Skip to main content

Neurological facts/factoids that fascinate me

1. During anesthesia, the cortex is fully active, yet not conscious because the ascending signals are not forwarded by the reticular formation.

2. Only animals with neo-cortex have REM

3. It is possible that REM has to do with the consolidation of long term memory.

4. Posopagnosia: the condition of being unable to recognize faces that one sees.... even though one may be able to imagine the same faces.

5. The definition of consciousness: one prof gives that definition as follows: attention, self-reference, & awareness.... This sort of definition might require us to say that frogs catching flies are not conscious. Yet they are not zombies, robots. When we drive down a very, very familiar highway w/o paying attention to our driving, is our awareness of the road conditions "consciousness," is it like the frog catching the fly, or is it something different?

6. The binding problem: there is no one place in the brain where all cognition comes together, even though we experience being a one to whom everything happens.

7. (The claim that) we are able to grasp the experiences had by another as experiences had by another "I," thanks to mirror neurons.

8. That thalmic pain is an exception to the general rule that consciousness requires, consists of cortical activity.

9. That the ARAS (ascending reticular activation system) must stimulate the thalmus & cortex for it to be conscious; otherwise, a coma occurs.

10. That there are people who can see but are unaware that they can see. That is because area 17 in the back of the head is not functioning. Does information reach the cortex w/o having passed by area 17? How?

11. That some folks are color blind, not because of something wrong in the eye, but because of something gone wrong in the brain.

12. If one has motion agnosia, then one perceives what is moving as a series of still-frames...

13. (still re motion agnosia) The fact that motion agnosia is the result of a lesion to a particular part of the brain implies that the said part is responsible for perceiving the motion of things. And the latter fact shows that what is phenomenologically an aspect/moment of the given (i.e., the motion OF something) is cognized in virtue of a particular "piece" of the brain.

14. The normal path from seeing with the eye is retina, lateral geniculate, area 17 (back of the head), higher order visual cortex, higher level association area, pre-frontal cortex to PLAN the movement, then to the motor neurons or something like that to make it happen... (to be continued)

15. But it can happen that the information goes from the eye to the lateral geniculate to the amygdala (on the basis of the reticular formation's selective attention or shunting) without area 17's getting involved (think of us reacting like a frog that shoots its tongue out at a darting fly)

16. The species of agnosia called contralateral neglect indicates that spatial memory is referenced to one's body image!

17. That there are higher & lower visual areas (as well as auditory, etc.), and that these higher areas are necessary for sortal, motion, color and facial recognition.

18. That the limbic system subsumes learning, emotion and executive function.

19. That scientists have somehow wired a camera to a surface that touches the touch, with the result that the blind can see well enough to catch a ball. And the signals from the tongue go to the visual cortex (says phil of mind dude on teaching company lectures).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dembski's "specified compexity" semiotics and teleology (both ad intra and ad extra)

Integral to Dembski's idea of specified complexity (SC) is the notion that something extrinsic to evolution is the source of the specification in how it develops. He compares SC to the message sent by space aliens in the movie "Contact." In that movie, earthbound scientists determine that radio waves originating in from somewhere in our galaxy are actually a signal being sent by space aliens. The scientists determine that these waves are a signal is the fact that they indicate prime numbers in a way that a random occurrence would not. What is interesting to me is the fact that Dembski relies upon an analogy with a sign rather than a machine. Like a machine, signs are produced by an intelligent being for the sake of something beyond themselves. Machines, if you will, have a meaning. Signs, if you will, produce knowledge. But the meaning/knowledge is in both cases something other than the machine/sign itself. Both signs and machines are purposeful or teleological

continuing the discussion with Tim in a new post

Hi Tim, I am posting my reply here, because the great blogmeister won't let me put it all in a comment. Me thinks I get your point: is it that we can name and chimps can't, so therefore we are of greater value than chimps? Naming is something above and beyond what a chimp can do, right? In other words, you are illustrating the point I am making (if I catch your drift). My argument is only a sketch, but I think adding the ability to name names, as it were, is still not enough to make the argument seem cogent. For one can still ask why we prefer being able to name over other skills had by animals but not by humans. The objector would demand a more convincing reason. The answer I have in mind is, to put it briefly, that there is something infinite about human beings in comparison with the subhuman. That "something" has to do with our ability to think of the meaning of the cosmos. Whereas one might say"He's got the whole world in His han

particular/universal event/rule

While listening to a recorded lecture on Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism, it occurred to me that every rule is in a way, a fact about the world. Think about baseball: from the p.o.v. of an individual player, a baseball rule is not a thing but a guide for acting and interpreting the actions of others.  But this rule, like the action it guides, is part of a concrete individual --i.e., part of an institution that has come into existence at a particular place and time, has endured and  may eventually go out of existence.  The baseball rule, as a feature of that individual, is likewise individual.  The term "baseball rule," on the one hand, links us to a unique cultural event; it can, on the other hand, name a certain type of being.  In this way, it transgresses the boundary between proper and common noun. If there were no such overlap, then we might be tempted to divide our ontology between a bunch of facts "out there" and a bunch of common nouns "in here.&qu