July 6, 2023

Nerve cell chemistry is one of the favorite subjects to be studied in science due to the interest in psycho-active drugs; but now the interest is being extended to artificial intelligence, which is related to nerve cell chemistry by engineers and persons who can't spell biology.

Describing the mind as a bag of chemicals that produces thought has historically been a highly developed subject in science. The intent has been to negate religion which describes the mind as part of the spirit rather than part of the body.

Now with computer science added to the subject, the brain is said to function the same way computers function, which is supposed to glamorize artificial intelligence and add unlimited possibilities to what computers can do in not just competing with humans but overwhelming humans with superior intelligence.

Computers require clocks and switches. There are no clocks and switches in the brain. A clock is a square wave that opens and closes switches. No clock, no computer. The same with switches. No switches, no computer.

While the absence of a clock in the brain is ignored, the switches are not. Nerve cell chemistry is portrayed as a switching mechanism, while it has no such characteristics.

The first problem in the switching mechanism is in the purpose. The purpose of switches in computers is to redirect a signal. That means more than one output for each input. Simply turning a signal on or off does not produce a computer. But brain cells do not have more than one path to choose at their junctions, which means, at most, they could do no more than turn a signal on or off. But nerve cells don't even do that.

Nerve cell junctions transfer molecules called neurotransmitters from one cell to another. Usually, the neurotransmitters are assumed to be part of the signal. As part of the signal, they can't be turned on or off, which means nerve cell junctions are nothing resembling switches. So there is nothing resembling a computer in brains.

Why then don't the nerve-cell chemists correct the technologists who claim brains have switches making them similar to computers? The simple reason is because frauds overwhelm such subjects in science; and correcting contradictions is not what frauds do.

But even the chemists are not properly evaluating what nerve cell junctions are in claiming the neurotransmitters are part of the signal which nerve cells carry. The signals of nerve cells are conducted on the surface of the cells as quasi electrical impulses. The electrical characteristics of nerve cells is a major element of brain studies.

However, the electrical characteristics of nerve cell surfaces is accidental, as indicated by the absence of a source for the electrical energy. The reason why nerve cells have accidental ability to conduct electricity is because their biologically evolved purpose is to conduct spirit substance. Conducting spirit substance results in properties suitable for conducting electricity.

If nerve cell chemists were to study electrical engineering or electronics, they should notice that electrical energy requires a lot more than a conductive surface. There needs to be a source of energy and a transducer than converts the electrical energy into a function. All nerve cell chemists have found is a conductive surface.

Neurotransmitters are not even a part of that surface. They are molecules that are stored in the cells and occasionally projected into receptor sites on adjoining nerve cells. There is a lot of complex chemistry in that process. It is a much slower and cumbersome process than conduction along a surface. The chemicals don't get produced and used anywhere near as fast as an electrical signal conducts along a surface.

Of course the nerve cell chemists have noticed a chain of chemical reactions that occur at both the source and receptor sites of the neurotransmitters. Why all of those chemical reactions? The analysis fuzzes into oblivion without logic.

What neurotransmitters do is tune the sensitivity of nerve cells. Some of the adaptations become visible in the chemistry. More visible is the result when taking psycho-active drugs. There are slow adaptations to the drugs and slow de-adaptations when going off the drugs.

Even more direct is the immediate drug effects, which typically last several hours. What is the chemistry of psycho-active drugs? Immense focus on that chemistry has been occurring. The drugs substitute for neurotransmitters and alter their normal functions. The interpretation is that there is enhanced or blocked signal strength for the nerve cells. But the adaptations show that nerve cells are tuned up and down in the process.

When discontinuing the drugs, there should be an immediate return to normalcy. But when psycho-active drugs have been taken for some time, the return to normalcy is slow and miserable, which shows an adaptation process.

For about seventy years, the psychiatric establishment has been producing new drugs. Each cycle of producing a new drug is supposed to solve the addiction problem. The new drug is not going to be like the old drugs. But they always are. Addiction is inseparable from the psycho-active process, because to influence the mind results in adaptations attempting to restore normalcy.

Because nerve cell chemistry is adaptive, it should not be altered during early development. Being altered, a reference state for normalcy would be undefined. The nature of autism indicates the reference for nerve cell normalcy was disrupted, which points to psycho-active drugs or other nerve-cell influences during nerve cell development. Mercury is one of the most significant influences over nerve cell sensitivity.

For those reasons, the cause of autism, which has not been determined, points to disruption of nerve cell chemistry during development; and psycho-active drugs and mercury are the most significant mechanisms of altering nerve cell chemistry.

So what makes the know-nothings so certain that mercury does not cause autism? When scientists don't know what causes autism, how can the know-nothings tell us what does or doesn't cause autism?