synapse « WordPress.com Tag Feed

Breast feeding releases 'love' hormone

drjo — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:18:27 +0000

A model to explain how bursts of oxytocin release come about during infant suckling was published today in Public Library of Science Computational Biology (click here for the paper).

Somehow, The Mail has concluded from this study that:

Breast-feeding DOES help mothers bond with babies - because it releases the 'love' hormone

Thanks, but we've known for decades that breast feeding releases oxytocin, or the love/cuddle/trust hormone at Daily Mail HQ. The article goes on to say that "[the study] has discovered that the action of a baby suckling actually changes how the mother's brain behaves." We already knew this - the study tries to explain how this happens using a computational model, but never mind.

From The Mail's oxytocin factfile:

"Voles given the hormone are more likely to pair up."

"Scientists have proposed spraying a fine mist of the chemical over violent mobs to calm them." They may also cuddle and pair up, I suppose.

For a more useful guide to the benefits of breastfeeding try this BMJ review.

Scion Underground Episode 3 Show Notes

scionunderground — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:00:11 +0000

Hello Scion Enthusiasts! Here are the show notes for a slightly late Episode 3 of Scion Underground! Packing to Move, finishing classes, and the two Blockbuster movies, Wall-E and Wanted (Both GREAT BTW), left little time for me to get everything done by Sunday, so I apologize for the delay. You can download the podcast from or from the RSS Feed

Last week was pretty exciting! With Dan Gardner, Craig Stanton, BGB Motorsports and the Jackson-Dawson tC making history, I decided to include the interview I did with Dan in this week's episode as opposed to episode 4. I think you'll enjoy it. Dan has lots of information, and he talks in depth about his car, and some of the modifications they made to make it race ready.

Also, we have some new ways that you can help support the Scion Underground Podcast! If you plan on purchasing ANYTHING through Amazon.com, would you mind going through our link first? It doesn't cost you anything extra, and Amazon donates a small portion of your purchase to the Scion Underground Podcast! You can also buy the background music used in this episode by clicking the iTunes buttons on the right. You can also help us out by purchasing your products for your Scion from our sponsors. Last but not least, you can send us a donation using the paypal donate button at www.prestigeracing.net

Whichever way you decide to help out Scion Underground, you can rest assured that everything goes 100% back into the podcast to make it the best it can be! I have plans for contests, product reviews, new features, and some VIDEO podcasts, but I need your help to make them happen.

If you're enjoying the content of Scion Underground, why not leave us a review on iTunes! And don't forget to send me your thoughts on Street Racing for a new segment called Talk Back. If you're for street racing, against it, think it's not a big deal, or that people should keep it at the track, send me an email at ScionUnderground@gmail.com.

That having been said, here are the show notes for Episode 3 of the Scion Underground Podcast!

Podcast Contents

Scion Underground Episode 3 Intro
Announcements
Scion News
- Dan Gardner and the Jackson-Dawson tC 1st ever in a professional Road Race
- Jackson-Dawson tC and Koni Challenge results
- Scion 5th Anniversary
- Scion xD Release Series 1.0 Ad Campaign
Performance 101 - Gas
- Octane
- Additives
- Tips to save money on gas
Gadget Review - Jawbone Bluetooth Headset
- Venjuvo.com
Interview with Dan Gardner
Episode 3 Wrap-up

Scion Underground Podcast Sponsors:

PrestigeRacing.net The BEST Place for Scion Performance parts with the best customer service!

Purpose, Style Respect…. PRESTIGE!

Links

Music (in order of play). Artist/ Album/ Song Title

Jadakiss / Kiss Tha Game Goodbye / We Gonna Make It
Oddisee / Instrumental Mixtape (Vol. 2) / Searchin
DJ MITSU THE BEATS / Re-New Awakening Pt. 1 / Miwa Says... (Breakthrough Remix)
DJ MITSU THE BEATS / Re-New Awakening Pt. 1 / Music Mate (Hip Hop Mix)
DJ MITSU THE BEATS / Re-New Awakening Pt. 1 / Pursuits of Crarity (Kev Brown Mix)
DJ MITSU THE BEATS / Re-New Awakening Pt. 1 / Tokyo (Tokyo Black Star Remix)

Contact Information:

Email: ScionUnderground@gmail.com
Myspace (Under Construction): www.myspace.com/ScionUnderground
Blog: www.scionundergroundpodcast.wordpress.com
Scionlife: ScionUndergroundPodcast
ClubSciontC: ScionUnderground

Apache Synapse Ant mediator

upulgodage — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:56:30 +0000

Ant mediator is a pluggable extension to Apache Synapse and WSO2 ESB, Enterprise Service Bus products. It executes Ant tasks programmatically through the Synapse configuration. It can extract properties and values from the current message context and pass them to the Ant build file as properties. Also Ant target can be selected dynamically by setting a property in the message context as well. For example Ant mediator can be used to call shell scripts in the message mediation. Check out the sample, and download the binary with the source code here.

Apache Synapse 1.2 released

upulgodage — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:40:33 +0000

Apache Synapse 1.2 is out. You can download it here.

Apache Synapse is a fast, versatile, high-performant, low-footprint Enterprise Service Bus product released under the Apache Software License v2.0. Some of the new features are,

FIX (Financial Information eXchange) protocol support
Hessian web service protocol support
WS-Reliable Messaging through all new WSO2 Mercury
More efficient database pooling
GZip encoding support
Cluster aware sticky load balancing
Improved filter mediator
Highly flexible XPath expressions relative to envelope or body
Separate policies for incoming and outgoing messages
New handler sequences for all incoming and outgoing messages
Non-blocking streaming message handling is getting much faster and even better than before
And much much more and lots of fixes and improvements

Read the Apache Synapse blog to learn what is new.

At The Synapse: Gene May Shed Light On Neurological Disorders

healtherm2 — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:25:57 +0000

In our brains, where millions of signals move across a network of neurons like runners in a relay race, all the critical baton passes take place at synapses. These small gaps between nerve cell endings have to be just the right size for messages to transmit properly. Synapses that grow too large or too small are associated with motor and cognitive impairment, learning and memory difficulties, and other neurological disorders.

In a finding that sheds light on this system, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison describe a gene that controls the proper development of synapses, which could help explain how the process works and why it sometimes goes wrong.

Reporting in the journal Neuron, a team of geneticists in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences reveal the role of a gene in fruit flies called "nervous wreck" that prevents synapses from overgrowing by damping the effects of a pro-growth signal. Mutations in a human version of "nervous wreck" have been linked to a severe genetic developmental disability, and these findings may eventually help scientists develop treatments for this and other neurological disorders.

"The precise regulation of synaptic growth - not too much and not too little - is a complex biological process," says Kate O'Connor-Giles, a postdoctoral fellow in the genetics department who led the study. "We really need to have a deep understanding of how all the factors involved are working together to develop rational treatments for neurological disorders associated with aberrant synaptic growth."

That's no small task. The brain is the most complex organ in the body, containing a hundred billion nerve cells that branch out and make trillions of connections to other neurons, muscle cells and other cell types. Although an estimated 50 million Americans have some kind of neurological disorder, in the majority of cases the underlying cause is unknown. Improper synaptic growth may explain a portion of these unknown cases.

To crack this complex system, O'Connor-Giles studies a particular type of synapse in fruit flies, known as the neuromuscular junction, which is relatively easy to examine and closely resembles the synapses found in the central nervous system of humans. She works with a particular kind of fly that is unable to produce functional Nervous wreck protein, one of a collection of mutant flies engineered more than 20 years ago by UW-Madison geneticist Barry Ganetzky, in whose laboratory the study was completed with the help of researcher Ling Ling Ho. This collection has been the source of many seminal discoveries in brain science over the years.

Using genetic, biochemical and imaging techniques, O'Connor-Giles showed that the "nervous wreck" protein appears to be part of an important protein complex that helps regulate the density of certain receptors on the surface of the nerve cell at the synapse. In particular, the new findings suggest that the protein complex decommissions receptors that respond to pro-growth signals coming from the well-studied BMP signaling pathway. When the protein complex is working properly, it moves the receptors back inside the nerve cell - where they can no longer receive and respond to the pro-growth signal - at the appropriate time.

"'Nervous wreck' and (the other proteins in the complex) work together to attenuate a positive growth signal," says O'Connor-Giles. "So when it's time for synaptic growth to stop, they are the proteins that ensure the neuron stops listening to the positive growth signal and stops growing.

When 'nervous wreck' is absent, you get synapses that are much too large." Problems with other proteins in the complex also lead to synaptic overgrowth in fruit flies and, O'Connor-Giles predicts, may contribute to developmental disabilities in humans as well.

Although her work was done in synapses undergoing initial formation, these findings likely apply to adult brain cells, too. Inside fully formed brains, neural connections grow and change over time in response to experiences, a process called plasticity.

"The presumption is that the same mechanisms that are at play during the initial formation of synapses are then recruited later in life when these synapses need to be modified in response to experience or injury," says O'Connor-Giles. "So by understanding the initial development of synapses, we may also be getting at the molecular mechanisms underlying plasticity."

These findings add to the big picture of how synaptic growth works, a picture that in the long run will help scientists develop treatments for various neurological disorders.

"Being able to manipulate synaptic growth is going to be crucial for treating traumatic spinal chord injuries," says O'Connor-Giles. "It's also going to be important for treating a broad array of other disorders, including epilepsy and developmental disabilities."

----------------------------
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
----------------------------

Source: Kate O'Connor-Giles
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Please rate this article:
(Hover over the stars
then click to rate) Patient / Public:
orHealth Professional:
Useful Links

Consciousness a Problem

Brad — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:45:20 +0000

The inner universe of our minds is ironically one of the hardest of phenomena to study. We all should know the basics. Senses, emotions, memories, ideas - all are the raw materials of consciousness. But where does the brain come in? How are your subjective experiences explainable by neurons and synapses? (Or are they explainable?) Generally, in neuroscience and psychology, these questions are phrased as two different problems of consciousness.

The first part is the “easy problem.” It is basically a question of cognition, or how we process information. Our attention span, language skills, learning abilities, memory capacity, perception qualities, and problem solving abilities have been well-documented and explain a great deal of mental activity. After that there is the second part, or the "hard problem," and it is in a totally different league. Why is there any experience at all if we are only physical machines and bodies of cells? More generally, what kind of automaton (e.g. the brain, a computer, a cell, and so forth) could generate consciousness? This is a harder scientific question than the easy problem for one simple reason: it could even be metaphysical.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts the questions of consciousness into three categories: descriptive, explanatory, and functional. Essentially this asks What? How? and Why? Describing consciousness is the easy problem, explaining it is the hard problem, and the question of its function is something not normally addressed with the first two. The question of its function comes down to how it is an adaptation in our evolutionary past. There are some ideas that say it is for free will, motivation, better flexibility (like learning), social coordination, and better cognition (like accessing cumulative information we gather). I'll say a little more about the first two in the rest of this article.

There are some simple features of consciousness that everyone is familiar with. I would mark qualia, phenomenology, subjectivity, and flow as the major ones that are most self-evident. Qualia are the raw feelings of sensory perception that you have. How the world sounds, looks, feels, tastes, and smells to us. Isaac Newton wrote "to determine by what modes or actions light produceth in our minds the phantasm of colour is not so easie." Behind the experience of qualia is phenomenology. Phenomenology refers to the organization that is intrinsic in consciousness. The "phenomena" are our thoughts and ideas we use to model the world. (SEP says "... the phenomenal structure of experience is richly intentional and involves not only sensory ideas and qualities but complex representations of time, space, cause, body, self, world and the organized structure of lived reality ...") Subjectivity is something of a casual term that we all know of. Subjective experience is dependent on point of view, and perhaps to some degree, it is uncommunicable to other people. For example, what is it like to be a cat? How would you know for sure? Finally, the dynamic flow of mental life is the storyline played out in your head. William James called it the "stream of consciousness."

There is an explanatory gap present in trying to account for how consciousness exists. In a physical, material universe, it is hard to make sense of how consciousness arises and emerges from it. In spite of this there are numerous attempts to respond to this problem. Some are pretty common such as dualism (from Rene Descartes), where the soul is independent of the physical universe, or a closely related concept, idealism (from George Berkeley), where some contents of consciousness are uninvolved with matter. Other explanations seem odd or just plain absurd, like direct realism (from Thomas Reid), which says that the contents of consciousness are the world itself, or panpsychism (from Gottfried Leibniz), the notion that all matter is conscious. Emergence theory and epiphenomenalism posit that consciousness is the result of the brain's immense complexity, and is therefore a physical construct. (For example, Hofstadter wrote a book I am a Strange Loop, saying consciousness is analogous to a sort of feed-back loop due to its self-reference, the "I.") A strange combo of this idea and quantum physics is supported by Roger Penrose and some other scientists, called OOR. Their theory says a special quantum computation goes on in the mind allowing it to supersede some of the capabilities of rigid programming that regular computers have. (He argues his case in his book Emperor's New Mind.)

Another very impressive question is whether or not consciousness is actually something that makes choices. It is conceivable that our consciousness is merely a byproduct of our deterministic brain so that it is only an endpoint and does not have any control over the brain's processing. Perhaps you're just along for the ride!

Some people (like Colin McGinn) say the hard problem is insoluble. Others (like Daniel Dennett) say it is an illusion; there is no hard problem. Still more (like David Chalmers) disagree with that, saying purely physical explanations are lacking. Take a look at the philosophical zombie, the Chinese room, the color expert Mary, and the Turing test for an idea of controversial issues with physicalism. A philosophical zombie is a theoretical human being that functions just as we do, exhibiting all of the ordinary behavior, but is not conscious. This begs the question, "What distinguishes conscious from non-conscious beings?" The Turing test is a situation played out between computers and humans where both a program and a real subject communicate with real interviewers, and if the interviewers cannot agree if the program is human, it is declared sentient. This raises the issue of whether or not it is even feasible to discern between conscious and non-conscious beings. (In AI research, this Turing test has been carried out in real life and is a part of an annual competition to see who can code the "most" human program. Also, for fun: An xkcd-twisted version of the Turing test.) The Chinese room is where a man sitting in a closed room, using instruction books, "translates" Chinese to English (or back), but does not truly "understand" Chinese. What makes up true comprehension? Lastly, the color expert Mary is a hypothetical scientist who learns all of the academic information about the color red possible, but then experiences seeing it for the first time afterwards. (Many people debate what her experience would be like.) What is the difference between qualia and information about qualia? These thought experiments flesh out some of the ambiguities we have in understanding consciousness, which prove problematic in reliably answering the hard problem.

And so the debate on the hard problem still persists, and one still wonders how and even if the problem can be solved. Can it even be properly understood? Is it in the realm of metaphysics or naturalistic science? How can we tell? Is there anything obvious being overlooked? Surely, the hard problem of consciousness ranks right up there with solving the millennium problems and understanding quantum theory. It is easily one of the hardest problems of the universe, yet it is what you live with every day.

Lacune: Vlog 1

lacune — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:13:32 +0000

Après de nombreuses manipulations technologiques, voilà mon premier vlog! C'est une version de qualité moyenne, je posterai bientôt une version améliorée (mieux compressée). Bon visionnement!

N'hésitez pas à laisser vos commentaires...

Mémoire synthétique

lacune — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:53:45 +0000

Vous croyez avoir tout vu? Détrompez-vous! Voilà que Synapse… vous considère comme des cobayes! Avec SynthMem, (Mémoire Synthétique), notre compagnie préférée s’amuse à « compléter un évènement inconfortable par un dénouement agréable, afin d’en atténuer les impacts sur le quotidien. » Les risques d’échec semblent assez grands (25%) car le procédé est expérimental… et il ne fonctionne pas dans les cas les plus graves, comme pour vous faire oublier une agression armée, par exemple.

En plus, la compagnie semble se vanter que ce procédé-là FONCTIONNE sur les enfants. Imaginez, dans la prochaine décennie, que votre enfant vienne de perdre la compétition de sport pour laquelle il se pratique depuis des années. Vous seriez peut-être tenté de dépenser une centaine de dollars pour remplacer cette défaite par une victoire… et ainsi améliorer son estime de lui-même.

Leur publicité est présentement en ligne. Vous irez y jeter un coup d’œil.

Sur une note plus joyeuse, amusez-vous à aller visiter ma page Youtube. J’ai même une petite surprise qui sera dévoilée très bientôt!

Pour finir, un petit cadeau: un fond d'écran à installer partout afin de passer le message!

Shinkansen

lacune — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:03:43 +0000

Aujourd’hui, j’ai visité Tokyo. Vous n’avez aucune idée de la vitesse des Shinkansen, ces TGV du Japon. Comment les gens d’un pays aussi réduit peuvent-ils avoir envie de voyager si vite? Peut-être à cause de l’étalement urbain : les gens préfèrent vivre loin de la grande ville, quitte à faire des heures de voyage par jour. Croyez-moi, tout le monde s’enferme dans sa bulle : des livres, mais surtout des gadgets électroniques. J’ai décidé de me la jouer « voyage traditionnel » : j’ai discuté avec mes compagnons de voyages.

Masuko m’a expliqué un autre procédé de Synapse, qui fait fureur dans sa région. ReAnim permet d’enregistrer vos souvenirs. ENREGISTRER! Imaginez! Ça veut dire que des étrangers vont visualiser votre mémoire (pour « vérifier » la qualité de l’enregistrement ») et probablement faire des copies de sauvegarde (pour des « raisons juridiques »! Les souvenirs, c’est privé… Même si j’imagine que dans certains cas, l’idée est bien pensée, j’ai entendu dire que le résultat est souvent minable : peu de détails, image granuleuse, fragments de scènes mal raboutées. Je comprends un peu plus ce procédé, mais les implications pour le respect de la vie privée sont un peu trop ambiguës.

Fighting Brain-rot

niblick — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:46:10 +0000

Ladies & Gentlemen,

For those of you whose brains are turning to mush, this New York Times article may be troublesome.

It doesn't worry me, however, because I have the solution. For several days now, my clinical research and development company, Brains-R-Us, has been successfully selling brain stimulus products that have been thoroughly tested by an independent laboratory, BrainTesting-R-Us, which is down the hall and completely separate from my other independent testing laboratories and development companies.

Is your brain sluggish? Do you find that you forget what you are doing, where you are, or if you're wearing pants? Do you misplace your keys or cell-phone? After breakfast do you put the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard? Do you think the Steinbrenners are smart? You need my new anti-brain-rot product, SuperScottishSynapse®. Using revolutionary technology and deeply discounted materials purchased long after their use-by dates, my highly educated, trained and muzzled scientists perfected a new memory treatment, in the form of a pill. This new pill, made from ancient memory-strengthening ingredients in a modern form, is clearly so effective that Scotsmen still remember 1707 -- when Scotland was hoovered up by England -- as clearly as if it was yesterday, is available for only £39.95 per month, for the rest of your life.

The brain activity-enhancing SuperScottishSynapse® pill is cunningly fashioned from haggis soaked in single malt Scotch whisky. The SuperScottishSynapse® pill is about the size of a golf ball, which is why you need the special Brains-R-Us pill-taking liquid, Dementia Cola®. Dementia Cola®, yours for only £29.95, for as long as you own your brain, is a secret mixture of porridge and single malt Scotch whisky.

Order your memory-enhancing products today, and they will be shipped within 24 hours, subject to credit approval. Everyone gets credit approval.

Order today!

Don't Forget!

Don't Forget!
--
all the best,
JD Douglass
President and CEO
Brains-R-Us

"A mind is a terrible thing to lose."
~a satisfied Brains-R-Us customer

Reprendre contact

lacune — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:26:00 +0000

J’ai eu beaucoup de temps pour réfléchir et je me suis penchée sur la question : et les gens, eux? Imaginez-vous que vous recevez, un beau matin, une lettre vous expliquant bien sobrement que vous avez été effacée. Je pense que je me fâcherais et que j’essaierais de prendre contact…

Le problème, c’est qu’une loi a été votée au Japon et passera bientôt au niveau international. Cette loi est basée sur la « liberté de pensée ». Évoquer ces souvenirs consciemment effacés est passible d’une amende salée et d’un séjour en prison… Mais ils se prennent pour qui? Dieu?

Erreur de parcours

lacune — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:27:03 +0000

J’ai été offusquée aujourd’hui. La description de leur produit le plus populaire me dégoûte carrément. En temps que science-fiction, la chose fait moins peur… mon amie japonaise m’a expliqué que son cousin a fait effacer tous les souvenirs de sa fiancée. Elle n’était rien de moins qu’une erreur de parcours.

D’après ce que j’ai compris, UnVoice, ça fait taire les souvenirs. Ils vous font asseoir confortablement, vous font gentiment parler de ce qui ne va pas… puis on vous met sur la chaise électrique! Cette opération, c’est carrément aussi dangereux que l’abus d’alcool ou de drogues : troubles de la mémoire, oubli de détails importants… et possibilité de développer certaines psychoses. Masuko m’a expliqué que certains se retrouvent avec des psychoses graves, comme de la « démence post-traumatique » ou, plus souvent, des symptômes d’« Alzheimer » sans égard à leur âge.

Les risques sont plutôt minimes, mais vu les conséquences, j’y penserais à deux fois…

Mock Web services with Apache Synapse to develop and test Web services

upulgodage — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:19:02 +0000

Apache Synapse is a simple, lightweight, high-performance enterprise service bus (ESB) released under the Apache License, Version 2.0. But for an individual developer, what's the use of an ESB product in your day-to-day life? The simplicity of the configuration, out-of-the-box feature set, extensible architecture, and the minimal footprint makes it a versatile and powerful tool that you can use for a variety of tasks.

In this IBM developerWorks tutorial, I will explain how you can use Apache Synapse to create mock Web services. The target Web service clients and services can be in any language, such as Microsoft® .NET, Java, or PHP. You will work with several samples, starting from the most basic configuration and gradually building more complex solutions to create mock Web services.

Read the article at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/edu/ws-dw-ws-synapse.html

Site francophone de Synapse

lacune — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:31:20 +0000

Ça y est, le site francophone de la compagnie est en ligne.

Pourquoi une page francophone? J'ai bien peur que lorsqu'ils parlent d'Amérique du Nord, ils visent ma province natale. D'après les rumeurs, ils s'intéressent à Montréal ou à Sherbrooke, avec ses universités et son leadership en santé. Soyez à l'affût...

On peut lire, dans la section produit de leur site web:

« Notre équipe maximisera ainsi les chances de réussite de la délicate opération. » Délicate? Feriez-vous confiance à un docteur qui vous dirait ça? On dirait qu’ils ont peur de vous détruire le cerveau…

Shimano Ultegra

tourdoisans — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:35:12 +0000

I blinged my Cannondale Synapse today with the new 10 Speed Shimano Ultegra Compact groupset. I have stuck the old groupset on ebay - go check it out here and if you buy a holiday with us we will reduce the holiday by the price that you have paid for the component !

Lucratif

lacune — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:26:43 +0000

Cette histoire de maîtrise de la mémoire, ça me pousse à me questionner : pourquoi les gens tiennent-ils à tenir autant de contrôle sur leur vie? De nos jours, tout le monde se fait refaire le corps, le visage, la couleur de cheveux… et s’ils n’y arrivent pas, il se retouchent avec Photoshop.

J’ai appris hier que la création de Synapse a été financée à 45% par le gouvernement nippon. Imaginez! Tout cet argent public… Ça m’enrage.

Ma tante est atteinte d’une tumeur au poumon et les médecins n’arrivent pas à la traiter correctement. Les chercheurs devraient mettre leurs priorités à la bonne place. Peut-être que c’est plus lucratif de vendre ses produits à la classe moyenne que de soigner gratuitement des malades?

Synapse

Stefan — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:28:42 +0000

Apache Synapse simulate mediator

upulgodage — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 03:26:59 +0000

Simulate mediator is a pluggable extension to Apache Synapse and WSO2 ESB, Enterprise Service Bus products. It performs regular expression matches against the message and if all the matches succeed, it replaces the message with the given contents of the file. You can replace the whole SOAP envelope or replace only the body contents. This mediator can be used to simulate Web service responses for development and testing. Check out the sample, and download the binary with the source code here.

Liberté de pensée

lacune — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:13:35 +0000

Ça commence à m’obséder : j’ai fait l’école buissonnière ce matin, histoire d’approfondir mes recherches sur Synapse. J’ai découvert que leur technologie principale, UnVoice, se base sur l’effacement de la mémoire. Les scientifiques et hommes d’affaires qui dirigent cette machine de guerre médiatique se justifient facilement. Selon eux, ils contribuent à augmenter la « liberté de pensée » et le « droit au bonheur ».

Ça serait dément, non? Oublier un moment désagréable, pour arriver à mieux vivre! C’est la solution facile par excellence et c’est moins compliqué que passer par un psy… Mais il y a quelque chose de pas net… C’est certain qu’il y a des inconvénients cachés derrière la procédure… Quelqu’un a pensé aux implications éthiques?

... À force de me concentrer là-dessus, c'est ma propre liberté de pensée qui est atteinte...

Sakujo

lacune — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:36:14 +0000

«Le vieillissement est essentiellement une opération de mémoire. Or c'est la mémoire qui fait toute la profondeur de l'homme.»[Charles Péguy] - Clio (Livre de philosophie)

À force de harcèlement, j’ai réussi à briser une partie du tabou qui entoure Synapse. Ceux qui connaissent des détails semblent en avoir honte; les autres en ont peur. Synapse : Memory Engineering s’amuse avec la mémoire des gens. Je n’ai pas trop bien compris (les scans de leurs publicités japonaises sont assez obscurs) mais je reconnais souvent des symboles qui veulent dire « mémoire » ou « souvenir », suivi parfois du mot « Sakujo»… Effacer, supprimer... Je vous reviens avec plus de détails…

... Synapse?

lacune — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:30:20 +0000

J’ai appris hier qu’une compagnie japonaise allait venir s’installer en Amérique du Nord… Ça m’inquiète. Cette entreprise, nommée Synapse (Shi-na-pu-su) sème la controverse un peu partout au pays. Mes prochaines interventions vont se concentrer sur le sujet : j’ai même décidé d’y consacrer une partie importante de ma recherche. Je vous informe dès que j’ai du nouveau.

Apache Synapse session mediator

upulgodage — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:27:13 +0000

Session mediator is a pluggable extension to Apache Synapse and WSO2 ESB, Enterprise Service Bus products. It provides a simple session object for ongoing messages. Currently it supports only session information transfered through cookies. Check out the sample, and download the binary with the source code here.

Consciousness a Problem

Brad — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:18:07 +0000

Language skills

Problem Solving

What is it like to be a cat?

There is an explanatory gap present in trying to account for how consciousness exists. In a physical, material universe, it is hard to make sense of how consciousness arises and emerges from it. In spite of this there are numerous attempts to respond to this problem. Some are pretty common such as dualism (from Rene Descartes), where the soul is independent of the physical universe, or a closely related concept, idealism (from George Berkeley), where some contents of consciousness are uninvolved with matter. Other explanations seem odd or just plain absurd, like direct realism (from Thomas Reid), which says that the contents of consciousness are the world itself, or panpsychism (from Gottfried Leibniz), the notion that all matter is conscious. Emergence theory and epiphenomenalism posit that consciousness is the result of the brain's immense complexity, and is therefore a physical construct. (For example, Hofstadter wrote a book I am a Strange Loop, saying consciousness is analogous to a sort of feed-back loop due to its self-reference, the "I.") A strange combo of this idea that and quantum physics is supported by Roger Penrose and some other scientists, called OOR. Their theory says a special quantum computation goes on in the mind allowing it to supersede some of the capabilities of rigid programming that regular computers have. (He argues his case in his book Emperor's New Mind.)

The Cartesian Theater, representing Descartes'

view of the soul in relation to the world

Another very impressive question is whether or not consciousness is actually something that makes choices. It is conceivable that our consciousness is merely a byproduct of our deterministic brain so that consciousness is only an endpoint and does not have any control over the brain's processing. Perhaps you're just along for the ride!

Some people (like Colin McGinn) say the hard problem is insoluble. Others (like Daniel Dennett) say it is an illusion; there is no hard problem. Still more (like David Chalmers) disagree with that, saying purely physical explanations are lacking. Take a look at the philosophical zombie, the Chinese room, the color expert Mary, and the Turing test for an idea of controversial issues with physicalism. A philosophical zombie is a theoretical human being that functions just as we do, exhibiting all of the ordinary behavior, but is not conscious. This begs the question, "What distinguishes conscious from non-conscious beings?" The Turing test is a situation played out between computers and humans where both a program and a real subject communicate with real interviewers, and if the interviewers cannot agree if the program is human, it is declared sentient. This raises the issue of whether or not it is even feasible to discern between conscious and non-conscious beings. (In AI research, this Turing test has been carried out in real life and is a part of an annual competition to see who can code the "most" human program.) The Chinese room is where a man sitting in a closed room, using instruction books, "translates" Chinese to English (or back), but does not truly "understand" Chinese. What makes up true comprehension? Lastly, the color expert Mary is a hypothetical scientist who learns all of the academic information about the color red possible, but then experiences seeing it for the first time afterwards. (Many people debate what her experience would be like.) What is the difference between qualia and information about qualia? These thought experiments flesh out some of the ambiguities we have in understanding consciousness, which prove problematic in reliably answering the hard problem.

An xkcd-twisted version of the Turing test

And so the debate on the hard problem still persists, and one still wonders how and even if the problem can be solved. Can it even be properly understood? Is it in the realm of metaphysics or science? How can we tell? Is there anything obvious being overlooked? Surely, the hard problem of consciousness ranks right up there with solving the millennium problems and interpreting/understanding quantum theory. It is easily one of the hardest problems of the universe, yet it is what you live every day.

Cheville

Edson Junior — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:36:31 +0000

Há muito tenho vivido à espera de sutis mudanças em certos aspectos de minha personalidade. Não trato de coisas práticas, mas de outras, um tanto mais sutis. À sombra da infância é vulgar acometer-nos a todos aquela idéia – hoje sei, um tanto vaga – que tão constantemente acometeu-me e inda hoje se faz viva: a idéia de que adaptar-nos-emos ao mundo à medida que abandonarmos quaisquer hábitos contrários ao intento.

Ora, o máximo que se pode alcançar é a aceitação desta vida que aí está; é à constatação de nossa própria impotência que nos adaptamos, e o mais são variações de um tema já gasto, ainda que sólido. De minha parte posso dizê-lo: possivelmente chegarei à velhice a esperar que o pós-vida traga-me as transformações pelas quais aguardo sem que eu tenha jamais entendido como agora entendo, ou pelo menos imagino, a insondável distância que há entre simples traços de personalidade e aquelas indisfarçáveis maneiras, qual ervas daninhas, encravadas no espírito.

Olá. Não vou dizer, ainda, que encerrei o Sententia, mas considerem-no em quarentena por tempo indeterminado. Aqueles spams aborreceram-me e, como eles são muitos e é pouca a minha paciência, volto agora ao wordpress.

Após uns bons dias sem nada postar, tentarei manter a freqüência dantes – ou eu não sei aonde me levará todo este enfado. Freqüentei nos últimos dias Evelyn Waugh; além do essencial Brideshead Revisited, li também Decline and Fall – um livro leve, cômico e elegante. Passei por mais Chesterton e tentei Joyce – lá pela página 100 cessei a leitura em respeito ao senhor Stephen Dedalus e trupe; não me estava a dedicar inteiramente, de maneira que o melhor a fazer é, quando possível, trancar-me num retiro espiritual a fim de ler este Ulysses.

Venho agorinha de uma livraria. Aqui ao lado está aberta uma página na qual leio:

Em 1913, quando Anthony Patch chegou aos 25, dois anos já se haviam passado desde que a ironia, o Espírito Santo da época, descera, pelos menos teoricamente, sobre ele. A ironia foi o brilho final no sapato, a última escovadela na roupa, uma espécie de “pronto!” intelectual.

Trata-se de Fitzgerald em The Beautiful and Damned – ou Belos e Malditos, um título que soa bem em português.

O resto é um silêncio oscilante.