damn it, those urls glitches are aggravating....

this one should work fine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAI5rLnnCBE

Yo!

if you just saw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAI5rLnnCBE
[growing organs]

follow up:
http://singularityhub.com/2011/07/09/in … o-patient/

All good news  :  )

Hi dudes,

well, that's exactly what I was thinking about it (remembering Einstein's brain analysis you mentioned in ICMM - just like to say I've really read it...

and this particular "pattern of confusion" is so widely distributed across all aspects of the world & society, it's truly outstanding nobody has ever named it up to now... Maybe sth like err... "the cause-effect confusion", I dunno. Now, I begin to wonder if it's not merely an expression of the "codependent arising of the universe/reality*".

Btw, I realise it's a good occasion to precise something about my semantical use of these terms. When I use the term 'world' I ALWAYS mean something very specific and which is not the same thing as 'the planet', 'the universe', or 'reality'. In my semantics, all of these have different meanings, and I make something like an ultimate thumb rule about them, not to use one for another. Though I guess I can make mistakes sometimes.

Here's a short reminder:

- reality: the totality of everything, from what is utterly and definitely inaccessible to our senses (which is what I strictly mean when I write it "Reality"**), to the realm of our minds and imagination (concepts and abstractions, etc...), passing by anything that takes some kind of tangible shape - through the prism of our senses or detection devices - and that we can perceive around/in us.

- the universe: it represents the particular referential that we consider as the global environment in which the Earth, the Sun , all its planets, the system itself, the other stars, the galaxy, etc... are evolving. As above, it represents the territory, but with a capital "U" this time, it represents the map of it (that is to say the Big Bang model and general relativity theory + quantum mechanics, etc...).

- the world (a very tricky term): the physical, biological, mental and spiritual realm (including the planet and the few human settlements outside of it [ISS mainly]) humanity has progressively built as its "main environment" from the point of view of one's everyday consciousness. Interestingly, I realise it includes 'society' (and so the expression 'the world & society' is somehow a bit redundant). I'll probably avoid using it with a capital "W" in the future, cause it already represents a concept, so...

- the planet: the fucking planet we designate as "Earth".

- society: the set of organisational, philosophical and moral rules we more or less accept to abide to in order to ... damn! I don't see what it is actually made for aside breaking our fucking balls... most probably fatigue, sorry guys...

Have fun, dudes, it's just a ride!

Scalino

Notes:
*: pick your own choice

**: it's rather an exceptional use of the capital letter by my standards, but reality is an exceptional "concept"...

Hi dude,
I think I have a reasonable counter-argument here (get the vin rouge out)  :  )  ...

"the cause-effect confusion" or “mistaking correlation for cause/effect” has been well documented, as has the “fundamental attribution error” of blaming 'just human nature' or 'just upbringing & nurture' for all humanity's problems.
However, information like this rarely reaches most people simply because they don't read. I mean, they read celebrity magazines and TV guides etc and that's about it.

It's great to define our own meanings for stuff but a major problem I've found is that people won't remember our definitions about ten minutes after they have read them; the old familiar associations and meanings for words will reassert themselves, entirely without the reader noticing, just like snapback. Where there are already clear familiar meanings already associated with terms, this will always happen, and if they are scientific terms I would tend to try not to increase confusion by hijacking them (hence the difficulty in the naming of things not yet widely known).

Most importantly, I feel it's unwise to encourage the use of scientific terms for abstract philosophical concepts; a lot of the woo-woo confusion in quantum science has arisen because of precisely this.

If I had to find a place for 'society' as a definitive term, I would go with Mendizza's* definition of “counterfeit culture” in the same way I understand sentiment as counterfeit emotion. 'Society' is an artificial construct; a simulation that is both a cause and a result of mass sickness, and must at some stage be recognized as such and clearly separated from 'culture' and 'the world' if humanity is to continue evolving intelligence. I believe it will only cause more confusion to give it any more credence than that, just as superstition and woo woo will cause more confusion if they are treated as real science. Calling society the world is simply telling confusing lies; like calling someone's genetically mutated and diseased lapdog 'the noble wolf.' That poor little dude is not a wolf, never was a wolf, will never be a wolf, and shouldn't be called a wolf. It is a counterfeit wolf.

Such concepts need debunking in their defining, and I think the person who most excelled at that task with 'society' was George Carlin. “It's bullshit and its bad for ya”  :  )
The reason you can't see what society is for apart from ball-breaking is that it is not 'for' anything. It is a self perpetuating mess that we should not be passing on to future generations.

I will never be comfortable using the term 'world' for anything other than planets, because I know how the terms we use form associations in our minds and I don't want to start building false ones. 'Realm' is an excellent choice for fictional constructs.

I consider this sort of thing just as important (and possibly more important) as not using (and so helping to phase out) racist or sexist terms. If I tell people I don't know what they mean when they use such terms, it helps encourage thought about themselves and what they believe. When I thought about how using those terms ourselves unconsciously forges false connections and associations in our minds that lead to incongruency, I did some discourse analysis to find out how much false information I was constantly reinforcing in myself and everyone else I talked to. That's where the resolution came from to be 'a part of the solution' rather than a part of the problem, and I'm still tutoring myself to stay away from terms that should ideally (for our optimal health) become obsolete.

Better stop; I think it is a case of verbal diarhoea I am having!
Best,
AR

*I am aware that Mendizza has 'society' and 'culture' the other way round; largely due to the influence of Pearce.

Hi dudes,
Re: Paul Bloom, The Origins of Pleasure (http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_the … asure.html)

A pleasure indeed to see Bloom's excellent presentation! Lots of great insights about input control and autonomy of experience, and shitloads about perception and imagination...I sorta found myself wishing it had been called 'the perception of pleasure', because that's what its really about, but Bloom keeps it simple, clear and easy to understand, and includes all his source experiment references. More of this!  :  )
Best,
AR

There are so great, smart people in every field.

Sometimes i can't believe that the people in the mainstrearm field about neuroscience, don't take "all the pieces" together and get closer and closer to what intelligence real is.

I mean i see that we have a lot of stuff floating around, some more useful than others, but we don't have a theory, or a map, (except here), and we are aware that "the map is not the territory", but here we are ...

Why all the others people can't do the same?

Isn't that what you did alex? take other research, plus your owns, and voila! matrix theory borns ..

Why isn't done more research about new stuff about how the brain works, and not the same thing again and again, for example i see more research coming about how great exercise and meditation is for the brain, but that isn't news, move on to new stuff!

I'm not saying that that kind of research is bad, because it can help to know exactly the type of program people c an do and get the most benefits (duration, time, type, etc).

Sometimes it blows my mind really, look at me, an average guy, with no scientific background, but with only the desire and curiosity to know more about myself, about intellience, and how to discover my personal true potential .. and here i am (after months and months of looking at the internet related sites i found the yahoo group and later this one) and maybe i'm more up to date to some neuroscients than thinks that iq is intelligence? (or some another old  theory of the brain)

I know that a reason can be that most of the funds for research are for illness or the development of medication because is profitable. But when i see sites like this one, the erowid site, the google group brain training, that without that money we are doing more and getting closer to the reality that a lot of people in the mainstream.

Let's use our imagination ..

"What if escenarios"

What will happend if that mainstream guys working in the field (ex: Jeff Hawkins, Ramachandran) found out sites like this?

They will take the time to read it? or theirs "ego" will put in the middle? (I don't think that will be the case in the people mentioned because to go as far like theirs they must have an open mind, but i know a lot of people who feels like they have the keys of the truth)

So, basically what i'm trying to say with all this stuff .. is that we have a lot of good information out there (a lot of crap too), and a lot of smart and competent people, and sometimes i think that "we" are not working together with a common goal, too much "individual" stuff.

I love to see new findings about the brain, but because the mainstream don't have a good map/theory of the brain, is just another piece in the puzzle that we don't know where it belongs .. and what to do exactly with it ..

Of course this opinion is only a look from "outside" i don't belong to this field .. maybe the "inside reality" is another ..

Edit: BTW i just listen again the Jeff Hawkins talk, excellent, somehow even answer or throw some light to some of the "questions" above.

This is one of his last talks about the topic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We-gbt4Og_M

We need more guys like him!

Cheers

sakiro wrote re: jeff hawkins:
This is one of his last talks about the topic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We-gbt4Og_M

Just caught up with this!
Hawkins is SO right about neuroscientists not studying theory! Good to hear someone else saying it. To fail to study new discovery in your own field freezes your knowledge base in whatever era you stopped studying in.

He's well on the way to copying networks 1 & 2 on pattern recognition and I think he's got the association between spatial/temporal coordinates and processing, although the latter may be 'reproduced it' rather than 'understood it'.

He's verging on modeling N3 but sounds like he's held back by not sussing how information is represented, he could go in top down and work backwards from language to metaphor to abstraction of associated data, or he could go in bottom up and (re)discover eidetic archtypes. I'm betting on the first option. If anyone wants to bet on the latter option the bet is a pint of guinness payable on jeff's discovery  :  )

I don't think he's got the relationship between coordinated neuronal behavior and the rules of emergence yet, but he's sussed memory and prediction and that's two out of the big three processes of a mature brain (memory/prediction/imagination) so I reackon this dude is definitely a main one to watch if you're into AI that can learn. He's a damned good lecturer too; straightforward, unassuming and funny.
Very cool,
AR

Hi dude,
It's a leftover from the book cover shoot, cropped to miss out the cup of tea  :  )
I'm wearing a small NMS kit with home made electrodes and an earphone link to output from a  GSR biofeedback unit.
Instructions for making your own are still on the yahoo group under 'swamp cycling'.

The cyborg thing was an important phase for me. I used to wear tech most of the time to monitor what my brain was up to, I've now gotten to know it well enough to recognize its states without the prostheses.
Best,
AR