Updates
March 5, 2010
In his interesting TED talk on "How brains learn to see", Pawan SINHA (see References and [1]) highlights the importance of dynamic stimuli for learning how to segregate and integrate patches into (coherent) "objects"; besides, he also highlights the difference between autistic and "hypersocial" brains -- the former being not good at anticipating the movement of moving dots but instead lagging behind (i.e., just tracking) the moving dots (contrary to hypersocial Theory of Mind people, who are quite good at doing this, i.e., to anticipate and predict each others' brains and behaviours).
I also admired the youtube movies (BBC documentary) on Temple Grandin (see [2]), a female autist who has similiarities with me (detesting loud noises, itchy trousers, boring [predictable] hypersocial and political games, having a 3-D-cinema in her head, fascinated by technics and arts, being able to handle and appease calves and cows, being extremely hypersensitive, etc.).
February 15, 2010
In their book entitled "Stravinsky's Motor Drive", the editors Monika WOITAS & Annette HARTMANN (see References) make a link between motor neurons and dance (once again, following CALVO-MERINO et al. 2006).
Nothing new, and no new empirical data... (but only theoretical musings...).
This really shows you the bad state in which some "neuro-esthetics" is today...
February 11, 2010
Today, I had to write this e-mail to Prof. Jerry Fodor and Prof. Massimo Piatelli in relation to their article on "Selection" in the journal "New Scientist"
<<<Dear Prof. Fodor / Prof. Piattelli
Thanks for your article on "Selection" in New Scientist!
Indeed, scientists should definitely avoid religious and anthropomorphic terms like "selection" (etc.) altogether (e.
g., "God has selected the Jews as the best people among peoples").
Instead, "selective" processes in "nature" can be regarded as stabilization processes on all biochemical and populational levels, from genomic stability up to sociological and political stabilities:
Only some populations will have enough stability through time (depending on fast shifting environments); and some
populations may be so instable (genetically, biochemically, thermodynamically, sociologically), that they ultimately may die out...
Best wishes and greetings (and still hoping for a time in some distant, less biased, and hence much more scientific future...),
Oliver Elbs
<<<<<<
February 3, 2010
For their article entitled "Mapping Change in Large Networks", the authors ROSVALL & BERGSTROM (in: PLoS One, see References) would have better chosen a title like "Mapping Shifts within Large Networks" --- after all, the big business of all animal neural networks ("perception") is just this: mapping shifts (and H. sapiens is even capable of mapping maps...)...
In fact, in my written exam for my diploma in Art History (in around 2001), I investigated (or better: "mapped"!) similar "shifts" in the painter Raphael (i.e., in his paintings) occuring between 1500 and 1520 AC. But at that time, I still had to make painstaking analyses (very similar to Rosvall & Bergstrom's computational "alluvial diagrams") by hand -- I didn't have a sophisticated computer tool like Rosvall & Bergstrom at that time... (but which may have made my written exam even more innovative).
And in fact, in my dissertation (Elbs 2005 -- but which no body has apparently read so far), a whole chapter deals with such "shifts" in the History of the Arts (following Wölfflin, Kurth et al.).
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January 27, 2010
Today, I had to terminate this small dialogue with Professor Rolf Verleger (Neuropsychologist, Lübeck):
<<<P.P.P.S:
Herzlichen Dank für Ihre schnelle Antwort.
Nur haben Sie leider SCHEINBAR nicht präzise gelesen ("ToM"):
Es ist immer sehr zweifelhaft, ob ein anderer Körper überhaupt denken kann... (vgl. Descartes bzw. Theory of
Mind...).
Erst wenn zwei Hirne DIREKT gekoppelt wären (neuro-link...), dann könnte ich vielleicht wirklich einmal wissen (bzw. fühlen), was Sie gerade wirklich fühlen (bzw. denken). Bis jetzt (seit der Inquisition...) sind ja Hirne immer nur INDIREKT gekoppelt und "investigierbar" (via Sprache, also: Scheiss-Begriffe wie "Juden", "Nazis", "wir Deutschen", etc....).
"Wir Mediziner" haben im ganz pragmatischen Alltag schon GENUG DAMIT ZU TUN (alle Hände voll zu tun!!!!!), individuelle Körper mit individuellen Genomen (und indiviuellen Lebensweisen, Ernährungsgewohnheiten, linguistic social biases, etc.) von Krebs zu heilen -- da brauchen wir NUR NOCH perfekte Diagnostik-Roboter (nano-chip, lab-on-a-chip), aber wirklich keinen ideologischen Scheiss-Überbau wie "Juden" etc. mehr...
Ob Sie dieses e-mail allerdings kapiert haben werden, kann ich natürlich (NOCH!) nur "VERMUTEN".
Oliver Elbs, www.mapology.org
________________________________
Sehr geehrter Herr Elbs,
ein Körper, der denken kann (und das gestehen sie ihm ja zu) ist dadurch mehr als ein Körper.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Rolf Verleger
________________________________
<<<<Sehr geehrter Herr Prof. Verleger
Als Mediziner, Physiker und Neuropsychologie sollten Sie eigentlich wissen, dass es nur "Körper" gibt ("bodies").
Alles andere ist pure Ideologie...
Wenn sich also jemand im 21. Jh. (!!!) immer noch als "Jude" (oder "Nazi" oder "Amerikaner" oder "Mensch" oder "Deutscher") glaubt bezeichnen zu können, kann dieser Körper entweder nicht denken oder aber sein Gedankengut stammt noch aus dem primitiven 19. Jh.
In der heutigen Zeit gibt es nur noch "Körper" bzw. individuelle Genome, die mehr oder weniger miteinander genetisch "verwandt" sind -- und von denen die meisten VERMUTLICH eh nur sprechen, aber nicht denken können... (ToM).
Aber genau das haben ja "die Juden" (etc.) (also: Körper, die immer noch glauben, sie könnten sich so bezeichnen)
scheinbar seit Jahrtausenden noch nie kapiert...
Und wer die "besten" (neuronalen, genetischen, bildgebenden, sprachlichen...) Karten haben wird...
Oliver Elbs, www.mapology.org
<<<<
January 19, 2010
Today, I had to write this letter to "Natur + Kosmos" (see [3]):
<<<
Wie schon die SEHR alten Griechen vor Aristoteles wussten, ist das Management von Gleichgewichtsprozessen ("sophrosyne") bzw. das Erkennen, Erreichen und Aufrechterhalten von fragilen und subtilen Gleichgewichten sehr viel schwieriger als einfach "blind" zu "wachsen"...
Denn: Wachstum ist sowieso schon der "unbewusste" "default mode" (Standardmodus) der Natur und in allen Organismen schon von vornherein angelegt --- die Gleichgewichte entstehen dann erst sehr viel später ("emergente" "unsichtbare Hand").
Daher: Wachsen ist wirklich "keine Kunst" -- das Aufrechterhalten von Gleichgewichten jedoch schon (sieht man schon beim Kleinkind).
Noch sind die "Menschen" scheinbar ausserstande, diese kaum erkennbaren Gleichgewichte zu analysieren (siehe Klimamodelle etc.). Zudem lieben gerade risikofreudige Individuen lieber das zyklische und brutal-instabile Rein-Raus-Spiel (Konjunkturzyklen und Achterbahn: rauf und runter). Nur wenige "Menschen" haben überhaupt einen "Sinn" für subtile Gleichgewichte (die sich evolutionär zudem immer leicht verschieben und fast nie von langer Dauer sind...).
Der langfristige Durchschnitt aller zyklischen Kurven (netto) ist aber immer eine horizontale Gerade...
Nicht umsonst ist auch der Gleichgewichtssinn der "sechste" und hochsensibelste Sinn, da er selbst die kleinsten "shifts" (Änderungen) sofort detektiert -- und den daher auch scheinbar kein "Mensch" seit Aristoteles ("5 Sinne") mehr hat...
Oliver Elbs
<<<
January 15, 2010
In his "Science"-article entitled "Virtual archaeologists recreate parts of ancient worlds", the author Michael BAWAYA (see References) reviews what was a long-dreamed dream of mine: recreating the whole History by virtuality, i.e, by digital simulations ("traveling back in time on your wall-screen at home"). Hopefully I will see such a "simulated History" in my life-time... (which will be much more intelligent and richer and more beautiful than the computer games used by today's stubborn and retarded youngsters...)
December 26, 2009
Gnosis is the age-old belief that I am fooled (manipulated, enslaved, used, or in German: "verarscht") by everyone and everything, and hence having a permanent nagging feeling ("doubt") of being fooled all the time, beginning with Plato ("reality is a dream"), Descartes ("you cannot know anything to be "true" at all), Charles Darwin ("sexual selection" is fooling you all the time), Sigmund Freud ("the unconscious is fooling you"), Richard Dawkins ("your selfish gene is fooling you"), Ernst Fehr et al. (the social nature is fooling you all the time in the light of a "fooling evolution"), pope Benedict XVI (who is fooling all "Christians"), Hans Kummer (enslavement and social manipulation was the most successful strategy in human evolution; even "culture" originated in manipulating and enslaving other beings, including pets, humans, and nature itself, e.g., bacteria producing oil "for us").
Although the gnosis is only a belief itself, the gnostic guys may be right nevertheless -- since the counter-claim (that you can trust anybody and anything all the time) CAN NEVER BE PROVEN (even not by some "love" - because even "love" may only turn out to be a sociobiological bias or "evolutionary strategy" of breastfeeding mammalian primates).
Hence, I am fooled not only by laughing babies (who want to manipulate me, i.e., to use me as their "kin selector"), by priests and scientists (who want to fool me by believing that I am fooled by some "evolution", "god", etc.), by the tax office guys and economists (who really have learnt how to fool everybody), etc.
Hence, according to Peter Sloterdijk, the gnostic (or Machiavellian) discovery of being fooled by everyone and everything and the gnostic strategy (i.e., to doubt everything and mis-trust everyone) were perhaps THE most successful religious strategies in historical time (beginning with the Greeks and ending with Science).
And despite the claim of all those wellness-philosophers today (Gerald Hüther, Joachim Bauer, Alain de Botton etc. etc.), "trust" does not exist --- because there is no "stability" in "nature" (nor in "human nature"), nor can this "stability" be proven (yet)... (despite ongoing scientific research about the stability of synaptic networks, including "feelings of trust").
December 22, 2009
Physicist Adrian Bejan with his "Constructal Theory" (see
[4]) thinks to have found the "reason" for the beauty of the golden ratio. Accordingly, I have always told my pupils that the x-axis in Cartesian Coordinate Systems is the horizontal axis, because H. sapiens has to scan the horizon first (enemies do not come from the heavens, on the contrary...). HOWEVER, this does not necessarily predict the exact ratio 0,618... (because this would have to be predicted via neural maps, i.e., V1-size and distortion).
December 17, 2009
Today, I had to make this annotation to the great paper by Steven PHILLIPS et al. on "What Do Transitive Inference and Class Inclusion Have in Common? Categorical (Co)Products and Cognitive Development" (in: PLoS Computational Biology, see References), where the authors show with the help of "Category Theory" (see LAVWERE & SCHANUEL 2009, see References) that "the distinguishing characteristic at the heart of the behavioural difference between younger (less than five years old) versus older (more than five years old) children is the categorical (co)product", i.e., a mapping problem: "the commutative diagrams [in this paper] clearly show the importance of transformations [i.e., mappings] between objects. One intriguing possibility is that the morphisms [i.e., maps] correspond to functional connectivity realized in part by long-distance cortical connections":
<<<
In Category Theory (see e.g., Lawvere & Schanuel 1997), the most important issue is maps and mappings (as corroborated by these authors as well).
However, for being able to correlate the ongoing mapping processes in the human mind with real neural maps (i.e., neural activity patterns in vivo), we may turn to smaller animals first (e.g., zebrafish, fruit flies), where we can really see the synaptic networks in action and in real-time and during the whole ontogenetic development.
Hence, it would be interesting to have a cross-talk between these authors and zebrafish (or fruit fly) experts, because transitive inference and class inclusion could also be studied in these (more transparent and better investigable) model animals.
But when these mapping processes will be demonstrated (or "unveiled") by experimental mappings, then a big step in modern neuroscience will have been done indeed...
<<<<
December 16, 2009
In their paper entitled "A Biological Rationale for Musical Scales", the authors Kamraan Z. GILL & Dale PURVES (in: PLoS One, see References) use a completely new (cf. "multivariate") approach "to quantitatively compare the harmonic structure that defines each interval in a possible scale to a harmonic series, rather than to consider only the intervals between fundamental frequencies and individual harmonics. ... In this way we assess whether the scales with the highest degree of similarity to a harmonic series are in fact the scales commonly used to make music".
By comparing now all possible "50 pentatonic and heptatonic scales with the highest mean percentage similarity ... to scales from various cultures including Western, Arabic, Indian, and East Asian", the authors find that "the musical scales used over human history have resulted from a preference for collections of dyads that most resemble a harmonic series, and therefore human vocalizations."
HOWEVER, there may be a trade-off between different aspects of music (i.e., not only harmonic aspects):
"Many musical traditions use tones that fall between formal scale tones: in Western music, glissandos involve continuous changes in pitch, blues music depends on "bending" guitar strings to blend the pitches of major and minor thirds ... These musical embellishments may reflect the continuous variations in fundamental frequencies that characterize speech prosody. ... Thus while scale preferences seem to be based on the harmonic series that derive from vocal fold vibrations, other aspects of music may be favoured because they resemble additional features of the human voice."
Besides, I have always known that old medieval music may have been much more beautiful (i.e., "pure") than today's modern music, because the "major and natural minor heptatonic scales prevalent in Western music today rank below [!] the Phrygian and Dorian modes".
December 15, 2009
In their paper entitled "Human Perceptual Learning by Mental Imagery", the authors Elisa M. TARTAGLIA et al. (in: Current Biology, see References) note that mental imagery is as good as actually doing (learning) something, which of course reminded me of the painter's Lovis Corinth's autobiography (1858-1926), where he notes that his teacher of painting was astonished to see Lovis' progress after Lovis' returning from his military service -- where he apparently did no painting at all (i.e., he probably only used mental imagery for continuing to paint virtually in his head):
„Als ich mein Jahr [als Soldat in Metz, 1880] abgedient hatte, kam ich wieder in die Malschule von Loeffz. Er lobte mich sehr und sagte, dass ich während der Zeit meines Dienstes unbewusst ausgezeichnete Fortschritte gemacht hätte. Bei diesem Fortschritt wäre es nur jedem zu wünschen Soldat zu werden. Goethe sagt, wie Eckermann irgendwo mitteilt, dass er, falls er nicht künstlerisch tätig war, immer Rückschritte zu verzeichnen hatte. Demnach, sagt er, scheint sein Talent für die bildende Kunst nicht besonders groß gewesen zu sein. Der große Goethe hat nicht so sehr unrecht gehabt. Ich habe selbst bei meinen Schülern dieselbe Beobachtung gemacht, dass die Talentloseren bei Unterbrechung ihrer Studien auch absolute Verschlechterung ihrer Arbeiten verzeichneten“ (Lovis Corinth: Selbstbiographie. Leipzig 1926 : p. 87 f.).