instead, go to the gym and do some slow heavy weight training. Or best of all, don’t train at all when in either of these states. Although this is undesirable if your lifestyle leaves you in a chronic state of one or the other, in which case you can pick what kind of exercise would be the most beneficial to you.

Hope this answers any questions you might have. As mentioned, Matteo and I have been on a mission to educate ourselves on every aspect of health and fitness we can, in hope of being very efficient in our training, avoiding injuries at all costs, and seeing maximum results for the time we put in. We have come to realise knowledge is the first step to achieving your training goals. Time only comes in at second.

                                                                                     -Attila

The worlds ten dimensions and a few popular theories on reality

So uni is over now and ive got some spare time to write another post or two. I watched the movie Interstellar yesterday and one aspect of the movie which I thought would be very interesting to dig deeper into is the concept of dimensions. I remember once upon a time hearing Karl Kruszelnicki talk about dimensions and his explanation had me stumped. He pointed out that there are about 10 or 12 dimensions that scientists believe exist today. From memory he said he can get his head around seven of them, and continued to try and explain a few of them. Im pretty sure I understood four of them.. So ill try again and do a bit of reading see what I can recreate in terms we can all understand to an extent.

How many dimensions are there?

So a bit of a search reveals scientists believe there are currently about 10 dimensions which would completely explain our universe and every other universe out there (apparently). I might just list each one and do a bit of reading on it see how far we get. Seatbelts on, this might get a bit messy…

First dimension- Length

So this is nice and easy. Doubt I have to explain. Imagine a string that has no thickness. Its just a pure length.

Second dimension- Width

So now we add width to it. 2-D can be visualised as a flat image. Has a width and a length. Like a square.

Third dimension- Breadth

3D adds breadth or depth to the world. Think turning a square into a cube. Tadam! Three dimensions.

Fourth dimension- Time

Smashed it! 3 down 7 to go. The fourth dimension can be represented by time.

Initially Isaac Newton thought time was constant for all objects. This stuck until Einstein developed the special theory of relativity. This theory brings together classical mechanics and electromagnetism. So Einsteins theory of relativity points out that time isn’t constant between all objects. In summary as an object approaches the speed of light, time slows and mass increases. This means if you were travelling the speed of light, your rocket would be infinitely heavy, and time would slow to a stop. So this theory of relativity measures time as a coordinate as well in a larger geometry which we call spacetime. It can be visualised by imagining a spaceman who hops into a rocket and zooms around the universe at close to the speed of light. To him he might spend what feels like 5 years in space, but because he was travelling so fast, time was warped and when he gets back to the earth he might find 500 years have passed. The faster you travel relative to the earth, the more the time difference between your spaceship and the earth are warped. 

5th and 6th dimensions- Infinite worlds (past, present and future theories)

 Ok so now were screwed. Those 4 are easy. Now we get onto the abstract stuff which doesn’t make any sense because the concepts are completely new to us so we have no way of visualising or comprehending them. Who the hell thinks up these extra dimensions if theyre so abstract, and how do we know theyre not just talking crap? Scientists and Physicists goal in life is to develop a grand unified theory. This represents a model of the universe that can be used to explain everything. They crunch ridiculous numbers and often end up with recurring blanks in their equations which hint at unknown elements we don’t know about or cant see/measure. One example is looking at atoms and trying to break down those building blocks into their smallest packages. They have discovered all kinds of tiny tiny particles with ridiculous types of energy simply by repeating experiments and finding that the small energy discrepancies are repeatable so an additional unseen particle would fill the gap perfectly. This is similar to the reason extra dimensions are created. You cant see them or feel them or taste them, but their existence makes your models and calculations a lot more accurate. So as abstract as they might be, number crunchers feel they exist as their inclusion turns jibberish equation models of the universe that don’t work into perfectly sensical models. As for how they try and explain or express these extra dimensions im not sure yet. I will have to go for a big dig now and see what I can get.

The fifth and sixth dimensions apparently deal with the future and the past. Linked to the 'many-world theories' if you want to dig deeper. They delve a bit into the concepts of quantum physics. One of the main elements of quantum physics is the idea that there are infinite possible futures in front of you. Imagine youre in the matrix and theres a line of choices in front of you.I guess it can be simplified as many different splits in the path, except it’s the same path. One path is the continuation of the world in the case that you decide to cross the road (maybe a truck comes and hits you?), another path is the continuation of the world in the case you decide to wait a moment and the bus zooms past. This is very simplified. Pretty much the concept states that there are infinite different worlds existing at each point in time. As soon as you make a choice and do something, that one becomes ‘reality’ and the rest disappear. Then instantly the same happens again, so oyu continuously have all possible options in front of you, and as soon as you choose one, that becomes the real one and all other options ahead refresh to reflect the past.

How does this make any sense? Quantum physics deals with tiny particles in atoms, as well as electrons and other basic building blocks. Experiments (not sure if mind experiments or physical ones) have shown that electrons have a spin to them. It has somehow been shown that electrons zoom around the atom nucleus. However, rather than orbiting like a planet around the sun, the model has been developed that the electron is everywhere in this orbit at the same time. Kind of like a shell, or a force field around the nucles. When we try and look at the electrons, they quickly assume a single position. So this kind of reflects the idea of all future paths co-existing until you actually look or make a choice, when one single option is selected and becomes reality, then all futures refresh to reflect this state and this repeats.

So I guess this idea kind of goes beyond the time dimension, by in a way materialising the past, present and future into a single model. Kind of trippy to really understand, but I think ive managed to sort of comprehend it and explain it. So the model would be all co-existing future worlds laid out in front of you, and the ‘present’ being a single observation of all the infinite different possible worlds at each point in time… and I guess the past being just a linear time progression representing the choices you have made..

That wasn’t too bad J Im still half with us here…

So if you could learn how to take advantage and travel around the fifth and sixth dimensions.. you could travel into the future and back in time pretty readily...

7th, 8th, 9th and 10th dimensions (parallel universes)

 I have combined these into one heading because none of them make enough sense to be distinguishable from each other..

 So the 7th, 8th and 9th dimensions deal with parallel universes. Number 5 and 6 introduced us to the concept of all the available realities being there until you make a particular choice, then that being the only real one. 7/8/9 deal with the idea that you making a choice doesnt mean all the other options disappear from existence forever. It deals with the idea that there are 'parallel universes' for each choice. So while you chose to stop and wait for the light to go green, in another universe you stepped out in front of the bus, and that scenario played out as a reality in another universe somewhere. Turns out there was also a parallel universe where you sprinted out across the road and made it past the bus safely. There was even a universe where you just did a weird spin at the lights, everyone looked at you funny, then you moonwalked across the road when the light went green.... and that particular reality played out until you died... and beyond. But it also happens that in the reality where you did the sweet spin at the lights, at that point the infinite choices that laid out as to what you would do next also played out... forever.... 

So I guess a good way to visualise mastery of these dimensions would be to think of the matrix. When theyre in the matrix, he thinks I want a gun, and from some parallel universe rows and rows of guns appear in front of them. In my mind mastery of these dimensions would mean you control everything and anything. You would be a god. You can move along the dimensions' planes of the parallel universes at will, therefore playing god and doing absolutely anything and everything. Tripping out yet?

The tenth universe, as best I could understand it, was a unification, or a sum of all parallel universes and their outcomes. So all the possibilities somehow combined into this 'ultimate reality'. I dont really know what goes on here... Its too much for me... but I guess you... nah I dont know..

Conclusion

I imagine it's hard to prove something when nobody understand what youre talking about.. As we develop the technology to more accurately examine things, some models get validated, some get combined, some get rejected. 

In the past there have been plenty of mathematical models developed hundreds of years ago that can now be proved accurate with our technology and equipment. Maybe in the future we will have ways of testing these dimension theories. But at the moment they live in the world of complex mathematics.. which I completely ignored when making this post. But the truth is, a lot of the theory ive posted above is actually written in jibberish like this:

KK Theory Equations

General Relativity Equation

Wave equation simplified to only 2-dimensions

Kapiche?

Im pretty sure the guys who write these equations are from another dimension..

 References

 Many worlds interpretation (5th and 6th dimensions)

 http://www.universetoday.com/48619/10-dimensions/

http://www.superstringtheory.com/experm/exper51.html

http://boingboing.net/2009/08/18/visualizing-up-to-te.html

 http://www.universetoday.com/44769/parallel-universe/

Psychology of Life and Maslows Heirarchy of Needs

Short post today on a few interesting things I've seen/read. This was some junk mail sent to me by Matteo. But it summarises the philosophy everyone should consider taking on life to be happier people. When I finished reading it, I thought 'Yes, yes and yes'. So that's why im posting it here. Great attitude to life. Especially the bits about not cleaning the house or mowing the lawn, and drinking beer. Not sure where it came from, just a copy paste.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles roll ed into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.The students laughed..‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—-your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—-and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.. The sand is everything else—-the small stuff.‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and mow the lawn.Take care of the golf balls first—-the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’ The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

So thanks to Matteo for that junk mail. It was actually very insightful and fulfilling to read :)


Excellent philosophy. It reminds me of something I have stuck on my wall at work, which I often look at to refresh my thoughts. It is called Maslows Heirarchy of Needs. Initially I thought of it as a tacky pyramid showing what you should care about most. But recently, I have realised that it isnt a Guideline to follow to try and focus your attention accordingly; it is more of a Law of Needs. I have noticed at times when I start thinking very morally, all the lower ranking needs are fulfilled. At times when a certain need lower down in the pyramid is not fulfilled, there is no attention devoted to anything above it in the heirarchy. I kind of use it as a guide to happiness and the soul. I look over every few days to the picture on my wall, and think hmm where do I stand now. Then you can find what needs a bit of attention, before you can move up to the higher rung of the pyramid. Have a little look at it and see if you can relate. Think of your current state of mind, follow through from the bottom up and see where you stand. Then think to a time when you were at a higher state of life, and see if that issues was still there.

Phantom DNA and subtle forms of energy

This topic is a bit more interesting than the last. It observes a phenomenon that gives credibility to all kinds of spiritual energies which people have dreamt up. It gives some scientific backing to the idea that everything in the world is actually connected somehow that we dont quite understand yet.

We will observe the 'Phantom DNA' phenomenon which brings rise to the idea of subtle energies we havent discovered yet.

This is what DNA looks like.

It is a double helix consisting of ladders of paired amino acids. Different strings of genes (i.e, 10 rungs in a particular exact sequence) are thought to represent/effect particular things.

However, even though were told the Human Genome project is complete (sequencing the entirity of our human DNA strands), all this means is that it has been read and mapped. Nobody knows what it means yet. Most geneticists currently claim 3% of the DNA code is used in humans (claims made between 3% and 10%). If you imagine a very long specific combination of these amino acid pairs to suggest one part of us, such as hair colour. They have mapped various segments of our DNA saying if you have this length of code in this order somewhere, it means you have black hair. The idea is 3-10% of our code has been linked to specific traits or features. Most go with the idea that the rest of it is a genetic graveyard, mutated genes from the past, previous genes from less evolved states etc. i.e. they brush it off as inert junk.

Russians have in the past done some crazy experiments which made them question everything we know. They got too involved and decided to abandon the studies. Now there have been some very recent replications of these Russian experiments, combined with some sophisticated new technology, which furthered the experiments and made them visual rather than just a theoretical hypothesis. And it is some seriously trippy stuff that makes you really wonder how much we know, and give credibility to various spiritual actions and ideas.

Scientists in Russia about 15 years ago conducted experiments that showed a weird phenomenon. If you shine a particular type of laser light with some specific wave characteristics through DNA, the DNA will emit photons, or glow. What they discovered was a few crazy things.

1.       If you shine the laser through the DNA of a leaf, and then remove the leaf, the image will stay in the pattern of the leaf for some time, like the DNA is still there under the laser, emitting photons.

2.       If you chop a bit of the leaf off and then turn on the laser, it still glows where the leaf should be. Its like the leaf still has this energy form where its appendage was. But this only works if you do it quickly. If you try it after a while, the severed limb will not appear. Almost like the energy has slowly dissipated.

3.       This suggests two things. One, every bit of DNA(every single human cell) has all the information required to create a whole human. This 90-97% of our DNA is junk business is nonsense, you need one DNA strand, and you can recreate the whole object in full detail. Secondly, it says there is some weird energy at the DNA level which we have previously been unaware of.

Here is an image showing the phenomenon. The DNA energy lingers after the leaf is broken in two. Move it around and the image moves with it. The energy is still there for a while.

Similar here. This image shows a very tiny portion of the leaf remaining in the top-right corner, the very tip of the leaf. The rest is a projection of this DNA energy field.

Now comes the second trippy experiment. Using a similar technique, but instead of lasers using sound waves encoded with the DNA somehow. Scientists got two embryos, one from a frog, and one from a salamander. Both were exposed to this encoded sound vibration from the other creatures DNA.  They both started mutating, developing information from the other embryos image. Hypothesis is that the two DNA images somehow interfered with each other and disrupted growth. This would mean that the energy levels were connected somehow. i.e. the DNA images are in some weird energy realm we don’t know of and are connected. In this experiment they were using very early stage embryos of a frog and a salamander. At the point where there wasnt much difference between them, but they knew exactly what they should look like etc. Once positions were swapped, the lizard embryo apparently started turning into a salamander, and vice versa. 

German geneticists are arguing there is a networked intelligence at the DNA level that enables hypercommunication of information amongst living things. They say we are all connected by DNA energy or something. Their hypotheses explains all kinds of paranormal phenomena which we leave as unexplained at the moment.

It seems perhaps the hippies weren’t far off with their spiritual worlds and united being theories.

Subtle energies

In essence, I think there are lots of subtle energies out there in the world which we haven’t picked up on yet. Its not just chemical reactions, electromagnetic radiation, and gravity. Theyre the big three, but theres heaps of really subtle ones out there too. This Phantom DNA theory is claiming one of these subtle energies is apparently emanated by all living things through their DNA somehow. For the first time we have been able to measure it, and don’t know what to make of it. Something like the image below of spiritual energy fields may not be that far off.

Last time we discovered and learnt to understand a subtle energy, we turned it into nuclear fusion. This subtle energy was called the weak nuclear force.

Who knows what will happen when we learn to measure and harness other subtle energies.

I just find it interesting as it brings so many unexplained energies that we labelled as ‘spiritual’ energy a step closer to scientific fact.However it is still a pseudoscience. Some solid unquestionable evidence, but not enough for a case yet.

Still makes you think twice about brushing off alternate healing methods or things which are claimed to work with a long history of success, and nobody knows why. With doctors and prophets might have been real :p

DNA wormholes

Other Russian scientists have also joined the cause, trying to understand this particular subtle energy. They discovered very interesting things happen when DNA is placed in a vaccuum. The DNA starts creating weird energy patterns and actually produces magnetised wormholes. These are tunnel connections between two different points in the universe, that deft the physics of space and time. They are often found around black holes. So.... our DNA has been observed to actually create these 'portals' under certain circumstances. They create wormholes, gathering information from other parts of the universe, and placing them into your DNA, thus into your consciousness. So in essence, there has been some science discovered that could explain the process of telepathy or spiritually 'channeling energy'. 

There is one natural phenomenon we have observed and previously not been able to explain, that has been brought up in a few articles as possibly related to this form of hypercommunication. In an ant colony, the queen bums around, and all worker ants have specific tasks to do which they are very efficient at. They all know exactly what their role is and seem to work in harmony wit heach other. It has been observed that if you take the queen ant away, even a very long distance away, the worker ants keep doing what they are doing, without question. They still know what and how to build. But the instant the queen ant is killed, the whole ant farm goes into a state of chaos. The worker ants forget what they are doing, and just wander around. There is no longer this surreal state of harmony between them, its every man for themselves, and there are no instructions. This might or might not be related, but it is a very very interesting phenomenon either way. The queen ant seems to somehow provide this hypercommunication across very long distances straight to each ant, and they all know exactly what to do somehow.

Maybe we experience this kind of hypercommunication (gathering information through DNA wormholes?) all the time and call it inspiration or intuition. The wormhole theory has recently been used to explain the Phantom DNA effect. It is suggested that after the DNA sample is removed, the remaining wormholes in its place continue to transfer DNA information, allowing the phantom image to remain.

It is uncertain if this hypercommunication is something that has faded from our ancestral times, something that remains in its fullest form presently and we just dont understnad it yet, or something that is dormant and we can learn to use. Some research suggests it was used in our past when our ancestors hunted as a group, and its functions have ceased and slowly dissipated as we became individuals, working alone as in the present. Certain animals that are considered 'pack animals' seem to have better intuition then us. We often report feeling when someone you are very close to has been hurt. This 'remote sensing' about the state of our peers is not considered very accurate, and is more of a loose gut feeling. But nonetheless, it has been reported countless times, and everyone sort of accepts the idea without explanation. Dogs are considered as more adept at this kind of thing, often sensing when their owners are coming home long before they are within hearing or smelling range. This could well be explained by the ideas of group consciousness and hypercommunication theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_(esotericism)

http://www.thescienceforum.com/pseudoscience/1144-dna-phantom-effect.html

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_genetica04.htm

http://www.rense.com/general62/expl.htm

Book: Amazing Hydromechanics

 By V. I. Merkulov

Human brain series - Quick look at Animal instincts and the Modern brain

My thoughts

I can remember many times I've been discussing or arguing over something with friends, and I've put a certain emotion down to the idea that in the end were still just primitive animals, with layers of programming or learning clouding our thoughts. We have these wobbly things we call arms, and these wobbly things called legs, and we dawdle around making a mess, doing all this crap we don't need to. The idea that we have learnt to cover up our primitive basic instincts with layers of rules and meaning. That all laws and ideas of right and wrong are BS, and the reason so many people divorce, so many men cheat, so many people fight and kill each other is because we have instincts developed over millions of years, and have a thin layer of meaning maybe only 1000 years old which we have placed on top. A number of people I've suggested this to have been opposing to the idea, suggesting that we have evolved far beyond that.


One idea I've run through many times and feel like I have come to understand is as follows. I'm not sure if it's correct at all, but to me it seems logically correct. The reason women are clingy, and want to hold on to a man and be secure, while men are jumpy and want to have 20 wives (mistresses). Also the reason after a mutual break-up a woman is usually a lot worse off for a lot longer than the man. He usually seems to move on pretty quickly, right? If you think about the majority of animals, and their survival instincts, does this not suggest we are the same? It is well known, but often forgotten that the reason we are here, the reason we are alive, is to pass on our genes and knowledge, and keep our species alive. Nothing more. In most animals, the best way to do this is a combination of two things. Firstly, to spread the seed as far as possible in order to create healthy children with a mix of genes. Secondly, to protect our young at all costs, and teach them everything we know. So rather than both parents doing both, most species have one parent specialising in each, in order to best continue survival of their species. The male roams far and wide, looking for women. While the female brings up the young, and protects them with their life, teaching them everything they know along the way until they are old enough to go out on their own. That in essence is the way species have evolved. I always picture lions when I recite this idea. A male lion roaming the landscape looking for females. While the mother rears and protects her young at all costs. Would this instinctual male/female behavior, in the form of various hormones, not explain a lot of relationship mishaps in our society today? It has always made me think were not that far from animals. We still have the same raw instincts inside us, but have learnt to go beyond these instincts with multiple external influences and ideas, adding new meaning to things. But in the end, as a whole, it seems these feelings are still there in the general population.

So the question is, what is the link between animal instincts, and our modern brain? Do we have certain instinctual pathways, which we actually change and replace through learning over time? Or do those instinctual pathways remain, and we develop other thought patterns over the top, occasionally slipping up and going back to our primitive ways.
 My thoughts are they remain somehow, and in certain scenarios can be awakened. I think the modern thought processes overlap but don't replace them. I think our instincts are still there, but we have a whole lot of extra information over the top of them making you act differently. The reason I think this is when people drink, they lose their inhibitions, or their 'modern brain', and revert back to their primitive instincts. Men get aggressive, they lust after women, they fight each other over women. People enjoy music a lot more. A lot of the modern facade is removed and we fall back to our primitive thought processes. This tells me they are still there somehow, and the animal in us is really there, being held down by everything we have taught ourselves.


These are my thoughts before doing any research into the topic. It's just an opinion before I start digging to see how it actually works. From here on, the rest is based on other peoples research and essays that try to explain the link between animal instincts and our modern brain.

The real science

Humans have instincts, just like animals, that are hard-wired into our brains from the day we are born. They help us survive without thinking or requiring any learned input or decision making on our behalf. We have a bunch of instincts which don't seem necessary anymore. Scientists are still trying to find purposes for some of our instincts. Here is a list of a few interesting instincts humans have, and their purpose.

There are different kinds of instincts. There are 'primitive reflexes' which are exhibited in babies, but eventually cease as we learn they are no longer useful. One good example is the Palmar Grasp Reflex. When a baby's palm is stroked by something, its natural reflex is to grasp the object. This is a natural cling reflex that helps babies hold onto their mother while travelling for example. Picture baby monkeys being carried around in trees, or a baby holding your finger. Up until four months old, a baby will automatically turn its head toward anything that strokes its cheek. This was evolved to assist in breastfeeding.

A few primitive reflexes we have
Goosebumps appear when it is either cold, or you experience a strong emotional reaction like fear or pleasure or arousal. They can also appear as a response to anger or fear to make you look bigger, in order to intimidate an enemy.

Emotional contagion- An instinct all people show, where emotions can be passed between individuals. For example, if a child sees a parent crying, they will also get sad and start crying. This is a well studied fact and is the basis of many religions. A variety of emotions can be transferred, and is most effective when multiple people are involved. For example walking into a room full of happy people will make you happy too. Think of the laughing chain effect- if you see a bunch of people laughing and have no idea what they are laughing about, you cant help but start laughing yourself, even though you have no idea whats funny. Alternatively, a room full of mopey people will make you instantly mopey too.

Yawning- why the hell do we yawn, and why is it infectious? This is one scientists havent figured out yet, as each hypotheses has elements which make sense, and those that don't. The most promising theory is that yawning is a persons way of controlling brain temperature. It has been suggested that a yawn can increase or decrease brain pressure through some mechanical process at the back of the mouth. This is supported by the fact that people often yawn when changing altitude levels and their ears become blocked. Another theory is that yawning is a primitive group instinct that aims to stretch the muscles of the mouth, making you more alert. This supports the idea of yawning being contagious. Imagine a group of dogs hunting- one yawn spreads through the pack keeping them all alert. Also many animals hunt with their jaws as a main weapon, so this theory also supports that creatures hunting in packs stretched their mouth muscles to ready themselves to attack.
It has also been suggested that yawning is a territorial reflex. When you yawn you tend to stretch your arms out too. This makes you appear bigger, and opening your mouth bares your teeth. Studies show that when humans witness an animal yawning, their reaction is to look at the teeth of the creature. So it could well be a territorial instinct. Imagine a pack of dogs hunting. They yawn, baring their teeth and making them look big and mean. Now imagine this being contagious, and spreading through the pack. Ten dogs baring their teeth at you. A pretty intimidating visual if you ask me. Or maybe they are all flowing with Testosterone at this point and are showing out to each other? An interesting primitive instinct either way.

Diving Reflex- An interesting reflex shown in all aquatic mammals including humans. When water below 21 degrees touches your face, your heart rate drops 10-25%, and the blood gets pulled away from your extremities towards your core. This is an instinct that cant be helped, and helps the oxygen you have in your lungs last longer keeping you alive longer. It is likely a reflex for when we are accidentally submerged in cold water. It even happens if you are unconscious, giving you a bit of extra time before you drown. The diving reflex has led some scientists to study our ancestry and create an Aquatic Ape hypothesis, suggesting our common ancestors took some time evolving to be aquatic creatures before veering away from it to what we are now. This theory explains a few features we have which dont seem useful for other purposes, and would be necessary for an aquatic being. For example, our loss of hair, our hooded noses, the location of our hair, voluntary breath control, the waxy coating on newborns, and this diving reflex. Maybe we were once destined to be mermaid-like creatures.



Human instincts
Many of our ancestral instincts were considered adaptive back then, and would have affected us positively leading us to safety, and helping us avoid future crises. However, some of these in our modern-day world are considered as hinderances, actually threatening our survival.
Some negative human instincts we have carried on from the past are revenge, tribal loyalty, greed, and our urge to procreate.

Tribal loyalty and revenge made sense with our ancestors, protecting them in certain situations. But these are now considered 'immoral' emotional reactions and are no longer necessary. In ancient times, if a caveman bullied your clan, you would go and put yourself at risk to seek revenge and hurt/kill him. This would result in him likely not bothering your clan again. It was a useful idea when we grew up in very small clans, to ensure safety and survival. But now it is useless. We simply hold onto it in the form of religions or political party, which as we can see does not help anyone, but rather hinders our larger modern society in the form of wars or gangs.

Greed is another hard-wired emotion which we cannot avoid. Imagine our ancestral cave people- the greedy one who collected more food for himself and didn't share it with others during the winter was more likely to come out in the end healthier, and thus more likely to be selected for courtship and reproduce. As a result, greed and selfishness is hard-wired in our brains. We are all greedy and selfish at heart, even though we have been taught as children to avoid and overwrite this. Makes you really think about our materialistic society, and how unnecessary it all is. I'm pretty sure we are all going to survive the winters regardless of whether we share or not.

A very interesting article I read about animal instincts pulling apart the modern world is summarised nicely in the following paragraph. Irrelevant bits have been removed.

The driving force behind all living entities is Darwinian natural selection, or reproductive success. Unfortunately, natural selection is blind to the long-term future -- natural selection rewards just one thing: offspring. One of our most powerful instincts is the urge to procreate, which manifests itself in different ways in males than in females. Males simply want lots of sex whereas females are programmed with nesting behaviors that involve a safe home place for their family (of course, sexual selection is much more complex than that one sentence brief synopsis). Primitive humans did not even know how babies were formed, but nevertheless they made them. By favoring parts that fit and nerve endings that tingled in just the right places, natural selection, that ultimate puppet master, made certain we’d reproduce. Hence we are programmed to have instincts to breed. And breed, we do, in fact, we are much too good at it for our own good, all 7 billion of us. If we don't stop reproducing soon, human civilization is doomed.

A few articles I found went on to link the breeding instinct to the worlds resources and overpopulation. A lot of people suggest we are heavily overpopulated, and have combined our two big driving instincts of greed and procreation to eventually tear the world apart. Suggestions are made that we are in denial about our overpopulation crisis. That as our population increases, we reduce the per capita share of resources people have (disregarding individual access to these resources). What is our instinctual response to such an idea? A combination of denial and greed. Those who have access to resources collect them, and hush the idea that resources are scarce. As long as we have a nice hoard, the world is fine. Have we learnt to institutionalise greed? Do we promote runaway greed and call it success? Greed is the underlying driving force of the modern world. We give it names like entrepreneurship. We have set up structures to facilitate runaway greed. Think capitalism, politics, corporations, banks, insurance companies. Something as simple as fixed interest from a bank. If someone who has $5000 in a bank is compared to someone who has $5,000,000 in the bank, is earning 5% interest a fair thing? The poor person gets $250 while the rich one gets $250,000. We heavily reward greed. The better you are at being greedy and hoarding resources, the more you are rewarded.
So essentially we have designed an economic system that rewards greed, but spins it in a way so that we can deny having any part in it, since we have also been programmed to think that greed is a bad thing. Aren't we smart creatures :) Also funny to think that one of the basic animal survival instincts are what we have built our world around. It's when you notice this that the way you perceive the world starts to change.

So in response to my original question, about what the link is between animal instincts and our modern brain; I seem to have been veered a different way. It sounds like what we call 'animal instincts' are still prevalent in our minds and the way we act. Maybe we don't program ourselves to overcome these instincts as much as we think we do. Maybe they aren't such 'primitive' thought patterns. Maybe we just give them a new name, and pretend they're something different.

Although I didn't dig too deep and only really looked at a few examples, the concept is pretty interesting. That many of our primitive instincts are no longer useful for our survival; that most of them are actually negative thoughts that hinder our humanity; and that some of these negative and now useless instincts actually still manifest themselves in our everyday lives very strongly, potentially under a positive light.

I have never felt so greedy in my life :)  Are we really just a bunch of animals that started out hoarding resources for that cold winter's day, so we could survive longer and have a better chance of looking nice and healthy to the opposite sex at the end of winter? Did these two basic driving instincts of greed and procreation get out of hand and lead us to where we are now? Can war and religion really be described by basic tribal loyalty and the revenge instinct? It sure sounds like the basic animal instincts that once helped us to survive, no longer apply, and that all the turmoil in the modern world is a result.

Makes you think.





Few references to interesting reads:

Actualfreedom.com article on instincts
University of Texas course on Human Instincts
SMH Article- Do animal instincts challenge morality of human nature


-Attila