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<small><small><font size="+2"><small><small>Dear FIS colleagues,<br>
<br>
This is the month of deadlines in my Institute, so I can
only draft a few comments on the past messages.<br>
<br>
To Maxine: the action theme is very rich, and very well
acquainted and discussed in last decades neuroscience.
Gallistel C.R: with his magisterial "The Organization of
Action: A New Synthesis" (1980) heralded the new views.
More recently Alain Berthoz "The Brain's Sense of
Movement" was boldly claiming "In the beginning was the
deed", "In principio erat actum" so replacing "verbum"
(the concept) for actum the act. Joaquin Fuster (Cortex
and Mind, 2002) also was debunking the traditional views on
concepts, claiming instead for "cognits", with both
perceptual sides and motor sides... One can argue a lot
about that, but most of these visions are well grounded
and fertile. Berthoz's book is very elegant and makes for
a rewarding reading. <br>
<br>
</small></small></font><font size="+2"><small><small>As for
Soeren, another explicit vision of meaning comes from
Gerald Edelman (his neural darwinism, later on "evolved"
to more integrative views). I copy from Oliver Sacks notes
(sorry if it is a little bit long): <br>
<br>
</small></small></font></small></small><i>"With his Theory
of Neuronal Group Selection (also called Neural Darwinism
in analogy of the Darwinism in the immune system)
Gerald Edelman presents a neurobiological theory of the mind. He
and his colleagues
at the Neurosciences Institute have been developing
it over the past 15 years. He imagines a comprehensive theory of a
dozen
disciplines
of neuroscience. The outline of the theory is as follows:
</i>
<p><i>After birth a set of inborn values (feelings) </i><i>allows
us to begin building the structure of the brain.
The smallest entity of this structure is a group of neurons
(map) </i><i>in which internal links represent our experience.
Maps are
then used as new building blocks and interconnected with links
into scenes
</i><i>representing what we experience as the present. Ever richer
maps are constructed</i><i>, ultimately
</i><i>maps
of meaning</i><i>. In our search for meaning our mind develops
up the evolutionary
</i><i>ladder
to consciousness</i><i> until we form the new categories of
"past" and "future".
</i></p>
<p><i>On this way, the building blocks acquire step by step more
internal
structure that can be accessed. A continuous stream of </i><i>establishing
and
testing of hypotheses</i><i> on the basis of the existing
interconnections
weakens or strengthens existing connections or builds new ones</i><i>.
The fittest maps and connections survive (thus the name
neural Darwinism). These maps are </i><i>dynamic </i><i>in
that
they are continually redrawn </i><i>according to our
perceptions</i><i>..."</i><i><br>
</i></p>
<p>To Loet: building upon the above, a disciple of Edelman, Giulio
Tononi, has coined the term "integrated information" phi as a sort
of informational metrics, which is based in an information theory
approach to the structure of mapping exchanges between neural
areas. Seemingly the values of phi beyond some threshold indicate
the emergence of consciousness as a brain epiphenomenon ("PHI: A
Voyage from the Brain to the Soul", 2012). The view, well built
upon info theory (almost Loet's style), has attracted a lot of
discussion, but ultimately the approach continues to be more
structurally focused than dynamic... critics have argued that the
phi value of a smart cell phone is nowadays quite close to
self-consciousness.<br>
</p>
<p>The suggestion (to all) is to explore whether phi, rather than
relating it to the emergence of consciousness, would relate to the
emergence of meaning. All the fast circulating activations and
inhibitions between neural mappings, usually involving opposing
flows of neuronal "energy" and informational "entropy", when they
finally "click" and achieve convergence on an optimized state, it
represents the collective achievement of meaning. Thus, phi would
be a highly dynamic, fluctuating indicator showing the evolution
of the cascades of meaning. Let us imagine the thresholds pointed
by Bob in ecological networks, but circulating at a fiendish speed
(could values of phi and resilience indexes have similar nature?):
The ecosystem of the mind...<br>
</p>
<p>To emphasize finally that multiple disciplines may approach
meaning, but explaining it I think does correspond in our times to
explorations like the above, neurodynamic. Like the biological
phenomenon of heredity... after centuries speculating in all
realms of inquiry, finally it was explained molecularly by Watson
and Crick in 1953. <br>
</p>
<p>Anyhow, all of the above is very hurried, and it just points to
the necessity of discussing in depth these exciting matters. <br>
</p>
<p><big><big><small><small>Best regards</small></small></big></big></p>
<p><big><big><small><small><br>
--Pedro<br>
</small></small></big></big></p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">
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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a>
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