,i;i2 to tne held. The human k,~' in has sudderily become one of 'ilit most enticing scientific frontiers for ambitious scholars and researchers. What, their, is the present state of brain studies? Tire Nihon Keizai Shinibun team of reporters working on this "frontier" series has inter viewed those working in the on going studies arid has been greatly impressed by their live litiess arid irmnense variety. 'flie following is only a sam pling of a great many highly in 0 triguing theories. 0 "Face cell" theory 0 I Up until recently, the brain 0 was believed to analyze tire in- 0 2 formation transmitted from t c,4 eyes and form entire images Mpulting together fragments 1~_ 0 information perceived by d f- CID ferent brain cells. For example, (D 0 a cell responding to the concept M of "roundness" gets linked with 13 that responding to tile idea of cl~,6 I redness" to produce the entire fecture. "If we are to believe the 'face Ck- Ocell' theory," one scholar sug 4gested at the meeting, "the bits (if information handled by (lie hunian brain will be limited to 14 billion, as that is the number of cells contained in the human Compitter scientists begin p"A/ino- attention to 6 long-shunned parapsycholo.,tfical research Tadahiro Sekimoto, presi- dent of NEC M=p., has a pet research theme which he is hoping to see taken up by his company's researchers. Seki- moto himself brought up the theme some 20 years ago, when he was A senior eii- gineer, and had it flatly turned down. Tire theme is to somehow explain scientifical- ly phenomena which are referred to as the "sixth sense" or "telepathy." "The study of the sixth sense and telepathy will cer- tainly prove a cornerstone of future modes of communica- tions," declares Sekimoto. Unknown energy Telecommunications en- gineering at present depends on electromagnetic energies arid sound vibration energies. Sekimoto believes that there is unknown energy in "the world of the sixth sense" that can be used for telecom- inunications and that dis- of this unknown covery energy may very well re- voluntionalize telecom- 1111.11lications systems in their entirety. "Science today 'does not fully explain what the electric wave really is," declares Hiroo Yuhara, advisor to the telecom munica Lions gear maker Uniden Corp., and former head of the Posts and Telecommunications Min- istry's Radio Research Liboratories, tire most ad- vanced of Japan's research organizations in this field. "What we know is that we can make wonderful communica- tions equipment if we build it on the theories of electric wave engineering. There are many basic matters that re- quire, scientific explana- tions." Yuha 'ra has for several years been engrossed if] studying phenomena defying scientific explanation. lie conducted a simple experi- ment for air NKS reporter. lie first placed some name cards and small pieces of paper with names written on thern on a table and then brought a bar magnet hanging from a string. When the magnet was placed above the name cards, it started swinging right and left depending upon the name cards.. Yuhara claimed that when the name card is that of a dead mail, the magnet swings to the left ' To explain this strange phe- nonnenon, Yuhara formulated the following hypothesis: "The human body has a secret sensor in it and the sensor tranSmiLs tire informa- tion about the state (dead or alive) of the man whose name is on the card to tile bar magnet." "In Japan, psychic phe- nomena arid the discipline of parapsychology are yet to be recognized," states Soji Olitani, professor at the Defense College and president of the Japan Parapsychology Association. "We, therefore I are conducting. our research on the subjects completely oil ourown." Even among big business employees, there are some who are secretly engaged in telepathy in the belief that the days when the worth of such studies is fully appreciated are not that far away. One such person is Masa- nrichi Rokuslia, an engineer b0onging to Hitachi, 1,td.'s patent section. Rokusha has reently devised, with tile use of a personal computer, a system to greatly improve the efficiency of studies of the sixth sense. Rokusha makes the com- puter memorize the figures one and zero 100 times at random and has a control to call out the figures before the machine flashes them on screen every two seconds.'The "beep" sound is sometimes added to test what effects the sound will have on tile con- trol's score. A computer analysis of vast amounts of data collected show that tile scores become Poor after the beep sound and that tire best scores are con- centrated just before the beep sound. Rokusha explains these two phenomena by con- sidering that the controls somehow sense that the beep sound disrupts their intuition so some mysterious power works and improves their scores before the beep sound. I "The day will certainly corne sooner or later when studies of psychic phenomena become legitimate," Rokusha says. "I am building up the necessary data and informa- tion for such an eventuality." National project llajime Karatsu, technical adviser to Matsushita Elec- trie Industrial Co., speaks of tile importaiice of studies of psychic: phenomena in a dif- fLrent manner. "Develop- 111CHt Of future computers hinges oil a full explanation of brain functions," says Karatsu. "In brain studies, phenomena so far unex- plained by conventional sciences should also be taken up.,$ The state also has started moving into the field. Tire Science arid Technology Agency has recently decided to take up mail's spiritual ac- tivities as a study theme of its Creative Science and Tech- nology Promotion Program as from fiscal 1987. Although there are many words in the Japanese lan- guage smacking of tile super- natural, no scientific studies have as yet been undertaken oil (lie phenomena implied by tile words. Studies of such phenomena may very well have wide-ranging practical applications, ranging from cures for illnesses to new communications modes. Sir Isaac Newton, formu- lator of the theory of gravity, became, engrossed in studies of the supernatural in his later years, while Brian D. Josephson, a British physicist known as the creator of tile Josephson junction theory, is flow fully committed to studies of mail's spiritual ac- tivities. 2 T_ o 0 a) Cl) C14 a) I- 0 9 (D C" 00 0 0 0 0 ca 4) 4) 0 LL V > 0 L. CL CL <