posts tagged ‘brain’
Decisiones…
22 March 2011 • out of context
tags: analysis, brain, perception, quotes, uncertainty
“(…) las emociones están situadas en el lóbulo temporal del cerebro. Si éste está dañado, el individuo afectado puede volverse incapaz de tomar decisiones, incluso las más intrascendentes, como en la consulta del médico escoger día y hora para la próxima visita, ya que analiza interminablemente los pros y los contras de esa decisión sin darse cuenta de la necesidad de tomar al menos una ya”.
La inteligencia emocional de los jueces
Angel Puyol
Engram
16 March 2011 • out of context
tags: brain, memory, perception, quotes, science
“Engrams are a hypothetical means by which memory traces are stored as biophysical or biochemical changes in the brain (and other neural tissue) in response to external stimuli.
They are also sometimes thought of as a neural network or fragment of memory, sometimes using a hologram analogy to describe its action in light of results showing that memory appears not to be localized in the brain. The existence of engrams is posited by some scientific theories to explain the persistence of memory and how memories are stored in the brain. The existence of neurologically defined engrams is not significantly disputed, though their exact mechanism and location has been a focus of persistent research for many decades.”
Saccade
16 March 2011 • out of context
tags: brain, perception, quotes, senses, sight
“A saccade (pronounced /səˈkɑːd/, sə-KAHD) is a fast movement of an eye, head or other part of an animal’s body or device. It can also be a fast shift in frequency of an emitted signal or other quick change. Saccades are quick, simultaneous movements of both eyes in the same direction. Initiated by eye fields in the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain, saccades serve as a mechanism for fixation, rapid eye movement and the fast phase of optokinetic nystagmus.”
Heterotopia
7 March 2011 • out of context
tags: brain, meaning, perception, quotes, space
Heterotopia is a concept in human geography elaborated by philosopher Michel Foucault to describe places and spaces that function in non-hegemonic conditions. These are spaces of otherness, which are neither here nor there, that are simultaneously physical and mental, such as the space of a phone call or the moment when you see yourself in the mirror.
Toxic Ideas
8 January 2011 • outer
tags: analysis, brain, capitalism, civilization, conscience, control, perception, politics, religion
Watchings
24 October 2010 • watchings
tags: animals, brain, cinema, comedy, conscience, death, documentaries, drugs, fantasy, fiction, hallucinations, killers, love, mathematics, murder, music, nature, particles, perception, politics, science, sound, space, television, time, tv series
• Fringe, Seasons 1-2 (2008-2010)
J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci
• Человек с киноаппаратом / Man with a Movie Camera (1929) [watch]
Dziga Vertov
• Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly
• The Ghost Writer (2010)
Roman Polanski
• El Abecedario de Gilles Deleuze. A de Animal (1988) [watch]
• Some Like It Hot (1959)
Billy Wilder
• Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Sidney Lumet
Akrasia
14 October 2010 • out of context
tags: analysis, brain, conscience, control, desire
Akrasia (ancient Greek ἀκρασία, “lacking command (over oneself)”), occasionally transliterated as acrasia, is the state of acting against one’s better judgment.
The problem goes back at least as far as Plato. Socrates (in Plato’s Protagoras) asks precisely how this is possible – if one judges action A to be the best course of action, why would one do anything other than A?
Silent but deadly [or why I can't think clearly]
10 October 2010 • out of context
tags: brain, death, killers, murder, music, sound, television, tv series, waves
—So you think that music killed these people?
—Not music per se. Could you help me with this please, my dear?
—What about this? Would that work?
—Figaro? Perfect!
—We’ve known for some time that different sounds affect the brain in different ways.
—Look at my brain waves on the monitor.
—They’re smoothing out.
—Harmonic music reduces neural activity.
—Which is why we think more clearly when we listen to it, as opposed to this… Dissonance. Look… Look at my neurons.
—We get it, Walter. Can I turn this off now?
—Oh, sorry. You see, the point is this, that with this type of auditory phenomenon, taken to its ultrasonic extreme, can be fatal, and the way it affects the brain, it could well have induced some type of vegetative trance before death.
—Which would also explain the trauma to the inner ear.
—So we’re looking for some kind of deadly music box?
—No, it’s ultrasonic, so you wouldn’t be able to hear it, the frequency’s too high.
—Silent but deadly.
Fringe, episode 2 season 3.
Arithmomania
3 October 2010 • out of context
tags: brain, mathematics, patterns, science, television, vampires
Arithmomania is a mental disorder that may be seen as an expression of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Sufferers from this disorder have a strong need to count their actions or objects in their surroundings.
Sufferers may for instance feel compelled to count the steps while ascending or descending a flight of stairs or to count the number of letters in words. They often feel it is necessary to perform an action a certain number of times to prevent alleged calamities. Other examples include counting tiles on the floor or ceiling, the number of lines on the highway, or simply the number of times one breathes or blinks.
Arithmomania sometimes develops into a complex system in which the sufferer assigns values or numbers to people, objects and events in order to deduce their coherence.
(…)
Folklore concerning vampires often depicts them with arithmomania, such as a compulsion to count seeds or grains of rice. More lightheartedly, the muppet Count von Count from Sesame Street appears to be a fellow “sufferer”.