Einstein's Brain

Einstein's Brain.

There was a recent issue of National Geographic about genius.  What is it?  What creates the environment for it? (May 2017) "Genius" by Claudia Kalb, "Some minds are so exceptional that they change the world. We don't know what exactly makes these extraordinary people soar above the rest of us, but science offers us clues."

Michelangelo's David. Photo by Paolo Woods (NG) May 17

The article talks about the creation of the IQ test, and how it was conceived as a way of understanding genius.  People who had high IQs were followed for years, and it turned out - they had the same outcomes as most people.  Out of their control group, 2 had gone on to some fame in their field, but the rest struggled like... well, the rest of us. So high IQ doesn't mean that a person will achieve great success, but it arguably "sets the table" for someone to achieve that label.

The article talked about Michelangelo's genius, and compared how some famous geniuses had a "circle of genius friends" who were also very talented, and they had charts and maps of how by charting "social networks" of genius, there might be clues as to how and why they accomplished so much.  

They repeated the myth that Michelangelo took a "discarded piece of marble" and crafted the David from it. Actually, as I learned while researching "the Demedicis" for HBO, Mick won the marble in a contest.  His father had notified him in Rome this monster piece was being offered in a contest, and convinced the 25 year old to enter. Mick found a flaw in the marble, which would have made it worthless - but he followed the fault with his chisel to start the knee of this statue.  

For those familiar with his technique, he "let the person emerge" from the marble - honing small details first, knowing precisely how they would work in the overall piece. In other words he "saw the statue inside the marble" before he began.

Most sculptors work "outside in" - shaping as they go along, chipping away what wasn't necessary, but in Mick's case, he did the opposite.  Revealed the statue within. 

They also miss out on the point that Lorenzo De Medici, 20 at the time, met Michelangelo when he was 11 and a student of the Academy.  Lorenzo saw his genius, brought him into his home, and allowed him to flourish amid their "Platonic Academy" where they would read Plato (many for the first time) in Italian (Lorenzo's father Piero had them transcribed from Latin to the local language so anyone could read Plato and Socrates) - and not just those books okay'd by the Vatican. This is why the Pope sent an assassin to kill Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano (the model in Botticelli's "Primavera") but that's another story...)

Mick's patron, a poet turned ruler Lorenzo

The article points to this ability in geniuses.  

Seeing things from a different perspective.  Being able to "see a building" in 3 dimensions - or as Nick Tesla revealed that he "saw his inventions as fully functioning objects in his mind" before he went to a prototype. 

Beethoven credited his genius not with the other artists he knew, or his circle of friends, or his "social network."  He firmly credited it with coming from "the outer spheres" - E. T. A. Hoffmann, the author and music critic: "Beethoven is the "sublimest" of composers: his music "opens the realm of the colossal and immeasurable," and "leads the listener away into the wonderful spiritual realm of the infinite."

Beethoven said as much about his inspiration.  It came from the outer realms - he was not a religious man in the Age of Reason, but claimed that the source of his inspiration came from "beyond our realm." 

He was accessing the Flipside in order to download his music.

But the point of this Martini Shot essay is to open up a new avenue to understanding "genius."

If what thousands have said in this research is accurate: that we use consciousness the way a computer uses hard drives, that a portion of our consciousness is "always back home" while we are here - if it's true that we "only bring about a third of our conscious energy to a lifetime" and that "roughly two thirds is always "back home" while we are on the planet" - then we have to redefine what genius actually is.

Because science is married to the concept that consciousness is dependent upon genetics and sociological factors, and the brain is like a computer that is filled with information, and then "for some inexplicable reason" uses that information to make us believe we are conscious. (In a Martini nutshell)

That's an unfortunate way to view life on earth - but it's pretty much what science thinks is the case.

That "the brain is the sole creator of thought."  That If we slice up the brain we'll find out how the brain works.

There's a photograph in the article of the slices of Einstein's brain that they carved up, put on slides, and is on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland. 

Slices of Einstein's Brain 

So what the heck are slices of Einstein's brain doing in a museum?

It's like taking apart a stereo receiver to figure out why Beethoven's Ninth is playing inside of it.  Or taking apart a speaker to examine why music is coming from inside.  Or looking for the tiny man in the operator suit who is hiding inside the machine.

Oh look. A slice of Einstein's actual brain.

Post materialist scientists (like Dr. Greyson at UVA) claim the brain functions like a stereo or television receiver. That is uses limiters and filters to parse information into where it is needed or can be used.

They claim the brain functions like a receiver of consciousness, that it is not the only source of consciousness, since people have yet to wrap their brain around this research - And until we do, we will forever be slicing up brains thinking that's the source of consciousness.  Or that's the only place to find it.

As the research shows, the brain is not the only source of consciousness. By "research" I'm citing clinical psychologist Dr. Helen Wambach's 2000 cases of people under hypnosis claiming that we "plan our lifetime" that we are consciously aware of what or who we are going to be prior to coming to the planet, or a decade later psychologist Michael Newton's 7000 cases (a decade later) where people consistently claim that we come to the planet "around the 4th month of inception" and that we exist prior to coming here, that the majority of our conscious energy ("soul") remains behind or "back home" while we are here, and is accessible in "outside consciousness events" (NDEs, OBEs, LBLs, etc)....

Or by citing Dr. Bruce Greyson's youtube talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain?" which I reproduce in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife."  He argues with medical cases that consciousness is "not only produced by the brain." (Go ahead, click the link, it's only 90 minutes; I'll wait.)

I'm also including the 45 hypnosis sessions I've filmed (4-6 hours each) and the 5 that I've done myself.

"Consciousness is NOT confined to the brain."  

It's funny. This sentence upsets some people.  They argue "the reason people "believe in the afterlife" is because they "fear death, they fear annihilation." I would argue the opposite. The "belief" that life ends is the issue. That the word "believe" is the culprit. If you've experienced something (NDE, OBE, LBL) "belief" becomes "experience." Either one experiences it or does not.  

In terms of NDEs, thousands claim they "know" that life goes on, in LBL (between life hypnosis) sessions, people "experience" "returning home" after this lifetime. ("Home" is their word).  

By "home" they don't mean here.

The point is; eyewitness reports should not engender fear or disbelief, but rather a desire to understand where they come from and if evidence shows they could not have made it up or learned it elsewhere to examine the consistency in those reports. 

If we can prove there is "new information" during the event, (as I do in my books) then it can't be coming from the brain.  New information can't be cryptomnesia, synesthesia or hypoxia.  If the information turns out to be accurate, then the experience therefore cannot be created by the brain.

The brain functions like a stereo receiver, with limiters, filters and ways of parsing that information where it should go.

Oh look, here's  how I parse information I get from the Flipside.

We can access our "higher consciousness" through hypnosis, meditation, out of body experiences, near death events. When we do so we get a glimpse of the amount of information that we have access to.

People claim that we have "portable hard drives" that follow us around in the shape of geometric fractals that "contain all the information from our previous lifetimes."  ("Flipside") 

It's not my theory that occurs, or my belief that's the case, but is what people consistently report.  Not all the time - but enough times that I can argue what these geometric shapes supposedly contain.

"Access codes."



The Beethoven's Ninth is hiding an Access Code. Listen to it in its entirety and you'll see what I mean. (I'm kidding but kind of not kidding.)

Not literally, figuratively. 

Access to our "higher consciousness" which does not float around the universe like a Carl Jungian pool of consciousness - it would be cool if that was the case, but that's in none of the reports.  What is in the reports is the consistent claim that we are unique - we have our own consciousness that is ours, but by the nature of how consciousness works - we can shift our perspective, experience other people's experiences, or tap into the vast feelings of love that connect us all.

So genius - isn't confined to the brain.

It does have a "social network" in the sense that we seek out, in a quantum entanglement fashion, the people and loved ones that we normally incarnate with.  That we've already made a plan with to reconnect with again in this lifetime. That we find ourselves running into and feeling "as if we've known them forever."

Because, in a sense, we have.  We've known them "before" and continue work and hang out with them again.

Another fellow who seemed to have access to multiple lives

When we come here we choose a lifetime that we think we can handle.  When we are here, there are environmental aspects that are conducive to helping us achieve our goals. (In the article they cite how rappers and other musicians are able to "supress pathways" or "open pathways" that allow them to access spatial information we aren't normally aware of.)

So - it is possible for a person to "open up those pathways" to access more information?

Meditation allows the brain to "work out" like an athlete would to get certain muscles to function better.  Meditation can open the mind up to other possibilities.

Reading about others journey or path can open our mind up to these possibilities.  I know when I first began reading Michael Newton's work, I avoided his conclusions about what happening and focused just on the first hand reports.  Later, after I confirmed beyond my ability to deny what they were saying was accurate, I went back and read his comments about what people were telling him.

Hmm. Space. The first frontier.

Finding a Newton Institute trained therapist and doing a between life session will grant access to that "higher information." (I recommend them because they are familiar with the architecture of the flipside, and know what questions to ask. They have a searchable database on their site.)

Indeed, doing a between life session led me to the other research, to interviewing people who've had near death events, or people who've had contact with loved ones either through dreams or a medium or some other fashion - to see if the portrait or the architecture of the "afterlife" was the same.

Indeed, to my chagrin, it was.

Flipside. It's a Wonderful Afterlife. Hacking the Afterlife.

The architecture of the afterlife is a knowable entity.  Reportedly we don't bring "all of our consciousness" to a lifetime because it would "blow the circuits of the brain" with "too much energy."  (And we do see people walking around the planet with blown circuits as it is.)

But we can access this information in such a way as to not harm our path and journey, and in such a way that we can gain insight into why and how we came to the planet, and what happens to us when we depart it.  (In a spiritual sense.)

But in the future, we won't be slicing up people's brains to understand why they worked. It's like taking apart a tennis shoe  to understand why a runner is so fast. Or taking apart a car to understand how it can win so many races. Certainly the construction of the tool is important, and the ability to use it with ease is important.  But equally important is the pilot, the person running the race or driving the car, who brings their skill and ability to that particular task, and further, they're bringing the ability to access "all their other lifetimes" or to think in a spatial way that is "open to the answer no matter where it comes from."

E equals what again?

Hence why Einstein used to play his violin in order to think.

It wasn't because it was a casual thing to do. It's because he was using music as a way of linking up with the flipside and downloading the answers.

You're welcome.

Circling the Sacred Mountain, Flipside and Morgan Freeman

For fans of "Flipside"  

Cover photo Jock Montgomery, Cover type by Richard Rossiter

This is the book that was in the library of the apt I sublet while working on the film "Salt​." 

I had read the book and audited Robert Thurman's class at Columbia U in '96. In 2004 I was in Mumbai filming a Bollywood script when I got an email "If you can be in Kathmandu next week you can join our trip around Mt. Kailash in Tibet." I joined the trip and documented it ("Journey into Tibet." The full version is here and costs $2.99 to view, but all pieces are free on youtube if you search for them).




At some point we were on Mt. Kailash (pictured above) and Robert told us any wish made in this sacred place "would come true." I jokingly decided I'd wish for a million dollars... or a 3 picture deal. Couldn't make up my mind, and out of my mouth came the words "I want a son." I was startled when I said it. Then three years later, driving around Santa Monica with our son, and I asked "Did you know daddy from before?" He nodded, "yes." I asked "Where did you meet me?" He said "in Tibet." Startled, I said "Where in Tibet?" He said "On the path." I thought of all the paths I'd been on - then I remembered the wish I'd made. "Was it Kailash?" He shrugged. I asked "Was it Kangra?" He nodded "yes" and said "It was Kangra." 

Where I made the wish

Kangra is the name of the path in Tibetan where I made that wish. Then a year later, subletting an apt in the West Village while working on "Salt" son found this book in the owner's library, pulled it out to show his mom. He pointed to the picture of Mt. Kailash and said "That's where I found daddy."  

Sherry called me on the set and asked "Did you know this book was here?" I didn't and had not said the word Kailash to him other than in the car. "That's where I found daddy."  From Flipside: A Tourist's Guide On How To Navigate the Afterlife​


  

Morgan Freeman

is seeking the story of God on National Geographic.  The series opens with an interview with David Bennett - an author ("Voyage of Purpose") who had a near death experience.  I interviewed him for the book "It's a Wonderful Afterlife"  David has a fascinating story - he doesn't call this ball of light "God" in his book - but of course since the show is about God, Morgan asks him if the ball of light is God, to which David replies - "yes."


Important to be specific here - in his written account and in the account her gave me during his interview, he saw this ball of light as "millions of lights" - and a few of them separated from the light to travel to speak with him... so in essence, you could say that the ball of light was "God" and that the slivers of light that came to visit him where also "of God."

Because in this world of trying to use language to define the inexpressable, we seem to be caught up in what the word's say or mean.  Is God a he?  Often people will say "I felt a male presence" when asked that question.  Sometimes they'll say "I felt more of a female presence."  So it depends on the person doing the viewing.

In this search of "God" or the meaning of the afterlife, they're touching upon the surface of these questions - by the nature of the medium of course.  But in essence, they jump from David Bennett's first person account of his experience with the afterlife, to Dr. Sam Parnia's work - the doctor behind the Aware project - who has studied near death experiences.

Dr. Sam talks about life continuing on for a few moments after death, and David Bennett's experience was for "15 to 18" minutes. The implication being that David's experience couldn't be "hypoxia" or some other physical event created by the brain, because the brain didn't have oxygen for quite some time.



My interview in a noisy cafe with author David Bennett

But I think they're skimming the surface here.  It's wonderful to hear Morgan's face, to see his face react to these stories, to hear his own personal journey with this work.  But by limiting the series to a search for "God" - and then lightly touching upon what people say about their experience in the afterlife, is to mix the subjects up.

In Michael Newton's interview in "Flipside: a Journey into the Afterlife" he talks specifically about the "Creator or creators" that many of his clients have experienced.  These are people under deep hypnosis who recall not only past lives, but a between lives realm where they can examine, explore and explain what they're experiencing.

As I've outlined in "Flipside" and the "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" books these reports are consistent and they're replicable.  I've filmed nearly 30 people under hypnosis, and examined other taped recordings of these sessions from different people across the globe, and what they say is consistent.  That we don't die. That our consciousness continues on. That it's here that we are deluded by "reality" as if this was the only realm in existence. That we return "home" to be with our loved ones and teachers - and are able to see our lifetimes as "performances on stage" where we learn and teach and examine all forms of energy.

I've filmed people who've had near death experiences, and seen how they can re-examine those events clearly - with more depth - I've filmed people who are skeptics, who don't believe in an afterlife, but who clearly remember previous lives and then experience the between life arena and are able to see their lives with perspective.  I've filmed interviews with people NOT under hypnosis - who by merely asking them the same questions people are asked while under hypnosis - are able to access the same clarity about past lives and the between life realm.

The point being - you don't need to have a near death experience to experience life off this planet.  You don't need to have a near death experience or be under hypnosis to access your memories of previous lifetimes or being able to talk to and hear from your spirit guides.  That you can access "new information" from them in the spirit world - meaning details that you aren't aware of, could not be privy to or never heard of - and yet turn out to be true because you've heard them from people not alive.

That's a series I'd like to work on - and perhaps one day will.  But for the time being we'll just have to hope that the people who are making these shows are able to take that one step further.  Or "One Step Beyond."

My two cents.

Near Death Experiences and National Geographic

David Bennett ("voyage of purpose") quoted here, tells his amazing story in my book "Its a Wonderful Afterlife Vol 1." 

What's fascinating about David's experience is he saw into the future, experienced himself surviving cancer, so when decades later, the doctor came to give him the bad news that he had weeks to live, he recognized this new doc's face from his NDE decades earlier. 

When the doc said "you won't survive this" he knew he would survive it and told him so. "You're in denial" the doc said. Turns out the doc was the one in denial. 

Good to see national geo opening up their field of vision.

From National Geographic's website:

"Coming Back From the Brink of Death"

What you see and feel in a near-death experience can profoundly change the rest of your life.



"One night off the California coast in 1983 David Bennett, chief engineer on a research vessel, and his crew tried to outrun a storm in an inflatable boat. About a mile from shore the boat was capsized by a 30-foot wave, and they were tossed into the chilly Pacific. His life vest was faulty, so his lungs filled with water. He remembers feeling total bliss. Something or someone told him it wasn’t his time, though, and after 18 minutes underwater he popped up to the surface. His crewmates, who were all floating on the water, were shocked to see him."

You can see an interview with David here, that is the source of the chapter in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife Volume One"

By Robin Marantz Henig

Photographs by Lynn Johnson

"At a family picnic at upstate New York’s Sleepy Hollow Lake, Tony Cicoria, an orthopedic surgeon, had just tried to call his mother on the phone. An approaching storm sent a lightning bolt through the phone into his head, stopping his heart. Cicoria says he felt himself leave his body, moving through walls toward a blue-white light, eager to be one with God. He emerged from his near-death experience with a sudden passion for classical piano, creating melodies that seemed to download, unbidden, into his brain. He came to believe he’d been spared so that he could channel “the music from heaven.”



"A head-on collision landed Tricia Barker, then a college student, in an Austin, Texas, hospital, bleeding profusely, her spine broken. She says she felt herself separate from her body during surgery, hovering near the ceiling as she watched her monitor flatline. Moving through the hospital corridor, she says, she saw her stepfather, struggling with grief, buy a candy bar from a vending machine; it was this detail, a stress-induced indulgence he’d told no one about, that made Barker believe her movements really happened. Now a creative writing professor, she says she’s still guided by the spirits that accompanied her on the other side."



"Carol Burke was seriously injured in a car crash in the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport employee parking lot, requiring surgery to remove her spleen and repair numerous broken bones. She lost half her blood. Feeling herself floating near the ceiling of the hospital room, she could see her mother and a friend at the foot of the bed, afraid that she would not return. She remembers feeling nothing but peacefulness and love." 



"Ashlee Barnett was a college student when she had a serious car crash on a remote Texas highway. Her pelvis was shattered, her spleen had ruptured, and she was bleeding profusely. At the scene, she says, she moved between two worlds: chaos and pain on one side, as paramedics wielded the jaws of life; and one with white light, no pain, and no fear. Several years later she developed cancer, but her near-death experience made her confident that she would live. She has three children and counsels trauma survivors."



"Pam Kircher contracted meningitis at the age of six. She remembers being in her room in a small house outside St. Joseph, Missouri, looking down at a girl on the bed. Immediately after she recognized herself, she returned to her body. Fearing ridicule and ostracism, she kept this near-death experience secret for almost four decades, yet it motivated every life decision she made. She became a family-practice physician. Now retired, she works in hospice care and talks openly about her experience, hoping it will bring comfort to people at the end of their lives."


For more information on near death experiences, or to share one that you've experience, highly recommend checking into iands.org - where I met David Bennett.

Wandy Syke's Ghost and Dolphin Consciousness

Here's a fun "person no longer on the planet" story. 

Wanda Sykes Sees Ghost   from The Blaze.com

Comedian Wanda Sykes appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Wednesday, where she revealed an apparent encounter that she claims to have had with a ghost while staying at a historic hotel in Virginia.

“I don’t want people to think I’m crazy, but it happened,” she told host Ellen DeGeneres.

Sykes said that she returned to her room at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Virginia, after a show one night, and suddenly felt that something wasn’t quite right.

“I just had a sense that somebody else is in this room and I was like looking around,” she said, admitting that she had a few drinks. “I just had to make sure that it wasn’t the alcohol, but I was like, ‘No, something is in the room,’ and I kind of looked out of the corner of my eye and it was this woman — it was an old black woman, right, and she just was looking at me.”

Sykes added, “I’m pretty sure she was a slave, because don’t nobody wear stuff like that anymore.”

Wanda Sykes attends the 2015 NBCUniversal Summer Press Day at the Langham Hotel on April 2, 2015 in Pasadena, California. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

The comedian said she didn’t feel like the ghost would hurt her, and said that it seemed as though she was more surprised than anything else to see Sykes inside of such a nice hotel room.

The comedian joked that she told the ghost that “things turned out pretty good,” with DeGeneres and the audience erupting in laughter.

“And I know you’re really probably just blown away to see me — this black woman — in this big hotel room,” Sykes apparently told the ghost, going on to quip about what she did next. ”I got the remote control. ‘If this is good, wait until you see who the president is. This is going to scare the hell out of you.’”

She said the woman stayed and watched her for a little while before disappearing.

“And I said, ‘Why don’t you go scare white people. That’s what I would do if I were you,’” Sykes joked.

Wanda saw a Civil War era ghost in a hotel room.  She said the woman was "dressed like a slave."  So that means she saw her clearly enough, long enough to form an opinion about how she was dressed.  She said the ghost didn't seem upset, or emotional, but had a look on her face as if to say "well, look at you."  Wanda then riffs into a hilarious take on that - thanking the ghost for suffering as a slave, and then offering to turn on CNN so the ghost can see the President.

Couple of observations.  Wanda couldn't know what the ghost was thinking when she looked at her.  The ghost of course, is outside of time - in fact calling her a ghost does her a disservice - let's just call her "a person no longer on the planet."  This person no longer on the planet may have had any number of things on her mind.  One could be: "Oh, look, it's you Wanda, don't you remember when you used to live back in these days and we were friends?  Or you were someone that I knew back then?"  That's one possibility.  Or, "Wanda! I can't believe you don't recognize me.  I'm your great great great grandmother - in your family tree!"  Or just "What the heck are you doing in my room dressed like that?"

As noted here in other posts, there are many accounts from people who remember previous lifetimes where they weren't of the same race, color, creed or gender that they are now.  And they don't just remember a "day" in that lifetime - in some cases people remember the entire life, including the death, and remember the experience of leaving the body and "going home" back to their "soul group" where they hang out with their loved ones and plot their return to the planet. (For more info on that topic, click on "Flipside" or "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" for plenty of those accounts - or even "Flipside the Documentary" available as a DVD or on Gaiam TV.

Book, DVD, Audio

But what's also amazing about this clip is how "normal" it is.  Wanda saw a ghost, it didn't frighten her, she wasn't "spooked." In fact she gave the person who used to be on the planet respect and acknowledged her presence.  

And then Ellen told a story about seeing a man in a house she used to live in, and then tossed it over to her mother who also saw the same man at a different time in that house.

So we have a verification of a "person who used to be on the planet" right in this clip.  Ellen saw the man, and then later her mother saw the same man.  

So the question is - instead of running screaming into the night - how can we show compassion for this man or "people who used to be on the planet?"  Would it be to do what Wanda did, and acknowledge their presence and perhaps suggest "look around yourself person who used to be on the planet, there's a light in the distance.  If you go towards that light, go through that light, all your friends and loved ones are waiting for you to return so that you can figure out a way to get back here, or go and do whatever it is that you're supposed to do.  Don't be afraid - you've done a great job of hanging around the planet, so why not go and have some fun back home?"  

It's the fastest, easiest way to talk a person who is not longer on the planet into leaving your residence - and if they really insist that they've got to stick around, then just say "I appreciate that you want to stick around here, and that's fine by me, but please don't wake up, scare, or otherwise intimidate my guests or me.  You're welcome, but you have a choice to stay or go."  Worse thing that can happen is they take you up on the suggestion and head home.  

Meanwhile....

This month's National Geographic article on "Dolphin Intelligence" by J Foer caught my eye:

Photographs by Brian Skerry

"Bolton presses her palms together over her head, the signal to innovate, and then puts her fists together, the sign for “tandem.” With those two gestures, she has instructed the dolphins to show her a behavior she hasn’t seen during this session and to do it in unison.

Hector and Han disappear beneath the surface. With them is a comparative psychologist named Stan Kuczaj, wearing a wet suit and snorkel gear and carrying a large underwater video camera with hydrophones. He records several seconds of audible chirping between Hector and Han, then his camera captures them both slowly rolling over in unison and flapping their tails three times simultaneously.

Above the surface Bolton presses her thumbs and middle fingers together, telling the dolphins to keep up this cooperative innovation. And they do. The 400-pound animals sink down, exchange a few more high-pitched whistles, and then simultaneously blow bubbles together. Then they pirouette side by side. Then they tail walk. After eight nearly perfectly synchronized sequences, the session ends.

There are two possible explanations of this remarkable behavior. Either one dolphin is mimicking the other so quickly and precisely that the apparent coordination is only an illusion. Or it’s not an illusion at all: When they whistle back and forth beneath the surface, they’re literally discussing a plan."

and then later in the article:

"The last common ancestor of humans and chimps lived some six million years ago. By comparison cetaceans such as dolphins split off from the rest of the mammal lineage about 55 million years ago, and they and primates haven’t shared an ancestor for 95 million years."

So dolphin have been on their own evolutionary track for 55 million years... while humans have been on their own track for about 6 million.  So logic tells us that evolution would probably have done some nifty tricks in terms of these denizens of the deep over all those years.

But what the article above says, is that an instructor used sign language to ask these dolphin to do a series of tricks in unison - but the choice of the tricks and what they would do was up to them.  And then they performed those stunts in the order that they devised.

In other words, they consciously chose what tricks to perform for this human.  

They communicated with each other - in some fashion - on what those tricks would be.  

Hello. Why so crabby?

Let's not get caught up for the moment in how they communicated.  It could have been a series of clicks and whistles.  That's likely. But it's equally possible they have another form of communication that is faster than what we can measure.  I'm not saying they do. I'm not asking for pyramid hats.  I just want us all to consider this possibility; these dolphin just proved they're consciousness.

Now by logic, extend that to the planet.  All animals, all creatures are sentient.  They have their own way of communication, as we have ours.  Ours in by no means superior to theirs - in fact in this case it's proven that theirs is far superior to ours.

There's plenty of folklore of dolphin coming to the aid of humans.  Just search youtube for videos of dolphin approaching humans and trying to communicate with them, steering their boats to safety, or asking humans for help. 

In my own experience, I saw a school of dolphin surface on the Santa Monica beach, about 20 yards off shore, jumping and swimming.  As a joke I yelled "Hey, Dan Marino! (former Miami Dolphin). Over here!"  And one of their group turned and started swimming towards me.  I mean jumping out of the water, flying through the air in my direction, aiming at me as if to say "What? You called? You need help? You were speaking to me?"  I was afraid that I somehow had influenced them to screw up their path and shouted "No, sorry, I was just kidding!" and the Dolphin turned and rejoined his group.  It was funny, but startling.

Not far from here.  "Hey! Dan Marino!"

So.  This National Geographic story proves that dolphin are conscious. They speak to each other and can process complex information faster and better than humans can.  Does that mean all animals are sentient?  I would have to argue that it does. I'm sorry if that's disturbing to those who aren't vegetarians (myself included), but there's not much wiggle room in this explanation.  (Other than to say that no scientist is saying it, they're just more interested in whether they can talk to the dolphin rather than listening to what dolphin might have to tell them.)  And if they're sentient, then it behooves us to do something to protect them, including protecting Orcas (the largest dolphin) from being held in captivity. (Hello Sea World)

So what do these two stories have in common?  We experience life in a 5 dimensional world.  Well, 2 to be sure, 3 for entertainment, and the rest are about our senses.  But other animals on this planet don't experience this world the way we do.  Bees, for example, see ultraviolet light.  Dolphin obviously can communicate in ways we don't understand.  Birds, cats, dogs... cows. 

And we can't experience the world the way a person who is no longer on the planet experiences it.  But we can appreciate it.  We can honor it. We can talk about it without fear of being dunked, hanged or burnt at the stake.

So let's talk about it, shall we?