Analog, digital and neuroquatum models of brain-mind-body functioning
Hi all,
While your group appears to be mostly neuro-quanta related, I thought this would be a great place to share ideas that have direct clinical applications in my field. I am a geriatric psychologist specializing in the role of emotions on memory, aging and disease. I am particularly interested in affect regulation and compassion, and their neuroimmunological correlates.
I see everything in the universe as having both analog and digital manifestations. The brain shows aspects of both. Each part of the brain has an analog, pre-wired component along with a more digital re-wiring part.
The more complex and evolutionarily evolved the part of the system, the more refined, lateralized and evenly distributed the networks. The less evolutionarily advanced, the less specialized and less lateralized that part of the network. We can see this clearly in a study of the brain from an evolutionary perspective.
While I speak of analog and digital as both being important, I am also extremely sensitive to the neuro-quanta models of the brain-mind. We need to integrate both the macro and quantum models of the brain, since they all contribute richly to the understanding of our brains, feelings, thoughts and physical health. I tend to be focused on neuropeptides as emotional and immunological regulators, that are among the most ancient of molecules. I am interested in how humans can mindfully modulate our emotions to function in greater balance, rather than in maladaptive ways, and how this changes both neural network activity and the immune system.
So, as a clinical psychologist speaking who develops neuropsychoanalytic theories and techniques, I think a dialog with mathematical model-builders would be helpful to us all. I gave you just a bare-bones model, and not yet how I apply this to patients with memory impairments. If you are interested I can write more about the clinical applications.
I await your replies.
While your group appears to be mostly neuro-quanta related, I thought this would be a great place to share ideas that have direct clinical applications in my field. I am a geriatric psychologist specializing in the role of emotions on memory, aging and disease. I am particularly interested in affect regulation and compassion, and their neuroimmunological correlates.
I see everything in the universe as having both analog and digital manifestations. The brain shows aspects of both. Each part of the brain has an analog, pre-wired component along with a more digital re-wiring part.
The more complex and evolutionarily evolved the part of the system, the more refined, lateralized and evenly distributed the networks. The less evolutionarily advanced, the less specialized and less lateralized that part of the network. We can see this clearly in a study of the brain from an evolutionary perspective.
While I speak of analog and digital as both being important, I am also extremely sensitive to the neuro-quanta models of the brain-mind. We need to integrate both the macro and quantum models of the brain, since they all contribute richly to the understanding of our brains, feelings, thoughts and physical health. I tend to be focused on neuropeptides as emotional and immunological regulators, that are among the most ancient of molecules. I am interested in how humans can mindfully modulate our emotions to function in greater balance, rather than in maladaptive ways, and how this changes both neural network activity and the immune system.
So, as a clinical psychologist speaking who develops neuropsychoanalytic theories and techniques, I think a dialog with mathematical model-builders would be helpful to us all. I gave you just a bare-bones model, and not yet how I apply this to patients with memory impairments. If you are interested I can write more about the clinical applications.
I await your replies.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Janet Wise on -
I don't know that this is entirely relevant, Mitchell, but I was thinking along these lines (pardon the pun) this a.m.:
Musings:
We depend on the language of mathematics to describe phenomena of a physical nature, and to define the laws of the universe for us. We can describe a torus, a three-dimensional figure, on a two-dimensional grid. With quantum mechanics, we need to add other planes, and the math becomes complex; not so much the actual problem-solving piece, but the way we need to think about how to attack the problem. Kind of sounds like trying to understand problems of a psychical nature, doesn't it?
Wouldn't it be great if we could just find the mathematical solution to problems of a psychical nature? But what if there IS some clue that we are missing; some universal law that we have yet to wrap our minds around, that will help us to understand precisely what pattern or law is influencing what is going on in the brain; at least THAT much of the physiology of emotional dysregulation we could put our finger on, couldn't we? We depend on psychology to describe behaviors and patterns, but we can describe these same type of phenomenon with math.
I thought of the torus, because it has some interesting implications, in terms of understanding how math can describe something that has more than two dimensions (x and y); when we look at electron spin, we add the z-plane, and thus the math becomes more difficult to wrap our brains around initially, because we are not used to seeing phenomena of a physical nature this way. It takes a paradigm-shift to wrap our minds around something that is complex, so that we can "see" it; once we can identify with it, we use the same problem-solving skills to define it, however. The skills are concrete.
Scientific paradigms are arrived at by just thinking about things differently; "brooding" over the creative tension new ideas induce, and waiting for the laws of nature to "resolve" the tension. Please let me know if any of this makes any sense.
Janet
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Permalink Reply by Mitchell Slutzky on -
Hi Janet,
Thank you for your reply, which was pretty much on target given the wide-openness of the topic.
I found an interesting article on clarification of the difference between the classic analog/digital split and the need for respective continuous or discreet measurement. I believe it may be interesting to many of you in this forum:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004692/01/AnalogDigitalContinuousDiscrete.pdf
Maley argues that analog measurement can be discreet as well as continuous. What matters is whether there is a representational form. Digital requires use of digits and a way to describe their location in relation to one another. I summarized with some oversimplification that the article would clarify.
I read this article, understood it, but it left me with a question not posed explicitly:
Why are neuroscientists arguing over the nature of the brain, whether it is analog or digital? Why not just accept that it is helpful to model the neural networks both ways. Sometimes comparing the analog description with the digital one yields more rich conclusions than simply modeling one or the other.
I subscribe to a theoretical orientation that states it is important to understand evolutionary change through examining what functions are analogic and which are digital at each evolutionary juncture. The brain contains many levels of evolution so that we think of the "older parts" and the "newer parts" as if older is analog -- in this case meaning hard-wired -- and the newer is digital -- in this case more fluidly rewiring and more easily reprogrammed.
I disagree with this oft-told distinction.
In my experience working with people with dementia and other neural impairments, I am struck with how well earlier part of the brain will assume roles that used to be done by higher parts of the brain. For example, if episodic and semantic memory consolidation fail due to damage to the hippocampus, the implicit memory functions of the amygdala, basal ganglia and cerebellum can still function and learn to compensate.
The most famous example of this point is HM, Brenda Milner's much studied now deceased patient (in his case no amygdala either so this is all subcortical memory). For example, he could draw spatial maps of his home with no recollection of the home itself. He refused to shake hands with her after a toy buzzer was used even though he stated he never met Dr. Milner before. Clearly these behaviors can be viewed both as a digital learning and an analog representation that alters the response. Modeling HM's compensations for loss of explicit memory is indeed richer if we model it both ways. It would make no sense to state earlier brain parts are simply analog and the newer digital.
I propose another way to look at the analog/digital divide. Perhaps they are both abstractions, both repesentations, but one describes the hard wiring (analog) and the other the learning that changes it (digital) much like the computer has hardware that is in this sense analog and it is driven by the software which is clearly digital. (Note that in the brain, unlike a computer, the software actively rewires the hardware)
But what makes it really interesting to me is that the digital of one generation becomes the analog of the succeeding generation.
History of music provides an illustration of this point:
First there was song
Then notation so the songs could be reproduced (a "digital" refinement)
Notation became analog to musical recordings on wax (the new "digital" because it allowed performances to be transportable)
Wax led to vinyl that could have a master and be copied. That even led to analog tape and digital tape that were both re-represented in vinyl. While we think of vinyl lp's as analog, they represented the digital of their time, in that now the copies could be more widely disseminated.
Next generation is the CD which it truly digital music. But the cd itself is analog -- it is a thing that must be carried.
Relative to the mp3 file and other life-formats, the CD is old generation. Storing the mp3 on the hard drive of an ipod makes it relatively more digital, but then the hardware is still the analog component. After another generation you have music on flash memory -- no longer moving parts.
Current generation: there is web-based storage where you can get your music anywhere in the world with an internet connection. No need to carry it with you or to download, you only need to stream it from the "cloud". This is more digital than the need for a local physical recording.
I am not sure what the next logical progression will be, except perhaps some cyborgian interface of computer and brain that is always connected to the cloud and is manipulated by mentation alone. We already see examples of that for people who have "locked-in" syndrome. We are also starting to see video-game interfaces that rely more on thought than on use of the hands. There is a high market demand there so we can expect more thinking cap games to come.
Or, after that, perhaps we learn to re-engineer brains totally through wet-ware so that the connection to the cloud becomes intrinsic to our being.
All of these succeeding generations of evolution can be traced backwards to song. In each generation there is an evolutionary advance in reproducibility, portability, definition and complexity among other things. And yet, they are all ways of representing the same song. While the earlier evolutionary changes are described as analog by definition, and the later as digital, I believe this is an incomplete distinction.
Any thoughts and replies would be helpful as I try try to better articulate this paradigm.
Mitchell
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Permalink Reply by Erik Bo Jensen on -
Hi Janet! Ithink that mathematics will surprise us al lot in neurosciences but I dont think that psychological phenomena can be described by mathemathis. Mind or psyche is something irreducible and is a world of it self i.e. on an unik level or unique reality (and can be its causa sui). best Bo
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Permalink Reply by Mitchell Slutzky on
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Bo,
I actually disagree that mathematical modeling cannot be applied to neurosciences and "the mind". Naturally, there is uncertainty about anyone single event. That is the nature of a quantum brain.
But one can calculate probabilities -- especially summed over a large group of people, but even in a single individual -- with a high degree of accuracy. Furthermore, we know pretty well what brain-regions participate in which neural networks. fMRI and SPECT can give a good picture of what parts of the brain activate or deactivate in response to a particular activity. Borrowing LeDoux's example, we can see the quick down and dirty decoding in the amygdala that triggers fight-flight to a stick that is curved like a snake, followed by the slower-but-articulated safety response mediated in the right prefrontal lobe milliseconds later when the stick is more accurately decoded. These two responses can be modeled and represented both mathematically and schematically.
Some people startle more, are more hypervigilant and wary. Others tend to be overly trusting and fail to alarm when the situation really is dangerous. We can calculate the probability of response -- startle or not -- in various conditions (e.g. stick or snake) and be fairly accurate about who will make the appropriate response and which brain regions they activate before or after the response.
That being said, I am psychoanalytically trained and very much appreciate the uniqueness of every one of us. I do not believe that modeling reactions reduces us to undifferentiated masses, but only helps us more fully understand and appreciate our individuality.
Mitchell
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Permalink Reply by Erik Bo Jensen on
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I have another picture of the brain than quantum mechanics.
I think that psyche i an unique reality which can be the cause of its own (causa sui). And causa sui i based upon a broken but not abolished causality, perhaps in the reflexes of the brain.
Special interesting in this connection is regulatory ans structural genes in the involved neurons. Despite the fact that I am from Niels Bohrs own country I dont need a quantum mechanical brain at all. The uncertainly principle of Heisenbergh is a reality in every shell in atoms but this fact dont touch the problem of mind or psyche. Indeed like Bohr I am a humanist that dont reduce the mind to a psysical apparature described by mathemathics. best Bo
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Permalink Reply by Janet Wise on
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Bo~
What are you holding onto? Describing the physiology of the brain with mathematics doesn't fully describe it or take away from the uniqueness of it. If you are studying math at HS level now, I am almost certain you may not appreciate the beauty of what math really is and does. It is a tool--a language that the field of science requires us to speak so we can succinctly and effectively communicate it's laws and hypotheses--universally. Adherents of the quantum brain don't pretend that it is the be-all or end-all of the discussion; only that it gives us a base to argue for or against phenomena that we observe. Math describes that phenomena: cause, effect, patterns, behaviors. The old paradigm died; during the Decade of the Brain, we learned so much, we could barely assimilate it. I'm just concerned you are limiting your own paradigm, and depriving the rest of us of your unique perspective, if you refuse to acknowledge the benefit of what is currently the basis for our understanding. It's only modeling.
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Permalink Reply by Erik Bo Jensen on
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Janet! I have never denied that mathemathics has a great future in neuroscience. Certainly it has.
But I will never believe in a quantum mechanical brain.
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Permalink Reply by Mitchell Slutzky on
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Bo,
Models are simply that: models. They will never be the same as the individual psyche, but they may come close in approximation, allowing for a certain randomness of choice. Why not welcome the representations while celebrating each being's uniqueness?
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Permalink Reply by Erik Bo Jensen on
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I agree Mitchel.best Bo
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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Richard Hammett, Jr on -
You are conflating (at least) two ideas, here. I, myself, work on modeling complex systems, and am coming to think that "reduction" of some complex systems is not effective, that reduction cannot reproduce some of the behavior in the complex system. However, the physical system CAN still be reduced to its component parts, and you can learn something meaningful from that.
I really worry about any discussion of the "quantum mechanics" of the brain. I have seen NO evidence that specifically quantum effects do anything at any higher level, they are essentially isolated from higher levels, and don't function as anything but statistical noise in higher levels. I find, generally, when people use that term, because they are trying to hide a ghost in that machine. I don't see any reason that "quantum mechanical brain" is any more meaningful than "quantum mechanical cruise control" for you car would be.
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Permalink Reply by Mitchell Slutzky on
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Kenneth,
I agree with part of your first point, that one needs to model the whole system with a high degree of complexity maintained. I am not sure though why you think I am conflating these concepts. Could you give me an example of where the conflation lies?
I would have to disagree that modeling of the quantum level is as irrelevant in the brain as it would be to "cruise control". The latter exists only in a fairly predeterminate way. Cruise control can only do what it is programmed to do. It cannot decide to accelerate or decelerate on its own. I support there can be a "smart cruise control" that is programmed to follow a more complicated instruction set, like to vary speed in response to density of traffic on the road. But this still would be a fairly determined instruction set, not one that involves much, if any, indeterminism.
The brain on the other hand, has both macro levels with routines and subroutines that can be modeled with a high degree of complexity. Both analog and digital models can be used to describe, map and predict thoughts, emotions and actions. However, I do believe that there are parts of brain function that are at the micro-level which operate in a quantum universe as well. That is because there are so many variables that cannot be fully controlled for. Many brain computations have two or more viable simultaneous decisions. In fact these two or more simultaneous decisions are better described by a quantum model that includes simultaneity of two or more opposing solutions as well as a high degree of probabalistic findings. I maintain this is not simply static, except to the higher orders you refer to. Thus it is helpful to have quantum models of the brain along with the more macro analog and digital models.
Mitchell
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Permalink Reply by Zao Man on -
I too, cannot easily digest the idea of a quantum mind. A QM model does not help us to make any predictions about the brain in the higher-order processes that allegedly give rise to the phenomenons of the mind:
"Based on a calculation of neural decoherence rates, we argue that the degrees of freedom of the human brain that relate to cognitive processes should be thought of as a classical rather than quantum system, i.e., that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the current classical approach to neural network simulations."
From Phys Rev E Stat Phys Plasmas Fluids Relat Interdiscip Topics. 2000 Apr;61 4 Pt B 4194-206.
This is an ideal time to apply Occam's Razor. The complex approach to network simulations is currently the most useful in top-down approaches.
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