http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20080708/4872e640_3421_13345200807081427591896

OMG I can' belive this! They want to POISON 60 poor children. Seven years ago they removed Mercury from vaccinations and some paranoid delusional undereducated parents haven't figured out it made NO difference to the autism rate. Even worse they convinced the govenment to put some money into dangerous research.

The Chelation therapy proposed basically strips the metals out of their little bodies including the iron in thier blood. I don't know about you but a low white blood cell count doesn't sound healthy to me. Besides we already know by studies in adults this doesn't work unless the metals are very high. Oh and did I forget to mention one child is already dead as a direct link to this therapy?

Thiomersal (technical name for the mercury used in vaccines) has a half life of a couple weeks so there won't be any traces of it in the bloodstream. So again why are we placating these crackpots while they gamble with innocent lives? Once it was publicly known that the Mercury was removed they started blaming some other additive. This moving goal post will always put vaccines on the diffensive.

Most scientists call this dangerous, unethical, voodoo, anecdotal and wasteful of time and money. So why are the politicians letting these ignorant parents torture thier children? So they can get a little 'x' on a ballot.

Chemotherapy is also a type of poison that can make anyone sick but we actually know it works in cancer treatment. IF you had a high level of mercury poisoning that didn't kill you and you had Chelation then the BEST outcome would be the removal of the metal. The therapy CANNOT repair the damaged neurons so it is NOT possible to CURE autism this way.

So in conclusion. Vaccines are good. Autism isn't stupid. Ignorance Kills. Stop Jenny McCarthy.

Ion Technology

Semiconductor Films and Nanostructures

The institute investigates fundamental problems in semiconductor physics and in semiconductor materials.
In the device development alternative concepts are explored and property limits are explored.
The epitaxy of classical III/V compounds and of GaN is a broad activity. Electronic and optical propertie

s of the grown layers are measured.
With the grown semiconductor layer systems devices are developed to explore e. g. the maximum transistor frequency and the minimum transistor cross section.
Resonant tunnel transistors are investigated to study the quantum mechanical limit in the smallest electronic devices.
With the standard semiconductor silicon vertical MOSFETs of 30 nm gate length are developed following different concepts.
Hybrid devices combining superconductor and semiconductor device physics are studied to get to devices with unusual properties.

Drawing by Santiago Ramón y Cajal of cells in the pigeon cerebellum. (A) Denotes Purkinje cells, an example of a bipolar neuron. (B) Denotes granule cells which are multipolar.
Neurons (also spelled neurones or called nerve cells) are a major class of cells in the nervous system. In vertebrates, they are found in the brain, the spinal cord and in the nerves and ganglia of the peripheral nervous system, and their primary role is to process and transmit neural information. One important characteristic of neurons is that they have excitable membranes which allow them to generate and propagate electrical signals.
The concept of a neuron as the primary computational unit of the nervous system was devised by Spanish anatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Cajal proposed that neurons were discrete cells which communicated with each other via specialized junctions. This became known as the Neuron Doctrine, one of the central tenets of modern neuroscience.
Contents[hide]
1 Anatomy and histology
2 Classes
3 Connectivity
4 Adaptations to carrying action potentials
5 Histology and internal structure
6 Challenges to the neuron doctrine
7 Neurons in the brain
8 See also
9 Sources
10 External links

From the article:

Drugs that encourage the growth of new neurons in the brain are now headed for clinical trials. The drugs, which have already shown success in alleviating symptoms of depression and boosting memory in animal models, are being developed by BrainCells, a San Diego-based start-up that screens drugs for their brain-growing power. The company hopes the compounds will provide an alternative to existing antidepressants and says they may also prove effective in treating cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer's.

This is very interesting and will probably help alot of people and make some so much smarter but let´s put it this way I´m not going to sign up for beta testing.....

Original site.

WOG out.

Author: David Saxton Ullery

Suppose that, after thorough analysis of the human brain, free will for us is really proven to be an illusion with emergent properties closely associated with consciousness and human intelligence. Some time later, we take this knowledge to build a sophisticated, powerful artificial brain machine with scores of billions of high-speed neurons and possibly trillions of self-modifying synaptic-like connections,  which eventually designs an even more sophisticated machine on its own. This new machine calculates how to create free will and so it documents a detailed design of a practical free will machine for us.  Should we go ahead and build the free will machine - or more realistically, should we have the machine(s) build it for us?

Suppose the newly built free will machine could be integrated into our brains such that we would have artificial free will. A logging is recorded every time a true free choice is made that is different than the illusory free choice that we would  have otherwise made. If the machine has complete knowledge of all of its human host's needs and wants, it seems possible that it would always decide exactly what we would have decided anyway - it would always do precisely what we "want". A trillion-dollar do-nothing machine! On the other hand, it might occasionally or frequently select a different choice which may very much anger or disturb the host who ironically feels like he is no longer in control. The host may begin to feel like a slave.  The host would want one thing, and his machine would override, resulting in a different decision being made.

If free will is not ruled out, then it is possible that we do not posses it in our own brains, but that it is physically possible to construct a device that would enable it. One of its parts may consist of a type of time machine capable of passing information, in the form of quantum bits, backwards in time through an artificial wormhole. The possible future choice outcome could be analyzed and weighted against the current state. The new future choice could then be taken. The process would recursively repeat until a final decision is made. Effectively we really do go back and change our choice at time "t" (potentially several times). This would satisfy the requirement for free will, since the machine allows for us to make a different choice given the same previous causes.  Not only could we make a different choice, but we would occasionally make a different choice for the exact same event, at the exact same time, for the exact same set of circumstances.

Logically speaking, we already have such a devise... to a degree. We can take our past, learned experiences, combined with logical future outcomes, think about logical outcomes until we come up with a final decision that we act upon. We never actually act upon any but one of the "what if" scenarios, but we can often logically deduce the outcome (if I eat the cake, it will taste great, but I will gain weight; if I jump off the cliff without a hang glider, I will likely die; ...). At time "t", we actually make our choice.  We end up doing what at least a part of our self "wants", based on a set of resources within our brain. If we are good at predicting outcomes, then we will often make exactly the same choice that we would have, in the science fiction scenario given above.

With the possession of the time machine, we could actually taste or eat an entire piece of chocolate cake and decide that it is well worth it, and finally decide to actually eat the cake as our final choice.  Without the time machine, we may decide to eat the cake, based on the knowledge that the last cake made by the same chef, was really delicious and decide on eating the cake.  We must assume here that the time machine owner may not have her cake and eat it too.  The owner will forget that she tried the cake once the final decision is made.  Otherwise, the owner may conclude that she can both eat the cake and finally not eat the cake, thus gaining the pleasure of the cake eating, and not suffering from the extra fat added on to her body as a result. The machine would work as if it processed future events in its owner's subconscious - whether it actually did or not - not unlike a medicine that induces short-term amnesia on a patient.

Even the time machine version is deterministic, because the future qubits are still part of the cause of the agent's final choice, in an automated way. However, that may only be one of the components.  It may be completely deterministic, yet satisfy all of the requirements for free will.  This deterministic machine allows the agent to change her mind and make a different choice.

Now suppose this same free will machine is kept outside of your brain or is rewired such that your illusionary "free will" referenced the free will machine only when called upon.  Perhaps you decide to use it every time you go to play roulette or buy stock.  That machine would no longer be a free will machine - it would be used to figure out what to bet on at the casino or what stock to choose. You would surely end up following the money trail in each and every case.  Even if not used strictly for money, it would no longer effectively be a free will machine, but just another weight to be used by your deterministic decision making resources - your non-free choice.

It seems an agent could have real free will yet perceive it as slavery since his choices would not always behave in ways he "wants"; have the illusion of free will yet perceive it as real, and prefer the latter. Another possibility is that there is no difference between the two. Then, we have yet another possibility that would have free will, but still be determined in an odd sort of way.  Finally, we have the illusion of free will calling upon a free will machine and end up rendering it useless as a free will machine, yet getting wealthy from it as a time machine.

As long as you can do whatever you "want", why would want the ability to freely "will" a choice?  Since you do not posses a time machine, your best bet is to carefully consider all available options, and choose the one you "want" - hopefully the one that has the most promising outcome. Having free will implies that you may choose something other from that which you "want".  What you "want" is based on a process of weighted variables created by competing resources within the brain. The choice or determined decision is not always rational or the best option for your future well being, but it is what you "want" at the time. What you should strive for is to learn how to always "want" what is best for you in the long run.  This "want" is determined by a combination of your genetic makeup, and your past experiences.

Most of what you want is determined by subconscious processes that the conscious parts of you never have the privilege of seeing.  Many decisions you make happen too quickly - there is no time conscious part of you to rationalize or think about the choice to make. If you are threatened by a predator, your "fight or flight" instincts kick in.  If you stopped to ponder the outcome and reflect on all possible options, you will likely be eaten.  For decisions that do allow time for thought, for example: "Should we go on vacation next month or not?", eventually require action or movement in your body parts to make reservations, pick up car keys, drive the car, call a cab or whatever you decide.   Eventually, in your brain, an action potential must cause a chain of neurons to fire in the motor cortex portion your brain, triggering a signal to move down your spine, causing your hand(s), arm(s), and/or legs to move - all of which you have no conscious knowledge or direct control.

Repeatable tests continue to show that this action potential occurs well before you consciously decide that you "want" to do something (see here -  for a start, then here...feel free to search these and other tests).  The thought that initially came to you - the pondering of vacation - initially came into your conscious mind as a result of previous causes in your unconscious resources. Undoubtedly, the fact that the process became conscious has some effect on the overall causal chain, but it is not purposely causal - it is just another set of inputs - or rather it tends to strengthen the already existing variables having to do with the thought processes revolving around the concept of vacationing - a process already set in motion.

It seems that people who are both very happy most of the time, and successful most of the time, within the standards coming from within their own minds, from their family and from their peers; make choices that would most often match up with the choices they would make if they actually did posses the time machine-based free will machine.  The same would hold true for those who do what they want, based on hedonistic, short-term gain, as long as they are good at predicting short-term outcome.  Any person with good predicting abilities will make the same choices most of the time, within the framework of their personality and their personal philosophy of life.  In cases where the free will machine works better than our own choices, it will only be because it is a better predictor, or at least has the potential for being a better predictor, if we assume that the future "trials" do not change the past, present or future.

In the end, possessing a better predictor mechanism, or possessing a mechanism that adds additional weight to any well-informed rational resources within our brains would seem more desirable than possessing true free will.  Having true free will, with no benefit of a decent outcome predictor would tend to cause negative outcomes.  Having a decent outcome predictor does not require free will to take advantage of it - better to leave those processes in the hands of the unconscious resources deep inside a brain that took tens or hundreds of millions of years to evolve to do what it already does very well on its own. Free will, if possible would be a negative mutation unless it is of the time-machine kind - which is oddly deterministic and a very excellent outcome predictor.  However, do you really want to know the outcome of everything you do?  You may likely end up perfectly unhappy and never satisfied with no surprises.

Suppose you had a machine that could be implanted in your brain that would stimulate the pleasure zones in your brain every time you think of it or want it.... oops wrong topic...or is it?

=========== New Stuff to Consider ===========

Enjoy more discussions on Free Will at the following forum:

Free Will II

Another post related to Free will:

Patterns, Design, and Physical Laws

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P.S. Neuronii nu se "regenereaza". Asta explica multe. :)

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The Nose Knows

The May 22, 2008 issue of Neuron presents research on the early formulations of just such a pill. Although technically, it was administered as a nasal spray, oxytocin was found to reduce the activity in the amygdala, which processes fear as well as paying attention to the possibility of social betrayal. I would expect pharmaceutical companies to continue refining the formulations of this drug. But who should have access to it? And under what circumstances? A part of me would love to simply take such a pill and be done with it. But another part of me suspects doing so would be yet another case of treating the symptoms and missing something calling to me, something of much deeper significance.

Forgiving the Unforgiveable

Letlapa Mphahlele was the operations director of the Azanian People's Liberation Army in South Africa. One night a number of years ago, he ordered an attack at the Heidelberg Tavern in Capetown. In that attack, Lyndi, the 23 year old daughter of Ginn Fourie was killed. In the time since then, the black revolutionary and the white mother have been on a healing journey together, one of reconciliation and forgiveness. Mphahlele has worked to set up a Foundation in Lyndi's name and the two travel together and speak about both the need for, and the challenges to bringing about peace and forgiveness in the world. Will a Forgiveness Pill produce the same level of engagement, healing and social action in the world that it has for these two people? Should Ginn Fourie or Letlapa Mphahlele have taken the pill?

The Pain of Pills

There is mounting evidence that a sense of powerless, helplessness or loss of control impairs neural development (think America's public education system - but that's another can of pills). Perhaps deciding whether or not someone might take the Forgiveness Pill should be left to that someone. If such a pill is to help in the alleviation of suffering, perhaps it is not up to us to decide if someone is suffering enough to grant them access to the pill. Perhaps our job is to explain the upside and the downside and let people choose for themselves. It might work the way pain medications are administered in progressive hospices, where patients in palliative care hold up fingers to indicate their level of discomfort. Any fingers more than three are provided with pain relief. But many people at the end of life choose to bear as much pain as they can, sensing that something important is happening and that the pain is an integral part of it.

You Choose, You Win

But perhaps the real significance of a pill like this one isn't so much the function it performs. Perhaps the simple fact that it is needed in the first place will bring attention to and powerfully drive home for parents, teachers, therapists and clergy that the actions we take in the world powerfully affect our own and other people's neurobiology. For better or worse.

In our brains, where millions of signals move across a network of neurons like runners in a relay race, all the critical baton passes take place at synapses. These small gaps between nerve cell endings have to be just the right size for messages to transmit properly. Synapses that grow too large or too small are associated with motor and cognitive impairment, learning and memory difficulties, and other neurological disorders.

In a finding that sheds light on this system, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison describe a gene that controls the proper development of synapses, which could help explain how the process works and why it sometimes goes wrong.

Reporting today in the journal Neuron, a team of geneticists in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences reveal the role of a gene in fruit flies called "nervous wreck" that prevents synapses from overgrowing by damping the effects of a pro-growth signal. Mutations in a human version of "nervous wreck" have been linked to a severe genetic developmental disability, and these findings may eventually help scientists develop treatments for this and other neurological disorders.

De neurologiske abnormiteter kan selvfølgelig variere i styrke og i hvilken slags indflydelse de har på folk, men selv de mindste forhold kan have store implikationer. I en tidligere artikel, som jeg har referet til her, mente nogen at have fundet en sammenhæng mellem netop en neurologisk abnormitet og social fobi. Der var der fokus på et decideret misforhold i neurotransmittere, der er essentielle for at videreføre informationerne i hjernen . I den herværende artikel er der dog fokus på mere generelle forhold i synapserne , der er bindingsledene i kommunikationen i hjernen. Genetiske forhold menes at kunne være afgørende for om synapserne fx bliver for små eller for store.

Using genetic, biochemical and imaging techniques, O'Connor-Giles showed that the "nervous wreck" protein appears to be part of an important protein complex that helps regulate the density of certain receptors on the surface of the nerve cell at the synapse. In particular, the new findings suggest that the protein complex decommissions receptors that respond to pro-growth signals coming from the well-studied BMP signaling pathway. When the protein complex is working properly, it moves the receptors back inside the nerve cell - where they can no longer receive and respond to the pro-growth signal - at the appropriate time.

"'Nervous wreck' and (the other proteins in the complex) work together to attenuate a positive growth signal," says O'Connor-Giles. "So when it's time for synaptic growth to stop, they are the proteins that ensure the neuron stops listening to the positive growth signal and stops growing.

Undersøgelsen giver et indblik i forståelsen mellem forholdene mellem forskellige proteiner, celler og udviklingen og stabiliseringen af synapserne. Og igen er spørgsmålet om hvorvidt disse fremskridt i viden om forskellige neurologiske omstændigheder i sygdomme vil afføde behandlingsformer.

These findings add to the big picture of how synaptic growth works, a picture that in the long run will help scientists develop treatments for various neurological disorders.

"Being able to manipulate synaptic growth is going to be crucial for treating traumatic spinal chord injuries," says O'Connor-Giles. "It's also going to be important for treating a broad array of other disorders, including epilepsy and developmental disabilities."

Kilde:
University of Wisconsin-Madison (2008, May 25). At The Synapse: Gene May Shed Light On Neurological Disorders. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 25, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080522181503.htm

Lektion 1 From Brain Dynamics to Consciousness: A Prelude to the Future of Brain-Based Devices, Gerald Edelman.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7437432153763631391&q=From+Brain+Dynamics+to+Consciousness&ei=PjA4SLHvNKjkiQKEtKnwAw]

Lektion 2 The Emergence of Intelligence in the Neocortical Microcircuit, Henry Markram.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2874207418572601262&q=The+Emergence+of+Intelligence+in+the+Neocortical+Microcircuit&ei=aTA4SMzCOYjgiQKHvKzrAw]

Lektion 3 The Mechanism of Thought, Robert Hecht-Nielsen.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4572207081038401578&q=The+Mechanism+of+Thought&ei=lzA4SKPNKIv-iQLbzaHyAw]

Lektion 4 Hierarchical Temporal Memory: Theory and Implementation, Jeff Hawkins.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2500845581503718756&q=Hierarchical+Temporal+Memory&ei=uzA4SOPfLo2cjQL5yuTjAw]

Lektion 5 Panel: How the brain works, what it computes, and how/when we might build intelligent machines, James Albus, Theodore Berger, Kwabena Boahen, Ralph Linsker, Jerry Swartz.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=200924984898632631&q=How+the+brain+works&ei=4DA4SOShApaCigKTlaXUAw]

Lektion 6 The Uniqueness of the Human Brain, V.S. Ramachandran.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4684607596399338611&q=The+Uniqueness+of+the+Human+Brain&ei=CDE4SNCSE4ycigLI9J3hAw]

Lektion 7 Beyond Dualism, John Searle.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3295448672203577230&q=beyond+dualism&ei=OjE4SI7qMpXsigK53aD0Aw]

Lektion 8 Cortical Dynamics of Working Memory, Joaquin Furster.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3002336180397686566&q=cortical+dynamics&ei=dTE4SO-OJZXsigK53aD0Aw]

Lektion 9 A Quantitative Theory of Cortex, Leslie Valiant.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3948805418537584481&q=quantative+theory+of+cortex&ei=jzE4SJHBH42cjQL5yuTjAw]

Lektion 10 The Four C's of Neuroinformation Theory: Coding, Computing, Control and Cognition, Toby Berger.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5222739566501947160&q=The+Four+C%27s+of+Neuroinformation+&ei=rjE4SPOMG4-cigL4pODkAw]

Lektion 11 Consciousness, Christof Koch.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1012772740345851560&q=consciousness+koch&ei=DzI4SKDwJI7giQK41IjWAw]

Lektion 12 Panel: The Future of Cognitive Computing.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=41347195024906280&q=future+of+cognitive+compution&ei=LTI4SLbxFpuKigKC4K3vAw]

~Alexander Rich
amerykański biolog i biofizyk

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I den video jeg har valgt at linke her taler han ved Ted Talks (kan også findes på youtube her. Et arrangement der hvert år bliver holdt på Long Beach i Californien. Mottoet for konferencen er "Ideas worth spreading", og der er da også mange interessante vinkler og perspektiver der bliver taget op af de meget forskellige debatoplæggere. Men her har jeg altså valgt at præsentere V.S Ramachandrans rejse ind i vores hjerne. God fornøjelse:

MIT neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe is tackling those tough questions and many others. Her goal is no less than understanding how the brain gives rise to the abilities that make us uniquely human--making moral judgments, developing belief systems and understanding language.

Hun forsker blandt andet i hvordan og hvor vi foretager bedømmelser af andres tanker. Altså hvordan vi hver især forholder os til andres meninger og tanker.

While it's impossible to observe thoughts directly, it is possible to measure which brain regions are active while people are thinking about certain things. Saxe probes the brain circuits underlying human thought with a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scan that measures blood flow.

Using fMRI, she has identified an area of the brain (the temporoparietal junction) that lights up when people think about other people's thoughts, something we do often as we try to figure out why others behave as they do.

Som det fremgår af artiklen "Exploring The Mechanics Of Judgment, Beliefs: Technique Images Brain Activity When We Think Of Others" er moral og bedømmelse et af de områder hun gerne vil forstå bedre. Saxe kommer således blandt andet ind på det samme område som Marc Hauser er igang med at undersøge (se her). Og det er fx nogle af de samme problematikker Saxe tager op i sin undersøgelser:

Saxe's recent studies use fMRI to delve into moral judgment--specifically, what happens in the brain when people judge whether others are behaving morally. Subjects in her studies make decisions regarding classic morality scenarios such as whether it's OK to flip a switch that would divert a runaway train onto a track where it would kill one person instead of five people.
...
"Two events with the exact same outcome get extremely different reactions based on our inferences of someone's mental state and what they were thinking," she says.

For example, judgments often depend on whether the judging person is in conflict with the person performing the action. When a soldier sets off a bomb, an observer's perception of whether the soldier intended to kill civilians depends on whether the soldier and observer are on the same side of the conflict.

Og netop det sidste gør at Saxe udvider sin forskning på dette område ved sine fremtidige undersøgelser. Hun vil søge at forstå hvordan børn udvikler forståelse og perceptioner af andre grupperinger, og således hvordan vores forhold til en anden person influere vores bedømmelse af tanker og handling. Hendes case er hvordan børn udvikler forestillinger om rivaliserende grupperinger i forbindelse med konflikter.

In a future study, Saxe and one of her postdoctoral associates plan to study how children develop beliefs regarding groups in longstanding conflict with their own group (for example, Muslims and Serbs in the former Yugoslavia, or Sunnis and Shiites in parts of the Middle East).

They hope to first identify brain regions that are active while people think about members of a conflict group, then observe any changes in brain activity following mediation efforts such as "peace camps" that bring together children from two conflict groups.

Vil det således være muligt at se forskelle i kommunikation i hjernen, alt efter hvordan den enkelte forholder sig til en anden gruppe mennesker? Meningen med Saxe's undersøgelser er at ville kunne øge forståelsen af hvordan vi bedømmer og fortolker hinandens handlinger, udsagn, tanker mv.; hvilke kommunikationer der foregår i forskellige situationer.

Mere forskning på området om hvordan en kulturel opdragelse influere vores perceptioner og bedømmelser kan ses her

Kilde:
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (2008, May 18). Exploring The Mechanics Of Judgment, Beliefs: Technique Images Brain Activity When We Think Of Others. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 19, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080515212112.htm

Ich denke die weitergegeben Weisheiten und Erfahrungen müssen nicht um bedingt von großem Vorsprung sein zu denen von dem Empfänger. Kleine Informationseinheiten können auch helfen. Gerade, wenn die Informationen immer und überall zur Verfügung stehen. Für mich mache ich hier die Einteilung in Expertenwissen und Masseninformation. Beides denke ich sollte in „The wisdom of crowds“ vorhanden sein. Den damit kann jeder Mensch etwas zum Allgemeinem-Wissen (nicht zu verwechseln mit Allgemeinwissen) beitragen.

Mit dem neuem Verständnis fürs Internet was mit Web2.0 mit gekommen ist, haben sich Teile von Gesellschaften sich verändert. Leider sind nicht Alle dabei. Gerade die Älteren, von deren Weisheit eine Gesellschaft zerren kann, sind unterrepräsentiert im Web2.0. Durch Aktionen wie bloggerpatenschaften.de wird versucht eine Brücke zwischen den Netzwerken aus dem Netz und den Menschen außerhalb des Netzes zu schlagen. Solche Aktionen könnten helfen den "i-Gap" in der Gesellschaft zu überwinden.

Die Möglichkeiten die das Internet bietet müssen besser kommuniziert werden. Viel mehr NPOs (Non-Profit-Organization) müssen sich bilden und sich gegen kommerzielle Angebote durch setzen. Leider liegt es in der Natur der Sache, dass erfolgreiche Web2.0 Angebote von Unternehmen aufgekauft werden. Nichts desto trotz sollte die Partizipation im Internet positiv genutzt werden und nicht nur für Unterhaltung. Gegenüber dem Fernsehen, haben wir im Internet die Möglichkeit das Programm zu machen und sinnvolles mit unserer Zeit im Netzanfangen...natürlich nicht nur!

Jemehr Leute auch ihre Erfahrungen und Wissen, seien diese auch gering, mit ein bringen in Netzwerken erhält die Gesellschaft einen Mehrwert. So muss der nächste Schritt sein zu versuchen den "i-Gap" zu verkleinern oder viele Brücken darüber zu bauen. Jeder kann in seinem Umfeld Begeisterung für Web2.0 Tools und Netzwerke auslösen. Das wird schon helfen. An Schulen und Universitäten muss auch mehr gemacht werden um die "Zukunft" mit Netzsensibilität auszurösten. Gerade Kindern aus Bildungsfernen Familien könnte durch einen sinvollen Umgang mit dem Internet viele Türen geöffnet werden. Dafür müssen aber die Lehrer versuchen die Kinder und Jügendlichen übern den"i-Gap" zubringen.

Ich bin sehr gespannt auf die weitere Entwicklung der Gesellschaft durch die neuen Möglichkeiten die sie hat.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4317251159318118415]

researchers in The Netherlands were able to detect biochemical differences in the brains of individuals with generalized social anxiety disorder (also known as social phobia), providing evidence of a long-suspected biological cause for the dysfunction.
...
Serotonin and dopamine (neurotransmitters, or substances responsible for transferring signals from one neuron to another) act upon receptors in the brain. If the neurotransmitters are out of balance, messages cannot get through the brain properly. This can alter the way the brain reacts to normal social situations, leading to anxiety.

Artiklens navn Are Anxiety Disorders All In The Mind? antyder hvad forskere overvejer ved sådanne resultater. Kan forskellige forbier og angster anspores i hjernen som udelukkende en biologisk dysfunktion? Har hvert enkelt individ således ved en biologisk forudsætning større eller mindre chance for at få fx social fobi? Og hvor stor en rolle spiller miljøets omstændigheder ind? Meget tyder, i hvert fald ifølge dette studier, at forskellige psykologiske sygdomme kan forklares ved fysiologiske omstændigheder i hjernen. Spørgsmålet melder sig så om hvorvidt det vil være muligt at "helbrede" folk fx gennem stimulanser specielle neurotransmittere.

"Although there are no direct implications for treatment as a result of this study yet, it is another piece of evidence showing biological abnormalities, which may lead to new therapeutic approaches and insight into the origins of the disorder," said Dr. van der Wee.

Kilde:
Society of Nuclear Medicine (2008, May 12). Are Anxiety Disorders All In The Mind?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 13, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080512105719.htm

The first part is the “easy problem.” It is basically a question of cognition, or how we process information. Our attention span, language skills, learning abilities, memory capacity, perception qualities, and problem solving abilities have been well-documented and explain a great deal of mental activity. After that there is the second part, or the "hard problem," and it is in a totally different league. Why is there any experience at all if we are only physical machines and bodies of cells? More generally, what kind of automaton (e.g. the brain, a computer, a cell, and so forth) could generate consciousness? This is a harder scientific question than the easy problem for one simple reason: it could even be metaphysical.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts the questions of consciousness into three categories: descriptive, explanatory, and functional. Essentially this asks What? How? and Why? Describing consciousness is the easy problem, explaining it is the hard problem, and the question of its function is something not normally addressed with the first two. The question of its function comes down to how it is an adaptation in our evolutionary past. There are some ideas that say it is for free will, motivation, better flexibility (like learning), social coordination, and better cognition (like accessing cumulative information we gather). I'll say a little more about the first two in the rest of this article.

There are some simple features of consciousness that everyone is familiar with. I would mark qualia, phenomenology, subjectivity, and flow as the major ones that are most self-evident. Qualia are the raw feelings of sensory perception that you have. How the world sounds, looks, feels, tastes, and smells to us. Isaac Newton wrote "to determine by what modes or actions light produceth in our minds the phantasm of colour is not so easie." Behind the experience of qualia is phenomenology. Phenomenology refers to the organization that is intrinsic in consciousness. The "phenomena" are our thoughts and ideas we use to model the world. (SEP says "... the phenomenal structure of experience is richly intentional and involves not only sensory ideas and qualities but complex representations of time, space, cause, body, self, world and the organized structure of lived reality ...") Subjectivity is something of a casual term that we all know of. Subjective experience is dependent on point of view, and perhaps to some degree, it is uncommunicable to other people. For example, what is it like to be a cat? How would you know for sure? Finally, the dynamic flow of mental life is the storyline played out in your head. William James called it the "stream of consciousness."

There is an explanatory gap present in trying to account for how consciousness exists. In a physical, material universe, it is hard to make sense of how consciousness arises and emerges from it. In spite of this there are numerous attempts to respond to this problem. Some are pretty common such as dualism (from Rene Descartes), where the soul is independent of the physical universe, or a closely related concept, idealism (from George Berkeley), where some contents of consciousness are uninvolved with matter. Other explanations seem odd or just plain absurd, like direct realism (from Thomas Reid), which says that the contents of consciousness are the world itself, or panpsychism (from Gottfried Leibniz), the notion that all matter is conscious. Emergence theory and epiphenomenalism posit that consciousness is the result of the brain's immense complexity, and is therefore a physical construct. (For example, Hofstadter wrote a book I am a Strange Loop, saying consciousness is analogous to a sort of feed-back loop due to its self-reference, the "I.") A strange combo of this idea and quantum physics is supported by Roger Penrose and some other scientists, called OOR. Their theory says a special quantum computation goes on in the mind allowing it to supersede some of the capabilities of rigid programming that regular computers have. (He argues his case in his book Emperor's New Mind.)

Another very impressive question is whether or not consciousness is actually something that makes choices. It is conceivable that our consciousness is merely a byproduct of our deterministic brain so that it is only an endpoint and does not have any control over the brain's processing. Perhaps you're just along for the ride!

Some people (like Colin McGinn) say the hard problem is insoluble. Others (like Daniel Dennett) say it is an illusion; there is no hard problem. Still more (like David Chalmers) disagree with that, saying purely physical explanations are lacking. Take a look at the philosophical zombie, the Chinese room, the color expert Mary, and the Turing test for an idea of controversial issues with physicalism. A philosophical zombie is a theoretical human being that functions just as we do, exhibiting all of the ordinary behavior, but is not conscious. This begs the question, "What distinguishes conscious from non-conscious beings?" The Turing test is a situation played out between computers and humans where both a program and a real subject communicate with real interviewers, and if the interviewers cannot agree if the program is human, it is declared sentient. This raises the issue of whether or not it is even feasible to discern between conscious and non-conscious beings. (In AI research, this Turing test has been carried out in real life and is a part of an annual competition to see who can code the "most" human program. Also, for fun: An xkcd-twisted version of the Turing test.) The Chinese room is where a man sitting in a closed room, using instruction books, "translates" Chinese to English (or back), but does not truly "understand" Chinese. What makes up true comprehension? Lastly, the color expert Mary is a hypothetical scientist who learns all of the academic information about the color red possible, but then experiences seeing it for the first time afterwards. (Many people debate what her experience would be like.) What is the difference between qualia and information about qualia? These thought experiments flesh out some of the ambiguities we have in understanding consciousness, which prove problematic in reliably answering the hard problem.

And so the debate on the hard problem still persists, and one still wonders how and even if the problem can be solved. Can it even be properly understood? Is it in the realm of metaphysics or naturalistic science? How can we tell? Is there anything obvious being overlooked? Surely, the hard problem of consciousness ranks right up there with solving the millennium problems and understanding quantum theory. It is easily one of the hardest problems of the universe, yet it is what you live with every day.

Og i den lidt mere seriøse afdeling en lille introduktion til neurovidenskab fortalt af skuespilleren Alan Alda og produceret af "The Kavli Foundation"

Til folk der skulle være interesseret (det er jeg i hvert fald) udkommer Marco Iacoboni snarligt (13. maj) med en ny bog om spejlneuroner med den meget sigende titel "Mirroring People"

Discover Magazine har en lille intro til bogen her

Og et link til et lille uddrag af bogen, som jeg vil vende tilbage til, tror jeg, når jeg har erhvervet mig bogen og haft tiden til at læse den :)

Første episode:

Anden episode: