DR__The Brain by Dr. David Eagleman -- Amazon video Flashcards
EPISODE #1: What is Reality
NOTE: This is a Documentary that shows many unrealized aspects of the brain. There are a lot of MN comments added to tie this into what I have already learned in previous studies of the brain.
What is it that makes three pounds of jello-like material become us?
What if I told you that this entire world around us is just an illusion, constructed in your head. The real world has no smell or taste! No sound, no color.
[MN: Think of a plant with no brain. no sound, sight, color or taste.]
If you could perceive reality as it really is out there, you would not recognize it at all. [MN: Just like when D.C. Dennett was asked by his friend, explain congnitive science. Dr. Dennett replied “If I told you, you would not be able to stand it!”]
** Your brain takes in sensory information. Analyzes it for patterns, then “confabulates” a story of reality for you. What you experience is an illusion of reality, tailor made for you by your brain.
Your brain is in total isolation. A sealed off dark chamber. Our senses are the only way for any information to get to our brain. Your brain has no senses. For example It cannot feel pain.
Our senses are the portals to the brain. Information from our senses get converted into Electro-Chemical signals, brain currency if you will, to be processed and analyzed by your brain. Then your brain confabulates a story of what is happening!
[MN: What is happening is different for each person, even identical twins. Each person’s lifetime of experience helps determine the “reality” your brain presents to you.] For example, if you never had a childhood, but suddenly you as an adult were exposed to sights and sounds, you would not be able to see or hear because your brain never experienced sights and sounds before. Your brain would not know how to process sights and sounds and therefore you would be suddenly thrusted into a scary reality of total Chaos!
[MN: Unlike a puppy that matures into a dog in one year, as a human we take decades for our brain to mature. Age 28 for the brain to mature then fine tuning for the remainder of your life. Since the human brain takes so long to mature, the side effect is called “Childhood”. Childhood is where your brain learns how things work and it forms memories (experiences) so you can mature into a adult and fit into society.]
[MN: The human brain is half baked at birth then spends its lifetime getting wired and rewired. An animal such as a dog or Rhino are born more hardwired. This is why they mature so fast, like a Zebra can walk within the first hour of birth. The advantage of humans is our brains are larger in proportion to our head and because of feedback of childhood, it learns more and ends up much more superior in intelligence.]Brain cells are called NEURONS. Your brain has 100 Billion of them. These neurons send countless signals to each other and this produces your sense of reality.
[MN: During our childhood, we get countless hours of feedback. The feedback fine tunes our brain so we learn language and can speak, read and write. We learn balance so we can walk and ride a bike. We learn HT pick up and move objects so we can work and play as we mature. Recall as an infant, we cannot even roll over!
From feedback, your brain develops neural pathways to get better skilled in your reality. By the time you mature, your neural pathways are like superhighways, and you can do things like read a book, carry on a conversation, perform math and logic. Because of brain development/Childhood feeback, you mature. You can compare this to a seed growing into a tree. The tree must go through its development to change from seed to a tree. In other words, you can’t just install a brain (like Frankenstein). The brain needs a childhood of development to be fully functional]All the sensory input to the brain is coordinated and must be timed to function. Just like a car engine, all the components must be perfectly timed for it to work together, otherwise it would lock up instantly.
For example a foot race is started with a gun rather than a green light. Everyone knows speed of light is much faster than speed of sound. But visual senses are very complex and takes a longer processing time by your brain, therefore the sound by the gun is faster processed as proven by slow motion video.
[MN: A loud noise will make you jerk by reflex, whereas a golf ball heading for your head visually will hit you because the visual clue must be interpreted then action taken to duck, meanwhile the golf ball already hits your head becuase of the long processing time of visual information. Now if the golfer yells “Fore”, you duck and cover instantly!
REM the time sitting on the bench and the tee shot came right at me? I froze and couldn’t process anything. Not even to think “oh shit!”.]
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EPISODE #2:
Zebras can run 45 minutes after they are born! Dolphins can swim soon as they are born!
[MN: How can these animals do this so fast? Because their brain is much more developed [Hardwired actually] at birth. Humans must be born early so baby’s head will fit through the pelvis birth canal. So the baby’s head and brain can only be so big to go through the canal. If we didn’t have the canal problem we would have a much faster childhood, like a puppy turns into a dog within a year.]
But there is a draw back to short childhoods in animals. If they had to live in a hostile ecosystem not taylored for them, they could not survive. They would starve or be overcome. For instance a midwestern deer would not survive at the North Pole, or in a desert, but a human can survive and live in both places because he has a better brain and can adapt.Human brains learn on the job.
Pruning Neurons. You heard it said, “use it or lose it”. This is because your brain regularly prunes neuron pathways that are obsolete or out of date to form newer updated neuron pathways more focused upon what is important to you now. [MN: A you learn something, your brain cells are “Refolded” over and over to optimize connections for peak performance. Experience prunes the brain.]
** What makes a memory fade? It fades because the neurons are being reused as neural pathways for new experiences.
Cognitive Reserve: Even with full blown Alzheimers disease these nuns showed no symptoms because they kept physically and mentally active. This is known as “Cognitive Reserve”, and it works.This repurposing of neurons is what makes cognitive reserve possible. The brain simply assigns a neuron to forget the old memory and start a new pathway using a different part of the brain that is not diseased,
It is like a toolbox. You use a ratchet to remove a bolt. No ratchet: Use a wrench instead, then use a cresent wrench, then use some pliers. Good analogy.
Why do I feel like I am somebody. In other words, conscious?
Think of all your brain neurons as individual drummers playing in absolute dissonance. But they listen to each other and get in step with each other to make a rhythm. When they get in rhythm, this sense or feeling is you! You feel like a real person inside your body. So why do we care about what happens to us?
We do not yet have the answer to that.
[MN: I say we care because bacteria wants its survival machine to keep on running. Some how bacteria, through evolution through millions of years causes our brain to confabulate we are a real person with cares, love and desires to live.]
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EPISODE #3: Who is in control?
Who is in control of what you do? The answer will surprise you.
Almost all your actions and decisions, every belief that you hold; these are driven by parts of your brain that you have no access. We call this your unconcious. It runs much more of your life than you would ever imagine. This is the story of who is really in control.
I know it seems like you are running the ship, but in reality you are controlled by the subconscious. Like hitting a fast ball. Your conscious mind does not have time to process all the infomation, so you swing at the ball with your subconcious. After you hit the ball the conscious you discovers, “Hey I hit the ball!”
Just lifting a cup of coffee and taking a drink is almost completely a subconscious operation.//No such thing as muscle memory. We are simply hardwiring our brains with a skill. [MN: We are forming neural pathways and paving them in super highways. This is how you can play a musical instrument,, touch type, write a sentence, read a sentence, drive a car etc. The list is endless. Like Dr. John Medina said, the brain has 20 rooms, and we can only access one room. So 95% of everyday activities are done by our subconcious, and we only get 5% of what we are doing in our conscious mind!]//We can do all of this and our brain only requires energy equal to a 60 watt light bulb.//Dr. Sigmund Freud was one of the most influencial thinkers of the 20th century. He discovered that when a person lies on a couch, they break contact and they tend to free up inhibitions and talk as if they are talking to themselves.//Freud discovered that people’s conscious actions were controlled by their subconcious tendensies.
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