JNLRMI Vol. II Nr.2  July 2003

by Aroutioun Agadjanian

Part of this material was presented
 at the 2003 Quantum Mind Conference in Tucson, Arizona

In order to understand how it would be possible to experimentally study the role of consciousness in the process of evolution we would first like to propose a hypothesis about the collective consciousness of a population of living organisms. According to F. Crick's hypothesis, human consciousness arises as a biological function from interactions between neurons in the brain (Crick, 1994). For V. Norris, consciousness is an organizing force, which is involved in the process of transmitting, receiving and condensing organization to a common pattern; it is created by information and would act to create information. (Norris, 1996). We propose a further hypothesis, stating that any number of similar units of living matter, which coexist together in relatively close physical proximity and interact with each other by exchanging matter and information, comprise a bio-informational network. Consciousness arises as a result of constant information transactions between all units of such a bio-informational network and serves as organizing force for its units to co-exist and function together as a single formation  (Agadjanian, 1999).

This information exchange spans all known communication channels, including the exchange of material building blocks, various chemical and physical signals, as well as possibly unknown forms of physical communication (Norris, 1998) defined as novel non-chemical forms of signaling (Matsuhashi et al., 1995) or superweak electromagnetic radiations (Kaznacheev et al., 1981). Thus any population of living organisms of the same species, from bacteria to human beings, which co-exists together in relatively close physical proximity and function together as a single formation interacting with the environment and lasting for a certain amount of time has, according to our model, a collective consciousness. This consciousness by analogy has to have similar characteristics to the phenomenon we are rationally aware of as human consciousness. The collective consciousness of a population of bacteria obviously would be a much less complex system than human consciousness, and the collective consciousness of any number of human beings, accordingly, would be a much more sophisticated formation than one individual's consciousness. All these different levels of consciousness including human consciousness can be examined as a different spectrum or separate but closely interconnected components of a single global system - the Global Consciousness of all living matter on Earth, which can also be defined as Global Energy-Information Network (Agadjanian, 1999). Such a model would broaden K. Wilber's hypothesis of a spectrum of consciousness (Wilber, 1977) beyond the boundaries of human perception within the system of knowledge of psychology, psychotherapy and religion and would give a new understanding to the hypothesis of Vernadsky (Vernadsky, 1926) and Teilhard de Chardin (Teilhard de Chardin, 1966) regarding the noosphere. In the case of some social species such as ants we can directly observe some functioning patterns of the consciousness of local populations. In the case of many other biological species, the existence and functions of a population's collective consciousness is not so obvious. However, there should be fundamental similar characteristics of consciousness in all populations of living creatures. If we could point to the fundamental similarities between human consciousness and the "collective mind" of local populations for any biological species we might be able to establish a new paradigm for studying consciousness experimentally.

It is obvious that one of the most important function of human consciousness is to defend man from dangerous factors in the environment and to provide conditions for effective survival. For example, if one accidentally puts one's hand on a hot stove, one receives a complex of information signals, analyzing which will make one: first, unconsciously pull one's hand back; and secondly, consciously avoid hot metal objects in the future. Thus the protective response to an environmental challenge includes both specific and nonspecific defense mechanisms.

Species have demonstrated an ability to survive almost unchanged for periods of millions of years. Therefore we can assume that the most common pattern for both of these complex bio-informational systems - the single human being and single biological species - is ability to sustain their existence for a long time by interacting with the environment and making necessary adjustments according to the received and analyzed information. By analogy with the 'hot stove' we can assume that the main function of collective consciousness in the local population of any biological species is the ability to employ nonspecific and specific defense mechanisms against the emergence of new deadly factors in the environment, in order to survive for as long as possible on an evolutionary scale. We would like to show that it is possible experimentally to establish the existence of similar specific and non-specific defense mechanisms, which the consciousness of the species deploys in order to survive new deadly threats.

The experimental project 'Feedback' (Agadjanian, 1983 and Agadjanian et al., 1990) was conducted from 1976 to 1989 in the former Soviet Union using as subjects several biological species. The general design of these experiments was as follows: two identical groups of individuals of the same species, control and experimental, were kept physically separated. Individuals in both of these groups were made to live together for some previous period of time in order to allow the collective consciousness of the local population to be established. A specific number of individuals was removed unharmed from the control group and isolated from further experimental manipulations. Simultaneously, in the experimental group, the same number of individuals, with the same sex-ratio, was killed by the specific killing agent (for example, in case of fish, by physical destruction and in case of pest insects by one of several different pesticides commonly used against that species); the killed organisms were left in the groups for a period of time and then removed. This was accomplished in a way that would completely eliminate any direct exposure of the survivors to the killing agent. These manipulations were repeated periodically over a given period of time. The reproduction rates were observed in both control and experimental groups. The experimental results in all studied species showed that, after some time and a number of manipulations such as described above, the reproduction rate in the experimental group became considerably higher than in the control groups, with the rate of increase varying from 20% to 250% across the full spectrum.

The first group included experiments on the following species, with the subjects being sacrificed through physical methods:

1.On mice in 1976-78 at the Novosibirsk Research Institute of RSFSR Ministry of Public Health.

2. On Drosophilae in 1978 at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Department of USSR Academy of Science.

3. On silkworms in 1981-82 at the Institute of Zoology, Armenian Academy of Science.

4. On viviparous aquarium fish (Guppy) in 1984 at the Central Research Laboratory of State Committee of Fish Economy of Armenia.

The second group included experiments on the following species using various chemical pesticides as killing agents:

5. On rats in 1989 at the department of Epidemics and Medical Parasitology of Yerevan Medical Institute (Zinc Phosphide, Zookumarin).

6. On the common dart moth, Agrotis segetum and Black Cutworm (Agrotis ypsilon), Mediterranean Vine Moth (Lobesia botrana) (Nurell-D, Phosalon, Cimbush, Metafos) in 1989 at the Armenian Plant Protection Research Institute.

7. On Predatory Mite, Amblyseius fallacis (Garman) in 1989 at the Armenian Institute of Zoology, Armenian Academy of Science (Phosalon, Plinctran). In this study, besides observing the changes in reproduction rate in the experimental group, the individuals from the experimental groups were checked periodically in order to to compare their resistance to the particular pesticide to the resistance of individuals from the control group. The results of these studies established that resistance to the pesticide used as a killing factor in the experimental groups gradually increased, whereas resistance to this pesticide in the control groups did not change. (See Appendix for a full summary of results).

8. In a separate part of the 'Feedback' project, a human demographic study was undertaken. In 1989, at the Institute of Economics of the Armenian Academy of Science, a study based on official statistical data concluded that in the eighties, in the several Soviet Republics of Middle Asia neighboring Afghanistan, after a period of dropping birth rates, there was a sudden birth rate increase coincided with military actions causing the violent death of many thousands of people in Afghanistan, which started after the Soviet invasion

Our interpretation of these experimental results is as follows. The killed individuals in each species transmitted, by physical or chemical signals, general information about the fact of their violent death and specific information about the nature of the deadly factor to the survivors of the same group. Based on this received information, the collective consciousness of this population employed both nonspecific and specific defense mechanisms in order to survive the deadly threat. First, as a nonspecific defense, the population increased its rate of reproduction, a response which was observed in all of the above experiments. Second, as a specific defense, using the received information about the deadly agent, the consciousness of the population activated specific resistance features to this killing factor, which was observed in the last group of experiments (7). In this case, taking into consideration that the pesticides Phosalon and Plinctran were widely used against this species long before these experiments were conducted, it would be logical to conclude that the insects had already acquired genetic resistance to these specific pesticides and that during the experiments the consciousness of the population merely activated it.

Based on the above logic we can assume that using any species of insects and completely new pesticides, it could be possible to establish the fact that mutations necessary to survive this new deadly factor would originate because the collective consciousness of the population would receive specific information about this new threat from the killed individuals and would direct adaptive mutations in the next generations. But experiments proving this statement could take several years to conduct and that is an amount of time comparable to the time usually needed for species to adapt to new insecticides in real life.

Experimental studies of the information transmission between physically separated groups of living organisms of the same biological species have been conducted before and after the experimental project 'Feedback'. Several authors reported observing this phenomenon in their studies and gave it different interpretations (Kaznacheev et al., 1981, Matsuhashi et al., 1995, Heal et al., 2002).

The hypothesis about the species consciousness of a local biological population might add new insight to the understanding of these experimental results. For example, it could explain the last studies by Heal and Parsons from a consciousness point of view. In these experiments the Petri dish was divided into two compartments, connected by a five-millimeter air gap between the top of the wall and the lid. In one compartment drops of the bacterium E.coli were placed, together with various antibiotics. When the other compartment was empty, the bacteria died - killed by the antibiotics. However, if thriving colonies of E.coli were placed in the other compartment, the first group of bacteria survived. If the gap between the compartments was sealed, the bacteria in the first compartment died. Heal and Parsons concluded that the bacteria in the second compartment must have sent some kind of airborne "survival" signals to the first group of bacteria dying from antibiotics , which helped them to survive. But form the point of evolution such explanation makes only partial sense - it attempts to explain what happened but not why it happened. From the perspective of local species consciousness, however, the results can be understood completely logically. The consciousness of one colony of E.Coli in the presence of a huge dose of antibiotic was not able to �think� of what to do to survive. When another healthy colony was put near this dying colony they would together comprise the viable �living� network with common consciousness, which had enough information and resources to be able to �figure out� how exactly to react to the threat factor. When the air gap was closed these colonies again become two separate colonies with separate consciousness and resources resulting in the death of the colony exposed to antibiotic. Quite possibly by blocking this air gap not chemical information transmission was blocked but some unknown weak electromagnetic information transmission, for which that barrier is impermeable.

The hypothesis about the consciousness of a population of biological species employing non-specific and specific defense mechanisms to face the emergence of new threat factors in the environment might prove to be invaluable in establishing a new paradigm for further studies of information transmission between physically separated organisms of the same population. These three experimental studies, together with the large number of human extrasensory perception studies, show that it is difficult to design reliable and easily reproducible experiments studying information transmission between the units of a living bio-information network if we do not understand the fundamental mechanisms of this network. Figuratively speaking, in order to reliably �intercept� these information transmissions we have to know when the transmissions occur with the maximum strength, precisely which individuals transmit and which ones receive the transmissions and by which readily observable effects such information transmission should by judged. From this point of view the design of project 'Feedback' protocols might be considered the most effective in further experimental studies of consciousness. This design actually demonstrates that in a laboratory setting the local population under stress might show unique and reliably detectable patterns of information transmission. The information transmission from the violently killed individuals to the survivors of the same species might be the fundamental mechanism using which life can manifest as a system with the ability to constantly decrease entropy (Schrodinger, 1944). Indeed if we consider that living organisms with sexual reproduction mechanism live and gather information long after giving birth to the last progeny up until the very moment of death, then it is unclear how all this information can be preserved by the consciousness of the species and used to adapt to the environment. It is just a matter of logic to conclude that there should be a mechanism by which the consciousness of the biological species as an effective and stable bio-informational network stores and increases the common pool of information by receiving all the gathered information from all its living units during the moment of their death and distributes it to its new units - the newly born organisms of the species.

These experiments, together with the hypothesis of a collective consciousness of biological species using specific and nonspecific mechanisms to maintain the species' existence in the changing conditions of the environment, could become the starting point in our effort to study the consciousness of living matter through reliable and repeatable laboratory experiments. If we can examine certain current global ecological problems from a consciousness point of view we might be able to design more effective solutions to them. If we can understand that by trying to eliminate pests with pesticides or bacteria with antibiotics we are dealing with an intelligent force - the consciousness of those species, which �intelligently� uses the specific information about our killing methods to successfully defend itself - we might come to fundamentally different methods of controlling harm from these species with much higher efficiency (such as, for example, completely eliminating the key point of �enemy� defense - the killing). Organic farming, for example, has already proven that products can be successfully grown without the use of pesticides and the above theory, together with the results of further experiments, might provide sufficient evidence for completely eliminating the use of pesticides in the world. With pathogenic bacteria and antibiotics the solution might not be so obvious, but again realizing that we are dealing with �intelligent� defense of the species consciousness based on information from the dying bacteria, we might be able to come to fundamentally different methods of controlling these pathogens with higher efficiency. Using the same approach we can conclude that the global problem of over-fishing might be compounded by inappropriate methods of killing commercially caught fish, far from their surviving populations and out of their natural environment. The collective consciousness of different fish species for many millions of years of evolution probably developed methods of defending its numbers from various threat factors, which mostly killed fish in close proximity to the surviving individuals. One possible solution obviously might be killing all commercially caught fish  in the water, close to the survivors of the same population.

But the most stunning conclusions based on this hypothesis and on some of the above experiments might be drawn concerning the human species. Non-specific defense mechanisms of the human consciousness obviously continue to function unconsciously effecting the behavior and reproductive patterns of people despite the intelligent awareness of individual human beings. That is why during the 20th century, as a direct result of the two most devastating wars in the history of human civilization plus many smaller military conflicts, the human population increased dramatically (Agadjanian et al., 1990 and Agadjanian, 1999). Another interesting conclusion based on this theory, which is indirectly confirmed by the results of the above experiments by Heal and Parsons (Heal et al., 2002), is that any chronically ill person in addition to having all the necessary conventional treatments might greatly benefit from periodically spending some amount of time at public events with gatherings of many thousands of healthy people, like sport games or concerts (Agadjanian, 1999).

December 2002

Appendix

As part of the project �Feedback� experiments on the predatory mite, Amblyseius fallacis (Garman), were accomplished in 1989 at the Armenian Zoology Institute of the Armenian Academy of Science. Two common pesticides (Phosalon and Plinctran) were used as the lethal stressors. The difference between these experiments and all other experiments that were part of project �Feedback� was the fact that they were designed not only to test the change in insect reproduction rate as similar organisms were killed by these pesticides in close proximity, but also the possibility of resistance changes in these insects from generation to generation when these pesticides were use as lethal stressors.

The design of experiments was as follows: as shown in Diagram 1, we used two glass vessels, placed one inside the other. The larger one was a jar made from silicate glass (number 1). The second one was a smaller test-tube made from quartz glass (number 5), which during the killing manipulations was placed inside the jar. The jar in the beginning of the experiments was completely covered with aluminum foil from outside leaving uncovered only the opening. The control and experimental insect populations were kept respectively inside the control and experimental test-tubes (number 6). Killings were accomplished in the jar (outside the test-tube walls) by using a specific number of individuals of the same species and particular pesticide (number 2). During the killing process we used a hermetic plug to close the test-tube (number 3) to avoid contamination of the test-tube population of insects by the pesticide and insects killed by it. A paper ring was also placed inside the jar (number 4), in order to fix the position of the test-tube and to prevent insects sprayed by the pesticide from escaping.

Diagram 1

There were 4 groups of insects:

1. In the first experimental group we used Plinctran.

2. In the second experimental group we used Phosalon.

3. The third group was the control for Plinctran.

4. The forth group was the control for Phosalon.

The populations in the test-tubes were started by placing 25 fertilized female insects in each of the four test-tubes (two experimental, two controls). The conditions in which the insects were kept were as follows: temperature: 25-28C; humidity: 60-80%; the length of the light period: 12-14 hours. Under these conditions each generation of insects developed in 5-7 days.

Every day, beginning with the first day of experiments, a specific number of insects of the same species (produced outside the 4 groups) was killed inside the jar by the particular pesticide. The number of insects killed varied from 50 to 100, but was equal for both experimental groups on the same day. The killing was accomplished by placing the insects inside the jar first and then spraying them with the maximal concentration of pesticide (2% for both Plinktran and Phosalon). For the controls, (groups 3 and 4) the same pesticide solutions were added to the jar without insects - so that there was no killing, but the presence of the chemical in the jar outside the walls of test-tubes with insect populations was equally ensured in all control and experimental groups.

The rate of reproduction was observed for the populations of insects inside the test-tubes by counting, every 20 days, the number of individuals in the test-tubes. The results are reproduced in Table 1.

Table 1

Where

N - Census number
D - Date (day/month)
P - Pesticides
Ph - Phosalon
Pl - Plinktran
E - Number of individuals in Experiment
C - Number of individuals in Control
I% - Percentage of experimental population increase relative to control
A - On average increase for all 7 groups
S - Date experiments were started

Percentage of increase was calculated by the following formula:

I%=(E-C)*100/C

Where I is percentage of increase for each date and pesticide, E is number of individuals in the experimental test tube, C number of individuals in the respective control test tube.

Also, once every 20 days, an equal and specific number of insects (from 10 to 20) was taken out of each of the 4 test tubes, put inside closed Petri dishes, sprayed with lower doses of the pesticides (0.1 and 0.2%) and left for 24 hours to measure the change of the resistance of individuals of experimental and control groups of insects towards the particular pesticide used in this group. The change of resistance was concluded based on the numbers of insects remaining alive after 24 hours of pesticide application.

The results of these observations and calculations are represented in table 2 for Plinctran and table 3 for Phosalon. Please note that in the first three cases (census number 1, 2 and 3) the solution of pesticide (for both pesticides) was 0.2% and as it can be seen according to the tables there were no survivors in all experimental and control groups. This is why, starting with Number 4, the solution of pesticide used (for both pesticides) was lowered to 0.1%. So the average increase in reproduction in Tables 2 and 3 was calculated based on five counts (from Number 4 to Number 8).

Table 2
Plinctran Resistance

Table 3
Fosalon Resistance

Where:

N - Census number
D - Date (day/month)
PS - Pesticide Solution %
E - Experiment
C - Control
O- Original Number of Mites
S - Number of Surviving Mites After 24 hrs of Pesticide Application
%S- Resistance as percentage of surviving mites (%S=100*S/O)
A- Average resistance (from census 4 to 8)

Based on the results summarized in Tables 1, 2 and 3 a number of inferences can be made. The first conclusion is that experimental populations of insects, which indirectly witnessed the killings of individuals of the same species by pesticide through the quartz walls of the test tubes, reproduced with higher speed than control populations in identical conditions, which did not witness the killings by pesticide. The second conclusion is that individuals of the experimental populations consistently showed greater pesticide resistance compared to the control populations.

The above summary was just recently made, based exclusively on information from the original protocols in Russian. Due to objective reasons this information was never published in the scientific literature and, until the recent presentation at the Quantum Mind 2003 Conference in Tucson, Arizona, it was not presented at any scientific conference. This is why there is no other source of information to verify details of what was done and how. We would like to ask the reader to judge this summary accordingly. This synopsis does not claim to represent definitive evidence based on scientifically impeccable methodology. However it does indeed show a completely unique approach in addressing the well-known problem of pesticides' inability to effectively control harm from insects and that of pesticide resistance - all from the point of view of information transmission between living organisms.

Obviously, in future research projects using this approach the methodology of the experiments can be improved significantly. We can suggest, as an example, just a few such improvements: 1. Increasing the number of control and experimental groups to 10 in each case, bringing the total number of groups to 40. 2. The person who accomplishes the killings by placing the pesticide in the jar should not know whether there are insects in the jar or the jar is empty. 3. The person who accomplishes the procedures of checking the insects' resistance by spraying them with low doses of pesticide in the closed Petri dishes should also not know from which test tube the insects were taken. 4. The resistance of insects from a particular experimental group to the pesticide used in other experimental groups should also be checked. 5. Also we would suggest obtaining from the chemical companies pesticides, which were not yet used in the fields, and attempting similar experiments to check how quickly the insects would adapt to the completely new chemical. In this situation, from our point of view, the time needed for insects to acquire resistance to this new chemical might be comparable to the time it takes for resistance to occur in the real situation - that is 1-2 years.

References

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