Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA02179 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 29 Jun 2000 08:56:37 +0100 From: "Chris Lofting" <ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> To: "Memetics" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: FW: Cons and Facades - Welcome to My Nightmare Part 1.A Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 18:10:41 +1000 Message-ID: <LPBBICPHCJJBPJGHGMCIOEBBCHAA.ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
I sent this yesterday but it did not turn up, perhaps too long so I have cut
it in two...
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Lofting [mailto:ddiamond@ozemail.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, 29 June 2000 4:28
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - Welcome to My Nightmare Part 1
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Wade T.Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, 27 June 2000 4:22
> To: memetics list
> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades
>
>
> Take me into the tent.
>
Okay.
There are some fundamentals to deal with, axioms, universe of discourse etc.
I have summarised these below with some references. What I will eventually
show is the 'reason' for the finding of 'truth', meaning that 'makes a
difference' to the individual, in such disciplines as Astrology, NLP, etc
etc and how you can apply science to verify this and how it spans cultures
and is species-wide at least.
My approach to meaning and its determination is to go back to 'first
principles' in the form of an in-depth analysis of empirical research in
neurosciences as well as psychology.
I think we can agree that 'no brain-no mind-no maps'. My interest in the
maps is simply what is behind all of the different disciplines we have that
in some way or another describe, or claim to descibe, both 'in here' and
'out there' and all in-between; many disciplines describing the one reality.
I started this analysis with the human brain and in particular its
architecture as well as that of the sensory systems. This analysis led to
the 'fact' that, despite the influences of mid and hind brain processes, the
neocortex, and in particular the hemispheres of that cortex, is the 'center'
for novel complex information processing, both in analysis and synthesis
with previously experienced data acting as feedback.
Below are some particulars that when linked together (like a jigsaw puzzle)
give us a model of information processing that seems to 'work' when we look
at the many different expressions of brain-mind activity. Furthermore, the
model helps to bring-out a pattern of meaning determination that is across
the species (at least).
I address several sets of information and have numbered the assertions:
(1) The hemispheres of the neocortex function as high and low band
information filters.
The left hemisphere (in most, there is a BIAS here as well as genetic
diversity that allows for differences in the sameness) amplifies and process
high frequency data.
The right hemisphere processes low frequency data.
These processing biases are in spatial (visual) processing as well as
auditory processing. Since these are the dominant ways in which we process
information they are strongly emphasised.
(Good ref is:
Ivry, R.B., & Robertson, L.C.,(1998) "The Two Sides of Perception" MITP
Mostly vision data with particular research by the authors as well as
extensive reviews of other research in this area).
Further data covering the whole visual system is in:
Hoffman, D.D., (1998) "Visual Intelligence: How we create what we see"
Norton
Additional refs to cover the audition bias see:
In general: McAdams, S., and Bigand, E., (Eds) (1993) "Thinking in Sound"
OUP
In particular: Levarie, S., (1980) "Music as a Structural Model" p236-239 IN
Journal of Social Biol. Structure. 3)
The High/Low frequency processing has some interesting consequences namely:
(1.a) High frequency means 'wide' bandwith (intensity) means clarity and so
precision.
(1.b) High frequency means short range and so an emphasis on the local, the
particular, and so a SINGLE context.
(1.c) Low frequency means narrow bandwith means blurring and so
approximations.
(1.d) Low frequency means long range and so an emphasis on the non-local,
the general.
1.a + 1.b analogous to narrow spotlight, high beam. Intensity. Manic.
1.c + 1.d analogous to wide spotlight, 'diffuse' beam. Ambiant. Phobic.
(1.e) The right's bias to low frequencies means that detected general
patterns will contain a larger range of frequencies and so a link to
multi-contexts whereas a particular frequency manifests a single context
(see 1.b above). This favours the left being 'tonic' or 'key' oriented and
the right being more into harmonics and 'linkage'
(harmonicA+harmonicB+harmonicC etc).
(1.f) Although for any data the fundamental harmonic is processable by BOTH
hemispheres, it is STRONGLY identified in the left hemisphere. In the right
hemisphere it is barely differentiated from the other harmonics; it is
'diffuse' due to the low-frequence emphasis of the right.
In addition,
(1.g) The left/right distinctions are repeated at lower scales, for example
at the lobe level the same relationship of particular-to-general is present
in the relationship of temporal lobe to parietal lobe in BOTH hemispheres.
(The boundary is flexible, there is more of continuum from parietal to
temporal and so no strong EITHER/OR line in determining particular-general
but the biases becomes 'obvious' reasonably quickly).
(1.h)The left/right distinctions are also at the neural columns levels
within a lobe.
E.g. (A) the differentiation of left/right visual FIELDS in the occipital
lobes is split into the interdigitations of left-eye data/right-eye data.
(B) the frontal lobes, in those areas linked to planning and pre-expression
formatting, manifest the same pattern of interdigitations but at an abstract
level with the interdigitation links being left hemisphere/right hemisphere.
(see P. Goldman-Rakic's work in these areas. The orginal paper being:
Goldman-Rakic, P.S., (1984) "Modular organization of the prefrontal cortex"
IN Trends in Neurosciences Nove 1984 pp 419-424
(C) The primary auditory cortex reflects interdigitations to process
audition-sourced wavelength/frequency data.
When you apply various dyes across the brain you see a pattern emerge that
is like a fingerprint or the patterns you see in nature on zebras etc etc
What seems to be happenning is that the nature 'completes' the general
individual (bias to SAMENESS) and nurture (especially in infancy) act to
particularise and so create the particular individual (DIFFERENCE).
What is noteworthy is that the dye process brings out a hierarchic
developing of the neocortex where scrapping away the surface of the
neocortex shows a diffusion of the dye, unless you change scale. (see for
example:
Grinvald, A., et al (1991)"Optical Imaging of Architecture and Function in
the Living Brain" IN Squire, L.R., et al (Eds)(1991)"Memory :Organisation
and Locus of Change" OUP.)
What this hierarchic format suggests is that the left-high/right-low
distinctions are possibly applicable not only at the 'top'/'bottom' of the
neocortex but also along the posterior-to-anterior of the whole brain, i.e.
from the 'reptilian' brain upwards.
This arguement is reinforced by the tie of the basal ganglia to a
sensitivity to CONTEXT and so LOW frequency data. The basal ganglia is just
'underneath' the six layers of the neocortex. These distinctions gives us
at least a 3D format. (note that across the neocortex there are two 'paths',
dorasal via the occipatal-through-pariatal lobes, and ventral via the
occipital-through-temporal lobes. The dorsal is more sensitive to 'WHERE',
the ventral to 'WHAT'.)
A good analogy for these left-high/right-low distinctions is the
consideration of a gene encoded in DNA vs the same gene encoded in mRNA. DNA
coding manifests 'right hemisphere' processing where the gene is 'diffuse'
in that it is spread-out through the DNA strand(s). The process leading to
expression involves the cut'n'paste of different elements of the gene (i.e.
summing of harmonics) into a single thread expressed in the form of a mRNA
strand prior to ribosome processing.
Thus the DNA format manifests approximations and the mRNA format manifests
precision. The benefit of this, storing the information in a split-up form,
is that it allows for an ease in 'playing' with harmonics; e.g. viruses etc
were we see sections of strand that are thousands of years old and others
that change 'hourly'. (I recall that Bacterial DNA contains genes in a
contiguous space which is too rigid, too all-or-nothing. Our format is more
flexible.)
The above comments re RNA-DAN are I think 'interesting' in that later I get
into a development path that is tracable back to the 'big bang' and with it
the suggestion that, from the principles of evolution alone, it would be
'crazy' to suddenly change a system that works to another one. What I mean
here is that we 'see' in the neocortex the same 'extraction' processes as we
see at the microlevel of mRNA-DNA processes. This said, the METHOD of
analysis can create this impression! This is discussed later.
With the above 'simple' left/right distinctions we then consider the next
set of information in part 1.B...
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