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Newsletter of Project Renaissance and Win Wenger
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2005 (Best viewed with
fixed-width font)
IN THIS ISSUE:
* Quote of the
Month
* Announcements,
News Items
* Events,
Workshops
* FEATURE ARTICLE:
How We
Started Losing 7/8ths of Our Brain Before Getting Born
- by Win
Wenger
* Comments,
Feedback
More About
New Neurons - Lyelle L. Palmer, Ph.D.
Increasing
Brain Cells with the Subconscious Mind - "M."
* Organizational
Notes
* Links
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are
tiny little
matters compared to what lies within us."
- Ralph Waldo
Emerson
........................................................................
ANNOUNCEMENTS
~~~
WELCOME to all new members who have joined us this month.
We hope to
hear from you and to give you much food for thought. Back
issues are
available upon request. Just add the month to the subject
line:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=BackIssues
Or see the online archives: http://www.winwenger.com/strmlist.htm
~~~
NEW EMAIL ADDRESS? Please send us an address-change
announcement. Do not
use the unsubscribe link in such a case, then entering a
new subscribe
message. This makes extra work for you and your registrar
and may result
in deletion of all your personal information from our
records. Put any
other updated information you'd like us to have about you
into the same
address-change message. Use this link:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=AddressChange
~~~
MUMBAI, INDIA - Nikhil Gangoli, ngangoli2003@yahoo.co.in
, is interested
in forming and hosting an Image-Streaming group in
Mumbai. Contact him
by email or here if you live in that area:
1 Neelam 14B Road Khar, Mumbai 400052, India -- Phone
91-22-26494032
And see also his website,
http://www.ezinfocenter.com/7597098/FREE
~~~
PORTLAND, OREGON, INTEREST GROUP - Members of Project
Renaissance, would
you like to form a local group in the Portland area for
discussions,
practicing creativity and problem-solving, and enjoying
mutual listening?
John Arrowwood will coordinate. Please contact him by
email at
ProjRen@HanlonsRazor.com .
~~~
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - Is there anyone in or around Manchester
or the
northwest of England who can help get a new member
started with Image-
Streaming and other techniques in Win Wenger's book,
"Beyond OK"? He
will cover phone costs or other expenses of contacting
him:
Adrian, aka inhypnosis <inhypnosis@yahoo.com>.
~~~
ATLANTA, GEORGIA - Saleem Javaid ( s.javaid@att.net ) is
looking for
Project Renaissance participants to get together in the
Atlanta metro
area. Please email him if you're in the area and
interested.
~~~
VOLUNTEER SERVICE SOUGHT - MUSICIAN NEEDED:
Hi, this is Win Wenger, in need of some help. I've
improvitaped quite a
bit of music, much more than I'll ever manage to
transcribe into playable
manuscripts at my current speed of writing. I've selected
perhaps four
hours' worth of pretty special pieces I'd love to bring
the rest of the
way into the world. Doesn't have to be all four hours'
worth at once;
I've prioritized these and, frankly, will be ecstatic to
get even just
one particular 20-minute piece (for piano and strings)
written out.
Probably entails two drafts - my tinkering after the
first draft.
The mode is classical and light classical, with just the
lightest touches
of 20th Century here and there, sitting very pleasantly
on the ear.
Except for one entirely piano work, it rarely goes more
than four parts
at a time, and both harmonies and rhythms are likewise
fairly easy to
handle. Not virtuoso. Please specify whether audio tape
or CD, and your
ground delivery address where to send it. Email to:
Win Wenger (
mailto:Wwenger101@aol.com?subject=TranscribingMusic )
Thank you.
~~~
Rick van Deijk has created an online community/forum,
"IS Online", with
write-ups of his image-streams, articles, and a way for
people to find
live partners online. Quite an ambitious undertaking.
Thanks, Rick! His
email is rickvdeijk@gmail.com ; his website is at
http://vdeijk.proboards29.com/
........................................................................
EVENTS
~~~
MONTHLY HIGH THINKTANK MEETINGS, 2005-2006
Thursday, 7:30 pm, September 15
Thursday, 7:30 pm, October 20
*TUESDAY, 7:30 pm, November 22
Thursday, 7:30 pm, December 8
Thursday, 7:30 pm, January 5
Thursday, 7:30 pm, February 9
Thursday, 7:30 pm, March 9
Thursday, 7:30 pm, April 13
Thursday, 7:30 pm, May 4
Thursday, 7:30 pm, June 1
Quince Orchard Public Library, Room "A"
15831 Quince Orchard Rd.
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878
(240-777-0200)
Directions:
From Route 270, take Quince Orchard Road to just beyond
the intersection with Route 28, about four miles or so.
Or take Route 28
West about five miles, just barely to Quince Orchard Road
left. Either
way, the Library is on your left. Just feet beyond the
intersection,
look for the nameless little spur of a road off Quince
Orchard which
leads into the Library parking lot. Or go to
www.MapQuest.com , type in
your own address including zip code, and type in the
Quince Orchard
Library's address, and get directions (and map) from
there.
* Please note the one exception to Thursday meetings.
~~~
UPCOMING PRESENTATIONS - Capitol Creativity Network
The Capitol Creativity Network
(www.capitolcreativitynetwork.com ) meets
on the second Thursday of every month. Time: 7:00-9:30pm.
Fee: $10 at
the door. Location: Social Room of Van Ness East
apartment complex;
2939 Van Ness St., NW; Washington, DC.
We explore and experience different facets of creativity,
from corporate
to expressive to scientific, etc. Each meeting is interactive, and
designed to have the participants experience their own
creativity in
real time. CCN's got a little something for every kind of
Creator in
2005:
~ September 8:
"Creative Thinking Techniques"
by Dr. Win Wenger,
Founder and Director of Project Renaissance; author
"The Einstein
Factor" and over 40 other books.
~ October 13:
"New Working Models: Using storytelling, improv and visual
techniques to extract relevant data and design functional
working models"
by Michelle James, Principal of The Center for Creative
Emergence;
business creativity catalyst.
~ November 10:
"Visual Mapping" by Nusa Maal, President of SenseSmart.
~ December 8:
"The Courage of Your Yearning: Using the principles of
creativity to create a life lived from your deepest
gladness" by Juanita
Weaver, creativity consultant.
Michelle James
The Center for Creative Emergence,
www.creativeemergence.com
Consciously Creating What's Next
McLean, VA USA
703.760.9009
michelle@creativeemergence.com
mjames7770@aol.com
~~~
CREATIVITY IN WORK DEVELOPMENT
August 26 - October 7
Your Work, Business, and Leadership as a Practical
Expression of
Your Creative
Self
A professional and personal development program spanning
6 weeks. Led by
Michelle James, Principal of The Center for Creative
Emergence. See
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=g9visnbab.0.a5nrmibab.nc7qncbab.141&p=
http%3A%2F%2Fcreativeemergence.com%2F_wsn%2Fpage11.html
for the complete program description and detailed
testimonials.
This program is for entrepreneurs, leaders, managers,
consultants,
trainers, educators, executives, business owners, thought
influencers,
seekers, creators, artists, healers, psychologists,
teachers, sales and
marketing professionals, pioneers, change agents and
people in transition,
to name a few. It is for people who believe they are not
creative at all
as well as those who are already highly in tune with
their own creativity.
~~~
METAFORUM INTERNATIONAL
Academy for Integrative Communication
Bernd Isert, President ( team@metaforum.com )
* 13th World
Campus in Brazil, February 5th to 24th, 2006
Personal and professional development, with professional
coaching,
NLP from practitioner to trainer, systemic structural
constellation
work, hypnotherapy, mediation, and much more. Our
approach is systemic,
neuro-linguistic and integrative. Here learning,
experiencing, joie de
vivre and international encounters all belong to a
greater whole.
Visit our English website here: http://www.metaforum.com/english.html
And see photo galleries of last year's events in Hungary
and Brasil:
http://www.metaforum.com/english/soca04-gallery/index.html
http://www.metaforum.com/metaforum/winter2005_galerie/index.html
........................................................................
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Feature Article:
HOW WE STARTED LOSING 7/8THS OF OUR BRAIN
BEFORE GETTING BORN
by Win Wenger
This is a speculation, but I think I may know why human
gestation, 30,000
to 60,000 years ago, increased from seven months long to
nine months long.
Yes, there are numerous advantages to leaving the cookies
in the oven a
little longer, but one remarkable consequence is that
seven-eighths of
the brain cells you had at seven months in the womb are
dead and gone by
the time you are born.
(The figure admitted to at the time I wrote my article,
"The Pre-Natal
Curriculum," Winsights No. 45 (
http://www.winwenger.com/part45.htm ),
was the one I used: "over half" of the
braincells alive at seven months
are dead and gone by time of birth. Only later did the
data develop,
according to the researchers, that the mortality figure
for braincells
in the seventh month was seven-eighths dead and gone by
time of birth.)
That is an enormous biological investment, just thrown
away. "Nature's
way of pruning things down," researchers say.
* Why did those die?
- Well, they
weren't used.
* If they had been used, they'd still be alive?
- Probably.
* If they had been used and still alive, they would be
useful?
- Certainly,
useful in that they were still around for that reason
they'd be recruited into at least some of the things that
are going on.
But nature prunes down what's not needed, and those
weren't needed.
Hm-m-m.
That was something of why I wrote Winsights No. 45,
proposing in "The
Pre-Natal Curriculum" easy ways to provide the fetus
consistent feedback
on some of its actions while in the womb, so it would
develop some sense
of control over aspects of its environment and develop
its brain
accordingly. This was and is a far stronger way of
engaging its brain
than just the pre-natal stimulation that has become
popular in some
quarters and which is certainly better than nothing.
All things considered, to throw away seven-eighths of the
brain seems
remarkable. That proliferation of brain cells in the
first place is an
enormous biological investment. That peak comes at the
seventh month
because, for a long time through human pre-history, that
was how long
it took before humans got born. We were designed so we'd
born with a
maximum of brain cells with which to encounter the world.
Then something
drastic must have changed.
Why we changed from seven to nine months:
There were and are a lot of advantages to extending the
period of human
pregnancy, but enough to offset losing seven-eighths of
your brain?
There had to be a major bioevolutionary driver, a
powerful survival
advantage for babies kept longer before being born.
I think we are looking at the immune system here, and in
a specific way.
This was also about the same time in pre-history that
humans started
living in larger tribal groupings and began some trade
and commerce and
intermarriage (exogamy) between those larger tribal
groups. The colds
and diseases of the rare individual more and more became
the common
property of all. We see this effect today, when small
groups of people
are isolated for a long time by extremes of weather or
geography. First
thing that happens when they rejoin larger society again
is that they
all catch colds. Their immune systems have to catch up on
what's been
going on.
Before people started mingling on a larger scale, the
incidence of colds
and diseases had to be very low. A baby whose immune
system was as yet
immature had a very good chance of coasting on immunities
in its mother's
milk while its immune system developed for the first few
months after
birth, without encountering any disease bacteria or
viruses. There was
no great pressure or premium for survival on having a
matured immune
system until some months past birth.
Once people were mingling on a large scale and
transmitting their
diseases around, that changed. A lot of newborns must
have died,
throwing unusual survival advantage to the freakish few
who took a
little longer to get born, who had their immune systems
much better
developed by the time they had to face the world. And so
here we are.
Yes, there are other advantages - sturdier respiratory
system for one
thing for the full-term nine-monther; better temperature
control, other
things. The immune system of the seven-month preemie is
still challenged.
Also, after 30-60,000 years of enjoying those two extra
months, we've
accumulated a lot of "gotten-bys" which would
be hard to do without any
more, it seems unlikely we could go back to a seven-month
gestation
without a lot of casualties, and the hardship which a
preemie birth now
entails seems more than enough to make up for whatever
brain advantages
might once have pertained to being born in the seventh
month.
Yet we've paid quite a price for those advantages, such
as they are, of
going for the full nine months. We pretty well have to
keep the full
nine months of full-term pregnancies. Do we have to pay
all of that
price for it? Do we have to lose all that seven-eighths
of our brains?
I don't think we have a choice in the length of
pregnancies, but I
think we do have some choice in terms of how much brain
we (at least
our children and grandchildren) get to keep.
- Win Wenger ( wwenger101@aol.com )
------------------------------------
To send feedback privately to Win Wenger, email him at:
mailto:wwenger101@aol.com?subject=Seven-eighths
To send your comments about this article to The Stream,
write to:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=Seven-eights
To post your feedback or promote a discussion of this
topic:
http://bbs.cartserver.com/bbs/b/7733/#PostMessage
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........................................................................
COMMENTS and FEEDBACK
~~~
MORE ABOUT NEW NEURONS - Lyelle L. Palmer, Ph.D. (
lpalmer@winona.edu )
As cited in The Stream, March 2005:
"Elizabeth Gould and Charles Gross reported in the
October 19, 1999,
issue of Science that the formation of new neurons or
nerve cells --
neurogenesis -- takes place in several regions of the
cerebral cortex
that are crucial for cognitive and perceptual functions.
Read the full
article here:
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/99/q4/1014-brain.htm ."
The argument about the presence of "new"
neurons will go on because
some scientists have not been able to verify them. Random
notes:
1. The science of
human improvement following birth is called Euphenics
(do a websearch).
2. IQ worldwide
gained about 30 points (2 standard deviations) during
the 20th century--because more people learned to read and
two world wars
brought more people in touch with higher technologies and
new ideas;
we can expect that IQ will continue to rise in the 21st
century.
3. IQ tests must
be re-calibrated every 20 years or so because the
scores keep rising and the standardizations become
obsolete.
4. Whether or not
"new" neurons are formed is not so important. So many
neurons in the brain are not yet connected and are
available for
connection following systematic stimulation that
"new" neurons are
unnecessary.
5. The article in
Scientific American about a year ago on the topic of
glia had an imbedded one-sentence bomb-shell: when neurons were
stimulated continuously for 15 seconds or more, the
surrounding glia
became electrically charged/activated. Think of the
implications for
sensory stimulation and cognitive stimulation: concentrating/keeping
in mind/focusing for 15 seconds or more activates glia.
What other
amazing features of brain stimulation are yet to be
discovered? What
might be the role of glia in memory?
6. New abilities
can now be our focus. Shichida in Japan has been
conducting infant and childhood stimulation for years now
with success
in the following areas by using mother coaches (a
long-time Japanese
tradition):
a. Photographic
memory through eidetic imagery light stimulation
producing abilities to review pages of print;
b. Perfect pitch
c. Early multiple
languages
d. Quick
subconscious calculation of huge numbers
e. Instant
quantity recognition
f. Visualized
memory hooks to 100 (1 = sun, 2 = shoe, 3 = tree, etc.)
g. Photographic
speed reading
and more. He calls these abilities
"right-brain" abilities - interesting.
His son runs more than 70 Shichida centers for training
mothers in this
technology.
We know that some persons have special talents/abilities
of telepathy,
premonition, healing, etc. Will we eventually be able to
train/stimulate
these abilties as "natural" abilities?
We say that the purpose of the brain is to adapt the
organism to the
environment, to sense, to organize and to produce actions
for survival.
We now extend these concepts to produce actions, "to
thrive" and "to
improve the world."
Gerald Bracy in the latest Phi Delta Kappan points out
that there are
many more jobs to do in the world at the local service
level than jobs
that require a lot of education. Most of us are
consumers, not inventors,
engineers, scientists, etc. We need a few people with passionate
curiosity to create the new world; but for the rest of
us, we need to
be able to "operate" the world with compassion
and justice. What kind
of brain abilities are needed for operation
purposes?
What are the new necessities? Are they food (solve hunger), clothing
(recycle), shelter (provide economic justice), energy
(with controllable
pollution), education and entertainment (provide
schooling), work
(honorable and respected) and justice (corruption must
go, must be
exposed, must be condemned with transparency of
transactions and
taxation)? All must be handled locally, beginning at
home.
On another angle:
* Accelerated
Learning has for years used certain music to enhance the
reception and acquisition abilities of the brain.
* Georgi Lozanov
did the first studies with Evalena Gateva, who wrote
her dissertation on the measured effects of art on brain
changes.
* Gordon Shaw,
Ph.D. Theoretical Physicist, who worked with Frances
Rauscher on the Mozart Effect, died in May 2005 at age 72
of cancer.
Shaw started the MIND Institute - treat yourself to a
visit
at http://www.MINDInst.org/
- Lyelle L. Palmer, Ph.D.
( lpalmer@winona.edu )
Research Scientist, Early Childhood Brain Stimulation,
Minnesota
Learning
Resource Center
Professor Emeritus, Special Education (Learning
Disabilities and
Accelerated
Learning), Winona State University, Winona, MN
Editor, Journal of Accelerative Learning & Teaching
______
Addendum from Win Wenger:
Are there any volunteers with some appropriate
competencies to find out
as much as they can about this work? Please email your
interest in this
research to wwenger101@aol.com .
~~~
INCREASING BRAIN CELLS WITH THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND - contributed
by M.
The hypothalamus is involved in manufacturing Nerve
Growth Factor
throughout life. Just as your image-streaming helps grow
new connections
and glial cells, I have an idea how to increase brain
cells using the
subconcious mind. I have a technique that I developed. It
may seem off-
the-wall, but I've noticed a dramatic change in my life
on trying it.
If many others might benefit from this, it would be an
awesome thing to
look at in more detail:
1. Go to a mirror
and picture your brain behind your eyes and inside
your head. Actually see the flashes of the electrical
impulses. Then
picture a sudden increase in this lightning! Say to
yourself and close
your eyes that this sudden increase is the result of
adding billions of
new neurons and glial cells as well a trillion new
connections daily.
2. Say to yourself
that your subconscious and your conscious minds are
becoming one. Lastly, picture your head expanding to
allow this growth.
Repeat these sayings and visualizations before going to
bed and before
rising each morning. Be patient and have faith and it'll
happen.
3. No need to be
mediocre any longer. Picture yourself already having
the mind of a genius. The biggest and most celebrated
brain in the world
is already yours, and it shall eventually come to be.
Don't be surprised
if you find yourself having to dramatically increase the
amount you eat
in order to meet the energy demands of the additional
brain power. The
more real and the more senses involved, the more rapidly
it will come
about.
- (This contributor wishes to remain anonymous)
~~~
------------------------------------------------------------------~~~~~~
To send your comments to The Stream for possible
publication here, write
to: mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=Comments
........................................................................
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ORGANIZATIONAL NOTES
~~~
TOPICAL INTEREST GROUPS:
Our membership is large and diverse, and many of you have
expressed an
interest in communicating with other members who share
your topic of
concern or research interest. If you'd like us to share
your email
address with other interested members, and to supply
theirs to you,
please email your name, email address and subject/topic
to:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=InterestGroups
Your communications will be private. If you'd like to
take a topic
public, just post your discussions on Project Renaissance's
board:
http://bbs.cartserver.com/bbs/b/7733/#PostMessage
~~~
ADDRESS CHANGE?
If your email address changes or your email box is full
or your spam
filter blocks us, we can't get The Stream to you. Please,
before that
happens, make sure you notify us of any change and put
winwenger.com on
your safe senders list. Write to:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=AddressChange
~~~
SUBSCRIBER OR MEMBER?
If you currently only subscribe to The Stream, you can
upgrade your
participation in Project Renaissance to full membership,
free.
Membership in Project Renaissance entitles members to
additional
benefits. If you're not yet a member, please register
now, here:
http://www.winwenger.com/regmem.htm
or from link on the homepage, http://www.winwenger.com .
~~~
DUPLICATE MAILING?
If you received two (or more?) copies of this issue of
The Stream,
please let us know by replying to:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=duplicate
~~~
HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE...
* You can post messages to Project Renaissance's
discussion board about
any Project
Renaissance topic and join any ongoing discussions. No
log-in required.
Please visit our homepage at http://www.winwenger.com
and click the
Discussion Board link. To post a message right now,
click here:
http://bbs.cartserver.com/bbs/b/7733/#PostMessage
Then scroll up
the page for the full message index.
* The long-established, popular Image-Streaming egroup is
here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imagestream - requires Yahoo sign-in.
* Submit articles, comments or questions for possible
inclusion in
The Stream:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=TotheEditor
........................................................................
LINKS
* Back issues of
THE STREAM by email upon request from
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=BackIssues
* Index of feature
articles in The Stream archives:
http://www.winwenger.com/strmlist.htm
* Archived copies
of Capital Ideasmiths are here:
http://www.winwenger.com/Capitalidea/capidea1.htm
* Project
Renaissance homepage:
http://www.winwenger.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UNSUBSCRIBE: If
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mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=TheStream-unsubscribe