Hmm, perhaps you are being hasty in your judgement on the value of entertainment versus technical talk. As mentioned in a previous post, I recently graduated to "Spirit" status. There was nothing magical about the threshold number or crossing the boundary itself, but it has yielded a different tonality to my ability to communicate with others. I have been aware for *many* years, dating back to adolescence that there is much more than is admitted going on in casual conversation. Technical and especially scientific discourse is dry as a bone in comparison to gossip and fiction in general.
Now that your neurons are alerted to the possibility that I may be subtly communicating through subtext much more information than is apparent to casual view, let us proceed onwards. Leading you down a merry path decorated with primroses, could we first accept that souls exist? Given that, could we accept that souls have various levels of ability depending upon how many times they have previously incarnated? Given that, perhaps these so called souls are themselves merely facets or subdivided aspects of an all inclusive "all soul" whimsically name "GOD" in my various writings... Hastily rappelling down from heights which approach metaphysical discussion, let us reach a less slippery slope by getting back to casual conversation. I have found that Theology is a third rail of discussion, often leading to people putting me into their kill-files on UseNet. This is a willful disregard of hot topic dissent, most people preferring to avoid such trollish behavior as slinging mud metaphors at each other. What does this stuff have to do with neurons? It could be argued that the internet serves as a central nervous system for mankind, communicating information between cell persons in a topologically complex nonlinear heterogenous system. Google search engine and groups permits data retrieval and exchange between neuronal cells. The neuronal cells of mankind fire off on the internet as minds communicate with each other through computers. Different levels of internal efficiency make persons distinct from each other in their interactions. People's reputations are based upon such factors as whether their posts are relevant to the group's discussion focus. Specific threads within a group have posts which vary in their relevance to the original poster's leading discussion. It is quite common for the thread to drift away from the original post's focus into irrelevant subjects. Within a post, there are different levels of verbosity and intuitive obviousness, depending upon the context of statements. Since a thousand post thread is quite large, it is easily understood that a subject is often wrung dry, in extreme cases there being only the original post, with no responses whatsoever. One service provided from a cell person author to another is web references to hypertext pages found outside of discussion groups, which would not normally be encountered by the reader. Yesterday I composed a page upon my Google site as the third in a series of jokes which are plainly labeled "Blarney" Before opening the link, let me warn you that you may find the material offensive, so if you are sensitive rather than thick skinned, the perhaps you should not click upon the link at : https://sites.google.com/site/lonniecourtneyclay/home/blarney-part-3---beginning Lonnie Courtney Clay On Friday, June 17, 2011 7:40:33 PM UTC-7, archytas wrote: > > Oversimplifying, axons are the nervous system’s telegraph wires, > enabling neurons to form networks. When a neuron fires, it sends an > electrical signal down its axon, which then stimulates other neurons. > The signal travels down the axon by opening ion channels embedded in > the cellular membrane, letting ions pass through. When enough ions > cross a channel, they change the voltage across the membrane, which in > turn causes the nearby channels to open, propagating the signal in a > domino effect. > > In principle, our brains could evolve to have thinner axons, which > would save space so that more neurons and more axons could pack in. > Thinner axons would also consume less energy. > > Nature already seems to have made axons nearly as thin as they can be: > any thinner, and the random opening of the channels would make axons > too noisy, meaning that they would deliver too many signals when the > neuron was not supposed to fire. > > The problem is that ion channels are not precisely controllable. > Instead, they open and close at random many times a second. Electrical > signals only change the likelihood that they will open. In a typical > axon the random opening of an ion channel does not have serious > consequences, because the channel closes again before letting in too > many ions. > > If evolution made axons much thinner, however, the opening of a single > ion channel would often create a spurious signal which then would > travel down the axon. Too much of this noise would make the neuron > unreliable. > > We talk a lot about information and I notably never grasp what it is. > There is information at work behind this limit and what interests me > is that we are addressing information and being addressed by it, and > developing ways to receive and transmit almost like scouts. Having > reached this biological limit which seems 'designed in', we are almost > operating as machines we might design for exploration and adaptation > to environments we are not sure of (sort of AI). > > When my science is exhausted I go metaphor. Our brains are generally > concerned (consciously) with the utterly puny and we are barely aware > of most of what they are up to. Evolution looks to have subsumed many > forms into 'individuals' and I find myself wondering about a new > biological delimiting of collectivism (a bit like linking up a load of > PCs), rather than trying to 'make slimmer axions' in an individual. > This might mean a change from processing speed focus to limits in > environmental scanning and what can be scanned. Autopoesis is in my > head in its meaning of self-creation of environment. We are entirely > unaware of this as delimiting however much we talk of 'nurture'. Our > literature seems to have no grasp of it at all, centred on existential > heroes and soppy drivel, playing to the biological crass. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/epistemology/-/mUL3oUwfKWcJ. To post to this group, send email to epistemology@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to epistemology+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en.
