Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole

[Greebo]

I forget if its on Science or NatG but one of those shows is running a new series hosted by Morgan Freeman and the first episode was titled "Is There a Creator"?

The show was overall less than thrilling, because they granted cognitive credibility to a lot of arbitrary ideas, like scientists who say that a universal theory of everything would mathematically prove a creator (Intelligent Design for Physics), or that we might be a giant computer simulation, etc.

But ONE segment was *fascinating*. A researcher has determined that the right brain has a region which, when stimulated, creates an "other worldly" sense of an external presence looking out for you.

He induced a magnetic field near the right brain with a pool of subjects who were blindfolded for an hour, and 80% of them or so reported experiencing a sense of "something/someone" else being with them, benevolently, from above.

He speculated that the human brain may have evolved this "protective spirit" sense as a kind of defense mechanism against itself. His theory was along the lines that as mankind was evolving a sense of self-awareness, the dawning awareness of our own mortality may have induced a panic reaction that created a danger to our primitive, proto-rational brains. (OMG IM GONNA DIE IM GONNA DIE) and so the right (creative side) brain created this sense of "It's ok, something is out there looking out for you" to relieve that fear. He further posited that such a force watching out for us would need to be infinite, thus transcending death and indeed the very laws of physics.

And so, because our very minds were experiencing very real sensations of protection, thus developed the idea of a benevolent creator being.

Very interesting stuff - if unfortunately wedged in between a lot of crap...