Cross Examination

LOCKED-IN SYNDROME

We are all prisoners of perceptions. Plato's Allegory of the Cave, highlights to us how we can grasp, think and talk about the concept of our observations, but how concepts differ from what the reality of the concept actually is. And as our perceptions are purely constructs of the mind, it follows that our perceptions are unique to us and to us alone.

If the above statement takes you around in circles, the statement has served its purpose: to push you the reader, to 'think'. Not merely 'thinking' as we loosely believe the term to be used, ie. referencing 'pre-learned' memorised information, recalling the information as a confirmed acknowledgement that we've already covered this topic, then quickly moving on, – but actual 'thinking' with reasoning and cross-examination of the information we seek to understand, as in the Socratic method.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it – Aristotle

If the reader is already familiar with Plato's Republic and studied the dialogues philosophers have had over the centuries, has theorised concepts/topics, such as; the just state & workings for moral improvement, then perhaps the confusions of illusion/reality, flaws occurring when applying rational thought processes, and confusions abound within ethical phycological research, will surely have a better chance of taking on multiple concepts of reality at the same time, acknowledging the constructs and theories, but without forming attachments to any of the ideas they pertain.

Ongoing Enquiry
The pursuit of knowledge and ongoing quest for truth, is the ambition of our greatest scholars. The scientific method is stringently followed when testing new theories – especially for new medicines. Incredible as it may seem, the very people who strive for excellence in scientific discovery, are also at the most risk of failing to see where their own desires for successful outcomes, can corrupt the results of their hard work.

It takes a lot of time and hard work to prove or disprove a scientific theory. Much like the fans of astrology will focus on the positives from a star sign reading, only picking up the elements that relate to them but ignoring the others, it's the belief of the scientist, researcher, critic and individual, who filters what is only relevant to them, that confirms the findings (and justifies their funding). It's why theories must stand up to peer review and why peers need to remain open to question more – not throw out what doesn't fit their worldview.

In order to remain neutral (a very difficult task), when testing our thoughts and theories, the Socratic method, used to push our modes of reasoning, can help us to take balanced measures of the results – even if our weighted assumptions result in an impasse or undecided conclusion. Knowing that we don't know is better than bending the facts to fit. Einstein's reluctance to grant more credence to his protege's work (Wilhem Reich) and his attempts at finding work-around solutions for the Unified Field Theory, could have significantly impeded any real advances in human development these last 60 years. Links to Reich's work and chronology of work in to Psyche, sexual energy and weather manipulation, can be found here.

The very challenging book – What Really Makes You Ill?: Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Disease Is Wrong, by authors Dawn Lester & David Parker, gets us to challenge the germ theory of disease, which has become the foundation for all modern medicine. In this book, the great Louis Pasteur, has been flagged-up as someone who did not follow the scientific method in justifying the vaccinations against smallpox. And from taking a further look into the history of vaccinations with the many horrendous side effects recorded, we could say that Pasteur's fraudulent behaviour has resulted in misery and death to millions over the years.

So Pasteur goes from a genius founder of modern medicine to a murderous fraudster within just 20 minutes of reading this book. This is of course an extreme case for making cross examinations and for some, this book will be very hard to take in without becoming dismissive and even angry at the case it presents – modern medicine is built on a house of cards!

Multiple Truths
The wrong approach would be to dismiss anything that exists outside anyone's fixed reality. We must not enforce, restrict, nor censor, but instead allow multiple viewpoints to co-exist together and let the researchers/readers make their own minds up about what to believe, – no matter how opposed to the other person's perceptions of our concept of 'truth' may be. The only way we can tackle having these polar opposite trains of thought in existence concurrently, is to remove ourselves from attachment to any ideas, allowing multiple concepts of reality to sit alongside one another and to take the best realities forward from these concepts – championing those that work for us as the individuals in our unique perceptions of isolated reality.