About EsoterX

this is a wonderful blog, i really enjoy your articles.

it may sound a bit of an odd or unrelated question, but what do you think about the possibility and potential of the human mind? i remember reading a memorable ‘creepypasta’ horror story in which scientists severed all of an elderly man’s physical senses, touch, sight, sound, everything, in an attempt to make him contact with god (at the end the man spoke and hauntingly proclaimed that god had abandoned humanity).

i read a group of monks had also used temporary sensory deprivation for a similar purpose, and after recovering, they claimed they had seen/spoken with God while deprived. then there is the common trope that losing your physical eyesight leads to psychic awareness (think of how many movies and books there are in which a protagonist gains clairvoyance after becoming blind). when humans dissociate from the physical realm, do they then enter the spiritual one? buddhism does opine that this physical world is an ‘illusion’ after all.

i am also forever intrigued by the theory that we humans, in our lifetime, will only use a small part of what our brain is capable of, with some even claiming we only use a measly 10%- the other 90% of our big juicy brain sitting unused. it was however proven that we use a lot more than 10%, but interestingly also confirmed that by the time of old age/death we only use around 5% (almost as though we ironically get stupider, rather than wiser, as we age? ha). either way, most scientific people are in agreement that we don’t use as much of our brains as we could.

i watched films ‘limitless’ and the more recent ‘lucy’ both of which base on the topic. both protagonist are about relatively ordinary people who end up, through some kind of mysterious zootropic drug, ‘activating’ 100% of their brain’s capacity. the man in limitless becomes quickly rich, genius and successful through the drug. lucy’s transformation goes at a more rapid and dramatic, frightening scale, with the drug bestowing her new awareness and intelligence as more and more of her brain awakens. by just 60%, she can ‘switch off’ pain and emotion, understand all human languages, has super-genius intellect, telepathic and telekinetic type powers, can control her own body’ cells and other humans, levitate, travel in time – imagining what she will become by 100% is frankly terrifying.

but what i find even more interesting is how both of these characters also suffer from having so much access to their brain. in limitless, the protagonist experiences severe memory blackouts, depression and addiction to the drug. it is also heavily implied that while in a memory blackout he had murdered a woman. lucy’s mind overloads and her body begins to disintegrate. she is later told that she is slowly dying and the only cure is even more of the harmful zootropic drug.

it reminds me of a doctor’s claim a few years back that the part of the brain which operates speech and language is also the same part that causes schizophrenia and mental illness. he said our speech is the thing that truly sets us apart from other animals and mental illness is the price we pay for being so intelligent.