Today I learned about bacillaria, a genus of diatom (microscopic algae), which exists in colonies and they do this crazy sliding move against each other, and I'm like "damn! great teamwork!"
My microbiologist in residence says, "There are lots of microbes that do things together such that unicellular/multicellular seems a little blurry." He says the cutest things.
My microbiologist in residence says, "There are lots of microbes that do things together such that unicellular/multicellular seems a little blurry." He says the cutest things.
Interesting. Not entirely convinced. Fascinating ideas about the nature and origin of thinking, awareness, consciousness, intelligence and/or language are easier to come up with than to prove.
We think of our brain as mostly a thinking and processing machine but the majority is focused towards motor controls. Which makes sense, since that’s our main interaction with the world through a motor response. More than this, it seems the ancient brain connections required to form long term memory are very spatially oriented and I would so no reason why some amount of spatial data isn’t encoded into virtually every stored memory as part of how it’s stored. Our outward appearance and motions also do indeed show more about our inner workings than we may want to show off. Take for example the little voice in many people’s heads when they make language thoughts, those are often sent to the vocal system but intercepted and stopped before you make the actual sounds.
Computers attached to neck nerves can start to ‘read’ someones thoughts, a potentially huge thing for disabilities but it’s not like people can watch your neck muscles twitch and read your mind, or well maybe. There are some cases of people who have lost the ability to process spoken language and once adapted to this world of pure visual communication with friends gained uncanny lie and emotion detection abilities, somehow seeming to know more of what’s going on than the people who understand the conversation.
This leads to dumb way over broad ‘science’ claims from people who want to write books and lock up ‘bad guys’ like the whole science of micro expressions bullshit which has been peddled as a forensic science. Like yes, outward expression of emotions through physical changes is something that happens but is almost certainly learned behavior we didn’t realize we were learning, either as a local cultural thing or our own personal ‘style’ which there in is the rube. Micro expression experts are acting like these are somehow physically ingrained expressions or so culturally broad that the usual suspects of grad/forensic students can be used as the only sample while the expressions are judged in an opinion based way. When it turns out you may just need to be friends with someone for years before you can read these expressions and they’ve been pointing fingers at people for no other reason than they twitched in the wrong way.
Micro expression experts are acting like these are somehow physically ingrained expressions or so culturally broad that the usual suspects of grad/forensic students can be used as the only sample while the expressions are judged in an opinion based way.
Just wait until it's applied to traffic stops and job interviews.
Oh wait, it already is, based on whether or not someone 'doesn't like your face'.
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
CGP Grey, on his YouTube and Podcasts, has recently had some interesting discussions (with Brady Haran of Numberphile fame, amongst others) about how people's internal thoughts differ - or at least how they describe those thoughts. Some of the ways they claim their brains are wildly different were:
When you imagine something, say an apple on a table, how strongly, if at all, do you form an internal visual image of it?
When you think about the route you take, say from your home to the shops, do you see the route from a first person, or third person viewpoint, or not 'see it' at all?
When you read, is there any internal vocalisation of what you're reading, and if so, is it in your own voice, or someone else's?
If anyone's interested in discussing these and similar topics here, maybe with polls, I suggest you start up some new threads - maybe in science, or maybe in the philosophy section?
My sister in law asked me if I'm always thinking about something. I said yes, don't you? She said no, sometimes I'm not thinking anything at all, it's completely quiet.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
Wrrd. I thought someone had already posted about the reducing brightness of red supergiant Betelguese - 11 times the mass of the sun and possibly 1000 times its diameter, reaching Mars and possibly Jupiter if it was where the sun is.
It's usually the 11th brightest in the sky, now down to position 24. People are superexcited that this might be a sign that it's about to go supernova.
Where "about" means possibly within the next 100,000 years.
Anyway, I can't find such a post, but there's more news - now it's looking irregular in shape!
It's probably not changing shape as such, rather that an upwelling of less luminous Betelguese-stuff is darkening a part of it - as if a sunspot on the sun covered a third of its surface.
Re: Drive by science
Linear Mode
