Hypothetically, what would you say to someone asking the “chicken or egg” question about neural chemistry: Does neurologocal/chemical/genetic information precede personality/responses/disposition or is it simply an expression of metaphysical “events”?
For example, those who believe in soul or karma and reincarnation, usually are more partial to the latter answer. For them, “chemistry” cannot possibly add up to the complex phenomenon they witness, therefore they accept the metaphysical answers more readily.
For a scientist, there may be other reasons to question “what came first,” but a metaphysical preference isn’t one of them. I wonder how valid the question is right now, for the scientific community.
It seems to me that we don’t yet know exactly how things add up to what we witness, and yet Evolutionary theory gives tells us that things were not even as organized as this, before. So the idea that there are some metaphysical absolutes that govern behavior seems a little silly, seeing how much behavior has changed over centuries and how much it differs between species (so long as we don’t take the anthropocentric stance, and do value the “morality”/experience/behavioral patterns of other species instead of casting that information aside and believing the “humans are special and endowed” paradigm.)
But back to it — how would you answer?
It did seem that likely Aristotle, Hume, and Darwin were right: we are social by nature. But what does that actually mean in terms of our brains and our genes? To make progress beyond the broad hunches about our nature, we need something solid to attach the claim to.
Braintrust, by Patricia S. Churchland
They look like Pollocks…
But actually, these are two simulations of a whole cortical column, and 1000 pyramidal cells (a type of neuron) during a network simulation (blue cells are silent, red cells are firing), respectively, left—›right.
via EPFL, at Henry Markram’s Human Brain Project.
Kurtzweil AI:
a number of scientists have expressed serious reservations about Markram’s project.
Some say we don’t know enough about the brain to simulate it on a supercomputer. And even if we did, these critics ask, what would be the value of building such a complicated “virtual brain”? Some researchers say it is premature to invest money in a simulation while important principles of brain function remain to be discovered.
Haim Sompolinsky, a neuroscientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said: “The rhetoric is that in a decade they will be able to reverse-engineer the human brain in computers. This is fantasy. Nothing will come close to it in a decade.”
But those who say “it’s fantasy” and “never” have consistently been proven wrong. Although I agree with Sompolinsky, I do hope he will be, as well.
Meanwhile, despite all this, Itskov and the 2045 project…
{ Simple mathematical pattern describes shape of neuron ‘jungle’ }
A 2/3 power law: L = (3/4π)1/3 × V1/3n2/3
where n is the number of dendritic sections to make up the tree, L is the total length of these sections, and V is the total volume
{ A scaling law derived from optimal dendritic wiring }
Authors:
Hermann Cuntza,b,c,1,
Alexandre Mathya, and
Michael Häussera
Abstract:
The wide diversity of dendritic trees is one of the most striking features of neural circuits. Here we develop a general quantitative theory relating the total length of dendritic wiring to the number of branch points and synapses. We show that optimal wiring predicts a 2/3 power law between these measures. We demonstrate that the theory is consistent with data from a wide variety of neurons across many different species and helps define the computational compartments in dendritic trees. Our results imply fundamentally distinct design principles for dendritic arbors compared with vascular, bronchial, and botanical trees.
Northwestern University researchers are the first to discover that very different complex networks — ranging from global air traffic to neural networks — share very similar backbones. By stripping each network down to its essential nodes and links, they found each network possesses a skeleton and these skeletons share common features, much like vertebrates do. The findings could be particularly useful in understanding how something — a disease, a rumor or information — spreads across a network.
Complex systems — such as the Internet, Facebook, the power grid, human consciousness, even a termite colony — generate complex behavior. A system’s structure emerges locally; it is not designed or planned. Components of a network work together, interacting and influencing each other, driving the network’s evolution.
The networks they studied differed in size (from hundreds of nodes to thousands) and in connectivity (some were sparsely connected, others dense) but a simple and similar core skeleton was found in each one.
Researchers develop method that shows diverse complex networks have similar skeletons (via myserendipities)
••••••
OS:
A study in 2011, on { The Speed of Complex Network Synchronization }, touched on this — networks tested varied in size & constitution, just as those researched by Northwestern.
Synchronisation occurs when individual elements in a complex network behave in line with each other. This applies to real-life examples such as the way neurons fire during an epileptic seizure or the phenomenon of crickets falling into step with one another.
… [Results] in short: the higher the disorder in the network, the faster the synchronisation.
That said, I’m not sure if it’s correct to say that Northwestern “[discovered it first]”.
Also, a post on network synchronization & structure similarities in terms of { creativity & neuroscience }.
(via wildcat2030)
“Mythmaking could never discover the origin and meaning of humanity” — and contemporary philosophy is also irrelevant, having “long ago abandoned the foundational questions about human existence.” The proper approach to answering these deep questions is the application of the methods of science, including archaeology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology. Also, we should study insects.”
Edward O. Wilson, American biologist, researcher in sociobiology, biodiversity, theorist, naturalist and author, parafrased by Paul Bloom in
The Original Colonists, The New York Times, May 11, 2012. (via
amiquote)
(via wildcat2030)
The late, great Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard invited a colleague and me to attend an international meeting on arms control. My colleague, “Murph” Goldberger (later president of Caltech and then director of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton), replied that he could attend only the second half of the meeting. Leo turned to me, and I said that I could attend only the first half. Murph and I then asked if we could share an invitation. Leo thought for a moment and then told us, “No, it is no good; your neurons are not interconnected.
Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar, 21
wildcat2030:
In the mid 1990’s, Apple Computers was a dying company. Microsoft’s Windows operating system was overwhelmingly favored by consumers, and Apple’s attempts to win back market share by improving the Macintosh operating system were unsuccessful. After several years of debilitating financial losses, the company chose to purchase a fledgling software company called NeXT. Along with purchasing the rights to NeXT’s software, this move allowed Apple to regain the services of one of the company’s founders, the late Steve Jobs. Under the guidance of Jobs, Apple returned to profitability and is now the largest technology company in the world, with the creativity of Steve Jobs receiving much of the credit. However, despite the widespread positive image of Jobs as a creative genius, he also has a dark reputation for encouraging censorship,“ losing sight of honesty and integrity”, belittling employees, and engaging in other morally questionable actions. These harshly contrasting images of Jobs raise the question of why a CEO held in such near-universal positive regard could also be the same one accused of engaging in such contemptible behavior. The answer, it turns out, may have something to do with the aspect of Jobs which is so admired by so many.
••••••
OS:
I totally agree that artists/creatives can be horrible assholes (we tend to place our work above all else, thus can be unsociable, neglectful, sometimes pretentious; we invent lies in order to expose uncomfortable truth… it goes on)
… but this article was immensely disappointing, in everything from the test cases (An ad agency? Is that the best they could do, or were they just being sardonic?) to the fact that it seemed more like they were trying to prove something about creatives being unscrupulous than doing actual, investigative science:
“This pattern of results seems to confirm that creativity helps people to think up justifications for dishonest behavior.”
Yes, well, creativity helps think up a lot of things.
There was no delving deeper into what dishonesty might mean in terms of creativity or why or how it’s useful/used there, nor into morality and the nuances thereof. Nothing about biology or neuroscience, although invoking those might help explain this behavior and how it evolved.
I’d like to suggest an alternative; not the best, but { this } and { this } is what I have at the moment.
sinribbon asked: As for the vegetative state, the brain cannot support the body, and the individual is put on life support. I don't think it can be deduced whether the mind remains or doesn't. Perhaps the vessel, i.e. the brain and body, the mind uses is simply too damaged to communicate. Perhaps the mind has left. Perhaps the mind has died. Is brain damage synonymous with death of the mind?
Why don’t you think it can be deduced?
I think it’s premature to say that it can’t — maybe not currently, maybe not with our technology or within our paradigm as is… but there’s no reason to believe it’s impossible.
Besides that, the idea of “the vessel” is one I deeply dislike — it falls under Cartesian Dualism. Now that we’re just barely beginning to have a better understanding of how we’re made and how we “work”, I don’t see the vessel idea as a useful one to proceed with, versus the “integrated system” idea, meaning that the body can be understood as one system, in which the mind is included.
The system idea comes [to me] from modern physics, foremost. From that science, we’re understanding that phenomena that are sensed by us are actually comprised of tiny somethings and the motions and patterns of those “things”. From the subatomic comes the atomic, the chemical, the biological, and the macroscopic world we “see” — basically in that order. In that model, all things are systems of interactions, and those interactions cause them to be.
Following that, not only are mind & brain synonymous, but mind and whole body. There are some futurist ideas about uploading the mind, but each of our minds is the manifestation of the particular arrangement of our body/brain which is a Whole… to try to put that “consciousness” into a different “shell” will, I think, change the “consciousness” itself. (Simply, and I could be wrong, I don’t think “you” would be “you” in a different body/shell/vessel/etc.)
A useful metaphor can be a computer — the physical state is the “body” and the OS & software are manifestations of those physical states into a mostly-visual experience. Without the physical materials there to organize a code of 0’s and 1’s, the OS is nonexistent.
Or even simpler: Lego bricks. If neurons, synapses, etc. — the brain — is like a set of Legos, then scattered they are “nothing”, a “mess”, etc. We don’t see any images until they’re arranged. The arrangement, then, (whatever that may be, abstract or a ship — it makes no difference), is the mind. I’d say that the vegetative mind is simply in a state of disorder (or, even abstract arrangement — what seems to be disorder for us who expect a certain kind of order for something to be recognized as a mind or alive, etc.). Not being a neurologist nor an expert on consciousness, I can’t say for sure… but for now I’d say yes, brain damage is synonymous with mind damage, regardless of whether that’s something we’d like to believe about our loved ones.
Similarly:
“We should remember that a picture — before being a war horse, a nude woman, or telling some story — is essentially a flat surface covered with colors arranged in a particular pattern.”
— { Maurice Denis: “Definition of Neo-Traditionalism” }.
It’s hard for me to explain this concisely — the best I can do for the moment is provide you with a bibliography of the sources that my ideas, about this topic and about the System in general, were inspired by. Many of those sources can be found here: { The Operating System } (v1) and { here }.
And this link:
{ The Mind and Brain: Synonymous or Dichotomized }
As Blake explains therein, it isn’t that anyone is entirely discounting the idea of Dichotomy or the incorporeal, etc. But again, certain givens come from scientific literacy, and for the moment, those are (at least for me) more interesting to explore. The argument about consciousness or mind or philosophy vs science vs supernatural isn’t one I want to spend time on, at least as part of the OS project. I’ll leave that to others who have done and are doing so.
abstractcolor asked: I know that your statements weren't meant as fact. Just trying to lend help to the pursuit of understanding :). We call dead bodies "bodies," is what I meant. So the function of being alive and having a mind isn't intrinsic to the property of being a body, or even a brain, but rather is one state that the body can be in. And maybe to separate being alive from having a mind, imagine someone in a vegetative state. It's hard to describe what mind is without appeals to the non-physical/abstract.
Thank you for explaining!
As for vegetative people, I don’t think that’s separate enough. Still, it’s a physical brain, and some parts of it just aren’t working in the most optimal way — but it’s working well enough to keep that body living. Having written that out, actually, I guess the “mind” being present or absent is a matter of it working “up to standards”…
diegoimage:
(Left:) “I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realis…tic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.”
(Right:) “I am the right brain. I am CREATIVITY. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.”
••••••
I hate this Ad. It pops up on my dash every so often. The right/left brain dichotomy is mostly { myth }, and like some other { dichotomies }, its propagation needs to halt.
(via darylelockhart)
