Biofields, Physics and Biological Arrangement

[Occams Ghost]

To save the trouble, i though this be best in ATM, unless a mod finds it appropriate for General Science.


Part One
Qualia – The Binding of Consciousness
The brain uses about 20%-25% of the entire energy of the human body.

The essence of consciousness, to [be what is known] as active consciousness, requires a library of qualia. In definition, qualia can be definitions of perception… and should cover many, if not all sensory perceptions.
The American Philosopher, Daniel Dennet identifies four properties that are commonly ascribed to qualia. According to these, Qualia are:

1. Ineffable; they cannot be apprehended by any other means than direct conscious experience.
2. Intrinsic; meaning that they are non-relational properties, which are omniscient depending on the experience's relation to other things.
3. Private; meaning that all qualia comparisons are personal and cannot be probed by anyone else.
4. Directly apprehensible in consciousness; which means to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale and simultaneously know all there is to know about that quale.

The nature of qualia is very unique to the human, and also provides a sense of intentional arrangement in human perception. One of the arguments concerning Biofields I present, is that some field is responsible for entire biological arrangements. :dance:

We must then also ask if mentality is arranged.

If a field is responsible for the physical side of how a person is arranged, then qualia are a result of such configuration. Until now, as far as I know, philosophers and scientists alike have proposed that qualia are physical entities, either properties of the brain or of objects in the world. This is true, but this is where I am going to invite quantum mechanics, because it isn’t without the observer, can such qualia even exist… so in a sense, to say it is part of the physical world turns out not to be quite true at all.

Instead, much like how the proverbial atom does not exist before observation, qualia are resolutions (collapses in the wave function) made by the mind of the observer with a particular arrangement: One that has almost intelligent overtones.

The vacuum has been shown to have a memory. This means that events and ‘’things’’ are stored into both space and time. Fields are much like the same way. Fields store memory, and have a memory: One example are fields that are proposed to guide particles on a preplanned course.

My Conscious Potential… (The field I have proposed that ‘’guides’’ the arrangement of Biological systems) can do so because they have a memory. This memory is also essential for identifying the correct biological entity at any particular time, because if this identification could not happen, then the field would not be very specific, and could not focus on a person, or a single race at one time. In other words, the Biofield of humans can be distinguishable to any other Biofield that governs the ant to the blue whale.

Now these fields do not evolve… therefore, this theory alone can overthrow some Darwinian concepts. Whilst organisms do indeed evolve, this theory suggests that their existence was already planned out. Then mind has arose from the depths of spacetime, from a primal sea that streamed in from big bang! I will explore this idea more.

Are Biological Systems Arranged?

It has been proven that the two hemispheres, of the brain are responsible for differential activities. The following comparatives foundation creates the differences between left-brain and right-brain thinking:

Left Brain
Logical
Sequential
Rational
Analytical
Objective
Looks at parts

Right Brain
Random
Intuitive
Holistic
Synthesizing
Subjective
Looks at wholes

But WHY does the brain do this?

The human brain is the most complicated computer in the world. It can devise answers that no Boolean automaton can ever hope to comprise. The human mind, capable of answering fast numerical calculations, can also comprehend the world of morality and emotions; factors which a normal computer cannot evaluate, including intelligent thought. This intelligent thought builds up the outside world, where a human can just mention a name and make something real! Yes... just by naming a thing (or mindless ponderings), that thing becomes real, with shape and defined description.

The brain itself is made mostly of water, and this natural computer is just three pounds of gray and white matter, (gray matter is the most dominant). The human brain has thousands of millions of working components, and these little workers operate the entire body. In just one split second, the brain excites thousands of inter-connections, working our five senses of touch, smell, sight, taste and sound.

Our brains are made up of many components; one of which we have all heard of is the nerve cell called the neuron. They are so comparatively small; you could fit over 200 hundred of these tiny neurons in the head of a pin. The job of the neuron is to send and receive electrical signals which rush around our head. In short, these electrical signals are very important signals, and these signals make up reality. For this reason, perception creates reality as we know it; thus reality is built up on nothing but conscious experience!

The brain is therefore, the control system of the brain. It, without our conscious influences, keeps our pulse ticking and our heart pumping. The spinal cord itself is directly linked to our brains, and it is through our boney spine it is able to send a signal to the foot well under a second.

Functions such as movement and sensations are determined by a soft dual part of the brain called the cerebrum. These two soft hemispheres are like mirror images of each other. The right hemisphere controls movement, and the left controls sensations. White matter covers under the cortex, and its primary job is to carry nerve impulses throughout the body. Gray matter covers the brain, bridging the hemispheres by a tissue called the corpus callosum.

It turns out, after extensive neurophysiological studies, that the left hemisphere is most dominant, causing the usual production of right-handed individuals. Naturally, for those select few who are left-handed, the right hemisphere is most dominant, and for those who are ambidextrous, has certain equilibrium between both the right and left hemispheres, but usually even in ambidextrous individuals, the right side of the hemisphere is most dominant.

The right and left hemispheres have been mapped out with their own particular functions. For instance, the left is associated with speech, reading, writing and calculations. The right operates visual perceptions, arts and abstract thought. It is thus a creative side. The really amazing thing is that when one side is in use, the other switches off. This on-off function must operate in this manor, for anything to process correctly. If the two sides did not fluctuate like this, it would be impossible for us to think of two things at once.

Beneath the cerebral hemisphere, is the cerebellum. It is linked directly to the spinal cord. The cerebellum also has two hemispheres. It is associated with balance and muscular co-ordination. And going further beneath the brain, is the brain stem, which operates the heart, the lungs and the digestive system.

We are aware of only so much. The brain operates mostly unconsciously, surprisingly enough. Of what we can subjectively control is only the edge of the blade. The brain controls so much without the force of consciousness. This subliminal operation might have profound influences in the world, and we are now going to have a look at a few them.

[Occams Ghost]

Part Two

The Pathology and Arrangement of Knowledge and

The Laws of Certainty and Expectancy of the Psyche

In my last book, Superdimension, which was itself a two-part book along with Hyperdimension, I created two new principles on conscious experience, based upon Entropy.

It stated, that there where three main principles, that worked differential roles against the flow of time. It highlights possible relations with the uncertainty principle in a whole, and explains why nothing at the subatomic level can be applied to mere cause and effect. In principle, they explain why we have the knowledge we have… the qualia of existence… the fountain of matter and energy, and even the ethereal mixture of consciousness. If we exist in the present time, the only ever real time, then the past, according to both the expectancy and certainty role, combined with uncertainty, says that the past is:

1. The past is ruled by certain and UNCERTAIN rules.

This means that we can be certain about past events, but we can also be uncertain, as a past event could and does hold incomplete knowledge from time-to-time. During the present, we don’t tend to ‘’expect’’ anything from the past, so it doesn’t play a role.
The rules in the present are all functional:

2. We can be certain, UNCERTAIN, and expect outcomes during the present time.

Here, we can see that we can be certain of the present, and also be uncertain of it. So many examples could be said to how we could be uncertain during the present time: It might occur very frequent in your life… and we expect more during the present… If mind is time, and time is mind, then we always expect more… a future, this is what we always expect.
Then the future has aligned for it:

3. We can be UNCERTAIN about the future and we can be Expectant of it.

It seems that axiom no.3 is the only principled axiom that cannot allow any certainty. Uncertainty forbids this… which is strange, because the past is not effected by such a conduct. There, certainty and uncertainty arise side-by-side, and this is caused by Entropy of knowledge, which I called in my last book, ‘’linear knowledge,’’ meaning that knowledge has a linear realization to the human being. It presents itself, and unfolds its memory to us as the arrow of times shows us a directionality to that unfolding. In fact, since there is no arrow representing this, instead of some interpretations of the ‘Psychological Arrow of Time’, I shall call the ‘Informational Arrow of Time,’ to represent the linear nature of human knowledge. It’s more specific.
So here we have it. The rules of consciousness has just been displayed out according to the boundaries of living in the present.

This can all be linked to the Binding Principle of Neurophysics, since the mind is binding time together with knowledge. The Binding Problem can be answered for though, as I have explained, I think everything is predetermined. Because of this, space and time has a memory. We seem to ‘’seep’’ out of this memory, out of space and time, and it created this thing we call consciousness. No other configuration could perform this work, and has stunning probabilistic arguments for the Anthropic Principle of QM.

Biofields and Energy

Dr. Robert Neil Boyd says this phenomenon best. The mind or ‘’self’’ is not located to any particular physicality. In fact, the mind arises from a non-zero-locality. A holographic projection in spacetime, as Dr. Boyd concludes:
‘’ Eminent neurophysiologist Karl Pribram proved that the memory of the human being is not localized in the brain at all. His experiments proved that the memory is distributed in space, not necessarily contiguous with the physical form, in a holograph-like manner. This means that there exist multitudinous copies of any memory object in the volume of the hologram.

The Pribram model of memory is like a hologram. When you cut a small piece out of a hologram and shine the proper light on it, a complete copy of the original hologram, albeit smaller, is observed. This understanding was completely at odds with the then prevailing views of consciousness, which had the view that memories resided at particular and exclusive locations within the physical brain. Due to this mistaken view, many experimenters subsequently made many attempts to disprove Pribram's results by means of cutting out various parts of the brains of laboratory rats which had been trained to run through mazes, thinking that if they cut out the correct part of the rat's brain, that it would lose its ability to negotiate the maze. Such results would support the old notions of localized memory. Attempts to disprove Pribram’s hypothesis by the method of cutting out and removing various brain segments all failed.

Later, some researchers did things like take the rats’ brains completely out and turn them sideways, upside-down, backwards, and all manner of directions. The rats which were treated in these barbaric manners never lost their ability to negotiate the maze. Later on, out of sheer frustration that Pribram's expressions might be right, one research team went so far as to remove the brain from a rat and put it through a blender. Then they poured the resulting liquidic slurry back into the poor rat's skull. When the rat awoke from the anesthetic, it effortlessly ran the maze, and otherwise went on about its business. These researchers thereby turned about to support the Bohm-Pribram holographic model of memory.

The results of Pribram indicate that the memory of the human being is a hologram-like system, which does not reside in the same volume as the brain. Pribram’s clinically derived results support Bohm’s notion of the universe as a hologram. Then we want to know, where is the medium in which this hologram can reside? Such a medium is described by Gariaev, Poponin, et.al. , in terms of solitons in a system of loosely coupled subquantum particles. What we see now, is the possibility of a hierarchical system of hologram-like solitons which reside in a medium of loosely coupled subquantum particles. This takes us back full circle to expressions regarding the “tattvas” and “bhutatmas” of the Vedic system.

In further support of these holographic notions, we have Andrej Detela’s descriptions of the “biofield”, an energetic description based on instrumentations of the complex electromagnetic structures found in the vicinity of biological forms. Detela says, in part,

“It is assumed that the biofield is a three-dimensional web woven of vibrating electric and magnetic fields. Lines of these fields are like tiny threads in a three-dimensional textile. These electromagnetic fields display very complex internal organization.

We find a peculiar variety of chiral solutions to Maxwell equations, which do not dissipate energy and lead to stable field structures. This is the so-called informational basis of the biofield. The simplest structures of these kind are toroidal knots.

When electric charge with very light mass enters the informational biofield, non-linear phenomena take place. These non-linear phenomena are based upon bifurcations in internal electric currents and upon resonance effects between currents and fields. We find an evolution of the field structure. This evolution is a syntropic process, oriented in time. There are several obvious conditions for syntropic behavior, and one of them is [found to be a quantum coherence in the states of electric charge.’’

My theory is a bit more sinister. I propose that consciousness could be a theory that can be considered as an extension to Relativity! Recently, knowing that Biofields are universally considered ‘’psuedoscientifc,’’ I needed confirmation from a friend who would know the best solution.

I got in touch with Dr. Wolf, a leading scientist in the field of psychophysics, and asked, ‘’Do you believe in Biofields?’’

He replied in three words, ‘’they are real.’’

Those words were legendary to me. No doubt. No worries. Just a simple, defined and accurate answer, ‘’THEY ARE REAL.’’ :clap: It was quite a unique answer: One that only can be said by a genius. Dr Wolf has came up with some remarkable theories in his lifetime, and I feel very privileged to commune with such a person.

His little nudge gave me confidence in the Biofield theories. It made me want to take it further. But something stood in the way. For consciousness to have the properties it has, some information need to travel faster-than-light.

Excerpt
(Mind my use of N. Boyds work here... but he is not totally insane, as many would like to imagine. I think we should all be given chances...)

[Occams Ghost]

Part Three of Three

The Biofield Carries our Soul

Our Soul might not be mere mythology, as Dr Wolf shows in his fantastic book, ‘’Spiritual Universe.’’ He explains how the soul could be real using quantum mechanics. He showed that this corporeal shell we call the body is intimately related to particles embedded in the vacuum, and could be the location of our soul. It is a genius idea, but he goes further. He explains that the soul was determined at big bang, and is not restrained by the real matter of the vacuum, so upon death, the soul continues to the big crunch!

His model strongly correlated with my own plans for the Biofield. In much the same sense, I said that consciousness ‘’streamed’’ in from big bang, and could be explained best in a Bohmian Interpretation of quantum mechanics where particles are guided along a specified course.

I saw conscious energy existing in the vacuum, in a field with correlating memory. This field was designated from big bang to organize living matter. Precious energy required for the activation of such matter is initiated through conscious-providing particles.

In fact, it was actually Dr Wolf again who I adopted most of these last notions. He see’s consciousness as a great sea of thought that spilled from space and time. I think it’s a beautiful description.

And so would consciousness and the soul, inevitably flow into the omega singularity. From beginning to end, which according to the network of consciousness, was no time at all! We would have to imagine that consciousness doesn’t experience any time in imaginary time. As far as we are concerned, the universe happened for no time at all, much like a photon experiences absolutely no birth or death in relative time.

The end for some speculative physicists and philosophers might just be a new beginning. There has been many examples of this throughout human culture and religions: Such as ‘’New Born,’’ existences in Heaven, or in Hindu faith is reincarnation into new lives upon death. Who knows what God has in plan for the state of consciousness after death… Perhaps the soul does quantum leap into a new body upon death?

Maybe even the entire universe pulsates, not for eons, but rather for infinity? Existence after existence, big bang after big bang… Even Ekpyrotic Cosmological Theory predicts that every 100 trillion years or so, two universes smash off each other due to a powerful force, and causes a big bang all over again, and this would last forever. Does our universe expand and contract, only to expand again? Is this how simple and complicated it get’s into infinity? I wouldn’t go as far as saying this might be why we experience Déjà vu, but what does begs this question is Fred Wolf’s proposal that perhaps even information tunnels into our minds. Our minds, tuning into some frequency emitted from another time by particles moving through certain thicknesses in space and mostly time… could this be how we do experience Déjà vu? Could this be how psychic abilities occur? What about Entanglement? Dr Radin has proposed that quantum entanglement could answer for psychic abilities… It’s a thought or two.

[korjik]

You have seriously got to learn to make short consice posts. There is over 3000 words here. Alot of people dont have the time to go through all of that in one sitting.

[Occams Ghost]

Sorry, but if you don't have the time, might i suggest you read a small bit, and then come back to it? - - just like you would do with a novel with 100,000 words.

[crosscountry]

lots of ideas lately OG?

[Occams Ghost]

This is only the start ;)

[Nereid]

What has this got to do with astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, planetary science, and space science/physics (the explicit scope of BAUT)?

[Occams Ghost]

It involves physics... ;0

If a mod does not find the appropriate, then i don't mind if he wipes it away.

I just thought it would be inetersting... from the name of science.

[Byrd]

The essence of consciousness, to [be what is known] as active consciousness, requires a library of qualia.

At this point you need to stop and say that you are citing a philosophic definition of the mind and consciousness and are not necessarily exploring the medical, psychological, or neurological basis for mind. There's a badly written Wikipedia article on qualia... is this one your source? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

...and a rather brief Wikipedia article on consciousness that is a very tiny review of what we know and a far too brief overview of the philosophic basis of consciousness... is this your other source?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

You need to cite your sources, because they have much deeper detail than you include. Sometimes they address or raise questions that you don't consider; sometimes they answer things that we might ask.

Always cite.

The nature of qualia is very unique to the human, and also provides a sense of intentional arrangement in human perception.

Unless you're doing pure philosophy and defining a term, the logical question at this point is "how do you know that?" For instance, we could apply these same definitions of consciousness to a dog, a cat, a planaria, or a tree.

One of the arguments concerning Biofields I present, is that some field is responsible for entire biological arrangements.[quote]

Suddenly you're treading from the philosophical to the biological and medical without making a good foundation that the philosophical actually has some biological basis, and presenting a concept ("biofield") without a definition. When I look for material on biofields, I find that it's actually never been defined or proven and is sort of a vague term used in alternative medicine. This doesn't bode well for your argument when you present it to a pack of scientists.

Furthermore, I see you've been trying to convince others of your idea for at least a year: http://www.sciforums.com/Qualia-And-Biofields-t-74575.html

[quote]We must then also ask if mentality is arranged.

And how did we get from biofields to mentality?

If a field is responsible for the physical side of how a person is arranged, then qualia are a result of such configuration.
No, genetics and environment are responsible for how a person is arranged. Now... I've just given you the "5-second" version of this, but the reality is far more complex. While genes control a number of things (maturation, various abilities, whether or not you are a candidate for a disease, emotional parameters), the environment (social and physical) changes how things are expressed.

There are a number of podcast series on Berkeley's podcast site that I could recommend to you before you go further, including the following from this semester: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_feeds.php
* Psych 130 Clinical Psychology
* Psych 131 Developmental Psychopathology
* Psych 140 Developmental Psychology (this one's particularly fun)
* Psych 160 Social Psychology
* Rhetoric 10 Introduction to Practical Reasoning and Critical Analysis of Argument (some interesting stuff in there about how we think)
* Philosophy 189 Heideggers Being and Time (very deep)

And you really should broaden your view with:
* IB 31 Animal Behavior Biology: An Evolutionary Perspective Behavioral View

...and from 2007 fall semester, Marian Diamond's lectures in her course on the brain (I have used her course as reference in teaching anatomy and physiology labs at the university)
* IB 131 General Human Anatomy

Those will give you some interesting insights on how consciousness emerges and is expressed at different stages as well as pathological conditions. Mind you, those only scratch the surface and there are others I can recommend but that would be burdensome at this point.


Until now, as far as I know, philosophers and scientists alike have proposed that qualia are physical entities, either properties of the brain or of objects in the world.
Not according to Dennett, who you cited not 3 paragraphs previously. In the same Wikipedia article (which also says there's no agreed upon definition of this philosophical concept), Dennett presents some strong arguments against the existence of qualia. And, of course it doesn't meet the falsifiability test so that means it's not really used by the other sciences.

This is true, but this is where I am going to invite quantum mechanics, because it isn’t without the observer, can such qualia even exist… so in a sense, to say it is part of the physical world turns out not to be quite true at all.

...and the rest appears to be gathered from watching "What the bleep do we know", which has been adored by people unfamiliar with quantum mechanics and panned by everyone who knows about neuroscience and psychology and quantum mechanics.

The vacuum has been shown to have a memory.

Y'know, I don't believe this. Do you have a citation I can check?

It has been proven that the two hemispheres, of the brain are responsible for differential activities. The following comparatives foundation creates the differences between left-brain and right-brain thinking:

(sigh) Wikipedia at its less-than-finest. That's "sort of true" but not really, because the functions are actually distributed and integrated. Here's a more recent abstract that shows this:
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/11/10/954

The human brain is the most complicated computer in the world. It can devise answers that no Boolean automaton can ever hope to comprise.

You're comparing "devices" with two different types of logic functions. In fact, human brains don't use Boolean logic but appear to use other types of logic, including "fuzzy logic"; a concept that's difficult to program. And calling it "the most complicated computer in the world" is really sort of homo-centric, isn't it? Take a look at the anatomy of a dolphin brain sometime.


The brain itself is made mostly of water, and this natural computer is just three pounds of gray and white matter, (gray matter is the most dominant).

Can I (as someone who's taught anatomy) politely say "ARRRRGH!"(?) If you carefully separate out the white matter (myelinated neurons) from the gray matter (unmyelinated neurons) you will find that the white quite outweighs the gray. Hie thyself to an anatomy lab (or to a "Body Worlds" exhibit) and look for yourself.

The human brain has thousands of millions of working components, and these little workers operate the entire body.

You're off by a factor of "quite a bit." It's "billions."

Uhm... the rest of the brain anatomy lecture of yours would get you an "F" in the lab. There's a Wikipedia article that is just a starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_function

I wouldn't fall too much in love with the material presented there, because it's sort of the equivalent of telling someone that "Washington DC is the capitol of the United States and the President and Senators live there." It's a nice start but it's necessarily very shallow.

And this, I think, is the main problem: your sources are very shallow and seem to be summaries of much more lengthy material (and often summaries that don't do a good job of condensing the original or cherry pick information or just plain misunderstand it.)

Try writing and citing so we can look at your sources. But at this point, I really think you'd do well to kick back and start listening to the Berkeley lectures.

You might also want to listen to their quantum mechanics podcast... the Real Stuff:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978479

[Byrd]

You have seriously got to learn to make short consice posts. There is over 3000 words here. Alot of people dont have the time to go through all of that in one sitting.

I'm afraid Occam is copying and pasting material presented (under another name) in other forums. While the ideas appear to have been enlarged, initial problems don't appear to have been addressed.

[crosscountry]

What has this got to do with astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, planetary science, and space science/physics (the explicit scope of BAUT)?

you are kidding right? I thought this was a place where educated people can discuss things. If not I'd better find some other place to go.

[Nereid]

It involves physics... ;0

If a mod does not find the appropriate, then i don't mind if he wipes it away.

I just thought it would be inetersting... from the name of science.I should have been more careful to state that I was wearing only my ordinary BAUT member hat when posting, not a mod one.

[Moderator Note]
When I write as a mod, I nearly always do so like this.
[/Moderator Note]

There's a great deal of physics that has little, if any, applicability to astronomy etc, so just 'cause your idea involves physics in some way doesn't mean that it automatically falls within the scope of BAUT.

And a bazillion things might be "inetersting" (whatever that means), including much of religion and politics, and the rider "from the name of science" could be used for much of that too.

[Nereid]

you are kidding right? I thought this was a place where educated people can discuss things. If not I'd better find some other place to go.
IIRC, this has been discussed at some length, in several threads in About BAUT.

IIRC, the conclusion of the discussions seemed to be something like this:

* if it's mainstream science, but not astronomy etc, then General Science is the place for it

* except, of course, for the explicit exclusions (religion and politics)

* if it's not science, then OTB is where it's at

* if it's an ATM idea, then the ATM section is the right place ... but only if the ATM idea has some clearly demonstrable pertinence to astronomy etc

* ditto CT - 9/11 conspiracy ideas are out of bounds, for example.

The reasons are many; one of them is that non-astronomy etc ATM ideas are not likely to be challenged and questioned to the same depth as astronomy etc ones, if only because those who do the challenging and questioning are (generally) less familiar with the relevant fields of science.

In this particular case, the ATM ideas presented in this thread seem to involve considerable philosophy, an area of research that many regulars have been quite vocal about ...

[Occams Ghost]

Jesus christ... byrd... i am not copying or pasting anything.

My source was from elsewhere...

However, i will tackle your incongruities soon.

[Occams Ghost]

Byrd
At this point you need to stop and say that you are citing a philosophic definition of the mind and consciousness and are not necessarily exploring the medical, psychological, or neurological basis for mind. There's a badly written Wikipedia article on qualia... is this one your source? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

...and a rather brief Wikipedia article on consciousness that is a very tiny review of what we know and a far too brief overview of the philosophic basis of consciousness... is this your other source?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

You need to cite your sources, because they have much deeper detail than you include. Sometimes they address or raise questions that you don't consider; sometimes they answer things that we might ask.''

One can mix poetry into it if one desires.

''And how did we get from biofields to mentality?''

When did mentality become outside the laws of physics, and of this case, biological arrangement>???>

''No, genetics and environment are responsible for how a person is arranged. Now... I've just given you the "5-second" version of this, but the reality is far more complex. While genes control a number of things (maturation, various abilities, whether or not you are a candidate for a disease, emotional parameters), the environment (social and physical) changes how things are expressed.

There are a number of podcast series on Berkeley's podcast site that I could recommend to you before you go further, including the following from this semester: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_feeds.php
* Psych 130 Clinical Psychology
* Psych 131 Developmental Psychopathology
* Psych 140 Developmental Psychology (this one's particularly fun)
* Psych 160 Social Psychology
* Rhetoric 10 Introduction to Practical Reasoning and Critical Analysis of Argument (some interesting stuff in there about how we think)
* Philosophy 189 Heideggers Being and Time (very deep)

And you really should broaden your view with:
* IB 31 Animal Behavior Biology: An Evolutionary Perspective Behavioral View

...and from 2007 fall semester, Marian Diamond's lectures in her course on the brain (I have used her course as reference in teaching anatomy and physiology labs at the university)
* IB 131 General Human Anatomy

Those will give you some interesting insights on how consciousness emerges and is expressed at different stages as well as pathological conditions. Mind you, those only scratch the surface and there are others I can recommend but that would be burdensome at this point.'

I will not comment on larger part of this, however, genetics is founded on mere statistics. Genetics can answer for many things, but i am asking what arranges seemingly dead matter into such illustrious arrangements. Does genetics eveolve genetics? Can a single atom tell another how to arrange into an entire lifrform? These are the questions i ask.

''Not according to Dennett, who you cited not 3 paragraphs previously. In the same Wikipedia article (which also says there's no agreed upon definition of this philosophical concept), Dennett presents some strong arguments against the existence of qualia. And, of course it doesn't meet the falsifiability test so that means it's not really used by the other sciences.''

Sorry, but reading that article, didn't it mention physical arrangement as well?

''...and the rest appears to be gathered from watching "What the bleep do we know", which has been adored by people unfamiliar with quantum mechanics and panned by everyone who knows about neuroscience and psychology and quantum mechanics. ''

Wrong. My own assumptions. What makes you think i would intentionally remember anything from that show? This work?

''Y'know, I don't believe this. Do you have a citation I can check?''

I've shown you the work made by PhD scientists. Get over it.

I can't be arsed fixing the last of your nit-picking.

[grant hutchison]

Dr. Robert Neil Boyd says this phenomenon best.
...
‘’
...
Later, some researchers did things like take the rats’ brains completely out and turn them sideways, upside-down, backwards, and all manner of directions. The rats which were treated in these barbaric manners never lost their ability to negotiate the maze. Later on, out of sheer frustration that Pribram's expressions might be right, one research team went so far as to remove the brain from a rat and put it through a blender. Then they poured the resulting liquidic slurry back into the poor rat's skull. When the rat awoke from the anesthetic, it effortlessly ran the maze, and otherwise went on about its business.
...
"
Dr Robert Neil Boyd is talking (hilarious) nonsense here*. This has already been pointed out (http://www.bautforum.com/general-science/70240-memory-information.html) to Occams Ghost.

Grant Hutchison

* Original article (http://www.rialian.com/rnboyd/fabrics-of-consciousness-rev3.doc) by Robert Neil Boyd.

[Ronald Brak]

That's one heck of a zombie rat.

Maybe he's thinking of some research done with salamanders. And even then they didn't use a blender. I mean, honestly, a salamander brain is what we scientists call very, very small. It would just sit on the bottom and the blender blades would pass right above it.

[hhEb09'1]

I should have been more careful to state that I was wearing only my ordinary BAUT member hat when posting, not a mod one.

[Moderator Note]
When I write as a mod, I nearly always do so like this.
[/Moderator Note]It would be more helpful if you included the tags ([poster mode] for instance) when you weren't posting as moderator, since your post is clearly flagged as a moderator by default.

Not everyone will have read this announcement.

[Nereid]

It would be more helpful if you included the tags ([poster mode] for instance) when you weren't posting as moderator, since your post is clearly flagged as a moderator by default.

Not everyone will have read this announcement.[non-mod mode]

Thanks; that's a good suggestion, which I will apply in all ATM posts from now on.

[/non-mod mode]
[non-mod mode]

ETA: "ATM" added ("all ATM posts"), as the distinction has not - to my knowledge - ever caused a problem in any other section of BAUT.

[/non-mod mode]

[Van Rijn]

Dr Robert Neil Boyd is talking (hilarious) nonsense here*. This has already been pointed out (http://www.bautforum.com/general-science/70240-memory-information.html) to Occams Ghost.

Grant Hutchison

* Original article (http://www.rialian.com/rnboyd/fabrics-of-consciousness-rev3.doc) by Robert Neil Boyd.

Ah, yes. This is the guy that really does believe in invisible elves. Quoting from:

http://www.rialian.com/rnboyd/littlepeople.htm

The little people are normally invisible to human sight. Many of them have their Being in part in another dimension, or reality, slightly removed from ours. This reality is right next door to ours, in fact, touching ours. So I call them the "Almost Here People". In some locations, there are overlappings of these neighboring realities, which make the Little People readily apparent to the normal human visual faculty. If such a location is in your vicinity, it is highly recommended that you spend some time there. Because in these places, not only will you see the Little People, but you may well encounter many of the other supposedly mythological creatures as well.

I find that a bit annoying. I picked the "invisible elf" idea because it was so obviously a joke. I probably wouldn't have picked it if I had known there was someone who was seriously arguing for it. Then again, I suppose there has to be someone that would take IEs seriously. :wall:

[Van Rijn]

That's one heck of a zombie rat.

Maybe he's thinking of some research done with salamanders. And even then they didn't use a blender. I mean, honestly, a salamander brain is what we scientists call very, very small. It would just sit on the bottom and the blender blades would pass right above it.

It reminds me of the old planarian worm experiments, if one gets just about everything wrong, including the species. Here's one link I found discussing the experiments:

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=826389

As suggested there, and as I seem to recall, the conditions and results of the experiments were heavily debated. I get the feeling that Boyd blended some memories of rat and worm experiments, then threw in some items from his own imagination, and didn't actually bother to verify any of his blend matched real experiments.

[Occams Ghost]

I think Boyd is misunderstood. In other area's, i would entertain some of his idea's.

[crosscountry]

this is one of those cases where the "misunderstood" messenger keeps sending the wrong message.


Why trust someone that has been proven wrong?

[Van Rijn]

I think Boyd is misunderstood. In other area's, i would entertain some of his idea's.

Could you give some examples? Presumably, these would be scientific arguments that Boyd could support, as opposed to the silliness about rats with blended brains, and stuff about little people in other dimensions.

[Occams Ghost]

Hey, i agree... little people in other dimensions??? WTF?

The only life as we know it can exist in 3+1 dimensions...

But if Boyd had said ''life living in the 6th dimension'' -- then people would be little, and life could exist, including a tiny universe, according to Hawking.

[Abelian Grape]

But if Boyd had said ''life living in the 6th dimension'' -- then people would be little, and life could exist, including a tiny universe, according to Hawking.


Cite please? Specifically where [presumably Stephen] Hawking says anything about little people and life existing in other than our known, macroscopic, three dimensions.

[Van Rijn]

Hey, i agree... little people in other dimensions??? WTF?

The only life as we know it can exist in 3+1 dimensions...

But if Boyd had said ''life living in the 6th dimension'' -- [snip]


Then it would be the wildest of unsupportable speculation. Now, can you provide any examples of arguments by Boyd that can be scientifically supported? That would mean they were supported by experiment, by evidence. That wouldn't be speculation or philosophical interpretation.

[Occams Ghost]

Ab

Look up ''baby universes and the sixth dimension...''

Or alternatively, buy his book, ''baby universes and black holes.''

He did say this. It's a well-known theorem. Tiny universes squeezed off existence of our own.

[Occams Ghost]

-- and wait... Hawking never said little people. That was my assertion. But if it is a microscopic universe, then think about it.

[Abelian Grape]

Ab

Look up ''baby universes and the sixth dimension...''

I did, and didn't find anything to match your assertions. Perhaps you could point more precisely to the source you are using.

Are you by chance referring to the five or six extra, extremely tiny dimensions hypothesized as part of what goes by the name of "string theory" today? The dimensions involved are supposed to be of the order of size of the strings, which represent elementary particles like electrons and quarks.

Not a lot of room in there to construct "little people", nor much to construct them from. As you say in the next post, inhabiting those hypothetical -- typically Calabi-Yau -- spaces with hypothetical little people is your idea anyway, not Hawking's. And the existence of invisible "little people", not tiny dimensions, is one of those silly ideas you are trying to support.

"String theory" is in any case misnamed, since it is not a single, testable idea. No one working in the field yet has a clue how to construct those dimensions, for a start, though they have some general concepts (like Calabi-Yau).

Or alternatively, buy his book, ''baby universes and black holes.''


Must be a new book. It's not on Amazon, unless "his" doesn't refer to Stephen Hawking, or the title is not as given. Hawking has written quite a bit on black holes: one of his specialities, don't you know. In "The Universe in a Nutshell" he does give a really simplified overview of string theory, but that title doesn't look much like yours.

ADDITION: I did find the book you meant. Title is "Black Holes and Baby Universes". Sorry, it does exist, though with a slightly different title. Have not read the relevant essay (it's a book of essays, apparently). Anything there that is relevant to little people in our universe?

He did say this. It's a well-known theorem. Tiny universes squeezed off existence of our own.

Sounds more like speculation than a "well-known theorem" -- whatever that might be in science. In any case, if these universes are "squeezed off" ours, they --and any supposed inhabitants -- are not likely to be accessible to us, are they?

Off topic, but you do know that the Doug Adams quote in your sig is a joke, right? It makes no sense mathematically. Also, the title is "The Restaurant ...", not "A Restaurant ...".

[Byrd]

One can mix poetry into it if one desires.

Erm... you started out with your Theory of Universes and now you say you're mixing poetry in there?

''And how did we get from biofields to mentality?''

When did mentality become outside the laws of physics, and of this case, biological arrangement>???>
"Mentality" isn't a science as far as I know, and has never been studied using the tools of physics because physics tools are incapable of getting good answers from the study of the mind. It's rather like using road grading equipment to make a pair of dentures.

There are lots of disciplines that study different aspects of the mind.

I will not comment on larger part of this, however, genetics is founded on mere statistics. Genetics can answer for many things, but i am asking what arranges seemingly dead matter into such illustrious arrangements. Does genetics eveolve genetics? Can a single atom tell another how to arrange into an entire lifrform? These are the questions i ask.

Then you need to look at chemistry, biochemistry, neurology, and developmental biology.


Nope. It mentions qualia as a theoretical construct; not a physical construct.

[quote]Wrong. My own assumptions. What makes you think i would intentionally remember anything from that show? This work?

Perhaps because some of it is so very similar... and because you don't cite your sources.

I've shown you the work made by PhD scientists. Get over it.

I can't be arsed fixing the last of your nit-picking.

Actually, you tell us you're presenting the works of PhD scientists, but you misattribute many things (we've corrected you on some of this) and you never link to where you get the information. Any time you post on a board full of people who have had to write papers and stand up and defend proofs to a room full of real scientists, you should expect to be asked about your references.

This is particularly true any time you present something that is novel or counterintuitive.

[hhEb09'1]

[non-mod mode]

Thanks; that's a good suggestion, which I will apply in all ATM posts from now on.

[/non-mod mode]Wow, you're now incognito. Kara Zor-El? :)