What is thinking?

[FreeChile]

Re: Re: Re: Re: What is thinking?

quote:
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Originally posted by FreeChile
"A thought is a proposition with a sense."

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
-- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
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Question:
Does what Wittgenstein's reference to as "proposition" limited to just "picture reality" ? Or does he allows "sound", "emotion"?

In his earlier work, Wittgenstein was mostly concerned with logic and the possibility of clarifying philosophy using logic. He later stepped away from that. In his later works, he maintains emphasis on meaning (sense) and compositions (how you would look at an object from different perpectives based on meaning). My guess is that he would think of feelings and emotions as another composition of the thinking process--one perhaps best addressed by the field of psychology.

Taking your use of the word "sound" to mean "hearing", Wittgenstein would mention a number of things here like sense, composition, interpretation and imprecision. This all contributes to our inability to describe language (also thinking) in a precise way.

 

[JAK]

...
Any comments before we talk about experiments?
And perhaps we could work the other way round.
Ie. think of a do-able experiment that can shows evidence of the theory.

I believe we are facing a dilemma.

On the one hand, Jyera, you seek a simple solution for an incredibly complex phenomena.

After diluting, over-simplifying, and generalizing a theoretical approach in order to create something comprehensible to laymen, the response is that it is too subjective, with aspects which are "easily defeated" (which you did not attempt to defeat ).

The human organism is an energy system built with components (organs, bones, tissue, etc.) which interact with predictable processes (thinking, breathing, digestion, etc.). Fundamentally, the processes rely upon energy created in each cell my mitochondria exchanging phosphate ions. This is known as the Krebs cycle and is the root of what we call metabolism. (Try here for starters: http://www.courseworld.com/bio/cellmetab.html)

Through energy metabolism, or metabolic rate, all activities of the body are performed. The ability to produce energy is finite at any point in time. Thus, the body has an "energy budget" at all times. The organism can "choose" where and how much energy to distribute to each of the body's components, but it cannot exceed the maximum output potential (the budget). (This is the source of Henrique's reference to ROI.)

For any testing of a single individual, the proper factor to target is energy usage - metabolism. Any such test is cumbersome at best. (With animals, respiration is frequently used as an indicator.)

After metabolism, the next best measure of value ("good" and "bad") is money. Money is a surrogate indicator of value in humans. Rubies and diamonds, gold and silver, are of no interest to bees, hedgehogs, or chickens (except maybe to swallow for use in their gizzards). Originally, there was no money, and all trade was done through bartering. Of course, trade assigns relative human value. Thus, money becomes a measuring device for an individual's personal value system as well as a culture and society as a whole.

Do people pay money to have raw sewage dumped in their homes (seek)? Or do they pay to have it removed (avoid)? Do people pay to get food and water (seek)? Or do they pay to eradicate it from the planet (avoid)? Do people walk outside for sunshine and fresh air (seek)? Or do they hide from it in a dark vacuum (avoid)? Further, do they give away all of their money for these, or do they find the cheapest way of getting each of the jobs done (ROI)?

If you want "simple," you lose the strength of integrated ideas (The Coherence Theory of Truth) - you lose "convincibility." You also lose the ability to tailor exacting experiments. If you choose "convincibility" and exacting experiments, you lose simplicity.

What do you want?
- a simple but workable layman's idea which is fraught with ambiguity and conjecture?
- or a tight integration of ideas from Aristotle, Heraclitus, Newton, Darwin, Spencer, Freud, Cannon, Duffy, Schrodinger, Maslow, Skinner, Plutchik, Solomon, Baars, Newman, McClelland, Keeran, Henriques, and many others which is exacting and testable?

If it's the latter, then go to my website. It's all there: www.theoryofmind.org (But even my website glosses over important detail found in the bibliographical references. A proper analysis and dissertation would make "War and Peace" look like a magazine.)

If you want something easy to test and measure which we all can relate to, then I suggest efficient use of money (ROI) and time. They can be used for laundry soap, combs, chairs, autos, electricity, music, food, water, and just about anything you can think of - including strolls on the beach for fresh air and sunshine.

 

[Jyera]

...snipe... Jyera, you seek a simple solution for an incredibly complex phenomena.

I do.
E=MC2 ; F=MA;
An experiment to show that light travels in straight line using pins, mirror and card board.
These are Simple "truth" and practical experiments.
These equations and experiment do not tell the full story, but they are simple, elegant and reliable starting point.

After diluting, over-simplifying, and generalizing a theoretical approach in order to create something comprehensible to laymen, the response is that it is too subjective, with aspects which are "easily defeated" (which you did not attempt to defeat ).

I appreciate VERY VERY much your extensive knowledge, and attempt to make it understandable.

I do not disagree with the statement:
"We constantly strive to feel as good as possible and avoid whatever makes us feel bad.”

But it is possible to find a person, or a moment of weakness in a person, where he is depressed, demoralised and suicidal. Such a person SEEK to feel as bad as possible.

"Constantly" is "easily defeated" if it means "all the time".

Once again, I appreciate your knowledge and willingness to attempt to convey it concisely, I know it is a tough job.

I have no intention to erode, what you believe, is the critical essence of the theories, you come to understand.

...snipe...energy system ....energy metabolism ..."energy budget" ... money .... values.

You talked about energy system, energy metabolism, "energy budget", money, values, ROI.

But what does these energy theories tell us about "thinking" ?

It does tells us about "why we think?". Which is to survive as a SPECIES by maintaining good ROI in terms of energy.

But your post has not SHOWN convincingly "how we think?".
I find it not convincing that, just because we need to manage our energy budget, therefore we have brain, and need to think, in order to achieve better ROI.

How about the other way round? Ie. I happen to have a brain to think, therefore I use it to improve my ROI in terms of energy.

In our case, I don't think it is important to know how human individuals use the brain and thinking to manage the energy budget.

If we are still standing around as individuals, we as a species, must have done something right for our species to be selected to be surviving. If a theory insists, that we must have structured our body, brain, and thinking process to make sensible use of our "energy budget", then so be it, I'm okay with it. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Trees must have relatively good ROI in terms of managing their "energy budget", they survived and they have the simplest approach to "thinking". Almost zero thinking. Just do it, and let natural selection do the job.

Do people pay money to have raw sewage dumped in their homes (seek)? Or do they pay to have it removed (avoid)? Do people pay to get food and water (seek)? Or do they pay to eradicate it from the planet (avoid)? Do people walk outside for sunshine and fresh air (seek)? Or do they hide from it in a dark vacuum (avoid)? Further, do they give away all of their money for these, or do they find the cheapest way of getting each of the jobs done (ROI)?

If I am god, I could design a world where creature strive based on "Seek Good" and "Avoid Bad".
But then I have to define Good and Bad. I not a creationist fan. But if I’m god, I would simply build the foundation for a neutral self sustaining system.

Most individual humans/creatures do what they think fancies them.
They do not, in general, strive to find the cheapest way of getting the jobs done.
It just happens that those that get the job done in the cheapest way have better chance to win. In fact if there is no competitive pressure, they can do it in the most expensive way they like. Even if there is competition, mother nature could reward the less energy efficient ones, and punish the most energy efficient ones.

 

[Jyera]

...
If you want "simple," you lose the strength of integrated ideas (The Coherence Theory of Truth) - you lose "convincibility." You also lose the ability to tailor exacting experiments. If you choose "convincibility" and exacting experiments, you lose simplicity.

What do you want?
- a simple but workable layman's idea which is fraught with ambiguity and conjecture?
- or a tight integration of ideas from Aristotle, Heraclitus, Newton, Darwin, Spencer, Freud, Cannon, Duffy, Schrodinger, Maslow, Skinner, Plutchik, Solomon, Baars, Newman, McClelland, Keeran, Henriques, and many others which is exacting and testable?

You provide only 2 options. I want option 3. Exacting experiment.
Exacting Experiment/s, with simple, objective, reliable, consistent, unambiguous result.

I’m fine with citing and integrating ideas of famous persons to have “convincibility”. But that is the art of persuasion, not scientific experiment.

Newton’s laws of physics are proven, via experiment, over and over again everyday by numerous students in school.

Just as in JREF million dollar challenge.
Make a Claim, Talk enough to describe how to test it. Do it. And See it.

 

[JAK]

I do.
E=MC2 ; F=MA;
An experiment to show that light travels in straight line using pins, mirror and card board.
These are Simple "truth" and practical experiments.
These equations and experiment do not tell the full story, but they are simple, elegant and reliable starting point.
...

Okay, we feed "success" and starve "failure." Success brings us happiness and life, failure brings us unhappiness and death.

There you have it - a simple, elegant (well ... maybe not elegant), and reliable starting point.

I will take any scenario as a test - from putting your shoes on to maintaining a political career, from playing a game to attending a funeral, from driving to work to listening to music on the beach, from a child's crayon scrawls on scrap-paper to an architect's blue prints, from being awake to being asleep.

Anything you think of is a valid test.

Let's proceed, shall we?

Jyera, please choose an idea, situation, activity, or feeling.

 

[JAK]

Anything you think of is a valid test.

Let's proceed, shall we?

Jyera, please choose an idea, situation, activity, or feeling.

Wow, that put a cork in the bottle.

Anyone else wish to pose a scenario?

 

[Jyera]

Okay, we feed "success" and starve "failure." Success brings us happiness and life, failure brings us unhappiness and death.

There you have it - a simple, elegant (well ... maybe not elegant), and reliable starting point.

These are just statements. They aren't mathematical formula neither are they a description of experiment that people can perform.

If these sentences are meant to be the essence of the theories you support, you may want to describe an experiment that everyone may do.

And thus providing support to your theories every time the experiment turn out in support to your theory.
On the other hand if the experiment fails, it immediately put to question the theory.

...snipe...
Anything you think of is a valid test.

Let's proceed, shall we?

Jyera, please choose an idea, situation, activity, or feeling.

I am unable to devise any test for you.
Because for every test I can think of, I would find loop holes.

Please devise a test/experiment for others to perform.

The test ought to be independent of scenarios.

 

[JAK]

Okay, Jyera, let's use your post as a test.

These are just statements.
...

The sentence, "These are just statements," is a gramatically correct english sentence. You could have typed this in innumerable ways:
"Are these just statements."
"Just statements are these."
"Statements just are these."
"Th es e ar e ju st st at em en ts . "
".stnemetats tsuj era esehT"
"Sjtuastteamreentthsese."
With your sentence, did you achieve what you wanted to do? If so, then you were successful. You "fed" your energy resources into what you wanted to achieve, and you were successful.

Meanwhile, you withheld your energy resources from the variations I presented. So, for whatever reasons, you avoided other variations you did not want. You "starved" other variations from your energy resources.

Moreover, you fed your energy into english rather than chinese or some other language. I suspect that you are bi-lingual, so english was a choice. If you are bi-lingual, then there will be some situations where english will produce effective communication (like on JREF). At other times, english will prove fruitless and a waste of time (perhaps in your native country). Thus, for you, sometimes english succeeds and sometimes it fails. It depends upon the situation.

Going a step higher, a sentence is a part of language. At the point in time you wrote your post, you "wanted" to use english, presumably because it has the widest audience on JREF and, thus, facilitates communication. You avoided other languages which would not have communicated your thoughts as well on JREF. Once again, you fed what you believed to be successful behaviors for JREF, and starved your other language talents which would have failed to be as effective if used on JREF. You fed success and starved failure. Conversely, in your home country, you likely starve english and feed your mother tongue which is far more effective for communication there.

Let's look at JREF itself. Posting on JREF is a choice. Even if it were "life and death," it is still a choice. Whatever your alternatives were at the time you posted (laundry, dinner, sleep, etc.), you chose to post on JREF. For the time taken to write your post, you fed energy into posting behaviors and starved other behaviors of energy.

Now, just for grins, let's suppose that a couple minutes into your post, you were overcome by an uncontrolable urge to eat an apple. So you stopped posting, ate an apple, and then returned to posting. This would be an example of the progressive formation and destruction of perceptual gestalts (Gestalt psychology). During the time of the sudden urge, your priorities shifted, and to continue to post while denying the apple urge was suddenly deemed "failure" for you (or less successful), and you shifted your energy into alternate behaviors which you deemed more successful (apple eating). Once the apple urge was satisfied, the old urge to post re-established itself.

They aren't mathematical formula neither are they a description of experiment that people can perform.

You obviously believe a mathematical formula or experiment are pertinent. Thus, you fed your energy into communicating this thought. Not only did you feed the thought, but you fed the circuits that control the fingers of your hands for typing. You also fed the circuits which select the behavior of communication.

Moreover, mathematics are human processes we have devised. They are, thus, behaviors. Similarly, every experiment requires human thought and behavior.

Further, though you wish to avoid "scenarios," once you plug numbers into a mathematical formula or put objects into an experiment, you have just created a scenario.

I will gladly take and mathematical formula or scientific experiment and show how it relates to the underlying concept of "feed success and starve failure."

If these sentences are meant to be the essence of the theories you support, you may want to describe an experiment that everyone may do.

And thus providing support to your theories every time the experiment turn out in support to your theory.
On the other hand if the experiment fails, it immediately put to question the theory.

Because it is formed around thermodynamics, it has never failed in over 20 years. It is not possible to create an experiment devoid of energy. At this very moment, you are traveling at over 100,000 kilometers per hour.

Humans are energy systems. We manage our energy resources. If we feed them into successful behaviors, we survive. If not, we die. Further, the quality of life is directly affected by our management of energy. The better we manage our energy resources, the better our quality of life.

I am unable to devise any test for you.
Because for every test I can think of, I would find loop holes.

So you "seek" an ironclad test with no loop holes. You have fed energy into devising such a test, but you have failed to achieve your goal. Having failed, it seems that you have stopped looking. For a while, you "fed" the "search for ironclad test" behavior, but you have since given up and now "starve" the "search for ironclad test" behavior.

Okay, let's look at any of your tests. Choose one. What loop holes do you see?

Please devise a test/experiment for others to perform.

The test ought to be independent of scenarios.

I see it everywhere, constantly - from corporate budgets to government funding, from climbing stairs to sporting events, from compassion to anger. Everything is a vaild test to me. And I test it over and over and over, day after day after day. There is NOTHING that isn't a test.

Everything is "success/fail." Have you reached to pick up a pencil? Were you successful? Have you tried to put shoes on? Were you successful? Have you gone outside to enjoy a wonderful day and to feel great? Were you successful? Have you gone to bed to rest and sleep? Were you successful?

And most of all, are you happy with life? That is the ultimate success. The more fulfilled you are, the happier you are, and the more wonderful you feel - these are the things of life.

Let's try this: write a 1 hour diary. Take an hour of activity during your day. Write down a summary of what you're doing and why. The reason "why" can be: "I needed a new hat" or "I was hungry" or "I was going to work" or "Because I wanted to" or any other reason that sounds good to you. Next, post your diary and we'll use it for a test. We can put it to the Aristotle test ("happiness is the ultimate end").

 

[JAK]

...

Everything is "success/fail." Have you reached to pick up a pencil? Were you successful? Have you tried to put shoes on? Were you successful? Have you gone outside to enjoy a wonderful day and to feel great? Were you successful? Have you gone to bed to rest and sleep? Were you successful?

And most of all, are you happy with life? That is the ultimate success. The more fulfilled you are, the happier you are, and the more wonderful you feel - these are the things of life.
...

Things have gotten mighty quiet again ...

Is everyone so satisfied with my explanation that no one has a question or a test?

 

[FreeChile]

Okay, we feed "success" and starve "failure." Success brings us happiness and life, failure brings us unhappiness and death.

There you have it - a simple, elegant (well ... maybe not elegant), and reliable starting point.

I will take any scenario as a test - from putting your shoes on to maintaining a political career, from playing a game to attending a funeral, from driving to work to listening to music on the beach, from a child's crayon scrawls on scrap-paper to an architect's blue prints, from being awake to being asleep.

Anything you think of is a valid test.

Let's proceed, shall we?

Jyera, please choose an idea, situation, activity, or feeling.

It isn't clear what you mean by success, by failure, by feeding, by starving. After all, success and failure are not living things that you can feed like pigeons. Maybe you can form these statements in a more literate sense. I don’t mean literate in a derogatory way, as in illiterate—I mean without metaphors.

I understand you are talking about conservation of energy and the process of directing one’s energy towards a goal. However, you make it sound as if you could “feed” or give energy to this goal. The goal itself is non-existent at the time you direct your energy. Therefore, you cannot feed it. You can only feed what exists.

What you seem to be saying sounds to me like football where you want to hit a goal. Players direct their energy in the direction of this goal. They prepare for the game and they play the game the best they can. This is a projection and not an eventuality. In the end, only one team will win, in the usual sense of winning. Yet both teams would have put energy into the game. However, even within the winning team, the sense of winning may be different. Some take winning to mean having played, others may take it to mean defeating the opposing team, others may take it to mean getting paid.

Perhaps you can say precisely what it is that the energy is being transformed into in this model—potential, kinetic, atomic, etc. Physically speaking, it makes no difference where energy goes—whether it ends up in a failure or a success is irrelevant. You could see this if you replaced the word failure by success and vice-versa in your posts. It would all make the same logical sense. For example,

“With your sentence, did you fail to achieve what you wanted to do? If so, then you were successful. You "fed" your energy resources into what you did not want to achieve, and you were successful.”

Finally, how would the human tendency to self-destruct fit into this model? I guess we could think of self-destruction as a goal, or we could think of it as a failure to succeed. How is a failure to succeed represented in your model?

 

[JAK]

It isn't clear what you mean by success, by failure, by feeding, by starving. After all, success and failure are not living things that you can feed like pigeons.

Actually, you do feed success and starve failure. Any thought you have, and muscle you move requires increased blood flow into that area. For the brain, changes in blood flow is monitored with positron emission tomography (PET) and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. The theory is that when an area of the brain is active, it will use more blood (nutrients and oxygen). However, quite literally, those parts of the brain which are active are getting fed more nutrients and oxygen via the blood than other less active or inactive parts. My contention is that one of the restorative factors of sleep is an even distribution of blood to the brain to "feed" any and all neurons that did not get sufficient nourishment during the day. (I believe a case could be made for having diverse interests, thoughts, and actions just so that the brain is exercised more fully during waking hours.)

Now, if any behavior has worked for you in the past, you are likely to reuse it in the future. When you do so, the neural circuits involved receive greater blood flow at that time. Let's take your football example. When a player runs down the field, the chosen behavior is "running." For however long it takes to get down the field, the neural circuits which comprise "running" are all getting more blood flow than the circuits which comprise "changing a light bulb." "Running" is fed, and "changing a light bulb" is starved.

Later, after the game, the player may actually change a light bulb, a behavior which is usually in conflict with "running." At that time, "changing a light bulb" is fed and "running" is starved.

Even at a minute level, this feeding/starving occurs. "Running" is actually a complex sequencing of muscle activations and deactivations. As each muscle is needed, a neural circuit is activated to contract the muscle (muscles only contract). Blood flow is then increased to both muscle and circuit. Thus, both muscle and neural circuit are "fed" together.

Now, as the muscle/neural circuit are deactivated, blood flow decreases and the "feeding" tapers off. And herein lies the first problem with the "feed/starve" explanation. "Feed" and "starve" imply an "on/off" switch. In truth, all of our muscles and neural circuits are more like rheostat switches. The are turned up or turned down. As a result, all of our circuits/memories are fed in a variety of ways and at varying levels. So, the "feeding" and "starving" are only relative to each other. Some are fed more while others are fed less. At the end of the day, some muscles/circuits have been fed more blood (nutrients and oxygen) than others. These tend to grow in strength (Hebb's Law for the neural circuits). Those that have been fed less tend to atrophy (relatively).

To make matters more complex, some of the muscles used for running are also used for changing a light bulb. And the same is true for neural circuitry. Some neurons have many connections - literally thousands of the them. With each connection comes the ability to participate in multiple thoughts and behaviors. Though it is not proven, it seems possible that a single neuron may be part of a blue sky in memory as well as part of a chirp in a bird's song. This is similar to your computer's screen. The many pixels don't move, yet they are used in many different pictures. This would benefit the "feeding" in that it increases the likelihood of any neuron getting its share of nutrients during the day since it may participate in a diverse set of behaviors and memories.

...
Perhaps you can say precisely what it is that the energy is being transformed into in this model—potential, kinetic, atomic, etc. Physically speaking, it makes no difference where energy goes—whether it ends up in a failure or a success is irrelevant.
...

Kinetic and potential energy are all that is needed. Potential energy is within the nutrients delivered to each cell (muscle, neuron, etc.), and kinetic energy is created via the Krebs cycle in the mitochondria of each cell. By the deft orchestration of this process, the multitude of human thoughts and behaviors are created.

You could see this if you replaced the word failure by success and vice-versa in your posts. It would all make the same logical sense. For example,

“With your sentence, did you fail to achieve what you wanted to do? If so, then you were successful. You "fed" your energy resources into what you did not want to achieve, and you were successful.”

I believe the meaning has changed. If you "fail to achieve what you wanted to do," then your were UNsuccessful. Yes, you fed your energy into something which "failed," but failure was not the intention. (With humor, sometimes the intention is to fail. In that case, failure is success. This, too, fits the model, but let's not go there until you fully understand the basics.)

Abraham Maslow stated that at any point in time, we can place all of our likes and dislikes, all of our desires and hatred, all of our whims and distains, and all of our needs and goals into a hierarchy of "wants." You want to eat. You want to go to the store. You want to pick up a pencil. The football player wants to run down the field.

With the hierarchy, somethings are "wanted" more or less. When running, the football player wants to run "down" the field more than running "up" the field. Yet, in the blink of an eye, the ball is kicked the other way, and suddenly the player wants to run "up" the field more than "down" it. The hierarchy is not stagnant but very dynamic. All Maslow said was that a hierarchy is always there. (This sets up decision-making as a "survival of the fittest" competition.)

This hierarchy of "wants" is basically a prioritizing system. That which is most important to you at the moment takes charge either in thoughts or both thoughts and outward actions. The "want" that is on top of the heap is the immediate goal. For the football player, that is likely "keeping an eye" on the ball. (When you watch a football game, how often are players looking away from the ball?) Concentrating on the location of the ball is top priority. That is the intention or "goal" of the moment.

...
Finally, how would the human tendency to self-destruct fit into this model?
...

Wow, let's crawl before we walk, walk before we run, and run before we fly. Dr. Gregg Henriques is a specialist in suicide, and he has an adjunct model called the Behavioral Shutdown Model which does much to answer your question. Natural selection also comes to bear - the ability to self-sacrifice has benefits to the species.

...
How is a failure to succeed represented in your model?

If the behavior fails to achieve what is intended, the offending behavior is either modified (to fix the problem) or returned to the archive. Archived behaviors are never trashed in case they (either in part or in whole) be brought forth for some unforeseen purpose. (A humorous story about one's own failings or the failings of another has benefits for social communication.)

Thank you, FreeChile, for your questions. Such questions not only help clarify ideas for others, but usually for me, too.

 

[BPScooter]

Wonderful detail, great, JAK. I'm reading Damasio just now and re-reading Sacks so I suppose I'm about 10 years behind on my reading list. Any thoughts on what it takes for a musician to read music at sight? I'm guessing, in the best case, this sort of loop: visual perception, early sensory cortex, that triggers auditory, cognitive, and motor representations of the musical pattern (but auditory image is most important), motor program is initiated (put left index finger just *there* breathe that way, and move the tongue just *so* to create the articulation). Monitor results, adjust, and simultaneously plan the next thing. In a way no different from football, but just different modalities, right? A football team with a moving ball could be analogous to a great improvisational group or chamber orchestra, monitoring the moment with tremendous attention and skillled response.

I can just tell I'm not even close. It's the way that a great artist plays that pitch, the sum of sound plus what we'd have to call artistic cognitive knowledge (of the way Mozart vs. Wagner vs. Ellington) would have imagined that note to sound) plus some playful imagination. Just to sight-read a melody on a clarinet.

I'm way more interested in neurology than theology, at least at the moment. More mysteries.

 

[JAK]

Wonderful detail, great, JAK. I'm reading Damasio just now and re-reading Sacks so I suppose I'm about 10 years behind on my reading list.

Any thoughts on what it takes for a musician to read music at sight? I'm guessing, in the best case, this sort of loop: visual perception, early sensory cortex, that triggers auditory, cognitive, and motor representations of the musical pattern (but auditory image is most important), motor program is initiated (put left index finger just *there* breathe that way, and move the tongue just *so* to create the articulation). Monitor results, adjust, and simultaneously plan the next thing. In a way no different from football, but just different modalities, right? A football team with a moving ball could be analogous to a great improvisational group or chamber orchestra, monitoring the moment with tremendous attention and skillled response.

I can just tell I'm not even close. It's the way that a great artist plays that pitch, the sum of sound plus what we'd have to call artistic cognitive knowledge (of the way Mozart vs. Wagner vs. Ellington) would have imagined that note to sound) plus some playful imagination. Just to sight-read a melody on a clarinet.

I believe that in some ways you are very close. IMO, your reference to "sort of loop" and "monitor results, adjust and simultaneously plan" are right on target. Here is info off of my website, www.theoryofmind.org:

As Walter B. Cannon explained:

"If a state remains steady, it does so because any tendency towards change is automatically met by increased effectiveness of the factor or factors which resist the change. ... If changes threaten, indicators at once signal the danger, and corrective agencies promptly prevent the disturbance or restore the normal when it has been disturbed." (Cannon, 1932, 1967. Pg. 299, 303)

This principle also underlies William T. Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT):

"When a disturbance occurs, a control system acts automatically to oppose the incipient change in the controlled variable. ... perceptual control theory says that behavior is not produced by computing output; it is produced by comparing inputs with desired inputs, and using the difference to drive output." (Powers, 1990.)

Remarkably, descriptions of the hypothalmus are perfectly in accord with Cannon and Powers:

"Factors such as blood pressure, body temperature, fluid and electrolyte balance, and body weight are held to a precise value called the set-point. Although this set-point can migrate over time, from day to day it is remarkably fixed. ... To achieve this task, the hypothalamus must receive inputs about the state of the body, and must be able to initiate compensatory changes if anything drifts out of whack." (Molavi, et al., 1997. pg. 1,2)

The feedback system can also be understood with Bernard Baars "theater of consciousness" analogy. Parts of the brain create images (sounds, etc) on the mind's "stage." Other parts of the brain receive these mental constructs as input. These are the "audience" parts of the brain. After the "audience" reacts to the stimuli, they send new commands to the "stagehands" who make the adjustments you noted. These commands include selecting the next behavioral and emotional suite.

However, this conscious manipulation is very time-consuming and resource intensive. The brain tries to "optimize" any such behaviors. In doing so, they fall below conscious control. Playing the clarient is a good example. Remember when you were just learning to play and you had to look and hunt for the correct tab/button to push? Then you looked at the finger you were to use and watchfully placed it on the tab/button. Later, after practicing for hours (or longer) your "fingers" seemed to know where to go without your conscious involvement. Your brain "optimized" the process creating a "habit" which was more efficient and faster. Now your conscious mind could focus on other ideas such as emphasis on certain notes and adjusting the speed with which you played - even improvising.

Sight-reading is just another example of this optimization. But you can see it everywhere in your life from riding a bicycle, feeding yourself, dressing, typing, driving, dancing - even simple walking. That, too, was once an arduous task and major accomplishment in all of our lives. All of these became "second nature" or "habits" which no longer require conscious control. They became "optimized" behaviors running more efficiently and faster at a lower or "subconscious" level.

I believe you may benefit from reading my website along with some other sources noted therein.

 

[BPScooter]

Once again, wonderful post and great website, JAK. I have some learning to do, along with my teaching.

Those of us that start from a subjective, artistic, even "literary" background only have our intuitions confirmed by neuroscience. When the evidence comes in bit by bit, it is great to bring the 2 together. Music is one of the high level cognitive areas that allows, say Jeff Beck, or Richard Wagner, to touch the common man in some way. If you think it through, too much, then your music becomes remote. If the music retains some of the basic rhythms and tones that belong to our common heritage, then it stays in our minds.

I challenge any and all of us to sit through a good execution of "Beethoven's 7th Symphony" without either palpitating or shedding a tear. It has it all, vibrant loudness and funereal quiet. The perplexing part is that LVB was just some old white dead guy old Viennese/German composer dude. Somehow he "knew" how to manipulate human emotion, through his musical choices.

 

[JAK]

...
Those of us that start from a subjective, artistic, even "literary" background only have our intuitions confirmed by neuroscience. When the evidence comes in bit by bit, it is great to bring the 2 together. Music is one of the high level cognitive areas that allows, say Jeff Beck, or Richard Wagner, to touch the common man in some way. If you think it through, too much, then your music becomes remote. If the music retains some of the basic rhythms and tones that belong to our common heritage, then it stays in our minds.
...

It was music that led me to my breakthrough of 1985. Listening to melodies and perceiving their emotional effects in me played a central role in setting up my concept of "tension levels" which ebbed and flowed with the music. I had been trapped, as many others have been, with how the "tension levels" related to love, inspiration, angst, peace, etc. But I suddenly realized that the focus should be just the opposite. The tension levels were the important idea, and they must be manifestations of energy. With that, it quickly tied into thermodynamics, systems, and all fell into place with "efficiency" as the cornerstone. In six weeks, the basic structure fell into place. By 1997, when my website was published, a lot more "meat was on the bone."

The complexity of human emotion is best recognized through music. And we have far, far, more emotions than we have names or descriptions of. The intricacies of musical interplay highlight how truly amazing feelings are.

I spent years investigating subtleties of crescendo, diminuendo, fermata, fortissimo, etc. and their emotional effects. For instance, minute pauses tend to give a sense of reluctance. (However, some can show "anticipation" depending upon placement.) Lack of these pauses (smooth and flowing melodies) tends to bring a sense of freedom and joy. Placement of these pauses and their length is crucial. Slowly increasing the length of pauses in a stair-step downward melody may express a reluctant loss.

If you would like to discuss "music and emotion" with me off-line, send me a PM.

 

[Jyera]

Tone Deaf and thinking

Some people are so called "tone deaf" by their friends.
They are unable to realise that they are singing out of tune.
In fact they think they are singing in tune.

Some not "totally deaf", but just unable to discern slight inaccuracy in the tone.

1. Why are people tone deaf ? (From brain and thinking point of view)

2. What does an incident of "tone deaf" tells us about the way their brain works? Ie. how they think, recall and retain a memory?

3. It seemed to me that it is tough to "cure" a person from "tone deaf" ? Do you have similar observation?

4. The more times a person sing a song in a slightly wrong tune in his shower, the more this "wrong" "habit" get stuck to the person.

 

[BPScooter]

OK, just a quick response but I haven't a great deal to say anyway--

Whether or not a person's singing is judged by others to be "in tune" or "out of tune" is in large measure a cultural thing. I have training in Western music and still have a hard time listening to gamelan from Indonesia, or Indian sitars, because a big part of me wants it to conform to the 12 tone scale. When it doesn't, over a long period, I feel fatigued and overwhelmed.

If a person fails to conform to the tuning of their native culture, when singing, it leads me to suspect that the person lacks either enough grounding in that system to give them a reference point in their mind, or that they are producing their singing tone in such a way that they are reacting more to bone conduction than acoustic feedback. That's why we like to "sing in the shower" I think, because we get a little chance to hear our voices resonate in a chamber that gives our ears something new to do.

My approach would be to seek real feedback, not electronic karaoke-style, on what the voice is doing. Good voice teachers start with that, get the student singing freely with a natural tone, with healthy breathing, and then have them listen, listen, listen to themselves during the process.

It is essential that the learner have an internally consistent harmonic reference. The piano is the usual one, but a well-tuned guitar is fine too. One needs to hear the overtones of in-tune intervals, at great length, to the point where they are internally mapped and can be used as references.

So the "tone deaf" problem is probably some combination of sub-optimal singing (motor) technique combined with sub-optimal memory (audiation of references) plus some social skills deficit (insisting on singing when others beg them to stop). Just so you don't get mad at me, I don't sing too well but have gotten better.

 

[JAK]

...
Whether or not a person's singing is judged by others to be "in tune" or "out of tune" is in large measure a cultural thing. I have training in Western music and still have a hard time listening to gamelan from Indonesia, or Indian sitars, because a big part of me wants it to conform to the 12 tone scale. When it doesn't, over a long period, I feel fatigued and overwhelmed.

If a person fails to conform to the tuning of their native culture, when singing, it leads me to suspect that the person lacks either enough grounding in that system to give them a reference point in their mind ...

This is a very interesting area of the mind. A good chapter in COGNITION: Conceptual and Methodological Issues (ISBN#1-55798-165-5) seems related to this. In "The Organization and Reorganization of Categories: The Case of Speech Perception" chapter by James J. Jenkins, he discusses research as to why Japanese and Americans (U.S.) have troubles with each other's language. In paticular, the Japanese truly do not hear a difference between the /r/ and the /l/.

As it turns out, our ability to learn language is like a lump of clay. By the end of our first year, this "clay" becomes sculpted by the indigenousness (cultural) language. Sensitivities to sounds not needed by the cultural language are, effectively, "cut out" of the mind and discarded.

I once spoke about this to an acquaintance born in Moscow. She gave me a russian word to pronounce which I attempted. To me, my verbal repsonse sounded identical to what she said. But she responded every time by shaking her head and saying, "no, try again," whereupon she would say the word again. I couldn't hear the difference in sound. I was obviously "tone deaf" to something in that particular russian word. It was eerie having the tables turned on me.

If our musical growth has a similar "path," then BPscooter's comment about "... not enough grounding in that system ..." appears to be a very strong candidate. It would also point to a reason for his being "fatigued and overwhelmed" by listening to music from another culture. Moving outside one's cultural heritage would definitely stretch ones listening abilities - something like using muscles you hadn't used for many, many years.

Regarding music specifically, an experiment (forgive me for not having a reference) was done with mice growing up with constant music. I believe one heard nothing but Schumann while the other heard strictly Strauss, Schubert, or some other composer whose last name begins with "S". After conditioning, when given a choice of habitats where one or the other music played, each mouse chose the music it had grown up with.

As an aside, while a-Googlin' for the reference to the mice experiment, I came across this heart-warming tale about Krissy who survived a premature birth seemingly due to Mozart being played at her bedside: http://hs.riverdale.k12.or.us/~dthompso/exhib_03/jasonc/Research_Paper.html

Back to the point, this area highlights the term, qualia. Essentially, everything we perceive is filtered and modified by the brain before we realize it within the mind. Colors and sounds are mental interpretations, and we do not know what has been filtered in and what has been filtered out. Moreover, the red you see may not be the red that I see. We both acknowledge it is red, but our personal mental image may differ - even if only slightly. This is most notable with "color blindness" which is a sort of a "tone deafness" for the eyes.

 

[Jyera]

....snipe ....
So the "tone deaf" problem is probably some combination of sub-optimal singing (motor) technique combined with sub-optimal memory (audiation of references) plus some social skills deficit (insisting on singing when others beg them to stop). Just so you don't get mad at me, I don't sing too well but have gotten better.

Your 3 components Sounds Sensible to me.

1. Motor ability and Technique.
2. Memory (Audiation or reference).
3. Social skill/adaptation.

To analyse...

With Good 1 and 2, 3 is non critical.

With Good 2, the singer will realise his inaccuracy.
And will not sing out of tune unless he intend to irritate.

With Poor 2 and 1, the singer is likely to be your typical "tone deaf" singer who sincerely attempt to sing his best in vain.

 

[Jyera]

This is a very interesting area of the mind. A good chapter in COGNITION: Conceptual and Methodological Issues (ISBN#1-55798-165-5) seems related to this. In "The Organization and Reorganization of Categories: The Case of Speech Perception" chapter by James J. Jenkins, he discusses research as to why Japanese and Americans (U.S.) have troubles with each other's language. In paticular, the Japanese truly do not hear a difference between the /r/ and the /l/.
...snipe...

Anyone can ascertain if japanese are unfamiliar with /r/ or /l/. ?