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Coordination and Biotech Research
One of the reasons why Africa and other poor regions of the
world trail in crop biotechnology is lack of collaboration and
coordination among scientists. There are millions of
well-trained crop biotechnologists in poor countries. But due...
Films, television and acceleration:
What if dark side film and television creations are the result of writers who channel divine energies? What if each one released information via entertainment, so that the concept of considering the implausible, the mystical, the metaphysical, was...
Putting Flower Essences on the Map.
Putting Flower Essences on the Map.
In this world of greater understanding that all things are
connected, the idea of sending healing, love and blessings is
not so impossible. We have science backing up metaphysics, such
as String Theory....
The Afterlife and Scientology
AFTERLIFE: The 'Bardol Thodol' and 'Sidpa Thodol' of the 'Tibetan Book of the Dead' with a forward by Carl Jung and Lama Anagarika Govinda, by Evans Wentz is a great insight to the hallucinatory nature of the images we carry forward beyond the...
The Keys To Power - Where Science and Religion Meet
The Keys To Power - Where Science and Religion Meet by Alan Tutt http://www.KeysToPower.com The human species is constantly striving for more. More food, more friends, more love, more money, more sex, more power to get all good things. You and I...
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The Bill Clinton Neuron And The Sweat Neuron
In the world of science, there is excited speculation about recent discoveries of individual neurons in the brain, with striking capabilities. They had discovered a neuron, which fired on recognition of just one special face. Scientists spotted this using microelectrodes, which could identify the firing of a single neuron. Buried deep in the amygdala of a female patient, they discovered the so-called “Bill Clinton” neuron. The cell fired on recognizing three very different images of the former President; a line drawing of a laughing Clinton; a formal painting depicting him; and a photograph of him in a crowd. The cell remained mute when the patient viewed images of other politicians and celebrities. In other patients, scientists found similar cells that responded selectively to actors, including Jennifer Anniston, Brad Pitt, and Halle Berry.
Most neuroscientists had believed that specific nerve cells handled individual pixels as on a television screen. Suddenly, a single neuron could identify Clinton. Could there be a “thinking neuron?” Scientists felt it impossible for an individual cell to be clever enough to make sense of a concept as subtle as Clinton. Even the world’s fastest supercomputers would have difficulty performing that pattern-recognition feat. So, how could a single neuron ever learn to recognize a President? Such speculation on the nature of neurons continued ceaselessly in scientific circles. This was surprising. How could scientists remain blind to the significance of the Nobel Prize awarded in 2004 to Lynda Buck for the discovery of the recognition processes in the olfactory system?
There, Buck had already reported a “Sweat” neuron and an “Orange” neuron. Those experiments concerned the recognition of smells. She reported that octanol smelled like oranges and octanoic acid, like sweat, even though their chemical structures were similar. Yet, different neurons fired for each smell. Was this just more evidence of
thinking neurons? Yet, Buck had a simple explanation. The olfactory system recognized different combinations of firing for different odors. First, a single receptor recognized multiple odorants. Second, a single odorant was recognized by multiple receptors. And third, different odorants were recognized by different combinations of receptors. It was this combinatorial coding system, which enabled the olfactory system to recognize millions of odors. So, there were Sweat neurons, Rose neurons and Orange neurons. And millions more. Could it be that Clinton and Berry neurons were no different?
Was it only the olfactory system, which used combinatorial coding? The mind received kaleidoscopic combinations of millions of sensations. Could instant combinatorial recognition extended beyond the olfactory system? Could it be the essence of the neural system? A new book, The Intuitive Algorithm, suggested just this. The mind used combinatorial coding and pattern recognition to propel recognition through many neural regions like a lightning streak. The mind saw, recognized, interpreted and acted. Data was reported to move from input to output in a bare 20 milliseconds. In the blink of eye. Myriad processes converted light, sound, touch and smell instantly into your nerve impulses. Special regions recognized those combinations as objects and events. The limbic system, another region, interpreted those events to generate emotions. A fourth region responded to those emotions with actions. The mind perceived, identified, evaluated and acted. Pattern recognition and combinatorial coding got you off the hot stove in a fraction of a second.
About the Author
Abraham Thomas is the author of The Intuitive Algorithm, a book, which suggests that intuition is a pattern recognition algorithm. The ebook version is available at www.intuition.co.in. The book may be purchased only in India. The website, provides a free movie and a walk through to explain the ideas.
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