Neuron Generation and the mind's value system

[Kriminal99]

I have read recently that scientists are beginning to see that the brain is capable of producing new neurons, perhaps indicating an ability to create increased mental capacity.

 

Response to enviornment?

 

Suppose the brain only bothers to do this sometimes (which has been observed to be the case). Therefore it may be that it is done in response to the enviornment rather than as part of some automatic process, since the enviornment is a random enough input to cause random production of neurons.

 

What system controls it?

 

Then if we are to connect brain processes to our consciousness, we must ask what could control this production of neurons. We cannot simply will it to be, as this would have been seen by scientists already and it would give us way to much control over our own processes which would have caused issues. There is only one reasoning system that is capable of taking input from the enviornment and controlling physical processes according to it: our subconsious.

 

What might indicate it has decided to take action?

 

We might ask what value system our "subconsious" (which through other arguments is connected to the physical processes of the brain) might put on our interactions with the enviornment. But in truth we already know that different feelings are an indication that the subconsious has attributed value to an experience. If we are not experiencing any extreme emotions or feelings at any given time, then we have no evidence that the subconsious has placed any value on current experiences. Also we see that we experience more emotion the more a given experience is relevant to our goals.

 

Which feeling might correlate with neuron generation?

 

So the next question would be which feeling might correlate with neuron generation? Although it is purely speculation, consider the evolutionary soundness and logical value of each feeling coinciding with neuron generation:

 

Joy or attainment of a goal - Unnecessary

 

Anger - Evolutionarily sound, but we know anger to impede short term memory and learning and cause you to just look for the most well tested way to force your desires on the world. Also only occurs when you believe yourself to be empowered with respect to the situation.

 

Extreme Physical and perhaps other kinds of Stress - A likely suspect

 

Several emotions that can be reasoned to simply be combinations of others combined with the context of the situation were left off.

 

It is possible that there is some complex reason why we might generate neurons under each emotion, but logically physical stress is most likely.

 

Joy would mean we already have what we want and do not need more learning ability to obtain it, and anger only occurs when we think we can just take what we want.

 

Physical stress however logically means you are encountering a difficult situation, and looking at it from the evolutionary prospective increased ability to learn would be most helpful when an animal is in this situation.

 

One might consider other kinds of stress also, but from the introspective point of view they are not likely candidates due to lack of intensity. Perhaps if you were to be as emotionally distraught as you are in that dream where you are naked in front of all of your peers, but such intensity rarely occurs other than during life defining moments. Otherwise everyday stress are just far less potent versions of this combined with anger.

 

On the other hand, people often report waking up in the middle of the night with a million ideas going through their head. If only we could know what they were dreaming about prior to this and test their brain for neuron generation. But even if stress of that type is capable of producing it also, we at least have control over placing ourselves in physically stressful environments.

 

A personal illustration

 

My own personal experience also indicates that physical activity has some ability to increase the capacity to learn. I often find myself on these forums after a particularly difficult workout and ideas are flying through my head at 200 mph.

 

However a more personal story demonstrates an increased ability to form relations after physical stress. In my first relationship (at 19) I experienced a minor degree of impotency. Some experts I consulted describe this kind of impotency to be caused by lack of early interaction with members of the opposite sex (Not just no dating but complete lack of early interaction), such that you are missing connections between those basic instinctively attractive patterns of appearance for females, and how I see a specific female as she is.

 

I worked out on a regular basis and noticed that I had a little more ability to get excited after a good workout. I tried working out before every day with little success. Then I remembered something about working out - the more you get used to doing the same routine the less your body reacts to the workout. It is called plateauing in fitness terms. I also realized that when I did a routine I experienced less kinds of stress than when I first started a new kind of workout or after working out for the first time after a period of not working out.

 

So I tried to make my workout as stressful as possible by jumping from machine to machine with no downtime. As a result, my sex drive increased dramatically in the next day or so (and since then I have had no problem "getting it up") and I also felt a drastically increased ability to learn as ideas flew through my head in the aforementioned fashion and as I picked up actuarial studies from a quick glance at the chapter I was to begin studying...

[Kriminal99]

A couple other things:

 

First, children are under more environmental stress than we are as they are constantly surprised hurt etc by the things that go on around them. It is possible that this system of neuron generation is entirely controlled by stress rather than behaving automatically up to a certain age. People who learn slower than others might just set aside entire categories of understanding of their enviornment when they are unable to recognize their value by certain experiences.

 

For instance ability for a person to consider they could be wrong about anything - it may take a particular enlightening or embarrassing experience to cause a person to be more open minded towards other points of view.

 

Also there can be a connection made between inductive reasoning ability and intellectual ability. Early philosophers reduced human thought into two types, inductive and deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is recognizing patterns that repeat themselves. If the sun raises every other day it will probably rise tomorrow. Deductive reasoning combines premises formed by inductive reasoning in a way that necessitates further information. If the sun rises tomorrow, and a risen sun produces light across the land, there will be light across the land tomorrow.

 

However deductive reasoning could simply be an early recognized inductive premises. How often are the logical consequences of things traits true? How often does A =A ? Always.

 

Therefore capacity to learn could be entirely attributed to inductive reasoning or ability to recognize patterns.

[HydrogenBond]

An interesting observation, that can shed some light, is the human body, through input, such as food, drink and breathing, and constant waste output, causes the atoms of the entire body to replace themselves about every seven years or so. So if you moved to entirely different part of the world, and lived off the land, the atoms of your body would become composed of the atoms from that place in about seven years. You are the same person, just your atomic parts are now from that place.

 

If you look at a neuron, they too are in an atomic flux. For example, the membrane is composed of a lipid sea. New atoms constantly go into the sea, at the same time other atoms are being removed. This constant state of atomic flux is sort of like the saying, water under the bridge. Our memories are affected by this, and although they stay the same, we gain an evolving perspective. An analogy are the streams that flow into a river. The river (memories) doesn't fundmentally change, but depending on the edd and flow of the streams, the river can become slightly alterred.

 

Neurons form branches which can grow and also contract. The lipid sea, through our experiences, imagination and sensory input, can see heavy rain that causes the memory rivers to gain deltas and tributaries, as the branches grow and hook up. There are also lipid droughts where the old rivers narrow down and tributaries dry up as the neuron branches pull in. The passage of time and the change within the weather of experience, constantly alters our memories to give up an evolving perspective.

 

If one wanted to add more neurons to this analogy, often when rain is strong, the river can split in an attempt to divert the flow. It is possible that exercise, because it puts a stress on the body, and the body needs to rebuild, might stimulate the atomic replacement. It may cause the normal drizzle of atomic replacement, to become a gentle rain.

 

In practical reality, I believe the brain of a small child has the most neurons. Many of these die back and the ones that remain fill in the space with branches. There is a practical problem with adding new neurons, once the brain has already created a lot of branching. What would have to happen is the mother neuron would have to disconnect from the grid. She would be too busy preparing for the new daughter, such that the loss of her normal activity would cause a bad memory sector, or memory loss. At the same time, if another daughter neuron started to grow, it could cause the surrounding branches to slide, resulting in faulty synapses. Nature may have designed the brain to keep what we have and just add more branches and tributaries to the existing rivers. This adds new connections without having a adverse affect on the long term memory.

[Kriminal99]

You seem to be implying that the system of neuron branching is uncontrolled such that they are just going to start bumping into each other in unanticipated ways. If that were true how would this system allow us to realize memories and learning?

 

Is there any evidence that these negative interactions between nuerons actually occur? And if so, is there any reason to believe that they are not just the physical realization of a person figuring out that something they previously believed was not true?

 

Also many studies have noted increase in grey matter in response to learning new tasks like juggling. Obviously space is not as much of a limiting factor as you seem to be implying.

 

What is this mother neuron that must connect to all other neurons that you are referring to?

[HydrogenBond]

The mother neuron was only presented to describe the situation of a neuron trying to replicate itself. Like any dividing cell, the mother cell, is working on the needs of dividing. If this mother cell was a neuron, it would not be equiped to deal with all the exterior ion signals, it was wired into, with the same dexterity as it could, before it was about to give birth. All the internal scaffolding proteins, that hook into the dendrites and axons, need to dissociate so they can be shared. The result would be a dead memory zone connected to all the original wiring.

 

Where there was one cell, now there are two daughter cells. The daughter neurons would start wiring themselves internally with scaffolding proteins so the DNA is at the heart. But with two cells taking more space, as they grow, they will put the squeeze on neurons nearby, which could cause their hook-ups to slide. These neurons made these hook-ups with the assumption, this is restricted space. Neurons don't divide, because of the adverse affects. We would become scatter brained.

 

An interesting consideration is behavior and DNA. There is a debate whether behavior is preprogrammed into the brain and therefore within the genetics. This is not an easy physical correlation to make, although observation in nature seems to indicate that preprogramming does exist. Baby sea turtle hatchlings know to make a run for it. There is possible way where preprogramming can appear within the brain without it being on the DNA, directly. It only has to be on the DNA, indirectly.

 

As an analogy, say you are at a company picnic, in charge of the fun. Depending on the type of people who show up, will define what type of games you will play. If they are all jocks, then one may get a a game of football going. If there are a blend of all levels of ability, one may decide softball. If none are athletic it may be the egg toss and trivia.

 

Since all the cells of the body, more or less, have a nervous connection and these converge into larger branches to reflect an organ, for example, the brain sees the capability within the sum of its parts. It could be like the sports coordinator. Once DNA defines the capabilities, or the people who will show up to the picnic, then the brain adapts to this to make use of what is possible. The cat purrs because it has this ability. The dog can not purr, so this will not be part of the brains neural strategy. It can still move its mouth and make sounds, but this has limits. The unborn child in the womb, its brain is already testing out some of its abilities as it kicks. The brain is a learning entity, that can see what it has to work with.

 

In this scenario the DNA does not have to have the behavior chemically stored in it. It only has to make the basic brain dynamics and then define the capabilities of the machine. As for the newborn sea turtle, it has legs and needs water, so it is off and running. We can't get it to bark or do math problems, so this will not reflect in its innate behavior. This keeps the DNA simple, while also allowing a lot of subtle variations. Maybe it is not suppose to be a perfect process, to allow for advancements.

 

This neural strategy would extrapolate easier into the environment. It is not limited to one way, like a kidney cell. The capability is now being pertubated with input data, allowing the innate capacity to use the machine, with far more situational flexibility. The machine is better off working one way, so some things are consistent. This is the zero point for the brain, such that extrapolation into nature has limits.

[maikeru]

I have read recently that scientists are beginning to see that the brain is capable of producing new neurons, perhaps indicating an ability to create increased mental capacity.

 

The ability of the brain to create new neurons is called "neurogenesis" and it seems to take place in specific areas of the brain in adults, mainly the hippocampus and the ventricles. Or more specifically...

 

* The subventricular zone (SVZ) lining the lateral ventricles, where the new cells migrate to the olfactory bulb via the Rostral migratory stream

* The subgranular zone (SGZ), part of the dentate gyrus of hippocampus.

 

Neurogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

New cells migrating to the olfactory bulb help to renew and maintain our sense of smell.

 

New cells integrating *into* the hippocampus, however, might have a more interesting function. The hippocampus seems to be important in memory formation, encoding, sorting, storing, and retrieval. It is a "memory encoder and processor" of a sort. The way I see it, based on what I've read and thought about, is that increased neurogenesis in the hippocampus increases "mental flexibility" by increasing the number of neurons and total connections that can help form and process memories--that is, they enhance and refine the abilities of the hippocampus.

[Kriminal99]

@ HB...

 

I disagree. Why can't neurogenesis be limited to locations where it will not interfere with current memory? Are there no neurons which could reproduce safely?

 

What maikeru refers to, as well as what I have read seem to imply that they can.

 

Intergenerational memory?

 

I disagree with you somewhat about life not having intergenerational memory other than the brain's adaptive ability. Consider those herd animals which run with their herd as soon as they are born, which are even given birth to while the mother is running. Perhaps they learn to operate limbs in the womb as you say. But then, why do they run with the herd? I suppose you could say that they don't want to stop perceiving what they first see, and therefore run to keep it in sight. But this doesn't really seem to reflect what occurs- they hit the ground running so to speak (I wonder if that expression came from the animals I am referring to?)

 

Even in the turtle situation, the turtle can maybe move limbs, and maybe needs water. But how would it know that waddling towards the blue shiny pool is going to help satisfy its internal need for hydration?

 

Switching

 

I have read about a kind of "switching" caused by different scenarios being presented to a living organism. Where a predetermined set of programming is used when certain conditions are presented to an organism. I assume this extends to having or not having certain limbs and organs as you say, though I have not read about this yet.

 

I have read that the trigger need only be some kind of function of perceived events. Perhaps as the brain develops it looks at what faculties it has access to and develops accordingly by including predetermined maps as the brain starts to make connections.

 

Added faculties that our ancestors had

 

If my dna was altered to give me a sonar array and a bat voice similar to the ones bat used instead of sound, what do you think would happen? If I was altered as an adult to include it somehow?

 

You seem to be saying that your brain would adapt. I am saying that, if bats are in our evolutionary line, that the brain would already have some kind of blueprint for operation of these faculties. I am not sure whether it would have to be presented at an early age or if the brain could adapt later on.

 

I am not entirely convinced that it is a lack of ability for an adult brain to develop to allow new input to be processed rather than a lack of new input that causes an adult brain to develop less. This considering that perhaps older people are more likely to refuse to interpret new input as actually new input. Maybe if an extended period occurs with no new input, the brain loses its ability to adapt. But at least at a moderate age, I think showing new information to a brain may cause it to adapt.

 

The mind/brain's value system

 

I think that the value system for determining whether a preprogrammed set of instructions be retained has to do with inductive reasoning regarding whether or not it is useful. This is goes back to what I am saying is the mind's value system.

 

Emotions seem to be correlated with (from a purely introspective point of view) what a purely inductive faculty would determine regarding a given situation. The conscious mind seems to have the function of organizing groups of past experiences such that the highest success rate occurs in comparing future experiences to past determinations.

 

Intergenerational car driving ability?

 

If a person can learn to drive a car to the point where it became completely automatic, it might mean that the set of instructions for car driving has become solidified to the point where rarely does an unexpected situation occur while driving. I wonder if a child who was born with access to a vehicle might have some innate ability to operate it, carried from previous generations of car drivers?

 

Or perhaps the unexpected occurrences/traffic delays/etc are still too suspect to the mind to allow such operation. Perhaps only behaviors which carry 100% success rate are passed on. In this case one would expect to see an innate ability to turn a vehicle or drive forward, but no innate ability to deal with the road and traffic.

 

Flynn effect

 

It would also explain any part of the Flynn effect on intelligence that was not related to better education and nutrition. A person who determined that intellectual ability was useful in life, and that certain algorithms were always useful for investigating their surroundings might pass those algorithms on.

[HydrogenBond]

I agree that some neurons can regenerate. I was talking about the cerebral matter. There are other areas, such as those described by maikeru, whose actions are more based on biochemical output. The cells that line the ventricals are there to alter the CSF potentials so they can tweak cerebral matter. If these mother cells divide, there are many other cells doing the exact same thing, and can pick up the slack. But the neurons of the cerebral matter have specific memory connections.

 

Although it may be theoretically possible for the brain to have sort of a defrag routine, that shifts the memory, pulling neurons out of the loop, so they can safely replicate. But this has not been demonstrated.

 

The idea of the brain having software preprogrammed into the brain, from birth, fits many observations. For example, take a kitten from a mother cat, before it is old enough to learn anything, and it will still turn out to be a cat with all the cat skills. To explaining this, is easier with the behavior already preprogrammed in the brain. The mechanism of how this forms is not clear. It is not obvious with respect to the DNA, since one complex behavior would require tmore han one gene. One gene is one protein. To have one gene defining a behavior would be like programming a robot to walk, using only one line of code. Say it takes a thousands lines of code for this one behavior, that means 1000 genes or 100's genes in loops. This would be a very diffucult genetic control system to analyze.

 

That is why I proposed the brain making the most of what the DNA can provide. The brain has this DNA machine at its disposal and it own basic learning capability, generically defined by the DNA. But being a type of natural learning computer, it can take the DNA machine to the next step. It is sort of like having a machine, with certain design capabilities, such as a backhoe. It is designed for digging. But with a little neural ingenuity one can use it to lift someone to up high in a tree to pick fruit, or use the bucket to crush coconuts to get at the food inside the shell. This may not have been part of the DNA design, but it is part of its possiblities.

 

The next logical thing would be since the brain can extend the orginal genetic design into new functionality, but it has to stay within the design paramters, it is possible the brain can also tweak the DNA during the next fertilization cycle. The next offspring now has more of this capibility in it genetic design. This connection is harder to address unless one includes hydrogen potential. Or hydrogen potential is continuous throughout the body, such that the brain should be able to tweak cells.

 

Let me give an example, that one can do for themselves. Think of a tasty food or an atrractive member of the opposite sex, in the imagination. The changes in either hunger or desire can be traced back to certain cells in the brain. The thought command line tweaks these cells. The changes in the chemical output to sustain the hunger or the desire, can be traced back to genes on the DNA of these cells. So if you add it all together, the thought command line tweaked DNA. For the entire brain to focus itself on gamete cells is not out of the question. These are in a genetic flux where genes either separate or shuffle. That is the best time to tweak it, so the steady shape has the new capability. One is not adding any new genes, since the original design was sufficient. One is merely making some genes more involved as part of the new design parameters. This allows the brain to assist the next generation of brain companions.

 

Human free will shows the human brain, using consciousnes, able to break out of the genetic control system. We can't do anything that is not possible with the machine. But we are not limted to design parameters. This allows humans to hurt the machine or make it better.