Evidence for existence of DLS in the brain

My F/b response to Bill Trowbridge about evidence for existence of dynamic logical strucutes (DLS) in the brain

Bill’s question:

• Mark A Peaty   “Do you have a good reference with neurological evidence for these DLS ? I’d prefer something general, maybe summarizing all we know about them (if such a thing exists), rather than a deep dive for a specific case. But whatever … use your discretion.
  • Only in cortical columns?
  • Connecting nearby columns?
  • In other areas of the brain?
  • Distributed everywhere?
  • Only in certain area?
  • Are there specializations from place to place?”

My Answer:    Bill, I learned of cortical columns from reading Vernon B Mountcastle’s contribution to the book The Mindful Brain which he and Gerald Edelman wrote. From Gerald Edelman’s contribution I learned of the concept of neuronal group selection (AKA neural Darwinism). G.Edelman used the term repertoires for the informational-causal effectiveness of such coalitions. He also pointed out that neuronal groups as such are by far most likely to be the underlying parts/bearers of mental information because having a large membership gives:

• robustness through redundancy and the capacity for “graceful degredation”,
• allows widespread interconnectivity across different cortical areas (and elsewhere) which allows exactitude and nuances of meanings, and
• allows associations to occur because individual neurons can be members of many different coalitions. There are other useful attributes also but I can’t think of them right now 😉

Jean Pierre Changeaux in his book Neuronal Man called them singularities and explained that their ‘figurative meaning’ is embodied in the locations of their component parts.

Cortical columns are the fundamental sub components of neural cell assemblies and they are spread all across the cortex, a bit like the pixels of a digital screen. Each local area of cortex therefore has a two dimensional array of columns which can each embody different features of two different environmental (or conceptual) variables.

I first read of the fine detail and processing potential of these arrangements in a Scientific American article in the early ’90s. Some researchers had experimented with bats suspended in little swings which set them moving back and forth. Electrodes set into the bats’ cortices showed various two dimensional representations of things like ‘target’ angular direction versus delay time of echo, ‘target’ direction versus fequency of echo, and so forth. Interlinking of these cortical arrays with other arrays receiving signals from primary processing arrays allows for cross referencing of the analyses performed by primary sensory sheets and synthesis of an analogue representation within the bat’s brain of a moving target insect’s location, velocity, size, and probably other significant features. These ‘other features’ would enable the bat to learn to identify target types and how best to catch them.

This U/T video, from 22:2o onwards for a fair while deals specifically with Vernon B Mountcaste’s discovery. The earlier parts of the video discusses the cortex and its layers (which are visible under a microscope), ie similarity of neuron types prominent at specific distances in from the cortical surface.

NB, I am still processing his (Jeff Hawkins’) assertion that each column has a model of the environment embodied/processed within it. I’m thinking this is akin to the idea that each part of a hologram has the whole of the subject image within it.

His statement may be true but I think that in order to make sense of it one needs to consider the effect upon each and every neuron of its participation in each of the (potentially vast number) of such activations it participates in.

As I understand it the hippocampus is coordinating and sustaining several sets of potential global gestltaten, and the pre frontal cortex is ‘deciding’ which is the most important to be fully activated as the most up to date snapshot of self-in-the-world. The basis of this decision rests upon the emotional charge that has been connected to the component memory/sensory data of each representational ensmble. That emotional charge is the ‘feeling’ related to the item and is the cortical representation of the initial emotion reaction to the raw perceptual information.

I read recently that researchers have discovered that the hippocampus outputs its signals in two waves 90° out of phase with each other. I’m guessing that the first output provokes/sustains/updates the currently active global model of self in the world, whereas the second wave sustains all the other items in short term memory and the parts of other items that were part of the model of self in the world earlier in the day. I imagine there is a kind of fading queue of such ‘new’ memories which are sustained until sleepy time by occasional bouts of reactivation due to enhanced spontaneous bursts of signalling by the member neurons. During sleep of course new memories are consolidated, which may well involve the updating of older forms of the representations involved.

I’m hoping you can see why I use the term dynamic logical structures (DLS) for each of the neuronal ensembles which becomes a self sustaining coalition due to the mutual reciprocal “re-entrant’ cortical signalling they engage in. A point I feel is important is that, for the time such DLS are active, they fulfil the basic requirements of a real thing which exists. Each one is a process which acts as a pathway for degrading the energy of their particular environment, which is a characteristic or all self-sustaining processes, and they also have effects upon their immediate environment which result, in either short term or long term, in increasing the probability of their reactivation in the future.

What makes us move?

Response to F/b question about: what makes us move?

My response was to this question by Scott F: Mark A Peaty – not sure your bottom line conclusion follows from your interesting observations, but thank you for this dialog. Since you focused on movement a lot in your reply precisely how do you believe movement is initiated and via what agency?

The ultimate motivating ‘force’ is homeostasis that drives us to stay alive!

I’m sure you are as familiar as I am with the basic idea here. There are many biochemical and physical requirements in the form of food stuffs, water, maintenance of body temperature, breathing in fresh air, etc. The parameters relating to these and their monitoring is the business of the brain stem some regions of which have ultimate control over our being awake versus being asleep, etc. Our interactions with the environment are monitored and assessed by the thalamus and basal ganglia, limbic system, etc, which are all close to the brain stem and have first access to sensory registration of changes in the world around us.

To put this explicitly, our emotions are our animal responses to the apparent changes and potential changes around us in terms of danger of harm or threat of danger versus resource value and life enhancing utility. These are “prompt” responses which apply relevant emotional charges to percepts. Our feelings are the registration of these emotional charges in the cortex while the higher level, and slower, detailed processing of sensory information takes place in the posterior regions of the cortex.

So the direct answer to your question is that basic stimulation/motivation to activity comes from the brainstem, and the general impetus to action or reaction is mediated by thalamus/basal ganglia/limbic system.

The detailed and hopefully appropriate specific activity which deals with the current situation is generated in the anterior parts of the cortex with executive control of these being mediated in the pre frontal area.

The point I keep stressing is that the regional responsibility description I have just given needs to be understood in terms of the brain being host to many thousands of patterns of temporarily self-sustaining, neuronal assemblages – DLS – which embody the particular affective or effective information content and intention/aboutness of all the perceptions, thoughts, and behaviours which constitute our minds. As you know, the brain is always active, using at least 20% of our metabolic energy even when asleep.

As to whether or not this constant activity is generating patterns of muscular movements or is systematically cycling through the different global wave motions doing the job of consolidating useful memories and fuzzing out random junk patterns depends on the particulars of time, place, and circumstances.

The danger of utilitarianism

Intrinsic worth  versus pure self interest –
 the shortcomings of utilitariansim

It seems to me that maybe the assertion of intrinsic worth is the cornerstone for any comprehensive ethical system. Religious value systems posit a single supreme being or community of divine beings as the source of value but in the modern era this is not really open to reasonably sceptical people.

I have my doubts that any purely utilitarian way of thinking will really satisfy all reasonable requirements:

• the apologists for the rich and powerful (eg so called ‘rational economists’) are too strongly tempted to rationalise the greed and excesses of their heroes leading them to support ‘utility monsters’, for example the corporate executive cowboys and bandits who vote themselves millions of dollars in ‘bonuses’ bearing no relation to the value of any services performed; and
• purely utilitarian thinking ultimately makes people into objects because there is nothing to counter balance the alienating efficacy of the rational instrumental approach to relationships entailed in a purely utilitarian worldview.

I agree with the writer Terry Pratchett (of Discworld fame) that ultimately there is only one sin: treating another person as a thing! *** (f1.0) I believe that the assertion of intrinsic worth is very reasonable in the light of evolutionary theory about genes and memes and by observations of human behaviour in situations where people can be held responsible for their actions. The assertion of intrinsic worth is none the less exactly that: an assertion, which must be made as the result of conscious decision making. It involves a personal risk, ie that in being consistent with one’s principles one increases the opportunities for others to cheat on you, but the payoff is in experiencing an affirmation of life and an ever deeper insight into how other people ‘tick’ and how the world works.

***************

*** This means that the bureaucratic ordering and functioning of work organisations is ethical only if sufficient attention is paid to the intrinsic worth and needs of people doing their jobs. That is, the ‘thing’ is the position not the person! It is the role, with its entailed authority and responsibilities. This is true in all cases, ie government and non government.

Further rejection of pre scientific ontology

Second response to Amy’s ontological stance

This was in response to the following question: “Mark A Peaty Would you agree that something cannot bring itself into existence?”

IMO our experience of being here now is intrinsically paradoxical, always was, and always will be. The FACT is we live in an evolving universe which is “bigger” than us in every conceivable way. IT is not limited by our thinking but the best thinking that human beings can do at the moment, in the way of conceiving testable explanations for things, indicates that IT is at least 13.8 billion “years” old. Furthermore it is reasonably asserted that IT’s basic ingredients have been around for all that time.

NOBODY knows what sparked that original expansion but I contend that it is more reasonable to suppose that eternity is a lot bigger than the wildest conjectures of human beings. Complimentary to this is the likelihood that existence, or existences (in the sense of primary absolutes which may each be a unique and different manifestation of “IS”), are also not limited to what we might imagine. And think, the existence of anything seems to involve a separation between that which it is, and all that which it is not. This seems to me to imply that for every “something” which you want to know about, there is a “something else”….. *not* nothingness which is, arguably, a self-contradictory or even incoherent concept.

On the basis of these thoughts I contend that the religious doctrines of the pre scientific universe, which were based on ideas of people whose experience was limited to the powers of the naked senses, should not be imposed on the minds of people now. They are, after all, just conjectures, like everything else which is called metaphysical.

Quite frankly I consider appeals to G/god/s of any gender in relation to existence to be a trivialising of thought about what we are and about the awesome universe we inhabit.

In speaking of scientific method, I, as an ex-Xian, use the term “advent” because that is the term Xians use concerning Jesus of Nazareth and his supposed Godhood. I use the term because the effect of the advent of modern scientific method in human culture on Earth, has been far greater than that of any of the prophets or G/godmen. The application of SM has basically turned us into a different species because it has changed our relationship to this planet and to all other life on Earth.

For the removal of doubt, I think the advent of SM some 400 or so years ago is equivalent in importance to the advent of language with versatile grammar some 150K years ago, and to the advent of fire usage more than a million or two years ago, and to the advent of tool making, however many millions of years ago when that occurred.

Rejecting the CE1078 ontological argument of Anselm of Canterbury

My response to Amy S re ontological argument – F/b

Recently on the Facebook group Philosophy, Ethics, Sociology & Psychology a discussion thread was started with the following opening question from Tyler W.:

“If mathematics isn’t ontologically real, how can it be used to describe reality via mathematical scientific formulae? If it is ontologically real, why do we need science? The presence of mathematics in science renders science either absurd and invalid (if mathematics has nothing to do with reality), or redundant (if mathematics defines reality). Either way, mathematics falsifies science. What do you all think?”

• I responded to the following suggestion by Amy S.: “Perhaps it might help to start with defining the ontological argument before jumping into the mathematical side of it? Amy posted a F/b link to a Y/t video.
• > This is the direct link to the Y/t video <

Amy S. I watched that video and I disagree with its conclusion and its assumptions. For example tritely saying that “we can imagine a maximally great being” is like claiming we can imagine infinity which we do not. What we actually do is visualise for ourselves the biggest thing we think we can and then sort of say: Bigger than that! In other words we use some kind of mental shortcut to which we assign a symbol after which we just imagine the symbol – and whatever endless algorithmic process is associated with it – and leave it at that. Same goes for zero which is either at kind of street sign along a number line or it is specially defined as denoting “the empty set”. Let’s be honest, what could be more artificial than an empty set? Surely it is metaphor, and maybe a powerful one, but in terms of describing material reality it is as problematic as that smile that was on the face of a “Cheshire cat”.

That kind of sleight of hand and mind was OK for the pre scientific universe but now, in the Modern Era, AKA the Anthropocene, it is not good enough.

My emphatic objection to the OP contention is that, while valid mathematical equations are indeed “discovered”, they are based upon mathematico-logical structures which are made out of mathematical objects, not real objects. There is therefore no a priori reason why the real world should conform to the expectations of mathematicians, just like there was no, and still is no, a priori reason why the real world should conform to the expectation and imaginations of medieval scholars.