Theories Of Drunvalo Melchizadek And Jungian Biology Essay

Theories Of Drunvalo Melchizadek And Jungian Biology Essay In genetics, it is understood that humans have 44 chromosomes (22 pairs), plus 2 sex chromosomes that determine gender. That is scientific fact. Heres where it gets tricky. Suppose one has more or less than 44? Indeed, it can happen; some genetic disorders are caused by this. But what affect could it have not simply on the human body, but on the human consciousness? From the metaphysicist himself, Drunvalo Melchizadek: There are three totally different kinds of humans on the Earth, meaning that they perceive the One reality in three different ways, interpreted differently. The first kind of human has a chromosome composition of 42+2. They comprise a unity consciousness that does not see anything outside themselves as being separate from themselves. To them, there is only one energy one life, one beingness that moves everywhere. Anything happening anywhere is within them, as well. They are like cells in the body. They are all connected to a single consciousness that moves through all of them. These are the aboriginals in Australia. There might be a few African tribes left like this. Then, there is our level, comprising 44+2 chromosomes. We are a disharmonic level of consciousness that is used as a steppingstone from the 42+2 level to the next level, 46+2. We are dangerous to both ourselves and nature, but we are necessaryà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦These two additional chromosomes change everything (Melchizedek ). In short, those lacking a pair of chromosomes (compared to normal humans) perceive all reality and being as one. This falls into line quite well with the spiritual beliefs of the Aborigines in particular (however, it must be pointed out that no group of people today currently possess the requisite 42 chromosomes). In metaphor, reality is one giant landmass with no divisions, no individuals. Those with the 44 chromosomes (in short, us), are unstable. Our level of evolution is simply a building block to 46. We have individual lives, but now fail to ever come together. In essence, each reality is a completely isolated island from one another. Building from this, it could be reasoned that our pain, suffering, ignorance, apathy and general bad qualities stem from our chromosomal imbalance. Therefore, the only way to truly rid ourselves of these is by moving on. Finally, to 46; the next step in human evolution. According to Melchizadeks theories, it is at this point that we come together as individual to make one, each separate, but unified. In his words again: The main change will be a shift to the unity consciousness. Every cell in your body has its own consciousness and memory. You, the higher being that occupies your body, make the millions of different consciousnesses in your body work together as one being. How does this relate to this [new evolution]? Think of yourself as a cell and the grid as the higher being. We will still have individual consciousness, but will be united in the form of a higher being in order to work as one entity (Melchizedek). In the perspective of the Christian religion, it could be viewed as a step towards becoming more God or Christ like; individual pieces making up a whole, not far from the Body of Christ belief. As all-in-one, we would achieve universal understanding. There would be no pain, no suffering, nor ignorance or apathy. To draw another parallel, it would be quite similar to the Kingdom of God or Heaven. Being said, how do we move from 44 to 46? In more general terms, perhaps it is simpler to ask how we can move from where we are as imperfect humans to something beyond, something greater, the next step. Heres where the lyrics of Forty-Six 2 and elements of Jungian psychology come into play. At the heart of Maynards Forty-Six 2 lies the concept of Change is coming through my shadow. In Jungian psychology, the mind is broken down into many parts, including the anima/animus, the ego and the shadow. In males, the anima is a group of feminine traits suppressed deep into the subconscious. Similarly, the animus is the group of masculine traits suppressed in the subconscious of females. Though not consciously present, the anima and animus affect our behavior in powerful ways. Commonly, we seek out or project those traits out onto other of the opposite sex. This accounts for the feeling of falling in love at first sight. Though we may hardly know the person, our subconscious knows what they represent. As the opposite of the conscious self, the anima/animus can act as a guide to our own subconscious. They are often expressed as the guiding female (if youre male) or male (if youre female) figures in our dreams. In short, our unconscious egos (the anima/animus), are traits we desire in the opposite sex we ourselves suppress. Conversely, the ego is our conscious mind, our sense of personal self. This sense of personal identity is purchased, however, at the expense of certain tendencies that are rejected as not-self. These rejected traits come together as a kind of unconscious counter-ego, termed the shadow. Unexplainable feelings of annoyance, anxiousness or even anger can be a result of being in contact with someone who possesses elements of our repressed selves. In dreams, out shadow may take a physical form, often as an adversary of the same gender. Of all the elements that make up our psyche, the shadow has the potential to be both the most dangerous and the most critical to our personal developments. It represents everything we most fear and despise, but also represents everything we must master to move forward. Maynards suggestion for moving from our level to the next is by embracing the shadow. By taking in the previously rejected aspects of ourselves (the not-self) and learning to live with them (it), we take a great leap towards making ourselves whole again. Do what it takes to move through, to lie, cry, die, and kill but also to move, grow and to learn are fundamental. Deep concepts and New Age theories are nothing new for Maynard and Tool. With track titles like Stinkfist, Pushit, Third Eye, Schism and Parabola, Tool has never been, nor tried to be, a band easily understood from the surface. Their song lyrics, stage shows and even album artwork all reflect this. The cover to the album Aenima, from which the song Forty-Six 2 is taken, even follows some of the themes from the aforementioned song. At first glance all one notices is the burst of white light at the center. Closer inspection reveals a series of out of focus eyes ringing the light. In typical Tool fashion, theyve said exactly what theyve wanted to say without seeming to have said anything coherent at all. Think outside the box (literally). Sure, we can all see or understand out personal shadows to some degree (hence the shadowy, out of focus eyes). What lays beyond them, though, no one truly understands. Its a revelation so blindingly bright theres no seeing through it, nor any turning back. Those willing to think for themselves (a motto of soft for the band), will see the album cover, open the CD and learn things they may never had known before. With luck, theyll never be quite the same for it. Our shadows are elementary, almost primal. Only by looking within, to listen to my muscle memory and reflect on what makes us us can we find our way through to the other side. By picking scabs and metaphorically uncovering old wounds we can confront what we previously rejected and avoided. We can step into the shadow and find new understanding on the other side. Works Cited or Consulted Keenan, Maynard James. Forty-Six 2. Aenima. Rec. Sept. 1995. Volcano, 1996. Melchizedek, Drunvalo. Leading Edge Interviews Drunvalo Melchizedek. Interview with Val Valerian. Leading Edge Interview with Drunvalo Melchizedek. Ed. Joshua Shapiro. Dec. 1995. VJ Enterprises. 13 Sept. 2008 . Tool. Album Booklet. Aenima. Rec. Sept. 1995. Volcano, 1996. Appendix A Forty-Six 2 Written by Maynard James Keenan of Tool My shadows shedding skin and Ive been picking Scabs again. Im down Digging through My old muscles Looking for a clue. Ive been crawling on my belly Clearing out what couldve been. Ive been wallowing in my own confused And insecure delusions For a piece to cross me over Or a word to guide me in. I wanna feel the changes coming down. I wanna know what Ive been hiding in My shadow. Change is coming through my shadow. My shadows shedding skin Ive been picking My scabs again. Ive been crawling on my belly Clearing out what couldve been. Ive been wallowing in my own chaotic And insecure delusions. I wanna feel the change consume me, Feel the outside turning in. I wanna feel the metamorphosis and Cleansing Ive endured within My shadow Change is coming. Now is my time. Listen to my muscle memory. Contemplate what Ive been clinging to. Forty-six and two ahead of me. I choose to live and to Grow, take and give and to Move, learn and love and to Cry, kill and die and to Be paranoid and to Lie, hate and fear and to Do what it takes to move through. I choose to live and to Lie, kill and give and to Die, learn and love and to Do what it takes to step through. See my shadow changing, Stretching up and over me. Soften this old armor. Hoping I can clear the way By stepping through my shadow, Coming out the other side. Step into the shadow. Forty six and two are just ahead of me. Appendix B Aenima album cover

About role of the United Nations in the changing World Essay

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations†. Those are words from Preamble of Charter of the United Nations. The Charter of the United Nations was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into existence on 24 October 1945. The Statute of the International Court of Justice is an integral part of the Charter. The day is now celebrated each year around the world as United Nations Day. The purpose of the United Nations is to bring all nations of the world together to work for peace and development, based on the principles of justice, human dignity and the well-being of all people. It affords the opportunity for countries to balance global interdependence and national interests when addressing international problems. There are currently 191 Members of the United Nations. See more: Satirical essay about drugs They meet in the General Assembly, which is the closest thing to a world parliament. Each country, large or small, rich or poor, has a single vote; however, none of the decisions taken by the Assembly are binding. Nevertheless, the Assembly’s decisions become resolutions that carry the weight of world government opinion. The United Nations Headquarters is in New York City but the land and buildings are international territory. The United Nations has its own flag, its own post office and its own postage stamps. Six official languages are used at the United Nations – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The UN European Headquarters is in the Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland. It has offices in Vienna, Austria and Economic Commissions in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Amman in Jordan, Bangkok in Thailand and Santiago in Chile. The senior officer of the United Nations Secretariat is the Secretary-General. The Aims of the United Nations: *To keep peace throughout the world. *To develop friendly relations between nations. *To work together to help people live better lives. * to eliminate poverty, disease and illiteracy in the world. * to stop environmental destruction. * to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms. *To be a centre for helping nations achieve these aims. The Principles of the United Nations: *All Member States have sovereign equality. *All Member States must obey the Charter. *Countries must try to settle their differences by peaceful means. *Countries must avoid using force or threatening to use force. *The UN may not interfere in the domestic affairs of any country. All countries should try to assist the United Nations. Now some information about the UN system: The basic structure of the United Nations is outlined in an organizational chart. What the structure does not show is that decision-making within the UN system is not as easy as in many other organizations. The UN is not an independent, homogeneous organization; it is made up of states, so actions by the UN depend on the will of Member States, to accept, fund or carry them out. Especially in matters of peace-keeping and international politics, it requires a complex, often slow, process of consensus-building that must take into account national sovereignty as well as global needs. The Specialized Agencies, while part of the UN system, are separate, autonomous intergovernmental organizations which work with the UN and with each other. The agencies carry out work relating to specific fields such as trade, communications, air and maritime transport, agriculture and development. Although they have more autonomy, their work within a country or between countries is always carried out in partnership with those countries. They also depend on funds from Member States to achieve their goals. Recently, international conferences organized by the UN have gained significance. UN conferences have been held since the 1960s, but with the Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, they turned into real fora for deciding on national and international policy regarding issues that affect everyone such as the environment, human rights and economic development. Since the Earth Summit, UN conferences have turned into forums in which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can voice their concerns alongside those of governments. Such conferences focus world attention on these issues and place them squarely on the global agenda. Yet, once the international agreements produced by these conferences are signed, it is still up to each individual country to carry them out. With the moral weight of international conferences and the pressures of media and NGOs, Member States are more likely to endorse the agreements and put them into effect. I also would like to ad some basic information about structure and budget, to make brief of UN more visible. The six principal organs of the United Nations are the: General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice and Secretariat. The United Nations family, however, is much larger, encompassing 15 agencies and several programmes and bodies. When it comes to a budget, the budget for the two years 2000-2001 was $2,535 million. The main source of funds is the contributions of Member States, which are assessed on a scale approved by the General Assembly. The fundamental criterion on which the scale of assessments is based is the capacity of  countries to pay. This is determined by considering their relative shares of total gross national product, adjusted to take into account a number of factors, including their per capita incomes. In addition, countries are assessed for the costs of peacekeeping operations. What is the role of the UN nations in the changing World? I already gave some simply answers at the beginning of this assignment. I will try to answer this question in depth in the following part of my work. The UN has been effective, even indispensable, in post-conflict development in Mozambique, Guatemala, Afghanistan, the Balkans and elsewhere. It also has guided and monitored political change (democracy and governance) in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and Georgia. The UN has been involved in the conflict in Abkhazia since Georgian forces stormed the Abkhaz parliament in Sukhumi in August 1992, triggering a war that remains unresolved today. In 1993, the UN and the CSCE (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe) agreed that the international lead on the conflict in Abkhazia should be taken by the UN. In the same year the UN, faced with urgent requests from the government of Georgia to deploy a peacekeeping force to Abkhazia, decided to establish an observer mission for Georgia (UNOMIG) to monitor implementation of the July ceasefire agreement between the two sides which had been mediated and guaranteed by the Russian Federation. The decision to send an observer force rather than a fully fledged peacekeeping force reflected the desire of the Russian Federation to take the lead in the management of conflict in the ‘former Soviet space’, and the unwillingness of the other permanent members of the Security Council to challenge Russian prerogatives. There was also a general concern that the peacekeeping apparatus of the UN was overloaded, and disagreement among the parties as to what the mandate of a more substantial force would be. The UN Secretary-General also designated Swiss diplomat Eduard Brunner as Special Envoy for the conflict. He served until 1997 when Liviu Bota, a Romanian diplomat, was appointed Special Representative (SRSG) for the Abkhaz conflict. Both were responsible for the mediation of a process of negotiation leading to a political settlement of  the conflict. Bota has had a more or less permanent presence in the conflict zone, whereas Brunner was only delegated to visit intermittently. Russia’s special status in this process was recognized in its designation as ‘facilitator’ of the talks. In the early years of negotiation matters were not helped by the passive attitude taken by the Special Envoy to mediation of the conflict. The UN’s failure to take a more engaged approach was one factor among several contributing to the obvious lack of movement towards a political settlement in 1994-96. The fact that the more proactive approach adopted by Liviu Bota has also not produced a settlement would suggest, however, that the extent of UN activism is not the determining factor in conflict resolution. While the first personnel of UNOMIG were being deployed, the ceasefire collapsed and hostilities resumed. The UN Security Council condemned the renewal of conflict and associated displacement of population and demanded that the parties cease fighting. They also decided to extend the mandate of UNOMIG pending clarification of the situation. Traditionally, the UN has had a similar approach to its work since its conception in 1947. Gradually it became more and more involved; adding different organelles, agencies, and addressing more issues that weren’t necessarily new as it grew in size and scope. The International Court of Justice, the Economic and Social Council, and agencies like the International Maritime Organization were created to solve problems in these areas. It grew out of the General Assembly and the Security Council; to an organization with thousands of employees worldwide doing hundreds of completely different things. To put it simply, and to generalize, it has gotten bigger, and more involved. The Secretary General NOW has the ability to change the way a leader runs his country, make two warring countries sign a peace treaty, and even route money through areas in the world that would have never gotten any before. The Secretary has assumed power or the power of influence, he or she does not have any written or given power, Still however, this clearly shows how much more the UN has gotten involved and grown, even more like the feared â€Å"world government† that it vows to never become. It is a little misleading to speak of the role of the UN. The UN is nearly  powerless as an abstract entity or even as a representative of the world’s nations. It can act, instead, only insofar as it is given authorization by the great powers, which means primarily the United States. The UN has no standing peacekeeping force and thus is dependent on finding countries willing to contribute troops for any particular mission. The organization suffers as well from an extreme shortage of funds because of the continual U.S. refusal to pay its dues. Any peacekeepers sent to East Timor will probably not be a UN force because the U.S. Congress has required that there be a 15-day delay before the U.S. government can approve any UN peacekeeping operation and has forbidden Washington from paying its authorized share of the costs of any such operation. U.S. influence is greatest in the Security Council, but some organs of the UN, such as the General Assembly or bodies dealing with economic and social issues have had a Third World majority ever since the era of decolonization. Accordingly, U.S. policy has been to undermine and marginalize the UN. The United Nations should have an important role in world affairs, but U.S. policy and the policies of other leading states, severely limit the international organization. From the point of view of U.S. policymakers, however, there is one crucial role played by the UN: it serves as a convenient scapegoat when something goes wrong. For example, the current catastrophe in East Timor is directly attributable to the refusal of the United States and other Western powers to deter the atrocities there over a period of a quarter century, yet the UN will probably take the blame. So as we can see, we can look for the subject of my assignment from the different point of view. Another UN’s role: The Asian crisis, has become a global crisis, was by no means a purely financial matter. It had disastrous consequences for millions of people in their everyday lives. Moreover, it was the poor who are hardest hit. In Indonesia, almost 15,000 workers lost their jobs in 1998. And poverty came with its usual sorry retinue: hunger, social unrest, violence, abuse of human rights. The least developed countries, the ones least able to influence world priorities and policies, were penalized. So the human dimension was at the heart of the response (including debt relief)to this  first major crisis of globalization. Of course, the role of the seven major industrial powers, and of the world’s finance ministers and central bankers, remained crucial. But they could not undertake this task alone. All parts of the international system came together. President Clinton has suggested wide-ranging discussions on the new world â€Å"financial architecture.† Some would say that this was none of the U.N.’s business. There are other international bodies, more specialized and perhaps more competent to deal with economic problems: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the Bank for International Settlements. But the U.N. is the one truly global institution we all belong to. It must have a seat at the table. Economic and financial strategies will succeed only if they are applied within a clear political framework. That framework will command much wider support if, through the U.N., all affected countries have played a part in working it out. Over the long term, globalization will be positive. It draws us closer together and enables us to produce more efficiently, to control our environment, to improve our quality of life. But such benefits are not felt equally by all. For many people, â€Å"long term† is too far off to be meaningful. Millions on this planet still live in isolation, on the margins of the world economy. Millions more are experiencing globalization not as a great new opportunity but as a profoundly disruptive force that attacks both their material living standards and their culture. Some of those who had benefited most from open markets and capital flows were feeling the greatest pain. The temptation to retreat into nationalism or populism is strong. But, fortunately, in most developing countries, those false solutions are being rejected. Each country’s crisis has its own local features and causes. Each country has to address its own specific problems and shortcomings. But many countries need help, for these are not just financial or macro-economic problems. They have grave social and political consequences, and some of their causes are to be found in political and social systems. The U.N. has a responsibility, as the universal institution, to insist on the need for worldwide solutions based on rules that are fair to all. It is the UN job to ensure that nations do not react to crisis by turning their backs on universal values. In such crises, the UN must come together to find solutions based on the founding  principles which all their member states have in common: those of the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In particular, the UN has a special responsibility to speak up for the victims or potential victims. The UN cannot forget the countries in Africa and elsewhere whose debt burdens the crisis has made even more unsustainable. Debt relief is often resisted on grounds of â€Å"moral hazard,† that it rewards the reckless and penalizes the prudent. But were not the lenders often just as reckless and irresponsible as the borrowers? Can it really be moral for them to insist on full interest and full repayment if the result is that children not yet born when the debts were contracted are denied even a subsistence diet or an elementary education? Many nations feel their interests are ignored or neglected in specialized economic bodies, where the strongest voices, for quite understandable reasons, tend to be those of countries which have already achieved economic success. But the U.N. provides a forum for informed debate among all those affected by the crisis. It has to represent all stakeholders in the global economy. The U.N. must play its part in the search for solutions that preserve the benefits of globalization while protecting those who have suffered or who have been left out. UN has kept women’s issues and interests on the agenda of change when they risked being set aside for a â€Å"later† that would never come in Afghanistan, Kosovo and East Timor. It has protected children in conflict and in post-conflict stress. The UN is bringing justice post-conflict to the repressed through ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), and the nascent Sierra Leone court. In each case, the role and the centrality of the UN have been different. The United Nations is an organization that has always been based on respect for nation’s sovereignties, peace, and judicial cooperation regarding topics which are salient to the current time period. As the entire world moves further into the â€Å"technological age†, and with the turn of the century coming (which is really only symbolic of a new era), new issues are bound to develop. The world will gradually change, and the UN ne eds to address these needs by evaluating its current state along with what it can do to change for the better. The increasingly global economy, the European Community, and the development of the sagging Asian market (with  the rest of the world in a recession also) show action needs to be taken economically. Hostility remains in the Middle East, human rights are being violated every day around the globe, and people everywhere are disgruntled with their current governmental situation. How will the UN curb nuclear terrorism, help the homeless and uneducated, and still maintain and outside role in political matters? Or should they maintain an outside role? These are merely a few of the hundreds of issues addressing the world today, and the UN must prepare for the coming decade with open minded foresight. As Secretary General Kofi A. Annan said, every conflict is different, every post-conflict is different, and each model of intervention by the international community is different. In Iraq, we have an immediate post-conflict humanitarian and reconstruction challenge in front of us. It is in eve ryone’s interests, especially in the Iraqi people’s interest, to ensure that Iraq becomes an economically functional, politically stable and self-governing state that is respectful of the rule of law, of democratic principles and of international norms. The coalition nations currently controlling Iraqi territory have distinct responsibilities as occupying powers to maintain public order and safety, to protect civilians and to provide essential services. The wider international community, especially the United Nations, also have indispensable roles to play. While systems are in place for humanitarian assistance, a framework is needed to facilitate greater engagement and support in the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq. The United Nations has extensive expertise that can and should be brought to bear. The UN and its agencies have been heavily involved in Iraq since the first Gulf War, and have an in-depth understanding of the circumstances, and the challenges. The UN is fully engaged through its agencies and has resources on the ground in Iraq, providing much-needed assistance to the Iraqi people. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the WFP (World Food Programme)- they all know Iraq. Countries need to build on the strength of the engagement of these and other UN agencies in Iraq, and determine how best they can make further use of this experience and expertise. In Iraq, as in all post-conflict situations, common over-arching goals must be to meet the needs of the people, and to support them in their course towards stability, recovery and reconstruction. After Kosovo, many thought NATO would become let say â€Å"Globocop† that the G-8 would supplant the Security Council, that the UN would be sidelined. But, in fact, the UN picked up the pieces in Kosovo, mandated the intervention in East Timor and has helped Afghanistan put itself back together. What about issues that should to be addressed in a Resolution? As for what should be addressed, there almost are more topics than one is able to think about. Should there be more staff running relief efforts in Zaire? Is the International Court of Justice really necessary, or is it wasting money and time that could be spent on other things. Analyzing this, you could say that since nations only sue each other, and no real action is taken, and the courts have no real power to enforce anything, what is the use? Possibly the funding used for this could go towards building schools in Africa. This may seem fairly ludicrous, but one needs to have the foresight to see these things, and there i s only a certain amount of money around for things like this. Possibly the UN relief troops should be allowed to use loaded weapons and fire at hostile parties, for their own safety and to help curb violence more. Maybe the Secretary General should be stripped of all his power, and put all diplomacy matters in the hands of the General Assembly or Security Council. The Secretary could have increased power that would force nations to comply with his decisions. A UN that is much like a world government could possibly work as long as there was representatives from every nation. Because the world is more complex, if the UN was simplified it might make things smoother. Instead of having an agency for every little issue, such as the ACC Sub-Committee on Nutrition, or the UN office for Outer Space affairs. Are these REALLY necessary? They may be, but it is the decision of the delegates. The UN’s image with â€Å"Security Council† and a Court System might look bad to some conservative minded citizens of a nation. Economically, are the proper funds being allocated to areas and agencies in need? Should a worldwide mandatory educational requirement be put into effect? What exactly is the most pressing area right now that needs the fiscal help the UN can offer? Again, in the past 50 years help has been going to the same places, while the Secretariat grew larger and larger, and the entire UN gradually began becoming a complex political bureaucracy, and began to focus less on its original mission as stated in the charter, to  promote peaceful relations between the nations of the world. This doesn’t seem to be working anymore, possibly because the current UN is obsolete. In summation, United Nations reform is a daunting task. As a member of UN, Poland should remember to use foresight, think of what kind of world we will live in next century, what new things will happen, and how the UN should evolve to meet these needs with vigor. The UN is still only an organization, not a government, and it is based itself on precedent. That is, actions of the past determine future decisions. If precedent is broken, we should remember what has been built for all of us for the past 51 years. Bibliography: www.alertnet.org www.globalpolicy.org www.undp.org www.globalissues.com/Geopolitics/EastTimor www.un.org/ www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/chapter1.html United Nations: 50 Years of Peace and War, University of California Press, John Taylor, Phd. 1998 United Nations Published Charter The History of The United Nations, Paladin Press, Jonathon Kingsley. 1994

Red Blood Cells Function and Structure

A Brief History of Communication

Humans have communicated with one another in some shape or form ever since time immemorial. But to understand the history of communication, all we have to go by are written records that date as far back as ancient Mesopotamia. And while every sentence starts with a letter, back then people began with a picture. The B.C. Years The Kish tablet, discovered in the ancient Sumerian city of Kish, has inscriptions considered by some experts to be the oldest form of known writing. Dated to 3500 BC, the stone features proto-cuneiform signs, basically rudimentary symbols that convey meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Similar to this early form of writing are the ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, which date back to around 3200 BC. Elsewhere, written language appears to have come about around 1200 BC in China and around 600 BC in the Americas. Some similarities between the early Mesopotamian language and the one that developed in ancient Egypt suggests that some concept of a writing system originated in the middle east. However, any kind of connection between Chinese characters and these early language systems are less likely since the cultures don’t seem to have had any contact. Among the first non-glyph writing systems not to use pictorial signs is the phonetic system. With phonetic systems, symbols refer to spoken sounds. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the modern alphabets that many people in the world use today is a phonetic form of communication. Remnants of such systems first appeared either around 19th century B.C thanks to an early Canaanite population or 15th century B.C. in connection with a Semitic community that lived in central Egypt.   Over time, various forms of the Phoenician system of written communication began to spread and were picked up along the Mediterranean city-states. By the 8th century B.C., the Phoenician symbols reached Greece, where it was altered and adapted to the Greek oral language. The biggest alterations were the addition of vowel sounds and having the letters read from left to right. Around that time, long-distance communication had its humble beginnings as the Greeks, for the first time in recorded history, had a messenger pigeon deliver results of the first Olympiad in the year 776 BC. Another important communication milestone to come from the Greeks was the establishment of the first library in 530 BC. And as humans neared the end of the B.C. period, systems of long-distance communication started to become more commonplace. A historical entry in the book â€Å"Globalization and Everyday Life† noted that around 200 to 100 BC: â€Å"Human messengers on foot or horseback common in Egypt and China with messenger relay stations built. Sometimes fire messages used from relay station to station instead of humans.† Communication Comes to the Masses In the year 14 AD, the Romans established the first postal service in the western world. While it’s considered to be the first well-documented mail delivery system, others in India, China had already long been in place. The first legitimate postal service likely originated in ancient Persia around 550 BC. However, historians feel that in some ways it wasn’t a true postal service because it was used primarily for intelligence gathering and later to relay decisions from the king. Meanwhile, in the far east, China was making its own progress in opening channels for communication among the masses. With a well-developed writing system and messenger services, the Chinese would be the first to invent paper and papermaking when in 105 AD an official named Cai Lung submitted a proposal to the emperor in which he, according to a biographical account, suggested using â€Å"the bark of trees, remnants of hemp, rags of cloth, and fishing nets† instead of the heavier bamboo or costlier silk material. The Chinese followed that up sometime between 1041 and 1048 with the invention of the first moveable type for printing paper books. Han Chinese inventor Bi Sheng was credited with developing the porcelain device, which was described in statesman Shen Kuo’s book â€Å"Dream Pool Essays.† He wrote: â€Å"†¦he took sticky clay and cut in it characters as thin as the edge of a coin. Each character formed, as it were, a single type. He baked them in the fire to make them hard. He had previously prepared an iron plate and he had covered his plate with a mixture of pine resin, wax, and paper ashes. When he wished to print, he took an iron frame and set it on the iron plate. In this, he placed the types, set close together. When the frame was full, the whole made one solid block of type. He then placed it near the fire to warm it. When the paste [at the back] was slightly melted, he took a smooth board and pressed it over the surface, so that the block of type became as even as a whetstone.† While the technology underwent other advancements, such as metal movable type, it wasn’t until a German smithy named Johannes Gutenberg built Europe’s first metal movable type system that mass printing would experience a revolution. Gutenberg’s printing press, developed between the year 1436 and 1450, introduced several key innovations that include oil-based ink, mechanical movable type, and adjustable molds. Altogether, this allowed for a practical system for printing out books in a way that was efficient and economical. Around 1605, a German publisher named Johann Carolus printed and distributed the world’s first newspaper. The paper was called â€Å"Relation aller Fà ¼rnemmen und gedenckwà ¼rdigen Historien,† which translated to â€Å"Account of all distinguished and commemorable news.† However, some may argue that the honor should be bestowed upon the Dutch â€Å"Courante uyt Italien, Duytslandt, c.† since it was the first to be printed in a broadsheet-sized format.   Beyond Writing: Communicating Through Photography, Code, and Sound By the 19th century, the world, it seems, was ready to move beyond the printed word (and no, people didn’t want to get back to advancing fire and smoke-generated messages). People wanted photographs, except they didn’t know it yet. That was until French inventor Joseph Nicephore Niepce captured the world’s first photographic image in 1822. The early process he pioneered, called heliography, used a combination of various substances and their reactions to sunlight to copy the image from an engraving. Other notable later contributions to the advancement of photography include a technique for producing color photographs called the three-color method, initially put forth by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1855 and Kodak roll film camera, invented by American George Eastman in 1888. The foundation for the invention of electric telegraphy was laid by inventors Joseph Henry and Edward Davey. In 1835, both had independently and successfully demonstrated electromagnetic relay, where a weak electrical signal can be amplified and transmitted across long distances. A few years later, shortly after the invention of the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, the first commercial electric telegraph system, an American inventor named Samuel Morse developed a version that sent signals several miles from Washington DC to Baltimore. And soon after, with the help of his assistant Alfred Vail, he devised the Morse code, a system of signal-induced indentations that correlated to numbers, special characters and letters of the alphabet. Naturally, the next hurdle was to figure out a way to transmit sound to far off distances. The idea for a â€Å"speaking telegraph† was kicked around as early as 1843 when Italian inventor Innocenzo Manzetti began broaching the concept. And while he and others explored the notion of transmitting sound across distances, it was Alexander Graham Bell who ultimately was granted a patent in 1876 for Improvements in Telegraphy, which laid out the underlying technology for electromagnetic telephones.   But what if someone tried to call and you werent available? Sure enough, right at the turn of the 20th century, a Danish inventor named Valdemar Poulsen set the tone for the answering machine with the invention of the telegraphone, the first device capable of recording and playing back the magnetic fields produced by sound. The magnetic recordings also became the foundation for  mass data storage formats such as audio disc and tape.