IUBio

Is it possible to read someone's mind?

yan king yin (at dot) y.k.y.lycos.com at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk
Fri May 25 16:03:33 EST 2001


i agree with most of your comments, so i'll just reply to some of them.

"maxwell" <mmmaxwell at hotmail.com>:

[...]

>> I gave one example where a person needs sleep after great expectations
>> followed by disappointment:  During the "generative phase" (eg Bob
>> thinks that he has won the lottery) the brain is "wired-up" by an
>> additive process.  In the "eliminative phase" (Bob finds out he's made
>> a mistake) the previous circuits have to be eliminated (which i suggest
>> is done during (?slow-wave?) sleep).
>
>Seems improbable in respect to episodic memories, though there's been
>a relation claimed between SWS and procedural (as in implicit) memory.

(If memory is an emergent property, then the distinction between episodic
and procedural memory is artificial....  please see my other post about
Edelman's theory)

Anyways, I am very interested to find out the neurochemical changes in
sleep (both REM and SWS), especially re synapse reorganization.  I think
the disappointment-sleep relation is quite real, but i dont know what to
make of it.  I assume that "dozing off" is SWS?

[...]

> I'm curious how you relate the phenomenology of altitudes to hunger.
> Sure, there's arousal in both, but?

When you look down from a very tall building, you seem to feel something
in your stomach, right?  That feeling is similar to feeling hungry, but
they are quite unrelated to each other.  I guess this means that the 2
feelings are connected to the same "emotive circuit".

[...]

> Okay, but even if we were able to refine fMRI to a spatial/temporal resolution
> as exacting as implantable arrays, how would that get us to being able to "mind > read?"

Well, you must know that an ideal gas, the molecules follow the Maxwell-
-Boltzman distribution.  We cannot know all the positions and momentums
of these molecules,  but that doesnt prevent the distribution law being
verified by experiment.  Likewise, we might stimulate some neurons, and
then determine what "thoughts" they are holding.

Now Im off to sleep!






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