Dude, the reflex arc that pulls your hand away from a hot stove is
wholly contained within your arm and spine. This is how it manages to
be so fast. Pain stimuli come into the spine through A-delta fibres,
this activates the motoneurons activating flexor muscles of your arm
and shoulder, and there is instant retraction. This shuts off the A-
delta fibres and therefore yor flexor stops flexing. No calculation of
optimal direction, no TD E/I BS - just activation of a flexor muscle
in a reflex loop about 2 metres long.
You actually pull your hand away from a hot stove before your brain
has even recieved any input whatsoever that something happened to your
hand.
On Feb 13, 9:34 pm, "Benjamin" <Benja... from verizon.net> wrote:
> "Radium" <gluceg... from excite.com> wrote in message
>> news:1171341897.846128.222390 from h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...>> > Hi:
>> > What exactly is "TD E/I-minimization"?
> > [...]
>> "TD E/I" is shorthand for "the topologic-
> ally-distributed ratio of excitation to in-
> hibition."
>> It's not yet generally accpted by my
> colleagues in Neuroscience, so don't
> use it as if its "accepted" fac, but I've
> Verified that the only thing that nervous
> systems do is to 'strive', 'blindly' and
> automatically, to achieve TD E/I-min-
> imization.
>> This being 'accomplished', to the de-
> gree that it is, a nervous system is
> able to direct the effectors of its host
> organism so that the host organism
> will manifest behavior that is 'appropri-
> ate 'within' external environment in
> which it 'momentarily' exists.
>> To understand this requires some
> work, and it's best to start with simple
> cases -- like the problem of directing
> the motion of a hand and arm so that
> it 'moves away from' an environmental
> source of excessive-heat, such as a
> burner on a hot stove.
>> There are sub-problems within the
> overall problem -- such as cases in
> which it is the receptors on the palm
> of one's hand that are activated by
> the heat.
>> This can happen in infinite ways,
> depending upon how the hannd is
> oriented with respect to the source
> of heat.
>> Palm-up, under it. Palm-down, over
> it. Etc., infinitely-variable.
>> Yet there is always only one optimal
> direction in which it is 'appropriate'
> to activate the effectors to drive body
> [arm-hand] movement -- 'away from'
> the environmental source of heat.
>> Nervous systems resolve this problem,
> which, although it is relatively-simple,
> is still infinitely-large in scope, in milli-
> 'second' 'time'-frame.
>> Which is spectacular information-
> processing power.
>> Nervous systems do this spectacular
> information-processing by doing only
> one thing -- minimizing the topologic-
> ally-distributed ratios of excitation to
> inhibition that are occurring 'within'
> them.
>> [With respect to the "sub-problem",
> above, it's resolution occurs mainly
> as a function of the inferior olivary
> nucleus' interaction with the cerebellum.
>> The inferior olive is a "crumpled-bag"
> nucleus, in which fibers coming and
> going are distributed 'on the surface
> of' the "crumpled bag", which enables
> an orderly "translation" of inputs from
> the joint receptors into a literally math-
> ematical translation of directions,
> which translation "instructs" the cere-
> bellum with respect to "the" 'appropri-
> ate direction in which to apply it's tot-
> ally-inhibitory activation.
>> Which results in TD E/I-minimization
> with respect to "the problem", and
> which 'moves' one's hand 'away from'
> the hot stove, typically, before one's
> hand is substantially "burned".
>> Everything else that occurs 'within'
> nervous systems is exactly analogous
> to the above, but, most often, the 'same'
> stuff happens in extremely-more-com-
> plex ways.
>> All nervous systems do is TD E/I-
> minimization.
>> Why all of this matters is that, because
> all nervous systems do is TD E/I-min-
> imization, nervous systems tend, strongly,
> to converge upon TD E/I-minimizations
> that are correlated with the mere hap-
> penstance of individually-unique ex-
> perience because this or that is merely
> experienced more frequently.
>> But, because all that nervous systems
> do is TD E/I-minimization, two people
> whose nervous systems have con-
> verged upon TD E/I-minimization 'with-
> in' two different environments will ex-
> perience each other as sources of TD
> E/I(up), which, because the only thing
> that nervous systems [innately] do is
> TD E/I-minimization, will result in af-
> fect being aligned in 'inverse' ways
> between the two individuals and they
> will experience each other as being
> 'bad', or as 'enemies', when the only
> thing that's actually in the mix is that
> the individuals' nervous systems have
> converged upon TD E/I-minimization
> with respect to different environmental
> inputs.
>> Neither is 'bad', or an 'enemy'.
>> The only thing that's 'broken' in-there
> is that there's been no generalized
> understanding that the only thing
> that nervous systems do is TD E/I-min-
> imization.
>> Folks Kill, and otherwise ravage, one
> another be-cause this one thing has
> not been generally-comprehended.
>> That's why understanding TD E/I-min-
> imization matters.
>> [BTW, an understanding of TD E/I-min-
> imization has huge usefulness in the
> martial arts [as well as all other forms
> of "Athletic" optimization of 'instantan-
> eous' effector-activation.]
>> Sinec you asked :-]
>> k. p. collins
