So evolution was somehow coded to arise when the right conditions arise?
When certain variables come into play? Again, to me patterns are intelligent. Particularly purposeful patterns.
i don't know how evolution works angelica. it's one of nature's beautiful mysteries. why do some species evolve while others don't? why have the cormorants on the galapagos islands become flightless? why are there iguanas on the galapagos islands who have become aquatic?
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Actually, in regards to how evolution works, the latest theory involves a certain sequence of DNA that "adapts" to changing surroundings and events. It's call the "jumping gene". It apparently moves up and down the double-helix and inserts itself wherever needed based on what that living organism is experiencing.
Brain's Darwin Machine
Scientists find evidence of a perpetual evolutionary battle in the mind. The process, they suspect, is the key to individuality. Series: MAPPING THE MIND
[HOME EDITION]
Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, Calif.
Author: Robert Lee Hotz
Date: Apr 11, 2006
Start Page: A.1
Section: Main News; Part A; National Desk
Document Types: News
Text Word Count: 2654
Document Text
(Copyright (c) 2006 Los Angeles Times)
Alysson Muotri was looking for brain cells that glow in the dark.
With growing frustration, the 31-year-old Brazilian cancer biologist stared through his microscope at slides of brain tissue for any evidence his experiment had succeeded. His eyes ached.
Maria Marchetto, 28, took pity on her husband. Let me look, she said. In a darkened room at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies here, she began to scrutinize the tissue samples for firefly flecks of fluorescent light.
Together, the couple stalked an elusive sequence of DNA hidden in the heredity of every human cell. The wayward strand appeared to seek out developing brain cells and, like a virus, arbitrarily alter their genetic makeup.
In this way, it might be partly responsible for the infinite variety of the mind.
In debates over creationist doctrines, evolutionary biologists often are hard-pressed to explain how nature could make something as intricate as the human brain. Even Alfred Wallace, the 19th century biologist who discovered natural selection with Charles Darwin, could not accept that such a flexible organ of learning and thought could emerge by trial and error.
No two brains are exactly alike, despite their overall anatomical similarity. Each brain changes throughout a lifetime, altered by experience and aging. Even the simplest mental activities, such as watching a moving dot, can involve slightly different areas in different people's brains, studies show.
Underlying every personal difference in thought, attitude and ability is an astonishing variety of brain cells, scientists have discovered.
Some neurons fire only when they perceive a straight vertical line, others when they are exposed to a right angle. Some respond to the emotions in a facial expression or to social cues. Others retain a memory long after conscious recollection has faded.
To respond so selectively to experience, each of these cells must vary incrementally from its neighbors, as singular as a face in a crowd.
Yet what could generate such diversity?
If Muotri's suspicion was correct, a peculiar string of biochemicals caused the billions of neurons in each person's brain to develop in distinctly different ways, so that even identical twins could develop minds of their own.
Muotri and Marchetto searched hundreds of slides for any sign that the DNA sequence had altered brain cells. Each tissue sample took an hour to analyze under ultraviolet light.
When Marchetto closed her eyes, she could see the glowing afterimage of neurons.
The spidery cells, she would say later, crawled through her sleep.
*
In every human brain, there are as many neurons as there are galaxies in the known universe -- about 100 billion, drawn from 10,000 different cell types and woven into a three-dimensional tapestry, with threads of neural interconnections that number in the trillions.
Each one is tinder for the spark-of-life experience.
Memories are made of this gray matter. So are inspiration and imagination.
Electrochemical currents of intellect and emotion race though living labyrinths of neurons at 200 mph. When they are blocked, diverted or damaged, abilities atrophy. Personality disintegrates.
By exploring the life and death of these cells, researchers hope to learn how biochemistry becomes thought.
Among the molecules of mental life, they are finding signs of an evolutionary struggle for survival.
In the womb, brain cells increase at a rate of 250,000 a minute. The total doubles after birth. By age 3, a child's brain, on average, has twice as many neurons and neural connections, and is twice as energetic, as an adult's.
Already, a ruthless competition is underway.
Throughout developing brain circuits, neurons and synapses vie for sensory stimulation -- the electricity of touch, vision, taste, hearing and smell. Some thrive, while others atrophy for want of exposure to life's raw experience, to be eliminated at a rate of thousands per second.
By adulthood, more than half the neurons a brain possessed in early childhood will have died.
For many years, scientists were convinced that the brain quickly lost its ability to produce new neurons. But in the last decade, independent research teams at the Salk Institute led by Fred W. Gage and at Princeton University by Elizabeth Gould showed that even middle-aged minds generated thousands of new neurons every day in areas crucial to learning and memory.
Inside the Darwin machine of the brain, therefore, the survival struggle of neurons and synapses lasts a lifetime.
In this competition, the forces of variation and selection that shape a species also sculpt each brain, neuron by neuron, creating the biological truth of individuality.
"The neurons are never identical," Muotri would say. "They are all slightly different."
Not so long ago, scientists were certain that genes dictated everything about the brain. But when researchers successfully analyzed the complete human genome three years ago, they discovered that it contained only 25,000 genes -- not the 100,000 they had predicted.
Indeed, less than 3% of the genome contained functional genes.
There wasn't nearly enough information in them to account for so many different brain cells and synapses.
Something else had to be at work. But what?
*
At the Salk Institute, Gage, 53, was consumed by the mystery of the new neurons he had discovered.
In the brain's unexpected ability to renew itself, he saw the potential for repairing brain damage from maladies such as Alzheimer's disease or spinal cord paralysis.
Gage -- boyish, unfailingly affable, with a trim, sand-colored mustache and a wave of blond hair that crested over a high forehead - - was among the most influential neuroscientists of his generation. He orchestrated his laboratory's research efforts the way an impresario manages an opera company, artfully matching the ambitions of 30 scientists to questions that best challenged their abilities.
Gage deployed tools all but unheard of a generation ago -- computerized gene micro-arrays, automated gene sequencers, genetically engineered animals.
His working arrangements were also at the cutting edge.
One section of his Salk laboratory was set aside for experiments with stem cells from human embryos, where work could proceed independent of federal funding and unencumbered by federal policies that restrict such research.
In 2003, he co-founded Brain Cells Inc. to exploit his discovery that humans generate new brain cells throughout life.
Almost immediately, two staff scientists in his Salk laboratory found that a curious DNA sequence muddled their efforts to discover how neural stem cells produced new neurons.
In one such experiment, the researcher hoped to learn how a particular gene affected the life cycle of a neuron. She altered mouse embryos to deactivate the gene.
At first, these artificial rodents seemed normal enough. Yet upon close study, some of the creatures seemed dimwitted. A few had memory problems. Others had trouble learning.
Intrigued, the scientist compared the genetically engineered neurons to natural cells. The only major difference she could detect was the activity of this puzzling genetic sequence.
Her experiments had taken two years. Crestfallen, she turned her attention elsewhere.
"At the time, we could not make heads or tails of it," Gage recalled. "We would have long discussions, but I could not get anyone interested in working on this."
*
Scientists called the curious genetic sequence a "jumping gene."
It could move up and down the double helix of DNA to insert itself into the genetic structure, like a black snake crawling along a branch into a bird's nest.
Despite the name, the sequence was not a gene but a primitive precursor -- called a long interspersed nuclear element, or LINE -- that struggled for survival inside the microcosm of a cell. The LINE sequence belongs to a mysterious family of mobile genetic elements called retrotransposons.
For 600 million years, it existed solely to copy itself.
All mammals contain such LINE sequences. But as species became more intelligent, they retained fewer types. No one knew why.
Mice harbored 3,000 different kinds of LINE elements, rats 500. Humans had about 100 types that differed from one person to the next.
All told, there are as many as 850,000 copies of such junk DNA in the human genetic structure, composing almost half of every cell's heredity. Most researchers dismissed it all as the detritus of parasites, viral infections and evolution's failed experiments.
Unlike the other molecular relics littering the human genetic code, however, the particular human sequence that cropped up in the Salk laboratory, called an L1 LINE, was still on the move.
So many thousands of times had it copied itself into the human genome that it now made up one-fifth of a cell's DNA.
Most copies were stranded far from any functional gene. Many were truncated, broken off like an aria interrupted by a cough.
Every once in a while, the sequence landed close enough to a gene to disrupt its behavior or change its expression.
A single jumping retrotransposon is the reason that Great Danes, dachshunds, border collies and certain other domestic dogs have patchy black-and-tan coats, researchers at Texas A&M University recently reported. It landed in a gene that affects the color of dog hair.
But no one had ever heard of these DNA strands reweaving the genetic fabric of individual brain cells.
Gage asked Muotri to look into it. The Brazilian was a cancer geneticist, not a neurobiologist like most of the researchers in the Gage lab.
Gage had recruited him to study brain diseases, drawn by his intellectual energy and persistent curiosity. When that project failed to materialize as expected, Muotri was open to a new question, even one outside his immediate field.
The idea of jumping genes didn't seem so strange to him. Such mutations were a rare cause of genetic disorders such as hemophilia and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
In a gray T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops, Muotri had the look of someone who came to La Jolla for the surf, not the science. He wore a carving of a hammerhead shark on a chain around his neck and a watch with three dials on his right wrist.
"I felt like an odd fish in the aquarium," Muotri would say later. "I decided to look with the cancer mind-set. Maybe I [would] learn something."
Gage invested more than $1 million in private funds, time and laboratory resources in the experiment.
No federal agency would fund it.
"They probably think I'd gone off the deep end," Gage said later. "It was too wild."
*
Muotri and Gage wanted to know whether the L1 sequence was actually moving around in developing brain cells.
Normally, the sequence copied itself into reproductive cells in the testes and ovaries, where a randomly remodeled gene might be passed to succeeding generations. The sequence did not seem active in any other type of cell in the body.
They could not experiment on people, so they inserted the human DNA into a custom-made brood of mice.
To make the L1 sequence visible under a microscope, Muotri and his colleagues added to it a molecular tracer -- a green fluorescent protein -- that would light up whenever the DNA intruder entered a growing cell.
With a splinter of hollow glass, Muotri injected the sequence into mouse eggs, then transferred them into female mice, where he hoped the new DNA would take hold in growing embryos.
Of seven brown mice in the litter, two contained the altered human DNA.
He bred those with wild mice to create a family in which the L1 sequence was poised to jump into any cell of the body. He ended up with 20 transgenic mice.
To search for evidence of brain activity, he sliced each mouse into wafers 40 microns thick and mounted tissue from every organ on slides.
If the sequence had jumped anywhere, it should reveal itself, like a firefly at midnight, with a fluorescent glow.
Searching the slides under ultraviolet black light was such an eyestrain that Muotri could only keep it up for about four hours a day. At the same time, the fluorescence was depleted by exposure to ultraviolet. So the longer he looked, the fainter the light became.
During a break halfway through one scanning session, Muotri browsed research articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He stiffened.
At the University of Pennsylvania, a rival research team had already conducted his experiment and published the results: They examined the entire animal for signs that the sequence was jumping from cell to cell outside reproductive organs but failed to find any evidence of the brain activity that Muotri sought.
"They checked skin, they checked liver, they checked everything including the brain," Muotri recalled. "They looked for the same thing I was looking for and could not find it. They reported exactly the result I did not want to see."
The Brazilian brooded.
By 2005, he had spent two years chasing the L1 sequence. His fellowship would run out soon. Should he abandon the experiment? What was the likelihood he might find something that skilled competitors had overlooked?
He ought to finish what he started, he decided, no matter how futile the effort.
His wife lent a hand.
Marchetto -- red tank top, blue jeans and yellow hair -- was a splash of primary colors against the laboratory's gray concrete walls. She knew little about neural anatomy. Her doctorate was in skin cancer biology. But she was more meticulous than her husband.
As her eyes learned the microscopic maze of synapses and support cells, she could see a glow inside the translucent spheres of brain cells.
"It was, like, crazy green," she recalled. First one cell, then five, 10, a dozen.
She found the fireflies in the brain.
In the black light of the microscopy room, her brilliant smile was like the moon emerging from the clouds.
"Please," she said, calling her husband to the microscope. "This is a neuron."
*
They caught it in the act.
To their wonder, the L1 sequence had left its distinctive mark wherever they looked in the mouse brains -- throughout areas devoted to memory, learning, emotion, motor control and the senses.
They discovered that the sequence affected only developing brain cells. It also seemed to home in on neural genes, arbitrarily changing their behavior. Every time it affected a gene, it set that neuron apart from its neighbors in the brain and from all other cells in the body.
In the mouse experiment, the sequence jumped into one of every 100 brain cells.
Unpublished data from follow-up experiments by colleagues suggest that in human cells, the sequence jumps into 80 of every 100 neurons.
"Every neuron may have a different genetic profile," Muotri said. "Almost all the cells have at least one L1 insertion."
The researchers were elated but puzzled.
From the standpoint of conventional evolutionary theory, any independent genetic change in a neuron was a dead end. The random changes caused by L1 inside a brain cell could never be passed on directly through the genetic shuffle of sex.
At this point, Muotri and Gage had an audacious thought.
Perhaps the sequence, striving for its own survival inside the growing neuron, made the brain more responsive to changing circumstances. Had natural selection seized on the one rogue sequence most useful for crafting an infinitely adaptable human brain?
"There are subtle differences in everything we do throughout our lives," Gage said. "Maybe this is how we generate a deeper adaptability to deal with the unexpected.
"We believe the sequence is generating this diversity to fine- tune the brain."
*
MAPPING THE MIND
One in a series of occasional articles about scientists' efforts to explore the creation of beliefs and behavior in the synapses of the brain. To read previous articles in this series, go to latimes.com/mind. For an archive of Column One articles, visit latimes.com/columnone.
I would even go so far as to say this encoding comes from existence/life and moves through and even beyond the brain. It obviously goes beyond the brain when it brings an individual mate into the picture. It's a holistic function. This is where the "beginnings" and endings and compartmentalizations are only meant for study, and do not define reality. Reality defines reality. I agree with the essence of what you are saying, and I see it in a more encompassing way.
I'm mesmerized by how this works out on the internet--how I tap into certain people who are in a similar place as I am, from all over the globe. The limits we once liked to entertain are dissolving, and we are understanding the holism of what Is. To me it's stunning in its depth and intelligence.
The encoding, most likely indeed comes from experience, not in a personal but in a parental and beyond way, a trial and error process, where successful 'choices' are stored. I agree that it is more of a study case than reality, but I also think our genes influence more than we would care to admit. We like to think everything is our choice and it's free, but a lot is still instinct imo.
A point a friend of mine made: It is only because of modern medicine and contraceptives that we don't mate early on in life, else we would likely stay with our first sexual partner. Now think about those / that first partner(s) and how they encompass basic trades we still search for in a partner (I know I do) and how they 'create an image' on which we pick future partners on. We live and learn, but the picking still has a basic search for characteristics that we on a sub-conscious level already were implementing early on in life. What my point is exactly I can't precisely tell you, just thought it was interesting to share this brainfart.
Would you care to elaborate on why patterns show intelligence?
They used non-dominant littel finger strength on the "assumption" it is not used for anything else, and therefore felt they were controlling for confounding variables. Assumptions have no place in science, and in this case, was very wrong, as I know for a damn fact that my littel finger plays guitar for several hours a day. They the had one group of people think about exercise, and another group do nothing. Unsurprisingly, the "think group" little fingers got stronger. However, it's pretty damn easy to exercise a little finger while you are doing anything. Hell, I'm flexing mine a lot now just thinking about it.
The study I was referring too involved athletes and sensors, one group running the other sitting still concentrating on the thought of running a game, if it involved flexing muscles I'm not sure, but the results differed from the result of the pink experiment you are referring too.
And how do you train your pink while sitting still? I'd like to know cause mine sometimes misses a snare with certain chords.
The narcism bit was not directed at you.
Actually, it was a thought about myself.
When I was younger, I believed in "magic", and part of the reason, apart from that it's a very attractive notion, was that I wanted to believe that I was capable of it myself. That is a narcissistic thought. People who believe that their mind can control physical things through non-physical or psychic means are being seduced by teh same idea. All claims of "Psychic" ability invollve an element of "I'm special" thinking.
I used to think my stuffed animals could hear my thoughts, and I didn't want them to know which was my favorite, but as you know some animals are more equal than others..
Physiological dreams are very common. They tend to incorporate physical feelings into a dream scenario, rather then the dream causing the physical feelingds. The commonest ones are the "need to piss" dream, which happen often, and you wake up needing to piss. Sex dreams are common, apparently men and women have them with similar frequency. Sex deprived men, esp teenage boys may ejaculate, as you know.
Another form is the dream which culminates in a loud noise, then you wake up to find a door has slammed, or the bloody cat has knocked over the crockery. So, you were going to awake tired anyway.
I incorporate a lot that is happening around me while I'm sleeping. The noise of my alarm radio has often placed me in a bar of in the midst of central station while I'm in a dream. The other beeping alarm has been incorporated as the closing of doors, or as a truck backing up. But this wasn't at all what I was trying to point out.. As we are sidetracking this thread already talking about dreams, ever noticed before falling asleep you feel like dropping several inches? Weird sensation..
i don't know how evolution works angelica. it's one of nature's beautiful mysteries. why do some species evolve while others don't? why have the cormorants on the galapagos islands become flightless? why are there iguanas on the galapagos islands who have become aquatic?
As my evolution professor would have answered: Because life sucks. Life is hard and trying to maintain it in difficult circumstances means adapting. Simply said the cormorants lost the need to fly to survive and the iguanas found better chances in the water.
What explained it to me in a clear way, is how did brown bears become polar bears? Well the lighter brown bears had an advantage hunting in snowy surroundings over the darker bears. Extrapolate this over thousands and thousands of years and generations and voilà there is the polar bear.
As my evolution professor would have answered: Because life sucks. Life is hard and trying to maintain it in difficult circumstances means adapting. Simply said the cormorants lost the need to fly to survive and the iguanas found better chances in the water.
What explained it to me in a clear way, is how did brown bears become polar bears? Well the lighter brown bears had an advantage hunting in snowy surroundings over the darker bears. Extrapolate this over thousands and thousands of years and generations and voilà there is the polar bear.
oh i know why i was just curious as to what other people thought.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
The encoding, most likely indeed comes from experience, not in a personal but in a parental and beyond way, a trial and error process, where successful 'choices' are stored.
Agreed. I will go further and say "parental" in terms of stemming from life forces, and not just humans.
I agree that it is more of a study case than reality, but I also think our genes influence more than we would care to admit. We like to think everything is our choice and it's free, but a lot is still instinct imo.
I very much agree that there is so much that is beyond our choice, but that rather is the encoded patterns we act out that are unconscious. And many people do not identify this. These patterns teach us to evolve by drawing us into sitautions that necessitate our growth. This is unconscious in most since people are generally unaware of this happening actively in their lives. Key to me is that while we are encoded within, we project these patterns outwards and act them out in the "objective" world. This is very complex and integrated-with-external-reality stuff. What is in our minds or encoded in our each cell becomes the world we see "out there" as well. It is our experiences which we act out entwined with others who make unconscious agreements to partake with us. At the same time, everything in the world is also encoded energy as well. This takes me back to where I mentioned that physics has identified 11 dimensions in our universe. That is seven dimensions beyond time and space. Those 7 dimensions are enfolded within our 4 dimensions of height, depth, width and space-time. That means they are encoded within and around all of us. (if others don't see this stuff as intelligent, I don't know what would be intelligent!???!!!!???!!!)
A point a friend of mine made: It is only because of modern medicine and contraceptives that we don't mate early on in life, else we would likely stay with our first sexual partner. Now think about those / that first partner(s) and how they encompass basic trades we still search for in a partner (I know I do) and how they 'create an image' on which we pick future partners on. We live and learn, but the picking still has a basic search for characteristics that we on a sub-conscious level already were implementing early on in life. What my point is exactly I can't precisely tell you, just thought it was interesting to share this brainfart.
I wouldn't say "it's ONLY because of contraceptives and medicine....that this is....but I see what you are saying.
Would you care to elaborate on why patterns show intelligence?
Patterns teach us, and give us connections, purpose and meaning. As we talk about the patterns in evolution, for example, they show that there is meaning here. We pull the patterns together and find what the patterns indicate. I grant you, it is beyond the realm of science to incorporate value and meaning. And yet that does not negate the value of this meaning.
And in contrast to this knowledge inherent in patterns, and in this case evolutionary patterns, very few people at this time become conscious of the evolution actively moving through them in their lives. As you mentioned this stuff is encoded in us and operates through us. On rare occasions, when people awaken to these patterns and the direct influence these patterns have in all their life happenings, and when people align with the natural processes of their lives, and with lifem itself, and with the GOOD purposes(in terms of moving forward to advancement and BETTERment), these patterns show pure purpose, value and meaning. When one is conscious of these patterns, and interprets life events as natural evolutionary forces teaching/directing them, and when one is on board with this, one is self-actualizing as per the psychological definition. This "self-actualization" is partaken of by a mere 2% of the population. And this percentage is considered the advanced template of what is possible for all of us at this time.
Throughout this conversation, even the people trying to show how these patterns are not purposeful, end up showing how these patterns are purposeful. We tend to define intelligence in the human function in terms of being to our betterment or to our greater good. Inherent to that is purpose, as if there is a goal of "better" or progress. So when life manifests this all around us, for us to ignore it merely reiterates to me how the average person is one with and living and acting out these forces, and yet remains oblivious of these forces. That's okay, though...it's where we are in our evolution at this time.
The problem with this is that when we are unconscious of our own evolution, we remain out of alignment often, and therefore will feel resistance and pain and do not understand what that is about. And then we begin to project that "out there". We are feeling pain because so-and-so did such-and-such, which causes all kinds of "learning experiences" with more pain and resistance. In other words we pay the price with our own pain and resistence, and again, we either learn from our lessons, or we begin to fall out of the loop of life in any number of ways. (addictions, imbalance, disorder, disease, death)
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
i don't know how evolution works angelica. it's one of nature's beautiful mysteries. why do some species evolve while others don't? why have the cormorants on the galapagos islands become flightless? why are there iguanas on the galapagos islands who have become aquatic?
You do know that evolution is encoded for specific purposes, "when the right conditions arise". I think in general we all recognize that evolution is about progress, or moving forwards in a "good" or "better" way.
It's about life resolving the "negative" or the concept of "lack" into the greater good.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
You do know that evolution is encoded for specific purposes, "when the right conditions arise". I think in general we all recognize that evolution is about progress, or moving forwards in a "good" or "better" way.
well i did watch ice age the other day and discovered how the dodo became extinct.
I can't be arsed to go into depth about my thoughts right now because I get carried away but I would like to mention something which amused me. I was reading the extremely malicious and generally brilliantly anti-social liner notes to my new vinyl copy of Big Black's Songs about fucking the other day and guitarist and frontman Steve Albini (he produced In Utero for those that don't know Big Black) and amongst the ramblings he includes this -
"psychedelic fungus infestation of european grain, not divine inspiration, as responsible for many of the "visions" so lovingly portrayed in the christian paintings of antiquity. how many people were pressed under stones or drowned or burned for satanism while those of faith were quietly tripping their brains out on bad bread?"
which I thought was a nice idea.
"I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead, I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land — every colour, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike — all snored in the same language"
I don't know... and i know that no one knows. People will claim to know... but they don't. They believe... and believing and knowing are two different things.
Now, you asked how do I explain the remarkable things 'spirituality' does... healing and such... but, it also contributes to Suicide Bombers. That is religion, not spirituality that does that. The person is subject to his/her religion to the point where they believe that God is healing them or God is commanding them to give their lives for Him. Maybe it all comes down to the individual... maybe without religion or spirtuality... they can still heal themselves... or still fashion a vest into a bomb and set it off on a city bus.
And I do not believe religion equates to God and vice versa. I believe that God exists in spite of religion. The religions of the world were not made by God... they are all Man's doing. Man will fashion the god of his religions to exert law over Man... it has nothing to do with God.
Anyway... That's my take. The bottom line being... I don't know.
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
I don't know... and i know that no one knows. People will claim to know... but they don't. They believe... and believing and knowing are two different things.
To those who believe, believeing and knowing are one in the same. Believe me, I know. ha ha. I have had many discussions with people about this very topic.
I believe that this planet I stand on is fucking wicked cool and I will enjoy every minute of this life while I am here. You dont eat a pizza thinking about the ice cream afterward. Ride the wave...
All that's sacred, comes from youth....dedications, naive and true.
To those who believe, believeing and knowing are one in the same. Believe me, I know. ha ha. I have had many discussions with people about this very topic.
I believe that this planet I stand on is fucking wicked cool and I will enjoy every minute of this life while I am here. You dont eat a pizza thinking about the ice cream afterward. Ride the wave...
...
True. That is known by Stephen Cobert as 'Truthiness'. The belief that is either has to be true or that you really, really WANT it to be true.
People will tell you in no uncertain terms that they are going ot Heaven. They already know this. To the rest of us... it is belief... to them, it is truth. This goes the same for the Christian or the Muslim that KNOW where they are going after death. I have no problem with that... they can make whatever claimns they want in order to live their lives. I'm not in charge of them.
...
I'm more along the path you are on... the only thing we really do know... is that we are going to die. So, instead of making up all this stuff about a heaven after death... why not concentrate on trying to make a heaven here on Earth? We KNOW we get one shot at this... afterlife is a coin toss. Why not be the people we're supposed to be when we are dead... while we are living?
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
well i did watch ice age the other day and discovered how the dodo became extinct.
then i have a whole lot of evolving to look forward to in my own life.
I hear you! And apparently, the "middle age" developmental stage, from around ages 39 to 52 is the most challenging of all. It gets really strugglesome when one is really seeing the negativity all laid out around one's self. And yet, recognizing or identifying our problems is half the solution. And therefore the negativity we see can be a benefit. Unlike when people are completely oblivious to what they have going on......
And the good part is the next two developmental stages after are supposedly smooth sailing, once one deals with this age group and learns to meet it's challenges.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
...
True. That is known by Stephen Cobert as 'Truthiness'. The belief that is either has to be true or that you really, really WANT it to be true.
People will tell you in no uncertain terms that they are going ot Heaven. They already know this. To the rest of us... it is belief... to them, it is truth. This goes the same for the Christian or the Muslim that KNOW where they are going after death. I have no problem with that... they can make whatever claimns they want in order to live their lives. I'm not in charge of them.
...
I'm more along the path you are on... the only thing we really do know... is that we are going to die. So, instead of making up all this stuff about a heaven after death... why not concentrate on trying to make a heaven here on Earth? We KNOW we get one shot at this... afterlife is a coin toss. Why not be the people we're supposed to be when we are dead... while we are living?
This is the first time I've agreed with you in a long time!!
Comments
i don't know how evolution works angelica. it's one of nature's beautiful mysteries. why do some species evolve while others don't? why have the cormorants on the galapagos islands become flightless? why are there iguanas on the galapagos islands who have become aquatic?
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Brain's Darwin Machine
Scientists find evidence of a perpetual evolutionary battle in the mind. The process, they suspect, is the key to individuality. Series: MAPPING THE MIND
[HOME EDITION]
Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, Calif.
Author: Robert Lee Hotz
Date: Apr 11, 2006
Start Page: A.1
Section: Main News; Part A; National Desk
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(Copyright (c) 2006 Los Angeles Times)
Alysson Muotri was looking for brain cells that glow in the dark.
With growing frustration, the 31-year-old Brazilian cancer biologist stared through his microscope at slides of brain tissue for any evidence his experiment had succeeded. His eyes ached.
Maria Marchetto, 28, took pity on her husband. Let me look, she said. In a darkened room at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies here, she began to scrutinize the tissue samples for firefly flecks of fluorescent light.
Together, the couple stalked an elusive sequence of DNA hidden in the heredity of every human cell. The wayward strand appeared to seek out developing brain cells and, like a virus, arbitrarily alter their genetic makeup.
In this way, it might be partly responsible for the infinite variety of the mind.
In debates over creationist doctrines, evolutionary biologists often are hard-pressed to explain how nature could make something as intricate as the human brain. Even Alfred Wallace, the 19th century biologist who discovered natural selection with Charles Darwin, could not accept that such a flexible organ of learning and thought could emerge by trial and error.
No two brains are exactly alike, despite their overall anatomical similarity. Each brain changes throughout a lifetime, altered by experience and aging. Even the simplest mental activities, such as watching a moving dot, can involve slightly different areas in different people's brains, studies show.
Underlying every personal difference in thought, attitude and ability is an astonishing variety of brain cells, scientists have discovered.
Some neurons fire only when they perceive a straight vertical line, others when they are exposed to a right angle. Some respond to the emotions in a facial expression or to social cues. Others retain a memory long after conscious recollection has faded.
To respond so selectively to experience, each of these cells must vary incrementally from its neighbors, as singular as a face in a crowd.
Yet what could generate such diversity?
If Muotri's suspicion was correct, a peculiar string of biochemicals caused the billions of neurons in each person's brain to develop in distinctly different ways, so that even identical twins could develop minds of their own.
Muotri and Marchetto searched hundreds of slides for any sign that the DNA sequence had altered brain cells. Each tissue sample took an hour to analyze under ultraviolet light.
When Marchetto closed her eyes, she could see the glowing afterimage of neurons.
The spidery cells, she would say later, crawled through her sleep.
*
In every human brain, there are as many neurons as there are galaxies in the known universe -- about 100 billion, drawn from 10,000 different cell types and woven into a three-dimensional tapestry, with threads of neural interconnections that number in the trillions.
Each one is tinder for the spark-of-life experience.
Memories are made of this gray matter. So are inspiration and imagination.
Electrochemical currents of intellect and emotion race though living labyrinths of neurons at 200 mph. When they are blocked, diverted or damaged, abilities atrophy. Personality disintegrates.
By exploring the life and death of these cells, researchers hope to learn how biochemistry becomes thought.
Among the molecules of mental life, they are finding signs of an evolutionary struggle for survival.
In the womb, brain cells increase at a rate of 250,000 a minute. The total doubles after birth. By age 3, a child's brain, on average, has twice as many neurons and neural connections, and is twice as energetic, as an adult's.
Already, a ruthless competition is underway.
Throughout developing brain circuits, neurons and synapses vie for sensory stimulation -- the electricity of touch, vision, taste, hearing and smell. Some thrive, while others atrophy for want of exposure to life's raw experience, to be eliminated at a rate of thousands per second.
By adulthood, more than half the neurons a brain possessed in early childhood will have died.
For many years, scientists were convinced that the brain quickly lost its ability to produce new neurons. But in the last decade, independent research teams at the Salk Institute led by Fred W. Gage and at Princeton University by Elizabeth Gould showed that even middle-aged minds generated thousands of new neurons every day in areas crucial to learning and memory.
Inside the Darwin machine of the brain, therefore, the survival struggle of neurons and synapses lasts a lifetime.
In this competition, the forces of variation and selection that shape a species also sculpt each brain, neuron by neuron, creating the biological truth of individuality.
"The neurons are never identical," Muotri would say. "They are all slightly different."
Not so long ago, scientists were certain that genes dictated everything about the brain. But when researchers successfully analyzed the complete human genome three years ago, they discovered that it contained only 25,000 genes -- not the 100,000 they had predicted.
Indeed, less than 3% of the genome contained functional genes.
There wasn't nearly enough information in them to account for so many different brain cells and synapses.
Something else had to be at work. But what?
*
At the Salk Institute, Gage, 53, was consumed by the mystery of the new neurons he had discovered.
In the brain's unexpected ability to renew itself, he saw the potential for repairing brain damage from maladies such as Alzheimer's disease or spinal cord paralysis.
Gage -- boyish, unfailingly affable, with a trim, sand-colored mustache and a wave of blond hair that crested over a high forehead - - was among the most influential neuroscientists of his generation. He orchestrated his laboratory's research efforts the way an impresario manages an opera company, artfully matching the ambitions of 30 scientists to questions that best challenged their abilities.
Gage deployed tools all but unheard of a generation ago -- computerized gene micro-arrays, automated gene sequencers, genetically engineered animals.
His working arrangements were also at the cutting edge.
One section of his Salk laboratory was set aside for experiments with stem cells from human embryos, where work could proceed independent of federal funding and unencumbered by federal policies that restrict such research.
In 2003, he co-founded Brain Cells Inc. to exploit his discovery that humans generate new brain cells throughout life.
Almost immediately, two staff scientists in his Salk laboratory found that a curious DNA sequence muddled their efforts to discover how neural stem cells produced new neurons.
In one such experiment, the researcher hoped to learn how a particular gene affected the life cycle of a neuron. She altered mouse embryos to deactivate the gene.
At first, these artificial rodents seemed normal enough. Yet upon close study, some of the creatures seemed dimwitted. A few had memory problems. Others had trouble learning.
Intrigued, the scientist compared the genetically engineered neurons to natural cells. The only major difference she could detect was the activity of this puzzling genetic sequence.
Her experiments had taken two years. Crestfallen, she turned her attention elsewhere.
"At the time, we could not make heads or tails of it," Gage recalled. "We would have long discussions, but I could not get anyone interested in working on this."
*
Scientists called the curious genetic sequence a "jumping gene."
It could move up and down the double helix of DNA to insert itself into the genetic structure, like a black snake crawling along a branch into a bird's nest.
Despite the name, the sequence was not a gene but a primitive precursor -- called a long interspersed nuclear element, or LINE -- that struggled for survival inside the microcosm of a cell. The LINE sequence belongs to a mysterious family of mobile genetic elements called retrotransposons.
For 600 million years, it existed solely to copy itself.
All mammals contain such LINE sequences. But as species became more intelligent, they retained fewer types. No one knew why.
Mice harbored 3,000 different kinds of LINE elements, rats 500. Humans had about 100 types that differed from one person to the next.
All told, there are as many as 850,000 copies of such junk DNA in the human genetic structure, composing almost half of every cell's heredity. Most researchers dismissed it all as the detritus of parasites, viral infections and evolution's failed experiments.
Unlike the other molecular relics littering the human genetic code, however, the particular human sequence that cropped up in the Salk laboratory, called an L1 LINE, was still on the move.
So many thousands of times had it copied itself into the human genome that it now made up one-fifth of a cell's DNA.
Most copies were stranded far from any functional gene. Many were truncated, broken off like an aria interrupted by a cough.
Every once in a while, the sequence landed close enough to a gene to disrupt its behavior or change its expression.
A single jumping retrotransposon is the reason that Great Danes, dachshunds, border collies and certain other domestic dogs have patchy black-and-tan coats, researchers at Texas A&M University recently reported. It landed in a gene that affects the color of dog hair.
But no one had ever heard of these DNA strands reweaving the genetic fabric of individual brain cells.
Gage asked Muotri to look into it. The Brazilian was a cancer geneticist, not a neurobiologist like most of the researchers in the Gage lab.
Gage had recruited him to study brain diseases, drawn by his intellectual energy and persistent curiosity. When that project failed to materialize as expected, Muotri was open to a new question, even one outside his immediate field.
The idea of jumping genes didn't seem so strange to him. Such mutations were a rare cause of genetic disorders such as hemophilia and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
In a gray T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops, Muotri had the look of someone who came to La Jolla for the surf, not the science. He wore a carving of a hammerhead shark on a chain around his neck and a watch with three dials on his right wrist.
"I felt like an odd fish in the aquarium," Muotri would say later. "I decided to look with the cancer mind-set. Maybe I [would] learn something."
Gage invested more than $1 million in private funds, time and laboratory resources in the experiment.
No federal agency would fund it.
"They probably think I'd gone off the deep end," Gage said later. "It was too wild."
*
Muotri and Gage wanted to know whether the L1 sequence was actually moving around in developing brain cells.
Normally, the sequence copied itself into reproductive cells in the testes and ovaries, where a randomly remodeled gene might be passed to succeeding generations. The sequence did not seem active in any other type of cell in the body.
They could not experiment on people, so they inserted the human DNA into a custom-made brood of mice.
To make the L1 sequence visible under a microscope, Muotri and his colleagues added to it a molecular tracer -- a green fluorescent protein -- that would light up whenever the DNA intruder entered a growing cell.
With a splinter of hollow glass, Muotri injected the sequence into mouse eggs, then transferred them into female mice, where he hoped the new DNA would take hold in growing embryos.
Of seven brown mice in the litter, two contained the altered human DNA.
He bred those with wild mice to create a family in which the L1 sequence was poised to jump into any cell of the body. He ended up with 20 transgenic mice.
To search for evidence of brain activity, he sliced each mouse into wafers 40 microns thick and mounted tissue from every organ on slides.
If the sequence had jumped anywhere, it should reveal itself, like a firefly at midnight, with a fluorescent glow.
Searching the slides under ultraviolet black light was such an eyestrain that Muotri could only keep it up for about four hours a day. At the same time, the fluorescence was depleted by exposure to ultraviolet. So the longer he looked, the fainter the light became.
During a break halfway through one scanning session, Muotri browsed research articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He stiffened.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
At the University of Pennsylvania, a rival research team had already conducted his experiment and published the results: They examined the entire animal for signs that the sequence was jumping from cell to cell outside reproductive organs but failed to find any evidence of the brain activity that Muotri sought.
"They checked skin, they checked liver, they checked everything including the brain," Muotri recalled. "They looked for the same thing I was looking for and could not find it. They reported exactly the result I did not want to see."
The Brazilian brooded.
By 2005, he had spent two years chasing the L1 sequence. His fellowship would run out soon. Should he abandon the experiment? What was the likelihood he might find something that skilled competitors had overlooked?
He ought to finish what he started, he decided, no matter how futile the effort.
His wife lent a hand.
Marchetto -- red tank top, blue jeans and yellow hair -- was a splash of primary colors against the laboratory's gray concrete walls. She knew little about neural anatomy. Her doctorate was in skin cancer biology. But she was more meticulous than her husband.
As her eyes learned the microscopic maze of synapses and support cells, she could see a glow inside the translucent spheres of brain cells.
"It was, like, crazy green," she recalled. First one cell, then five, 10, a dozen.
She found the fireflies in the brain.
In the black light of the microscopy room, her brilliant smile was like the moon emerging from the clouds.
"Please," she said, calling her husband to the microscope. "This is a neuron."
*
They caught it in the act.
To their wonder, the L1 sequence had left its distinctive mark wherever they looked in the mouse brains -- throughout areas devoted to memory, learning, emotion, motor control and the senses.
They discovered that the sequence affected only developing brain cells. It also seemed to home in on neural genes, arbitrarily changing their behavior. Every time it affected a gene, it set that neuron apart from its neighbors in the brain and from all other cells in the body.
In the mouse experiment, the sequence jumped into one of every 100 brain cells.
Unpublished data from follow-up experiments by colleagues suggest that in human cells, the sequence jumps into 80 of every 100 neurons.
"Every neuron may have a different genetic profile," Muotri said. "Almost all the cells have at least one L1 insertion."
The researchers were elated but puzzled.
From the standpoint of conventional evolutionary theory, any independent genetic change in a neuron was a dead end. The random changes caused by L1 inside a brain cell could never be passed on directly through the genetic shuffle of sex.
At this point, Muotri and Gage had an audacious thought.
Perhaps the sequence, striving for its own survival inside the growing neuron, made the brain more responsive to changing circumstances. Had natural selection seized on the one rogue sequence most useful for crafting an infinitely adaptable human brain?
"There are subtle differences in everything we do throughout our lives," Gage said. "Maybe this is how we generate a deeper adaptability to deal with the unexpected.
"We believe the sequence is generating this diversity to fine- tune the brain."
*
MAPPING THE MIND
One in a series of occasional articles about scientists' efforts to explore the creation of beliefs and behavior in the synapses of the brain. To read previous articles in this series, go to latimes.com/mind. For an archive of Column One articles, visit latimes.com/columnone.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
A point a friend of mine made: It is only because of modern medicine and contraceptives that we don't mate early on in life, else we would likely stay with our first sexual partner. Now think about those / that first partner(s) and how they encompass basic trades we still search for in a partner (I know I do) and how they 'create an image' on which we pick future partners on. We live and learn, but the picking still has a basic search for characteristics that we on a sub-conscious level already were implementing early on in life. What my point is exactly I can't precisely tell you, just thought it was interesting to share this brainfart.
Would you care to elaborate on why patterns show intelligence? The study I was referring too involved athletes and sensors, one group running the other sitting still concentrating on the thought of running a game, if it involved flexing muscles I'm not sure, but the results differed from the result of the pink experiment you are referring too.
Thought I'd search for it and found something else interesting, making my point: Physical training in your dreams http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1668247.stm
And how do you train your pink while sitting still? I'd like to know cause mine sometimes misses a snare with certain chords. I used to think my stuffed animals could hear my thoughts, and I didn't want them to know which was my favorite, but as you know some animals are more equal than others.. I incorporate a lot that is happening around me while I'm sleeping. The noise of my alarm radio has often placed me in a bar of in the midst of central station while I'm in a dream. The other beeping alarm has been incorporated as the closing of doors, or as a truck backing up. But this wasn't at all what I was trying to point out.. As we are sidetracking this thread already talking about dreams, ever noticed before falling asleep you feel like dropping several inches? Weird sensation.. As my evolution professor would have answered: Because life sucks. Life is hard and trying to maintain it in difficult circumstances means adapting. Simply said the cormorants lost the need to fly to survive and the iguanas found better chances in the water.
What explained it to me in a clear way, is how did brown bears become polar bears? Well the lighter brown bears had an advantage hunting in snowy surroundings over the darker bears. Extrapolate this over thousands and thousands of years and generations and voilà there is the polar bear.
oh i know why i was just curious as to what other people thought.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I very much agree that there is so much that is beyond our choice, but that rather is the encoded patterns we act out that are unconscious. And many people do not identify this. These patterns teach us to evolve by drawing us into sitautions that necessitate our growth. This is unconscious in most since people are generally unaware of this happening actively in their lives. Key to me is that while we are encoded within, we project these patterns outwards and act them out in the "objective" world. This is very complex and integrated-with-external-reality stuff. What is in our minds or encoded in our each cell becomes the world we see "out there" as well. It is our experiences which we act out entwined with others who make unconscious agreements to partake with us. At the same time, everything in the world is also encoded energy as well. This takes me back to where I mentioned that physics has identified 11 dimensions in our universe. That is seven dimensions beyond time and space. Those 7 dimensions are enfolded within our 4 dimensions of height, depth, width and space-time. That means they are encoded within and around all of us. (if others don't see this stuff as intelligent, I don't know what would be intelligent!???!!!!???!!!)
I wouldn't say "it's ONLY because of contraceptives and medicine....that this is....but I see what you are saying.
Patterns teach us, and give us connections, purpose and meaning. As we talk about the patterns in evolution, for example, they show that there is meaning here. We pull the patterns together and find what the patterns indicate. I grant you, it is beyond the realm of science to incorporate value and meaning. And yet that does not negate the value of this meaning.
And in contrast to this knowledge inherent in patterns, and in this case evolutionary patterns, very few people at this time become conscious of the evolution actively moving through them in their lives. As you mentioned this stuff is encoded in us and operates through us. On rare occasions, when people awaken to these patterns and the direct influence these patterns have in all their life happenings, and when people align with the natural processes of their lives, and with lifem itself, and with the GOOD purposes(in terms of moving forward to advancement and BETTERment), these patterns show pure purpose, value and meaning. When one is conscious of these patterns, and interprets life events as natural evolutionary forces teaching/directing them, and when one is on board with this, one is self-actualizing as per the psychological definition. This "self-actualization" is partaken of by a mere 2% of the population. And this percentage is considered the advanced template of what is possible for all of us at this time.
Throughout this conversation, even the people trying to show how these patterns are not purposeful, end up showing how these patterns are purposeful. We tend to define intelligence in the human function in terms of being to our betterment or to our greater good. Inherent to that is purpose, as if there is a goal of "better" or progress. So when life manifests this all around us, for us to ignore it merely reiterates to me how the average person is one with and living and acting out these forces, and yet remains oblivious of these forces. That's okay, though...it's where we are in our evolution at this time.
The problem with this is that when we are unconscious of our own evolution, we remain out of alignment often, and therefore will feel resistance and pain and do not understand what that is about. And then we begin to project that "out there". We are feeling pain because so-and-so did such-and-such, which causes all kinds of "learning experiences" with more pain and resistance. In other words we pay the price with our own pain and resistence, and again, we either learn from our lessons, or we begin to fall out of the loop of life in any number of ways. (addictions, imbalance, disorder, disease, death)
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
It's about life resolving the "negative" or the concept of "lack" into the greater good.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
well i did watch ice age the other day and discovered how the dodo became extinct.
then i have a whole lot of evolving to look forward to in my own life.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
"psychedelic fungus infestation of european grain, not divine inspiration, as responsible for many of the "visions" so lovingly portrayed in the christian paintings of antiquity. how many people were pressed under stones or drowned or burned for satanism while those of faith were quietly tripping their brains out on bad bread?"
which I thought was a nice idea.
Now, you asked how do I explain the remarkable things 'spirituality' does... healing and such... but, it also contributes to Suicide Bombers. That is religion, not spirituality that does that. The person is subject to his/her religion to the point where they believe that God is healing them or God is commanding them to give their lives for Him. Maybe it all comes down to the individual... maybe without religion or spirtuality... they can still heal themselves... or still fashion a vest into a bomb and set it off on a city bus.
And I do not believe religion equates to God and vice versa. I believe that God exists in spite of religion. The religions of the world were not made by God... they are all Man's doing. Man will fashion the god of his religions to exert law over Man... it has nothing to do with God.
Anyway... That's my take. The bottom line being... I don't know.
Hail, Hail!!!
I believe that this planet I stand on is fucking wicked cool and I will enjoy every minute of this life while I am here. You dont eat a pizza thinking about the ice cream afterward. Ride the wave...
True. That is known by Stephen Cobert as 'Truthiness'. The belief that is either has to be true or that you really, really WANT it to be true.
People will tell you in no uncertain terms that they are going ot Heaven. They already know this. To the rest of us... it is belief... to them, it is truth. This goes the same for the Christian or the Muslim that KNOW where they are going after death. I have no problem with that... they can make whatever claimns they want in order to live their lives. I'm not in charge of them.
...
I'm more along the path you are on... the only thing we really do know... is that we are going to die. So, instead of making up all this stuff about a heaven after death... why not concentrate on trying to make a heaven here on Earth? We KNOW we get one shot at this... afterlife is a coin toss. Why not be the people we're supposed to be when we are dead... while we are living?
Hail, Hail!!!
7/9/06 LA 1
7/10/06 LA 2
10/21/06 Bridge 1
I hear you! And apparently, the "middle age" developmental stage, from around ages 39 to 52 is the most challenging of all. It gets really strugglesome when one is really seeing the negativity all laid out around one's self. And yet, recognizing or identifying our problems is half the solution. And therefore the negativity we see can be a benefit. Unlike when people are completely oblivious to what they have going on......
And the good part is the next two developmental stages after are supposedly smooth sailing, once one deals with this age group and learns to meet it's challenges.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
This is the first time I've agreed with you in a long time!!