It is an amazing piece of scientific communication which deserves a good
director, a better one than in the Beautiful Mind (actually, no reference
here to Ken at all, as I think he is a wonderfully sane guy, just in a
different part of the normal distribution, just dangerously too to the right
which makes his desperate attempts to become accepted simply sad: the guy
does not know who he is and what is means to be where, socially speaking,
his mind is - on the top).
>(except for the first
>post in this thread, which is 100x more intelligent than anything I;ve
>ever seen you post)
Brilliance is just like pregnancy, it's ether you are or you are not
pregnant; so, could it be that our problems with comprehending Ken's "world"
are also caused by the factors which originate on this side of the
communication?
I am going to line up some of your arguments here, Ian, then comment on
them:
>I think there may be serious issue with your TD E/I stuff here.
>using your case of the cerebellum as an example,
there is no issue here at all, it is inhibition, not excitation that is
responsible for functional flexibility; in other words, information
prosession which follows excitation of specific neurons should not be
equated to self-management of the brain; in other words, executive
functioning is not a part of brain's self-management about which Ken is
talking about; there are very few hard data on this fact, but the recent
neuroimaging demonstration of frontal cortex , through cerebellum,
inhibiting cardiovagal system, to allow appropriate cardiac response to
support a physical effort, is a good example; in any event inhibition is all
what cerebellum does; plus, correct me if I am wrong, Ian, there was no work
done on decerebrated animals which included more than supratentorial brain
parts removal; it means that all we know in that domain invariably includes
cerebellum and brain stem, together; the cases involving removal of
cerebellum always included leaving supratentorial parts, at least in part,
intact; iam I wrong?
>This implies, however, that the optimal TD E/I ratio is
>achieved when the brain is at rest, i.e. not signaling.
Why is it not at least intuitively true to you? Are you personally capable
of sitting and starring on your mauntain/fire/sea/face of your child for
hours and hours and enjoying it? doing nothing?
>The disturbing
>part about this is that the logical extension of this postulate is
>that TD E/I ratio is optimal during unconsciousness, coma, and
>especially death.
Have you ever heard about regression tendency and why, sometimes, it takes
place? alternatively, when it doesn't, we are, equally disturbingly, must be
socially nurtured, supported, prompted, reared, fed, accepted? It would be
absolutely disturbing to state anything opposite to what you just have said
as by doing so we would reduce humanity to functioning of brain with utter
disregard to its environment and what it does to brain.
Ken's approach leads to the exactly these conclusions. Again, I am
questioning your intuition here: are you surprised when your mobile gets
"pretend-dead" for a while after you dropped it?
A confident scholar of brain science, you do know that brain (as in nervous
system) is organized in hierarchical fashion. Why the idea of TD E/I
mechanism being a tool for also sequential shut down of higher systems for
the reason of preserving the essential systems (economic argument is here)
so threatening to you? Unconscious processing, just like coma or death are
the outcomes of autonomous decision making performed by brain based on the
economy of a/ the overall functioning and b/ regional, and what is
especially important, hierarchical priority based, regional economy.
>The fact that brain can shift the TD E/I in a rapid and coordinated
>fashion through various areas is what makes them good at doing
>everything that brains do.
Absolutely!!! if brain can afford it in every specific case, though.
Getting as into unconscious mode, coma, death is just a few extreme cases of
such "coordination" when the resources are not there. Nothing is wrong with
it if you believe that in choosing a lesser evil among multiple is not a bad
idea of how to manage business... to survive.
The fact that the bursts are often short is
>what makes them able to compute many discrete stimuli in a rapid
>period of time. However, there are often long-lasting events of either
>excitation or inhibition; or rhythmically generated waves of activity
>that are equally important to motivation, emotion and cognition.
See. your thinking about brain as brain is a kitchen with one shelf only.
You are confusing synaptic transmission (exitation or inhibition wise) with
what brain does. It is so.... 1995! (hope you are smiling). I think Ken is
working on a higher level of information processing - subsystems about which
we are all not entirely sure. I hope you would agree that you do not know
how wrap up all these excitation/inhibition, rhythms, and activities into
motivation, emotion, and cognition (I am rather surprised you left out
memory, attention, actions and volition).
And
>all of them violate your theory of the purpose of brains being to
>optimize TD E/I ratios - not to mention disorders of brain activity
>such as epilepsy.
Brain is not stupid. It maintains what it is capable of maintaining:
- there are different kinds of epilepsy;
- in all cases the guy /girl is alive, despite seizures;
- what does it tell you? one answer is : based on some TD E/I ratios some
subsystems are on their own and are isolated by their own pathology aND THE
LEVEL OF THE FUNCTIONAL HIERARCHY IT BELONGS TO, i.e. the other subsystems
are OK; Makes sense as some Italian would ask?
- this is NOT all or nothing business, in human brain, unless is has to go
dead, at least temporary - this is why some surgeons make a fellow go dead,
temporarily. Why? Sometimes it is good for you.
>Think about it.
Thank you, father/dude. It is your turn now. But take into consideration the
following:
- Ken is saying in his own way everything D. Marr has ever did in his
cerebellar and cortical theory, which is.. back and very much alive. What he
is missing is the "second", but also very essential piece exactly from the
70s science which was bet up and now is making its way back. This time I am
referring to Kilmer's concept of "action selection mechanism". Your "it is
nothing to do with cerebellum" refer to something that is not exactly is
known or demonstrable, at the moment. The last year alone produced a number
of new discoveries concerning as parallel as direct ("single synapse", as in
70s terminology) connections between cerebellum and frontal cortex. Similar
wiring is being , very slowly, discovered in the brain stem. I mean as the
technology capable finding outr what Posterior Fossa has or has not to do is
evolving only recently and very gradually. I would not be so sure as you are
when talking about these extremely neglected structures.
In short, if Ken would alo include another postulate that human brain, in
health, having a very specific number of such "ratios" , which all related
to the structural and functional characteristics of the nechamisms
responsible for action selection, and then add another postulate concerning
exponential "transmission" of such ratios to the higher, newer brain
functional zones (suprantentorial functional zones), the concept would be
rather complete and allow, here and now, very specific research strategy.
It is too bad he does not know that there is a theoretical "invariant" of
his thinking which is the concept of Intrinsic Brain Activity according to
which a pattern of oscillations when taken at rest and then converted into
specific "ratios" may serve as a more reliable indicator of "norm" and
pathology" related to what you, Ian, indicated as "more long-term
conditions/states" which have very little to do with synaptic connectivity,
excepot serving a role of such transmission's "environment", i.e. the
boundaries of what synaptic transmission can or cannot do.
One more comment to Steve's response re reflexive behavior. Pls take the
periphery as still a part of the same brain. The absense of volitional input
should not be equated with brain having "nothing to do" with a reflex.
Naturally, I am refering to ken's clear statements that there is no one
"ratio", but a number of them, in my view, organized hirarchically.
Well done, Ken. It is much lesser evil to have communication problems than a
"tribal" bias. Nice to see someone well ahead of the pack.
Konstantin Kouzovnikov.
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