New stuff in neuroscience

If true; and designs of experiments can show it true, it is a major step. It can lead toward to a move away from a PoV of strictly material storage regarding the experience of living things. The model can be the brain is a receiver and the information is stored naturally, just not solely in brain "material".

I think is is a more likely avenue of discovery than amazing NDE's or telepathic prowess.

Yeah, I think it's rather interesting and as you say potentially more profitable for immaterialists than paranormal research. At least there's tons of funding here.

Of course the materialist Rosenberg already agrees brains don't have memory...he just argues that means there is no history, and really no thought at all.
 
Yeah, I think it's rather interesting and as you say potentially more profitable for immaterialists than paranormal research. At least there's tons of funding here.

Of course the materialist Rosenberg already agrees brains don't have memory...he just argues that means there is no history, and really no thought at all.

No thought at all. That's odd, he must have had to use thought to write his books.
 
not necessarly. the books could be a result of neuronal interactions. hes a materialist after all, its propably something like that, isnt it?

Well to him - and a few other nihilists - the thought that we have thoughts is an illusion.:eek: Check out the Atheist's Guide to Reality. I don't think any other book I got this year made me more convinced materialism is likely false.
 
Well to him - and a few other nihilists - the thought that we have thoughts is an illusion.:eek: Check out the Atheist's Guide to Reality. I don't think any other book I got this year made me more convinced materialism is likely false.

That's so patently false though. Throw out thoughts and consciousness and you throw out every bit of science, as every scientific discovery as been found thanks to thinking. If one actually denies thoughts and consciousness, then surely that is awfully close to solipsism in that everything is just an illusion.
 
That's so patently false though. Throw out thoughts and consciousness and you throw out every bit of science, as every scientific discovery as been found thanks to thinking. If one actually denies thoughts and consciousness, then surely that is awfully close to solipsism in that everything is just an illusion.

Well Dennet tried to examine the possibility that heuristics designed by evolution would account for the qualitative & determinate (note, not talking determinism here) aspects of the mind but he - AFAIK - turned away from the implications.

I'll find his paper where he notes how disastrous materialism can be for society, but there's apparently hope if we cherish corpses or somesuch...
 
Well Dennet tried to examine the possibility that heuristics designed by evolution would account for the qualitative & determinate (note, not talking determinism here) aspects of the mind but he - AFAIK - turned away from the implications.

I'll find his paper where he notes how disastrous materialism can be for society, but there's apparently hope if we cherish corpses or somesuch...

While I think pretty well any metaphysic can be packaged in different ways (with different effects), you sound like you're advocating for some kind of Noble Lie?
 
You seem to be saying that even if materialism is true, that given that it could be interpreted in negative ways, it should not be promoted.

Speaking for myself - materialism is a great methodological practice. It is supremely effective at describing bottom/upward causation. It is just not inclusive of all of reality. Do you have a way to use materialism in a top/down causation investigation?

If an electronic device isn't working - to find a short - materialism is the way to go. But, if the failure mode is in the software, no amount of ammeter testing will find it. The methodology calls for "informationalism" a method with complementarity to materialism. Reality has top/down and bottom/up interaction. Materialism has a tacit and vestigial structure that labels "ideas" as human, hence not natural. And therefore a casual candidate for ontological top/down action, from material brains.

Whereas, like transformers of energy - living things are natural transformers of informational "objects" and not a magic source of functional information secreted like bile.
 
Speaking for myself - materialism is a great methodological practice. It is supremely effective at describing bottom/upward causation. It is just not inclusive of all of reality. Do you have a way to use materialism in a top/down causation investigation?

If an electronic device isn't working - to find a short - materialism is the way to go. But, if the failure mode is in the software, no amount of ammeter testing will find it. The methodology calls for "informationalism" a method with complementarity to materialism. Reality has top/down and bottom/up interaction. Materialism has a tacit and vestigial structure that labels "ideas" as human, hence not natural. And therefore a casual candidate for ontological top/down action, from material brains.

Whereas, like transformers of energy - living things are natural transformers of informational "objects" and not a magic source of functional infoFrmation secreted like bile.

I'm separating the question of whether materialism (or any metaphysical position for that matter) is true vs. what the implications are if it is true.

People commonly argue that this or that metaphysical position should have disastrous implications if accepted. If that's true (I'm not sure it is, but for the sake of the argument) then this leads to the conclusion that if the particular metaphysical position is - in fact - true, we should still try to convince people that its not.
 
I'm separating the question of whether materialism (or any metaphysical position for that matter) is true vs. what the implications are if it is true.

People commonly argue that this or that metaphysical position should have disastrous implications if accepted. If that's true (I'm not sure it is, but for the sake of the argument) then this leads to the conclusion that if the particular metaphysical position is - in fact - true, we should still try to convince people that its not.

Materialism is a disastrous implication.
 
I'm separating the question of whether materialism (or any metaphysical position for that matter) is true vs. what the implications are if it is true.

People commonly argue that this or that metaphysical position should have disastrous implications if accepted. If that's true (I'm not sure it is, but for the sake of the argument) then this leads to the conclusion that if the particular metaphysical position is - in fact - true, we should still try to convince people that its not.
The right level of abstraction (LoA) needs to be clear to have a conversation. I am not addressing materialism as a ethical view, but as a methodological view in the exploration of mind, body and behavior. The LoA of Methodological Materialism, as a pragmatic practice, has been invaluable. It is just clearly too "small" to cover all phenomena in the scope of the mind, brain and behavior in the environment. The "too small" comes in the last 70 or so years as we have found that logic leverages natural information structures and relations; as discovered by Shannon, Weiner, Turing and Von Neumann.

I think mixing metaphysical ideas about the "magic power" of matter or of information, clouds the issues and are at a different LoA, than naturally observed reality. Pragmatic ideas about the influence of logic. ala C. S. Peirce seem better suited to address the implications of expressed behavior in living things. In the same mode -when Peirce toys with Idealism - he losses his grounding. imho..
 
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More new stuff.
Human brain keeps memories tidy by pruning inaccurate ones
by Michael Hotchkiss

Forget about it. Your brain is a memory powerhouse, constantly recording experiences in long-term memory. Those memories help you find your way through the world: Who works the counter each morning at your favorite coffee shop? How do you turn on the headlights of your car? What color is your best friend's house?
But then your barista leaves for law school, you finally buy a new car and your buddy spends the summer with a paint brush in hand. Suddenly, your memories are out of date.

What happens next?

An experiment conducted by researchers from Princeton University and the University of Texas-Austin shows that the human brain uses memories to make predictions about what it expects to find in familiar contexts. When those subconscious predictions are shown to be wrong, the related memories are weakened and are more likely to be forgotten. And the greater the error, the more likely you are to forget the memory.

"This has the benefit ultimately of reducing or eliminating noisy or inaccurate memories and prioritizing those things that are more reliable and that are more accurate in terms of the current state of the world," said Nicholas Turk-Browne, an associate professor of psychology at Princeton and one of the researchers. he research was featured in an article, "Pruning of memories by context-based prediction error," that appeared in 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The other co-authors are Ghootae Kim, a Princeton graduate student; Jarrod Lewis-Peacock, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas-Austin; and Kenneth Norman, a Princeton professor of psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute.
Video:
The researchers' experiment involved 24 adults, who were shown a series of photos one at a time while their brain activity was monitored by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. The participants were asked a question about each photo, but the real purpose of the exercise was to monitor their brain activity as the photos were shown.

The photos included three-photo sequences, such as two photos of faces followed by a photo of a scene. In this example, the first two photos would appear again later in the series, but this time would be followed by a new face rather than the scene. The researchers measured how strongly participants were expecting to see a photo of the scene the second time by looking for the pattern of brain activity associated with that scene, around the time when it should have appeared in the sequence. Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-human-brain-memories-tidy-pruning.html
 
This article shows how the brain integrates between its parts to accomplish a task.
Two brain regions join forces for absolute pitch

People who have "absolute pitch" can identify notes immediately without relying on a reference tone. Intensive research is being conducted into the neuronal basis of this extraordinary ability at the University of Zurich's Department of Neuropsychology. The researchers have now detected a close functional link between the auditory cortex in the brain and the frontal lobe in these extraordinary people – a discovery that is not only important in theory, but also in practice.
Mozart, Bach and Beethoven are all supposed to have had it: "absolute pitch" – the ability to identify and categorize a note without having to rely on any reference tones. People with absolute pitch perceive a note and can identify it accurately as C sharp, A or F sharp, for instance. Most other people are only able to distinguish between notes relatively. While, with a prevalence of one percent in the normal population, the remarkable ability is relatively rare, it is observed twenty percent more frequently in professional musicians. It is often suspected that this special hearing skill is a key aspect of extraordinary musical talent.

A team headed by Professor Lutz Jäncke has already been conducting intensive research into this phenomenon in the Music Lab at UZH's Department of Neuropsychology for many years. In a current study involving musicians with absolute pitch, there is now evidence that, according to first author Stefan Elmer, opens up a new view on the underlying psychological and neurophysiological processes involved in absolute pitch: "Our study shows how two brain regions, namely the auditory cortex and the dorsal frontal lobe, work together for absolute pitch. In the process, we combine two essentially conflicting explanatory approaches for the phenomenon."
Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-brain-regions-absolute-pitch.html
 
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Brain scientists figure out how a protein crucial to learning and memory works
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have found out how a protein crucial to learning works: by removing a biochemical "clamp" that prevents connections between nerve cells in the brain from growing stronger. The finding moves neuroscientists a step closer to figuring out how learning and memory work, and how problems with them can arise. A report on the discovery appears Jan. 7 in the journal Neuron.
Animals learn and form memories when connections called synapses among brain cells form and grow stronger. Researchers have long known that a crucial step in the process is the flow of calcium ions into the synapse area, but "what happens next has been a mystery for 25 years," says Rick Huganir, Ph.D. , director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Previous studies suggested the calcium activates a protein called CaMKII, but CaMKII's precise role in the process remained unknown.

To find it, research associate Yoichi Araki, Ph.D., added chemicals to lab-grown neurons to spur them to form stronger connections and saw that at rest, a protein called SynGAP was concentrated in so-called dendritic spines that form synapses with other cells—a pattern previous experiments also had identified.
Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-brain-scientists-figure-protein-crucial.html
 
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Neurotransmission caught on camera

Scientists have captured the exact point and time when information is exchanged between brain cells, a breakthrough that could explain how and why neurological conditions like schizophrenia or epilepsy occur.
An international team, led by Professor Rory Duncan at Heriot-Watt University, has used new 'super-resolution' microscopy or 'nanoscopy' techniques to understand how synapses function and ultimately transmit information throughout the brain and nervous system.

These new results, published in Nature Communications, will lead to better understanding of synapses, the structures in nerve cells in the brain, at the single molecule level and perhaps pinpoint where and when certain neurological conditions begin. These molecules drive neurotransmission and the new microscope techniques allow them to be seen in action for the first time.

Professor Rory Duncan, an expert in molecular membrane biology and microscopy at Heriot-Watt University, said, "Until now, nobody has understood exactly how neurotransmission worked, because the techniques to analyse it were limited.

"We've developed sophisticated microscope methods to determine how synapses are regulated and function, in real time and with massive accuracy. The molecules we can see, and track in their thousands using mathematical approaches, are as small to us as Jupiter is large; these new 'super-resolution' techniques mean that biologists can at last see the things that make.

Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-neurotransmission-caught-camera.html
 
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