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OfflineDoctorJ
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Registered: 06/30/03
Posts: 8,846
Loc: space
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
Why I Study the Brain * 1
    #3060074 - 08/27/04 09:38 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

For a long time, I contemplated what I should do with my gifts. It wasnt an easy thing to do. As the old Spider-Man addage says: "With great power comes great responsibility." I was always terrified that I would invest my power in the wrong direction, or worse yet, squander it and have this great potential go unfulfilled.

For many years, I contemplated physics. But I was terrified of math. Mainly because math isnt real; it is an abstraction. That really bothered me. But I loved physics. I loved the study of the fundamental particles and forces which make up our universe.

But then I came to a realization: The whole of physics and science in general is observable data. Data which is observed by the mind. The mind is like a filter; all the data we are able to observe about the universe is contingent upon the capacity of our brains. With this realization, the theories and the formulas seemed like a waste of effort to me. What good is observational data when you dont even understand the mechanism via which you are observing the data? Without a perfect understanding of the Brain, studying the observable universe is getting a step ahead of yourself. Its jumping to conclusions. You have no solid ground to stand upon.

Not only that, but we cant even see the whole universe. But we CAN see an entire brain, and figure out how it works. I see the brain as a locked door, a limited mechanism which is keeping us from seeing the universe as it truly is. I have been trying to unlock that door for quite some time, and if I could contribute one thing to this planet, it would be making some progress on that goal. Even if I can only get one tumbler to turn, it will still be worth a lifetime's worth of effort. Because someone will pick up where I left off, and one day, one day, we will open that door, and step through to the other side.

I believe that whenever human beings study anything, they are only really studying their own minds. Even if they are observing a black hole a zillion parsecs away, they are still really just observing their mind. And who is the observer? Though I study nueroscience, I still believe in the existence of an external force upon the mind. Nature and Nurture are only part of the equation. The mind is more than just a product of chemistry and life experience. There is a third force, and is superior to the other two.

Anyway, these are my stoned ramblings on a friday night, my car is still in the fucking shop, so I cant go anywhere tonight. Goddamn, what a bummer.

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Invisiblevampirism
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Registered: 03/14/04
Posts: 8,120
Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3060161 - 08/27/04 10:00 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

i think this part is most interesting: "Though I study nueroscience, I still believe in the existence of an external force upon the mind. Nature and Nurture are only part of the equation. The mind is more than just a product of chemistry and life experience. There is a third force, and is superior to the other two. "

That's interesting because, well, aren't those the only two observable and possibly measurable via scientific method?

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OfflineDeiymiyan
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3060170 - 08/27/04 10:01 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Data which is observed by the mind. The mind is like a filter; all the data we are able to observe about the universe is contingent upon the capacity of our brains.

IMHO, it is the physical brain which acts as the filter through which the mind observes.

I would be inclined to suspect that the mind, in order of complexity, is far surpassing the neanderthalness of the brain in relation.


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Dei Gratia de integro,

Veni Vidi Vici:

In Nomine Domini..


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InvisibleSwami
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Registered: 01/18/00
Posts: 15,413
Loc: In the hen house
Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3060522 - 08/27/04 11:53 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Mainly because math isnt real; it is an abstraction.

Do you ever count your change? Let's play poker some time...


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The proof is in the pudding.

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Invisiblezee_werp
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Registered: 03/24/03
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3060570 - 08/28/04 12:16 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

So what specifically are you studying? Are you at a university? If so, what stage of your degree are you at? Are you just reviewing previous research, or are you conducting research of your own and publishing your findings?

I also study the mind, I am majoring in Psychology rather than straight out neurophysiology, though that is a part of my studies. I haven't conducted any full on experiments yet, though I have just designed a couple which I will be carrying out next year. One of them is to do with inducing synaesthesia in non-synaesthesic individuals using sensory deprivation, and the other is to do with testing various aspects of tempo and sensory modality of stimuli on subjective time perception.

Good to see theres other shroomerites around who are also into it...I think that psychology is one of the most exciting fields to be involved in at the moment, especially considering that it is in a way a unification of many different scientific disciplines...physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, etc. all have a significant role in the study of the brain and the mind...awesome huh!

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OfflineViaggio
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Registered: 07/05/03
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3060674 - 08/28/04 12:47 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Study my avatar, nerds  :cool:  I too have a deep interest in brain chemistry, though I don't attend college for it.


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"...yet another in a long series of diversions an attempt to avoid responsibility."

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OfflineDoctorJ
Male

Registered: 06/30/03
Posts: 8,846
Loc: space
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: Swami]
    #3060848 - 08/28/04 02:03 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Swami said:
Mainly because math isnt real; it is an abstraction.

Do you ever count your change? Let's play poker some time...




hope you like losing money :lol:

fractions arent that hard; I learned to calculate probability and permutations in grade school.  Thats not math; thats just obvious :smirk:

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Invisiblephalloidin

Registered: 07/03/04
Posts: 865
Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3060860 - 08/28/04 02:08 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

I think it would be a bit frustrating going into neuroscience considering that some of the most useful means for understanding how our brains work have become outlawed.

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OfflineDoctorJ
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Registered: 06/30/03
Posts: 8,846
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: zee_werp]
    #3060887 - 08/28/04 02:31 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

zee_werp said:
So what specifically are you studying? Are you at a university? If so, what stage of your degree are you at? Are you just reviewing previous research, or are you conducting research of your own and publishing your findings?






I'm through with psych.  I'm studying nueroscience now.  I've already completed all the necessary hours for my psych degree and am currently pursuing my masters via the fast track program.  I read all kinds of research; I have to stay curernt on that shit.  I'm fairly new to nueroscience, so most of the research I can understand fully at this point is cognitive or social psych.  I dont really feel qualified to evaluate nueroscience research as I have not completed all the classes to have any qualifications in that area.  However, this semester I am helping a prof design and administer a cognitive experiment (explaininjg the exact nature of the experiment would give away which university I attend, so I wont divulge that info).  Tenured professors always make the students do the grunt work. 

Eventually I would like to get my PhD in molecular nuerobiology, but at the rate I'm going it will probably be a year or thee or four...  fuck itll get done when its done.  Degrees arent as important to me as obtaining a thourough understanding of the field. 

I would rather not divulge which school I attend as I generally like to keep my academic and drug lives separate. 

my specified areas of interest are: drugs that alter the synaptic transmission system (of course :smile: ), and memory storage in the brain. 

I liked psychology, but it just wasnt a hard enough science for me.  Too many castles in the sky.  But I do think that cognitive and social psych are very useful fields.  Abnormal psych is fucked up; I shudder to think of what the DSM-5 is going to be like.  Evolutionary psych is very interesting.  Freud and Jung were both full of shit, but Jung had some decent ideas.  Anyway, I wasnt satisfied with what I had learned in my undergrad psych classes, so I decided to start taking nuero classes.  Luckily I had a good enough GPA to be able to have this opportunity.

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OfflineDoctorJ
Male

Registered: 06/30/03
Posts: 8,846
Loc: space
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: phalloidin]
    #3060934 - 08/28/04 02:53 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

MrTryptastic said:
I think it would be a bit frustrating going into neuroscience considering that some of the most useful means for understanding how our brains work have become outlawed.




pshhhhh...  the government is decades behind science, dude.  Shhhhhh.  Dont tell anyone :wink:


Anyway, other than doin R & D on newer, cleaner recreational drugs, I would also like to look at memory. 

the latest theories on memory storage in the brain rely upon nueral networking.  Basically, the theory goes that the brain stores data much like a computer; nuerons are either excited or unexcited, so its kind of like a binary computer, except a little more complicated.  The simplest analogy I can think of for this model is the way numbers are represented on an old LED calculator or alarm clock.  When the whole number thingy lights up, it looks like this:

_
|_|
|_|

except with diagonal lines, too. 

take out a few lines, make a number:
   
|
|

_
_|
|_
_
_|
_|

|_|
  |

Nueral networks are kind of like that.  Thats kind of abstract, I know, but its a solid analogy.  Nuerons become linked to eachother via axons and dendrites; they communicate messages to eachother which either cause excitation or inhibition.  The specific nuerons in a network which 'light up' determine the information being presented to the user (ie- the number, or, in this case, the memory). 

Personally I think that the nueral network model is good, but its only part of the story.  I believe the brain has deeper levels than are currently observable.  The nueral network model is belivable because it is partially true.  But I honestly believe that these theories cannot account for the detail and amount of information humans are capable of storing.  I've read some theories of memory that revolved around quantum mechanics, which basically suggested that there is more to the brain than basic chemistry.  I think that further work will illuminate these trains of thought, but right now they are just glints in the eyes of crazy nuerogeeks such as myself.  Basically I think that the nueral networks are like ram; they account for our processing power, but storage is another can of worms.  I think that memories are stored outside the brain, or perhaps in a different level of the brain's existence which is not currently observable.

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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,060
Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3061071 - 08/28/04 03:53 AM (19 years, 6 months ago)

you do get a bit of n. network, but to make some contribution you will need to raise a systems approach:
Q.
in which way is memory (storage) like a hollogram, and in which way is sensory input (or memory activation) like light?

catch you 'round the corner.
(oh yeah, see, drugs and academic are not separate. nothing is; but privacy is important - BTW, I am the one swami wants to play poker with - I suck)

Edited by redgreenvines (08/28/04 03:55 AM)

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Invisibletracing
Stranger

Registered: 08/28/04
Posts: 68
Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: redgreenvines]
    #3061659 - 08/28/04 11:25 AM (19 years, 6 months ago)

For those who arent very scientifically apt in this area like myself, this is a good site for this kind of thing, understandable explanations and pictures:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/brain.htm

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OfflineScarfmeister
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Registered: 10/31/02
Posts: 8,127
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: tracing]
    #3061741 - 08/28/04 11:43 AM (19 years, 6 months ago)

if bullshit is a science these guys are professors


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We're the lowest of the low, the scum of the fucking earth!

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OfflineFrog
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Registered: 10/22/03
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3061836 - 08/28/04 12:22 PM (19 years, 6 months ago)

"I would also like to look at memory."

When you're done studying memory, please explain to me why I seem to have no short-term memory.


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The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.  -Teilard

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OfflineDoctorJ
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Registered: 06/30/03
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: Frog]
    #3061898 - 08/28/04 12:45 PM (19 years, 6 months ago)

have you been taking methamphetamines or derivations thereof for your add?

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Invisiblebert
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Registered: 10/14/02
Posts: 2,819
Loc: state
Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3061945 - 08/28/04 12:58 PM (19 years, 6 months ago)

Who said Freud and Jung were bullshit? They radically altered the way we view society and psychoanalysis is extremely useful in literary analysis. Freud's psychoanalytical therapy is the foundation for the clinical psychology we have today.


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Persons denying the existence of robots may be robots themselves.

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OfflineDoctorJ
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: bert]
    #3061962 - 08/28/04 01:01 PM (19 years, 6 months ago)

meh. just my opinion.

yeah, I think freud and jung's work has some validity (especially jung), but from a strictly scientific perspective, its conclusion-jumping garbage.

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Invisiblebert
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Posts: 2,819
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3062022 - 08/28/04 01:14 PM (19 years, 6 months ago)

I'm a psychology major, myself. I'm reading 'Society and its Discontents' by Freud but I'm also taking an Evo. Psych. class along with a Behavioral Neuro. and a Cognition class. Counseling psychology is what I'll probably go into as a profession, but I have to agree that psychopharmacology and neurobiology are a lot more interesting to me. Too bad my grades aren't good enough to go for a doctorate otherwise I would have pursued that more rigorously from the get-go.


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Persons denying the existence of robots may be robots themselves.

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OfflineDoctorJ
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Registered: 06/30/03
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: bert]
    #3062031 - 08/28/04 01:16 PM (19 years, 6 months ago)

you can always re-take shit. dont let a temporary setback alter your long-term future in ways you dont want it to.

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OfflineFrog
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Re: Why I Study the Brain [Re: DoctorJ]
    #3062341 - 08/28/04 03:15 PM (19 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

DoctorJ said:
have you been taking methamphetamines or derivations thereof for your add?




Not for the last 6 months, but I started taking Adderall again just yesterday. I have always had a bad memory.

I forget names and faces. I forget my kids' birthdays. But I remember everything about a case that I am working on, even years later. When I am playing pool, I have to ask almost every time it's my turn which balls I am shooting.


--------------------
The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.  -Teilard

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