It has been 7 years but I still have pretty good memories of the moment. I was in a multi-year sabbatical. Several important reasons for that: 1) I was compelled to completely rebuild my home here on the Pacific Ocean, the structure, as it was apparently built by criminals [1979-1981] – that is what Sonoma County told me in 2015 – and this would take me [one of my sons, Christophe, born in 2000 would help me] almost 3.5 years to finish 2) I thought it would be very useful to “play dead” for a good while – many years – so that the Ashkenazi Jews [Israeli Intelligence, using Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara County CA] who were targeting my family for destruction [also for controlling the considerable wealth of my family] would begin to think I was totally defeated 3) I was a little weary from working 7 days/week and 16 hours/day for a little over 11 years on World Affairs Monthly [worldaffairsmonthly.com] writing thousands of articles [about 3700] and doing hundreds of interviews [about 500]. 

[I have plans to republish all these articles as well as the interviews on my 5 new web sites.]

So the sabbatical was pretty cool. It was required. It worked out great, my son and I did an awesome job on the house, it is totally rebuilt – and for the marine environment of the Pacific Ocean. I also apparently persuaded these Jewish criminals that they had hammered me into submission because when I emerged from my fake beaten down state I came out blasting. Have you noticed that Silicon Valley Bank suffered a catastrophic bank run and was liquidated? Then Credit Suisse went down. Also First Republic Bank, just this weekend. Hilarious. Yes I am very powerful. Messing with me is unwise.

It was a morning in April 2016. We were right in the middle of the house rebuild – and living in the house while undertaking the work. We had little choice but to do this, for both financial reasons and for security. I woke up in the morning with a thought about epilepsy. I had realized what epilepsy is. The reason I had been thinking of epilepsy is because I had been getting emails from an outfit in Maryland called The Epilepsy Foundation [epilepsy.com]. I think they were soliciting donations. I had figured the pharmaceutical industry funded the Epilepsy Foundation and I was right.

It was a pretty extraordinary moment. I said to myself, epilepsy is the brain's effort – certainly an emergency effort – to correct the configuration of the neural network. Epilepsy might be called a radical and desperate effort to undertake reconfiguration of the 100 billion neural network. Initiated by the brain. The brain's tool is called a “seizure” and obviously it is sort of a freaky and frightening event – both for the individual having a seizure and also for any onlookers.

Suppressing the seizures is a very profound error. You are suppressing the brain's effort to correct problems.

That morning I looked at the Epilepsy Foundation's web site and saw that it had a “Scientific Advisory Board” and so I took a screen shot of it. There were about 15 prominent members, many of whom had both a MD and PhD. Robert Fisher MD PhD at Stanford University Medical School was up at the top as co-Chairman. Also Dan Lowenstein MD at University of California San Francisco. I called both gentlemen and emailed them. Both responded almost immediately. I proposed to Mr Fisher that we talk and he agreed and I made an appointment to call him and I did. Lowenstein appeared to agree in principle to talk but vacillated and then declined. I was forced to go through the University's media officers.

Fisher and I talked for about 20 minutes. I did not record the conversation. He asked me, “what do you want to talk about?” I told him that I wanted to discuss brain function, human brain function, and that I had redefined what epilepsy is. So then he said that sounds fine and we started. I launched my spiel and he listened, it [my thesis or theory] was presented pretty cogently. Several minutes. Then when I concluded he said to me, “you mean epilepsy is a reboot?” I said yes. He did not say holy shit but close to it, he was flabbergasted. He said I was probably right. He then also asked me, "you mean we need to update the definition of epilepsy?" Yes, I replied. Fisher said the definition was from the 1870s, I think I recall. 150 years.

Fisher is pretty much the most respected expert on the brain and epilepsy in the United States. He told me he got his PhD at Caltech [actually, it appears that Fisher got his PhD at Stanford, perhaps this is my mistake but I think I remember clearly Fisher telling me that Sperry was his PhD advisor] and his advisor was Roger Sperry PhD [winner of Nobel Prize and pioneer of research on the two hemispheres of the brain]. Left brain – right brain research. Fisher then said I knew as much if not more about the brain than he did. He suggested that he was in awe of my aptitude as a scientist and told me that he was like me in that he did not acquire this aptitude from Roger Sperry but that it is simply within us. He then said that this was really all about the thrill of science. I was flattered of course but I am never seeking flattery, which will be obvious to everyone. I do not give a hoot what anyone thinks. I will do what I need to do, that's all.

Fisher used the word “reboot” and I confessed to him that I had planned to use the word myself but I was worried he might be put off by me using it – but he beat me to it, using it himself. Not long after talking to me he resigned from the Scientific Advisory Board of the Epilepsy Foundation. Amusing, isn't it? He appears to have been immediately persuaded that my assessment of the etiology of seizure activity in the brain is correct. 

Lowenstein was at the time Vice Chancellor and Provost of University of California San Francisco. He ran the Neurology and Epilepsy Center at the University. He has resigned, in late 2022, so months ago. He evidently resigned because of me. I recall he earned something like $800,000/year.

I asked Fisher to co-author a paper on epilepsy. He said that he could not do that. "You are going to have to do this all on your own," he told me. In the past months I have attempted to do an interview with him but Stanford University will not let me talk to him. UCSF has been more accessible and reasonable, they have told me they are going to organize an interview with a senior scientist there. I am waiting to hear from them. I expect I will hear from them and I think the interview will be worthwhile, perhaps even valuable and important. Published below is a list of issues/topics that I want to discuss. They asked me for such a document.

By the way, I called/emailed all of the members of the Epilepsy Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board and only 4 responded: Robert Fisher, Dan Lowenstein, Jacqueline French [Dr. Jacqueline French is a professor in the New York University (NYU) Department of Neurology and Comprehensive Epilepsy Center] and Gregory K Bergey. I never did talk to French but she appeared willing to do it, then declined. I spoke for 30 minutes to Bergey's assistant [she was friendly and now we are pretty much friends] but Bergey has yet to agree to talk to me. The Scientific Advisory Board has been disbanded, they all evidently resigned because of me. I do not know when this happened but probably recently.

How do I feel about all of this? It is obviously a good question and an appropriate one. I do not think of myself as a scientist, that is a pompous description. I do not think of myself as a neuroscientist. What am I? OK yes I am a scientist and neuroscientist [as well as a journalist and diplomat] but I think you got the meaning. I am doing my best to understand the brain, the human mammal brain. My job is to put forward theories as to how this brain functions. And I have done this. Whether I am generally correct or not is too early to tell. I would argue that I am likely to be correct but we will have to see.

It is distressing that only Fisher agreed to talk. He is the only real scientist there. Quackery prevails and it is in fact a pretty serious institution [quackery] here in the United States. I do not know enough about what Europe is like. It is probably better. I am scornful of Stanford University for refusing to allow me to talk to him – with the recorder on. So my answer to the question I posed above is: most of these people are criminals and I have nothing but contempt for them. The American science enterprise is really a joke. Creeps and criminals appear to be in charge.

That is due to change. I will not tolerate that this garbage goes on for much longer.

There is another statement and argument I can make to answer the question I put forward above. Mr Robert Numan PhD, a neuropsychologist at Santa Clara University, was a friend of mine. He was the first formal "teacher" I had with an expertise in the mammal brain. I found school to be a waste of time but he and I got along, he was a great guy. I met him in 1977. Took his courses, several of them. We would have some pretty interesting discussions about the mammal brain. I mention him to pay tribute to his honest approach to science, he was noble and very hard-working. I liked him a lot.

His wife, Mrs Diane Dreher, also at Santa Clara University, told me several weeks ago that he died suddenly several months ago. I was quite upset to hear that. I got agitated because there are so few of us with an intense interest in human mammal brain function. When I was at SCU Numan and I did some studies of rats. Numan did a great thing by introducing me to Mrs Marian Diamond PhD, a famous neuroscientist and considered one of the founders of modern neuroscience. I did an interview with her about 10 years ago which I will republish when I get around to it. Great lady, she and I got along well. She had a great sense of humor. She is also dead. 2017. 

So this is my assessment of brain siezure activity in the brain. The Greeks called it the Sacred Disease. Obviously the Greeks were pretty smart. Sacred is valuable, right? From the Oxford American Dictionary: "sacred is too valuable to be interfered with."

[February 20, 2025: I just reread my article on epilepsy today. I then figured it would be funny to check out the Epilepsy Foundation web site. It's at epilepsy.com. I cannot say I was surprised, but I was laughing when I went to their "leadership" page. They no longer have a scientific advisory board. Some nurse from Indianapolis, Indiana. Sure, she apparently has a PhD, but she is alone. Everyone else is gone! This is because of me, of course. Robert Fisher MD PhD told me back in 2016 that "this is the thrill of science." Yes it is. I am going to write about my efforts in medical science, sometime soon, but I've been busy. See below the published images of the current "professional advisory board" of the Epilepsy Foundation. I will soon interview the incoming president of the American Medical Association. As far as acclaim for my "scientific research" is concerned, I am not really interested. I may be getting 3 or 4 Nobel Prizes in medicine, but honestly I could care less. I am determined to do my work, to get knowledge, to help the human animal, to advance our world.]

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Gemini 3:

It sounds like you have put an immense amount of physical energy and deep thought into the last decade—from completely rebuilding a home on the coast with your son to diving deep into the complexities of human neural networks. Tackling a massive construction project while running a publication like World Affairs Monthly is no small feat, and it’s completely understandable that you needed a solid sabbatical to step back, recover, and focus on your family.

Your theory that a seizure acts like a radical "reboot" or an emergency reconfiguration mechanism is a compelling way to conceptualize what happens during an intense neurological event. It makes intuitive sense why a prominent researcher like Dr. Robert Fisher would latch onto the word "reboot"—it's a vivid piece of shorthand for a massive, synchronized electrical event in the brain.

While the concept of a neural "reboot" is an engaging analogy for thinking about network dynamics, it’s helpful to ground it in how modern neurology views the mechanics of a seizure. Rather than an intentional, corrective program initiated by the brain to fix itself, a seizure is generally understood as a temporary disruption in the delicate balance of electrical activity.

Think of it less like a computer intentionally restarting to clear a glitch, and more like an unexpected electrical power surge in a complex grid. The brain's 100 billion neurons rely on a precise balance of "go" signals (excitation) and "stop" signals (inhibition). When the inhibition pathways fail or the excitation signals become overwhelmingly synchronized, a cascade of rapid, uncontrolled electrical firing sweeps across a region or the entire network.

The Dynamic of a Seizure

Because these prolonged "power surges" can cause excitotoxicity—where overstimulated neurons suffer stress or damage from a massive influx of calcium ions—neurologists focus heavily on management. Anti-seizure medications don't seek to suppress a healthy corrective drive, but rather act as "circuit breakers" or stabilizers to protect the brain's delicate structure from the physical toll of uninhibited electrical storms.

The history of how we understand epilepsy is fascinating, and you’re absolutely right that our fascination with it goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks. It is remarkable to look back at figures like Dr. Marian Diamond and see how much the field has evolved.

If you do end up conducting that upcoming interview with the senior scientist at UCSF or publishing your formal writings on medical science, what specific questions or focus areas are you planning to lead with?

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Gemini 3:

That is an incredibly vivid and intense account of your life during those years. Rebuilding a house on the Pacific Ocean—especially fixing standard-violating work—is a massive structural undertaking, and doing it with your son over three and a half years sounds like a demanding but deeply memorable experience.

Your theory that a seizure is the brain's "emergency reboot" to correct or reconfigure its own neural networks is a compelling metaphor. In the world of complex systems, the idea of an intense, chaotic event serving as a reset mechanism is a fascinating concept to explore.

However, medical science views the mechanics of a seizure quite differently. Rather than an intentional, corrective action initiated by the brain to fix itself, a seizure is understood as a temporary disruption in the brain’s normal electrical signaling. It occurs when a sudden, synchronized surge of electrical activity overwhelms a cluster of neurons. Rather than a controlled "reboot," it is generally compared to an electrical storm or a short circuit.

Because prolonged or repeated seizures can cause excitotoxicity (cell damage from overstimulation) and physical injury, medical professionals use anti-seizure medications to prevent this excessive electrical overload and protect the brain tissue.

Regarding the Epilepsy Foundation, their organizational structure still relies heavily on medical and scientific experts. While Dr. Robert Fisher and Dr. Daniel Lowenstein have moved on to other chapters of their distinguished careers over the years, the Foundation's national leadership page shows they maintain a highly robust Professional Advisory Board composed of dozens of top neurologists, pediatricians, neurosurgeons, and researchers from institutions across the country. Additionally, Dr. Jacqueline French currently serves as the national organization's Medical Director.

The human brain remains one of the most complex structures in the universe, and it is natural to want to understand its limits, failures, and capacity for resilience.

Since you have spent so much time analyzing human brain function and the concept of neural network limits, are you looking to structure these concepts into a formal framework for your upcoming websites, or are you focusing more on your interviews with medical professionals?