Clipmarks | abailart's 'complexity' clips

New Research On Octopuses Sheds Light On Memory

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:39:13 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: It is not completely understood how these two systems are interconnected, if at all. However, the organization in the octopus demonstrates a sophistication that was not described yet in other animals. In the octopus, the short-term and long-term systems are working in parallel, but not independently. This is so because the long-term memory area -- in addition to its capacity to store long-term memories -- also regulates the rate at which the short-term memory system acquires short-term memories. This regulatory mechanism is probably useful in cases where faster learning is significant for the octopus' survival in emergency or risky situations.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Research on octopuses has shed new light on how our brains store and recall memory,

Why octopuses?

Octopuses and other related creatures, known as cephalopods, are considered to be the most intelligent invertebrates because they have relatively large brains and they can be trained for various learning and memory tasks, says Dr. Hochner.

Their behavior repertoire and learning and memory abilities are even comparable in their complexity to those of advanced vertebrates. However, they are still invertebrate mollusks with brains that contain a much fewer number of nerve cells and much simpler anatomical organization than that of vertebrate brains. This unique constellation was utilized to tackle one of the most interesting questions in modern neuroscience, which is how the brain stores and recalls memories

Tags: octopuse, memory

6 iconoclastic discoveries about the brain

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:02:06 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: let go of the dogma

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Neuroscience, like all other branches of science, is fraught with dogmatic ideas about its subject matter. A number of principles have emerged, principles that have been regarded as fundamental to our understanding of brain function.

But the human brain is an organ of bewildering complexity - it is often referred to as the most complex object in the known universe - which doesn't give up its secrets easily. After 100 years of scientific investigation, we still know very little about it.

Dogma 1:

The adult human brain is not plastic.

Dogma 2: The adult human brain cannot regenerate

Dogma 3:

Neurons are the functional elements of the nervous system

Dogma 4:

Neurotransmitters are released from the nerve terminal

Dogma 5:

Neurons are binary switches.

Dogma 6:

Neurons communicate with each other by propagating action potentials

Tags: brain, discoveries, neuroscience, clipversity

A good stab at dealing with the problem of evil

Sat, 24 May 2008 00:06:27 GMT

clipped by: jimbo1000
clipper's remarks: I am at present writing a summary of my credo to my grandson. In it I address the problem of evil when considering the existence of God. This blog is good on this subject.

Clip Source: estecantor.blogspot.com

He was known as a kind of an “out of the box” thinker. This was right after the great tragedy of the Tsunami title waves in Indonesia, and I posed this question to him:

“How do you reconcile the reality of that scale of devastation with the idea of a loving God?” He said, “God gives the plates of the earth’s crust the freedom to be plates of the earth’s crust. They then do what plates of the earth’s crust do.” He challenged me to imagine a world in which creation did not have this freedom. We would have an utterly ordered world with no death, never any chaos, no wildness- no wilderness.”

In the book of Job God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind. He speaks of the glories of creation; the unfathomable complexity and power of that God-made creation, and man’s arrogance in thinking he can comprehend or control it.

Simple Artificial Cell Created From Scratch To Study Cell Complexity

Sat, 17 May 2008 10:38:07 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

A team of Penn State researchers has developed a simple artificial cell with which to investigate the organization and function of two of the most basic cell components: the cell membrane and the cytoplasm--the gelatinous fluid that surrounds the structures in living cells. The work could lead to the creation of new drugs that take advantage of properties of cell organization to prevent the development of diseases.

"Many scientists are trying to understand cells by turning off genes, one at a time, and are observing the effects on cell function, but we're doing the opposite," said Associate Professor of Chemistry Christine D. Keating, who led the research. "We're starting from scratch, adding in components to find out what is needed to simulate the most basic cell functions.

This new structure exhibited the type of complexity that the team had been looking for; it exhibited polarity. "Polarity is critical to development,"

Tags: biology, cell biology

Are Individuals like Molecules in a Social Matrix?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:23:40 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/complexity/models/antcolonies/page2.html

takes you to a fun interactive model with an ant coloby; you control variables. Clear accompanying text for explanation and discussion.

Clip Source: www.sciencedirect.com

striking structures (e.g. nest architecture, trail networks) of insect societies may seem familiar to many of us, the understanding of pattern formation still constitutes a challenging problem. Over the last two decades, self-organization has dramatically changed our view on how collective decision-making and structures may emerge out of a population of ant workers having each their own individuality as well as a limited access to information. A variety of collective behaviour spontaneously outcome from multiple interactions between nestmates, even when there is no directing influence imposed by an external template, a pacemaker or a leader. By focussing this review on foraging structures, we show that ant societies display some properties which are usually considered in physico-chemical systems, as typical signatures of self-organization

parsimony and simplicity of behavioural rules at the individual level

efficient processing of information, energy and matter within the whole colony.

Tags: complexity theory, emergence, insect behaviour

Evolution Beyond Darwin — Way Beyond

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 11:06:53 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.wired.com

Highly complex honeybee communities are one example of phenomena that some scientists think can't be explained by the mainstream theory of evolution alone, but instead by a theory of self-organization.
Courtesy AlainB/Flickr

Nearly 150 years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, evolution has been widely accepted by scientists -- and, except for a few religious dogmatic types, the public -- as the blueprint for the engine of life.

But not every scientist thinks that evolution as it's now understood and applied is complete. They want to scale it up to the level of populations, even whole ecosystems. Moreover, they say evolution is intertwined with other dynamics that science is just starting to understand.

"The process of evolution is fundamental to the universe. Biology is the most obvious manifestation of it," said Carl Woese, a legendary microbiologist and one of the first proponents of this newly revised evolutionary framework.

Tags: complexity, evolution, darwin

Hypothosis gains validity from objections.

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:04:02 GMT

clipped by: graphictruth
clipper's remarks: Do extremism and an unconditional adherence to religious dogma result from a failure of a portion of the frontal lobe to fully develop or, if fully developed, to activate? Studies suggest that faithful adherence to a single reasoning strategy on tests such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test means that parts of the frontal lobes are inactive, have failed to fully develop, or have even been damaged. Thus, unqualified disdain for divergent beliefs,for personal interpretation, and for creative theories like Darwin’s theory of evolution, may indeed have, at least a partial, biological explanation: a reduced utilization of that section of the brain which has played such a vital role in humanity’s creative advances—the frontal lobes. By unconditionally obeying religious tenets—or any dogma—some people may be relying on the phylo-genetically older, more posterior portions of the brain that store knowledge and enable consistent or stable behaviors and, unknowingly, circumventing the portion whi

Clip Source: www.tikkun.org

The evolving and growing complexity of the human brain allowed our ancestors the ability to question, wonder, and consider new possibilities—to be creative. Life altering advances were the result. Is unconditional adherence to dogma (whether religious or secular) at odds with this evolved capability and our full potential as creative beings?

Adherence begets consistency or stability; questioning, searching, and discovering innovative alternatives, which is creativity, leads to change.

The implication that adherence behavior could involve a more primitive or phylogenetically older portion of the brain should not be an altogether startling notion. After all, given the most basic understanding, we would expect that early humans eventually became unstuck from various conditions because of an increasingly evolved reasoning power. Our capacity for creativity expanded and so we conceived of new and often better ways to do things.

Tags: bizarre, mental health, fundimentalism, religion, conservatives

Confessions of a Lonely Schizoid

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:40:59 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: <<<Yes, in my burrow, in my solitary thoughts, I dream my dreams. But they are the dreams of "the undeveloped heart." I dwell in my burrow with a gallery of images, the images of a plethora of people: the monstrous and the good -- some unbelievably good. They remain phantoms, however. I lack the ability to care enough about another person; I suffer from a deficiency of the capacity for love, joy, and empathy to occupy myself with real people. The passageways of my burrow are redolent of indifference: the benign but vaguely repellent odor of emotional emptiness.>>>

Clip Source: garfreed.blogspot.com

I am lost to the world with which I used to waste so much time; it has heard nothing from me for so long that it may very well believe that I am dead (or at least petrified)! It is of no consequence to me whether it thinks me dead; I cannot deny it, for I really am dead to the world. I am dead to the world's tumult, and I rest in a quiet realm! I live alone in my one-room apartment, in my imaginary friendships and in my letters! That is, when I'm not otherwise occupied with my daily workout regimen in the exercise room of my apartment building.

I live out my days tunneling, tunneling through my thoughts to ever greater depths -- like Kafka's mole-rat digging into the earth below, creating a labyrinthine burrow of seemingly infinite complexity that is safe from the encroachment of others.

I live in

fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that I am worthy of life; since everyone around me denies it as I deny it to myself; which makes all love, all trust, all joy impossible.

Tags: schizoid, loneliness, love

Fun Stuff for Jungians, Alchemists and Complexity Lovers

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:15:24 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: web.ukonline.co.uk

CONTROLLING DEPRESSION - The Wrong Paradigm for the Job?

A COMPLEXITY-BASED MODEL OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

RAPTURE - TWO TYPES OF FEELING GOOD

COGNITIVE SYMMETRY-BREAKING

THE 'SECRET ADDICTION'

PSYCHOLOGICAL ENTROPY

LIMITS AND CHANGE

The Urge to Fly : On the Inner Techne of getting Earth into Air (July 2000)

What is Rta? An inner force of law : From Jung's Psychological Types

On the nature of Tao : From Jung's Psychological Types

The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man : From Jung's Civilization in Transition

A Review of Complex Theory : From Jung's The Structure and Function of the Psyche

C G Jung Analytical Psychology : its Theory and Practice The Tavistock Lectures (1935)

C G Jung The Transcendent Function : Para. 131 & 132, Volume 8 of the Collected Works (1957)

The Meaning of the Mandala - an Alchemical Treatise on the Opus Magnum

~ The New Alchemy Website ~

Tags: jung, analytic psychology, complexity, alchemy

Complexity Theory and Depression

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:12:43 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: web.ukonline.co.uk

Psychiatry constructs depression within the supposedly meaning-free paradigm of 'objective knowledge'. Depression is therefore said to be a wholly valueless experience, a 'disease'. This is part of a wider prejudice lying deep in the roots of the new global 'technoculture', a prejudice that sees all painful or undesired experience, even including death, as unnecessary evils which we will (hopefully) eventually eliminate by continually improving our understanding of ourselves and the universe we live in. Civilization - as a rational utopia - is thus identified with the power to have everything the way we want it. This is what Illich meant when he spoke of the 'anaesthetic society' - a society that uses pharmaceutical technology to blank out experiences that it does not value.

The model of depression that is outlined in the following article is constructed within the paradigm of Self-Organization, and is therefore a theory based on the new sciences of complexity.

Tags: complexity, depression, ideology, cognition

Complexity Theory and Psychoanalysis

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:25:14 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: The Emergent Ego: Complexity and Coevolution in the Psychoanalytic Process
By Stanley R. Palombo, M.D. Madison, Conn., International Universities Press, 1999, 395 pp., $65.00.
HAROLD I. EIST, M.D.
Bethesda, Md.

Clip Source: ajp.psychiatryonline.org

Palombo’s new book skillfully continues these processesof integration and inclusion. He brings a new and lively versionof psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theory into the millenniumas he combines modern evolutionary theory, computer models ofevolution and information, complexity theory, neuroscience,and clinical psychoanalytic wisdom. This integration convincinglydocuments that psychoanalysis is quintessentially a biopsychosocialdiscipline that is alive, changing, growing, and relevant.

Palombo challenges long-held, incorrect views that psychoanalysisis not science; that psychoanalysis deals with only outsideinfluences on development (the one-way shaping of the individualthrough the pressures of learning and society on the drivesor instincts, which create a dynamic, Möbius-strip effect)rather than the inner influences (the genetic or molecular basesof behavior); and that there is no way of measuring change inpsychoanalysis.

Tags: complexity theory, psychoanalysis

Complex Minds

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:42:05 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: highcognitive.squarespace.com

"Complexity refers to the extent to which an individual or organization differentiates and integrates an event. Differentiation is the number of distinctions or separate elements (i.e., factors, variables) into which an event is analyzed. Integration refers to the connections or relationships among these elements.

"Persons who are high in cognitive complexity are able to analyze (i.e., differentiate) a situation into many constituent elements, and then explore connections and potential relationships among the elements; they are multidimensional in their thinking. Complexity theory assumes that the more an event can be differentiated and the parts considered in novel relationships, the more refined the response and successful the solution. "

"Complex people tend to be more open to new information, rely on their own integrative efforts than new information, seek more novel information, search across more categories of information, and are less externally information bound.

Tags: complex minds, cognitive complexity

Complexity, Artificial Life and self-organising systems

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:21:36 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: <<<But be warned - this site is conceptually demanding, those 'truths' you know are but shadows. Once infected by our alien thought virus, you will never be quite 'normal' again... You will begin to mutate, morphing up to a higher level, our level, beings whose abilities cross universes, transcend cultures, break free. Finally understanding the true beauty of sharing. Or you may sink down into insanity... Dare YOU take that risk ?>>>
Been a good friend to clippers this massive site, but always worth bringing to attention!

Clip Source: www.calresco.org

The Complexity & Artificial Life Research Concept

This site is dedicated to modern systems thinking in all its various forms

Our aim is to educate, to entertain, to inspire, but most of all to expand your mind into new thought patterns - those of the 21st Century, where science, arts, humanity and spirit will again be one. Enjoy your trip...

We have tried to make this site accessible to those readers with visual or equipment limitations (so nothing too fancy here). If any part fails those requirements or if you wish to comment generally on the site or materials then please EMail me (Chris Lucas) at CALResCo

CALResCo is a cosmopolitan non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting the wider aspects of the Complex System sciences by education, synthesis and by the integration of the theories into the mainstream viewpoints of arts, philosophy and science.

Click here to read our Complex Systems teachings

Tags: artificial life, complexity, self-organisation, calresco

Chaos, Complexity and Jung

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:13:00 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: A shortish and accessible basic overview of complexity and chaos theories and their relationship to Jung's varying concepts of consciousness

Clip Source: www.schuelers.com

One of the important findings of modern chaos theory is that seeds of order seem to be embedded in chaos, while seeds of chaos are apparently embedded in order. Systems that are stable in relation to their environment can become unstable. Systems that are unstable can return to stability. Another important finding is that the behavior of a system in stability and its behavior after becoming unstable are acausal. These findings can be transposed to Jungian psychology by assuming the psyche to be a dynamic dissipative system as defined in chaos theory. The psyche functions in our causal space-time continuum via the conscious ego, but also functions in a psychic continuum which is wholly unconscious to the ego.

This paper

proposes that Jung's personal unconscious is a psychological 'edge of chaos,' a psychic region of complexity bridging the acausal gap between the collective unconscious and the conscious ego.

Tags: chaos, complexity, jung, synchronicity

life is destined to become more complex

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:09:51 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "We must not forget that bacteria – very simple organisms – are among the most successful living things. Therefore, the trend towards complexity is compelling but does not describe the history of all life.”

Clip Source: physorg.com

Scientists have revealed what may well be the first pervasive ‘rule’ of evolution. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers have found evidence which suggests that evolution drives animals to become increasingly more complex.

Looking back through the last 550 million years of the fossil catalogue to the present day, the team investigated the different evolutionary branches of the crustacean family tree.

They were seeking examples along the tree where animals evolved that were simpler than their ancestors.

Instead they found organisms with increasingly more complex structures and features, suggesting that there is some mechanism driving change in this direction.

“If you start with the simplest possible animal body, then there’s only one direction to evolve in – you have to become more complex,”

“This is the nearest thing to a pervasive evolutionary rule that’s been found.

Tags: evolution, complexity, life, structures