Christopher Flannery - Week 7 - Consciousness

I have always been fascinated by the limits of senses. It is crazy to think that there is energy we can’t feel, sound we can’t hear, and light and matter we can’t see. I believe it is landmark in human consciousness to address the limits of our sensory system and mind. For this reason, I like Paul Cezanne’s work because he attempts to reflect how a human actually perceives the world. A majority of the time, a person does not spend time sitting in a single place concentrating on a focal point, so why should all art do so? I think it’s almost impossible to do, but I love the idea of trying to represent the relation of objects, time, and movement on a snapshot canvas.! I was ecstatic to see the Jimi Hendrix and especially the Beatles in class because I am a hardcore fan. I don’t think people of my generation appreciate their impact on music, social awareness, and of popular culture. I got the impression that most people in the class did not connect their relevancy to the class’s topic. In particular, I don’t believe that UCLA’s current student population would see the value in drugs, particularly hallucinogenics, for the purpose of reaching a higher state of consciousness. I liked Scerri’s description of “cheating” or “jumping” into realizations through drugs and his warning that it could easily go wrong. It’s always kind of awkward discussing drugs, even for a positive purpose, in an academic setting and this reflects mind altering substance’s dismissal from the popular knowledge collection. The Beckley Foundation is committed to being the first organization to study the effects of LSD on human subjects since the 1970s. Their studies concentrate on “science, health, politics and history of practices used to alter consciousness, ranging from meditation to the use of psychoactive substances.” http://beckleyfoundation.org/
My favorite reading was Gregory Bateson’s “Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unit”. In this article he addressed the two questions of: What exactly is the difference between living and non-living forms? And what connects all living creatures? He does not address the concept of human consciousness but rather takes the approach of what all biological creatures share in common, not what makes humans unique, to find a conclusion.
His main example was asking how one, having only the knowledge of a Martian, could determine if the corpse of a crab ever was a living thing. The first clue he provides is that the crab is almost symmetrical and when there are differences, the structures are made of the same kinds of parts. Every part of the creature is intra-related the rest through a structure that reflects organization, growth, and utility. He goes on to make this relation between similar species, like the lobster and crab, and different species, like a human and a horse. The unifying theme is a system.
His next example is a seashell without an organism left. This example is a different solution to nature’s process of growth. The shell solves the evolutionary problem of growth in a different mathematical process. The spiral pattern retains it shapes and dimensions as it grows and can be found in many species.
We recognize these patterns naturally because we have many of them. In connection to the week’s lecture, how much of this information is innate or arrived at through judgment or learning. Bateson seems to think that all living organisms possess this information at some level, but I find it hard to believe simpler organisms have a concept of evolution and growth.

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Week 7

When I first came across this topic, I questioned its relevence to art. I find that, as a scientist, I view all things as science because it is easy to see how everything in nature abides by simple rules and patterns however, when it comes to art, definitions and distinctions become very blurred. The moment someone calls something art, it is as if it becomes so immediately. Additionally, anything beautiful in some way becomes art. For example, the human brain, consciousness and subconsciousness are all beautiful in that there is a mystery to all of these things but the very reason I would call them art is because they are science and the very beauty of science is that it is an uncharted road and so, in a way, our understanding and way of finding new things is a very artistic enterprise. However, perhaps this is just a matter of symantics. As time goes by and more experts present in this class and we go over more material, the definitions become less cloudy.
Anywho, the second reading was very interesting to me in that it referred to the idea of sequences and patterns that weren't really sequences or patterns like th numbers 2,4,6, 8,10,12,27. The thing I find interesting about this is that it is a study of itself; the human brain and the limitations of situations sometimes spawn artificial patterns because of familiar ideas and oftentimes we are wrong when it comes to patterns as things can appear to be in sequence when they are really not. In a similar way, this writing asserts that there is a pattern to our thinking as does the very science of behavioral sciences. In fact, as a whole, humanity as a whole works strikingly simple patterns and this is why we have such things as sciences. We all see things in differnt yet similar ways and this is how we are governed--by our similarities, not our differences. Judging by these similarities, it is easy to find very general to somewhat specific actions that people will take in certain situations. For example, I bet if someone tallied what a person gets from a cafe, it would nearly always be the same exactly or the same sequence of orders. If we took samples for longer, it is very likely that one could guess exactly what that person will order next. Mr. Bateson throws around, very frequently, the words "not predictable" but ultimately, predictability has a probabilistic nature to it; if someone predicts something, they do not know exactly that something is going to happen but rather can guess within reason that something is very likely to happen and so, to this length, I disagree with the author.
Interestingly enough, Varela and Bateson both talk about something that interests me--phenomenology. This relates to my outside research as there is was an interesting project by an artist named Shepard Fairey called the "Obey Giant campaign." I spoke about it last week but find it suprisingly related this week. To reiterate what it is, Fairey was trying to show his friend how to cut stencils and made one based off of an Andre the Giant poster. The first sticker he made said "ANDRE HAS A POSSY" which served as a joke. He later turned them into stickers and, to further the joke, put them on anything he could find. It was peoples' interpretations of the stickers and the symbols behind them that made the whole project. As it evolved and Andre's face became more stylized, the words "OBEY" were printed below his face and so it came to have an anti-establishment feeling to it and so while half of the people thought it was an awesome underground campaign set up for the purpose of rallying protestors to current situations (public policy, government people, and administrations), others thought it was a group whose purpose was to tear down the American government and all of the unity that it holds; the former group praised the sticker campaign while the latter tore the stickers down. Ultimately, Fairey put up stickers on a visceral level with seemingly no effective intellectual purpose behind his actions.
Boy, I suck at segues so pretend like there's one here. ...and so, on the topic of memes, I find its idea very intriguing. On an artistic level, there's an almost visual representation of idea after idea flowing from one person's conscious to another's and one idea of beauty and art form from preconceptions but are not taken entirely as every person contributes to this idea to make it grow and become different. Similarly, science comes from building on others' ideas and thus technology exists and becomes a living thing with each person learning from another. I wish I could expand on this but there's really no way that I can put it. At its very basic level we can see the beautiful growth of our worldwide community where information, technology, music, culture--everything becomes free and, the more free and accessible things are, the more the community can grow, and the more ideas that are sent around that become bigger parts of the world. I hope I gave that whole idea some justice.

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Derek Ganong - Week 7 - mind expansion and exploration

This weeks lectures were very interesting because they covered a much broader and more conceptual realm of thinking than previous weeks. Some specific vocabulary was introduced that was then emphasized by the TA’s in sections. This interrelated vocabulary consisted of the “Meme” the “Rhizome” and the “Noosphere”.
From what I gathered, the concept of the Meme was coined in 1976 by the biologist Richard Dawkins and its definition is “a unit of cultural information that can propagate from one mind to another in a manner that is analogous to genes”. Some Memes that are present today are the iPod, Led Zeppelin T-shirts (and classic rock shirts in general), the Razr cell phone (and soon to be iPhone), etc... In the case of the iPod (in my opinion), the Meme has been a good thing. Meaning that the representation of that Meme works well and it beneficial. However, it is not always the most beneficial Meme that survives the longest, it is the one that can propagate the fasted and most efficiently. An example of a Meme that has a negative impact is the SUV, and large vehicles in general. They simply are not economical, not environmentally friendly, and most people who drive then do not need them.
There was significantly less information about the Rhizome. Wikipedia’s definition for Rhizome was that of a sub-surface, horizontal root that a plant sends out as a means of vegetative reproduction. This could be an analogy to the network of human information and ideas (as related to the Noosphere) or it could represent the identical goals or cultural information of seemingly unrelated Memes that appear in different geological locals of the human milieu.
The Noosphere, according to wikipedia, is the “sphere of human thought” and the theory behind it is that, just as the emergence of biology and the biosphere altered the geosphere, the emergence of human consciousness and the Noosphere is altering the biosphere. The Noosphere can also be defined as the transhuman consciousness. In other words, the Noosphere is the combined human perception of our impact, interaction, and relationship with nature (the biosphere).
These words will probably come up as part of our final assignment and any comments that anyone has or would like to add to my description of these words and their relationship is welcomed and encouraged.
With the heated debate over consciousness and human perception, I thought back to the lectures on artificial intelligence and networks. I came across an article in scientific american that talks about how neural networks function, how artificial neural networks function, and how they differ from digital computers. This article was extremely interesting to me because it provided solid bases for all of its basic claims (like what is meant by consciousness, intelligence, etc...) and was written by the author of “Fundamentals of Artificial Neural Networks”: Mohamad Assoun.
The definition of an artificial neural network is “a parallel computational model that comprises of densely interconnected adaptive processing units”. In laymans terms, this is a many relatively simple processors that are all linked and designed to solve individual parts of problems on their own and then combine their answers towards a generate an output based on a complex relationship with an input. Theses large parallel computing systems are designed to provide modeling for nonlinear and dynamic systems where a complex relationship exists between the input and its output. In contrast to a standard personal computer, which has a single complex processor and execute calculations who’s outputs have simple relationships to their inputs, a parallel computer would be able to crunch numbers extremely fast (a plus in genomic calculations and other scientific and mathematical ares). As the article states, “a very important feature of these networks is their adaptive nature”. This is where learning takes the place or programming and is vital to the intelligent functioning of an artificial neural network. The adaptation process is very similar to the way in which learning occurs in the brain “via changes in the synaptic efficacies of neurons”. However, all parallel computers used today still execute static programming that has to be inputted and cannot be altered by the machine itself based on its interactions. The systems are simply used as extremely efficient calculators in the present. With that said, parallel machines May have been inspired by biological neural models, they are nowhere near the adaptive nature of their biological counterparts. In my opinion, we cannon create an intelligent artificial neural network until we can break the bounds of objective programming.

http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=8B4338BA-E7F2-99DF-32025F46795812AD&ref=rss

Dr. Eric Scerri’s lecture was very inspiring. What he said about “the higher state of consciousness” and mind expansion had a significant impact on me. While a lot of what he said did not have an empirical factual basis, it all made sense to me. I’ve been doing alot of thinking about mind-altering substances and higher consciousness previous to his lecture, and what he said on Wednesday really hit home for me. Scerri said that the psuedo-higher states of consciousness that drugs cause you to attain can be gotten to as real higher states of mind expansion by a non substance abuser. For instance, he recommended a book by Dan Levitn called “your brain on music”. Being a musician myself, I have experienced this mind expansion through jazz improvisation. Thats why I still love music and continue to make it. The truly great musicians (Miles Davis, Clay Jenkins, Freddie Hubbard, Michael Brecker, etc..) have also felt this. Many of them were so driven to attain it permanently that they resorted to drugs, except the drugs only gave them a psuedo-state of mind. They are truly the great musicians because they were able to attain this mind expansion permanently, or at least while they were making music. Thats why everyone emulates them and wonders how they do what they do (did).
His lecture was inspiring and I left the room with much more clarity in my mind on the topic of mind expansion. I think that Scerri’s clarity of thought and expression comes from being both an improvisitory musician and a scientist. His clarity in both sight and insight should be something that we all strive to attain.

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Week 7: Some tid bits about the week from Justin Nordheim

I ended up missing Monday's lecture due to an extended mother's day celebration so the focus of my post will be on Scerri and his discussion/debate with Victoria. I have had Scerri as a teacher. He is a great teacher with a well put together class. Also, it is very clear he believes heavily in science and is also a devout atheist. He believes that science can explain everything. Specifically, the topic of "progress" was discussed and I would like to offer my opinions on the definition and how it is applicable to various aspects of the universe as well as human culture. As a scientist myself, I understand completely where Scerri is coming from; science makes progress because it can build off itself whereas art, for example, arguably does not progress, but new forms are being used and our understanding is getting better. I believe in a slightly different view of the word perhaps different from both Scerri and Victoria. Einstein believed heavily in the idea of relativity. The universe exists in the mind of the individual, and two individuals can experience a different type of reality or manipulate time using these principles. I believe relativity also applies to the idea of progress. For example, science is used to describe all the fundamental components of the universe, both large and small. It focuses on using mathematics to describe processes. However, science cannot describe "ideas" and the evolution of culture. Therefore, as science "progresses," so does human culture. For anything to progress, knowledge needs to be gained or manipulated. Art does just that: when new art forms are created, and even new works of art, our understanding of art increases. Without the first mud hut created millenias ago, architecture may not have advanced to what it is today. Without many of the masters, art may have taken a different direction and classical forms may have never been created. Ultimately, I believe it is important to consider the relative characteristics when discussing progress. Science has made progress because knowledge has been gained. Art has made progress because knowledge has been gained.

Well, glad I got that off my chest. As one of the 5 people that showed up to discussion, I was presented with the idea of "memetics" (missing the monday lecture). This served to be our main topic for the discussion. What I found most interesting is how true they are to society and that although they appear conceptual, they appear everywhere I look. I found this image to be helpful, as well as the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics.

In reading various articles (I read the top 3 that popped up when typing "memetics" into www.google.com), I discovered how similar "memes" are to cells. For example, many different types of cells exist: bacteria, skin, mesodermal, etc, etc, etc. Also, many types of memes exist considering there are at least 5 WAYS to transfer information (sound, touch, sight, smell, taste) and thousands of subdivisions within those 5 ways. This comparison furthered my belief that the theory of memetics holds true. Also, I found it very interesting that when one person transfers a meme to the other, the person transferring the meme keeps the meme in their mind. Thus, it is a form of replication similar to mitosis which results in 2 identical cell types being formed. I'm not sure if these were brought up monday, but I found Dawkin's principles to be very interesting as well as important when considering memes: "Dawkins listed the following three characteristics for any successful replicator:
copying-fidelity:
the more faithful the copy, the more will remain of the initial pattern after several rounds of copying. If a painting is reproduced by making photocopies from photocopies, the underlying pattern will quickly become unrecognizable.
fecundity:
the faster the rate of copying, the more the replicator will spread. An industrial printing press can churn out many more copies of a text than an office copying machine.
longevity:
the longer any instance of the replicating pattern survives, the more copies can be made of it. A drawing made by etching lines in the sand is likely to be erased before anybody could have photographed or otherwise reproduced it."

I will end here.

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Blogging Instructions

Each week by Sunday at midnight each student must post a 500-800 word blog entry. Reflect on the questions raised in Prof. Vesna's lecture, guest lectures, and readings. Connect these concepts to self-directed research. Provide one link for each post to something you've discovered. Examples are news articles about scientific, artistic, political events etc. that relates to class topics. Images are optional but enjoyable for everyone.

Use the "Create New Post" button in your "dashboard" once you've logged in. Use the buttons above the text box to add photos, links, and text formatting.

When Posting Always...

Label your post with your section in this format (without quotes): "Section 1"
This allows your TA to find your blog posts.

Email myself or your TA if you have technical issues.
oleary@ucla.edu
xarene@ucla.edu
zblas@ucla.edu
datadreamer@ucla.edu

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