The Power of Human Brain - where is the limit?

Can you calculate the following numbers in your brain without the aid of calculators?

37,691 × 37,691 = ?????

Did you succeed? If so, how long did it take you? Can you do it faster than you can do using a calculator?

Well, someone can just do that. He is Arthur Benjamin, who calls himself a 'mathemagician'. But is it really a magic, or one of the many possibilities the human brain is capable of attaining?

In his entertaining and fascinating TEDtalk speech, he demonstrated the jaw dropping capacity of his brain, or possibly that of the human beings in general, in what he says is the result of the fusion of his passions for mathes and magic.

He takes up two digit numbers he randomly receives from the audience and multiples them faster than the calculators the three individuals picked up from the audience use to compute the given numbers. He has actually shown to multiple two digit numbers faster than those three individuals could do using the short cut method to square a given number in their calculators. He had no difficulty doing the same even using three digit numbers.

In fact, he appeared to struggle a little bit when he was calculating the square of four digit numbers, but corrected his own mistake immediately. For me, this makes him more human and may validate the amazing power of his brain to be more of a human capability than some magical wonder beyond the realms of the potential of the average human beings.


Arthur makes his demonstration more entertain and even trickier when he takes up the challenge to multiply the three digit number with any four digit numbers. He would exactly tell the missing number when the three individuals do the multiplication using their calculators and tell him the resulting six or seven digit numbers in any order they like leaving out one of the digits for him to fill in. He made no mistakes in any of the three attempts. The chances of getting just all of these three attempts right by pure guessing is one in one thousand, he noted. He is also proud to point out that most of the calculators can not go beyond calculating five digit numbers which can only be done with some latest versions of this digital gadget.

In addition to computations, he proves the power of his amazing brain to tell the day of the week of their birth when some of the people in the audience tell him the year, month and the date they were born. He has even ventured to show his capability to name the day of the week between 1600 years in the past and 3000 years into the future as much as the modern day app can help us confirm. Hence, it was not very difficult for him to tell that 13 June 2730 will fall on Friday.

Towards the end of his demonstration, Arther explained how he does his wonders of computation by actually thinking loud as he multiples the square of five digit numbers resulting in ten digit numbers. He said he uses certain words as mnemonic devices to temporarily store the numbers he is multiplying to be able to easily retrieve them later and complete his computation. He actually declares that there is definetely a method to his amazing power of calculation, which probably shows that his capability in computation is a learned behaviour than something which magically happens to him. This probably confirms that other human beings can also possibily learn his techniques and do all the wonders he has been able to demonstrate.

In his final demonstration, Arther admits that there may be about 50% chance for him to make a mistake but doesn't want to be told his mistakes before he himself has the chance to correct them. But actually he did no mistake, and he finished his fascinating and entertaining demonstration with a big finish leaving the audience applauding to him in awe, and probably with something like this lingering in their mind, "Well, I can not definitely do the same."

But can't you?

Past life - Is is a possibility?

Take a mug full of water and an empty glass, and pour the water into the glass. You should still have more water remaining in the mug. After a while pour the water in the the glass back into the mug, and put the empyt glass on a table. Once again fill the glass with water from the same mug. So what do you think? Do you still have exactly the same water in the glass as was in the first case? Or do you have a different content of water from the first glass?

It is likely that you may actually have part of the same content of water in the first glass mixed with some portion of the water remaining in the mug. If so how much of the water was actually the same water as in the first glass of water as in the second one?

While you are contemplating about these questions, let us discuss something different that will eventually relate to the questions above.

We may agree that nothing completely vanish into none existence. Even when we die our body would disintegrate and change its form into someother things like some of the elements in the soil. But one thing we don't know where it would go - the human soul or the spiritual energy or consciousness that helps us to move and operate our body. If you accept the possibility that there is somekind of universal soul or energy (or whatever else you may want to call it), the consciousness we use to possess as individuals when we are still alive on earth should perhaps go back and merge into the universal consciousness it has originally come from like the water filled in the glass in the first glass poured back into the mug.

Now, when a new human being is born with a living soul - its consciousness pouring down into his being from the universal source, how different is the soul of the new born baby than the souls of the deceased that already disolve into the universal consciousness?

Yes, here I am talking about the possibility of reincarnation, and this is the way I think reincarnation may be a possible natural phenomenon. Some of the stories I am going to discuss next may also be random evidences for the possibility of reincarnation, if they are actually true.

One

A three years old boy who was born with a red birth mark on his head in a place along the border between Syria and Israel made remarkable claims saying he was killed by someone in his past life. As the boy was part of the community who believe in reincarnation he was taken to the other village the boy claimed to have lived in his past life. He also indicated the grave where his former body was buried and identified the man who killed his former being. The village people indeed confirmed that there was such a man who disappeared four years ago. The body was found in the grave along with the ax that was supposedly used to commit the crime.

This story perhaps may lack credibility as it was told by memebers of the community who already accepted and believed in reincarnation. As it may usually happen in the case of different religious groups who appear to make up stories that would help prove their belief system, this story may simply be regarded as one of such attempts, unless we have independent witnesses who could verify the details of this claim.

Two

The five years old boy from Cincinnati started making a curious remarks such as "When I used to be a girl, I used to have a black hair," since he was two years old. According to his mother, he repeatedly use the name Pam in many instances. When the mother asked him who Pam was, the boy replied, "I used to be Pam before I died." When the mother asked him further if he could remember how he died, the boy replied it was due to a fire accident. He even recalled the name of the city, and it was Chicago.

When the mother searched on the internet, she found out that there was indeed a fire accident at a residential area at the Paxton Hotel. In the accident, 19 people died including a black woman called Pamela Robinson who died jumping out of a window.

When the boy was presented with pictures of different people to identify Pamela, he made no mistake in pointing out Pamela. Not to have doubt about the authencity of this case as it might have been an elaborated lie told by the family members, the boy identified the picture of Pamela while he was video recorded for the documentary film, Ghost inside my Child, by the Lifetime Movie Network (LMN).

Three

Another kid called James who exhibited extreme fascination with planes at his early age started to have nightmare which he was not able to explain in words but described the contents of his nightmare in drawings. He drew flying planes dropping bombs, and he talked about a plane crash and a little man who could not get out of the plane. When he was asked who that little man was, he replied, "It was me." He even said that it was the Japanese who shot his plane down. He also remebered the kind of aircraft he used to flew and told the name of the war ship, Natoma, his plane used to take off.

Later it was found out about James Huston who fought in the WWII against the Japanese, and who disappeared on 3 March 1945 when his plane was shot down. Another fellow soldier who survived the war and was still alive to confirm the claims made by the boy, witnessed that the names the boy referred to were actually his compatriots who lost their lives in the war. When the boy met the veteran solider in person, he identified the names of the soldier he saw in the pictures. He also met the late James Hustons's older sister and made a reference to the other older sister. The boy recieved some of the items the late James Huston left behind, but eventually his memory of the deceased soldier gradually faded away. However, his passion for aircraft grew even stronger.

This is quite an elaborate tale of reincarnation which seems so difficult to refute. It would perhaps call our attention to the strange utterances and behaviors children may exhibit at their early ages as important clues to expand our understanding to the possibility of reincarnation. Here are some of the things different children were noted to have said at their early ages.

A child told his mother that he liked his new dad when he actually had one dad his mom was married to. But when the mother asked him what he meant by that, the boy said his former father was really bad who stabbed him dead in the back.

A boy around the age of five or six reportedly asked his parents, "Before I was born here, I had a sister, right?" And then he added that he died when their car caught fire but his sister and his other mother were saved from the fire.

Another boy while on the ride with his family pointed to a house by the side of a street and said, "I died there." A father said once his three years old boy said to him, "You remember when I was a grown up and you used to be a little kid?"

If we happen to hear any of these sorts of remarks from children around us, we don't probably even give it a second thought. But perhaps they might be important clues that may lead us to greater understanding of the possibility of reincarnation. 

A third eye awakening - could this really be a fake?

A nine years old girl from India is shown in the video demonstrating an amazing power of literally seeing the different objects around her while she was completely blinded folded. This does not seem a special power the girl has been uniquely endowed right from birth. But it was pointed out that she was initiated by a guru who played a crucial role in awakening the third eye potential in the girl.

The girl is shown in the video blindfolded and yet reading a paper she was presented randomly. She also identifies the different types of colored objects as she rearranged them in order naming the colors without a mistake. When asked, the girl explains there is no trick involved in her demonstration as she said she could ride a bicycle blindfolded but still dodged cars coming infront of her. The girl did not even claim to have this special power unique to her alone, but she pointed out that it is a mystical power everyone can learn. It is also a power the girl claims to have been able to turn it on and off at will. But when she is in a bad mood she would not be able to turn on her mystical power, she noted.

The girl demonstrated again and again to be able to read and draw the exact same copy of the picture she was shown blindfolded. She was not even be tricked by the producer who gave her a blank piece of paper to read out what was written on it. It was not difficult for her to tell there was nothing written on it. The girl finally noted that she has the capacity to just get whatever she wishes for. That may be why it is said in the Holy Bible 'Beware what you wish for!'

The innocent ways the girl explains the workings of her mystical power makes it difficult to think it is just another trick played by a mature magician.

You can see for yourself and wonder about the untapped potentials fellow humain beings are endowed with.