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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 19, 2018 - 10:07am PT
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Yeah, the predictive modeling is part of the rolling contextualization being done as part of the processes involved with providing subconscious framing for conscious awareness and actions. Pretty tough to get around without it and a big part of robotics and autonomous vehicles.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jul 19, 2018 - 10:13am PT
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HJ: "But no one is suggesting your limbs play a role in cognition beyond providing sensory input"
It would seem that MikeL is saying just that. So, to communicate with a person in a coma it might be wise to talk to their big toes.
A universal mind as Jan suggests seems far more plausible than a thinking leg. But I could be wrong. (my fingers operating as mind wrote that last sentence - I disagree, but will refrain from antagonizing them)
;>\
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 19, 2018 - 12:00pm PT
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The gut/brain connection is more than compelling. It's a signaling system where your gut has strong input into the brain and immune system. That it has input into your brain is no surprise as that's how you know you're hungry. But was underestimated until quite recently is how much feedback from the gut influences both brain/mind and the immune system.
Along those lines there's been interesting studies of late comparing industrial gut flora with the flora of indigenous people who live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4654
P.S. There's some strong speculation that rampant use of antibiotics for ear infections in early childhood has radically reshaped our gut biomes.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jul 19, 2018 - 02:42pm PT
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Who knows what the gut of an American anthropologist living in Nepal looks like ? Something never seen before probably.
As for which direction signals go, yogic theory says that our consciousness extends to the base of our spinal cord which makes sense to me from an evolutionary point of view.
We started with a simple spinal cord and worked our way up to having a frontal cortex.
And yes, DMT, I love your theory about other intelligent life forms here on earth that we don't even recognize yet. Much more attractive to me than space aliens. Of course there are esoteric theories about that two - earth spirits and the like. Careful, the minute you use your imagination, you are getting close to woo. :)
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Jul 19, 2018 - 04:32pm PT
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Cool link, I-b-goB and great follow-up Joe! I remember reading some summary article in the NYT recently on this. This is when the thread ISN'T boring. See, I would just love to have the data behind the picture in healyje's post and then have access to pertinent demographic data of the subjects -- and then start dreaming up interesting questions and querying the database.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Jul 19, 2018 - 05:14pm PT
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Healyjes emphasis on the subconscious, which I entirely concur with, got me to thinking about why I always have a hard time with the terms mind and consciousness. What is their relationship, exactly? From one post to the next, I know that I have been inconsistent on this point. I think that I see it now. The needed point of reference is to think of these terms as within a hierarchy rather than on the same level. You have to think of them this way because thats how evolution works.
So, it would seem that brain activity can be divided up into subconscious activity and conscious activity. The vast majority of it is subconscious, as healyje has been pointing out. Evolutionarily, subconscious brain activity preceded conscious brain activity. Subconscious brain activity includes everything that we would call intelligence, by the way. Consciousness is something different.
Intelligence has nothing to do with (the conscious part of) mind, except that mind almost certainly developed because of selection for intelligence going into hyper-drive, evolutionarily, in humans. Mind is an evolutionarily-recent phenomenon. But here is the key insight for me (via healyje), mind really does include all of that subconscious plumbing. Duh! That's why I had been struggling with the definition. I had been thinking of mind as different from consciousness as words on the same level. No, mind is the whole shebang. That's what I wasn't seeing. Mind includes all of its functional and evolutionary predecessors (e.g., mammal consciousness).
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 19, 2018 - 06:06pm PT
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You seem to be talking to yourself.
Actually, you are!
And ..... you don't have a clue to who you really are .......
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 19, 2018 - 07:10pm PT
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The perception of reality to the gross materialists is more real than reality itself because they have no control over their own minds .....
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jul 20, 2018 - 06:22am PT
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eeyonkee, thanks for summarizing it so well for us. That's part of what I was trying to say though not as skillfully. Evolutionary processes generally build on what is there and add complexity over time, rather than mutating and changing form altogether. If we look at the spinal cord as coming first, then nerve bulbs at the end of it into the head region and on up, then I think we can say that there is subconscious mind in the spinal cord, not just the brain.
healeyje was saying that we don't have separate minds in our limbs (like an octopus say), but I think in a way we do in the spinal cord and that is what the physical aspect at least, of the yogic notion of chakras is all about. Each chakra is associated with a nerve bundle radiating out from the spine to various organs and endocrine glands. The endocrine gland secretions (adrenaline, melatonin, thyroid, pituitary, etc) correspond well to the ancient notions of the emotions connected to those chakras. The yogis figured out the effects of these endocrine hormones thousands of years ago through observation while science discovered their function through biochemistry more recently.
Yoga both physical and meditational, works with the emotional energy of these nerve and endocrine centers based on a complex symbol system connected to religion, whereas modern science works on them from the point of view of chemistry. I just had Chinese style acupuncture yesterday which works more on the physical level whereas Japanese works more on the energetic. After an extensive acupuncture treatment by either method, I always float out feeling that I just had a deep meditation, and often have to sit for awhile to come down enough to drive home.
I feel sure, that yoga and acupuncture accomplish similar objectives and that the ancient techniques and science are onto the same thing, just from different perspectives.
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 20, 2018 - 06:37am PT
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Just remember "Yoga" is NOT a theory nor ever was nor ever will be.
The minute you described it as a theory it no longer had any reference to YOGA .....
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jul 20, 2018 - 10:10am PT
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Healyje:
Id say you and HFCS use terms glibly, most usually as derogatory epithets. Could you say what postmodernism means to you?
That no one has found their way to the bottom of anything establishes a grand fact in my view. Its not philosophy or an attitude.
You: I think you misconstrue what is being said [about embodied cognition]. . . . But no one is suggesting your limbs play a role in cognition beyond providing sensory input . . . .
From Wiki:
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"Embodied cognition is the theory that many features of cognition, whether human or otherwise, are shaped by aspects of the entire body of the organism. The features of cognition include high level mental constructs (such as concepts and categories) and performance on various cognitive tasks (such as reasoning or judgment). The aspects of the body include the motor system, the perceptual system, bodily interactions with the environment (situatedness) and the assumptions about the world that are built into the structure of the organism."
"The embodied mind thesis challenges other theories, such as cognitivism, computationalism, and Cartesian dualism. It is closely related to the extended mind thesis, situated cognition and enactivism. The modern version depends on insights drawn from recent research in psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, dynamical systems, artificial intelligence, robotics, animal cognition, plant cognition and neurobiology."
"Embodied cognition is a topic of research in social and cognitive psychology, covering issues such as social interaction and decision-making. Embodied cognition reflects the argument that the motor system influences our cognition, just as the mind influences bodily actions."
"George Lakoff (a cognitive scientist and linguist) and his collaborators (including Mark Johnson, Mark Turner, and Rafael E. Núñez) have written a series of books promoting and expanding the thesis based on discoveries in cognitive science, such as conceptual metaphor and image schema."
"Robotics researchers such as Rodney Brooks, Hans Moravec and Rolf Pfeifer have argued that true artificial intelligence can only be achieved by machines that have sensory and motor skills and are connected to the world through a body. The insights of these robotics researchers have in turn inspired philosophers like Andy Clark and Horst Hendriks-Jansen."
"Neuroscientists Gerald Edelman, António Damásio and others have outlined the connection between the body, individual structures in the brain and aspects of the mind such as consciousness, emotion, self-awareness and will. Biology has also inspired Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Eleanor Rosch and Evan Thompson to develop a closely related version of the idea, which they call enactivism."
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(For an even less nuanced explanation, see: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/a-brief-guide-to-embodied-cognition-why-you-are-not-your-brain/);
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jul 20, 2018 - 10:24am PT
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Jan,
Er, . . . which "yoga" are you refering to? Today's hatha yoga, yoga as any path to liberation, or perhaps more ancient "yogas" (e.g., ancient tantrik practices)?
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jul 20, 2018 - 11:24am PT
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The loss of chakras doesn't seem to diminish one's mental capabilities. Charles Krauthammer - no matter what you think of his political stances - had a sterling career as a columnist and pundit, albeit with a severed spinal cord. And what of Steven hawking. Did his intelligence diminish as he lost the use of his body?
Certainly, there is a constant chorus of nerve impulses going back and forth from, say, one's legs. And, since we have no real definition of mind, this activity could fall under that semantic umbrella if we wish. But to think that one's intelligence is affected by a bodily limb seems a stretch. And how does the phantom limb phenomenon fit into the discussion?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jul 20, 2018 - 01:03pm PT
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MikeL, the yoga I'm referring to (thanks for pointing out my implicit assumptions) is in the esoteric tradition, as a path to liberation. The esoteric traditions see Hatha yoga or the physical yoga of stretching and bending, as merely the warm up for the esoteric yogas including tantra, which can also be a path to liberation.
The chakras exist in the spine and the brain, not the limbs. As far as not losing intelligence when the spinal cord is severed, most of the answer is that it is unconscious intelligence in the spinal cord which we were unaware of anyway. It would be very interesting however, to interview people who have become paralyzed at various places along the spine to see what they subjectively feel they are missing and if location of the spinal sever and the senses or emotions they miss could be related to the nearby chakras.
It would seem in the ghost limb phenomenon that it is the brain in the head or the nerves in the stump, that can't adjust to the loss. It would be interesting to do a brain scan of someone experiencing this. Meanwhile, I'll ask my acupuncturist how Chinese medicine would interpret this in terms of energy flows.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jul 20, 2018 - 01:54pm PT
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Physical Chakras
Nerves from various organs attaching to the spinal cord
Emotional, Energetic Chakras
The emotions of the chakras are associated in India with the colors of the rainbow, which coincidentally correspond to sayings in English for the same color.
1st root chakra, reproduction -red (color of rage, energy, heat, passion, brothels etc.)
2nd reproductive glands - orange (in India, associated with the color of renunciation. one trades biological reproduction for celibate creativity)
3rd will power -yellow (yellow livered, yellow bellied coward etc.)
4th heart - green (a heart problem =green with envy)
5th throat - light blue ( feeling blue, singing the blues,)
6th pituitary master gland -indigo or purple (purple was traditionally reserved for royalty, rulers just as the pituitary gland rules or regulates the bodily endocrine system)
7th pineal gland -violet (Color of mourning for people or holy figures, of Lent, and also of Advent - a period of awaiting the arrival of a spiritual event)
This is only the tip of the iceberg with chakras. The fact that there are cross cultural references seems to to me to indicate they are universal physical and mental phenomenon regardless of various religious symbolisms. Body and mind working together, a product of the natural world.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 20, 2018 - 02:33pm PT
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Nice to see MikeL showing concern over terminology.
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Nutty
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Jul 20, 2018 - 02:42pm PT
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Chakra = Chalk Brah?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2018 - 04:23pm PT
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The needed point of reference is to think of these terms as within a hierarchy rather than on the same level. You have to think of them this way because thats how evolution works.
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This hierarchy approach is what I call the Bit Torrent approach to understanding mind. The problem, of course, is that it implies awareness to processes that are only so once they reach conscious awareness. Remember, the brain is not aware of itself. As is, the unconscious and preconscious mentioned here is posited as a kind of nether realm whereby the brain does all the heavy lifting before we are consciously aware of anything. This makes sense when you are looking at evolutionary models or AI mechanical constructs, but falls like a house of cards when you observe consciousness directly. It also evokes emergent models, which are fraught with challenges.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Jul 20, 2018 - 04:39pm PT
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That no one has found their way to the bottom of anything establishes a grand fact in my view.
No one has ever found their way to the bottom of anything??
Did you ever play checkers as a kid? Did you wonder if you were making the right move? Did you think you were smart if you won? Well, in case you didn't know, the game has been solved. There's no more getting to the bottom than that. If two players know the solution it's a draw. Every time.
Why do you say no one has ever found their way to the bottom of anything?
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/marion-tinsley-checkers/534111/
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