Sensory Transducers

INGO SWANN

Superpowers of the Human Biomind

SENSORY TRANSDUCERS

Ingo Swann (15May96)

Part Three

Based on the extent of my accumulated understanding so far, there is little doubt that the topic of SENSORY TRANSDUCERS constitutes about 70 percent of what one needs to know about all or any of the superpowers of the human biomind.
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An additional 20 percent is involved with the topic of mental information processing grids, and which more or less equate to our mental "software" programs or networks. This topic will be partially considered in Part Four of this mini-series of essays.
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This leaves about 10 percent which involves special knowledge concerning the nature and structure of the "hard drives" of our species biomind and the fundamental faculties inherent in them.
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The "accumulated understanding" referred to above is drawn from over thirty years of research, eighteen of which were spent in laboratory work, testing and strict oversight confirmation.
For the most part, the laboratory work was conducted at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), funded by the intelligence community upon instructions to do so by congressional committees. The whole of the eighteen years of research then proceeded under the direct auspices of many thorough-minded scientific oversight committees.
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The SRI project was the most extensive, intensive and longest in duration ever mounted to inquire into the nature and functions of the so-called "paranormal" aptitudes.
Even so, in this present essay the resulting information can only be offered for what it's worth to those who chance to read it. For in the absence of tutored exercises it can only be theoretically considered.
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The only real problem (among many lesser ones) is that the three topics noted above have not been identified before. And so they have never heretofore taken on a broad reality basis -- at least within the concepts utilized by the cultures of the modern West.
When cast against the enormous amount of popular and professional literature of all kinds which has accumulated on the general topic of "psychic abilities," the reduction of what is involved to only three major topics will at first seem unreasonable.
I will therefore depend on the old axiom that it is what is NOT understood which seems complex and complicated, perhaps even unsolvable. But when it is finally understood it becomes easy and people wonder why they hadn't understood it before.
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To help launch into this essay, and to help make it as internally complete as possible, it seems advisable to remind of the working definition of the superpowers -- and which has already been presented in other essays in this database.
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Generally speaking, the usual powers can be seen to involve the physical and tangible which our basic five physical senses inform us of. These powers are not considered "psychic" ones because it is thought that they can be "explained" within the terms of physicality -- even though a number of the usual powers actually belong in the superpower category.
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The superpowers of the biomind involve sensory and perceptual faculties which transcend the extent and limits of physicality and inform us of factors by ways which cannot be explained by its known "laws." 
SOME of these aptitudes have been identified, and are grouped together under the generic term "psychic."
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In the modern West, psychic aptitudes are considered "paranormal" or "parapsychological." But other and earlier cultures did not make this strange and unfortunate distinction -- and which led to the Western mainstream condemnation of the paranormal as abnormal and irrational.
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It is much more profitable to consider that specimens of the human species possess arrays of sensory receptors. 
We should also consider that the sensory receptors detect "signals" and enter the signals into the biomind identifying mechanisms which convert them into feelings, perceptions, impressions and etc., and which ultimately interact within the individual's intellect.
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In Western technical concepts and jargon, mechanisms which convert one form of input energy to another form which can be utilized by different systems are referred to as TRANSDUCERS.
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If we extend the concept of transducers to include biomind situations, then we can very easily arrive at the concept of SENSORY TRANSDUCERS (a term which has been coined by others than myself.)
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In the case of the human biomind, the enormous number of sensory receptors function in various ways which input various signals (forms of energy information) into the vast complex of the sensory systems. 
But the input signals need to be transduced into other forms in order to be utilized by the various biomind systems.
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The following is exceedingly important.
It would appear that the human biomind sensorium possesses the inherent hard drive faculties TO CONSTRUCT an enormous variety of sensory transducers. 
But it also appears that beyond the inherent hard drive faculties, the transducers are constructed only as a result of repeated exposure to the signals in some kind of cognitive way.
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This is to say that although the biomind systems are bombarded, as it were, with signals of all kinds, sensory transducers appear to form only if the intellect in some fashion recognizes a need or usefulness for them.
Since perceptions of needs or usefulness are usually determined by environmental and social factors, human specimens will usually elect to form only those sensory transducers which integrate them with those factors.
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And it is at this point that the concept of sensory transducers becomes immeasurably complicated -- and for the following reasons.
For the most part, those sensory transducers which are typically constructed, more or less follow the lines of local environmental, social and educational influences.
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As but three examples, people who spend their lives in the high mountains have no need of the sensory transducers formed by those who spend their lives majorly on water or the oceans -- and vice versa.
Urban dwellers have no need of the particular sensory transducers needed by farmers -- and vice versa.
Intellectuals have no need of the sensory transducers formed by those who depart from the intellectual armchair and go out into the "field" to work within hands-on situations.
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This is to say that our species, and very probably every specimen born of it, possesses the inherent faculties for sensory transducer formatting. But the general, overall result is the formatting of a wide variety of sensory transducers in given individual and socio-educational groupings.
This is the same as saying that different people format different sets of sensory transducers -- meaning that some form sensory transducers which others do not.
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It is now necessary to introduce the concept that there are differences between what might be called the "gross" and the "subtle" sensory receptors. I don't particularly like those two terms, but they are about the only ones we have in order to convey the ideas of the concept.
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The gross sensory receptors inform us of the tangible. The subtle ones inform us of the intangible.
But there is an added distinction which is enormously important.
For the tangible can only be experienced locally and regards the physical vicinity which the individual biomind is most accustomed to.
But the intangible can be experienced non-locally and will concern matters not dependent on the physical vicinity of the biomind specimen.
I will extend consideration of these concepts ahead. But in this way we can distinguish between the gross physical sensory receptors and the subtle refined sensory receptors. 
It's worth while, here, to point out that most human specimens build a lot of sensory transducers regarding the tangible sensory receptors (i.e., the famous five so-called physical senses.) 
What forms in the way of intangible sensory transducers is open for wondering about.
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In order to get deeper into the topic of this essay, sensory transducers, it is necessary to undertake some background discussions so as to establish a broader information basis which will ultimately aid in comprehension.
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To get into this, I will begin by giving the formal technical definitions of TRANSDUCER taken from a reasonably authoritative source -- VAN NOSTRAND'S SCIENTIFIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, Fifth Edition.
The exact definitions are very important, for the concepts of transducers not only underlie the entirety of the human biomind sensorium, but ALL of the superpowers of the biomind.
You may bear in mind, however, that the definitions refer to physical mechanisms and equipment -- and that we will be converting the definitions so that they refer to the human biomind sensorium.
I will help elucidate and simplify after the definitions have been given.
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"TRANSDUCER: 1. A device by means of which energy can flow from one or more transmission systems to one or more other transmission systems. The energy transmitted by these systems may be of any form (for example, it may be electric, mechanical, or acoustical), and it may be of the same form or different forms in the various input and output systems.
"2. For some purposes the transducer is defined (more narrowly) as a device capable of being actuated by waves from one or more transmission systems or media, and of supplying related waves to one or more other transmission systems or media. It is sometimes implied that the input and output energies shall be of different forms. For example, an electroacoustic transducer accepts electrical waves and delivers acousting waves.
"Among the types of transducers in addition to those designated by nature of energy change, such as electroacoustic or electromechanical transducers, are:
"The ACTIVE TRANSDUCER, whose output waves are dependent upon sources of power, apart from that supplied by any of the actuating waves, which power is controlled by one or ore of these waves.
"The CONVERSION TRANSDUCER, an electric transducer in which the input and the output frequencies are different. If the frequency-changing property of a conversion transducer depends upon a generator of frequency different from that of the input or output frequencies, the frequency and voltage or power of this generator are parameters of the conversion transducer.
"The HARMONIC TRANSDUCER, a conversion transducer in which the useful output frequency is a multiple or a sub-multiple of the input frequency. Either a frequency multiplier or a frequency divider is a special case of harmonic conversion transducer.
"The HETERODYNE CONVERSION TRANSDUCER, a conversion transducer in which the useful output frequency is the sum or difference of the input frequency and an integral multiple of the frequency of another wave.
"The PASSIVE TRANSDUCER, whose output waves are independent of any sources of power which is controlled by the actuating waves.
"The IDEAL TRANSDUCER, a hypothetical passive transducer which transfers the maximum possible power from a specified source to a load. In linear electric circuits and analogous cases, this is equivalent to a transducer which (a) dissipates no energy and (b) when connected to the specified source and load, presents to each its compliance."
I trust you understood all of the above.
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But now to elucidate and simplify a little, first by saying that I've given the entire definitions in order to show that there are different kinds of transducers. If we apply the concept of transducers to the human biomind, it is quite probable that hundreds or thousands of different kinds of sensory transducers can be formed.
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More simply speaking regarding the basic definition, a transducer is a device that is actuated by power from one system and supplies power in some other form to a second system.
Another way of putting this is that a transducer converts power or energy of one system into a different form so that it can be utilized by a second system which can't utilize the first form of the energy or power.
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All of this might seem alien to you -- unless it is pointed up that the telephones we use every day are transducers -- actually two of them. 
The speaking end of the telephone converts our voice sounds into electromagnetic signals which can travel through wires or the atmospheres. These signals are then received at the listening end, but are reconverted by another kind of transducer into the sound vibrations we hear and recognize as words.
The same can be said of radio and television broadcasting. What is to be broadcast is converted into electromagnetic signals which travel (i.e., are propagated) along various bands of the electromagnetic spectrum -- and which signals are received by the reception transducers in radios and TVs and which convert the EM-signals into the sounds and images we see and hear.
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The only reason we are unfamiliar with the existence and functions of the transducers is that we experience only the end-products of the transduced information by our radios and TVs. 
We usually have no knowledge that broadcast information is first converted into EM-signals which are what are broadcast, and then reconverted by the receiving transducers into the sounds and images we hear and see.
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But almost exactly the same things go on when we speak words and our ears receive them.
Our voice box and larynx produce not words, but sonic vibrations which are modulated in various ways by our tongues, lips and jaws. The sonic vibrations have meanings to those who "speak" the sonic vibrations.
The spoken sonic vibrations propagate across a distance and are received by our ear mechanisms not as words but as sonic vibrations, i.e., sonic signals.
If we have not formed biomind transducers which reconvert the sonic signals into word meanings, then the sonics will not take on the form of words -- and we will not understand the sound vibrations and they will seem like garbled language or meaningless noise.
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Here is the essential problem of languages. In different languages the same thing can be sonically rendered via a vast number of sonic signals. But those who have not formed specific transducers to render them into meaning will not understand them. 
In this precise sense, then, sonic vibrations are information-signals which need to be recognized (transduced) as having particular meaning -- and obviously it takes a vast array of sensory transducers to result in this.
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Our species, and every specimen born of it, has the universal hard-drive faculties to emit and receive sonic vibrations. But the meanings to be attached to them reside within the formative influences of the environments, social groupings and cultures each specimen lives within. 
Again the reason why we are unfamiliar with the sonic signal processes is that we do not perceive the vibrations themselves. The sonic vibrations are so quickly converted by our biomind transducers into meanings and/or noise that we are aware only of experiencing the end products.
There can be no doubt that words, as emitted and received sonic vibrations ARE vibrations (signals) because our species has invented mechanical equipment to display the characteristics of the vibrations.
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The sense receptors we collectively refer to as eyesight are quite similar regarding vibrations. We do not literally or actually see what is out there. Rather light causes light frequencies (another form of vibrations) to bounce off of what is illuminated.
Our eye mechanisms do not receive pictures of the things themselves, but receive the bounced light frequencies instead. These frequencies are recombined into images by some undiscovered transducer function, and it is these images we perceive in our heads -- and with the astonishing adjunct that we feel we are directly seeing what is out there.
We have no sense at all of experiencing that what we are looking at is a reconstituted image in our own heads, not really something "out there."
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Again, light frequencies are information signals propagating along a particularly narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum -- referred to as the visual light spectrum. 
These signals are received by the eye-brain mechanisms as a spectrum of information signals. They are not received as images. Another step is required. The signals need to be transduced into the images which the biomind perceives.
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Now, it is generally thought and taught that we are receiving visual images. This is not true. What the visualizing parts of our biominds are receiving, via our eye systems, is not visual images but light frequencies -- while the images are reconstituted by some kind of transducers into the images we see. 
The problem here is that the whole of this takes place in a micro-fraction of a second -- so fast indeed that the images which appear in our heads seem simultaneous with what our visual sense receptors are sensing "out there." So we think we are seeing what is out there. We have no conscious awareness of the existence of the mysterious transducers involved.
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As an added situation, it is well known that people see things differently, and that some see tangible things completely missed by others. And here is the situation regarding which and what kind of sensory transducers have or have not been formatted at the individual level.
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There is an enormous complexity involved here. As has often been said, scientists today know everything there is to know about our physical eyesight mechanisms. But with one exception: How the light frequencies which travel through the eye mechanisms "register" somewhere unknown within the biomind and result in transduced images.
For those who might want to read in more detail of what I have summarized just above, I refer you to a particular book, probably hard to find but well worth the effort: BEYOND ALL BELIEF, by Peter Lemesurier (Element Books, Great Britain, 1983).
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In common parlance we refer to hearing and seeing as two of the major physical senses.
I suppose this is OK -- as long as one does not look into the mechanisms and processes involved. But in fact, such looking into was not possible before the modern sciences invented refined equipment to do so. 
After the invention of such equipment, and the applying of it to the dissecting of the physical senses, the definitions of the senses really ought to have radically changed -- because by now the earlier concepts of the senses are almost completely antiquated.
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Indeed, it is quite possible today to say that we do not have SENSES at all -- unless we utilize the term "sense" as "to make sense of something."
What we actually have are vast arrays of SENSORY RECEPTORS of all kinds quite busy receiving an even vaster array of information-signals.
We also have vast arrays of EMITTERS, equally busy sending out all kinds of information-signals.
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Various problems concerning concepts and nomenclature about remote viewing and the other superpowers were discussed in Part One of this series of essays. 
The general point was made that once the concepts and nomenclature have become established, they also enter into our mental information processing grids -- and thereafter we think of the superpowers only within those terms. 
As a result, our sensory load inputs and subsequent thinking processes and their extent can become trapped within the limits of the concepts and nomenclature.
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Some few researchers have agreed that the modern West has only a very limited number of concepts regarding the superpowers and the paranormal, some of which are quite superficial while others are not correct and therefore are misleading.
For example, the fabled out-of-body experience appears to have a number of different states or gradients, some of which are not completely independent of the biobody. 
Yet we tend to think of the OOBE only within one context having to do with the two-part division typical of Western philosophical dualism. Dualism divides the human biomind entity into only two parts, the biological part and another part commonly thought of as The Spirit and/or the Mind.
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If one digs deeper into this two-part simplicity, it becomes quite clear that the human biomind is multi-aspected, multi-dimensional, and capable of many gradient sensory states and conditions that can find no home or reality within the Western two-part concept of dualism.
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In Part Two, an attempt was made to discuss the SIDHIS of ancient India -- and this topic must now be expanded a little since it leads directly into the topic of sensory transducers and the superpowers of the human biomind.
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Descriptions of the sidhis will definitely identify them as superpowers of the human biomind. However, although descriptions of the various sidhis have been recounted in many sources published in the modern West, what they actually consisted of in their ancient terms past remains foggy in modern terms.
But it is clearly implied in the ancient Yoga texts that the sidhis are the products of learning and deliberate development. It would appear that one cannot develop or enhance any of the sidhis merely by reading about them. 
In the context of this essay, obviously would have been needed is the development and strengthening of specific kinds of sensory transducers.
However, what additionally would be involved in developing them is not explained in the ancient Yoga texts -- apparently because the Yogins felt that the superpowers should be developed only by those who had attained certain moral and ethical levels.
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The Yoga literature of the past, however, does, with some certainty, distinguish between the "gross" and the "subtle" senses. 
We in the modern West would distinguish between the physical and the psychic senses -- and assume that our distinction exactly corresponds with what was meant in the ancient Yoga tradition.
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But within my many years of experience and research, the Western division can only be an approximate one at best. Our modern distinction carries the overtones of Western dualism, and which makes our enormously limiting two-part distinction possible.
But there is hardly any evidence that the ancient Yogins leaned on any format of dualism. Good translations (there ARE bad ones) of the Yoga Sutras seem to indicate the ancient presence of an overall formative philosophy focused not on TWO aspects but on the many different multi-levels and multi-channels of the human biomind potentials.
It would seem that it was this overall philosophy of multi-aspects which released the ancient Yogins from our present modern dichotomy of material versus non-material.
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If anything, the ancient Yogins might have assigned a good part of what we call "psychic" to the physical senses, since they identified many more than five physical senses. 
And indeed, recent research in neurophysiology has located the sensory receptors for at least seventeen physical senses, a number of which we would call psychic, such as magnetic directional sensing. [See, for example, DECIPHERING THE SENSES, THE EXPANDING WORLD OF HUMAN PERCEPTION, Robert Rivlin and Karen Gravelle, Simon & Schuster, 1984.]
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One Western error of interpretation that has probably been made is in exclusively associating the Yoga "gross senses" with the physical senses. And with this, the distinction between gross and subtle senses begins -- and which we today would identify as the physical and psychic senses.
Yet many of the physical senses of biobody can qualify as subtle ones. The Yoga texts show that the ancient Yogins were completely aware of this in that they advocated the development, refinement, extending and honing of many of the physical senses.
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There is only one possible conclusion here -- that "gross" and "subtle" must have meant something else in those ancient times. 
It is my conclusion that the two terms referred not to the senses at all, but referred to how any or all of the senses were USED -- which is to say, to what ends they were used.
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Within this context, and as IS stated in the Yoga texts, the most fundamental "gross" aspect was to utilize one's senses only to gratify physical passions, lusts or even physical needs. 
Any number of what we would call "telepathic" senses can be used to those ends, and which powers we Westerners would certainly view as subtle ones in nature. {In a forthcoming essay I will discuss the telepathic capabilities of the astonishing biobody itself.]
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Likewise, the ancient Yoga meaning of "subtle" must have meant something different.
The ancient Yogins understood that there was an immediacy in physical affairs, a direct immediacy which trapped or at least focused the awareness of people in it -- leading to the gross usage of all of their manifold senses for physical end.
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Yet the Yogins also understood that there were intangible matters (influences?)which impacted upon physical affairs, and were even interwoven among them. 
Such intangible influences certainly qualify as subtle ones, while the USAGE of the combined biomind senses to perceive THEM would certainly be of a different order than merely perceiving anything strictly physical.
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It thus follows that the Yoga distinction was at least more between the USAGE of the senses in regard to gross and subtle GOALS than between a strict division of tangible and intangible -- or, as we would say, exclusively between the physical and the psychic sensory receptors.
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That the USAGE of the senses, whatever they were, was the principal focus of the Yogins is inordinately pronounced if one studies the discursive passages in the ancient texts. 
The Yogins clearly indicate that a focus of the senses exclusively into physicality permits gross and familiar formats of behavior, sometimes quite disgusting and heinous. 
But they also held that the introduction of perceptions of the subtle intangibles brought about beneficial changes in behavior based in the principle that humans behave according to the limits or extents of what they perceive.
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Even in bad Western translations of the Yoga texts, this basic "message" is quite clearly put, and there is little way around it. We today, of course, might transliterate this as "lifting one's consciousness into higher realms." 
But we would do so on the basic dualistic assumption of more departing from the physical and entering more into the spiritual -- in other words distinguishing, rather unforgivingly, between the physical and spiritual life which we dualistically see as diametrically and permanently opposed to each other.
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But there is hardly a trace of such diametric opposition in the Yoga texts -- and in this the general Western and Eastern foci differ completely. 
The ancient Yogins clearly valued the physical as the embodiment of the enduring Life Principle -- and which, to them, was perhaps the most intangible, but the most sustaining Principle of all.
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It was the reduction or collapse of the biomind sensory equipment and mechanisms into the limits of the purely physical purposes which disturbed them, and which collapse could be seen only by restoring the sensory subtle faculties into functioning efficacy.
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We in the modern West today do not have a very good picture of this -- and for a very surprising reason.
You see, we tend to judge the efficacy of psychic functioning mostly in regard to physical parameters.
For example, parapsychologists use only physical targets in testing for psi. 
Psychics are used to solve physical crimes and find lost or dead bio-bodies. 
Psychic readers, sometimes very good, are required to address physical situations for their clients -- sex or matrimonial partners, money, when physical circumstances will get better.
Even foreseeing the future has no real importance unless its outcomes can be judged against future, but quite physical manifestations. 
Our concepts of telepathy exclusively involve physical situations, most specifically minds in bio-bodies. 
Even spiritualistic mediums are expected to be in touch with departed bio-BODIES, and other remarkable seance phenomena have to be very near to being physical in order to be appreciated.
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Indeed, we in the modern West SAY that psychic faculties are non-material and non-material in origin. But we test and utilize them against physicality aspects. 
Even when psychic faculties are used, hypothetically speaking, to spot extraterrestrials, the result is that we assume that the ETs are somewhere in physicality and themselves are physical entities of some kind.
In this sense, then, we are trapped within the "gross usage" which the ancient Yogins most likely were referring to.
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And even the development of controlled remote viewing, of which I was a full part, it was exclusively designed to spy on foreign "hard targets" -- physical facilities of physical military importance.
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Indeed, we view psychic perceptions as subtle and intangible in nature -- but if and when we attempt to use them it is in regard to mundane physical situations.
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The ancient Yoga texts can be interpreted in many ways, and as they have been. But one of the ways seems to hinge on the modern Western assumption that the Yogins taught that an increase in psychic powers (as we would call them in the modern West) was the goal.
But this was not the case at all. 
The Yogins unambiguously taught that an overall INCREASE or EXPANSION of sensory awareness was the principal goal -- and that as increases of sensory awareness took place, various sensory mechanisms equivalent to some of our conceptualized Western psychic powers could automatically become activated or reactivated.
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But here we again trip across a Western conceptual inadequacy -- for we habitually refer to "awareness" without prefixing it with "sensory." 
And this is very important regarding the development of sensory transducers.
This inadequacy us to the false assumption that awareness is something of and in itself, something sort of independent of sensory inputs. 
Indeed, within the contexts of this inadequacy one can easily say that one is an aware person -- while at the same time being completely unaware of a great deal.
I'm sure you might see the larger overall situation in this regard -- the one composed of aware people who are not aware of a whole lot.
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In its most basic Western definition, "aware" means alert, and so "awareness" means having or possessing the state of alertness. Most dictionaries let it go at that. 
But "alert" means alert to some kinds of input, and all of which have to consist of sensory somethings (and which "somethings" are in these essays being referred to as "signals.") 
After all, it does defy logic to say that one is aware of something which has not been sensed in some kind of fashion.
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In any event, the Yoga texts advocate an OVERALL increase of SENSORY AWARENESS -- while such an increase obviously must be the result of finding out what one is NOT sensing so as to become aware of it. And finding this out obviously would involve a series of processes of some kind.
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And here we encounter a real snarl, one both delicate and gross, and which could use several essays to discuss. I will therefore postpone entering too deeply into it here, reserving extended discussion to the forthcoming Part Five of these mini-essays -- REMOTE VIEWING AND THE HUMAN SUPERPOWERS OF MIND.
The reason for the postponement is that one should have the prerequisite information regarding both sensory transducers AND mental information processing grids (the topic of Part Four.)
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So we will consider only the distinction (in Western terms) between the gross and the subtle sensory receptors. 
And here, for the first time, we encounter certain subtle sensory (psychic) factors which, by definition, ARE subtle ones, but which are not called "psychic" here in the West -- in that they are considered normal, not non-normal.
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Since the conventional concepts of the basic five senses are usually focused only on the physical and tangible, they also tend to focus the intellect on the psychical and tangible, and sometimes exclusively so. 
In such a case, it might be concluded that the full extent and entirety of the human biomind perceptions regard only what is physical and tangible -- and which is the general case within the major Western philosophies of materialism and the physical sciences.
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But intellect has a certain number of powers which are never exclusively based in perceiving only what is physical and tangible.
For example, intellect can perceive connections or relationships between physical and tangible aspects, even though the connections and relationships are nowhere directly visible or identifiable exclusively via the basic five senses.
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In such a case, intellect has transcended the parameters and limits of the physical and tangible, and has perceived something for which there is no DIRECT physical or tangible evidence.
In other words, and well within the ancient Yoga formats, the intellect has perceived a subtle factor. This relationship factor may indeed be "suggested" by the physical, but of and in itself it is not tangible.
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In such a case, the intellect, not normally thought of as psychic, has performed a function which we in the West would call psychic -- for if the term "psychic" refers to perceiving what is tangibly invisible, then this simple process of perceiving relationships certainly should be entered into the lexicon of things psychic.
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If this concept bumps around in one's mental information processing grids, not to worry -- for the perception of relationships is a full beginning part of that endemic superpower called intuition.
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It is true that the connections and relationships can be confirmed in tangible and physical ways. But the impetus for undertaking the confirmation has arisen from this particular transcendental faculty of intellect.
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In the cultural West this particular faculty of intellect is majorly referred to as the DEDUCTIVE faculty, and sometimes as INDUCTIVE. But since it involves something not perceptible to the physical five, it involves something invisible -- at least within the contexts of telling the difference between the visible and invisible.
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Thus, one is left to wonder about where ARE the senses of intellect which obviously must underlie the perception of something which is invisible to the physical five -- and which perception transcends the limits and parameters of the physical and tangible. 
For, you see, deduction itself must be based in some kind of sensory equipment in that deductions don't exist of and in themselves, but are always sensed and constructed by the individual biomind.
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The term used in the cultural West for this kind of thing is deduction. But it could quite as easily be referred to as intuition, since the several forms of intuition are all based in some kind of deduction.
In the West, intuition is generally taken to mean "direct perception, cognition or knowledge of something which is not physically or tangibly available or in evidence." But a deduction is also the same thing. The perceptions of relationships are not tangibly in direct evidence -- unless one deduces them.
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To try to ensure complete understanding here, the things between which the invisible or not obvious connections and relationships are perceived may well be physical and tangible. But the perceived connections and relationships themselves are not of physical and tangible origin. They are "contributed" by the biomind systems.
And furthermore, they reside only in the intellects which do perceive them -- while they may not at all be perceived by or reside in the intellects of others.
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By way of example here, inventors proceed by the intellect power of "logical" deduction of invisible relationships and meanings -- but many inventors will insist that they were more inspired by episodes of intuition and the products of which at first seemed entirely illogical.
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In any event, if the intellect powers of deduction and intuition are not the same thing, there is at least a linked and very close connection between them. 
If, however, the full spectrum of the different kinds of intuition was identified, it would be quite difficult not to include deduction as perhaps the first and most basic form of it.
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And every specimen of our species is born with the hard drive rudiments of deductive faculties. Whether they are developed and enhanced, though, is a different matter. But this matter (or problem) has very little to do with the fact that our species as a whole certainly does possess the biomind hardware of the deductive faculties.
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In fact, it can be offered that deductions are EXTENSIONS and ENHANCEMENTS of the physical senses -- almost exactly as advocated in the ancient Yoga texts.
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But we need to be very precise here in order to ensure understanding.
Step-like functions are involved between perception of physical objects and deducting relationships between them. As has already been stated, even our five physical senses do not themselves perceive things as they are. 
What is perceived are sensory recreations of what is input via the sensory receptors -- and then only if sufficient sensory transducers have been erected to process information from the absolutely physical gross to increasing levels of subtly and which increasing levels at some depart from complete dependence on the physical gross.
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We are now in a position to consider the following three factors:
1. The physical senses are made up of arrays of sensory receptors which, in the first instance, receive some kind of signals. These signals are converted into the sensations we experience, and which sensations are then converted into what we see, hear and etc. 
2. Then further conversions take place until the process comes to include information loads resulting in intellect understanding. 
3. Then, in the case of deducting, further conversions must take place dealing with information loads that are invisible to the five physical sense receptors.
In other words, we are looking at arrays of increasingly specialized sensory transducers -- and which include transducers which can deal with information which is not drawn from contact with one's local environment of physicality.
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Each conversion requires a series of SENSORY TRANSDUCERS which convert something to something else -- such as signal into information. Thus what begins as sensory signals can be converted into a number of outputs, of which deducting is one.
The whole of this passage will be enlarged upon just ahead.
*
All sensations received as inputs by the biomind are signals in their first form -- while the conversion from signal state to the meaning condition would require sensory transformation of the signal into sensed information the biomind could comprehend.
In other words, the biomind might be equipped with the rudimentary sidhi sense receptors. But in the case of the sidhis the biobody sensing arrays alone will not suffice except insofar as spontaneous manifestations might occur.
*
But in the ancient Yoga texts, the sidhis are NOT identified as spontaneous manifestations. Rather, they are identified as highly developed skills under the volitional control of their possessors. 
And, as is well known, such development requires the cognitive cooperation of the intellect part of the biomind -- and which part obviously would have to erect sensory transducers of its own in order to deal with sidhi development.
This can only mean that although the biomind specimen possesses rudiments for constructing refined sensory transducers, such transducers have to be constructed by repeated cognitive exposure to the precise subtle signals.
*
The only modern Western concept which fills the bill here is that involving the TRANSDUCER -- and, in the case of the developed sidhis, a series of them beginning with signal-sensing receptors ending up with the cognitive transducers. This consists of a series of transducing processes which convert signal into recognizable information which can be accurately understood.
*
The reason I've gone on at such length regarding the sidhis is that through the long-duration of the research work at SRI, the functional discoveries made there increasingly seemed to emulate the meanings and contexts of the ancient Yoga Sutras in which the sidhis are discussed in ways which equate with the superpowers. 
Thus, there was every reason to assess the ancient Yoga texts in light of our own work -- and in this sense the ancient texts became a treasure trove of additional information.
*
In this sense, the old axiom that there is nothing new takes on renewed meaning. If one discovers or rediscovers what is already there -- well, what else can ever be discovered except what it already there?
The controlled, volitional form of remote viewing is clearly comparable to the ancient volitional and controlled sidhi described as distant-seeing. 
The remote-viewing discovery work uncovered very delicate sense receptors which, when properly transduced into accurate intellect meaning resulted in controlled remote viewing. 
Thus, if perhaps not exactly so, the discoveries of the delicate sense receptors and proper sensory transducers must closely resemble the knowledge of the ancient Yogins and their concepts of the distant-seeing sidhi.
*
The concept involving proper sensory transducers, however, is not unique to the controlled remote viewing processes.
Indeed, the need for sensory transducers is not only an individual biomind necessity, but clearly underlies the whole of all our species powers and superpowers of the human biomind.
*
The question now emerges as to which subtle signals need to be recognized so as to erect suitable sensory transducers for them. 
The answer to this belongs in the 10 percent special knowledge category indicated at the beginning of this mini-essay. And one could be told what the signals consist of. 
But, as indicated in the Yoga texts, it would be repeated, precise exposure to them which would cause the necessary transducers to format. And this is only possible by precise tutoring -- again as indicated in the ancient Yoga texts.
*
We will now leave the discussion of the sidhis and enter into a preliminary discussion which will aid in making visible the importance of sensory transducers. This discussion is needed largely because few will ever have heard of sensory transducers.

*

Largely speaking, even the basic five senses are useless unless their sensory inputs are mitigated and analyzed by the intellect or some other analyzing part of the biomind -- after which a great deal seems to depend on the loads of information accumulated and actively contained in the intellect at the individual level and via which the sensory inputs are analyzed.

*

Be pleased to read the above rather long sentence with great care and attention. 
The meaning here is that one's sensory receptors may indeed be receiving certain kinds of signals. But if one's intellect is not prepared to deal with their information loads, then the signals will remain invisible -- at least to one's non-sensitized, unaware cognitive intellect.
I will expand upon the "loads of information" in the contexts of the following mini-essay dealing specifically with the mental information processing grids, or networks, if you prefer.

*

During the modern epoch (roughly from about 1845 to about 1970), it was thought and taught that the five physical senses must correspond exactly to the known laws of the physical and tangible. 
It was also thought that the basic five were themselves exclusively of physical and tangible origin, and their ultimate "explanations" would eventually be discovered to be physical in nature.

*

It is only during the post-Modern period to the present that the answer here has been found to be both Yes and No -- in that the bio-organic functions of the five physical senses have been mapped. 
But what is still missing is how, or even why, the physical or any of the sensory signal receptors result in the TRANSFER from biomind sensations into information.

*

But rather than get brainlocked into this mystery, we should consider what happens from another viewpoint.
The most obvious and perhaps the only purpose and function of any or all of the sensory receptors is to deal with information -- to INFORM us of the various aspects of the physical and tangible. 
And INFORMATION is always invisible until it is transduced into some "hard" form such as words, codes, mathematics, voice, printed or computer formats, deduction, and, last of all, into intellect cognition.

*

How and why this was not earlier noticed is something of a complete mystery.

*

But here is the incredibly important distinction between what our senses ARE and what they DO. 
Indeed, debates and polemics about what our senses ARE can go on indefinitely.
But when it comes to the matter of what they DO... well, here we encounter an entirely different perspective -- one which opens onto quite wide panoramas and unambiguously comes to include the subtle extensions of a wide variety of sensory receptors pointed up by the ancient Yogins.

*

For starters, if our senses, no matter what they are, did nothing for us, then they would be quite useless.

*

It is extremely difficult to consider that the essence of information is exclusively physical and tangible in its basic nature.
It is true that information can be conveyed via physical means -- the most common forms consisting of sonics, images and linguistic and mathematical codes which make it intelligible to those who can hear, look, or comprehend.
But information itself has to be converted into human thoughts and concepts in order that one can perceive what it consists of.

*

Information theorists now hold that information is always available, and all the time available, whether human specimens perceive it or not.
"Always available" clearly implies the essential invisibility of information -- until it becomes "visible" within the deductive/intuitive cognitive powers of the intellect in the form of "perceptions," and then in thoughts and concepts.

*

It is exceedingly difficult to consider that thoughts and concepts are exclusively physical or tangible in nature.

*

It is true that thoughts and concepts can be stimulated into existence because of physical and tangible sensations. But it can easily be shown that the thoughts and concepts are not the stimulations themselves, but only this or that consideration of them.
Furthermore, this or that consideration can produce, as they automatically tend to do, entire chains of additional considerations -- until a point might be reached which is far removed from anything physical or tangible.

*

On the other hand, though, the human biomind can produce considerations, thoughts and concepts which have no origin in anything physical or tangible at all -- but which rather have their origin in matters for which there is no "explanation" within the on-going tangible factors of time, space, matter and energy.

*

The most omnipresent type of this is often called intuitive foresight -- and which deals with information, or deduced information, which is not derivable from any existing situations regarding the physical and tangible.
And, indeed, whether intuition be of deduction, insight or foresight, it defies the "laws" of the physical and tangible -- so much so that it easily and unambiguously can be said to transcend them.

*

And it is at this point that we must consider that our species does possess senses and cognitive faculties the information function of which is to transcend the parameters and limits of the physical and tangible -- and, so to speak, plug us into the information which is available all of the time.

*

It is almost completely certain that all of the superpowers are based in two principal factors.
These are SYSTEMS of SENSORY RECEPTORS and systems of SENSORY TRANSDUCERS (both gross and subtle), which result in information which is meaningful to the experiencer -- IF (here a BIG word) proper sensory transducers have been formatted.
A third important factor is found in MENTAL INFORMATION PROCESSING GRIDS, the central topic of the next mini-essay.

*

We will be quick here to define between "the senses," as they are commonly referred to, and sensing SYSTEMS which are far more complex than "senses." 
Even our common five physical senses are not "senses." If we get beyond the simplistic use of the term "senses" and deeper into the anatomy and dynamics of the physical five, then we find that what we call a "physical sense" is actually made up of extraordinarily complex interactions among a vast number of sensory receptors.

*

These interactions involve the electromagnetic level, the behavior of atoms which comprise our molecules and cells, the functions of our bio-organic materials and the synapses and chemical electrons comprising our nervous systems and brains, as well as our biomind energy fields and our sensoriums.
Upon inspection of the sensing systems and their extensive arrays, it is their apparent major duty to detect and input and process information -- and this arouses considerations as to how and in what ways information is processed.

*

If we persist in utilizing the term "a sense," then we are reducing all of our wondrous and fantastic sensing SYSTEMS to a simplistic concept -- one which defeats a comprehension of the larger factors of our biomind sensing systems.

*

Every specimen of our species is a walking, talking array of sensing systems -- and these are so wonderful and astonishing as to boggle even those who study them scientifically.

*

The idea that our biominds process only physical information is foolish, and thus the concept that born specimens of our species have only five physical senses serves only to reduce one's awareness of one's OWN vast arrays of sensing systems.
As it is, even those who believe and teach that we have only five physical senses are themselves always utilizing extended arrays of sensing systems which cannot be confined into or explained by the physical five.

*

There is no doubt that we DO have sensing systems which principally process information relevant to the physical factors around us or wherever we go. 
But even the most average person knows and experiences that we process various kinds of sensed information which is not physical in origin or source and which cannot even be deduced from physical factors.


*

As it has transpired during the last three decades, roughly beginning in the late 1960s, cutting-edge research scientists have come to accept that we possess many more than the five physical senses, and that the human biomind deals with various categories of information which cannot be fitted into the normal five-senses explanation.
In this context, I again refer you to the book I've already mentioned: DECIPHERING THE SENSES: THE EXPANDING WORLD OF HUMAN PERCEPTION (Robert Rivlin and Karen Gravelle, Simon & Schuster.)
In this book the arcane complexities of many scientific papers were clarified for the popular reader -- and who would be surprised to find SEVENTEEN senses cogently described in it.

*

In Part Five of these mini-essays, I'll begin an extended but preliminary listing of various of the additionally identified senses and compare them to various superpowers of the human biomind.
But at this point, in Part Four we need to turn our attention to those complicated factors called, in this database, the mental information processing grids. Therein we'll have something of a chance at considering how and why sensory transducers either do or do not become functionally formatted.

Is the Human Species in Evolution's Fast Lane?

Is the Human Species in Evolution's Fast Lane? -A Galaxy Classic

April 17, 2008

"We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals."

John Hawks -University of Wisconsin anthropologist

In a fascinating discovery that counters a common theory that human evolution has slowed to a crawl or even stopped in modern humans, a new study examining data from an international genomics project describes the past 40,000 years as a time of supercharged evolutionary change, driven by exponential population growth and cultural shifts.

The findings may lead to a very broad rethinking of human evolution, especially in the view that modern culture has essentially relaxed the need for physical genetic changes in humans to improve survival.

A team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist John Hawks estimates that positive selection just in the past 5,000 years alone -dating back to the Stone Age - has occurred at a rate roughly 100 times higher than any other period of human evolution. Many of the new genetic adjustments are occurring around changes in the human diet brought on by the advent of agriculture, and resistance to epidemic diseases that became major killers after the growth of human civilizations.

"In evolutionary terms, cultures that grow slowly are at a disadvantage, but the massive growth of human populations has led to far more genetic mutations," says Hawks. "And every mutation that is advantageous to people has a chance of being selected and driven toward fixation. What we are catching is an exceptional time."

While the correlation between population size and natural selection is nothing new - it was a core premise of Charles Darwin, Hawks says - the ability to bring quantifiable evidence to the table is a new and exciting outgrowth of the Human Genome Project.

In the hunt for recent genetic variation in the genome map the project has cataloged the individual differences in DNA called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The project has mapped roughly 4 million of the estimated 10 million SNPs in the human genome. Hawks' research focuses on a phenomenon called linkage disequilibrium (LD). These are places on the genome where genetic variations are occurring more often than can be accounted for by chance, usually because these changes are affording some kind of selection advantage.

The researchers identify recent genetic change by finding long blocks of DNA base pairs that are connected. Because human DNA is constantly being reshuffled through recombination, a long, uninterrupted segment of LD is usually evidence of positive selection. Linkage disequilibrium decays quickly as recombination occurs across many generations, so finding these uninterrupted segments is strong evidence of recent adaptation, Hawks says.

Employing this test, the researchers found evidence of recent selection on approximately 1,800 genes, or 7 percent of all human genes.

This finding runs counter to conventional wisdom in many ways, Hawks says. For example, there's a strong record of skeletal changes that clearly show people became physically smaller, and their brains and teeth are also smaller. This is generally seen as a sign of relaxed selection - that size and strength are no longer key to survival.

But other pathways for evolution have opened, Hawks says, and genetic changes are now being driven by major changes in human culture. One good example is lactase, the gene that helps people digest milk. This gene normally declines and stops activity about the time one becomes a teenager, Hawks says. But northern Europeans developed a variation of the gene that allowed them to drink milk their whole lives - a relatively new adaptation that is directly tied to the advance of domestic farming and use of milk as an agricultural product.

The biggest new pathway for selection relates to disease resistance, Hawks says. As people starting living in much larger groups and settling in one place roughly 10,000 years ago, epidemic diseases such as malaria, smallpox and cholera began to dramatically shift mortality patterns in people. Malaria is one of the clearest examples, Hawks says, given that there are now more than two dozen identified genetic adaptations that relate to malaria resistance, including an entirely new blood type known as the Duffy blood type.

Another recently discovered gene, CCR5, originated about 4,000 years ago and now exists in about 10 percent of the European population. It was discovered recently because it makes people resistant to HIV/AIDS. But its original value might have come from obstructing the pathway for smallpox.

"There are many things under selection that are making it harder for pathogens to kill us," Hawks says.

Population growth is making all of this change occur much faster, Hawks says, giving a tribute to Charles Darwin. When Darwin wrote in "Origin of the Species" about challenges in animal breeding, he always emphasized that herd size "is of the highest importance for success" because large populations have more genetic variation, Hawks says.

The parallel to humans is obvious: The human population has grown from a few million people 10,000 years ago to about 200 million people at A.D. 0, to 600 million people in the year 1700, to more than 6.5 billion today. Prior to these times, the population was so small for so long that positive selection occurred at a glacial pace, Hawks says.

"What's really amazing about humans," Hawks continued, "that is not true with most other species, is that for a long time we were just a little ape species in one corner of Africa, and weren't genetically sampling anything like the potential we have now."

The recent changes are especially striking.

"Five thousand years is such a small sliver of time - it's 100 to 200 generations ago. That's how long it's been since some of these genes originated, and today they are in 30 or 40 percent of people because they've had such an advantage. It's like 'invasion of the body snatchers.'"

The Wisconsin study is published in the Dec. 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Posted by Casey Kazan with Josh Hill. Adapted from a University of Wisconsin release.

Related Galaxy posts:

Bringing Ancient Human Viruses Back to Life: A Jurassic Park or Salvation?

Loren Eiseley on Evolution: Transcending the Cosmos -A Galaxy Insight

April 21, 2008

“Hyper-Speed” Evolution Possible? Recent Research Says "Yes" -A Galaxy Classic

Think it takes thousands or even millions of years for animals to evolve significantly new traits? 
Think again. New research lends just a touch of credibility to the idea behind the popular sci-fi TV series Heroes, which portrays certain humans as having quickly evolved new astounding traits in response to increasingly tumultuous environmental pressures.

In 1971 biologists moved 5 adult pairs of Italian wall lizards from their island home of Pod Kopiste, in the South Adriatic Sea, and introduced them to the neighboring island of Pod Mrcaru. Now, an international team of researchers has discovered that introducing these small, green-backed lizards, Podarcis sicula, to a new environment caused them to undergo shockingly fast and large-scale evolutionary changes.

Researchers returned to the islands twice a year for three years, in the spring and summer of 2004, 2005 and 2006. Captured lizards were transported to a field laboratory and measured for snout-vent length, head dimensions and body mass. Tail clips taken for DNA analysis confirmed that the Pod Mrcaru lizards were genetically identical to the source population on Pod Kopiste. In other words, there is no doubt that these lizards are the offspring of the 1971 transplant. The results of the study were recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The lizards evolved entirely new digestive system features to cope with dietary changes, evolved bigger heads and also ceased to defend territories—an instinct once very integral to the species behavior back on their original home territory. 

“Striking differences in head size and shape, increased bite strength and the development of new structures in the lizard’s digestive tracts were noted after only 36 years, which is an extremely short time scale,” remarks Duncan Irschick, a professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Observed changes in head morphology were caused by adaptation to a different food source explains Irschick. The lizards on the barren island of Pod Kopiste were well-suited to catching mobile prey, feasting mainly on insects. Life on Pod Mrcaru, where they had never lived before, offered them an abundant supply of plant foods, including the leaves and stems from native shrubs. Analysis of the stomach contents of lizards on Pod Mrcaru showed that their diet included up to two-thirds plants, depending on the season, a large increase over the population of Pod Kopiste.

“As a result, individuals on Pod Mrcaru have heads that are longer, wider and taller than those on Pod Kopiste, which translates into a big increase in bite force,” says Irschick. “Because plants are tough and fibrous, high bite forces allow the lizards to crop smaller pieces from plants, which can help them break down the indigestible cell walls.”

Examination of the lizard’s digestive tracts revealed something even more surprising. Eating more plants caused the development of new structures called cecal valves, designed to slow the passage of food by creating fermentation chambers in the gut, where microbes can break down the difficult to digest portion of plants. Cecal valves, which were found in hatchlings, juveniles and adults on Pod Mrcaru, have never been reported for this species, including the source population on Pod Kopiste.

“These structures actually occur in less than 1 percent of all known species of scaled reptiles,” says Irschick. “Our data shows that evolution of novel structures can occur on extremely short time scales. Cecal valve evolution probably went hand-in-hand with a novel association between the lizards on Pod Mrcaru and microorganisms called nematodes that break down cellulose, which were found in their hindguts.”

Change in diet also affected the population density and social structure of the Pod Mrcaru population. Because plants provide a larger and more predictable food supply, there were more lizards in a given area on Pod Mrcaru. Food was obtained through browsing rather than the active pursuit of prey, and the lizards had given up defending territories.

“What is unique about this finding is that rapid evolution can affect not only the structure and function of a species, but also influence behavioral ecology and natural history,” says Irschick.

So next time you see Hayden Panettiere on TV running around in her cheer skirt regenerating her limbs, just think how the premise may be just slightly less crazy that you previously suspected.

Posted by Rebecca Sato.

If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on Digg, Reddit, or StumbleUpon.Thanks!
Related Galaxy posts:

Is the Human Species in Evolution's Fast Lane? -A Galaxy Classic

Bernie Sanders: A Most Rare Individual and Most Likely A Highly Sensitive Person

Can You Spot a Highly Sensitive Politician?

Posted on 16/03/2016by Amanda van Mulligen

Highly sensitive people and politics. It’s an unlikely blog post isn’t it? But I felt compelled to sit behind my computer after reading a thread in a highly sensitive people (HSP)  group this morning.

A video prompted a suggestion that Bernie Sanders may be highly sensitive. He shows a tremendous amount of empathy and instinctively ran to help. Can we spot politicians who are HSPs? Does it make them more likely to get the vote of a fellow HSP?

It’s an interesting thread. *Please note that this is not a debate on the nitty gritty politics, rather observations on the people and their traits behind the politics – I have seen some Facebook threads get ugly when politics are discussed and that isn’t happening here!*

It was suggested that UK politician Jeremy Corbyn is also a HSP. And maybe even President Obama too. Are highly sensitive people drawn to certain politicians because they show a sensitive side, may even be HSPs themselves? Obama certainly feels authentic to me; when he speaks he shows emotion and it feels like he cares. Or are good politicians good actors too?

It makes sense to me that a HSP can feel when a politician is genuine. HSPs like authentic. HSPs like truth. We see through fake, which let’s face it, is the essence of many a politician. If we feel something real and authentic when a politician speaks then it figures that they become an attractive option. Maybe there has been a time when a politician appeals to you and you’re not sure why (aside from policies and ideology of course) – or the other way around and a politician makes your skin crawl but you can’t quite put your finger on why. A politician can certainly be likeable because of their traits even though their politics are not your flavour.

So, what do you think? Do HSPs make great politicians? My initial thought (having spent many an hour watching House of Cards recently) is that sensitivity and politics do not mix. There is no place for sensitive people at the politicians’ table. But actually that is not true. There are a number of HS traits that are just perfect traits for a politician:

• a desire to make the world a better place
• an innate sense of justice and fairness
• a desire for equality
• an awareness for subtleties
• observant
• well-tuned intuition
• sniffs out liars
• creative and imaginative
• great listener
• processes things deeply – a great basis for cultivating ideas
• prefers meaningful discussion over chit chat

There are, of course, also many HS traits which make politics a difficult career choice…….but for sure the politicians who show a sensitive side are great role models for our highly sensitive children.

Over to You: When you are heading for the ballot box do you look for a politician who displays HS traits? Can you spot the fake political figures in heartbeat? Or is this something you have never considered before? Which politicians do you think are HSPs?

How Does a Highly Sensitive Person Survive the Hell of the American Workplace?

Labor

How Does a Highly Sensitive Person Survive the Hell of the American Workplace?

HSPs of the world, unite!

 

By Lynn Stuart Parramore / AlterNet

 

February 3, 2015

For those who are new to the term, "highly sensitive person," it was coined by psychologist and personality researcher Elaine Aron to describe a trait found in up to 20 percent of the population. People in this group react distinctly to their environments, both inner and outer. They tend to have a heightened awareness of emotions and respond more intensely to loud noises and other sensory stimuli. They also exhibit distinct patterns in the way they think and work. They are especially imaginative and have a tendency toward what Aron calls “deep processing” of information. HSPs tend to be conscientious, loyal, good at catching mistakes, and committed to high performance. (Take the online test to find out if you are an HSP.)

The good news is that HSPs are extremely valuable workers, contributing their intuition, wise counsel, conscientiousness, and creativity across a broad range of industries and professions. The bad new is that today’s typical office setup is completely at odds with their working and thinking styles. HSPs typically need quiet and calm, and do their best work when they can plunge into a task without interruption. They tend to be uncomfortable being watched and don’t like being drawn into office politics. They need downtime and they can become especially distracted if they are physically uncomfortable at work.

Unfortunately, in today's work environment, employees are expected to tolerate noise, be good at multi-tasking, enjoy meetings, excel in networking, tolerate long hours under florescent lights, and thrive working in teams that sit face to face much of the day. The International Management Facility Association estimates that 70 percent of American employees work in open-plan environments — what used to be called “bullpens.” These layouts are designed to maximize space, minimize cost and reduce or even eliminate private spaces or offices. Basically, it’s goodbye doors and walls. Hello cubicle and group workstation.

Research shows that open-plan offices carry a number of risks that cost both employers and employees, including more bickering and conflict, high blood pressure, stress, plummeting productivity, and high turnover. The noise alone is a huge challenge: As a Cornell University study has pointed out, noise is the number one complaint of office workers, and numerous researchers have shown that the sound levels in open-plan offices can reduce productivity by as much as 66 percent.

It doesn’t take much. Even a conversation at normal decibels is enough to short-circuit the attention. Many workers in open-plan offices feel surveilled, unsatisfied, unable to concentrate, and constantly distracted.

Undoubtedly there are some people who thrive and feel energized by open floorplans — lucky them! But many people find them difficult, and for HSPs, they are close to intolerable. The noise problem alone, which Aron calls the “bane of the HSP’s existence,” is often enough to seriously impact their performance. The stress of these office spaces, which combined with long hours and the need to be “on” and available outside of work hours, can create a state of constant overstimulation, as if their bodies and minds are set on a single fight-or-flight channel.

If 70 percent of people work in open floorplans, and one out of five of those people is an HSP, what you’ve got is a recipe for skyrocketing anxiety, productivity ground to a screeching halt, and a host of other problems that can be quite dangerous. Feeling helpless to change their office environment, HSPs with jangled nerves may find themselves heading to the psychiatrist’s office, seeking to alter their internal state, which, in the case of an innate trait that is likely genetically coded, can be a fool’s errand. Muscles tense and head pounding from over-arousal, some HSPs may reach for something — anything — that seems soothing, like a cocktail or prescription pain medication.

There are probably deep cultural roots in the expectations of American office behavior and performance so contrary to HSP needs. As Aron notes in her book, The Highly Sensitive Person, Western cultures tends to divide people into two classes, “the tough warriors and kings on the one hand and the more thoughtful, learned priests, judges, and royal advisors on the other.” HSPs, as you might guess, are overrepresented in the latter class, but American work culture tends to favor the first sort. Societies need a balance between these two types, and so do work communities, but this point is lost on employers who insist on a one-size-fits-all office environment that penalizes HSPs for their natural tendencies—and gifts.

A conflict with an employer over the work environment can be especially daunting for an HSP. Many are people-pleasers, and it can be a struggle to recognize, much less defend, their own needs. They may not like to ask for things, and when the larger culture’s prejudices enforce the notion that an employee should behave and work a certain way, it’s very difficult for HSPs not to see themselves as flawed when they don’t fit that mold. Ideas about how employees should operate also play into gender prejudices. Sensitivity is coded female in a negative way, so when a woman acts like an HSP, she is dismissed as typically female, or worse, hormonal. Men with the trait are seen as abnormal and “sissies.”

I’m an HSP, and I’ll never forget the awful day when a new manager at the organization where I was employed called me into his office to announce certain changes. I would be removed from the small office with a door where I did my writing and editing work. Our entire office would be turned into an open floorplan with rows of desks arranged without dividers to “facilitate teamwork and innovation.” That news hit me like a sock in the gut. I could imagine exactly how it would be: the sounds of phones ringing, constant interruptions, trying to blot out the cacophony with noise-canceling headphones. I had experienced this type of work environment before and I knew the result for me: blinding headaches, stress and declining performance.

Not only was this new manager completely set with his plan, dismissive of any objections, and uninterested in options like working from home or organizing the space differently, I could also see he was going to penalize me for not complying. Because I was a valuable employee with a high performance record, I was able to take the risk of fighting back. In the end, I took a gamble and I reminded this manager that he might have liability exposure if he forced me to work under conditions that would cause serious stress (don’t do this without consulting a lawyer!). Luckily for me, it worked. I got to keep my office, but the manager resented it deeply, so it was hardly an ideal outcome. If I had been lower on the totem pole in my office, I might have fared worse.

Now that I have more information about HSPs and have seen research on the negative impacts of open floorplans and cubicles, I make my case differently today. I try to avoid getting into an “I’m right, you’re wrong” kind of debate that will cause an employer to lose face if I am accommodated. I seek instead to present information that opens up as many possibilities and options as I can. I try to state my case in a way that is both self-assured and respectful. I aim to convey that I want to do excellent work for my employer, and seek to set up conditions that are mutually beneficial. Sometimes that means a trial period of working from home, a part-time contract, or a schedule that brings me to the office only at certain times. None of this is easy, and the process of getting the point across can be maddeningly slow and difficult. You really have to demonstrate top-notch work and extra commitment to the job. Sometimes you have to find a different employer or take the risk of being self-employed. When you have rent to pay and mouths to feed, such a dilemma can feel insurmountable. But when you think about the risks, you have to consider the impact on your health, and to your performance, which, if it declines, may well send you packing anyway.

If you’re not able to get out of the open floorplan for the entire day, see if you can negotiate a private space for a couple of dedicated hours a day. For another option, sound consultant Julian Treasure recommends wearing headphones with sounds like birdsong playing. That doesn’t work for me, as I find even the birdsong piped into my ears distracting. But it may help others. I can find some improvement wearing earplugs, although if the conversations and phones are too close, earplugs may not do the job. Plus, they can be uncomfortable for long periods of time, day after day.

To improve work life in America, we often focus our energies on things like raising the minimum wage. This is certainly important, but it’s not just the compensation for our work that matters. The quality and conditions of our workplaces allow us to thrive as human beings. The individual solutions will probably only go so far, and many of the cultural trends seem to be moving in the wrong direction for HSPs, which will end up hurting everyone. As Aron writes, “As the world becomes more difficult and stimulating, it is natural for the non-HSPs to thrive, at least at first. But they will not thrive long without us.”
There are signs of pushback. Lindsey Kaufman’s recent article in the Washington Post, “Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace,” was widely shared on social media. Kaufman, who works in the advertising industry, described her reaction to her boss’s announcement of an open floorplan in a way HSPs everywhere can relate to: “After nine years as a senior writer, I was forced to trade in my private office for a seat at a long, shared table. It felt like my boss had ripped off my clothes and left me standing in my skivvies.”

In a New Yorker piece from January 2014, Maria Konnikova gave a stinging indictment of the harm inflicted by open floorplans and their tendency to destroy the very things they have been touted to foster — teamwork and innovation, while promoting absenteeism and dissatisfaction. Her article surfaces research showing that the idea that younger people better tolerate open floorplan conditions is mostly bunk.

One thing is certain: our well being, both economically and socially, depends on an outcome in which at least one fifth of the American office population is not consigned to hell. HSPs of the world, unite!