IUBio

Speaking the Unspoken

Andrew Ray aray at emory.edu
Tue May 21 01:28:19 EST 1996


Richard Nacamuli wrote:
> 
>         The hypothesis is simply that brain cells, most likely
> cortical neurons, communicate between brains via electromagnetic
> radiation. The theory is that groups of cells, areas of the cortex,
> have specialized into representing various "elements" of sensory
> perception. This, I believe, is fairly well established. 

Depending on how you define elements, that's true.  However, there is 
more to the brain than the cortex - no sensory information would reach 
the cortex without being gated through the brainstem and the thalamus.  
The cortex tends to be more involved with integrating the various sensory 
components with internal sensory information and producing output as 
necessary.  Yes, areas of the cortex respond preferrentially to one 
sensory stimulus type over another, but it's much more complicated than 
that - some areas, such as the prefrontal cortex, don't respond to 
sensory stimuli directly, but act as a way of coordinating 
output/integrating various inputs.  Some areas respond to multiple 
stimuli (the areas just above the temporal lobes, for instance).  But, 
assuming you need to simplify (which is generally the case for anything 
we look at in the brain)..

>From
> there, I propose that these sensory elements are actually the
> elements, "building-blocks", of thought. A person deprived of
> *all* sensory perception from birth would never likely develop
> a thought in his or her brain. 

Yes, the cell groups make up elements of what we call thought.  But they 
aren't the only components of thought processes.  This paragraph reminds 
me of a Dr. Brown, who worked with biological rhythms.  He developed a 
theory that said that biological rhythms were not endogenous, but were 
created by brain nuclei transducing signals through a sort of "black 
box" - he thought we responded to geomagnetic or gravitic forces.  As 
experiments done on the space shuttle, at the magnetic poles, and other 
work continued, he refined his theory to say that it was a special form 
of signal transduction performed by the brain, and basically refined it 
to a point where the results duplicated an internal circadian clock, but 
to where it could never be tested (thus disproven or more accepted).  
There is no way to remove all sensory perception from someone from birth 
- you would have to have a mutant child with no peripheral nervous system 
and no sensory cranial nerves.  Even then, how could you know whether the 
child was thinking, since you couldn't elicit a response to a stimulus?  
Would you assume spontaneous movement was due to thought?  You have done 
what Dr. Brown, and people who created the theory of Evolution, have done 
- generated an untestable theory.  Bits and pieces of it can be tested 
and sometimes demonstrated - the theory of natural selection as a 
mechanism for evolution is an example - but the theory as a whole can't 
be tested (unless we figure out how to manipulate time to go back and 
observe the development of life on Earth).  In your case, you could try 
and point to evidence of blind and deaf children as a partial version of 
what you suggest.  However, once people learn to communicate with them (a 
la Helen Keller), several case studies have shown that thoughts based on 
sensory modes that the child didn't have still developed, albeit 
differently from other children and after a much longer time.  While it 
is true that in single-modality areas, such as primary visual cortex, 
when there is no sensory input development is blocked, the integrative 
areas still develop.  Again, the development is abnormal, but it still 
happens.  Granted, I'm not talking best evidence here, but since it would 
be impossible to get that kind of evidence, you take what you can get and 
work from it. So to sum it up, you may be right or wrong, we have no way 
of knowing for sure.  Personally, I think that thought processes would 
develop independently of sensory input.  They would probably be totally 
alien (autistic children come to mind) compared to what we perceive as 
normal though, and I doubt we'd be able to understand them.  I base this 
on the notion that even without sensory input, there is still a world out 
there that you would have to coordinate your output with - you'd still be 
cut by a knife, even if you couldn't feel anything, etc.  You'd also have 
to be able to move in a coordinated manner, and that would require 
learning/thought.

>Therefore, it stands to reason
> that all thought is built of simple sensory elements. The myriad
> elements combine in different patterns to produce various thoughts.
>         The reason for this model is singular: it makes thought
> communication possible. 

I don't even understand what you mean by reason - you mean that the 
logical outcome of the model is thought communication?  Or do you mean 
that the reason the model was developed was to demonstrate a model for 
thought communication?  The former makes some sense, the latter suggests 
circular reasoning - like making the ending to the mystery novel and 
working backwards to come up with a plausible way of explaining the 
ending.

>If each set of differentiated sensory
> cells possessed a compound, a molecule, that could be excited to
> emit radio energy of a wavelength unique to that group of cells,
> that group of cells could communicate with a like group of cells
> in a different brain provided that these cells were also capable
> of responding to, and only to, that particular frequency.

There is no evidence that the differentiated cells are particularly 
different from other neurons in other cortical areas, except that the 
same basic molecules are associated in different ways to produce 
different effects.  While there are different receptor populations, those 
populations also exist in other neurons and function similarly.  And 
while I'm no expert in electromagnetic physics (Dammit Jim, I'm a 
neuroscientist, not an electrician!), it would seem to me that you'd need 
a lot of a given molecule in a group of cells excited in unison to get 
enough power to transmit more than a few centimeters past the skull.  
After all, even synchronized EEG waves in sleep aren't detectable more 
than several millimeters outside the skull (thus the electrodes are on 
the skull and the output still is amplified).  Since EEG synchrony in 
stage 4 sleep gives the strongest amplitude waveform found, it suggests 
nearing an upper limit of electromagnetic generation.  Furthermore, it 
takes an enormous amount of ionic current to produce the effect - the 
levels of the various ions involved are easily detectable, so a molecule 
that was excited to produce radio emissions would seem to me to have to 
be present in such high quantities that it would be hard NOT to detect 
it.


>         In effect, each sensory element would have its own
> "channel". The act of thought would stimulate the specific cells
> of which the thought was composed. The cells would each emit a
> unique frequency, simultaneously, and stimulate similar cells in
> another brain provoking a like thought.

Then why doesn't this happen much more often?  There aren't that many 
different cell lines in the brain that could generate that many different 
channels - statistically, this should be happening much more frequently 
than it actually seems to.  I know, you'll suggest it DOES happen 
frequently and we don't know it because we aren't looking for it, yet if 
it happened more often people would have a much easier time of 
communicating than they do.  Think about it - you're out on a date, doing 
the same thing, watching the same movie, and yet, you react to it 
differently, you think about different things throughout the night, and 
at the end of the night you still don't know how she/he feels about you 
(should you kiss her, should you give up all hope, etc.).  Our social 
problems might not be as bad if we could communicate our thoughts better, 
and what better way would there be than a direct connection?

>         The problem is that should these molecular emissions be
> of millimeter or submillimeter wavelength, which is *quite* likely,
> detection becomes somewhat of a problem. The science of millimeter/
> submillimeter spectroscopy is not far advanced nor, I'm afraid,
> that popular. Working at these wavelengths is, for me, a difficult
> proposition. But, as they say, gold is where you find it.

Again, I don't know about electronics that much, but if detectors for 
nanometer/subnanometer (X-ray to visible light), infrared (micrometer?), 
and the big radio dishes for really long wavelengths (decimeter/meter I 
think) exist, it seems that a simple yet sensitive detector should be 
feasible.  Of course, maybe there's a reason it isn't particularly 
popular?

>         Science and politics have long had a love/hate relationship.
> I don't suppose that I can hope they'll ever break up. It is vitally
> important, however, to distinguish the two.
> 
> ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
> Richard L. Nacamuli                             "Eppur si muove"
> headwave at access.digex.net                                Galileo
> ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

That's very true, and while I personally don't think your theory holds 
water (most of the reasons being outlined above), it could at least be 
used as a beginning or springboard for a more testable theory.  However, 
the implication in the above statement about science and politics 
suggests that you at least partly blame political reasons for your lack 
of success in promoting this theory.  The questions I've outlined above 
would keep any good scientist from backing the theory - there's too much 
speculation and no hard data presented to back up the speculation.  It 
seems to me that politically, the government would be very motivated to 
develop this.  Imagine if the Secret Service or military had a portable 
thought detector or even analyzer.  Well, one weird Chinese guy on here 
thinks they already have one, in addition to a microwave beam weapon that 
can zap you from space.  But aside from him, I would think there would be 
a strong political motivation to push this work, although perhaps 
covertly rather than above board.  That, however, is a story for 
alt.conspiracies, so I'll just leave it alone.

Andrew Ray
aray at emory.edu
Emory University Neuroscience Program



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