>> ^Jinx:

Is engaging your enemy only when you see the whites of their eyes somehow more palatable?

Is it mere coincidence that collateral from modern wars is much less than from 100 years ago?


Um.. yes. There's a disconnect when you can't physically see the person you're affecting.
Your mirror neurons can't help you empathy if all you see is a green and gray aerial photo.

And.. wtf are you talking?! Since 2008 61 drones attacks have killed 824 human beings.

14 were Al Qaeda.

"Smart"bombs and drones are no better or "safer" than carpet bombing or artillery.

It's all fuckin' war. And it's all fuckin' awful.

Mm. Problem is that your explanation, if you can call it that, is only slightly more likely to be true than ghosts are. The hypothesis that people who claim to see ghosts are hallucinating, delusional, mistaken, prone to pareidolia, or simply lying, is far more likely than either "ghost" or "eye resonance".


>> ^joedirt:

What that means is that neurons fire at a certain rate to transmit data, communicate, change state, whatever. The neruon paths fire in the tens of Hz or slower, so maybe the visual cortex or visual nerve cells have a certain frequency they fire at and if you in an environment with EM or visual stimuli that is at certain frequencies, it makes sense this could have impact on what you "see", much like modulating and to create FM communication. Though you might call it more of a pulse stream shift keying.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
>> ^Farhad2000:
I read some shit a while back that said the reason we experience paranormal events in certain environs is because of resonance factors that resonate with the same frequency as our eyes thus creating peripheral visions.
Seem interesting as a theory.

That's not a theory. A theory has to contain an actual explanation of the cause of the phenomena. What you gave is pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.
Our eyes resonate? WTF does that even mean?

What that means is that neurons fire at a certain rate to transmit data, communicate, change state, whatever. The neruon paths fire in the tens of Hz or slower, so maybe the visual cortex or visual nerve cells have a certain frequency they fire at and if you in an environment with EM or visual stimuli that is at certain frequencies, it makes sense this could have impact on what you "see", much like modulating and to create FM communication. Though you might call it more of a pulse stream shift keying.


>> ^Drachen_Jager:

>> ^Farhad2000:
I read some shit a while back that said the reason we experience paranormal events in certain environs is because of resonance factors that resonate with the same frequency as our eyes thus creating peripheral visions.
Seem interesting as a theory.

That's not a theory. A theory has to contain an actual explanation of the cause of the phenomena. What you gave is pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.
Our eyes resonate? WTF does that even mean?

mirror neurons! FTW

So, in the space of 30 seconds or so, someone not only noted the ruckus but called 911, made a report to the dispatcher, the dispatcher radioed out the call and sirens are heard converging from a few blocks away.

If you're going to go to all that effort to fake something, at least run the script by someone who has 2 neurons to rub together.

Alright @enoch, I'll take up your challenge.

I have many questions that I would like answered, that nothing answers yet. I am not very interested in why I exist, because I don't think there is any particular meaning in that - I can read meaning in to my existence, sure, but there's no outside meaning to my existence or anything's existence. Some may view this as cynical, I see it as reasonable.

I am very interested in how. How does my brain work, how do I have a consciousness, how does my body influence my mind, and vice versa.

Why does regular physics break down at sub-atomic levels? Does this fact ripple up throughout the scales, so a quantum fluctuation affects my mood in the end?

Are dreams just random firings of neurons? Are they something else? We often see some sort of meaning in our dreams (and sometimes none at all), why is that? Do we make up the meaning as we go along, or do we project meaning into our dreams for ourselves to interpret? After all, if dreams are in fact created by ourselves, instead of just random, there must (or might) be some underlying meaning in it.

Our psyche is interesting, because our entire view of the world depends on it. A madman may see the world different than me, everyone may see the world different than me, why is that? Is it merely a physiological difference, is it something else? I don't know at this point.

Just because I am an atheist, a militant, rabid one at that, doesn't mean there is nothing that I believe. I believe a lot of things, that I have not had demonstrated. Many things just make sense to me, so I don't question them further. It's hard to list these things without being inane; stuff like gravity, physical laws, the properties of objects so on.

I have my own theories on more advanced stuff, which is completely open to ridicule, but they are things I believe based on my own observations and what I have seen from others more learned in the respected fields. Obviously, when I journey on to guesswork like this, I keep in mind that it might not be like this at all, but so far I think so.

An example: gwiz665's theory of consciousness.

The consciousness is an emergent property of our complex brain structure. It is a very mechanistic thing, which runs like software on our brain hardware. Obviously, I don't know much about our hardware, but this is a very interesting subject. I think that given enough computer power, we can simulate it in a turing machine, but I've grown uncertain as to how this can be accomplished. Hopefully neuroscience will get some insight into this, they're certainly working on it.

I think we can physically see our consciousness, but it's just really, really hard. We can theoretically see which programs run on a computer too, by looking at the electrical currents in the computer, but without knowing how exactly the computer interprets those data, we're pretty much in the dark. It's the same with the mind vs. brain.

I believe that our perception of our consciousness is different from what it actually is. We have very little privileged knowledge about our consciousness, because our brain, basically, makes it up as it goes along. I think there's significant ret-conning going on at all times as well, because our consciousness does not pick up all senses at all times, but our brain does - when something is important enough, it is written into our conscious narrative. How this weighing of importance happens is extremely important to me, how do we value things? We obviously have a way in our consciousness, where we associate meaning, value etc. to things, but what happens at a lower level? How is memory distributed in the brain, how is consciousness, how is deduction etc.

I basically make the assumption that the brain is a computer. A massively parallel computer, which processes a nearly infinite number of threads at once (~1 per neuron). How this is organized is beyond me, I black box it - it just makes sense at this point. It may be very wrong, but it seems to work and answer some questions.

I also assume that I'm right until something tells me otherwise - I think it's the only way to live. I can't doubt everything all the time.

>> ^handmethekeysyou:
Yeah, just keep filming. Don't try to alert the driver or anything.
Also, if you're being pushed, wouldn't you be leaning on your horn? Or at least throw it in reverse?


No shit, thats my auto-neuronic state when my brain stem has been dislodged after being hit by a truck along my lateral axis

this song is deeply ingrained into my neurons

My mirror neurons are sending pain signals somehow!

Damn I love the TED lectures. Whenever I watch one I feel that my day has been enriched.

About the brain size thing - that's always bothered me. Having that big old head with all it's disadvantages (calorie consumption, child birth morality) and doing little more with it than making camp fires. One of Jared Diamond's hypothesises is that changes to the voice box around 40,000 years ago made complex speech possible. This dudes mirror neuron idea could be accurate too, though part of me thinks that huge amounts of evidence of past civilizations was lost when the seas rose 12,000 years ago. We always put major cities near water, usually the sea or failing that a major river near its exit to the sea. The sea jumping up 130m would erase a hug proportion of our cities today, and I kind of suspect it did then.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Watch this:
http://www.videosift.com/video/TED-Talks-V-S-Ramachandran-Mirror-neurons

Mind blown .. ghandi neurons ftw!

Thank you so much for posting this. Somewhere in my brain there was a neuron with Richard Feynmans name on it, yet i knew nothing of the man until i, literally, stumbled across your post. Whilst showing my ignorance, it also shows the the beauty and benefits of the net. Thanks again.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
How can a baby with no Cerebrum laugh?

The neurons that inervate the facial muscles are intact in the brainstem, so the baby can still move and display certain reflexes despite the lack of conscious control.

It's interesting that religious people can still consider this a miracle. It's like, lets attribute the survival of this baby to God, and the fact that the baby was born WITHOUT A BRAIN, well, that's just bad luck. Self delusion: the only way to reconcile religion with reality.

Not a moral issue? Whether someone lives, dies or suffers when we have the ability to help them isn't a moral issue, or at least its the on the same level as a luxury item like a beach house? Isn't Rush a devout Christian? Where does this nihilism fit in? Or does he, like so many seem to be, belong to the church of Our Lady of the Rich White People?

A beach house is a luxury item, it is separate from those things that are needed for basic human survival. In fact a beach house is on the complete opposite end of the 'basic human needs spectrum' than health care. Health, the very definition of the word describes its importance to the well being of a human being, in fact the well being of a human being IS a definition of health.

I can't understand how anyone with two neurons to rub together can listen to this talking tit face, he'll say anything to refute someone's elses claim, it doesn't matter if its true, if it's contradictory to everything he's said in the past, if it's callous or even if it's words strung together to make a cogent sentence.

'What do you think of health care?'
'NAZI BANANA CATS!'