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AE
climber
Boulder, CO
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Aug 10, 2012 - 09:56pm PT
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Are there, synchronously, at this very nano-instant, existing on the inter-web, Forums wherein debates between neurological researchers and atheistic theologians are raging, about the question "What is 'Climbing?'"
(rim shot, Pa-dump)
But seriously, first of all I fear Largo has begun to suffer the consequences of the excesses of youth.
My innate skepticism, born of a lifetime of avoiding ranters of any ilk, tells me that obfuscation reveals a shortage of logical clarity. It may take a genius to reduce complex concepts to simple terms, but if it stays obscure, I worry that it is intentionally so.
Memory, the Siamese twin to consciousness, has been revealed to be astonishingly malleable, inaccurate, inconsistent, and full of gaps, and yet our thoughts read it as if it were a reliable video tape. Every invention of recording information, from writing to high-def cell phone cameras may be means of obscuring the fact that our own thoughts are so damn unreliable.
FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Traditionally, God seems way too preoccupied with what people think of Him.
Evolution works just fine, meanwhile, whether you believe in it or not.
Most people use faith to cut short discomforting lines of conversation, allowing them to defer to a shorthand recipe for logical challenges, and proceed in doing whatever the hell it is they were inclined to do in the first place.
RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection. Bierce, again.
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MH2
climber
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Aug 10, 2012 - 10:10pm PT
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Are there, synchronously, at this very nano-instant, existing on the inter-web, Forums wherein debates between neurological researchers and atheistic theologians are raging, about the question "What is 'Climbing?'"
Yes.
And not quite.
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cintune
climber
Midvale School for the Gifted
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Aug 11, 2012 - 02:00pm PT
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(Crosspost, these topics are getting muddled.)
Madeline, 5 years old: How does a brain think?
David Eagleman: We don't know. Part of modern neuroscience's quest is to answer that. One theory goes that, in the same way brains control muscle movement, your brain controls your arms and legs and mouth and so on. Thought might be, essentially, covert muscle movement. In other words, it's going through the same routine that says 'bend this, flex that, extend that' - except that it's not controling a muscle. Instead, it's controling something conceptual.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/08/10/daily-circuit-ask-neuroscientist/
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 11, 2012 - 02:40pm PT
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The previous describes what they propose happens, not how.
I think if you're gonna drag this thread from the ground you need to pony up something pretty novel lest this thing is exhausted. The other thread is more of a chat room than a thread, and that's why it works IMO.
JL
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Aug 11, 2012 - 03:15pm PT
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Observation: Ever notice you can remember things in various parts of your body? Typing in the hands, foot motions, programmed muscles for balance in skiing or riding a bike.
No you could tell me, "oh that is just the brain" but at that point the speaker would be going with dogma rather than observation.
Many other examples exist but brevity is a virtue.
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AE
climber
Boulder, CO
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Aug 17, 2012 - 03:18pm PT
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Cool Man,
Amazing how versatile that Dude was, to switch paths- from 60's pop guru to youthful rock jock- and send all those Smith Rocks routes, with an American accent, too! Must have had a Zen Clock Time Machine (pat pending 2112).
Seriously (as much as this thread allows at least) history's greatest philosophical thinkers have pondered the mysteries and paradoxes of mind, thought, self, life, the universe, and everything else. Unfortunately none of them have posted to this thread.
The whole self-absorbed, uber-navel-gazing swami business is really anathema to what climbing is about- direct immersion in intense effort in a real-world "game zone". Nature doesn't care whether or not you play, or how you play, because in the end it makes the rules, and learning what these rules are becomes the game.
There are some fascinating tangents touched upon here, like Spider Savage's observations. More precisely, studies have clearly measured how SLOW normal neurological feedback is, so much so that from the time your eye is exposed to some stimulus, something like 1/2 second elapses before a signal is sent to activate a muscle in response. This means, when you're running down a rocky trail, your brain/body system is successfully running 1/2 second ahead of your awareness of it. This strongly suggests that reflexes can be trained to handle much more complex decision-making tasks than previously understood; it also offers a simple answer to why looking ahead is a general rule for any complex task involving speed and motion- it's so your reflexive processes get the information in advance, as it were.
Finally, though, JL, you are overthinking the whole process of overthinking, methinks. Remember, Plato's cave analogy was total crap and backwards, and really, most likely because the whole foundation for scientific thought was in its infancy, even the best minds had no structure to hang their ideas upon. Now that we do, however, the arcane and ephemeral artifacts of bygone philosophies still haunt us, usually just at "New Age" festivals, etc.
I want to know, who is that self-fulfilling prophet, and how hard is it to get into the right position?
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Aug 17, 2012 - 10:21pm PT
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I don't know if anyone has been watching the Charlie Rose series on the brain. There are 13 installments with world class scientists.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/collection/10702
It's amazing how little progress they've really made on big issues, especially on the mind, consciousness, and unconsciousness.
You can watch the last installment which is the highlights from the previous 12.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 17, 2012 - 11:30pm PT
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It's amazing how little progress they've really made on big issues, especially on the mind, consciousness, and unconsciousness.
Seems a bit disingenuous given the relatively short period of time there has been active scientific research on this topic, and the well acknowledged difficulty of the subject (partially displayed here).
And how do you judge progress? often it is as much what you eliminated as what you have kept...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 18, 2012 - 12:18am PT
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Plato's cave analogy was total crap and backwards,
------
"Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners."
What part, exactly, is crap, and what did your boy Socrates have "backwards?"
Also, what Mike wrote:
"It's amazing how little progress they've really made on big issues, especially on the mind, consciousness, and unconsciousness."
I think they've made enormous progress at the level of objective functioning. However, it's not exactly fair or even accurate to say they haven't made progress on things like the unconcsious because they're not even looking at that on a level that makes any sense - or at all. It's only people deluded into thinking that a look at atoms is in fact a look at the unconscious, say, and insist quite unwittingly that these are the same things, who would ever hazard a guess that they were really looking at mind.
I mentioned how quantifying is called the "shallow view" because it only deals with a superficial level - but with astonishing clarity at that level. But at the superficial level there quite naturally is nothing to suggest the existence of a sub/unconscious. Though these were well known concepts in eastern contemplative practices, for us in the western world, it took a medical doctor, Sigmond F., to probe the issue deeply, at the experiential level, and to discover the unconscious. One might be able to reverse engineer certain functions back to electrochemical brain functions, but there's no indication that the opposite process holds out much hope - of projecting forward from atoms to "mind." You can project forward to functioning such as sight and memory and so forth, but not to any agency, awareness, unconscious, et al.
So to my way of thinking, how are we to expect science to make any progress on "mind" when they're looking at objective functioning instead. They're no more likely to find "mind" in the atomic stirrings than they are to find the un/subconscious. We can hardly expect a traveler in Rome to tell us all about Jakarta.
JL
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MH2
climber
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Aug 18, 2012 - 10:04am PT
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And yet JL in Jakarta has a lot to say about Rome.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 18, 2012 - 10:21am PT
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Largo et al. - how does your heart beat?
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Aug 18, 2012 - 11:50am PT
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I said: It's amazing how little progress they've really made on big issues, especially on the mind, consciousness, and unconsciousness.
Ed then said: Seems a bit disingenuous given the relatively short period of time there has been active scientific research on this topic, and the well acknowledged difficulty of the subject (partially displayed here).
And how do you judge progress? often it is as much what you eliminated as what you have kept...
Ed: "Disingenuous?" I'm not being candid or sincere? I'm pretending that I know less than what I really do know? You in my mind, Ed? (Funny, . . . I can't find you there.)
You need another word, Ed. I have a Ph.D. and a dissertation using cognitive science, and I've studied under a couple of world-class scholars in the area. I might know a few things about the advancement in the area, but I don't think we need to measure or prove it. Just look at the videos. They have hard claims for pretty small and underwhelming conclusions, IMO. As for the extent to which they have something definitive to say about Mind, Consciousness, and the Unconsciousness, it's pretty much all theory. Sure they have many things to say about what areas of the brain is correlated with what activities, but the excitement about what they know about the brain is similar I would suspect to what they knew about the Western world in Columbus's time or what they know about space travel today. Not much when you get right down to it. Nothing holistic. Babes in the woods.
"Yeah, over here is Cleveland, and down there is Miami, and over there is California." Right. What is America, what does it mean to be an American, and how do the parts fit together? What's the big picture? Babes in the woods.
But I'll hold out the possibility that you probably know better than I.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 18, 2012 - 12:26pm PT
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Nothing holistic
which is your approach of choice. But please say where a "holistic" approach succeeds in understanding, that cannot be derived from a "reductionistic" approach?
Sometimes the map lays out the boundaries of the territory, pointing you to a place to look. Sometimes the map doesn't even exist.
The adventures of Columbus might seem trite to us, but for those who have sailed in the open ocean, even with the advantages of our modern world, the idea of sailing to the horizon in 1492 is unbelievably audacious. Made even more so by the lack of knowledge on what lies beyond.
What causes human behavior?
Certainly during the middle ages all manner of theories abounded, and those theories gave way to practice, sometimes extreme practice. Exorcism of spirits who take over your will? Angels and devils talking in your ears... perhaps all too barbaric, so we look elsewhere.
What do we find? qě, a life force, measurable only by the body, vitality itself. And an ancient set of teachings based on it... yet difficult to reconcile with other things that are known.
So why shouldn't we go about trying to understand this from many different points of view?
The ultimate scientific explanations will be unsatisfactory to many... that is my prediction, as they will not provide an event-by-event explanation of what we do in our daily lives... and will also fail to provide an ultimate "Truth."
how does your heart beat?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 18, 2012 - 12:55pm PT
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which is your approach of choice. But please say where a "holistic" approach succeeds in understanding, that cannot be derived from a "reductionistic" approach?
----
I think I just laid that out here, Ed:
At the level of material, there quite naturally is nothing to suggest the existence of a sub/unconscious. Though these were well known concepts in eastern contemplative practices, for us in the western world, it took a medical doctor, Sigmond F., to probe the issue deeply, at the experiential level, and to discover the unconscious. One might be able to reverse engineer certain functions back to electrochemical brain functions, but there's no indication that the opposite process holds out much hope - of projecting forward (bottom up/reductiolnistic) from atoms to "mind." You can project forward to functioning such as sight and memory and so forth, but not to any agency, awareness, unconscious, et al.
Interestingly enough, top down and bottom up approaches are both used for different purposes. Following the so-called "medical model," certain conditions such as bipolar condition, and various forms of psychosis, are commonly treated with drugs, whereas this approach is not useful for things such as personality disorders and addictions - which if you have ever been around, are conditions robust enough to ruin a person's life and everyone around them. For these later cases, a top down strategy is the only help. Meditative practices can also be viewed as top down exercises in probing the sub/unconscious.
"How does you heart beat" sounds like a koan. And a good one. I think mine beats because Baby Jesus programmed it to beat. No, make that, it programmed itself, which is an amazing accomplishment, but it took a super long time to write the code, which arose from writing like a gazillion codes and it's just this one that survived because it worked best. How my heart knew to write a code in the first place is the wrong question, LOL.
We don't know sh#t . . .
JL
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 18, 2012 - 01:03pm PT
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how does it beat? "it's just the code" is as bad an explanation as "baby Jesus" made it happen...
we know some interesting things about it, and I would like to show what the potential relevance is to "The Mind"
so, how about an explanation?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 18, 2012 - 01:26pm PT
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So, how about an explanation . . .
-
The challenge here is to avoid infinite regress, if by "explanation" you mean "cause."
An explanation usually means a statement made to clarify something and make it understandable. Most of us will want to know "why" something does what is does. And how? Our discursive minds are built to understand things in terms of prior causes. We cannot fathom "free will" because it apparently is unhooked from billiard ball causation. So where did a "free" thought ever come from? And how?
So I think we look at a hear beat the same way. We can look at electrochemical processes and say, Eureka. Thar she blows. Then we feel like we "know" why the heart beats. We've reduced it to a mechanism and provide a mechanistic "reason." A cause.
But I'm not going to guess what you have in mind per mind. But I'll sure listen when you tell us.
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 18, 2012 - 02:58pm PT
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it is sort of mechanistic... but in an abstract way...
it starts with a property of muscle cells, they are found in one of three states: 1) contracted, 2) refractory (resting) and 3) quiescent (waiting).
A muscle cell can go from quiescent to contracted to refractory to quiescent.
It can't go from refractory to contracted or quiescent to refractory (normally).
Now if you propose a network of muscle cells, take that network to be "nearest neighbor", that is, a cell connects to the cells immediately next to it.
And presume that the cell communicates the command "contract" to it's neighbors,
this has a marvelous complex behavior.
Assuming a topological surface of cells, you can let it be a sphere (but it doesn't matter what the shape as long as the surface is continuous),
initiating a contraction at one point (which would be the heart's "pace maker") launches a contraction wave across the surface.
The wave is propagating in a non-linear medium, that is because the cells have a required period of being in the "refractory" state. So the wave propagates out into the "quiescent" cells and doesn't back propagate into the "refractory" cells...
This simple model explains a lot of arrhythmias, the effect of heart cell death and other health problems.
Interestingly, it is an example of local behavior (the heart muscle cell as an abstract "automaton") a network of which forms a organ which exhibits behavior (the organized contraction of the heart) that is not a part of the automaton "program."
There is no "global" requirement for the heart muscles to execute a program that requires them to know where they are in the cycle. They just respond to input and provide output.
Note that this is very different than a crowd at the ball game doing "the wave" where participants are aware of the "global" behavior. But one could do "the wave" based on local automaton rules, and have some interesting patterns develop as a result.
The rules might be: 1) stand up when a neighbor stands up, 2) sit down after 5 seconds, 3) stay seated for at least 5 seconds after sitting down, 4) sit otherwise.
rule 3) is the "refactory" rule... so if there is an opening completely surrounded by the crowd it is possible that a wave can propagate around it forming a spiral wave... which is what happens in the heart when a local section of the muscle dies.
These waves would be fun to watch, more so than the regular one... and there are other media which could be formed by modifying the rules...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 18, 2012 - 03:43pm PT
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An interesting quote I came across and flagged the other day:
Mind-body duality refers to the fact that human life exhibits both subjective (experiential) and objective (physical) properties. Neither subjective nor objective fully describe the scope of human life. Some consider this a fundamental property of the Universe; alternative interpretations explain the duality as an emergent, second-order consequence owing to observer limitations. This later interpretation borrows from the widely used Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which wave–particle duality is one aspect of the concept of “complementarity,” whereas a phenomenon can be viewed in one way or in another – as wave or particle - but not both simultaneously. The same may hold true for subjective or objective realms, though it is certain that the issues of observer and "complemantarity" will remain central factors in any investigation.
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