Evolving Systems course, week 11 on the brain

At least my brain should be my friend. I mean, it is a part of me and it does a lot of work for me. So how come I don't think about it often? How come it was taking our class so long to get into a serious discussion on Thursday? I was talking to a friend this weekend and she stated that she just doesn't like to think about the insides of people. Yeah, me neither. Maybe it took us so long to get into a thoughtful discussion because thinking about the brain makes us realize that under all of this skin we're all just a bunch of gooey squishiness and we just don't like that idea.

Anyways, when asked to metaphorically describe our brains, I said mine was like a movie. I always felt like my mind was my own private movie theater because I could imagine anything I wanted to with it. During the day, while reading, it will create images of the books characters and scenes for me and at night it will unconsciously play my dreams. Not just thoughts, but pictures are going through my mind all day. Hence, my little movie theater. I remember reading an article a few years ago about how scientists still don't know which part of the brain plays dreams. Maybe the article is super outdated now because I think scientists do have some idea if they don't know yet. But I always liked the idea that dreams are still something mysterious to us and scientists. It's one of those things that our brain does that we can't explain. That to me, is what fascinates me about the brain. I mean, you always hears that we only use about one quarter of our brain. It makes me wonder what lies in the rest of our brain. Imagine what would happen if we had the ability to use our whole brain!

 If you would have began a conversation with me about 5 or 6 years ago about brings I would have happily engaged in the conversation with you.  Today, it does not particularly interest me. I did not say much during Thursday's discussion about the brain because I didn’t have anything that I though was worthwhile to bring up. Hopefully as we go deeper into thinking about how the brain as a story teller that Will be a more interesting way for me to go about thinking about the brain. 

speaking of brains… my brain hurts from all this work I had/have to do this week

     I've never actually seriously thought about brains. It's kinda funny that we are using our body every second ever since we were born and most of us don't really pay attention to them. 

    I have tons of questions about the brains. What makes the brains special amongst the organs? What makes them capable of control the bodies? Why are them like hard drives? What role do the brains play in dreams? 

    After last week's discussion, I kept thinking about the subconscious. The idea of subconscious confuses me. If there's a subconscious existing inside us, does that mean there's another thing inside us that is logic beside "self"? Also, is the subconscious inside our brains? It reminds me of our discussion about souls weeks ago. Subconscious is very close to the concept of souls. I'm wondering what are the connections between brains and souls...

    I'm looking forward to this week's discussion. I'm eager to find out more about the mysterious brains.

I think last week's discussion involved a lot of information that was novel to me. I really enjoyed discussing the idea of the construction of the brain. After reading the article “ the Phantom in the brain”, I do not take my body, more precisely my brain, for granted any more. I was really amazed by the extremely complicated interactions occur in our brains everyday. I realized that there are so many things about brain that normal human beings do not appreciate. After this week's discussion, I think I appreciate my life to a larger extent than before. However, while enjoying reading the bizarre functions of various parts of brain and how they are interconnected to give human beings the sense of reality and consciousness, I am very confused about one concept. It seems that Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran can give us very justifiable and logical reasons to explain various problems faced by patients. However, if we really explore the question deep, do you think it is contradictory to study our brain functions using the brain itself? Is it just another story that is constructed by our brain to explain the phenomenons we have observed so far?

Yeah, Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran actually introduced a lot of ideas and wise experiments to prove his hypothesis. However, he himself also committed that human beings need to have a coherent belief system to maintain a sense of continuity and that belief system is constructed by the brain at left hemisphere. If so, consciousness and reality are actually constructed by the human brain. How can he prove that the “reality” constructed by his brain is reality? It may be just the case that his reality happens to be shared by a large percentage of the whole human population? Like what we have discussed in class: there is nothing that accounts for everything. There is indeed no truth and we live in our own brain constructions.

 I find it rather comforting to think that we live in a matrix. Not the matrix, just a world that's not the real one. It makes me feel better believing that every big decision I make that changes my life is really as big of a deal as it feels like at the time. (ex. which college to go to.) Now, I don't remember if this train of thought was in class or just in my head during class (or both), but wouldn't it be cool if there were multiple dimensions or universes existing in the same place, but we can't tell they're there?  It might be able to explain some things we can't with logic, like ghosts who might just be extremely visible inhabitants of another dimension.

I remember in high school talking about Socrates' Allegory of the Cave, and it was what really got me thinking about reality and just how real it is.  This made me wonder if I would rather be the one person who escaped the cave and saw the light, or if I would prefer being one of the others who were perfectly content with the shadows on the cave wall.  Is ignorance bliss? I'd like to think I'd be curious enough to take the red pill and see reality, if given the chance. Looking up the Matrix on wikipedia reminded me of a scene from the movie Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger in which Arnold is offered a red pill (just like the Matrix O.o) to wake up from his dream. Arnold realizes it's reality because the guy offering him the pill has a large, obnoxious bead of sweat rolling down his bald and shiny head. So, obviously, Arnold kills him and everyone else present with much gore and glorious violence.  My point for this is that Arnold knew it was a dream because he saw something wrong/unpleasant so it must be real. We see things that are wrong and unpleasant every day, so it must not be a dream or fantasy, right? But what about the really really horrible things out there, like genocide and starvation and widespread poverty and all of that stuff that we've been told is out there? We don't let it affect us because we've never seen it. Does it mean it doesn't exist? Or does the fact that it doesn't affect us mean that this reality isn't real? How far can we trust what we perceive and our brains know?

It's funny the way brains work, like how some brains process faster than others.  Sometimes brains can "absorb more information" than others.  I wonder why that is.  Is it possible to train the brain?  And it's amazing how much storage the brain can hold, but can it hold infinite amounts of information?  I mean, doesn't the brain get rid of some memory to make space for more information (why we forget things)?  How much can the brain actually hold?

Unfortunately I missed Thursday’s class, but I’ll talk about the gist of what I’ve heard was discussed.

The brain as a “site of story construction” is an expected yet perfect loop toward the first week of class all over again.

I’ve had this notion that mind is separate from brain. Brain being more of an organ used to survive in my world, and the mind capable of great emotions and indescribable feelings. What is the difference, if any, between brain and mind?

I think it’s really interesting that I often allow other people’s realities to influence my own. For example, if I’m feeling negative toward something, and someone that I respect feels highly of that same thing, I’ll suddenly allow myself to change. Sometimes, I’ll become happier/more content if I can change from a possibly judgmental or pessimistic view. My reality is changing to match someone else’s. People often do this the opposite way as well – they change their views to be contrary. Because of this, I often try to consciously do it to other people.  Simple out-loud appreciation of goodness in life can often influence the mood of those around you. Possibly especially at this age or time in our life where we’re still so open to influence.

Another thing that I cannot possibly ignore for too long a time is our unconscious movements during the day. Most basically, walking or breathing. And more complicatedly, things like forging friendships or striving to reach a goal. It’s very challenging for me to make the connections between taking in information, processing it, and acting upon that. How can I possibly understand the way that our thoughts transfer to our actions. I’ve struggled with this for too much time already. Hmm…

If biological change influences cultural change and cultural change influences biological change, can environment influence brain and vice versa?

What I found interesting from Thursday’s discussion was Aimee’s feeling of betrayal towards her brain and my contrasting thankfulness for it. While I’m sure we both are thankful for our brains, since we wouldn’t be here without them, it was our initial feelings that struck me. I was happy that my brain was taking over for me and keeping some of my necessary bodily functions to itself, while not always in the case of the boy I referenced in class. In that sense, I completely agree with Aimee, when my conscious brain was telling me that he was an misogynist, the rest of me was attracted to him. This definitely made me wary of my brain, but betrayed?

We have studied this in psychology and I love the interplay between the conscious and the unconscious. While I think Freud’s adaptations of these two, or in his case three, types of consciousness are a little too sexually fueled, they seem valid. Our conscious mind is in control of our “here and now” thoughts, such as what is going on at this very moment. The preconscious holds the thoughts that you were just thinking, basic thoughts that have the ability to be conscious thoughts, they can also be memories from earlier on. Unconscious holds all your unspoken, and maybe even unknown, desires and thoughts. Each manifests itself in different ways, such as the unconscious plays out in one’s dreams, leading to why Frued would make his patients talk him through their dreams, psychoanalyzing their unconscious desires.

As we moved toward the last series of discussion, the things are getting more complicated. I really enjoyed our metaphors about brains last week. I think Prianna’s metaphor about the puppet. This metaphor reminds me of several experiments Biological lab. It talks about the perception and the brain. The experiments test the blind points, sensitive of the nerve system by test how close can you feel between two points.

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The thing that came up to my mind immediately after biology lab is that don’t trust your feelings because they are so vulnerable to the sight changes during the process from the actual scenario to the mental phase. Later, something more meaningful came up. The structure of body which processes the data we receive every moment from surrounding environment and the subjective interpretation of same phenomenon leads to various observation results. These imperfect observations will result in conclusion which are possible not close to the ultimate fact at all. I don’t seeing is believing still hold if seeing is not accurate.

I have to say that the first word actually is mess. Because I don’t think I will never be able to figure out the whole mechanism behind the mysteries. However, one connection I have already built about brain and our perception is that given same situation our perceptions help our brains draw different conclusion just as given the same topic our stories will be diverged

Learning about the brain has sparked an interest that I thought I never had.

When I was in HS my teacher told me that the reason one feels deja-vu is because your brain has an overload and it confuses the present with the past so the feeling of "oh, i have done this before" is nothing spiritual or anything to do with reincarnation because it is your brain having an overload.

When I first found this out I was so excited  I told everyone. 

But what we talked about on Thursday was a real brain "f*&^"

thinking that everything around you can be a figment of your imagination can really cause problms to your reality.

I remember I asked if we can just fix the problem with the disease that prevents you from seeing faces, but Paul said which reality is the true reality.

Now that I think of I think a true reality is the one that most believe in. It might not actually be the absolute reality but it is one. I think whatever reality you think is true should be the one you live by. Also if that man received a fracture and something became different from his head we should ask if he wants to see his mom again and help him fix that problem. If he says no then we leave him to his own reality.

I don't know if there is a cure for any of these problems, but how difficult is it to fix the problem. If we know the cause for certain problems in the brain then shouldn't we be close to what the solution is. How come we can't just fix the brain injury?

Do you think about your brain often? Do you think about the unconscious? 

Well before this class I never really did. 

That was my response to the question in seminar last Thursday. On a normal day I think, I study, slove problems, and do all types of things that I couldn't do with out my brain. But I never think about it. I never say "oh hey good job brain", and I never really think about things that I do unconsciously, in fact that sounds like an oxymoron. Think about your unconscious. It was interesting to see when we went around the room all the different ways you could see your brain. As an organ, a wrinkley thing, a puppet master, like chocolate. So I just wanted to take the time right now to say Thank You to my brain, because after Thursday I felt like it's something that I take for granted. It's amazing how everything in your brain works and how when you injure it, things could seriously be messed up for you. I would never not want to not be able to recognize people that I know. That would be awful. How can little parts of your brain control something so important as being able to make you feel good when seeing someone? I will say it again, AMAZING!

 Bzzzzt! That's the sound I think my neurons make down their axons before they "sshpsssh" into their synapses. "Chuuung, chuung, chuung" are my neurotransmitters as they bind to their receptors before another axon starts bzzztting again. So basically I think of my brain as this crazy machine with bzzzts! sshpssshs! and chuuungs! And the crazy thing is that all these sounds, these functions, they make me who I am; they are what I feel, see, taste, smell, hear, and think. And they're different from yours, because we're different: genetically, perinatally, and experientially. But I can change them, these neural functions of mine; I can help them learn new things. So I can influence who I am. I can think about how I want my thoughts to be different. I can self-condition. And that is incredible!

   I think the brain is a wonderful thing. It takes all of this information our senses give us and makes it comprehendible. I'm sure I'll never fully understand how it does what it does and how it contains a person inside of it, but for now I don't really need to know.

   Speaking of not needing to know, I know most people in my class were getting frustrated talking about how there is no reality… again. At this point I see three views or ideas showing up in class that most people seem to identify with in terms of the reality vs. no reality thing. Some people never want to think about it again. The world is fine how it is, and they are tired of getting their mind effed every week or so. Some people (like me) have come to terms with the fact that there is no reality but your own that is inside your head, end of story. Some people firmly believe that the consensus of reality is in fact reality. I'm sure some people are in between or completely different, but these were the most vocal views I heard in class.

   Like I said, I identify with the "there is no reality but your own" stance. I'll explain why to the best of my abilities. This year I coined this phrase for myself: "You are the center of your own universe." It is based on our class discussions and a quote from The Sandman, which was made into an xkcd comic (http://xkcd.com/52/). The comic makes me think of the brain itself and all the connections it makes constantly, which could go on forever. So really, not only are you the center of your own universe, you also contain said universe. And every day we encounter different universes and make them part of our own, so by the end of our lives we have made thousands of universe-connections, and it ends up looking like the comic. 

   The way this connects to our reality discussion is that because I am the center of my own entire universe, there is no reality but my own. We may observe the same things, but no two people will look at one thing and have the exact same reaction to it. Our Brain Drains prove this. We are told to think about something we all read, that was the same, that was "reality", but we each wrote slightly different things about that reality. Think about the color blue. I guarantee we all have different shades pictured in our heads. This is what makes each reality different: not the things we observe, but the way our brains observe them.

   I'm not really sure this makes sense to anyone else but me, but it's a work in progress. It's just what I feel our brain does, and what I feel about reality.

In the class, when Americans were having a heated discussion on race issues, I was wandering why China doesn’t have the race problem. Why don’t Chinese have those kinds of discussions? Race seems never raising our concerns. The answer may be Chinese are of the same race. But we do have white and black people. In my high school, we have five American students. We all showed great interests in them. We felt curious. That’s it. No racial issues arose. I guess maybe because the number of them is too small. If we had 300 white or black people in our school, then race would be a problem. Therefore, I guess racial issues can’t exist when there are not enough different people to make it a problem. It can also apply to two different groups of the same race or of multi races, such as our ESEM groups. If only one or two students from the other class come to our class, we will just be curious about them, showing great interests towards them. But if the whole group comes, we both get defensive. Similarly, if only one A color person come into a group of B color people, the B color people will just be curious and show strong interests. But if a group of A color people join a group of B color people, both groups will be defensive, and there arises the racial issues. Therefore, a baby staring longer at a person that has different color from him/her tells us nothing about whether babies are racists or not. Or even racism is just one defensive feeling towards color difference.  And humans have defensive feelings towards all kinds of differences.