%expand% Synaptic Soul %set(body,%html-clean({
You can skip most of the bad philosophy espoused in Scientific American's "the hidden mind", a special issue dedicated to attempting to locate our soul using an electron microscope. Ambitious? Yes. Silly. Yes. There is one good article on adult neurogenesis in the issue. Yes, we can make new neurons - but sadly we're not very good at it. Nice newer articles here and at nature.com (sciam.com has good "see also" links).

Musings:

  • Neurogenesis happens when memories have become integrated, or understood. New neuron's don't "clear out" old memories, but they are simply needed for new ones, after the old memories have been integrated.

  • When old memories are recalled - it's not a "movie playing back". Our mind "rediscovers" what happened to us based on who we are. Recalling memories is a search algorithm, sort of rapidly "guessing what happened", and then checking if that would have created our current psyche, and then "guessing again". Which is why we often can clearly "remember" wholly false information.
    }))
       
    Bracing against the wind  
    www.documentroot.com  
    Search this site:

    View Archive

    Free Blog Commenter & Counter

    Memebot: Free Website Hosting

    Americans for Approval Voting

    2002 WTC Pics: Aug 12 Aug 16 Aug 30 Sep 11 Sep 23 Oct 24

    Shop with Bitcoin At Amazon

    Yvette's Weblog

    All sites by me

    Add to Google

    RSS for this site

    Lo! In the east against the blazing shadow of a rising sun, there come four men striding in unison, each step a journey, against the terrible winds.

    [Powered by Blogger]

    Tuesday, June 11, 2002

    Synaptic Soul
    Posted 8:53 PM

    You can skip most of the bad philosophy espoused in Scientific American's "the hidden mind", a special issue dedicated to attempting to locate our soul using an electron microscope. Ambitious? Yes. Silly. Yes. There is one good article on adult neurogenesis in the issue. Yes, we can make new neurons - but sadly we're not very good at it. Nice newer articles here and at nature.com (sciam.com has good "see also" links).

    Musings:

  • Neurogenesis happens when memories have become integrated, or understood. New neuron's don't "clear out" old memories, but they are simply needed for new ones, after the old memories have been integrated.

  • When old memories are recalled - it's not a "movie playing back". Our mind "rediscovers" what happened to us based on who we are. Recalling memories is a search algorithm, sort of rapidly "guessing what happened", and then checking if that would have created our current psyche, and then "guessing again". Which is why we often can clearly "remember" wholly false information.

    [View/Post Comments] [Digg] [Del.icio.us] [Stumble]

    • Home | Email me when this weblog updates: | View Archive

    (C) 2002 Erik Aronesty/DocumentRoot.Com. Right to copy, without attribution, is given freely to anyone for any reason.

    Listed on BlogShares | Bloghop: the best pretty good | Blogarama | Technorati | Blogwise