IUBio

Signals in the brain

F. Frank LeFever flefever at ix.netcom.com
Tue Apr 28 22:24:47 EST 1998


In <3545E63F.7F85B101 at wxs.nl> Dirk Wessels <d at wxs.nl> writes: 
>
>F. Frank LeFever wrote:
>
>> Frank's commment:
>>  plenty of factul data in books or journals (when you are ready for
>> scientific journals; start with elementary textbooks).
>
>My experience is that these elementary books just state the data
>that confirms their basic theories.
>The more data/facts become more interesting, if this data does
>not confirm the theories.
>
>In magazines like Science and Scientific American,

Further comment: Scientigic American is a magazine.  Science is a
(scientific) journal, primarily for presentation of new data, with
occasional theoretical presentations.



 I saw that
>there were many measurements that did not confirm the "basic"
>theories, but were in these cases used for supporting the authors
>new theories. Yet these were based on the basic ones, and
>the actual data used seems to deny the basic models, and need
>much more complex models.


Sounds like the basic procedure of scientific progress comes as a
surprise to you: yes, "thesis, antithesis, synthesis"  is the way we
have achieved the impressive understanding (manifest in technicologies
you may take for granted) available so far.



>
>OK, I am not trying to disguard the "basic" theories, but
>my experience with programming AI and simultated neural
>networks tell something different than the brain and the
>actual processes going on in the brain.
>Therefore I have begun with a different hypothesis:
>"Emotions are most important, then the "logical" signals.
>This seems to confirm the evolutionary approach, since
>even plants seem to have feelings (fear,.. etc).

WHOAAA! Rein it in.  Don't pollute the waters of discourse any further.
At the very least, offer a USABLE definition of "emotion" before
asserting that plants "seem" to have emotions.  Either you have a
private definition or you belong with the "brain surfer"--in soome oher
world (certainly not in a neuroscience discussion group).






>Based upon this we need to understand this process much
>better and how it helps in constructing memory and how
>hormones and emotions influence each other exactly.

Confusion of levels of discourse.  Whether you mean "emotions" as a 
subjective experiences or as particular physiological patterns of
response, one refers to chemicals which influence the response, and/or 
are part of that pattern; the other is the whole event.


>(Since we are still looking for the "love" parfume, 


POSSIBLY this means you have heard something about pheromones?
They may play a role as cues for some kinds of emotions (as do sights,
sounds, touches, smells--yes, one does differentiate between odors and
pheromones) but are hardly the basis of "emotions" or a key to their
understanding.


it seems

>that we have 
not found the exact process b
ehind emotions).
>Maybe emotions is a more mixture of both electrical en chemical
>signals.

EVERYTHING is.  Activities of cells (including brain cells) can be seen
as chemical or as electrical, depending on your measuring instrument.


AGAIN my PLEA: crack a BOOK!  Never mind (the journal) Science; it
seems even (the magazine) Scientific American is at a level bound to
confuse and mislead you until you READ AN ELEMENTARY TEXTBOOOK and get
SOME grasp of the basics (you did NOT--contrary to your assertion--get
"basics" in Sci or SciAm; that's not their job).



>
>But maybe I will start with my full hypothesis and see where we
>find data that seems to deny it.

Why not start with a full STATEMENT of it? n.b.: a hypothesis is a
specific prediction (to be confirmed or not by specific predicted
data), ideally not just a "hunch" but based on a well developed THEORY.



 Therefore I was first looking
>for some more actual 


Actual? as contrasted with---?




and representive

Representative? meaning what?  sampled randomly from some universe of
data?

 data (and not those
>from magazines).
>
Again, the distinction between "magazines" and "journals" is crucial.
Scientific data are available ONLY in journals; that's where we report
the outcomes of our experiments/observations.  That's what the authors
and editors of "magazines" and BOOKS work with.

Frank






>Greetings,
>    Dirk
>




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