Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-31 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 29 Oct 2013, at 23:26, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/29/2013 7:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's  
still too much an aristotelian way to express the identity  
thesis. Consciousness is not physical, it is the mental state of  
person associated to machines, when those person develop *some*  
true belief.


Why do you specify *true* belief.


Because we want the first axiom of knowledge to be satisfied:  
know(p) - p.




That seems very restrictive and even untestable, since we're never  
sure whether a belief is true.


That's what makes this definition of knowledge compatible with the  
dream argument. We know very few things as such indeed.


Then it works. Bp  p gives a logic of subjective time, coherent with  
associating a person to a computation.
Physical time is something different, and it is still an open problem  
if anything like that can exist.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-31 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 30 Oct 2013, at 00:17, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 5:27 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:





To be sure, I don't like the idea of Übermensch.

At least we know there is no Übermachine.

There is just a universal baby god (the universal person/machine)


But this is how I see the concept of Übermensch. The idea got horribly
distorted by subsequent political events. The ideal of Übermensch is a
human that transcends the illusion and becomes aware of it's true (1p)
nature. I also see it as close to Buddhist ideas.


The Übermensch feels superior, it seems to me (and is indicated by  
Über).

The Buddhist feels like an ultimate beginner. I would say.

Bruno

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-31 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 30 Oct 2013, at 12:05, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 2:51 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 10/29/2013 4:17 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

But this is how I see the concept of Übermensch. The idea got  
horribly
distorted by subsequent political events. The ideal of Übermensch  
is a
human that transcends the illusion and becomes aware of it's true  
(1p)

nature. I also see it as close to Buddhist ideas.


I certainly agree that Nietzsche's Ubermensch has been horribly  
distorted.
Although anybody who is claimed as a philosophical ancestor by the  
Nazis and

Ayn Rand must have been doing something wrong. :-)


Just to defend Ayn Rand a bit :) :

The Nazis and Ayn Rand are ideological opposites. The former were for
total state, while the latter was against state. Also there's the
small matter of genocide vs. writing some books. Recent events have
been showing that Rand was on to something with many of her ideas:

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the
stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while
the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the
darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
-- Ayn Rand

My main problem with Rand is that I find objectivism childish. She was
a hardcore Aristotelian and didn't understand the problem with her no
contradictions dogma. But I'm a lover of individual freedom, so I
have a soft spot for her.


That's sums well my own perception of Ayn Rand :)







But the Buddhist idea is
to withdraw from the world.  Nietzsche's idea is to engage it, amor  
fati.
The will to power is the creative drive. To create art. To create  
oneself.


Well put.


OK, but that's the problem with the übermensch. He feels it can think  
for the others. He seems like feeling superior, where the taoist and  
buddhist will withdraw from helping the other (in metaphysics). Some  
truth can only be understood by oneself.


Bruno





Telmo.


Brent

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-31 Thread Telmo Menezes
On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:05 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:
 Ok, by me, although for an off-topic subject, it is interesting how
 frequently it comes up.

Politics is the blue cheese of debate, it overwhelms all other flavours :)


 On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 5:50:46 PM UTC-4, telmo_menezes wrote:

 Brent and Craig,

 Politics are typically a trigger for endless off-topic discussions. I
 respect your opinions, but maybe we should avoid this stuff.

 Telmo.

 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 9:31 PM, meekerdb meek...@verizon.net wrote:
  On 10/30/2013 4:05 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
 
  On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 2:51 AM, meekerdb meek...@verizon.net wrote:
 
  On 10/29/2013 4:17 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
 
  But this is how I see the concept of Übermensch. The idea got horribly
  distorted by subsequent political events. The ideal of Übermensch is a
  human that transcends the illusion and becomes aware of it's true (1p)
  nature. I also see it as close to Buddhist ideas.
 
 
  I certainly agree that Nietzsche's Ubermensch has been horribly
  distorted.
  Although anybody who is claimed as a philosophical ancestor by the
  Nazis
  and
  Ayn Rand must have been doing something wrong. :-)
 
  Just to defend Ayn Rand a bit :) :
 
  The Nazis and Ayn Rand are ideological opposites. The former were for
  total state, while the latter was against state. Also there's the
  small matter of genocide vs. writing some books. Recent events have
  been showing that Rand was on to something with many of her ideas:
 
  We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the
  stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while
  the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the
  darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
  -- Ayn Rand
 
  My main problem with Rand is that I find objectivism childish. She was
  a hardcore Aristotelian and didn't understand the problem with her no
  contradictions dogma. But I'm a lover of individual freedom, so I
  have a soft spot for her.
 
 
  But like the Nazis she conceived freedom as freedom from social
  constraint
  and to dominate or destroy others without remorse as the Untermensch.
  Are
  you familiar with William Hickman?  Rand was:
 
  At the time, she was planning a novel that was to be titled The Little
  Street, the projected hero of which was named Danny Renahan.According to
  Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, she deliberately modeled Renahan -
  intended to be her first sketch of her ideal man - after this same
  William
  Edward Hickman. Renahan, she enthuses in another journal entry, is born
  with a wonderful, free, light consciousness -- [resulting from] the
  absolute
  lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand, because
  he
  has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of
  other people ... Other people do not exist for him and he does not
  understand why they should. (Journals, pp. 27, 21-22; emphasis hers.)
 
  http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/romancing-the-stone-cold.html
 
  Brent
 
 
 
But the Buddhist idea is
  to withdraw from the world.  Nietzsche's idea is to engage it, amor
  fati.
  The will to power is the creative drive. To create art. To create
  oneself.
 
  Well put.
 
  Telmo.
 
  Brent
 
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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-31 Thread LizR
So what *was* Neitzsche on about? Did he think everyone is a potential
superman (or woman, I hope) ? Was he the first self-help guru? That seems
an almost a religious idea, although it may become technologically feasible
soon, to some degree ... I don't believe he had any leanings towards a
master race, at least... or did he?




On 1 November 2013 05:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 10/31/2013 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 OK, but that's the problem with the übermensch. He feels it can think for
 the others.


 What? You would multiply yourself by ten, by a hundred? You seek
 followers? I seek zeros!
 --- Frederick Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-31 Thread meekerdb

On 10/31/2013 1:52 PM, LizR wrote:

So what /was/ Neitzsche on about?


It's hard to say. He reject systems and believed is seeing things from different 
perspectives.  So he writes a lot things which are inconsistent, at least on the surface.  
That's why his ideas can be taken up by the Nazis, Ayn Rand, Sartre, and Camus.  He 
considered his antecedents to be Emerson and Hume.



Did he think everyone is a potential superman (or woman, I hope) ?


Certainly not woman! :-)


Was he the first self-help guru?


Yep, a lot of people take him that way: Take charge of your own life.  Don't be 
a slave.

That seems an almost a religious idea, although it may become technologically feasible 
soon, to some degree ... I don't believe he had any leanings towards a master race, at 
least... or did he?


I don't think so. If there was any 'race' he admired, it was the Jews - because they had 
kept a stern, demanding God and they had held their culture together against many 
vicissitudes.  But he was an ultra-individualist, not one concerned with 'race'.


Brent
I know my lot.  Someday my name will be linked to the memory of something monstrous,... I 
am not a man, I am dynamite.

--- Frederick Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-30 Thread Telmo Menezes
On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 2:51 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
 On 10/29/2013 4:17 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

 But this is how I see the concept of Übermensch. The idea got horribly
 distorted by subsequent political events. The ideal of Übermensch is a
 human that transcends the illusion and becomes aware of it's true (1p)
 nature. I also see it as close to Buddhist ideas.


 I certainly agree that Nietzsche's Ubermensch has been horribly distorted.
 Although anybody who is claimed as a philosophical ancestor by the Nazis and
 Ayn Rand must have been doing something wrong. :-)

Just to defend Ayn Rand a bit :) :

The Nazis and Ayn Rand are ideological opposites. The former were for
total state, while the latter was against state. Also there's the
small matter of genocide vs. writing some books. Recent events have
been showing that Rand was on to something with many of her ideas:

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the
stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while
the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the
darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
-- Ayn Rand

My main problem with Rand is that I find objectivism childish. She was
a hardcore Aristotelian and didn't understand the problem with her no
contradictions dogma. But I'm a lover of individual freedom, so I
have a soft spot for her.

  But the Buddhist idea is
 to withdraw from the world.  Nietzsche's idea is to engage it, amor fati.
 The will to power is the creative drive. To create art. To create oneself.

Well put.

Telmo.

 Brent

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-30 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 29 Oct 2013, at 19:53, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/29/2013 9:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Depressingly, until the
middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all  
human

beings are people with equal rights.


That's a very recent idea, indeed.


It's so recent that it's well into the future.  There are large  
parts of the Earth  where equal rights for women do not exist  
and are considered wrong and even wicked.


Sure. Women have not yet the right salary, in most developed  
countries.





And of course children do not have full rights anywhere and I don't  
expect that to change.


The case of children is complex. They are person/people, but they are  
not responsible (at least in early times), and it is hard to conceive  
of right beyond the duties we might have toward them (given water and  
food, and heat, and education, and respect).


It is very complex, because children are in between two possible  
hells: The parents, and the state. It is hard how to protect them  
from both, together. Surely a good education system can help, but that  
can be easily perverted by a state, or by private institutions.


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-30 Thread Craig Weinberg


On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 7:05:47 AM UTC-4, telmo_menezes wrote:

 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 2:51 AM, meekerdb meek...@verizon.netjavascript: 
 wrote: 
  On 10/29/2013 4:17 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: 
  
  But this is how I see the concept of Übermensch. The idea got horribly 
  distorted by subsequent political events. The ideal of Übermensch is a 
  human that transcends the illusion and becomes aware of it's true (1p) 
  nature. I also see it as close to Buddhist ideas. 
  
  
  I certainly agree that Nietzsche's Ubermensch has been horribly 
 distorted. 
  Although anybody who is claimed as a philosophical ancestor by the Nazis 
 and 
  Ayn Rand must have been doing something wrong. :-) 

 Just to defend Ayn Rand a bit :) : 

 The Nazis and Ayn Rand are ideological opposites. The former were for 
 total state, while the latter was against state. 


I think that the appearance of opposition is trivial. Hitler supported 
private corporations, and abolished labor unions to empower them. Should 
Rand's ideology ever rise to the level of popularity that Nazism enjoyed, 
the result would be almost indistinguishable I think. I'm not sure why 
people fail to see that the only thing separating a wealthy person from a 
government is the pretense of serving the public. Without a populist voice, 
any individual who can monopolize some resource would become a de facto 
government (tryanny) in a web of allied tyrants (feudalism).
 

 Also there's the 
 small matter of genocide vs. writing some books.


Well, Hitler wrote a book first. Hard to pull off genocide one putsch at a 
time. 

Recent events have 
 been showing that Rand was on to something with many of her ideas: 

 We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the 
 stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while 
 the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the 
 darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. 
 -- Ayn Rand 


If governments seem free in comparison to ordinary people, it is only 
because it is in the interests of the top 0.01% of the world's wealthiest 
for the rest to believe.

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



 My main problem with Rand is that I find objectivism childish. She was 
 a hardcore Aristotelian and didn't understand the problem with her no 
 contradictions dogma. But I'm a lover of individual freedom, so I 
 have a soft spot for her. 


I identified with her irreverence toward the status quo. That changed 
gradually as I was exposed more to her beliefs and their implications.

Craig
 


   But the Buddhist idea is 
  to withdraw from the world.  Nietzsche's idea is to engage it, amor 
 fati. 
  The will to power is the creative drive. To create art. To create 
 oneself. 

 Well put. 

 Telmo. 

  Brent 
  
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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:20, spudboy...@aol.com wrote:

I read, somewhere, Professor Marchal, that it was the spindle  
cells in the brain that pushed the smarter creatures on this planet  
into high gear, so to speak, not so much glial, unless we are  
describing the same thing, primates, whales, dolphins, have spindle  
cells, and why this makes a difference I don't know. For no rational  
reason, my limbic system is urging me (?) to include in this email,  
the first stanza from Hyperactive, by Thomas Dolby. It adds nothing  
to this discussion, yet here it is, because it seems somehow, fitting.


Spindle neurons seems to be special highways to me. Glial cells seems  
to play some role in chronic pain.
Anyway, this bears on the substitution level, which we cannot know.  
The pioneer of immortality will bet on artificial mechanism which they  
can afford, and will not survive without some defects.







At the tender age of three
I was hooked to a machine
Just to keep my mouth from spouting junk
Must have took me for a fool
When they chucked me out of school
'Cause the teacher knew I had the funk


:)

Bruno





-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, Oct 28, 2013 1:53 pm
Subject: Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in  
the brain



On 28 Oct 2013, at 16:52, Craig Weinberg wrote:


http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-neuroscientists-mini-neural-brain.html

Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once  
thought to be passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at  
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that  
these dendrites do more than relay information from one neuron to  
the next. They actively process information, multiplying the  
brain's computing power.


Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much  
greater than we had originally thought, said Spencer Smith, PhD,  
an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine.


His team's findings, published October 27 in the journal Nature,  
could change the way scientists think about long-standing  
scientific models of how neural circuitry functions in the brain,  
while also helping researchers better understand neurological  
disorders.


Imagine you're reverse engineering a piece of alien technology,  
and what you thought was simple wiring turns out to be transistors  
that compute information, Smith said. That's what this finding is  
like. The implications are exciting to think about.


Axons are where neurons conventionally generate electrical spikes,  
but many of the same molecules that support axonal spikes are also  
present in the dendrites. Previous research using dissected brain  
tissue had demonstrated that dendrites can use those molecules to  
generate electrical spikes themselves, but it was unclear whether  
normal brain activity involved those dendritic spikes. For example,  
could dendritic spikes be involved in how we see?


The answer, Smith's team found, is yes. Dendrites effectively act  
as mini-neural computers, actively processing neuronal input  
signals themselves.


Directly demonstrating this required a series of intricate  
experiments that took years and spanned two continents, beginning  
in senior author Michael Hausser's lab at University College  
London, and being completed after Smith and Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM,  
set up their own lab at the University of North Carolina. They used  
patch-clamp electrophysiology to attach a microscopic glass pipette  
electrode, filled with a physiological solution, to a neuronal  
dendrite in the brain of a mouse. The idea was to directly listen  
in on the electrical signaling process.


Attaching the pipette to a dendrite is tremendously technically  
challenging, Smith said. You can't approach the dendrite from any  
direction. And you can't see the dendrite. So you have to do this  
blind. It's like fishing if all you can see is the electrical trace  
of a fish. And you can't use bait. You just go for it and see if  
you can hit a dendrite, he said. Most of the time you can't.


Once the pipette was attached to a dendrite, Smith's team took  
electrical recordings from individual dendrites within the brains  
of anesthetized and awake mice. As the mice viewed visual stimuli  
on a computer screen, the researchers saw an unusual pattern of  
electrical signals – bursts of spikes – in the dendrite.


Smith's team then found that the dendritic spikes occurred  
selectively, depending on the visual stimulus, indicating that the  
dendrites processed information about what the animal was seeing.


To provide visual evidence of their finding, Smith's team filled  
neurons with calcium dye, which provided an optical readout of  
spiking. This revealed that dendrites fired spikes while other  
parts of the neuron did not, meaning that the spikes were the  
result of local processing within the dendrites

Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:



I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the  
molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my  
opinion (from diverse reading) handle to information.


I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be  
seen as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular  
cells, a liver cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell.


Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are  
any each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular  
organism have lost a bit of their freedom and universality to  
cooperate in what is ourself.


Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level  
is lower than some thought.


Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's  
still too much an aristotelian way to express the identity thesis.  
Consciousness is not physical, it is the mental state of person  
associated to machines, when those person develop *some* true belief.


So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and numbers?


Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self- 
referential means, like quarks.
relative numbers does not lack them, but as 3p pure notion, are not  
people, but people can emerge from them and their cognitive abilities.


Bruno






Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Alberto G. Corona
*Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self-referential
means, like quarks. *

Then cows are Nietzchian superpeople. That disqualifies half of mi fridge's
food.


2013/10/29 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be


 On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:



 On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:




 I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the
 molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my opinion
 (from diverse reading) handle to information.

 I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be seen
 as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular cells, a liver
 cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell.

 Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are any
 each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular organism have
 lost a bit of their freedom and universality to cooperate in what is
 ourself.

 Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level is
 lower than some thought.

 Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's still
 too much an aristotelian way to express the identity thesis.
 Consciousness is not physical, it is the mental state of person associated
 to machines, when those person develop *some* true belief.


 So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and numbers?


 Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self-referential
 means, like quarks.
 relative numbers does not lack them, but as 3p pure notion, are not
 people, but people can emerge from them and their cognitive abilities.

 Bruno






 Bruno


  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Telmo Menezes
On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote:
 Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self-referential
 means, like quarks.

 Then cows are Nietzchian superpeople. That disqualifies half of mi fridge's
 food.

You can't just mix two unrelated philosophical concepts that happen to
share the same string of characters and call it an argument.


 2013/10/29 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be


 On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:



 On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:




 I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the
 molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my opinion
 (from diverse reading) handle to information.

 I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be seen
 as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular cells, a liver
 cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell.

 Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are any
 each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular organism have
 lost a bit of their freedom and universality to cooperate in what is
 ourself.

 Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level is
 lower than some thought.

 Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's still
 too much an aristotelian way to express the identity thesis. Consciousness
 is not physical, it is the mental state of person associated to machines,
 when those person develop *some* true belief.


 So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and numbers?


 Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self-referential
 means, like quarks.
 relative numbers does not lack them, but as 3p pure notion, are not
 people, but people can emerge from them and their cognitive abilities.

 Bruno






 Bruno


 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Alberto G. Corona
I know a single concept of people

I wonder what´s the new concept of people, different from the one I manage
(either philosophical or not)

Have they rights?


2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com

 On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self-referential
  means, like quarks.
 
  Then cows are Nietzchian superpeople. That disqualifies half of mi
 fridge's
  food.

 You can't just mix two unrelated philosophical concepts that happen to
 share the same string of characters and call it an argument.

 
  2013/10/29 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
 
 
  On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:
 
 
 
  On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 
 
 
  I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the
  molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my
 opinion
  (from diverse reading) handle to information.
 
  I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be
 seen
  as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular cells, a
 liver
  cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell.
 
  Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are any
  each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular organism
 have
  lost a bit of their freedom and universality to cooperate in what is
  ourself.
 
  Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level is
  lower than some thought.
 
  Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's
 still
  too much an aristotelian way to express the identity thesis.
 Consciousness
  is not physical, it is the mental state of person associated to
 machines,
  when those person develop *some* true belief.
 
 
  So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and numbers?
 
 
  Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self-referential
  means, like quarks.
  relative numbers does not lack them, but as 3p pure notion, are not
  people, but people can emerge from them and their cognitive abilities.
 
  Bruno
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Bruno
 
 
  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
 
 
 
 
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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Craig Weinberg


On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 3:08:16 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:


 On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:



 On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:




 I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the 
 molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my opinion 
 (from diverse reading) handle to information.

 I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be seen 
 as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular cells, a liver 
 cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell. 

 Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are any 
 each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular organism have 
 lost a bit of their freedom and universality to cooperate in what is 
 ourself.

 Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level is 
 lower than some thought.

 Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's still 
 too much an aristotelian way to express the identity thesis. 
 Consciousness is not physical, it is the mental state of person associated 
 to machines, when those person develop *some* true belief.


 So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and numbers?


 Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self-referential 
 means, like quarks. 


How do you know? From the article, dendrites seem to be doing what (we 
think that) a neuron does.
 

 relative numbers does not lack them, but as 3p pure notion, are not 
 people, but people can emerge from them and their cognitive abilities.


What do they emerge into, given they lack sensory abilities?

Craig 


 Bruno



  


 Bruno


 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Telmo Menezes
On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote:
 I know a single concept of people

 I wonder what´s the new concept of people, different from the one I manage
 (either philosophical or not)

 Have they rights?

This is a very good question which, in fact, serves well to illustrate
how the concept of people is difficult and fluid.

Past issues:
- Are other races people, do they have right? Depressingly, until the
middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all human
beings are people with equal rights.

Current issues:
- Are animals people to some degree? Do they have rights? Many modern
societies say yes, and consider some mistreatments of animals to be a
crime;
- Are corporations people? American law says yes, and that they have
rights like free speech;

Future issues:
- Are aliens people? Should they have equal rights? Does that depend
on their level of civilisational development? If yes, where to draw
the line?
- Are robots people?
- Are computer emulations of the minds of dead people people?

Crazy issues:
- Are spirits and demons people? Islamic law says yes.

Of course Nietzsche himself had this to say:
Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman -- a rope over an abyss...
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can
be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under...

So it doesn't sound that he was convinced that personhood was so clear
cut either. Note that in the original German the mensch Übermensch has
a meaning closer to person then man. So I actually made a mistake,
Nietzsche's concept seems compatible with Bruno's and maybe they
wouldn't disagree to much on this.

Also wikipedia, for what it's worth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person

Telmo.


 2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com

 On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self-referential
  means, like quarks.
 
  Then cows are Nietzchian superpeople. That disqualifies half of mi
  fridge's
  food.

 You can't just mix two unrelated philosophical concepts that happen to
 share the same string of characters and call it an argument.

 
  2013/10/29 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
 
 
  On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:
 
 
 
  On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 
 
 
  I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the
  molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my
  opinion
  (from diverse reading) handle to information.
 
  I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be
  seen
  as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular cells, a
  liver
  cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell.
 
  Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are any
  each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular organism
  have
  lost a bit of their freedom and universality to cooperate in what is
  ourself.
 
  Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level is
  lower than some thought.
 
  Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's
  still
  too much an aristotelian way to express the identity thesis.
  Consciousness
  is not physical, it is the mental state of person associated to
  machines,
  when those person develop *some* true belief.
 
 
  So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and numbers?
 
 
  Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack
  self-referential
  means, like quarks.
  relative numbers does not lack them, but as 3p pure notion, are not
  people, but people can emerge from them and their cognitive abilities.
 
  Bruno
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Bruno
 
 
  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
 
 
 
 
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  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
 
 
 
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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Alberto G. Corona
The problem with modernity is precisely the confusion and madness (and I
may say lack of intellectual strenght)  of this fluidity, ever depending on
audiences and personal interest that makes today amoebas to have rights ...
and tomorrow morning we can massacrate people because at last, they are
like amoebas.


2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com

 On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  I know a single concept of people
 
  I wonder what´s the new concept of people, different from the one I
 manage
  (either philosophical or not)
 
  Have they rights?

 This is a very good question which, in fact, serves well to illustrate
 how the concept of people is difficult and fluid.

 Past issues:
 - Are other races people, do they have right? Depressingly, until the
 middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all human
 beings are people with equal rights.

 Current issues:
 - Are animals people to some degree? Do they have rights? Many modern
 societies say yes, and consider some mistreatments of animals to be a
 crime;
 - Are corporations people? American law says yes, and that they have
 rights like free speech;

 Future issues:
 - Are aliens people? Should they have equal rights? Does that depend
 on their level of civilisational development? If yes, where to draw
 the line?
 - Are robots people?
 - Are computer emulations of the minds of dead people people?

 Crazy issues:
 - Are spirits and demons people? Islamic law says yes.

 Of course Nietzsche himself had this to say:
 Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman -- a rope over an abyss...
 What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can
 be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under...

 So it doesn't sound that he was convinced that personhood was so clear
 cut either. Note that in the original German the mensch Übermensch has
 a meaning closer to person then man. So I actually made a mistake,
 Nietzsche's concept seems compatible with Bruno's and maybe they
 wouldn't disagree to much on this.

 Also wikipedia, for what it's worth:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person

 Telmo.

 
  2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com
 
  On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com
 
  wrote:
   Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack
 self-referential
   means, like quarks.
  
   Then cows are Nietzchian superpeople. That disqualifies half of mi
   fridge's
   food.
 
  You can't just mix two unrelated philosophical concepts that happen to
  share the same string of characters and call it an argument.
 
  
   2013/10/29 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
  
  
   On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:
  
  
  
   On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:
  
  
  
  
   I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the
   molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my
   opinion
   (from diverse reading) handle to information.
  
   I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be
   seen
   as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular cells, a
   liver
   cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell.
  
   Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are
 any
   each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular organism
   have
   lost a bit of their freedom and universality to cooperate in what is
   ourself.
  
   Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level
 is
   lower than some thought.
  
   Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's
   still
   too much an aristotelian way to express the identity thesis.
   Consciousness
   is not physical, it is the mental state of person associated to
   machines,
   when those person develop *some* true belief.
  
  
   So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and numbers?
  
  
   Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack
   self-referential
   means, like quarks.
   relative numbers does not lack them, but as 3p pure notion, are not
   people, but people can emerge from them and their cognitive
 abilities.
  
   Bruno
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Bruno
  
  
   http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
  
  
  
  
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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Alberto G. Corona
I´m not atacking you. I simply I like to talk with people, and for this
purpose is necessary to share a clear definition of concepts.
However, Telmo, If you don´t think so, then of course I´m attacking your
position. But not for much time because even attacking with words becomes
impossible with people that defend that lousy point of view.


2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com

 On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 2:35 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
  The problem with modernity is precisely the confusion and madness (and I
 may
  say lack of intellectual strenght)  of this fluidity, ever depending on
  audiences and personal interest that makes today amoebas to have rights
 ...
  and tomorrow morning we can massacrate people because at last, they are
 like
  amoebas.

 Talk about a slippery slope...

 You seem to believe that things would be better given some past state
 of clear-headed rationality -- I would like you to identify the
 pre-modernity time period you allude to. A few practical questions
 then:

 - Should I be allowed to torture dogs for fun?


That a question that has nothing to do with the question of either if a dog
or an amoeba is a person. The fallacy of changing the conversation in a way
that you climb a hill of moral superiority and then shoth down wth an
unrelated moral question is not good, to say the least, and I´m not
interested in to continue in this way. I say so from the beginning.

By the way, I´m not being moral in my previous response. I was just
consequentialist:  Relativism , lack of clear concepts ends up in
imposibility of civilized discussion and the only remaining language is
 violence.  So let´s try to keep concepts clear. That is the whole
point of my thesis. What do you think about that?


 - Should we try to prevent the extinctions of amoebas if the situation
 arose?
 - A Harvard scientist has been proposing the idea of finding a
 surrogate mother for a Neanderthal baby. If he succeeds, what's you
 clear-cut answer for the personhood status and rights of this
 creature?

 People that complain about the intellectual mushiness of modernity
 seem to forget that progress comes with new questions.


 Telmo.

 
  2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com
 
  On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com
 
  wrote:
   I know a single concept of people
  
   I wonder what´s the new concept of people, different from the one I
   manage
   (either philosophical or not)
  
   Have they rights?
 
  This is a very good question which, in fact, serves well to illustrate
  how the concept of people is difficult and fluid.
 
  Past issues:
  - Are other races people, do they have right? Depressingly, until the
  middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all human
  beings are people with equal rights.
 
  Current issues:
  - Are animals people to some degree? Do they have rights? Many modern
  societies say yes, and consider some mistreatments of animals to be a
  crime;
  - Are corporations people? American law says yes, and that they have
  rights like free speech;
 
  Future issues:
  - Are aliens people? Should they have equal rights? Does that depend
  on their level of civilisational development? If yes, where to draw
  the line?
  - Are robots people?
  - Are computer emulations of the minds of dead people people?
 
  Crazy issues:
  - Are spirits and demons people? Islamic law says yes.
 
  Of course Nietzsche himself had this to say:
  Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman -- a rope over an
 abyss...
  What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can
  be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under...
 
  So it doesn't sound that he was convinced that personhood was so clear
  cut either. Note that in the original German the mensch Übermensch has
  a meaning closer to person then man. So I actually made a mistake,
  Nietzsche's concept seems compatible with Bruno's and maybe they
  wouldn't disagree to much on this.
 
  Also wikipedia, for what it's worth:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person
 
  Telmo.
 
  
   2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com
  
   On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Alberto G. Corona
   agocor...@gmail.com
   wrote:
Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack
self-referential
means, like quarks.
   
Then cows are Nietzchian superpeople. That disqualifies half of mi
fridge's
food.
  
   You can't just mix two unrelated philosophical concepts that happen
 to
   share the same string of characters and call it an argument.
  
   
2013/10/29 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
   
   
On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:
   
   
   
On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:
   
   
   
   
I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is
 the
molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my
opinion
(from 

RE: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Chris de Morsella
Glial cells may also play a critical role in memory formation:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27913/title/Glial-cell
s-aid-memory-formation/

 

 

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 12:01 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the
brain

 

 

On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:20, spudboy...@aol.com wrote:





I read, somewhere, Professor Marchal, that it was the spindle cells in the
brain that pushed the smarter creatures on this planet into high gear, so to
speak, not so much glial, unless we are describing the same thing, primates,
whales, dolphins, have spindle cells, and why this makes a difference I
don't know. For no rational reason, my limbic system is urging me (?) to
include in this email, the first stanza from Hyperactive, by Thomas Dolby.
It adds nothing to this discussion, yet here it is, because it seems
somehow, fitting.

 

Spindle neurons seems to be special highways to me. Glial cells seems to
play some role in chronic pain.

Anyway, this bears on the substitution level, which we cannot know. The
pioneer of immortality will bet on artificial mechanism which they can
afford, and will not survive without some defects.

 





 

 

 

At the tender age of three
I was hooked to a machine
Just to keep my mouth from spouting junk
Must have took me for a fool
When they chucked me out of school
'Cause the teacher knew I had the funk

 

:)

 

Bruno

 





 

-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, Oct 28, 2013 1:53 pm
Subject: Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the
brain

 

On 28 Oct 2013, at 16:52, Craig Weinberg wrote:





http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-neuroscientists-mini-neural-brain.html

Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once thought to be
passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that these dendrites do more than relay
information from one neuron to the next. They actively process information,
multiplying the brain's computing power.

Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much greater than
we had originally thought, said Spencer Smith, PhD, an assistant professor
in the UNC School of Medicine.

His team's findings, published October 27 in the journal Nature, could
change the way scientists think about long-standing scientific models of how
neural circuitry functions in the brain, while also helping researchers
better understand neurological disorders.

Imagine you're reverse engineering a piece of alien technology, and what
you thought was simple wiring turns out to be transistors that compute
information, Smith said. That's what this finding is like. The
implications are exciting to think about.

Axons are where neurons conventionally generate electrical spikes, but many
of the same molecules that support axonal spikes are also present in the
dendrites. Previous research using dissected brain tissue had demonstrated
that dendrites can use those molecules to generate electrical spikes
themselves, but it was unclear whether normal brain activity involved those
dendritic spikes. For example, could dendritic spikes be involved in how we
see?

The answer, Smith's team found, is yes. Dendrites effectively act as
mini-neural computers, actively processing neuronal input signals
themselves.

Directly demonstrating this required a series of intricate experiments that
took years and spanned two continents, beginning in senior author Michael
Hausser's lab at University College London, and being completed after Smith
and Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM, set up their own lab at the University of North
Carolina. They used patch-clamp electrophysiology to attach a microscopic
glass pipette electrode, filled with a physiological solution, to a neuronal
dendrite in the brain of a mouse. The idea was to directly listen in on
the electrical signaling process.

Attaching the pipette to a dendrite is tremendously technically
challenging, Smith said. You can't approach the dendrite from any
direction. And you can't see the dendrite. So you have to do this blind.
It's like fishing if all you can see is the electrical trace of a fish. And
you can't use bait. You just go for it and see if you can hit a dendrite,
he said. Most of the time you can't.

Once the pipette was attached to a dendrite, Smith's team took electrical
recordings from individual dendrites within the brains of anesthetized and
awake mice. As the mice viewed visual stimuli on a computer screen, the
researchers saw an unusual pattern of electrical signals - bursts of spikes
- in the dendrite.

Smith's team then found that the dendritic spikes occurred selectively,
depending on the visual stimulus, indicating that the dendrites processed

Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Telmo Menezes
On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 4:30 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote:
 I´m not atacking you. I simply I like to talk with people, and for this
 purpose is necessary to share a clear definition of concepts.
 However, Telmo, If you don´t think so, then of course I´m attacking your
 position. But not for much time because even attacking with words becomes
 impossible with people that defend that lousy point of view.

Hey Alberto, I never assumed you were attacking me personally nor did
I meant to attack you personally. I agree, we're just discussing
ideas. These discussion get heated but it's like a marital arts dojo
-- we fight in a spirit of friendship (I hope).

I've had many lousy ideas in my life and I'm sure I'll have much more.
I would prefer if you gave me something more concrete than lousy,
though.

 2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com

 On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 2:35 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
  The problem with modernity is precisely the confusion and madness (and I
  may
  say lack of intellectual strenght)  of this fluidity, ever depending on
  audiences and personal interest that makes today amoebas to have rights
  ...
  and tomorrow morning we can massacrate people because at last, they are
  like
  amoebas.

 Talk about a slippery slope...

 You seem to believe that things would be better given some past state
 of clear-headed rationality -- I would like you to identify the
 pre-modernity time period you allude to. A few practical questions
 then:

 - Should I be allowed to torture dogs for fun?


 That a question that has nothing to do with the question of either if a dog
 or an amoeba is a person. The fallacy of changing the conversation in a way
 that you climb a hill of moral superiority and then shoth down wth an
 unrelated moral question is not good, to say the least, and I´m not
 interested in to continue in this way. I say so from the beginning.

Hum, but you were the one bringing moral conundrums to the table with
the if we agree that amoeba are people, then genocide. I mentioned
rights before as an illustration on how the definition of personhood
in society is fluid, because such discussion usually show up in the
context of rights.

I don't assume that you agree with torturing dogs nor that you are
indifferent to the extinction of entire biological species. I am
merely trying to confront you with extreme cases, not demonstrate
moral superiority.

I do think that we only tend to assign rights to entities to which we
assign some degree of personhood. I assign some degree of personhood
to my cat. He his quite vindictive, for example. Also notice that when
people have pets they tend to refer to them with personal pronouns and
not it.

 By the way, I´m not being moral in my previous response. I was just
 consequentialist:  Relativism , lack of clear concepts ends up in
 imposibility of civilized discussion and the only remaining language is 
 violence.

I understand your point, but I don't think it's this simple. For
example, the previous Pope argued against moral relativism for the
purpose of defending positions that I consider violent.

  So let´s try to keep concepts clear. That is the whole point of
 my thesis. What do you think about that?

I agree, but I think that more clarity can only be achieved by examination.


 - Should we try to prevent the extinctions of amoebas if the situation
 arose?
 - A Harvard scientist has been proposing the idea of finding a
 surrogate mother for a Neanderthal baby. If he succeeds, what's you
 clear-cut answer for the personhood status and rights of this
 creature?

 People that complain about the intellectual mushiness of modernity
 seem to forget that progress comes with new questions.


 Telmo.

 
  2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com
 
  On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Alberto G. Corona
  agocor...@gmail.com
  wrote:
   I know a single concept of people
  
   I wonder what´s the new concept of people, different from the one I
   manage
   (either philosophical or not)
  
   Have they rights?
 
  This is a very good question which, in fact, serves well to illustrate
  how the concept of people is difficult and fluid.
 
  Past issues:
  - Are other races people, do they have right? Depressingly, until the
  middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all human
  beings are people with equal rights.
 
  Current issues:
  - Are animals people to some degree? Do they have rights? Many modern
  societies say yes, and consider some mistreatments of animals to be a
  crime;
  - Are corporations people? American law says yes, and that they have
  rights like free speech;
 
  Future issues:
  - Are aliens people? Should they have equal rights? Does that depend
  on their level of civilisational development? If yes, where to draw
  the line?
  - Are robots people?
  - Are computer emulations of the minds of dead people people?
 
  Crazy issues:
  - Are spirits and demons 

Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread freqflyer07281972
What are the 8 hypostases? I've seen this referred to a few other times on 
this list and have never really known what it refers to.

thanks

dan

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 10:30:26 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:


 On 29 Oct 2013, at 14:14, Craig Weinberg wrote: 

  
  
  On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 3:08:16 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
  
  On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
  
  
  
  On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
  
  
  
  I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the   
  molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my   
  opinion (from diverse reading) handle to information. 
  
  I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be   
  seen as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular   
  cells, a liver cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell. 
  
  Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are   
  any each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular   
  organism have lost a bit of their freedom and universality to   
  cooperate in what is ourself. 
  
  Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level   
  is lower than some thought. 
  
  Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's   
  still too much an aristotelian way to express the identity   
  thesis. Consciousness is not physical, it is the mental state of   
  person associated to machines, when those person develop *some*   
  true belief. 
  
  So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and numbers? 
  
  Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self- 
  referential means, like quarks. 
  
  How do you know? From the article, dendrites seem to be doing what   
  (we think that) a neuron does. 

 We can' know. An why would not a dendrite be a puppet manipulated by   
 neurons. 
 My hand might have a more complex behavior than a dendrite, yet I do   
 not consider my hand as a person. 



  
  relative numbers does not lack them, but as 3p pure notion, are not   
  people, but people can emerge from them and their cognitive abilities. 
  
  What do they emerge into, 

 Into person, or people. 



  given they lack sensory abilities? 

 Like molecules or elementary particles and waves. 

 The person, including the sensory abilities, is what emerge. To be   
 more correct, the person is just the universal person, already in   
 Platonia, described by the 8 hypostases, and which quickly believes   
 itself to be a particular person when forgetting where she comes from. 

 The sensory abilities are well described by the universal person   
 canonically associated to the universal machine, in his Bp  Dt  p   
 discourse, notably. 

 The waves, the molecules, eventually the number relations   
 particularize, or incarnate, the person in different context, but they   
 don't create the person, nor produce consciousness. (I assume comp, of   
 course). 

 Bruno 


 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 





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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 29 Oct 2013, at 14:22, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com 
 wrote:

I know a single concept of people

I wonder what´s the new concept of people, different from the one I  
manage

(either philosophical or not)

Have they rights?


This is a very good question which, in fact, serves well to illustrate
how the concept of people is difficult and fluid.



I would define a person any entity which behaves in a way which makes  
me think there is some first person view.
Protozoa and perhaps even bacteria, gives me already that felling. I  
would say that a person is any entity which makes love and reproduce,  
like most bacteria.







Past issues:
- Are other races people, do they have right?


I guess bacteria benefits from some natural bacteria right, but nature  
is known to be cruel in that respect. probably a good thing, because  
the universe would be quickly full of amoeba is they all manage to  
survive all their duplications ...
Of course bacteria does not need human right in the usual sense of the  
expression.





Depressingly, until the
middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all human
beings are people with equal rights.


That's a very recent idea, indeed.




Current issues:
- Are animals people to some degree?


With my definition above, they are people. We just don't notice,  
except children. Of course you can call that a pathetic fallacy. It is  
still better to attribute too much personhood than to few, ethically.




Do they have rights? Many modern
societies say yes, and consider some mistreatments of animals to be a
crime;


All persons deserve respect, even when we eat them.



- Are corporations people? American law says yes, and that they have
rights like free speech;


In my opinion, this is not in the interest of the human individual and  
it is a threat to the human right.
But it is in the interest of some possible multi-humans higher level  
being.





Future issues:
- Are aliens people?


I would say by definition, unless you call a meteor an alien.




Should they have equal rights?


Does Alien have the right to eat us? (in case they find us tasty)





Does that depend
on their level of civilisational development? If yes, where to draw
the line?
- Are robots people?


If they run the right self-referentially correct loop.

This is something the humans will do with caution, as you get quickly  
machines fighting for social security and rights.





- Are computer emulations of the minds of dead people people?


That's the comp assumption.




Crazy issues:
- Are spirits and demons people? Islamic law says yes.


Is it so crazy? After all some non Turing emulable arithmetical  
relations are Löbian too. Second order arithmetic is not Turing  
emulable, and is Löbian, with a divine provability predicate (to  
use Boolos terming!). Normally, they have even the same fundamental  
physics.
Arithmetic is full of lives, dreams, but there is still place for  
spirit and daemon.
Now, if mathematicians can be said to communicate with them, it is not  
in any sense compatible with giving them right. They might have  
possible role in making those right even possible, like arithmetical  
truth (which is itself such entities, despite not being Löbian at all)  
makes person and relative realties possible.






Of course Nietzsche himself had this to say:
Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman -- a rope over an  
abyss...

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can
be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under...

So it doesn't sound that he was convinced that personhood was so clear
cut either. Note that in the original German the mensch Übermensch has
a meaning closer to person then man. So I actually made a mistake,
Nietzsche's concept seems compatible with Bruno's and maybe they
wouldn't disagree to much on this.


Yes.


To be sure, I don't like the idea of Übermensch.

At least we know there is no Übermachine.

There is just a universal baby god (the universal person/machine)  
which lost himself in the infinite and infinitely tricky garden  
provided by his Mom Goddess (Arithmetical truth).


Bruno




Also wikipedia, for what it's worth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person

Telmo.



2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com


On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com 


wrote:
Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self- 
referential

means, like quarks.

Then cows are Nietzchian superpeople. That disqualifies half of mi
fridge's
food.


You can't just mix two unrelated philosophical concepts that  
happen to

share the same string of characters and call it an argument.



2013/10/29 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be



On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:





I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the 

Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Jason Resch
To add to this point, the main property of spindle cells (being very long
and thereby able to connect disjoint regions) might simply be necessary in
larger brains (not necessarily more intelligent brains), but since there is
a correlation between large brains and more intelligent brains, and so we
find a correlation between intelligent brains and spindle cells.

Jason


On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:00 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:20, spudboy...@aol.com wrote:

 I read, somewhere, Professor Marchal, that it was the spindle cells in
 the brain that pushed the smarter creatures on this planet into high gear,
 so to speak, not so much glial, unless we are describing the same thing,
 primates, whales, dolphins, have spindle cells, and why this makes a
 difference I don't know. For no rational reason, my limbic system is urging
 me (?) to include in this email, the first stanza from Hyperactive, by
 Thomas Dolby. It adds nothing to this discussion, yet here it is, because
 it seems somehow, fitting.


 Spindle neurons seems to be special highways to me. Glial cells seems to
 play some role in chronic pain.
 Anyway, this bears on the substitution level, which we cannot know. The
 pioneer of immortality will bet on artificial mechanism which they can
 afford, and will not survive without some defects.





 At the tender age of three
 I was hooked to a machine
 Just to keep my mouth from spouting junk
 Must have took me for a fool
 When they chucked me out of school
 'Cause the teacher knew I had the funk


 :)

 Bruno




  -Original Message-
 From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
 To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
 Sent: Mon, Oct 28, 2013 1:53 pm
 Subject: Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the
 brain


  On 28 Oct 2013, at 16:52, Craig Weinberg wrote:


 http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-neuroscientists-mini-neural-brain.html

 Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once thought to be
 passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the University of North
 Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that these dendrites do more than relay
 information from one neuron to the next. They actively process information,
 multiplying the brain's computing power.

 Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much greater
 than we had originally thought, said Spencer Smith, PhD, an assistant
 professor in the UNC School of Medicine.

 His team's findings, published October 27 in the journal Nature, could
 change the way scientists think about long-standing scientific models of
 how neural circuitry functions in the brain, while also helping researchers
 better understand neurological disorders.

 Imagine you're reverse engineering a piece of alien technology, and what
 you thought was simple wiring turns out to be transistors that compute
 information, Smith said. That's what this finding is like. The
 implications are exciting to think about.

 Axons are where neurons conventionally generate electrical spikes, but
 many of the same molecules that support axonal spikes are also present in
 the dendrites. Previous research using dissected brain tissue had
 demonstrated that dendrites can use those molecules to generate electrical
 spikes themselves, but it was unclear whether normal brain activity
 involved those dendritic spikes. For example, could dendritic spikes be
 involved in how we see?

 The answer, Smith's team found, is yes. Dendrites effectively act as
 mini-neural computers, actively processing neuronal input signals
 themselves.

 Directly demonstrating this required a series of intricate experiments
 that took years and spanned two continents, beginning in senior author
 Michael Hausser's lab at University College London, and being completed
 after Smith and Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM, set up their own lab at the
 University of North Carolina. They used patch-clamp electrophysiology to
 attach a microscopic glass pipette electrode, filled with a physiological
 solution, to a neuronal dendrite in the brain of a mouse. The idea was to
 directly listen in on the electrical signaling process.

 Attaching the pipette to a dendrite is tremendously technically
 challenging, Smith said. You can't approach the dendrite from any
 direction. And you can't see the dendrite. So you have to do this blind.
 It's like fishing if all you can see is the electrical trace of a fish.
 And you can't use bait. You just go for it and see if you can hit a
 dendrite, he said. Most of the time you can't.

 Once the pipette was attached to a dendrite, Smith's team took electrical
 recordings from individual dendrites within the brains of anesthetized and
 awake mice. As the mice viewed visual stimuli on a computer screen, the
 researchers saw an unusual pattern of electrical signals – bursts of spikes
 – in the dendrite.

 Smith's team then found that the dendritic spikes occurred selectively,
 depending on the visual

Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 29 Oct 2013, at 17:07, freqflyer07281972 wrote:

What are the 8 hypostases? I've seen this referred to a few other  
times on this list and have never really known what it refers to.


It is eight intensional variants of Gödel's arithmetical predicate,  
that all self-referentially correct machines (rich enough, believing  
or using the induction axioms, Löbian, ...) inherits from  
incompleteness.


They are all equivalent, in the sense that they access to exactly the  
same part of arithmetical truth, but they obeys quite different logic,  
and those logics provides meta-definition of the points of view.


I have used them also to offer a toy arithmetical interpretation of  
Plotinus' theology, so here there are, B is the modal box representing  
beweisbar, and D is ~B~(and can be read consistent).


The three primary hypostases:

p (the ONE, arithmetical truth)
Bp (the Intellect, or Intelligible) Gödel's beweisbart('p'), the 3p  
self)

Bp  p (the knower, the Soul, the 1p self)

The two matters
Bp  Dt  (the Intelligible Matter)
Bp  Dt  p (the Sensible Matter)

Three of them split, by the Solovay G/G* splitting, so that for them  
the true logic differs from the justfifiable logic (useful for qualia,  
and other qualitative aspects available to the machine).


This gives the 8 (main) hypostases.

They are explained in the second part of the sane04 paper, perhaps  
with other terms,


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html

and also in my Plotinus paper (here is the PDF):

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/CiE2007/SIENA.pdf

Ask any question. You need some familiarity with incompleteness, but  
those modal logics really sum up a large part of the incompleteness  
consequences, for machines and many other entities.


UDA, and the comp hypothesis is translated in arithmetic by  
restricting p to the sigma_1 sentence. This replace truth with sigma_1  
truth. That makes The soul, the intelligible and the sensible matter  
obeying a quantum-like logic. The soul by itself obeys an intuitionist  
logic, and a quantum intuitionist logic for the sensible matter.


Bruno




On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 10:30:26 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 29 Oct 2013, at 14:14, Craig Weinberg wrote:



 On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 3:08:16 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 On 28 Oct 2013, at 19:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:



 On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:



 I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the
 molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my
 opinion (from diverse reading) handle to information.

 I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be
 seen as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular
 cells, a liver cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell.

 Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are
 any each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular
 organism have lost a bit of their freedom and universality to
 cooperate in what is ourself.

 Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level
 is lower than some thought.

 Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's
 still too much an aristotelian way to express the identity
 thesis. Consciousness is not physical, it is the mental state of
 person associated to machines, when those person develop *some*
 true belief.

 So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and  
numbers?


 Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack self-
 referential means, like quarks.

 How do you know? From the article, dendrites seem to be doing what
 (we think that) a neuron does.

We can' know. An why would not a dendrite be a puppet manipulated by
neurons.
My hand might have a more complex behavior than a dendrite, yet I do
not consider my hand as a person.




 relative numbers does not lack them, but as 3p pure notion, are not
 people, but people can emerge from them and their cognitive  
abilities.


 What do they emerge into,

Into person, or people.



 given they lack sensory abilities?

Like molecules or elementary particles and waves.

The person, including the sensory abilities, is what emerge. To be
more correct, the person is just the universal person, already in
Platonia, described by the 8 hypostases, and which quickly believes
itself to be a particular person when forgetting where she comes from.

The sensory abilities are well described by the universal person
canonically associated to the universal machine, in his Bp  Dt  p
discourse, notably.

The waves, the molecules, eventually the number relations
particularize, or incarnate, the person in different context, but they
don't create the person, nor produce consciousness. (I assume comp, of
course).

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Craig Weinberg


On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 2:11:56 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:


 On 29 Oct 2013, at 17:07, freqflyer07281972 wrote:

 What are the 8 hypostases? I've seen this referred to a few other times on 
 this list and have never really known what it refers to.


 It is eight intensional variants of Gödel's arithmetical predicate, that 
 all self-referentially correct machines (rich enough, believing or using 
 the induction axioms, Löbian, ...) inherits from incompleteness.

 They are all equivalent, in the sense that they access to exactly the same 
 part of arithmetical truth, but they obeys quite different logic, and those 
 logics provides meta-definition of the points of view.

 I have used them also to offer a toy arithmetical interpretation of 
 Plotinus' theology, so here there are, B is the modal box representing 
 beweisbar, and D is ~B~(and can be read consistent).

 The three primary hypostases:

 p (the ONE, arithmetical truth)
 Bp (the Intellect, or Intelligible) Gödel's beweisbart('p'), the 3p self)
 Bp  p (the knower, the Soul, the 1p self)


My view inverts this, where 
S = primordial pansensitivity or Sense (the primordial trans-cardinal 
pre-tendency)
M = Motive or projection of Tensed Sense
H = Entropy or alienation of Sense (S/*M)
Q = Qualia (unique aesthetic presence, 1p, local experience, alienated 
Sense)
q = quanta (measurement, rules, laws, arithmetic truth, 3p, generic 
non-perspective, sense of alienation)

From the interaction of these, I get:

m = Matter (alienated Qualia)
E = Energy (alienated Motive)
K = Significance (recapitulation of Sense, collapse of Entropy)
t = time (quantized Significance)
d = space (quantized Entropy)
g = gravity (anti-Motive of Entropy)

This is a lattice view that is slightly different to emphasize the 
separation of the Absolute from sense as well. This separation is more for 
linguistic clarity, since sense and the Absolute are the same ultimately.

http://31.media.tumblr.com/fb43e825fda19a996095b7d355983fe7/tumblr_msm9l6YMyI1qeenqko1_500.jpg



Craig

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread LizR
On 30 October 2013 07:53, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 10/29/2013 9:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 Depressingly, until the
 middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all human
 beings are people with equal rights.


 That's a very recent idea, indeed.


 It's so recent that it's well into the future.  There are large parts of
 the Earth where equal rights for women do not exist and are considered
 wrong and even wicked.


True.


 And of course children do not have full rights anywhere and I don't expect
 that to change.


I'm not sure if you consider this a bad thing, but if so, it's fair to
argue that at least in some cases this is for their own good. For example,
my children are provided for by their parents, and therefore don't have the
rights that would come if they were equal providers in the household. They
are birds in a gilded cage. E.g. they don't have the right to carry out
actions (like trombone practice) when these would interfere with work that
brings in money for their upkeep. Toddlers don't have the right to run into
a busy road, or to play with electrical equipment; my children don't have
the right to take time off school whenever they like, this is in order to
ensure they are properly educated, which is a right they should have but
don't always want. Nor do they have the right to only eat unhealthy food,
which would cause them problems later in life. They don't have the right to
stay out all night, except at a friend's house, because that would be
unsafe. And so on. They do have a right to be provided for by their
parents, and not to be exploited. They are 12 and 15, and will gradually
acquire all the above-mentioned rights as they get older.

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Telmo Menezes
On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 5:27 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 On 29 Oct 2013, at 14:22, Telmo Menezes wrote:

 On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 I know a single concept of people

 I wonder what´s the new concept of people, different from the one I
 manage
 (either philosophical or not)

 Have they rights?


 This is a very good question which, in fact, serves well to illustrate
 how the concept of people is difficult and fluid.



 I would define a person any entity which behaves in a way which makes me
 think there is some first person view.
 Protozoa and perhaps even bacteria, gives me already that felling. I would
 say that a person is any entity which makes love and reproduce, like most
 bacteria.






 Past issues:
 - Are other races people, do they have right?


 I guess bacteria benefits from some natural bacteria right, but nature is
 known to be cruel in that respect. probably a good thing, because the
 universe would be quickly full of amoeba is they all manage to survive all
 their duplications ...
 Of course bacteria does not need human right in the usual sense of the
 expression.




 Depressingly, until the
 middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all human
 beings are people with equal rights.


 That's a very recent idea, indeed.




 Current issues:
 - Are animals people to some degree?


 With my definition above, they are people. We just don't notice, except
 children. Of course you can call that a pathetic fallacy. It is still better
 to attribute too much personhood than to few, ethically.



 Do they have rights? Many modern
 societies say yes, and consider some mistreatments of animals to be a
 crime;


 All persons deserve respect, even when we eat them.



 - Are corporations people? American law says yes, and that they have
 rights like free speech;


 In my opinion, this is not in the interest of the human individual and it is
 a threat to the human right.
 But it is in the interest of some possible multi-humans higher level being.




 Future issues:
 - Are aliens people?


 I would say by definition, unless you call a meteor an alien.




 Should they have equal rights?


 Does Alien have the right to eat us? (in case they find us tasty)





 Does that depend
 on their level of civilisational development? If yes, where to draw
 the line?
 - Are robots people?


 If they run the right self-referentially correct loop.

 This is something the humans will do with caution, as you get quickly
 machines fighting for social security and rights.




 - Are computer emulations of the minds of dead people people?


 That's the comp assumption.




 Crazy issues:
 - Are spirits and demons people? Islamic law says yes.


 Is it so crazy? After all some non Turing emulable arithmetical relations
 are Löbian too. Second order arithmetic is not Turing emulable, and is
 Löbian, with a divine provability predicate (to use Boolos terming!).
 Normally, they have even the same fundamental physics.
 Arithmetic is full of lives, dreams, but there is still place for spirit and
 daemon.
 Now, if mathematicians can be said to communicate with them, it is not in
 any sense compatible with giving them right. They might have possible role
 in making those right even possible, like arithmetical truth (which is
 itself such entities, despite not being Löbian at all) makes person and
 relative realties possible.





 Of course Nietzsche himself had this to say:
 Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman -- a rope over an abyss...
 What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can
 be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under...

 So it doesn't sound that he was convinced that personhood was so clear
 cut either. Note that in the original German the mensch Übermensch has
 a meaning closer to person then man. So I actually made a mistake,
 Nietzsche's concept seems compatible with Bruno's and maybe they
 wouldn't disagree to much on this.


 Yes.


 To be sure, I don't like the idea of Übermensch.

 At least we know there is no Übermachine.

 There is just a universal baby god (the universal person/machine)

But this is how I see the concept of Übermensch. The idea got horribly
distorted by subsequent political events. The ideal of Übermensch is a
human that transcends the illusion and becomes aware of it's true (1p)
nature. I also see it as close to Buddhist ideas.

Telmo.

 which lost
 himself in the infinite and infinitely tricky garden provided by his Mom
 Goddess (Arithmetical truth).

 Bruno




 Also wikipedia, for what it's worth:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person

 Telmo.


 2013/10/29 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com


 On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Cells are people, perhaps. Dendrites and molecules lack
 self-referential
 means, like quarks.

 Then cows are Nietzchian superpeople. That disqualifies half of mi
 

Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread Alberto G. Corona
That article is very interesting and show how little we know and  worst of
all, how little we realize how little we know, by the way.


2013/10/28 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com


 http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-neuroscientists-mini-neural-brain.html

 Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once thought to be
 passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the University of North
 Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that these dendrites do more than relay
 information from one neuron to the next. They actively process information,
 multiplying the brain's computing power.

 Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much greater
 than we had originally thought, said Spencer Smith, PhD, an assistant
 professor in the UNC School of Medicine.

 His team's findings, published October 27 in the journal Nature, could
 change the way scientists think about long-standing scientific models of
 how neural circuitry functions in the brain, while also helping researchers
 better understand neurological disorders.

 Imagine you're reverse engineering a piece of alien technology, and what
 you thought was simple wiring turns out to be transistors that compute
 information, Smith said. That's what this finding is like. The
 implications are exciting to think about.

 Axons are where neurons conventionally generate electrical spikes, but
 many of the same molecules that support axonal spikes are also present in
 the dendrites. Previous research using dissected brain tissue had
 demonstrated that dendrites can use those molecules to generate electrical
 spikes themselves, but it was unclear whether normal brain activity
 involved those dendritic spikes. For example, could dendritic spikes be
 involved in how we see?

 The answer, Smith's team found, is yes. Dendrites effectively act as
 mini-neural computers, actively processing neuronal input signals
 themselves.

 Directly demonstrating this required a series of intricate experiments
 that took years and spanned two continents, beginning in senior author
 Michael Hausser's lab at University College London, and being completed
 after Smith and Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM, set up their own lab at the
 University of North Carolina. They used patch-clamp electrophysiology to
 attach a microscopic glass pipette electrode, filled with a physiological
 solution, to a neuronal dendrite in the brain of a mouse. The idea was to
 directly listen in on the electrical signaling process.

 Attaching the pipette to a dendrite is tremendously technically
 challenging, Smith said. You can't approach the dendrite from any
 direction. And you can't see the dendrite. So you have to do this blind.
 It's like fishing if all you can see is the electrical trace of a fish.
 And you can't use bait. You just go for it and see if you can hit a
 dendrite, he said. Most of the time you can't.

 Once the pipette was attached to a dendrite, Smith's team took electrical
 recordings from individual dendrites within the brains of anesthetized and
 awake mice. As the mice viewed visual stimuli on a computer screen, the
 researchers saw an unusual pattern of electrical signals – bursts of spikes
 – in the dendrite.

 Smith's team then found that the dendritic spikes occurred selectively,
 depending on the visual stimulus, indicating that the dendrites processed
 information about what the animal was seeing.

 To provide visual evidence of their finding, Smith's team filled neurons
 with calcium dye, which provided an optical readout of spiking. This
 revealed that dendrites fired spikes while other parts of the neuron did
 not, meaning that the spikes were the result of local processing within the
 dendrites.

 Study co-author Tiago Branco, PhD, created a biophysical, mathematical
 model of neurons and found that known mechanisms could support the
 dendritic spiking recorded electrically, further validating the
 interpretation of the data.

 All the data pointed to the same conclusion, Smith said. The dendrites
 are not passive integrators of sensory-driven input; they seem to be a
 computational unit as well.

 His team plans to explore what this newly discovered dendritic role may
 play in brain circuitry and particularly in conditions like Timothy
 syndrome, in which the integration of dendritic signals may go awry.



 *This revealed that dendrites fired spikes while other parts of the
 neuron did not, meaning that the spikes were the result of local processing
 within the dendrites.*

 Yep, looks like neurons have a nervous system of their own now. Still
 think that consciousness is a product of the brain?

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread meekerdb

On 10/29/2013 4:02 PM, LizR wrote:
On 30 October 2013 07:53, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net 
wrote:


On 10/29/2013 9:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Depressingly, until the
middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all human
beings are people with equal rights.


That's a very recent idea, indeed. 


It's so recent that it's well into the future.  There are large parts of 
the Earth
where equal rights for women do not exist and are considered wrong and even 
wicked.


True.


And of course children do not have full rights anywhere and I don't expect 
that to
change.


I'm not sure if you consider this a bad thing, but if so, it's fair to argue that at 
least in some cases this is for their own good. For example, my children are provided 
for by their parents, and therefore don't have the rights that would come if they were 
equal providers in the household. They are birds in a gilded cage. E.g. they don't have 
the right to carry out actions (like trombone practice) when these would interfere with 
work that brings in money for their upkeep. Toddlers don't have the right to run into a 
busy road, or to play with electrical equipment; my children don't have the right to 
take time off school whenever they like, this is in order to ensure they are properly 
educated, which is a right they should have but don't always want. Nor do they have the 
right to only eat unhealthy food, which would cause them problems later in life. They 
don't have the right to stay out all night, except at a friend's house, because that 
would be unsafe. And so on. They do have a right to be provided for by their parents, 
and not to be exploited. They are 12 and 15, and will gradually acquire all the 
above-mentioned rights as they get older.


That was my point.  Children are definitely persons if anyone is - but that's not a reason 
to bestow all kinds of rights on them. Rights are social constructs.


Brent

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread LizR
On 30 October 2013 14:22, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 10/29/2013 4:02 PM, LizR wrote:

  On 30 October 2013 07:53, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 10/29/2013 9:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 Depressingly, until the
 middle of the XX century there was no general consensus that all human
 beings are people with equal rights.


 That's a very recent idea, indeed.


  It's so recent that it's well into the future.  There are large parts
 of the Earth where equal rights for women do not exist and are considered
 wrong and even wicked.


  True.


 And of course children do not have full rights anywhere and I don't
 expect that to change.


  I'm not sure if you consider this a bad thing, but if so, it's fair to
 argue that at least in some cases this is for their own good. For example,
 my children are provided for by their parents, and therefore don't have the
 rights that would come if they were equal providers in the household. They
 are birds in a gilded cage. E.g. they don't have the right to carry out
 actions (like trombone practice) when these would interfere with work that
 brings in money for their upkeep. Toddlers don't have the right to run into
 a busy road, or to play with electrical equipment; my children don't have
 the right to take time off school whenever they like, this is in order to
 ensure they are properly educated, which is a right they should have but
 don't always want. Nor do they have the right to only eat unhealthy food,
 which would cause them problems later in life. They don't have the right to
 stay out all night, except at a friend's house, because that would be
 unsafe. And so on. They do have a right to be provided for by their
 parents, and not to be exploited. They are 12 and 15, and will gradually
 acquire all the above-mentioned rights as they get older.


 That was my point.  Children are definitely persons if anyone is - but
 that's not a reason to bestow all kinds of rights on them.  Rights are
 social constructs.

 Agreed on both points.

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-29 Thread meekerdb

On 10/29/2013 4:17 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

But this is how I see the concept of Übermensch. The idea got horribly
distorted by subsequent political events. The ideal of Übermensch is a
human that transcends the illusion and becomes aware of it's true (1p)
nature. I also see it as close to Buddhist ideas.


I certainly agree that Nietzsche's Ubermensch has been horribly distorted.  Although 
anybody who is claimed as a philosophical ancestor by the Nazis and Ayn Rand must have 
been doing something wrong. :-)  But the Buddhist idea is to withdraw from the world.  
Nietzsche's idea is to engage it, amor fati.  The will to power is the creative drive. To 
create art. To create oneself.


Brent

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Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-28 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 28 Oct 2013, at 16:52, Craig Weinberg wrote:


http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-neuroscientists-mini-neural-brain.html

Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once thought  
to be passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the  
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that these  
dendrites do more than relay information from one neuron to the  
next. They actively process information, multiplying the brain's  
computing power.


Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much  
greater than we had originally thought, said Spencer Smith, PhD, an  
assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine.


His team's findings, published October 27 in the journal Nature,  
could change the way scientists think about long-standing scientific  
models of how neural circuitry functions in the brain, while also  
helping researchers better understand neurological disorders.


Imagine you're reverse engineering a piece of alien technology, and  
what you thought was simple wiring turns out to be transistors that  
compute information, Smith said. That's what this finding is like.  
The implications are exciting to think about.


Axons are where neurons conventionally generate electrical spikes,  
but many of the same molecules that support axonal spikes are also  
present in the dendrites. Previous research using dissected brain  
tissue had demonstrated that dendrites can use those molecules to  
generate electrical spikes themselves, but it was unclear whether  
normal brain activity involved those dendritic spikes. For example,  
could dendritic spikes be involved in how we see?


The answer, Smith's team found, is yes. Dendrites effectively act as  
mini-neural computers, actively processing neuronal input signals  
themselves.


Directly demonstrating this required a series of intricate  
experiments that took years and spanned two continents, beginning in  
senior author Michael Hausser's lab at University College London,  
and being completed after Smith and Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM, set up  
their own lab at the University of North Carolina. They used patch- 
clamp electrophysiology to attach a microscopic glass pipette  
electrode, filled with a physiological solution, to a neuronal  
dendrite in the brain of a mouse. The idea was to directly listen  
in on the electrical signaling process.


Attaching the pipette to a dendrite is tremendously technically  
challenging, Smith said. You can't approach the dendrite from any  
direction. And you can't see the dendrite. So you have to do this  
blind. It's like fishing if all you can see is the electrical trace  
of a fish. And you can't use bait. You just go for it and see if  
you can hit a dendrite, he said. Most of the time you can't.


Once the pipette was attached to a dendrite, Smith's team took  
electrical recordings from individual dendrites within the brains of  
anesthetized and awake mice. As the mice viewed visual stimuli on a  
computer screen, the researchers saw an unusual pattern of  
electrical signals – bursts of spikes – in the dendrite.


Smith's team then found that the dendritic spikes occurred  
selectively, depending on the visual stimulus, indicating that the  
dendrites processed information about what the animal was seeing.


To provide visual evidence of their finding, Smith's team filled  
neurons with calcium dye, which provided an optical readout of  
spiking. This revealed that dendrites fired spikes while other parts  
of the neuron did not, meaning that the spikes were the result of  
local processing within the dendrites.


Study co-author Tiago Branco, PhD, created a biophysical,  
mathematical model of neurons and found that known mechanisms could  
support the dendritic spiking recorded electrically, further  
validating the interpretation of the data.


All the data pointed to the same conclusion, Smith said. The  
dendrites are not passive integrators of sensory-driven input; they  
seem to be a computational unit as well.


His team plans to explore what this newly discovered dendritic role  
may play in brain circuitry and particularly in conditions like  
Timothy syndrome, in which the integration of dendritic signals may  
go awry.



This revealed that dendrites fired spikes while other parts of the  
neuron did not, meaning that the spikes were the result of local  
processing within the dendrites.


Yep, looks like neurons have a nervous system of their own now.  
Still think that consciousness is a product of the brain?


I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the  
molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my  
opinion (from diverse reading) handle to information.


I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be  
seen as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular  
cells, a liver cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell.


Amoebas are not completely stupid and 

Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-28 Thread spudboy100

I read, somewhere, Professor Marchal, that it was the spindle cells in the 
brain that pushed the smarter creatures on this planet into high gear, so to 
speak, not so much glial, unless we are describing the same thing, primates, 
whales, dolphins, have spindle cells, and why this makes a difference I don't 
know. For no rational reason, my limbic system is urging me (?) to include in 
this email, the first stanza from Hyperactive, by Thomas Dolby. It adds nothing 
to this discussion, yet here it is, because it seems somehow, fitting.



At the tender age of three
 I was hooked to a machine
 Just to keep my mouth from spouting junk
 Must have took me for a fool
 When they chucked me out of school
 'Cause the teacher knew I had the funk




-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, Oct 28, 2013 1:53 pm
Subject: Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain




On 28 Oct 2013, at 16:52, Craig Weinberg wrote:


http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-neuroscientists-mini-neural-brain.html


Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once thought to be 
passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the University of North 
Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that these dendrites do more than relay 
information from one neuron to the next. They actively process information, 
multiplying the brain's computing power.

Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much greater than we 
had originally thought, said Spencer Smith, PhD, an assistant professor in the 
UNC School of Medicine.

His team's findings, published October 27 in the journal Nature, could change 
the way scientists think about long-standing scientific models of how neural 
circuitry functions in the brain, while also helping researchers better 
understand neurological disorders.

Imagine you're reverse engineering a piece of alien technology, and what you 
thought was simple wiring turns out to be transistors that compute 
information, Smith said. That's what this finding is like. The implications 
are exciting to think about.

Axons are where neurons conventionally generate electrical spikes, but many of 
the same molecules that support axonal spikes are also present in the 
dendrites. Previous research using dissected brain tissue had demonstrated that 
dendrites can use those molecules to generate electrical spikes themselves, but 
it was unclear whether normal brain activity involved those dendritic spikes. 
For example, could dendritic spikes be involved in how we see?

The answer, Smith's team found, is yes. Dendrites effectively act as 
mini-neural computers, actively processing neuronal input signals themselves.

Directly demonstrating this required a series of intricate experiments that 
took years and spanned two continents, beginning in senior author Michael 
Hausser's lab at University College London, and being completed after Smith and 
Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM, set up their own lab at the University of North 
Carolina. They used patch-clamp electrophysiology to attach a microscopic glass 
pipette electrode, filled with a physiological solution, to a neuronal dendrite 
in the brain of a mouse. The idea was to directly listen in on the electrical 
signaling process.

Attaching the pipette to a dendrite is tremendously technically challenging, 
Smith said. You can't approach the dendrite from any direction. And you can't 
see the dendrite. So you have to do this blind. It's like fishing if all you 
can see is the electrical trace of a fish. And you can't use bait. You just 
go for it and see if you can hit a dendrite, he said. Most of the time you 
can't.

Once the pipette was attached to a dendrite, Smith's team took electrical 
recordings from individual dendrites within the brains of anesthetized and 
awake mice. As the mice viewed visual stimuli on a computer screen, the 
researchers saw an unusual pattern of electrical signals – bursts of spikes – 
in the dendrite.

Smith's team then found that the dendritic spikes occurred selectively, 
depending on the visual stimulus, indicating that the dendrites processed 
information about what the animal was seeing.

To provide visual evidence of their finding, Smith's team filled neurons with 
calcium dye, which provided an optical readout of spiking. This revealed that 
dendrites fired spikes while other parts of the neuron did not, meaning that 
the spikes were the result of local processing within the dendrites.

Study co-author Tiago Branco, PhD, created a biophysical, mathematical model of 
neurons and found that known mechanisms could support the dendritic spiking 
recorded electrically, further validating the interpretation of the data.

All the data pointed to the same conclusion, Smith said. The dendrites are 
not passive integrators of sensory-driven input; they seem to be a 
computational unit as well.

His team plans to explore what

Re: Neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain

2013-10-28 Thread Craig Weinberg


On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:53:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:




 I refer you to my rare posts where I suggest that the level is the 
 molecular level, and should include the glial cells, which in my opinion 
 (from diverse reading) handle to information.

 I also defend the idea that an amoeba, by being unicellular, can be seen 
 as a cell being simultaneously a digestive cell, a muscular cells, a liver 
 cell, a kidney cell, a bone cell, and a brain cell. 

 Amoebas are not completely stupid and deserve respects, and so are any 
 each of our own cells, despite those cells in multicellular organism have 
 lost a bit of their freedom and universality to cooperate in what is 
 ourself.

 Again, the bold quote illustrates comp, and the fact that the level is 
 lower than some thought.

 Also with comp, consciousness is NOT a product of the mind. that's still 
 too much an aristotelian way to express the identity thesis. 
 Consciousness is not physical, it is the mental state of person associated 
 to machines, when those person develop *some* true belief.


So if dendrites and molecules are people, why not quarks and numbers?
 


 Bruno


 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/





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