Blogs

All Seeing “Eye”: Proprioceptors as Electrodes that Pick Up Brainwaves

Yesterday, in looking for a back cover for my chapbook, I decided to choose the Eye of Horus (Eye of Ra) which is also known as the All Seeing Eye. This hieroglyphic represents knowledge, protection, and power. Interestingly enough, I found out through searching for pictures of it on Google that the Eye of Horus is a mathematical equation. Below is a picture:

Hayley Reed

May 17th, 2007

Translating Reality: 

Reality is a palette that humans paint on to let themselves sleep better at night. 

In his book The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size Danish science journalist Tor Norretranders presents a scientifically sound and intellectually stimulating theory of conscious experience. “The user illusion” refers to a computer users idea of how the computer works based on how they interact with it. The bits and bytes are concealed by a largely metaphorical, extremely simplified, and not necessarily accurate illusion. Norretranders central thesis is that consciousness is our user illusion of ourselves. Consciousness arises after much information has been discarded. Conscious experience is a manageable distillation, essence, of our extremely rich raw experience. The User Illusion is incredibly readable in spite of its plethora of references. Norretranders pulls from innumerable sources, most notably Gödel, Libet, and Shannon. He integrates a wide array of prior research, tying together ideas from information theory, thermodynamics, physics, psychology, and philosophy to substantiate his theory; this is indeed the strongest aspect of the book.

Norretranders builds his theory of consciousness on the tenants of information theory. He makes sure the reader understands the basics before he applies them to his broader claims. The take home message is the notion of information and exformation. Exformation is discarded information. Norretrander uses the example of grocery shopping, among others. At the register the prices of the individual items are summed, it is this number, the total, that we are interested in. The sum is useful to us, it tells us how much money to take out of our wallet, the individual prices are not, they are irrelevant once we obtain the total. The author then extrapolates to consciousness, explaining that a huge amount of information must be discarded along the path from unconscious to conscious experience. While we all realize that our brain performs functions we are not always aware of (converting waves of light into a 3 dimensional picture) the book warns us not to underestimate the unconscious. He explains how the unconscious makes decisions based on information that our conscious does not have access to, and that the role of the conscious self may be solely to decide whether or not to execute the actions decided upon and suggested by the unconscious. An example for this is first impressions, it can take a split second to form an opinion about someone about whom we know next to nothing. Our unconscious may actually be gathering a lot of information about the person based on information (consciously inaccessible) gathered from subtle body language. He shows how the notion of exformation is influential for the individual as well as social experience. He takes the time necessary to clarify these issues which can be difficult to grasp for a reader who has no knowledge of the subject. He shows the breadth of the autonomy exercised by the unconscious with examples familiar to readers with some background knowledge, such as optical illusions.

A flaw presents itself in part two (of four), in which Norretranders dives into the body of evidence that forms the base of his theory. The evidence, he concludes, states that out of the eleven million bits of information that enter through our sensory modalities every second, only sixteen bits ever enter our consciousness. His confidently definitive manner of writing, as well as his lack of acknowledgment of any opposition adds to the startling nature of this claim. While it is true that only a fraction of the information we receive is ever available to our consciousness the numbers to which Norretranders continually refers back are misleading. The eleven million bits is arrived at by calculating the number of neurons leading from our sensory organs to our brain, which represents the maximum amount of information we can receive from the outside. The number sixteen is calculated from various experiments that determine the information transmitting capacity of different cognitive functions. This is determined for example by attributing a bit value to a letter (based on the fact that it is one of a possible 26) and calculating how many words (therefore letters) a person can read per second. Both methods of determining bit capacity are valid, but to compare them is to compare apples and oranges. To make a valid comparison between sensory and conscious capacities Norretranders would need to be able to either compute the number of neurons involved in conscious brain activity, or the total informational bit capacity of our sensory experience. The flaw is methodological, and does not weaken his theory as a whole. But his obscurity in this matter is disappointing when he is able to be so lucid throughout the rest of the book.

There is, astonishingly, only one other area in which The User Illusion is noticeably sub par. Once Norretranders introduces the reader to his theory of consciousness he attempts to integrate it into an (over) abundance of ideas, just to mention a few: the Gaia theory, communism, market theory, straight lines, constructionism, emergence, chaos, computation, boundaries, nuclear weapons, paradoxes, and length. Each of these ideas are introduced, and skimmed over, in part four. The last section of the book is scattered, the topics addressed lack coherence and depth, and it is difficult to see how some are even relevant (such as his Gaia theory tangent). Part four contrasts parts two and three in which Norretranders stretches to apply his theory to unanticipated topics with a rewarding result.

One intriguing idea that I found particularly notable is a surprisingly insightful connection the author draws between the unconscious-conscious dynamic, and the central doctrines of Judaism and Christianity in chapter nine. Judaism chastises and rewards individuals based on their actions, whereas Christianity judges the individual based on their actions as well as their thoughts and urges. If the unconscious is responsible for producing the urge to action, and we are consciously only able to decide whether or not to follow through on the urges, then Christianity is judging the individual based on thoughts/urges over which they have no voluntary control. This is another example of Norretranders ability to pull ideas from various fields of thought, synthesize them, and come up with a novel and thought provoking conclusion. By breaking the book up into four parts Norretranders is able to set up, explain, and elaborate on his theory in a segmented yet sequential manner; which is useful to the reader when tackling a book of this size. Though it is slightly out of date, having been written in 1991, his ideas fit well with current research, and the discussions of this semester, on the nature of sensory perception, such as vision and pain. The User Illusion presents a worthwhile theory of conscious experience that is exceptionally integrative, thoughtful, and well supported

“Cerebral conditions may determine the nature of what’s thrown into one’s minds, but we have the power to choose which aspects of that experience to focus on. The brain may determine the content of our experience, but the mind chooses which aspect of that experience receives attention.”

-Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D. and Sharon Begley

The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force

A common fact of modern life is jet lag and the disorienting experience of waking up completely refreshed in the middle of the night. Who at that time has not wished that resetting this internal alarm clock were as easy as resetting an external one? While recent research has shed considerable light on the workings of our internal alarm clocks, little is still known about how to control this alarm clock. In response to this question, this paper will first review important recent research on biological clocks, then consider some possible avenues that might shed light on how one might control the workings of this clock.

Throughout the semester, we have been exposed to fresh, eye-opening perspectives of the evolution of science and literature. Regardless of whether or not people choose to accept the observations, generative stories still emerged from the class to possibly assist with the ambiguity of our lives. The classroom and group discussion experience was quite personally rewarding, as I “came out of my shell” to embrace new ideas. Although quite overwhelmed with information at times, the entire class really reaffirmed my understanding through our successful group presentation.

Evolution of Thought Through Topic Variation

Throughout the journey of the course, many of our stories and story telling strategies have evolved.  In just the four short months we have been together, the class has managed to write four papers and prepare a presentation based on knowledge gained from the course.  The topics for the papers and presentation have all been open ended, based loosely upon the section of the course that we were in at the time.  All students were give opportunities to write about whatever they pleased.  Except for the first paper, when students were given the opportunity to share what topic they would like to write about, individual paper topics were not discussed.  The lack of the discussion gave the class full range to write what their hearts desired and not be influenced by the topic picked by a peer.

“Sound. Glorious Sound.”

-Introduction p.xii

Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy

By Robert Jourdain

Book Review by Eden McQueen

Neurobiology and Behavior, May 2007

Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy by Robert Jourdain is a creative and insightful look into musicology, the science of music. Through clear descriptions and thought-provoking interpretations Jourdain takes his reader from sound, the very simplest component of music, all the way up the neurological ladder to music’s mysterious ability to transform the mind in “ecstasy.” Jourdain is so thorough and patient in guiding the reader through the complex concepts of musicology that even a person with no musical background can easily follow his thought process. The book complimented the Neurobiology course very well, both in general content and in many of the author’s interpretations of the observed phenomena. A few particularly interesting concepts are discussed below.

Language is a fundamental part of everyday life. In fact, the use of verbal and written communication is so ubiquitous it is often taken for granted. Language is a keystone of society, plastered all over billboards, blasted over the radio, and flashed across television screens to connect and inform the waiting eyes and ears of citizens from all cultures and backgrounds. Equally important as these public messages however, is an individual’s private use of language. Processing new information, worrying, dreaming; all these things are done by the use of the inner language of thoughts. It is impossible for most people to imagine a world devoid of language, because the act of imagining requires thinking, which requires language. Could a person really “think” if he or she did not possess language? And if a person could not “think,” how could he or she establish and reflect upon one of the most fundamental of human thought processes: the concept of self? For this reason, acquiring language can be considered the most important step of human development, as it provides an individual with the ability to form a concept of self. The simplest way to discuss this idea is to seek out examples of individuals who, for various reasons, do not fit into the societal “standard” of language, and discuss the effects of divergence from the linguistic norm.

Alex Hansen

Neurobiology and Behavior

May 15, 2007

How Doctors Think

Throughout How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman examines the thought processes that occur within the minds of varying doctors, moreover examining the imperfections that are inevitable among all humans. With a gained knowledge of these processes that occur, both patients and doctors are able to benefit through using this predictive quality to their advantage. Doctors can learn to avoid particular lurking thoughts and mannerisms which may have the potential of leading to danger, while patients can become alert to the possible mistakes of doctors, and therefore protect themselves. Although we often expect the word of a doctor to be flawless, almost as if it were the word of God, it is important to never disregard the fact that doctors posses no immortal qualities and that their words are never absolute. He writes, “Of course, no one can expect a physician to be infallible. Medicine is, at its core, an uncertain science. Every doctor makes mistakes in diagnosis and treatment. But the frequency of those mistakes, and their severity, can be reduced by understanding how a doctor thinks and how he or she can think better” (Groopman). Thus, with each chapter new information is provided as to how doctors can be made to think more efficiently and effectively in regards to the world of medicine and their work habits.