#92: Human Life/Brain/Mind Facts & Evolution: 0) Genes. 1) Supergenes. 2) Brains. 3) Minds: "Physics", "Choice", Humour . 08.6.23=1 - 09.1.22=4 3pm

#92: Human Life/Brain/Mind Functions & Evolution. 08.6.23-09.1.22=4 3pm:

0) Genes Evolution:----------

0) 0. Genes Functions:---------
'Researchers uncover new links between stem cells, aging and cancer' http://tinyurl.com/68f7mj
0) 1. Embryonic Stem Cell Development:---
'Biotime launches Embryome.com and the International Embryome Initiative' http://tinyurl.com/3pdj6x
0) 2. Lifetime DNA Change:----
'Biotime launches Embryome.com and the International Embryome Initiative' http://tinyurl.com/3pdj6x

0) 100. 'Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life'
http://tinyurl.com/DarwinTreeNot
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1) Supergenes Evolution-------
"Supergenes: What Really Makes Us Human" http://www.supergenes.net/
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2) Brains Evolution-----------

2) 0-0. "A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond" http://tinyurl.com/3r5m53
2) 0-1. 'Scientists unmask brain's hidden potential' http://tinyurl.com/69vp43
2) 0-2. ' The 'satellite navigation' in our brains ' http://tinyurl.com/49wx3h

2) 1. 'Scientists Identify the Brain’s Activity Hub' http://tinyurl.com/4dpgqe
2) 2. 'Cooking and Cognition: How Humans Got So Smart' http://tinyurl.com/6gd9vr
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3) Minds:---------------------
3) 1. "Mind" defined by "Physics"?
3) 2. Mind "Choice" & Human Nature.
3) 3. Mind Human Evolution through Humour.
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0) Genes Evolution:------------

0) 0. Genes Functions:---------

'Researchers uncover new links between stem cells, aging and cancer' PhysOrg.com, Oct16,08: http://tinyurl.com/68f7mj

: "" (PhysOrg.com) -- Four genes previously implicated in the control of cancer have been shown by University of Michigan scientists to play key roles in the aging process and stem-cell regulation.

It's a case of genetic multiple personalities: Four genes that suppress tumor formation also regulate the ability of adult stem cells to replace worn-out tissues, as well as the shut-down of stem cells during aging.

The genes switch on and off in a coordinated fashion as cells age to reduce the risk of cancer. In the process, they also shut down stem-cell function in aging tissues, reducing their capacity to regenerate.

The findings, reported in the Oct. 17 edition of the journal Cell, clarify and highlight the links between cancer, aging and stem-cell function by revealing some of their shared genetic pathways. "


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0) 1. Embryonic Stem Cell Development:

'Biotime launches Embryome.com and the International Embryome Initiative' EurzweilAI.net, Jun27,08: http://tinyurl.com/3pdj6x

: "" BioTime and its subsidiary Embryome Sciences, Inc. announced today the launch of Embryome.com and the International Embryome Initiative, intended to build the "embryome"--a complete database of embryonic cell types and the pathways they take as they differentiate into specific cell types.

Human embryonic stem cells (hESC) have the innate potential to become all of the diverse cell types of the human body. A challenge for the field of regenerative medicine is understanding how to control this potential to build life-saving therapies.

The "embryome" will be a complete map of all cell types derived from human embryonic stem cells, the lineage (developmental pathways) from hESC to final cell types, the genes expressed in those cells, and markers (antigens) on the cell surfaces that can be used to identify the cells.

Currently there is no international standard for the markers that distinguish cell types.

BioTime Inc. News Release ""


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0) 2. Lifetime DNA Change:-----

'Lifetime lessons of DNA change: Study of how genome is chemically altered as we age could help us understand disease.' John Whitfield, Nature news, Jun24,08 http://tinyurl.com/67hzvd

: "" The chemical markers on people's DNA change throughout their life, an international team of researchers has found.

And the way they change – that is, whether markers are gained or lost — runs in the family, showing that these ‘epigenetic’ features, although not inherited in the conventional, strictly genetic way, are influenced by our genetic make-up. "


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0) 100. 'Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life' NewScientist:
http://tinyurl.com/DarwinTreeNot

* 21 January 2009 by Graham Lawton
* Magazine issue 2692. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* For similar stories, visit the Evolution Topic Guide

IN JULY 1837, Charles Darwin had a flash of inspiration. In his study at his house in London, he turned to a new page in his red leather notebook and wrote, "I think". Then he drew a spindly sketch of a tree.


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1) Supergenes Evolution:-------

"Supergenes: What Really Makes Us Human" Craig Mackay: Mar27,08 http://www.supergenes.net/

: "" AN OVERVIEW

Why do we behave so differently in different situations? Why did you choose the clothes you are wearing, the books you read and the friends and opinions you have? What is it about humans that has let us achieve so much, so quickly?

SuperGenes, What Really Makes Us Human, tries to understand why the evolution of our human species is happening at a rate so much faster than may be explained by Darwinian biological evolution alone. The engine of our extraordinary social evolution is human behaviour. We have a deep-seated need to pass on to others some part of our own achievements, what we have made of our lives. Our survival and success now depends principally on our adaption to our social environment and not to our physical environment. It is these supercharged social genes that are the essence of our remarkable and accelerating rate of evolution today.

This book looks critically at our present understanding of human behaviour and evolution to seek a consilience across a wide range of fields of research.

Dr Craig Mackay is Reader in Image Science in the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge in England. He has published over 150 research papers in a variety of subjects. Most recently he has led a team building cameras that take the sharpest astronomical pictures ever.

Web Site Resources
The entire book is available for download in a variety of formats (pdf as printed, web format (html), or Word for Windows free of charge.

You may purchase a printed copy of the book from the publishers Lulu (thereby giving the author the margin), or from Amazon (giving them the margin), and may also be purchased from other bookstores worldwide. The book ISBN number is: 978-1-84799-392-2

In addition you can find a summary, a summary of Chapter contents, the book in browsable format, and a CV from the author.

There is also a News Group on Google Groups where comments about the book and the ideas in contains will be posted as they come in. Please e-mail you comments to supergenes@googlegroups.com using your own e-mail programme or Click here. This group is moderated, which means that those unsuitable for publication such as spam are blocked from appearing. You may view the contents of the NewsGroup at: http://groups.google.com/group/supergenes. ""


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2) Brain Evolution:------------

2) 0-0. "A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond" William H. Calvin, Oxford Univ Pr,USA (Oct8,05) http://tinyurl.com/3r5m53

: "" Editorial Reviews:
From Publishers Weekly:
"What is it like, to be a chimpanzee?" asks Calvin, a neurobiologist at the University of Washington, in the first chapter of this fascinating history of the mind. While humans and other primates share many cognitive abilities, an accumulation of qualitative differences in perception, learning and time sense add up to an unbridgeable gap, he says. Tracing human evolution from the first upright hominid through tool making and on to structured thought and hypotheses about the future, Calvin (How Brains Think; A Brain for All Seasons) offers readers a concise, absorbing path to follow. Trying to imagine the thoughts and lives of early humans is not much different than trying to know what it's like to be a chimpanzee, as it turns out. Eventually, Calvin reveals how our evolving brains might have developed such bizarre abstractions as nested information, metaphors and ethics, thus paving the way for consciousness as we know it. He postulates the "mind's Big Bang" as tied to the development of language, offering as support the nativist mind theories of Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky. Presented with a pleasing blend of philosophy, neuroscience and anthropology, Calvin's ideas are accessible for anyone interested in a scientific look at how our brains make us different from chimpanzees. He adds a cautionary note, too: as human brains get smarter-and as our guts stay primitive and our technology skyrockets-we must get better about "our long-term responsibilities to keep things going."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist:
Calvin ponders how humans' higher-level mental abilities may have evolved, explicitly avoiding the thickets of what constitutes consciousness. Instead he investigates the increments of intellect that can be inferred from the fragments of discovered fossils and artifacts. His observations about the separation from ape-level awareness that a hominid skull or an Acheulean hand axe represent don't stand alone; Calvin buttresses his observations with the evolutionary advantage that the hominid possessed or that the tool conferred. When he chronologically approaches the Homo genus (having started the story seven million years in the past), Calvin orients his readers toward two behaviors, the throwing of objects and protolanguage. Although these behaviors were probably manifest in earlier species, Calvin wonders why they flowered into recognizably humanlike abilities only several tens of millennia ago, and then long after the appearance of anatomically modern humans. His equally curious readers will weigh his explanation, which integrates syntax and the precocity of children, as they appreciate the author's adeptness in covering so much material in so brief a space. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews ""


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2) 0-1. 'Scientists unmask brain's hidden potential' PhysOrg.com, Aug27,08: Source:Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: http://tinyurl.com/69vp43
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""Previous research has found that when vision is lost, a person's senses of touch and hearing become enhanced. But exactly how this happens has been unclear.""

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: "" Now a long-term study from the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) demonstrates that sudden and complete loss of vision leads to profound – but rapidly reversible -- changes in the visual cortex. These findings, reported in the August 27 issue of the journal PLOS One, not only provide new insights into how the brain compensates for the loss of sight, but also suggest that the brain is more adaptable than originally thought.

"The brain's ability to reorganize itself is much greater than previously believed," explains senior author Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD, Director of the Berenson-Allen Center and Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School (HMS). "In our studies [in which a group of sighted study subjects were blindfolded for five days], we have shown that even in an adult, the normally developed visual system quickly becomes engaged to process touch in response to complete loss of sight. The speed and dynamic nature of the changes we observed suggest that rather than establishing new nerve connections – which would take a long time – the visual cortex is unveiling abilities that are normally concealed when sight is intact."

Or, as first author Lotfi Merabet, OD, PhD, describes, "In a sense, by masking the eyes, we unmask the brain's compensatory potential."

The scientists had previously shown that study subjects with normal vision who are blindfolded for a five-day period performed better than non-blindfolded control subjects on Braille tests. Subsequent brain scans found that blindfolded subjects also experienced dramatic changes in the brain's visual cortex.

In this study, the authors set out to determine the origins of these outcomes: Were they the result of new nerve connections being developed? Or were latent capabilities in the brain's visual cortex being "unmasked" in response to the loss of sight?

"We recruited 47 subjects to participate in the study," explains Merabet, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Neurology at HMS. "Half of the study participants remained completely blindfolded, 24 hours a day, for a total of five days under the careful watch of the staff of BIDMC's General Clinical Research Center. The other half were only blindfolded for testing, but spent the rest of the day seeing normally. During their stays, both sets of study participants underwent intensive Braille instruction for four to six hours a day from a professional instructor from the Carroll Center for the Blind."

The study participants also underwent serial brain scans (known as fMRI or functional magnetic resonance imaging) at both the beginning and end of the five-day study period.

As predicted, the researchers found that the subjects who were blindfolded were superior at learning Braille than their non-blindfolded counterparts. Furthermore, the brain scans of the blindfolded subjects showed that the brain's visual cortex had become extremely active in response to touch (in contrast to the initial scan in which there was little or no activity). Twenty-four hours after the blindfolds were removed, the subjects were re-scanned, whereby it was discovered that their visual cortices were no longer responsive to tactile stimulation – in other words, reading Braille no longer activated "sight" among the study subjects. Finally, using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to transiently block the function of the visual cortex, the scientists demonstrated that disruption of the visual cortex impaired tactile function and Braille reading after five days of blindfolding – but not a day after the blindfold was removed and never in the control subjects.

"This extremely rapid adaptation indicates that functions that are normally inhibited in the brain's visual cortex will come to the surface when they are needed," adds Merabet. "We believe that over time, if these adaptive functions are sustained and reinforced, they will eventually lead to permanent structural changes."

"Our brain captures different types of information from the world -- sounds, sights, smells or tactile sensations," adds Pascual-Leone. "The impressions we form require us to merge these various different elements, but science's traditional view of brain function is that it is organized in separate and highly specialized systems."

But, he says, as the results of this research demonstrate, that is not the case.

"Our study shows that these views are incorrect and illustrate the potential for the human brain to rapidly and dynamically reorganize itself," notes Pascual-Leone. "We have shown that even in an adult, the normally developed visual system quickly becomes engaged to process touch in response to complete loss of sight. And we believe that these principles may also apply to other sensory loss, such as deafness or loss of function following brain injury." ""


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2) 0-2. ' The 'satellite navigation' in our brains ' Source: Wellcome Trust: PhysOrg.com: Sept11,08: http://tinyurl.com/49wx3h

""Our brains contain their own navigation system much like satellite navigation ("sat-nav"), with in-built maps, grids and compasses, neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers told the BA Festival of Science at the University of Liverpool today.""

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: "" The brain's navigation mechanism resides in an area know as the hippocampus, which is responsible for learning and memory and famously shown to be different in London taxi drivers in a Wellcome Trust-funded study carried out by Professor Eleanor Maguire at UCL (University College London).

The study showed that a region of the hippocampus was enlarged in London taxi drivers compared to the general population. Even bus drivers do not have the same enlarged area, and general skill at navigating is not related to hippocampus size, suggesting that the difference is linked to 'The Knowledge' of the city's 250,000 streets built up by taxi drivers over many years.

In a follow-up study, Dr Spiers and Professor Maguire used the Playstation2 video game "The Getaway" to examine how taxi drivers use their hippocampus and other brain areas when they navigate. Taxi drivers used the virtual reality simulation to navigate the streets of London whilst lying in an fMRI brain scanner. The researchers found that the hippocampus is most active when the drivers first think about their route and plan ahead. By contrast, activity in a diverse network of other brain areas increases as they encounter road blocks, spot expected landmarks, look at the view and worry about the thoughts of their customers and other drivers.

"The hippocampus is crucial for navigation and we use it like a 'sat nav'," says Dr Spiers from the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at UCL. "London taxi drivers, who have to know their way around hundreds of thousands of winding streets, have the most refined and powerful innate sat navs, strengthened over years of experience."

In their study, Dr Spiers and Professor Maguire found that a part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex increased its activity the closer the taxi drivers came to their destination. However, it is still unclear how the brain knows which way we need to go to reach our destination, and it is this question which is the subject of Dr Spiers's ongoing research, also funded by the Wellcome Trust.

nside the hippocampus and neighbouring brain areas scientists have identified three types of cells which, says Dr Spiers, make up the sat nav. These are called place cells, head direction cells and grid cells.

Place cells map out our location, lighting up to say 'you are here' when we pass a specific place. There are thought to be hundreds of thousands of place cells in the brain, each preferring a slightly different geographical place. Head direction cells act like a compass, telling us which way we are facing. Grid cells, discovered in 2005 by Professor Edvard Moser's group at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, tell us how far we have travelled using a grid-like pattern akin to how we use latitude and longitude for navigation.

"Over the millennia, humans have invented and utilised many different navigation tools such as maps, compasses and latitude and longitude," says Dr Spiers. "Nature is far ahead of us and seems to have developed these tools inside our heads for our survival."

In a further twist on the research, Professor Maguire and Dr Spiers studied a taxi driver whose hippocampus had been damaged by a viral infection, leading to amnesia. Whilst he was able to navigate using major or 'A' roads, he was no longer able to navigate through the winding, minor streets of the capital.


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2) 1. 'Scientists Identify the Brain’s Activity Hub' BENEDICT CAREY: Pub. Jul1,08: The New York Times: http://tinyurl.com/4dpgqe

: "" The outer layer of the brain, the reasoning, planning and self-aware region known as the cerebral cortex, has a central clearinghouse of activity below the crown of the head that is widely connected to more-specialized regions in a large network similar to a subway map, scientists reported Monday.

The new report, published in the free-access online journal PLoS Biology, provides the most complete rough draft to date of the cortex’s electrical architecture, the cluster of interconnected nodes and hubs that help guide thinking and behavior. The paper also provides a striking demonstration of how new imaging techniques focused on the brain’s white matter — the connections between cells, rather than the neurons themselves — are filling in a dimension of human brain function that has been all but dark. "
... ...


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2) 2. 'Cooking and Cognition: How Humans Got So Smart' Robin Nixon, Special to LiveScience: posted: Aug11,08: http://tinyurl.com/6gd9vr

: "" After two tremendous growth spurts — one in size, followed by an even more important one in cognitive ability — the human brain is now a lot like a teenage boy.

It consumes huge amounts of calories, is rather temperamental and, when harnessed just right, exhibits incredible prowess. The brain's roaring metabolism, possibly stimulated by early man's invention of cooking, may be the main factor behind our most critical cognitive leap, new research suggests.

About 2 million years ago, the human brain rapidly increased its mass until it was double the size of other primate brains.

"This happened because we started to eat better food, like eating more meat," said researcher Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai.

But the increase in size, Khaitovich continued, "did not make humans as smart as they are today."

The early shift

For a long time, we were pretty dumb. Humans did little but make "the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years," he said. Then, only about 150,000 years ago, a different type of spurt happened — our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials, such as bone, and invented many new tools, including needles for beadwork. Responding to, presumably, our first abstract thoughts, we started creating art and maybe even religion.

To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, Khaitovich and colleagues examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism.

The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances, said Khaitovich, carefully adding that definitive claims of causation are premature.

The research is detailed in the August 2008 issue of Genome Biology.

The extra calories may not have come from more food, but rather from the emergence of pre-historic "Iron Chefs;" the first hearths also arose about 200,000 years ago.

In most animals, the gut needs a lot of energy to grind out nourishment from food sources. But cooking, by breaking down fibers and making nutrients more readily available, is a way of processing food outside the body. Eating (mostly) cooked meals would have lessened the energy needs of our digestion systems, Khaitovich explained, thereby freeing up calories for our brains.

Instead of growing even larger (which would have made birth even more problematic), the human brain most likely used the additional calories to grease the wheels of its internal functioning.

Digestion question

Today, humans have relatively small digestive systems and burn 20-25 percent of their calories running their brains. For comparison, other vertebrate brains use as little as 2 percent of the animal's caloric intake.

Does this mean renewing our subscriptions to Bon Appetit will make our brains more efficient? No, but we probably should avoid diving into the raw food movement. Devoted followers end up, said Khaitovich, "with very severe health problems."

Scientists wonder if our cognitive spurt happened too fast. Some of our most common mental health problems, ranging from depression and bipolar disorder to autism and schizophrenia, may be by-products of the metabolic changes that happened in an evolutionary "blink of an eye," Khaitovich said.

While other theories for the brain's cognitive spurt have not been ruled out (one involves the introduction of fish to the human diet), the finding sheds light on what made us, as Khaitovich put it, "so strange compared to other animals."

* Are Big Brains Smarter?
* Humans: The Strangest Species
* 10 Things You Didn't Know About You ""
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'LiveScience Image Gallery': http://tinyurl.com/66vub2

""Weighing in at an average of 2.7 pounds (1,200 grams), the human brain packs a whopping 100 billion neurons. Every minute, about three soda-cans worth of blood flow through the brain. Credit: dreamstime.""


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3) Minds Evolution:------------

1. "Mind" defined by Physics?

"New Physics and the Mind" Robert Paster: Aug2,06 http://tinyurl.com/6oef7a

: "" Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Some physicists think that Big Science has kidnapped physics and left the mind and consciousness behind. New Physics and the Mind tells these radical physicists' stories--why the mind belongs in physics, and how recent discoveries in particle physics and cosmology combine with mind physics to produce a new scientific agenda for the twenty-first century.

Brain surgery meets rocket science at New Physics and the Mind.

About the Author
Robert Paster earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from M.I.T. and his master's degree in education from Harvard. He has taught mathematics at an alternative high school, worked as a systems analyst, and--for over two decades--worked as an actuary at one of the nation's largest insurance companies. During this time he continued to keep up with developments in physics, including physicists' speculative research into developing a Theory of Everything, into new physics phenomena that challenge the standard models of particle physics and cosmology, and into the role in physics of consciousness and the mind. Mr. Paster recently took early retirement as vice president of expense & subsidiary management and resumed his study of physics full-time.

New Physics and the Mind is the synthesis of Mr. Paster's two-year effort researching the historical development and scientists' latest thinking regarding the mind, the brain, cognition and perception, atoms and matter, quantum theory, gravitation, and particle physics. ""

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'NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND' Post Jun23,08 http://tinyurl.com/4ur726

NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND: mind physics + new physics = the 21st century's theory of everything

: "" NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND. Some physicists think that Big Science has kidnapped physics and left the mind and consciousness behind.

What is the mind? And how can physicists, of all people, be the ones to explain consciousness and the mind?

* Read more about the mind and physics.
* Look inside the book NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND.

PART ONE: ENTERING THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. String theory dominates academic physics, but more and more physicists are questioning its validity.

* Read "Twentieth-Century Physics" from Part One of NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND.

PART TWO: PHYSICS AND THE MIND. The mind and consciousness have been part of physics since the earliest days of quantum physics. Roger Penrose’s 1989 The Emperor’s New Mind placed the mind and consciousness at the intersection of relativity and quantum physics, and proposed that the mind and consciousness are at the heart of physics’ theory of everything.

* Read "The Emperor's New Mind" from Part Two of NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND.

PART THREE: NEW PHYSICS. Physicists have continued to develop theories that intimately relate to the mind. The best of these theories of physics and the mind also incorporate phenomena of new physics—extra dimensions, entanglement, entropy and information, black holes, tunneling, Bose-Einstein condensates, chaos and complexity, dark matter and dark energy.

* Read "Quantum Gravity" from Part Three of NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND.

PART FOUR: SPECULATIONS. Count down the Top Ten Hidden Radical Theories of New Physics and the Mind.

* Read "Hidden Radical Theory #3: Sidharth's Quantum Black Holes" from Part Four of NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND.

<<<< Click on link to go directly to Amazon.com's NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND page: Search inside. Browse sample pages. Explore similar items. Reviews. Discussions. Tags. Statistically improbable phrases.

rocket science meets brain surgery @ new physics and the mind

...NEW PHYSICS AND THE MIND...relativity...quantum physics...string theory...quantum reality...reductionism...holism...emergence...consciousness

...the emperor's new mind...quantum gravity...extra dimensions...the universe

...dark matter...dark energy...entanglement...entropy...information...black holes...imaginary time...tunneling...bose-einstein condensates...chaos and complexity...neutrinos...time...mass...art...the fine structure constant...hidden physics countdown: ten radical theories of new physics...type 1, 2, 3 worlds... ""


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2. Mind "Choice" & Human Nature:

'Get Out of Your Own Way: Studies Show the Value of Not Overthinking a Decision' ROBERT LEE HOTZ: Jun27,08: Science Journal, p.A9: http://tinyurl.com/5dgoao

[[ MIND READING
[books]
Is your freedom of choice an illusion?
Your brain knows what you're going to do 10 seconds before you are aware of it, neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes and his colleagues reported recently in Nature Neuroscience.
Last year In the journal Current Biology, the scientists reported they could use brain wave patterns to identify your intentions before you revealed them.
Their work builds on a landmark 1983 paper in the journal Brain by the late Benjamin Libet and his colleagues at the University of California in San Francisco, who found out that the brain initiates free choices about a third of a second before we are aware of them.
Together, these findings support the importance of the unconscious in shaping decisions. Psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis and his co-workers at the University of Amsterdam reported in the journal Science that it is not always best to deliberate too much before making a choice.
Nobel laureate Francis Crick -- co-discoverer of the structure of DNA -- tackled the implications of such cognitive science in his 1993 book The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul.
With co-author Giulio Tononi, Nobel laureate Gerald Edleman explores his biology-based theory of consciousness in A Universe Of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination. ]]


: "" Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and predict our choices before we are aware of them ourselves. The brain, they have found, appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision -- an eternity at the speed of thought.

Their findings challenge conventional notions of choice.

"We think our decisions are conscious," said neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, who is pioneering this research. "But these data show that consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. This doesn't rule out free will, but it does make it implausible."

Through a series of intriguing experiments, scientists in Germany, Norway and the U.S. have analyzed the distinctive cerebral activity that foreshadows our choices. They have tracked telltale waves of change through the cells that orchestrate our memory, language, reason and self-awareness.

In ways we are only beginning to understand, the synapses and neurons in the human nervous system work in concert to perceive the world around them, to learn from their perceptions, to remember important experiences, to plan ahead, and to decide and act on incomplete information. In a rudimentary way, they predetermine our choices.

To probe what happens in the brain during the moments before people sense they've reached a decision, Dr. Haynes and his colleagues devised a deceptively simple experiment, reported in April in Nature Neuroscience. They monitored the swift neural currents coursing through the brains of student volunteers as they decided, at their own pace and at random, whether to push a button with their left or right hands.

In all, they tested seven men and seven women from 21 to 30 years old. They recorded neural changes associated with thoughts using a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine and analyzed the results with an experimental pattern-recognition computer program.

While inside the brain scanner, the students watched random letters stream across a screen. Whenever they felt the urge, they pressed a button with their right hand or a button with their left hand. Then they marked down the letter that had been on the screen in the instant they had decided to press the button.

Studying the brain behavior leading up to the moment of conscious decision, the researchers identified signals that let them know when the students had decided to move 10 seconds or so before the students knew it themselves. About 70% of the time, the researchers could also predict which button the students would push. "

"It's quite eerie," said Dr. Haynes.

Other researchers have pursued the act of decision deeper into the subcurrents of the brain.

In experiments with laboratory animals reported this spring, Caltech neuroscientist Richard Anderson and his colleagues explored how the effort to plan a movement forces cells throughout the brain to work together, organizing a choice below the threshold of awareness. Tuning in on the electrical dialogue between working neurons, they pinpointed the cells of what they called a "free choice" brain circuit that in milliseconds synchronized scattered synapses to settle on a course of action.

"It suggests we are looking at this actual decision being made," Dr. Anderson said. "It is pretty fast."

And when those networks momentarily malfunction, people do make mistakes. Working independently, psychologist Tom Eichele at Norway's University of Bergen monitored brain activity in people performing routine tasks and discovered neural static -- waves of disruptive signals -- preceded an error by up to 30 seconds. "Thirty seconds is a long time," Dr. Eichele said.

Such experiments suggest that our best reasons for some choices we make are understood only by our cells. The findings lend credence to researchers who argue that many important decisions may be best made by going with our gut -- not by thinking about them too much.

Dutch researchers led by psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis at the University of Amsterdam recently found that people struggling to make relatively complicated consumer choices -- which car to buy, apartment to rent or vacation to take -- appeared to make sounder decisions when they were distracted and unable to focus consciously on the problem.

Moreover, the more factors to be considered in a decision, the more likely the unconscious brain handled it all better, they reported in the peer-reviewed journal Science in 2006. "The idea that conscious deliberation before making a decision is always good is simply one of those illusions consciousness creates for us," Dr. Dijksterhuis said.

Does this make our self-awareness just a second thought?

All this work to deconstruct the mental machinery of choice may be the best evidence of conscious free will. By measuring the brain's physical processes, the mind seeks to know itself through its reflection in the mirror of science.

"We are trying to understand who we are," said Antonio Damasio, director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, "by studying the organ that allows you to understand who you are."

[Chart: http://tinyurl.com/62sc48]
• Email sciencejournal@wsj.com.

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[Science Forum]
How do you best make up your mind? Are you better off when you sleep on a decision? What does this mean for our sense of choice and free will? Share your opinion in an online forum. ""


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3. Mind Human Evolution through Humour:

'Mechanism and function of humor identified by new evolutionary theory' Jun27,08 http://tinyurl.com/5fzp4p

A new publication answers centuries' old questions regarding the mechanism and function of humour, identifying the reason humour is common to all human societies, its fundamental role in the evolution of homo sapiens and its continuing importance in the cognitive development of infants.

: "" Alastair Clarke explains: "The theory is an evolutionary and cognitive explanation of how and why any individual finds anything funny. Effectively it explains that humour occurs when the brain recognizes a pattern that surprises it, and that recognition of this sort is rewarded with the experience of the humorous response, an element of which is broadcast as laughter. "

" The theory further identifies the importance of pattern recognition in human evolution as Clarke explains: "An ability to recognize patterns instantly and unconsciously has proved a fundamental weapon in the cognitive arsenal of human beings. The humorous reward has encouraged the development of such faculties, leading to the unique perceptual and intellectual abilities of our species."

Clarke's new theory of humour could also provide the basis for an increased understanding of human cognitive functions: "The development of pattern recognition as displayed in humour could also form the basis of humankind's instinctive linguistic ability. Syntax and grammar function in fundamental patterns for which a child has an innate facility. All that differs from one individual to the next is the content of those patterns in terms of vocabulary."

Pattern Recognition Theory also identifies a correlation between the development of humour and the development of cognitive ability in infants. "Amusing childish games such as peek-a-boo, clap hands and tower block demolition all exhibit the precise mechanism of humour as it appears in any adult form, but whether these instances of infantile humour actively contribute to the cognitive development of the child or are simply a record of the evolution of the species played out in the individual, is as yet unclear.

"Peek-a-boo can elicit a humorous response in infants as young as four months, and is, effectively, a simple process of surprise repetition, forming a clear, basic pattern. As the infant develops, the patterns in childish humour become more complex and compounded and attain spatial as well as temporal elements until, finally, the child begins to grapple with the patterns involved in linguistic humour." "

" Alastair Clarke identifies the implications of pattern recognition theory beyond anthropology. "Understanding the basic function and mechanism of humour as it begins in infants will benefit the ongoing research into the presence of humour in primates and other mammals." He goes on to propose possible technological developments: "Now that we understand the mechanism of humour the possibility of creating an artificial intelligence being that could develop its own sense of humour becomes very real. This would, for the first time, create an AI capable of exhibiting one of the defining characteristics that make us human, making it seem significantly less robotic as a result."

Alastair Clarke offers two brief illustrations of the theory in instances of humour: "The application of the theory is unique in every instance and for every individual but the following two examples illustrate its basic structure. " ... ...

" "Both of these examples use simple patterns of exact repetition, even if the fidelity of that repetition is poor (for example if the photographs are only vaguely similar). But pattern types can be surprisingly varied, including reflection, reversal, minification and magnification and so on. Sarcasm, for example, functions around a basic pattern of reversal, otherwise known as repetition in opposites. Patterns can also contain many stages, whereas the ones depicted here feature only two terms."

Clarke concludes: "Pattern Recognition answers how and why we find things funny, but it can not say categorically what is funny since no content can be inherently more or less funny than any other. The individual is of paramount importance in determining what they find amusing, bringing memories, associations, meta-meaning, disposition, their tendency to recognize patterns and their comprehension of similarity to the equation. But the theory does offer a vital answer as to why humour exists in every human society."

Source: Pyrrhic House ""

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