IUBio

Consciousness

k p Collins kpaulc at [----------]earthlink.net
Mon Jan 19 23:43:09 EST 2004


CLARIFICATION below.

"k p Collins" <kpaulc@[----------]earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:af0Pb.15869$q4.5300 at newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> "Wolf Kirchmeir" <wwolfkir at sympatico.can> wrote in message
> news:jbysxveflzcngvpbpna.hrrjmy2.pminews at news1.sympatico.ca...
> > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:01:53 GMT, k p  Collins wrote:
> >
> > >That is, "vision" is nothing more than the map-
> > >ping of light onto the retina.
> >
> > If this were true, neither hysterical blindness,
> > or blindness induced by brain traumas such as
> > strokes, would be possible. Yet they happen.
> > Frequently, in fact.
>
> Not True, Wolf.
>
> It's far-more-common than what you've brought-up.
>
> Haven't you ever sat in a room with a TV set on,
> but, being deep in thought, pass the night ending-
> up unable to recall anything that was on TV?
>
> When the 'window' is obscured, or the person
> 'moves away from' the light, either way, the light
> doesn't reach the neural Topology that 'grasps' it.
>
> See "supersystem configuration", AoK, Ap5.
>
> It doesn't matter how the light is 'obscured'.
>
> 'Hysteria', is 'just' a correlate of high-TD E/I,
> and commensurately-ill-defined "supersystem
> configuration" - the nervous system "can't"
> attend to the light be-cause it's in a 'desperate'
> fight [usually against on-going "rendering useless"
> [AoK, Ap8]].
>
> And such 'hysteria' ["psychic blindness"] has, thus
> far during the course of Human History, has been
> pretty-much =universal=.
>
> It's why folks Kill, rather than understand, one
> another, [see the discussion of the low-'level'
> amygdalar "supersystem configuration" mechan-
> ism, AoK, Ap5].
>
> Get a candle, a bi-convex lens, a sheet of paper
> and find the lens' focal length.
>
> Now, why would evolutionary dynamics Waste
> [=TOTALLY=] all the good stuff that's right-
> there, on that sheet of paper? And, if evolutionary
> dynamics were so =WASTEFUL= [they are not,
> but, for the sake of the discussion, suppose they
> were], and were engineering all of that fancy 'in-
> ternalization' of what's already, right-there, on the
> sheet of paper, why would they, simultaneously,
> leave all of the tortuously-convoluted neural Top-
> ology of decussation, commisures, etcetera, if not
> be-cause the 'sheet of paper' that is the retina
> leaves the image upside-down and left-right
> reversed?

Well, that's not the main reason. The main reason
for all the neural Topology of decussation, commisures,
etcetera is that it preserves be-acted-upon/act dir-
ectionality by turning the internal representation of
external experiential 3-D energydynamics 'inside-
out', 'upside-down', and left-right-reversed, all in
a way that enables convergence upon optimized
reactivity via simple ['blindly'-automated TD E/I-
minimization, which instantiates minimal response
latencies, which optimizes survival with respect
to problems having Infinite scope that routinely
confront nervous systems.

Which enables the retina to be serviced by a
single bi-convex lens, which is very handy within
an already-complex subsystem [the eye] that has
three degrees of motion-freedom, during which
focus 'must' be optimally-maintained.

> See?
>
> All of that neural Topology has been 'engineered'
> by evolutionary dynamics =BE-CAUSE= light
> does, in fact, stop at the retina.
>
> The rest of the neural Topology does 'only' interp-
> retation, selective attention, information-distribution,
> feeding-forward, hugely, into "supersystem configura-
> tion" with respect to virtually =all= other information-
> processing that occurs within nervous systems. [See
> the Infinite scope of the routine problems that con-
> front nervous systems, AoK, Ap1.]
>
> Why do it again, internally, when it's all right-there
> on the retina?

Especially when the information-processing that
must occur beyond the retina - recognizing, extract-
ing, cross-correlating, etcetera - everything in AoK,
Ap 4-8 - has to occur in in a way that determines
survival-propensity, and, therefore 'must' be optimized?

3-D-"signature" extraction and information-content-cross-
correlation, "supersystem configuration" that sets all of the
"dynamic-subordinate couples","passive/active phase shifting",
drive-precedence hierarchy-resolution, all overridden by
volition, simultaneously, instantiating and maintaining creativity
and curiosity, while keeping everything ready ["primed"] for
"fight/flight" decisions.

The neural Topology is for doing all of this information-
processing. It can't waste energy doing stuff that'd only
impose huge complication in the midst of the rest of what
it must accomplish, precisely because all of that complicated
stuff is already being done in the retina, and would be totally-
redundant if it were recreated internally.

> [...]
>
> Cheers, Wolf, ken [k. p. collins]






More information about the Neur-sci mailing list

Send comments to us at biosci-help [At] net.bio.net