Saturday, April 20, 2024

How the Brain Shapes Reality

How the Brain Shapes Reality
Indexed by Richard A. Hart, PhD
20 April 2024
How the Brain Shapes Reality, 60 min, 2024, by Andy Clark

 

This index was created to help me discuss this presentation in several settings. My short term memory is about nonfunctional but I refuse to "retire". Science and religion are dependent upon how humans evolve to view and understand the world. Your comments are welcome. What we sincerely believe is real to each regardless of what we experience or believe.

   

01  00:00  nail in foot 

A man screams in terrible pain on seeing that a nail penetrated his work boot. The nail went between his toes with no injury.


02  01:48  prediction machine 

His brain predicted that a nail through his boot would hurt bad therefore it did.


03  02:50  hollow mask

A clear face mask appears to face you when it does and when it does not even though you can see the difference. Your current observation cannot correct your strong expectation. 


04  06:40  sine-wave speech

An altered speech is played; then normal speech; and then the altered speech again. The first sample is not understandable; the second time it is played it is understandable. [Andy Clark has an accent. I had little problem on the second or third play of this presentation.] 


05  09:20  guessing machine

The brain is always trying to guess what will happen next.


06  09:44  modified prediction

Raw sensory information is never experienced: it is always modified.


07  11:20  predictive processing (PP)

How the brain balances predictions and sensory information.


08  12:18  books

Predictive processing or active inference and emotions.


09  14:45  predicting the present

This leaves the need to deal with residual errors.


10  15:00  prediction errors

Only these need further processing. 


11  17:00  1959 TV cartoons

Early TV signals only transmitted what changed between frames.


12  18:35  inside out

There is more wiring carrying information out than in.


13  18:40  energy budget

Most of the energy is spent maintaining the generative models that issue predictions. 


14  19:30  pression weighting

The brain estimates how much information to take from the model and from sensory experience.


15  25:50  high sensory

This is high in relation to model information, not high as a count.


16  26:27  autisim

High sensory information results in autistic behavior; seeks quiet places.


17  28:38  high predictions

This is high in relation to sensory information.


18  28:48  hallucinations 

High model information results in hallucinations.


19  30:15  alter sensory experience

Strong predictive models can alter sensory experience. 


20  30:30  self-confirming cycles

This can lead to self-confirming cycles.


21  31:07  experimental verification

Expectation creation,” real stimuli”, expectation-induced effects reported. 


22  33:32  chronic pain

Is poorly related to a cause.


23  36:39  idiosyncratic predictive

This gets related to more “causes” with more time.


24  38:01  install different predictions

The good news is to install different predictions.


25  38:17  placebos

Surgery, athletes, and “honest” placebos.


26  40:36  pain reprocessing theory (PRT)

With the ChronicPain Cycle the prediction becomes the problem.


27  44:48  psychosomatic (FND)

Functional neurological disorder with no cause 16%.


28  45:18 sensorimotor aspects

Unexplained cases of fatigue, weakness, and tremor.


29  45:45  loss of vision

Full recovery (as happens in high quality memory care).


30  48:43  mind/body one

The mind and body dualism model creates a false divide between psychiatry and neurology. 


31  49:45  hack predictive brains

Using virtual reality (VR) to alter precision-weightings and seed alternative predictions.


32  50:34  verbal reframing

Providing alternative views in a non-threating environment.


33  51:13  meditation

A powerful way of gaining control over the precision-weight aspect of our prediction machinery.


34  52:33  large differences between individuals

This suggest genetic differences.


35  55:58  predictive processing (PP) evolving into a scientific theory

Associating the big picture with specific implementation commitments makes things testable.


36  56:37  the relationship between conscious and unconscious predictions

No one knows.


37  57:04  the interplay between predictive brains and human-built worlds

Material culture and its influence on the predictive brain.


38  57:37  predictive brains will share the world with AI forms of predictive intelligence

This new environment will select for a reshaped species in the future.


39  58:04  why and how conscious experience is possible 

Books.


40  58:50  a small set of factors combine to yield a striking range of differences in experiences

(Predictions, precisions, and prediction errors} as in chemistry (the periodic table of the elements) and evolution (DNA).

Saturday, April 6, 2024

Cultural Evolution, Abbreviated

CULTURAL EVOLUTION, ABBREVIATED

Richard Allen Hart, PhD    6 Dec 1930—(18 MAR 2024)

This I Believe   Cultural Evolution    Factual Links    Related Topics    Outlines

[Click browser back button (<) or ALT < to return from a link]

[Sample 10-50 Minute Presentation Cut from Blog for Your Use]


CAUTION If you have not had the opportunity to learn to hold more than one view of a situation in mind without the need to destroy all others, you may erroneously assume to be offended or at risk. PLEASE first read “This I Believe-Classical”. Ideas and beliefs can exist above the level of natural brute force behavior and biological evolution. Your original beliefs can be enriched by a changing lifetime environment. Different beliefs can thrive (coexist) when they do no harm.


The part that God has in directed evolution must now be examined in this newly found world of nanobiology. The cost to cure sickle cell anemia (video 13 min, 2024) is now between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 and takes 1 year of periodic readily available hospital visits.
 

Nanobiology clipsThe human cell5 minStrange motor proteinloop. Tiny molecular machines6 min, that can react with the speed of light and rotate as fast as a jet engine. One 20-year human generation equals 350,000 microbe generations! This is in contrast to macroevolution that is too slow to be observed directly. Wikipedia microevolution is where evolution must take place.

  

Harvard (BioVisions) Inner Life of the Cell with Music  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnpl4mE-pX0&t=20s3 min, 2022, with titles. With narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?=dp6qRNNGPj412 min, 2022. With neither: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJyUtbn0O5Y3 min, 2012. 


Your Body's Molecular Machineshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tYrnv_o6A6 min, 2018. 


How these Animations were Made

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hk9jct2ozY, DNA animation (2002-2014) by Drew Berry and Etsuko Uno wehi.tv, 7 min, 2019, very good.  Size and time (speed).


Newer DNA Sequencing

How does the Oxford Nanopore Work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGWZvHIi3i0, 2 min, 2016, super good video of the artificial cell wall pore, and motor protein. 

Bioengenineered cell membrane natural sized nanopores that transport a single strand of RNA or DNA through an electric field that detects each nucleotide in a DNA strand in about ten minutes. No dyes needed. how nanopore sequencing works2 min, 2019, very good.


How does nanopore DNA sequencing work? https://nanoporetech.com/applications/dna-nanopore-sequencing2 min, 2024 company edition, super good.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yI_SoOWFMU DNA Damage Response, 4 min, 2018, a breast cancer cure. DNA is damaged thousands of times a dayThe DNA polymerase protein molecules are in such a high concentration they can repair damage almost instantly. 

http://www.google.com/search?q= DNA polymerase DNA replication png3 min, 2015, 3D film. The repair operation is the same thing done on the lagging DNA strand. Run the film again to verify.


 Current Research 2024


Australia rock. https://youtu.be/0NdpJ1Ukp5k?list=PLTiv_XWHnOZpmajNtq8AtBItVDYadNR5q 

3 min, 2020. First life on earth 2 - 3 billion years ago. NASA seeing is believing. Microbial mat.


Where to find ancient life now on our world? white smoker deep sea vents, temperature and pressure.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX4zzFWx9mA&list=PLTiv_XWHnOZpmajNtq8AtBItVDYadNR5q&index=12 min, 2021


Where to find life other than on our world? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz9VhCQbPAk&list=PLTiv_XWHnOZpmajNtq8AtBItVDYadNR5q&index=34 min, 2015



We know the Old Testament. A correcting, more powerful, story is told in the New Testament.  I believe the time has come for a newer more complete story that includes God's secret nano world (scroll to genetics). It does not limit the power of the concept of god or the way god works. It allows living in peace in a mature religious/spiritual (R/S) world visualized by science. 


              This I Believe   Cultural Evolution    Factual Links     Related Topics [four links]


  Epilogue (at end of Related Topics)


Biological evolution follows two basic rules: (8 Mar 2024)
1. A supportive environment (niche).
2. A self reproducing entity with variation (errors). 

Cultural evolution adds two more basic rules:
3. Spiritual-and-religious. Unverifiable single beliefs.
4. Science. Verifiable and verified group beliefs.