Mirror Neurons

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Mirror Neurons

Postby Col Quisp » Mon Jan 16, 2006 4:19 pm

Got this in an email from Edge today:<br><br>QUOTE:<br>----------------------------------------------------<br>THE THIRD CULTURE<br>---------------------------------------------------<br>Researchers at UCLA found that cells in the human anterior cingulate, which normally fire when you poke the patient with a needle ("pain neurons"), will also fire when the patient watches another patient being poked. The mirror neurons, it would seem, dissolve the barrier between self and others. [1] I call them "empathy neurons" or "Dalai Llama neurons". (I wonder how the mirror neurons of a masochist or sadist would respond to another person being poked.) Dissolving the "self vs. other" barrier is the basis of many ethical systems, especially eastern philosophical and mystical traditions. This research implies that mirror neurons can be used to provide rational rather than religious grounds for ethics (although we must be careful not to commit the is/ought fallacy).<br><br>[more...]<br>END QUOTE<br><br> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge176.html">www.edge.org/documents/ar...ge176.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>I think this lends support to the discussion on the blog about the universe being an illusion, or hologram.<br><br>Edgar Cayce may have been an uneducated hillbilly, but he was right when he said "the Mind is the Builder."<br> <p></p><i></i>
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thanks for this linkee

Postby nashvillebrook » Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:52 am

this is fascinating stuff. makes total sense to me: language has a resonance beyond a one to one correspondence of words. i grok. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Mirror Neurons

Postby marykmusic » Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:23 pm

Here's something I found a parallel to in the article:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Rama also asks an interesting question: <br><br>Lets advance to a point of time where we know everything there is to know about the intricate circuitry and functioning of the human brain. With this knowledge, it would be possible for a neuroscientist to isolate your brain in a vat of nutrients and keep it alive and healthy indefinitely. <br><br>Utilizing thousands of electrodes and appropriate patterns of electrical stimulation, the scientist makes your brain think and feel that it's experiencing actual life events. The simulation is perfect and includes a sense of time and planning for the future. The brain doesn't know that its experiences, its entire life, are not real. <br><br>Further assume that the scientist can make your brain "think" and experience being a combination of Einstein, Mark Spitz, Bill Gates, Hugh Heffner, and Gandhi, while at the same time preserving your own deeply personal memories and identity (there's nothing in contemporary brain science that forbids such a scenario). The mad neuroscientist then gives you a choice. You can either be this incredible, deliriously happy being floating forever in the vat or be your real self, more or less like you are now (for the sake of argument we will further assume that you are basically a happy and contended person, not a starving pheasant). Which of the two would you pick?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Now, remember the scene in <!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START--><span style="text-decoration:underline">The Matrix</span><!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END-->: "I should have taken the blue pill"?<br><br>Around here, at Z-Force HQ (also the home of ACME, the Arizona Coalition of Metaphysical Engineers, with our devices that we make and sell), we consider that movie a documentary. This article supports that opinion. --MaryK <p></p><i></i>
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Brain in a Vat

Postby Col Quisp » Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:07 pm

Glad you enjoyed the linky, MKM. It is pretty interesting stuff!<br><br>Here's another quote from the article about the choice offered in the scenario you quoted:<br><br>"I have posed this question to dozens of scientists and lay people. A majority argue "I'd rather be the real me." This is an irrational choice because you already are a brain in a vat (the cranial cavity) nurtured by cerebrospinal fluid and blood and bombarded by photons. When asked to select between two vats most pick the crummy one even though it is no more real than the neuroscientist's experimental vat. How can you justify this choice unless you believe in something supernatural?"<br><br>Those Edge guys 'n gals are really "out there!" It's funny because I have to admit I would choose the experimental vat. I don't know if I believe in the supernatural. Sometimes yes, other times no. So, I'd take the sure thing (eternal life even though in a vat) over being snuffed out like a candle when the brain's "crummy" vat (the cranium) expires.<br> <p></p><i></i>
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romantic love and language

Postby nashvillebrook » Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:45 pm

this is one of them things creative types have been telling their linear breathren for centuries... thru music, writing, etc. <br><br>of course we feel our way thru social interaction. <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> now we have a psysiological marker. i've never doubted this. always figured the language of science was getting in the way of interpenetrating analysis -- as opposed to "objective." <br><br>we grok. the next step is better grokking. tear down the tower of babel, now dammit. <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>(don't mind me, i'm just in a caffeinated, rainy-day kinda mood). <p></p><i></i>
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