Fear the Flashy Squidies!

Neato!

Even Cthulhu thinks Californians are weird.

Calamari (i'll use the English spelling) for hundreds of thousands!

quote:

Originally posted by Tongster:
Fear the Flashy Squidies!

What's really scary is ... when the squid flash their photophore lights ... they're also making those weird, five loud tuba notes from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND !!!

NASA Wants Your Ear Hairs

Apparently Furry Sheila's prefer Furry Sheila's to Bruce.

quote:

Originally posted by Cavenagh:
Apparently Furry Sheila's prefer Furry Sheila's to Bruce.

Just like those female prison films.

Here's some science stuff: Scientology!

Transcript of Penthouse invterview with L.Ron Hubbard, Jr.. June 1983

Furious - that was creepy! Scientology is just too weird!

And how amazing that Jr SURVIVED. In 1934! I mean, premies today are challenged and I can only imagine what conditions were like in 1934.

*steps first steps into science lounge*
*looks around, feels pretty okay safe*

So, over in the coolness thread Circus linked to a site called Edge.org where I found
this here article on the neurology of self-awareness and was curious to see if it would spark any discussion. It's about three pages printed, an easy read. I'd be interested if anybody has any thoughts on it.

I'd read about mirror neurons before and while I find the idea to be fascinating, and while it certainly explains much of human behaviour, I think that ascribing the cause a phenomenon as complex as self-awareness to a single thing, even one as neurologically complex as this, is insufficient.

It IS very interesting, though.

And just a few quick thoughts upon finishing reading the article.

I find the existence of mirror neurons fascinating. The fact that these neurons fire when someone merely watches another subject perform an act is cool.

I love the bit about using phrases like "self conscious" when what we really mean is we are conscious of other people being conscious of us.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with his assertion that TOM (theory of other minds) evolved first in a response to social needs, then leading to the ability of introspection (theory of my mind, TMM). Unless I'm misunderstanding him, I feel like the TMM should have evolved out of personal experience, stimulus/response, action/reaction, trial/error. I do something, then the next time I do it I look inward to see what I've learned, then I file the results of the new experience away. That would then create a sensory database that we would apply to observing others, and we bring those observations into the database, and that allows us to form the TOM. I know he eventually suggests that they are obviously sides of the same coin, but I question his assertion that development of the TOM through social needs came before introspection/TMM.

Lastly, this article suggests to me that the capacity for empathy (TOM) is initially linked to brain chemestry, but further that the capacity can be developed and nurtured. He doesn't quite go so far as to say it, but I would suspect that meditation (or any form of intense introspection) would increase the scope of TOM (being the same coin), whether TOM came first or not.

And yes, I realize all this babling will sound like so much gibberish if you haven't read the article, I just needed to get my thoughts out before I lost them.

quote:

Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
I'd read about mirror neurons before and while I find the idea to be fascinating, and while it certainly explains much of human behaviour, I think that ascribing the cause a phenomenon as complex as self-awareness to a single thing, even one as neurologically complex as this, is insufficient.

It IS very interesting, though.

Well, he does say "Note that I am not arguing that mirror neurons are sufficient for the emergence of self; only that they must have played a pivotal role."

Damn, and I just had another thought and forgot what it was before getting in on paper .....

Understood. It's just that this is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to find in the brains of any creature that can change its behaviour based on observation of another, which is hardly a trait unique even to primates. I can sort of understand his excitement, but it's a little like being fascinated by how the drive train of your car works.

It might make a difference to people who work with these things, but I already sort of figured something like this had to be in place for the thing to work.

quote:

but it's a little like being fascinated by how the drive train of your car works.

Oh c'mon, Dweller! I think you're being a bit too flippant about this. I mean, who here isn't fascinated by how the drive train in their car works? *raises hand* Anyone? *looks around* Anyone? *puts hand down* Hmm...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: JP,

*laughs*

Cars are sexy. Engines, not so much.

And, again, it's not that isn't very cool that we've found this mechanism.

I think my reaciton might also partly be coloured by my first exposure to the mirror neuron: an atheist friend insists that the existence of the mirror neuron proves that there is no God.

quote:

Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
<snip>
I think my reaciton might also partly be coloured by my first exposure to the mirror neuron: an atheist friend insists that the existence of the mirror neuron proves that there is no God.

*exasperated sigh* Oh brother.

This article (and another I'm plodding through right now, involving quantum physics) along with some more spiritual/religious things I've been reading/thinking of late have fed into some fantastical ideas for writing Unlike your friend, one of my first thoughts was training and enhancing your mirror neurons to the point of such heightened (self and other) awareness that it actually allowed one to talk with God (don't ask me how, it's a thought in process).

That's extremely Herman Hesse of you.

I do think that mirror neurons are the most probably explanation for a good 99.99% of what we call "psychic phenomena." Humans read the environment of their fellow creatures as much as their actions, and human body language is discrete on a deeply subconscious level, so it should be unsurprising that some people can make tremendous leaps of intuition that appear to be supernatural.

Which book? I've only read one of his and this thought doesn't quite fit that bill (Narcissis and Goldman, I think it was called).