I'm a bit surprised the grad student or expert didn't discuss neuromodulators more. The fact is we already have the full connectome of a much simpler system, a worm (C Elegans). And this full mapping is considered insufficient to fully understand the simplified worm behavior because it doesn't fully capture the diversity of different neuromodulators and how they effect processing in neurons. It matters if the neuron is releasing dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, etc. There are ways to approximate these from EM images by analyzing the synapse properties, but ultimately it leads to a much larger problem in understanding neural processing.

In a similar light, the connectome project does not do a good job capturing synaptic strength. We don't really know just from the electron microscopy how strong the connections are. We can try and approximate it by looking at the size/formation of the synapse but ultimately this falls short.

For instance, my memory is that thalamocortical projections (thalamic nuclei to L4 of the cortex) do not make up the primary inputs to L4 on a structural connectivity level, but the strength of those connections are much stronger then the more numerous cortico cortical connections. I don't think the connectome from EM images will be able to pull that out.

The connectome is important, the same way knowing the human genome is important. However, it's really not going to tell us how to simulate a person. It's an important step to be sure, one we are still a good ways away from finishing last I checked (which was three years ago ...)

People love sandbox survival and they love space exploration and they fell in love with the idea of what this game could be. The magazines talked about it like evangelical christians talk about the rapture - this is the end of gaming as we know it and it's going to change everything! And the internet fandom descended with prepubescent fury on anyone that dared suggest the emperor was, in fact, nekkid.

This long video about NMS covers it extremely well, but i'll cut a long story short. There was something veeery slightly disingenuous about the moratoriums placed on reviews, lack of pre-release review versions, and significant backtracking and retconning of promises made by lead designer(? - but definite spokesperson) Sean Murray. The clean cut, well spoken, awkwardly charming Sean Murray. Who I think understood as the release date got closer that a lot of people were not going to be happy with him, because in his interviews he started to look more and more like De Niro playing Russian roulette in The Deer Hunter.

Extra things that immediately pissed me off before i refunded it:
- Menu stuff can appear offscreen if you open it by the edges in 2016
- Can't alt tab in full screen
- Run in borderless window to solve it, performance hit
- i7 6700k, Maximus viii Hero mobo and a GTX 1080 but yes, performance hit and general poor performance anyway
- Can't bind actions to thumb buttons in 2016
- Mouse sensitivity goes from 0 to 100. Changing my sensitivity from 100 to 0 didn't even half the turning speed in game, I had to alt tab to manually change the DPI in razer synapse, which is where i discovered i couldn't alt-tab.

All this for £40? Overwatch cost £30.

They made a lot of money off this, but I'm afraid for me they did it through unfair means. If you check out the quotes from Murray and what the game actually is, there's a huge disparity and the backtracking as release date approached was the final evidence.

But... but I already enrolled in his 12 week course "horseback archery on foot." And what do I do about this LARS tattoo? I just don't think my friends will ever take me seriously again after I invested so much in Lars.

Goddamn you, Lars, you fucking piece of shit I hope you choke on piss and DIE. My whole goddamn life is a whore-mongering lie, imagined as the solipsistic plunge of a physically and mentally inferior charlatan in a shitty and superficial world, but which is more likely the dying thoughts of a misshapen and misfiring synapse in a soup of decaying matter once thought alive.

I understand that, but even if you can't change someone's attitude, you can't consider it if you censor it out.

He's free to toss out whatever junk spews from his misfiring synapses. I don't usually feed the trolls but that deserved a response, even if he doesn't read it or care. It cost me little to say and was more for me than for him.

The firing synapses of a global consciousness.

Oh Bob, how I envy you. The world must be such a nice place if you can view it only in black or white. Binary thinking must be easy on the synapses.
Here's one thing I don't understand, though. Maybe you can help me out.
Why do you hate liberty so much?
I mean, you're an american, right? Land of the free, home of the brave?
Home of the Liberty Bell? The country whose most famous landmark is called the "Statue of Liberty".
Why so much hate the most american thing? I always wanted to asked somebody who's so obviously republican as you.
Here's something I found on Wikipedia:
"Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and private property."

Hmmm... generally supporting following ideas:
- free and fair elections (voter id laws and voting fraud prevention)
- civil rights (Dude! Don't tread on me!)
- freedom of the press (concern about lamestream media and "liberal bias" in the media)
- freedom of religion (for example the freedom of teaching children creationism)
- free trade (capitalism yay!)
- private property (for some reason the name "Ron Jeremy" came to mind but I think I got the name wrong)

I can understand a dislike for equality (come on, slaves are super useful) but not for liberty. Not if you're a true american.

Shouldn't you call yourself a liberal? Is it just a weird closet you're in?

By 'proper science' I'm assuming you mean something which is entirely, 100% empirical, physical, and explicitly non-spiritual. I can't show you anything in that regard. What I'm referring to is exactly spiritual. It's a man's belief (wholly non-physical, not just brain synapses firing) which I'm referring to.

You're asking me to show you something wholly physical, presupposing a priori the non-existance of the spiritual, which then can somehow prove the existence of the spititual. I can't do it, sorry. You can't perform double blind experiments on spiritual elements like love, fear, hate, jealousy, etc. But those things do exist, and their effects and affects are profound.

Now I know, I made some ostensibly outrageous claims as to the power of belief. I can understand the outrage. I'm not really upset about that. I do hope to open up some new areas of thought for those who are medically minded to a religious extent.

See the book, Science Set Free by Rupert Sheldrake.

In reply to this comment by VoodooV:
No one is discriminating against Christians, you wannabe martyr. We're just calling you out on your bullshit.

You: I disapprove of gay marriage
Everyone else with synapses: That's fine. Believe what you want, but the facts are that you're wrong and here's why and because of separation of church and state, you don't get to make any laws based on your nonsense unless you can back your shit up with more than just "gay sex is icky and they make me uncomfortable" And now you also alienated yourself from the rest of society because of the growing acceptance of LGBT.

Not all opinions are equal, dumbass, get over it. We put Christian beliefs to the test for a long time and they just don't pass muster anymore...deal with it. Adapt or die

If someone came in and started arguing that hitler was awesome, It's not discrimination if we tear into him for being a moron.

You being Christian has nothing to do with it. It's your shitty ideas that demonstrably infringe on other's rights that are under fire, not your freedom of religion.



Well said! I'd upvote that twice if I could.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Don't try that shit, it's discrimination, you know exactly why he was refusing to make a gay wedding cake that type of lying isn't going to help your argument. 2nd it's not a double-standard to hand someone their ass when they say something stupid. You do something counter to the way a society has been going you get shouted down in the public square. We're moving towards legalizing gay marriage and giving equal rights to all americans, you go counter to that you're gonna get yelled at.
Sorry but you're wrong, it isn't discrimination. They were still able to do business there if they wanted another kind of cake, and I'm sure they're still welcome to do so. The man doesn't want to make a gay wedding cake because he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, and that gay marriage is immoral.
Also filth posted on message boards? Is this your first day on the internet? I'm pretty sure Justin Beiber hasn't done anything to anyone on the internet and still he's talked about worse than Hitler. You're in hyperbole country mother fucker, deal with it.
Now you want to continue discriminating against people and not doing your job to make cakes or hand out birth control pills than yeah your life is gonna be made harder. Too bad because you're lives are already way too easy as it is. Complaining about christian discrimination, bitch there's children dying in Africa, shut the fuck up.
So discrimination against Christians is okay, because people talk trash all the time and children are dying in Africa? In other words, you just wave your hand and make excuses..proving that you don't really think discrimination is wrong, so long as its against people you disagree with. It's clear you want equal rights for everyone except Christians.
>> ^Yogi


No one is discriminating against Christians, you wannabe martyr. We're just calling you out on your bullshit.

You: I disapprove of gay marriage
Everyone else with synapses: That's fine. Believe what you want, but the facts are that you're wrong and here's why and because of separation of church and state, you don't get to make any laws based on your nonsense unless you can back your shit up with more than just "gay sex is icky and they make me uncomfortable" And now you also alienated yourself from the rest of society because of the growing acceptance of LGBT.

Not all opinions are equal, dumbass, get over it. We put Christian beliefs to the test for a long time and they just don't pass muster anymore...deal with it. Adapt or die

If someone came in and started arguing that hitler was awesome, It's not discrimination if we tear into him for being a moron.

You being Christian has nothing to do with it. It's your shitty ideas that demonstrably infringe on other's rights that are under fire, not your freedom of religion.

So much anger! Chillax, people. Just because a guy on the internet shat all over your favorite game doesn't decrease your worth as a person.

My GotY is Dark Souls, I think Battlefield games are awesome fun, and indie PC games Frozen Synapse and Magicka got most of my actual playtime this year.

Psychedelics (Psychotropics; and their main "term" in the next sentence) are definitely interesting mind wise. As I have in my own profile, Psychoactive drugs are indeed ALL very interesting.

This can include something as mundane as Codeine all the way up to LSD. Quick Message: Cocaine and Heroine are the same "type" of drugs technically: i.e. changed perception, mood alteration, etc... But, these ARE very dangerous to play with, versus the reward you receive: the reward here being an expanded mind that has the ability to understand any information from the remembered mental states that are achieved at the height of the drugs half-life in the body. Typically, specifically with shrooms or Psilocybin, it will create a calm-well being, and positive affirmation after affect that will even defeat depression in certain cases. This has been researched in atleast two studies that I've seen, Bill also talks of yet another--yet, he didn't mention that there is a 1% chance, and it may actually be lower than that now with further testing, that a "bad trip" will occur causing the reverse, but luckily not lasting in a long-term manifestation like the "good-trips".

There are generally two ways your going to enlighten yourself. Drugs like Marijuana will give a "high". Hopefully, with a mental state induced called: euphoria. The euphoric effect will allow you to feel very much "mood-stabilized". If you were depressed euphoria can completely reverse it, which can cause problems as it may cause you to become "psychologically addicted" to it due too it's affect; especially if depressed and more-so if you have an addictive personality trait in your genes (if this were Cocaine it would most likely always lead to a downward spiral and death). This is how many people lose the addiction game with bad drugs like Cocaine and Heroine, or even the Codeine you're doctor prescribes you. Anyway, the Euphoria allows many people to reach a level of peace and comfort that they can't otherwise. The sheer change in the organization of how you synapses fire to give you perceptual information, memories, and your own thoughts--have changed from your normal state. You literally think different. But, when you start to think about what you're working on, the same ideas no longer come back as they did just before you started to use: they come back changed. This is where change happens, it's where inspiration can come from.

For drugs like acid it becomes even easier to understand why you may think much greater things. Once the drug works it starts linking many of your perceptual areas, with your thoughts together into one giant drawing board. Sometimes, most of the time your subconscious mind, specifically your dream center starts to play with you using random memory sequences or perceptual information. Then when it fully takes hold you leave Earth as you've known it, while the drug is in full affect (this is why usually friends get others to watch over them, lest you do something incredibly bad--this is also why you really shouldn't play with the scarier drugs). It's very easy to see where these great ideas come from now, as now you are walking in a dream that is semi-controlled and mostly not. It begins to add random merging patterns, what the overall goal of the mind is at this point most likely is just to link all the information together; like a new song with a DJ. But, the experience is a lot like a journey, sometimes without prodding you will literally walk into a room with the "treasure chest", or the game changing idea that you need.

What you truly get in the end is the ability to realize that the human body is grand, with the brain a magnificent structure, designed in simplicity, but able to grow to see past that simplicity, that structure, those people that never went and looked, and you see the men that can stand on the shoulders of giants. Those that push the envelope.

If it was me go for shrooms, acid, and marijuana. But, read up on each and every one first so you know what to expect and NOT what to do to jeopardize your life; lastly, this is ILLEGAL...). All of these type of drugs are able to create a very unique experience while active on your active brain. Hopefully, like may others in history you can act like a Psychoactive compound on our collective psyche, as many have before.

/long but hopefully informative
//they're still Illegal...
///edited for grammar

@deathcow

Ooooh... I see. I thought it was eye level, but it's more like Frozen Synapse. A gigawatt could be dangerous, though, as it would still reflect 36,000 watts back through the wall, and that'll pop a lot of Jolly Time.

>> ^Trancecoach:

So you take the position that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain and that consciousness does not exist outside of the mechanisms of the central nervous system? If so, then how do you reconcile the "Hard Problem" of consciousness? I suppose the accounts of individuals who recall events that occurred during periods of documented "brain death" are uses mere telepathy to find out what happened while their brain and body has been cooled to temperatures below 24 degrees celsius.
>> ^bamdrew:
Old idea that the mind and the brain are one??? What the...?! The OLD idea is the shit that they're talking about, where the brain and mind/consciousness are separate! The NEW idea is still that an organ can create consciousness, and with damage/injury/drugs that consciousness and even ones personality is altered.

... this was the biggest bunch of bullshit I've heard in a long time. Maybe I'm biased (as my user icon demonstrates, I'm a brain nerd).



you and these people with documented periods of "events" during braindeath are making an assumption... that the brain functions normally all the way from regular activity to braindeath in the same way... ie the processes don't require a set amount of electrical activity to continue normal operation

you are saying a person whose brain is operating normally records memories, recalls memories, accesses critical/creative thought in the exact same manner and efficiency as a person who's brain isn't operating normally

to use computer lingo, you are saying that power fluctuations in no way affect the integrity of data stored in physical memory... that memory buffers couldn't get backed up, or random memory access/deletion/corruption wouldn't occur

you resort to telepathy as an answer before you would look at random synapses firing, and low level electricity distorting one's sense of time (its pretty subjective even in a person operating at 100%)

now obviously the brain is more complex than just electicity, there's chemical processes going on as well... an again you want to resort to mystic mumbo jumbo rather than provable, repeatable science?

"it's been proven that consciousness exists outside of the framework of time and space" (not a perfect quote, but it'll point you to the one i'm refering to) immediately convinced me that he's making those leaps too... its mumbo jumbo meant to sound scientific (as someone pointed out earlier)

anger is something i am quick to as a result of my PTSD unfortunately, particularly on subjects i am passionate about. Therapy is a long ongoin process =)
apologies all around for my curt manner.

now, to the dialogue at hand.

well firstly those statistics, since you've conceded them to be mere presuppositions, are exactly that: presuppositions. There arent any real statistics that i could produce to rebut it, however, if we use alcohol consumption and prohibition as a model, one could expect as much as a 30% increase in heroin use with its legalization, which is to say, not much at all. the idea of everyone and their mom suddenly hopping on the heroin train is a ridiculous fantasy at best.

while you may be right about the lifelong heroin user, i dont have to speculate about long term alcohol abusers maintaining healthy lives. that being said, this defense (if youre using it as one) is a moot point unless you support alcohol prohibition as well.

putting away traffickers in the netherlands would be the same in the states were drugs regulated and controlled. again, alcohol is the model for this. You think its legal to traffic alcohol just because alcohol is made legal? nope, you'll still get canned for that. follow the model. sticking with heroin, were it to be made legal its not something you'd pick up at your local grocery store. if the government regulates and controls it, firstly you will have fewer overdoses because the potency will be precisely known and consistent (the same as alcohol). Overdoses from heroin (among other things) is largely due to unexpected higher than "normal" street potency's. The same thing occurred during prohibition with alcohol poisoning. Potency would be known in the same way alcohol content (proofs) and tar and nicotine content in cigarettes (labeled right on the packs and cartons).

Now, not anyone can purchase cigarettes or alcohol or a gun for that matter. precisely because of regulation and control. in the same way, not everyone should be able to purchase marijuana, heroin, or whatever your poison is. regulated and controlled.

now i flatly rejected your hypothetical position because it was absurd (much like my brain synapse one was). you and i could draw up all sorts of imaginative what-ifs but theyre not gonna serve any purpose other than drawing up a good laugh.

you know, i also believe personal freedoms end where harm to others begin. but this certainly doesnt support your prohibition stance at all. Looking at it another way, you have the right to drink as little or as much alcohol as you want. but if you get too drunk and drive (and get caught) you'll get arrested. so while you still have that freedom to drink alcohol, that same freedom does not infringe on my freedom to press charges should you become too intoxicated and harm me. i know that sounds a bit convoluted, im not as articulate as i'd like to be right now but you catch my drift ya?

in closing, every piece of your defense doesnt hold an ounce of water when held up to the model of prohibition of the 20's, it's "side effects", and it's eventual outcome.

sorry again for being so curt earlier. therapy for my condition takes a good while =)

oh you mean the federal assault weapons ban that expired in '04? so i can buy an ak or a bazooka if i want to now, whats your point? do you know what banning certain or all firearms does? keeps em out of law abiding citizens hands. do you sincerely think that Joe Bank Robber has no means to get a gun or even an assault rifle to commit his crimes with?

i hear that 60% of the time it works every time right? care to cite your 95%/5% findings or were you just pulling em straight out of your ass, confirming my suspicions?

by "these drugs" i can only presume you are talking about heroin eh? but what about cigarettes? are they not carefully engineered poisons? so whats your point again?

you conveniently left out amsterdam, while it may not be the fabled silver bullet, its pretty goddamn close. what was your point again?

what if there was a specific human brain synapse that caused one to violently rape ponies and shit on babies? should we still allow humans to function normally?
I can make absurd scenarios that serve absolutely no purpose other than to incite absurdity. isnt it fun?

im still anxiously awaiting you to present something original and valid to this table.