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Biomedical Engineering¶s
theory behind the paranormal.By
Vivek.M
&
Kiran.V.Panicker
UG-StudentsDepartment of Biomedical Engineering
VMKV Engineering College
Vinayaka Missions University
Salem
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In a nutshell
GHOSTSGHOULS
DEMONS
&
OTHER PARANORMAL ENTIT
IES
Can Biomedical Engineering deal with theabove?
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OUR DEAR BRAIN
Most complicated signal processor.
Known to amplify, process & filter signals from our sensory systems.
A perfect non causal system. An evolutionary miracle.
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HARD WORKING BRAIN
Reconstructs our surroundings from the neural signals we receive
from our surroundings.
Known to send, receive & process millions of neural signals in any
given moment.
Simultaneously updates and retrieves our memory.
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Vision optics
Converts optical signals (Light) to neural signals.
Vision optics are not much suited for nocturnal (Night) sight.
Optic nerve carries these neural signals and our brain reconstructs
the image in the visual cortex.
Perception depends on various physical and psychological factors.
Good Pattern recognition ability.
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Ghosts and Vision
Many seeing ghosts or strange appearances in theperiphery of the vision.
When the center of the eye focus it vanishes.
Reason
The periphery of the eye has more rods than cones.
Thus these ghosts appear blurry, colorless and withoutdetail.
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Visual cortex
Located both in between the right and left side of our brain
RightLeft
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Ghosts and darkness
Most ghostly sightings or events happen in the dark.
Ghosts often appear colorless.
Reason Rods take over vision.
Brain is always tired at night.
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Beverstein¶s Perception theory
When a brain receives this information about theenvironment from the body¶s perceptions, the information ismore than often in bits and pieces and the brain has to put itall together.
Missing parts of the information are provided by the brainitself and can influence the way brain builds an image of theenvironment meaning how a human imagines theenvironment.
The brains gets the missing parts from the informationstored in the brain about the environment and mostly comefrom a person¶s experience and knowledge of the world.
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Ghosts and drugs
Certain drugs slow down the neurotransmitting speed
Thus causing our imagination to play a major role.
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Magnetic fields and ghosts
Recent studies and tests conducted by Dr.MichaelPersingeer, Munich university, proved that stray EMFs caninduce ghostly experiences.
Tests conducted with a pulsed EMF of 5 Micro teslaseemed to induce paranormal experiences in all thesubjects.
Thus any stray EMF can induce neural current in the brain.
If the brain does not filter it, we get a paranormalexperience
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The TMS Experiment
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Infrasound and Ghosts
Inaudible sound less than 20 Hz.
Can resonate with human organs like human eye balls(18cycles per sec), brain etc.
Thus causing visual disturbances and other anomalies.
They also are known to cause neural damages and anincrease in the inter cranial pressure.
Infrasound is found abundant in the natural and artificialsources.
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Poltergeists or noisy spirits
Poltergeists are known as spirits that manifests itself bymoving objects.
In case an object is to be moved according to EngineeringMechanics the force applied must be greater than sum of
other forces keeping the object in equilibrium.
Thus an invisible or an unknown entity cannot cause this.
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EVP
Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) is defined as the voice recordedthat represent some sort of a ghost voice when played afterwards.
Reason
Engineers have generally given cross-modulation as a reason for havingunknown voices being recorded by the tape recorder.
Sometime recorders can pick up the radio frequency and recordwhatever the radio frequency carries with it and can give the impressionthat someone is talking on the recorder.
Most of the times the EVPs recorded are not even intelligible to anyone.
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DOWSING AND DOWSERS
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Dowsing and Ideomotor effect
Dowsing is a practice that attempts to locate hidden water
wells, buried metals, gemstones, or other objects as well
as currents of earth radiation without the use of scientific
apparatus.
Explanation
The ideomotor effect is a psychological phenomenon
wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously.
For instance, tears are produced by the body
unconsciously in reaction to the emotion of sadness
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Ouija Board
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Ouija and Ideomotor effect
A ouija board is any flat board with letters, numbers, and
other symbols, used to supposedly communicate with
spirits.
Explanation The ideomotor effect
Penn & Teller ran an experiment using unbiased
participants. Questions were being asked to the late
William Frawley with very strong answers. The participantswere then blindfolded and the board was turned 180
degrees without their knowledge. With continued
questioning, the planchette then traveled to bare areas of
the board where the participants believed the "Yes" and
"No" marks were located.
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Telepathy
Telepathy is defined as supposed communication directly from one
person¶s mind to another¶s without speech, writing, or other signs or
symbols.
Explanation According to Paranormal experts your mind establishes a connection
with the person, while thinking of him or your mind receives signals
from the person.
The Human Memory model indicates that when you think of person his
image is brought from your long term memory to your working
memory. There is no evidence of a connection being established.
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Telekinesis
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Telekinesis
Telekinesis is defined as the supposed psychic power to
move or deform objects without the use of physical force.
Explanation
Paranormal Experts state that using cosmic rays frompeople¶s eyes they can move objects.
But Physiological and anatomical studies of the eye states
that it is only an input device in some clinical cases an
indicator but never emits any rays nor any evidenceindicating that it is an output device.
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Conclusion
Although some paranormal mysteries were solved by
Science and Engineering.
Many like mediation, acupressure, Kirilan photography
still remain unsolved and unexplained. But Science and Engineering is catching up with them.
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References
Microsoft Encarta 2005
www.wikipedia.org
Adnan Hafeez, µWhy does Ghosts Exist?¶
Beverstein, L Barry. Visions and Hallucinations
Frood, Allan. ³Ghosts All in the Mind.´
Tipton, Kelli, ³Can Ghosts be explained scientifically.´
Altering Human activity with Pulsed magnetic fields,
Michael Persinger
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Open for questions and clarifications
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Thank U