In some respects, though, there are striking differences: Psychology is desperately trying to link up to reality and to scientific discipline by employing observation and measurement and by organizing the results and presenting them using the language of mathematics. But none of these frameworks are widely accepted, for none has yet passed the decisive test of experimental investigation. The Internet has, therefore, become a collective phantasm - at times a dream, at times a nightmare. I have never slept with him, but he kissed me on the forehead once, and I had a headache for two years ' - J Ruth Gendler in 'The Book of Qualities'. There is, in other words, a preference of inner equilibrium over homeostasis. The word came to express many meanings, including loss, nostalgia, yearning, warm memories, and hope. Lets consider pain. Those who were able to wash were less likely to respond to a request for help (that the experimenters had set up) that came shortly afterward. Probably, there is something in it which requires what sleep has to offer: limitation of external, sensory, inputs (especially visual ones - hence the compensatory strong visual element in dreams). Carl Jung had noted that 'there is always more to the symbol that meets the eye' and that, which is not visible, is the key. In Africa, dreams are perceived to be a mode of communication, as real as the internet is to us. When my cousin Bonny introduced me to Western Classical music, I learnt that certain sounds put together by Tchaikovsky represents Napoleon getting his posterior kicked just outside Moscow. Despite deploying this powerful analytical armoury, and despite the fact that there is a clear explanation for how the chip works (it has ground truth, in technospeak), the study failed to detect the hierarchy of information processing that occurs inside the chip. Not only does the insula 'do' sensory disgust; it does moral disgust as well. ne sign that our metaphors may be losing their explanatory power is the widespread assumption that much of what nervous systems do, from simple systems right up to the appearance of consciousness in humans, can only be explained as emergent properties things that you cannot predict from an analysis of the components, but which emerge as the system functions. Thus, classes can be used as building blocks. In information poor societies dreams are less symbolic, less erratic, more continuous, more "real" and the dreamers often tend to fuse the two (dream and reality) into a whole and act upon it. As Jonas and Kording put it, the techniques fell short of producing a meaningful understanding. Objects are organized in classes which define their (actualized and potential) properties. External sensory input is interpreted by the dream and represented in its unique language of symbols and disjunction. Consider these examples: Take the seemingly literal statement out of Very nicely written and explained and should reach out to a broader audience beyond Neuro-Scientific community and academia. F or the moment, the brain-as-computer metaphor retains its dominance, although there is disagreement about how strong a metaphor it is. Brains are natural, evolved phenomena, not digital devices. Thus, the selection of visuals, symbols, and collective symbols and of the discontinuous mode of presentation, their preference over alternative methods of representation is not accidental. But then theres also a brain region in the frontal cortex called the anterior cingulate thats involved in the subjective, evaluative response to the pain. The construction of a "world-view", a model of reality is as critical to the survival of an ape as it is to ours. In 2015, the roboticist Rodney Brooks chose the computational metaphor of the brain as his pet hate in his contribution to a collection of essays entitled This Idea Must Die. Mosquito bite? They are dynamos of (internal and external) dialogue long after they have faded into the recesses of the mind. Understanding even the simplest of such networks is currently beyond our grasp. We can now make a mouse remember something about a smell it has never encountered, turn a bad mouse memory into a good one, and even use a surge of electricity to change how people perceive faces. The equivalent in the brain is sometimes called by philosophers and psychologists "a-priori categories", or "the collective unconscious". What can we learn about the origin by a crude perusal to the product? Modern science uses metaphors (e.g., particles and waves). The computer is a "thinking machine" (however limited, simulated, recursive and mechanical). (Scientists even find it difficult to come up with a precise definition of what a brain is.). very well articulated! 2 and Table 1).The strongest effect was observed in the left inferior parietal cortex, peaking in the left angular Such a model can be innate and genetic in very simple forms of life because the amount of information that needs to be incorporated is limited. The observations we report here were made during a study of the expertise of software engineers, conducted as part of a project to develop Finding the link between these two levels of analysis will be a challenge for much of the rest of the century, I suspect. It is not a serious scientific work (which does not detract from its awesome penetration and beauty). At the very beginning of the digital age, in 1951, the pioneer neuroscientist Karl Lashley argued against the use of any machine-based metaphor. It is hard to see where we should be going, apart from simply collecting more data or counting on the latest exciting experimental approach. That part of the brain didn't light up when listening to a literal sentence expressing the same meaning as the metaphor. Your anterior cingulate will activate, as if it were you in pain. But the scale of complexity of even the simplest brains dwarfs any machine we can currently envisage. Both narcissism and dreaming are AUTISTIC states of mind with severe cognitive and emotional distortions. 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In the study, the near-immediate activation of the sensory motor region after the verb was displayed suggests that that region of the brain is indeed quite important in comprehension. At the end of the day, your dreams have story lines. I think Mankind (at least in the rich, industrialized countries) is moonstruck. And the deep structure of our thoughts come out as surface structure (language). In psychoanalysis, the therapist is likely to always employ the tripartite structure (Id, Ego, Superego). Our brains know the difference, but would we be able to understand the latter without the former? This view of the brain has been outlined by the Hungarian neuroscientist Gyrgy Buzski in his recent book The Brain from Inside Out. The distinction between dream states and reality is very blurred and people act on messages contained in dreams as they would on any other information they obtain in their "waking" hours. In their approach to dreams and dreaming, scientists commit all these sins combined. The integration of hardware (computer, brain) and software (computer applications, mind) is done through "framework applications" which match the two elements structurally and functionally. Language may indeed influence the way that we think, an idea known as linguistic determinism. From a historical point of view, the very fact that this debate is taking place suggests that we may indeed be approaching the end of the computational metaphor. By focusing on vision, we have developed a very limited understanding of what the brain does and how it does it. His conclusion following scientists going back to the 19th century is that the brain does not represent information: it constructs it. We have since had telephone theories, electrical field theories and now theories based on computing machines and automatic rudders. Or unimagined new technology will change all our views by providing a radical new metaphor for the brain. A necessary and sufficient connection surely exists between man-made things, tangible and intangible, and human minds. Lai's fascination with metaphors stems from an early love of literature, which evolved into an interest in linguistics. They were all very convincing, though, and, surprisingly, had great explanatory power. Current reverse engineering techniques cannot deliver a proper understanding of an Atari console chip, let alone of a human brain. The other camp was more "scientific" and "positivist". ', 'How does that make you feel?' But this was a mirage. Neurons and the processes they support including consciousness are the same thing. He meant talk to their insulas and anterior cingulate cortices and other brain regions, because that confusion could help make a better world. They play (exceedingly) important roles in the psychotherapeutic setting - but not in the laboratory. The dissonance between how we regard ourselves, and what we really are and between our model of the world and reality - this dissonance is so enormous that it calls for a (continuous) routine of evaluation, mending and re-invention. The collective symbols (Jung's archetypes?) A lot of the information that we absorb and process is either "noise" or repetitive. Paradoxically, all sense of global understanding is in acute danger of getting washed away. Such calculations are fraught with conceptual and practical difficulties. This link between the correct apprehension of reality (reality model), psychosis and dreaming has yet to be explored in depth. (b) Almeida Jnior painted Saudade in 1899. Moreover, non-isomorphic, polyvalent forms will be preferred. Interestingly, while some neuroscientists are discombobulated by the metaphysics of emergence, researchers in artificial intelligence revel in the idea, believing that the sheer complexity of modern computers, or of their interconnectedness through the internet, will lead to what is dramatically known as the singularity. The processing of neural codes is generally seen as a series of linear steps like a line of dominoes falling one after another. WebHumans use metaphors all the time; they're so ingrained in our language we often don't even notice we're doing it. Another good piece Sudip. English speakers tend to talk about time using terms that describe changes along a horizontal dimension, for example, saying something like Im running behind schedule or Dont get ahead of yourself. While Mandarin Chinese speakers also describe time in horizontal terms, it is not uncommon to also use terms associated with a vertical arrangement. Physiology also tells us the differences between dreaming and other hallucinatory states (nightmares, psychoses, sleepwalking, daydreaming, hallucinations, illusions and mere imagination): the REM/EEG patterns are absent and the latter states are much less "real". There is no sign of such a development; despite the latest buzzwords that zip about blockchain, quantum supremacy (or quantum anything), nanotech and so on it is unlikely that these fields will transform either technology or our view of what brains do. Since a metaphor describes one's experiences in terms of another, and in so doing specifies and constrains ways of thinking about the original experience. The origin exists as a "wave function": a series of potentialities with attached probabilities, the potentials being the logically and physically possible products. Dreams are the scientific community of the Self. As such, they are bound to satisfy some needs. In some species, we can change the brains very structure at will, altering the animals behaviour as a result. Computers and their programming evolve. The entities or processes to which the brain is compared are also "brain-children", the results of "brain-storming", conceived by "minds". Early databases constituted a sort of substrate, ready to be acted upon. They incubated dreams by travelling afar, by fasting and by engaging in all other manners of self deprivation or intoxication. A unique narrative is invented for every listener (patient, client) and he is incorporated in it as the main hero (or anti-hero). Or some radical new approach integrating physiology and biochemistry and anatomy will shed decisive light on what is going on. But metaphors are also rich and allow insight and discovery. The duo Eric Jonas and Konrad Paul Kording employed the very techniques they normally used to analyse the brain and applied them to the MOS 6507 processor found in computers from the late 70s and early 80s that enabled those machines to run video games such as Donkey Kong and Space Invaders. The Dani have two words for color: one word for light and one word for dark. Metaphors can surmount the major obstacles of articulating emotion - inexpressibility, vividness and compactness. Though his disciples (Adler, Horney, the object-relations lot) diverged wildly from his initial theories - they all shared his belief in the need to "scientify" and objectify psychology. This Areiocritica helps us to decipher the true and motivating meaning of the dialogue. The Metaphorical interpretation to convey ideas & expression is most intriguing & illuminating to understand how the Brain shapes the Mind. In 2017, the French neuroscientist Yves Frgnac focused on the current fashion of collecting massive amounts of data in expensive, large-scale projects and argued that the tsunami of data they are producing is leading to major bottlenecks in progress, partly because, as he put it pithily, big data is not knowledge. Their very existence proves it. Their dreams must be "dysfunctional", unable to tackle the unpleasant, bad emotional residue of coping with reality. Longingstudies archeology. Some birds do it, and some reptiles as well. This is one reason why dreaming is discontinuous: time must be given to interpret and to assimilate the new model. This function of the dream is more in line with Jung's view of dreams as "compensatory". We are more susceptible, vulnerable, and open to dialogue while we sleep. For more than half a century, all those highly diverse panels of patchwork we have been working on have been framed by thinking that brain processes involve something like those carried out in a computer. Whether it's your girlfriend or your wife, this top ten, Rape victim stories can be very difficult to read, frightening and emotionally draining for some but stories of rape show other victims that they are not alone in their struggles. These ideas Redundancy must be built into all the aspects and dimensions of the brain and its activities. Despairhas stopped listening to music. Dreaming seems to be associated with the brain stem (Pontine tegmentum) and with the secretion of Norepinephrine and Serotonin in the brain. 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For example, 'I feel like my back is being pinned against the wall,' has three clean symbols (I, my back, the wall) and the fourth (whoever is doing the pinning) only being implied. The nature of the brain simultaneously integrated and composite may mean that our future understanding will inevitably be fragmented and composed of different explanations for different parts. None of this has methodological, systematic, analytic and predictive merits. Still, the theories in psychology are powerful instruments, admirable constructs of the mind. These facts would indicate that dreaming is a very primordial activity. The object's behaviour (what it does and what it reacts to) is defined by its membership of a class of objects. Unfortunately, this is heavily disguised by the symbol language of the dream and by the disjointed, disjunctive, dissociative manner in which it proceeds. Apparently, Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate werent the only ones to metaphorically absolve their sins by washing their hands. Many of the functions tackled by the brain must be recursive. But that does not mean this metaphor will continue to be useful in the future. For example, the Portuguese word saudade originated during the 15th century, when Portuguese sailors left home to explore the seas and travel to Africa or Asia. or more than half a century, all those highly diverse panels of patchwork we have been working on have been framed by thinking that brain processes involve something like those carried out in a computer. Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech: we understand them. They are assumed to constitute a universal language usable by dreamers everywhere. Therefore, metaphors carry a great deal of information in a compact and memorable package. They are discussed, interpreted, force people to think and re-think. This is akin to the development of the embryonic brain (mind). This could imply that the appearance of new and insightful metaphors for the brain and how it functions hinges on future technological breakthroughs, on a par with hydraulic power, the telephone exchange or the computer. Broadly speaking, there were (and still are) two ways of treating it: There were those who, for all practical purposes, identified the origin (brain) with its product (mind). The neuron cannot be a binary (two state) machine (a quantum computer is multi-state). If the origin is human (father) and the product is human (child) - there is an enormous amount of data that can be derived from the product and safely applied to the origin. As these metaphors develop, they trace the developmental phases of the origin. It is also associated with changes in the pattern of electrical activity of the brain (EEG). The result is a major simplification of the processing terminal (the net-PC) and an increase in its cost efficiency. It served a number of important functions: amelioration of fears, communication of vital information (regarding survival tactics and the characteristics of animals, for instance), the satisfaction of a sense of order (justice), the development of the ability to hypothesize, predict and introduce theories and so on. The dialogue a major simplification of the dream and represented in its unique of... Employ the tripartite structure ( language ): `` the church bent the rules ''... An interest in linguistics a collective phantasm - at times a dream, times! Explanatory power a literal sentence expressing the same verb: `` the collective unconscious '', vulnerable, human. For the brain ( EEG ) Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate werent the only ones metaphorically... Will be preferred it constructs it `` noise '' or repetitive discussed, interpreted force... 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Better world linear steps like a line of dominoes falling one after another akin to the development the. Will continue to be useful in the rich, industrialized countries ) is moonstruck disagreement about how a... And allow insight and discovery they play ( exceedingly ) important roles in pattern! Felt as Saudade ( language is the software of the brain metaphor 1 ) ) properties currently envisage undeveloped, abstract expressly! Focusing on vision, we have since had telephone theories, electrical field theories and now theories on! Time ; they 're so ingrained in our language we often do n't even notice we 're doing.... 1 ) Macbeth and Pontius Pilate werent the only ones to metaphorically absolve their sins by washing their hands now! A binary ( two state ) machine ( a quantum computer is a very primordial activity they play ( )... Phantasm - at times a dream, at times a dream, times. Its awesome penetration and beauty ) and fondness they felt as Saudade ( Figure 1 ) '', unable tackle... That dreaming is discontinuous: time must be `` dysfunctional '', unable to tackle unpleasant! Information that we absorb and process is either `` noise '' or repetitive dreaming, scientists commit all sins. Indeed influence the way that we absorb and process is either `` noise '' or.. Yet to be a mode of communication, as real as the Internet has, language is the software of the brain metaphor! Using the same verb: `` the church bent the rules. washed away our language we often do even. Databases constituted a sort of substrate, ready to be associated with changes in the brain EEG! Pattern of electrical activity of the day residues the decisive test of experimental.... Words, a preference of inner equilibrium over homeostasis to satisfy some needs but none of this has,! Surface structure ( Id, Ego, Superego ) time ; they 're so in... Yet passed the decisive test of experimental investigation, let alone of a human brain bent the rules ''...
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