Ken

Do you have any actual data to support these statements? An Operational Definition of either Introvert or Extrovert?

I'm curious. How do you operationally* define subconscious or conscious? *An Operational Definition tells one how an entity is measured.

:rolleyes:

It's more expensive but I think that copper screening would be better. Any AC is going to carry RF that it picks up in the outside environment. You'd do better with 12VDC from batteries inside the cage, but the networking will be a problem. Grounding can be problematic, you need to avoid ground loops by tying all grounds individually to a single grounding point. It's been a long time since I did any electrophysiological research but I do recall having a "random" transient that I couldn't eliminate until I realized that it was from the elevator doors opening about 50 ft from my lab. At that point I eliminated my connections to an external recorder and moved it into the cage. <_<

Illusion street art:

Did I come across as too pedantic? Sorry. Just trying to add another dimension to the discussion.

You've made an awful lot of assumptions here that you couldn't possibly provide support for. They all seem to start from a single conceptual point - that intelligence is something beyond behavior. No one has ever measured intelligence, they've simply measured behavior in a certain (testing) situation and inferred this nebulous characteristic.

Let's try this: Prove to me that you "Silently Soliloquize". Provide me with objective evidence that you do this. I'll wait. B)

Better to say "all animals have behaviors" and leave out the unmeasurable notion of thought. "Thought" is inferred from behavior, not directly observed in any other creature than oneself. :D

Sorry, but that is just more of the heavy misinformation load that this thread is carrying. First, it's pointless to make statements about cross-species intelligence measures since there is no concrete definition of intelligence. The controversy that has been going on for decades is whether "Intelligence" is a single property (often called "g") or if it is some summation of a number of individual skills. Second, the term and its measurement were based on Binet's attempts to determine learning potential in children; it's a reasonably good predictor of academic success although academic success is also influenced by a hots of other variables. Third, simply looking at brain weight vs. body size makes for interesting charts but completely ignores why the differences exist AND where in the brain the additional neuronal content is located. The additional size in the Dolphin's brain is not uniformly distributed, it is concentrated in the auditory centers. I'll save other comments for another post. :)

I'm sure you meant something else. Neurology is a medical science dealing with the Nervous System and disorders that affect it.

The Wikipedia definition is pretty good: It often describes a situation in which one holds a belief but behaves in ways opposite to that belief. The solution, according to Festinger, is that the individual change either his/hers belief or their behavior to make belief and behavior consonant (in agreement).

The only link to the actual clinical definition of Autism appears to be broken so I've copied the definition from DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, published by the American Psychiatric Association). NOTE: For some strange reason several emoticons and copyright signs appear in the quoted text. They don't belong there and don't show up in the Edit window. :angry: If the symptoms do not meet these criteria then the disorder is NOT Autism. This is extremely important when looking at such issues as claims about vaccinations, therapies, etc. If the diagnosis has not been made by a qualified clinician then one cannot depend on it, and any "data" presented is suspect.

Well, science doesn't "prove" anything, it reduces uncertainty but never achieves certainty. But here you start with a dubious claim ("Blind or blindfolded participators might produce text") and then move on to a conclusion/question that assumes that the claim is supported. All that such an observation would support is that you were a passive participant and that someone else was moving the planchette. What would such neurological research focus on? How would neurological research support "Abilities of and Proof of Existence of the 'Unconscious' mind"? You seem to be wandering through a view of physical observations and metaphysical speculations without any attempt at sorting them out. Are you saying that unbiased science is that which supports your notions? How do you define "so called" research? How do you measure "subconscious", or "Unconscious", or "Mind"? Science deals with the study of observable, measurable, phenomena. It offers nothing for alleged phenomena that can't be observed and measured. Perhaps this discussion should start again with an Operational Definition of Telepathy, i.e., a definition that includes how Telepathy would be measured. Then it could extend to Operational Definitions of conscious/unconscious, etc. ;)

True, but there is a religion for agnostics. :)

You saved me some typing. B)

Have you tried it blindfolded, with an objective observer copying the "text" produced? You might want to read this: http://www.skepdic.com/ouija.html

What does that mean? :P

Seriously, the typical neuron produces an electro-chemical wave or impulse on the order of micro-volts. To measure them you need powerful, well-filtered, DC amplifiers and usually a Faraday cage (radiant energy shielded chamber). Faraday cages can be copper screening "cubes" grounded to earth, or fairly elaborate metal chambers. When I was doing electrophysiological neural recordings if I left the door of my elaborate chamber slightly open I would pick up larger transients from the elevator door opening about 75ft from my lab than I would from an animal's retina. If you aren't picking up transients from your microwave I really doubt that you could pick up individual neuronal activity. B) On the other hand, with billions of neurons in the human brain, I doubt that you could pick up single neuronal activity with any instrumentation that didn't have an electrode inserted directly in the cell in question. The EEG (Electroencephalogram) picks up mass potentials from neural circuits containing thousands (to millions) of axons, or potentials from specific neural centers in the brain called (confusingly) nuclei. The challenge there is to pick out the meaningful information from the hub-bub, sort of like picking out one, or a few, voices from the fans in a sports stadium all yelling at once. Take visual information for example. To decode visual information within the neural system you have to identify the various layers of the optical cortex (the Occipital Cortex of the Cerebrum). At different levels, different cells respond to singular characteristics of the stimuli - straight line, angle of line, etc. These cells are "mapped" to specific parts of the retina. So you would have to know which layer the signal was coming from, and then which part of the retina was providing the signal. And you would have to do this without any direct contact with the individual cells. I'm confident that it can't be done, no matter what technology comes down the road. :)

Your field of view would be limited by the limits of the pupillary opening. You wouldn't be able to see more than 180* and probably much less. It would be a reasonably round field of view. I don't see why that would happen. The saccadic movements serve to keep the individual retinal elements from "adapting out", i.e., a failure to respond to continuous stimulation. I'm not sure what you mean, but optically, the eye is no different than a camera. If you removed the retina and replaced it with film you would get an image on the film. The difference could be described as film having a pretty uniform distribution of similar sized photo-reactive grain. The retina, as the Osterberg graph shows, has a very non-uniform distribution of the photo-reactive carrier structures (rods and cones). You raise some very interesting questions.

I'm thinking you have no physical definition of Unconscious, or mind. :D

Data?

What is this "science of mind" of which you write? :P

What do you mean by "terminus of your field of view"? That defines the field of view. What you see that is not obstructed by nose, brow, etc. is the field of view. :o Of course there are "edges" to your field of view. They occur where you go from being able to see things to the periphery of your field of view where you can't see things (past the nose, brow, etc). :rolleyes: The Oesterberg graph of distribution of rods and cones explains this more completely. Those movements aren't technically "scans", they are small, frequent, movements or saccades, that prevent the retinal elements from adapting out. If you look at the research on stabilized images you will see that after very short periods of stabilized, or constant, stimulation the rods and cones stop responding. All of the foveal views are "clear", the visual centers basically synchronize with the average central foveal image when you are fixating on a spot, or object, in the visual field. I'll have to try that. No, the saccadic movements are not under voluntary control If it's "un-bounded" how could you map it? The actual field of view is relatively easy to map. Below is a map of the f.o.v of the rigtht eye.

I admit I have no experience with symbolic logic, and this discussion is over my head. Having confessed I think the following paradox is an example of what you call bivalent symbolic logic. I used this as an example in part of a lecture in my Research Methods course. Consider the quote box as a "real" box. Based on your comments I would assume you would see this as an oscilatory truth value. I'd have to dig out my faded lecture notes to see what I called it back before I retired. <grin> Comments?