I have hardly looked at my blog in the last year. It is quite obvious that I stopped posting just prior to final exams before I graduated. Within days of graduating, I moved to Cincinnati and started a new job. I did not have the internet for months, and then it was dial-up until last week. I will now post.
I married a wonderful lady about four weeks ago, and now I live in my own house, and pay taxes, and do the real-world thing parents’ talk about. It’s not very exciting. To me, the most fulfilling part is that I can do pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want, for whatever reason I want (or for no reason at all). My only constraints, in descending order of importance, are my limited financial means, religious requirements, and law.
These are indeed substantial restrains. I cannot afford many of the things I want, but I can afford many of the things I do. Traditional Roman Catholicism actually provides an abundance of freedom to a normal individual, but it does restrict some activities, requires that I do certain things on certain days, and pray. Most of these things I want to do anyway. Law attempts to restrict my activities to a large degree. Fortunately, law is one of the easiest restrictions to escape (as long as you don’t break any big laws like failing to pay your taxes or murdering a postman). I regularly exceed the speed limits, buy wine for my nineteen-year-old wife, and scrape leaded paint.
I can definitely see why various thinkers, most of them heretics, like Friedrich Nietzsche found this “freedom” so intoxicating. I must confess that simply doing something like purchasing mesquite charcoal rather that the regular kind is thrilling in a small way simply because my father, my church, and my wife have absolutely no say in the matter. The state has even erected legal structures that permit this consumer choice. It is sweet that I purchased charcoal which I hope will impart a delicious flavor to my London Broil (recipe here), but sweeter knowing that I have the power to make such decisions, and I even take wicked delight in knowing that if somebody told me to do otherwise, I could (and would) dismiss them with TAKE a HIKE!
The human will is a funny thing. God gave lions big teeth, claws, and powerful muscles. He gave humans a will. It is what makes humans (and other things with wills) a powerful influence in the world. Angels, having a stronger and better-informed will due to their great intellects, are more powerful than humans. When one exercises their will, even on a small or trivial thing, it empowers. Sometimes, exercising the will leads to pride, especially if the person perceives the fruits of their action, directed by their will, as good. It is therefore important to always temper feelings of accomplishment (the result of good action) with the recognition that circumstances, which are arranged by God, often play a larger role in most accomplishment than the human will does.
Action is rightly related to the will. Exercise of the will leads to human action, which leads to some accomplishment (good or bad), which is also influenced by circumstance and the talents of that particular human. When a person perceives sensation as being directed by their will they will fall prey to liberalism. This is due to a false relationship—that of sensation and the will—and it leads to endless contradiction and misery. Sensation now becomes the primary task of the will. It now becomes abundantly clear why liberalism has always been associated with drug abuse, sexual fetishes and deviance, and placing all problems into the framework of a disease. Drug abuse is perhaps the simplest association to demonstrate. The will directs the ingestion of some substance that results in prompt sensory pleasure. Sexual abuses are a little bit more difficult and complicated, but are essentially the same—the will directs some activity that results in immediate sensory pleasure, but results in no lasting accomplishment. In both cases it is the lack of accomplishment that is problematic. Rightly prescribed medicines accomplish good outcomes like the curing a malady. Rightly ordered sex accomplishes the begetting of children. The reason why liberalism is bad is because it focuses on the sensory pleasure rather than accomplishment. Libertarianism on the other hand focuses exclusively on action (right or wrong) and usually ignores circumstance. This is why famous libertarians like Ayn Rand found drug abusers weak and pathetic (you can’t accomplish much while high), and this is why too many libertarians the that the ends justifies the means. The traditional, conservative standpoint is the soundest—that the will directs action, which should be for good, and it recognizes that circumstances (a.k.a. reality) play a role. The traditional, conservative standpoint does not operate in a vacuum like Rand’s syllogisms, and it does not place sensation as the pinnacle of human achievement.
The third liberal association, placing all problems into the framework of “disease” is all to common but warrants definition. I remember humorously the movie West Side Story when one of the youths tells Officer Krumpke the reason why he is a delinquent is because he suffers from a “social disease.” Of course he learned this phrase from the presumably liberal psychologist. This framework accommodates the inherent contradiction of liberalism. Since liberals believe that sensation is the goal, but are often unable to achieve it because individual circumstances thwart it, they turn to the state to provide the action, and blame it on some invented disease. Is this not perverse? They direct the state to accomplish things that individuals should because they believe that individuals cannot accomplish the necessary things because they are deprived of the sensation they need. It’s mind-bendingly contradictory and silly, but it is alarmingly common. Let’s take welfare as an example. An individual cannot obtain the goods and housing they need to be sensorarily satisfied, so the state gives (action) money to this individual that it took (more action) from other people, who rightly earned it though their own individual human work (action). It’s an individual problem with a social solution. It should be like this: an individual cannot obtain the goods and housing they need to be sensorarily satisfied, so they use their will to earn money (action) to satisfy their needs, or consign themselves to being unfulfilled. An individual problem with an individual solution. And no public theft (a.k.a. taxes) is involved. The “diseased” invention merely makes the silly liberal system seem more palatable to the sound-minded. Oh, certainly the individual that is on welfare cannot help themselves because society doesn’t give them what they need to accomplish things! The sad fact is that they will never accomplish anything because of liberalism.
26 May 2008
02 May 2007
28 April 2007
Environmental Enrichment and Hebbian Pathways
Research in environmental enrichment began in 1949 with Dr. Hebb’s investigation with two groups of rats. Rats raised in his “impoverished” laboratory setting performed worse in detour and maze problems than rats raised as pets by his two daughters. While this initial investigation was very crude, it opened the door for more controlled studies in environmental enrichment and impoverishment and its impact on learning and the brain.
By 1964 Bennett et al. securely established that rats reared in an enriched environment are faster learners than their littermates raised in relative isolation. The early “enriched” environments usually were large cages that featured toys, running wheels, and other objects, and they were cohabitated by other rats. The control rats were raised in smaller cages, alone, with no objects. Rosenzweig and Bennett reviewed literature in the area in 1996, again confirming their earlier hypothesis. It was not clear then, or now, what the particular elements of the environment made it enriched, and it was not clear weather the greater physical activity of the rats in the enriched environment contributed to their higher performance in problem solving and learning.
As late as 2000 van Praag et al. in a comprehensive review could not find any isolated variables that contributed to making an environment “enriched” for animals ranging from drosophila, to rats, to humans; though they did confirm that neither observing and enriched environment without being able to participate in it (TV rat) nor social interaction alone could explain the effects of enriched environments. They did discover a confounding variable. The interaction between the environment and neural development goes both ways since neural developments effect the animal’s perception of the environment. It is not simply the environment impressing itself upon the brain. In higher animals, it is certainly possible that factors like motivation play a substantial role in the effect of an enriched environment, and the effects of voluntary physical activity are still unknown. Clearly, isolating the specific factors in an enriched environment would be greatly beneficial to the advancement of research in the area and clear up confusion.
Diamond and Hopson at the University of California (the same university that Bennet et al. made their landmark discoveries) have suggested some factors that create an enriched environment for children in their book, Magic Trees of the Mind (1999), though none of these factors have been experimentally verified. They come simply from clinical experience, surveys, and interviews (mostly anecdotal and poorly controlled).
According to Diamond and Hopson, enriched environments…
∑ Include a steady source of positive emotional support
∑ Provide a nutritious diet with enough protein, vitamins, minerals and calories
∑ Stimulate all the senses (but not all at once)
∑ Have an atmosphere free of undue pressure and stress but suffused with a degree of
pleasurable intensity
∑ Present a series of novel challenges that are neither too easy nor too difficult for the stage of development
∑ Allow for social interaction for a significant percentage of activities
∑ Promote the development of a broad range of skills and interests that are mental, aesthetic, social and emotional
∑ Give the child an opportunity to choose many of his or her own activities
∑ Give the child a change to assess the results of his or her efforts and to modify them
∑ Offer an enjoyable atmosphere that promotes exploration and the fun of learning
∑ Above all, allow the child to be an active participant rather than a passive observer.
These factors echo the observations posed in the review article. Motivation, choosing activities, being active rather than passive, social interaction, and stimulation all seem important. Nutrition is obviously important and will not be discussed further. A point that seems to be overlooked is the assessment of physical effort. Diamond and Hopson do not discus physical activity’s impact on learning.
Empirically verifying the particular factors that contribute to an enriched environment would surely be helpful. It could advise parents on weather or not to purchase Baby Einstein videos for their children, or which particular educational video would be best (though it has already been established that participation is necessary in an enriched environment. TV babies will probably do no better than TV rats). This information would be very valuable to educators, too. Arranging classrooms and curriculums may be enhanced by knowledge of enrichment’s impact on learning. Perhaps simple changes in the classroom could elicit great improvements in learning.
The best way to understand the improved performance of individuals in enhanced environments is to decipher a biological mechanism, rather than simply correlating performance and factors in an enriched environment because correlation will never be able to distinguish the interaction between the environment and neural development.
In 1949 Hebb proposed that learning and memory are based on the strengthening of synapses that occurs when pre- and postsynaptic neurons are simultaneously active. Either the pre synaptic neuron or the postsynaptic neuron (or both) changes in such a way that the activation of one cell becomes more likely to cause the other to fire. Recently, neuroscientists have amassed data showing that Hebb was somewhat correct, and the maxim “cells the fire together, wire together” has become a common colloquial term (Schwartz and Begley, 2002). This can provide the biological framework for understanding enrichment’s impact on the individual.
Dr. Kandel, the 2000 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, earned his share of the medal by investigating the “cells that fire together, wire together” maxim as it relates to learning in the humble Aplysia californica, the sea snail. He found that sensitized neurons had undergone long-lasting change: when excited (by touch), they discharge more neurotransmitter than do neurons that have not undergone sensitization. They also found that after periods of stimulation, certain reflex actions could be enhanced for a period of time. These stimuli modulate secondary messenger molecules like cAMP, which has been found to stimulate the formation of neural connections (Schwartz and Begley, 2002).
Enriched environments should have particular features, which can be directly linked to neural sensitization. In the case of the Aplysia, this was accomplished by simply spraying a jet of water onto its soft body tissues. Obviously different things in an enriched environment will simulate humans, but since both humans and Aplysia share similar neuronal and secondary messenger systems, it is likely that the Hebian conception of neural learning will apply to both. The task is now to demonstrate what environmental elements sensitize human neurons.
Enrichment has been linked to an increase in brain weight and dendritic branching (Pacteau et al., 1989) and improving cortical synaptic plasticity (Wainwright et al., 1993) in rats, both of which are conceptually Hebbian mechanisms. If it could be demonstrated that particular elements in an enriched environment influence these quantifiable physiological measures, then hard, empirical evidence would exist for developing enriched environments for humans.
Physiological measures of neuronal neuronal activity used on rats (which involved destruction of the animal) cannot be carried out on humans. Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) uses alterations in brain hemodynamics to infer changes in neural activity by measuring small changes in deoxyhemoglobin within the brain’s vasculature, allowing non-invasive analysis of single-neuronal activity. The relation between fMRI and physiological measurements (such as Clark-style polographic microelectrodes inserted into the brain) is well substantiated in cats (Thompson et al., 2003), which are more closely related to humans than rats, though BOLD has not been substantiated in primates to date.
An experiment could test this by correlating specific features of the environment (for example, social interaction) to BOLD fMRI measurements and problem solving measures. It is known that the effects of an impoverished environment can be demonstrated rapidly (within a day or two) in humans, and normal humans make a rapid recovery once they are reintroduced to a normal environment (Heron 1957), so these experiments can be conducted rather safely.
An experiment is therefore proposed. A group of human subjects will be placed in environments with defined, controllable elements of enrichment for short periods of time (perhaps a day or two). They will then be compared to a group of human subjects (control 1), which were simply allowed to go about their daily lives normally with BOLD fMRI and pencil and paper problem solving tests. Another group would be placed in an impoverished environment similar to Heron’s 1957 experiment and compared in the same way. By varying the elements of enrichment, particular elements could be isolated to give an accurate picture of what really results in enrichments. Also, pedometers or heart-rate monitors could be placed on the subjects to approximate physical activity to determine if it is a variable.
A plausible hypothesis would be that elements in the enriched environment that causes “arousal,” would provide stimulation for the Hebbian pathway (which can be monitored using BOLD fMRI) and result in better problem solving scores. Schwartz and Begley suggested this “arousal hypothesis” in 2002. A contrary finding would be if no evidence for the Hebbian pathways was found, or if the neuronal activity was highly irregular in different individuals.
References:
Bennett, E. L., Diamond, M. C., Krech, D. and Rosenzweig, M. R. (1964) Chemical and Anatomical Plasticity in the Brain. Science. 146: 610-619
Diamond, M. C. and Hopson, J. L. (1999) Magic Trees of the Mind: How to Nurture Your Child's Intelligence, Creativity, and Healthy Emotions from Birth Through Adolescence. New York. Penguin.
Hebb, D. O. (1949) The Organization of Behavior. New York. Wiley.
Heron, W. (1957, January) Pathology of Boredom. Scientific American. 52-56
Pacteau, C., Einon, D. and Sinden, J. (1989) Early Rearing Environment and Dorsal Hippocampal Ibotenic Acid Lesions: Long-Term Influences on Spatial Learning and Alteration in the Rat. Behavioral Brain Research. 34: 79-96
Rozenzweig, M. R. and Bennett, E. L. (1996) Psychobiology of plasticity: effects of training and experience on brain and behavior. Behavioral Brain Research. 78: 57-65
Schwartz, J. M. and Begley, S. (2002) The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force. New York. HarperCollins.
Thompson, J. K., Peterson, M. R. and Freeman, R. D. (2003) Single-Neuron Activity and Tissue Oxygenation in the Cerebral Cortex. Science. 299: 1070-1072
Van Praag, H., Kempermann, G. and Gage, F. H. (2000) Neural Consequences of Environmental Enrichment. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 1:191-198
Wainwright, P. E. et al. (1993) Effects of Environmental Enrichment on Cortical Depth and Morris-maze Performance in B6D2F2 Mice Exposed Prenatally to Ethanol. Neurobehavioral Toxicology and Teratology. 15: 11-20
By 1964 Bennett et al. securely established that rats reared in an enriched environment are faster learners than their littermates raised in relative isolation. The early “enriched” environments usually were large cages that featured toys, running wheels, and other objects, and they were cohabitated by other rats. The control rats were raised in smaller cages, alone, with no objects. Rosenzweig and Bennett reviewed literature in the area in 1996, again confirming their earlier hypothesis. It was not clear then, or now, what the particular elements of the environment made it enriched, and it was not clear weather the greater physical activity of the rats in the enriched environment contributed to their higher performance in problem solving and learning.
As late as 2000 van Praag et al. in a comprehensive review could not find any isolated variables that contributed to making an environment “enriched” for animals ranging from drosophila, to rats, to humans; though they did confirm that neither observing and enriched environment without being able to participate in it (TV rat) nor social interaction alone could explain the effects of enriched environments. They did discover a confounding variable. The interaction between the environment and neural development goes both ways since neural developments effect the animal’s perception of the environment. It is not simply the environment impressing itself upon the brain. In higher animals, it is certainly possible that factors like motivation play a substantial role in the effect of an enriched environment, and the effects of voluntary physical activity are still unknown. Clearly, isolating the specific factors in an enriched environment would be greatly beneficial to the advancement of research in the area and clear up confusion.
Diamond and Hopson at the University of California (the same university that Bennet et al. made their landmark discoveries) have suggested some factors that create an enriched environment for children in their book, Magic Trees of the Mind (1999), though none of these factors have been experimentally verified. They come simply from clinical experience, surveys, and interviews (mostly anecdotal and poorly controlled).
According to Diamond and Hopson, enriched environments…
∑ Include a steady source of positive emotional support
∑ Provide a nutritious diet with enough protein, vitamins, minerals and calories
∑ Stimulate all the senses (but not all at once)
∑ Have an atmosphere free of undue pressure and stress but suffused with a degree of
pleasurable intensity
∑ Present a series of novel challenges that are neither too easy nor too difficult for the stage of development
∑ Allow for social interaction for a significant percentage of activities
∑ Promote the development of a broad range of skills and interests that are mental, aesthetic, social and emotional
∑ Give the child an opportunity to choose many of his or her own activities
∑ Give the child a change to assess the results of his or her efforts and to modify them
∑ Offer an enjoyable atmosphere that promotes exploration and the fun of learning
∑ Above all, allow the child to be an active participant rather than a passive observer.
These factors echo the observations posed in the review article. Motivation, choosing activities, being active rather than passive, social interaction, and stimulation all seem important. Nutrition is obviously important and will not be discussed further. A point that seems to be overlooked is the assessment of physical effort. Diamond and Hopson do not discus physical activity’s impact on learning.
Empirically verifying the particular factors that contribute to an enriched environment would surely be helpful. It could advise parents on weather or not to purchase Baby Einstein videos for their children, or which particular educational video would be best (though it has already been established that participation is necessary in an enriched environment. TV babies will probably do no better than TV rats). This information would be very valuable to educators, too. Arranging classrooms and curriculums may be enhanced by knowledge of enrichment’s impact on learning. Perhaps simple changes in the classroom could elicit great improvements in learning.
The best way to understand the improved performance of individuals in enhanced environments is to decipher a biological mechanism, rather than simply correlating performance and factors in an enriched environment because correlation will never be able to distinguish the interaction between the environment and neural development.
In 1949 Hebb proposed that learning and memory are based on the strengthening of synapses that occurs when pre- and postsynaptic neurons are simultaneously active. Either the pre synaptic neuron or the postsynaptic neuron (or both) changes in such a way that the activation of one cell becomes more likely to cause the other to fire. Recently, neuroscientists have amassed data showing that Hebb was somewhat correct, and the maxim “cells the fire together, wire together” has become a common colloquial term (Schwartz and Begley, 2002). This can provide the biological framework for understanding enrichment’s impact on the individual.
Dr. Kandel, the 2000 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, earned his share of the medal by investigating the “cells that fire together, wire together” maxim as it relates to learning in the humble Aplysia californica, the sea snail. He found that sensitized neurons had undergone long-lasting change: when excited (by touch), they discharge more neurotransmitter than do neurons that have not undergone sensitization. They also found that after periods of stimulation, certain reflex actions could be enhanced for a period of time. These stimuli modulate secondary messenger molecules like cAMP, which has been found to stimulate the formation of neural connections (Schwartz and Begley, 2002).
Enriched environments should have particular features, which can be directly linked to neural sensitization. In the case of the Aplysia, this was accomplished by simply spraying a jet of water onto its soft body tissues. Obviously different things in an enriched environment will simulate humans, but since both humans and Aplysia share similar neuronal and secondary messenger systems, it is likely that the Hebian conception of neural learning will apply to both. The task is now to demonstrate what environmental elements sensitize human neurons.
Enrichment has been linked to an increase in brain weight and dendritic branching (Pacteau et al., 1989) and improving cortical synaptic plasticity (Wainwright et al., 1993) in rats, both of which are conceptually Hebbian mechanisms. If it could be demonstrated that particular elements in an enriched environment influence these quantifiable physiological measures, then hard, empirical evidence would exist for developing enriched environments for humans.
Physiological measures of neuronal neuronal activity used on rats (which involved destruction of the animal) cannot be carried out on humans. Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) uses alterations in brain hemodynamics to infer changes in neural activity by measuring small changes in deoxyhemoglobin within the brain’s vasculature, allowing non-invasive analysis of single-neuronal activity. The relation between fMRI and physiological measurements (such as Clark-style polographic microelectrodes inserted into the brain) is well substantiated in cats (Thompson et al., 2003), which are more closely related to humans than rats, though BOLD has not been substantiated in primates to date.
An experiment could test this by correlating specific features of the environment (for example, social interaction) to BOLD fMRI measurements and problem solving measures. It is known that the effects of an impoverished environment can be demonstrated rapidly (within a day or two) in humans, and normal humans make a rapid recovery once they are reintroduced to a normal environment (Heron 1957), so these experiments can be conducted rather safely.
An experiment is therefore proposed. A group of human subjects will be placed in environments with defined, controllable elements of enrichment for short periods of time (perhaps a day or two). They will then be compared to a group of human subjects (control 1), which were simply allowed to go about their daily lives normally with BOLD fMRI and pencil and paper problem solving tests. Another group would be placed in an impoverished environment similar to Heron’s 1957 experiment and compared in the same way. By varying the elements of enrichment, particular elements could be isolated to give an accurate picture of what really results in enrichments. Also, pedometers or heart-rate monitors could be placed on the subjects to approximate physical activity to determine if it is a variable.
A plausible hypothesis would be that elements in the enriched environment that causes “arousal,” would provide stimulation for the Hebbian pathway (which can be monitored using BOLD fMRI) and result in better problem solving scores. Schwartz and Begley suggested this “arousal hypothesis” in 2002. A contrary finding would be if no evidence for the Hebbian pathways was found, or if the neuronal activity was highly irregular in different individuals.
References:
Bennett, E. L., Diamond, M. C., Krech, D. and Rosenzweig, M. R. (1964) Chemical and Anatomical Plasticity in the Brain. Science. 146: 610-619
Diamond, M. C. and Hopson, J. L. (1999) Magic Trees of the Mind: How to Nurture Your Child's Intelligence, Creativity, and Healthy Emotions from Birth Through Adolescence. New York. Penguin.
Hebb, D. O. (1949) The Organization of Behavior. New York. Wiley.
Heron, W. (1957, January) Pathology of Boredom. Scientific American. 52-56
Pacteau, C., Einon, D. and Sinden, J. (1989) Early Rearing Environment and Dorsal Hippocampal Ibotenic Acid Lesions: Long-Term Influences on Spatial Learning and Alteration in the Rat. Behavioral Brain Research. 34: 79-96
Rozenzweig, M. R. and Bennett, E. L. (1996) Psychobiology of plasticity: effects of training and experience on brain and behavior. Behavioral Brain Research. 78: 57-65
Schwartz, J. M. and Begley, S. (2002) The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force. New York. HarperCollins.
Thompson, J. K., Peterson, M. R. and Freeman, R. D. (2003) Single-Neuron Activity and Tissue Oxygenation in the Cerebral Cortex. Science. 299: 1070-1072
Van Praag, H., Kempermann, G. and Gage, F. H. (2000) Neural Consequences of Environmental Enrichment. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 1:191-198
Wainwright, P. E. et al. (1993) Effects of Environmental Enrichment on Cortical Depth and Morris-maze Performance in B6D2F2 Mice Exposed Prenatally to Ethanol. Neurobehavioral Toxicology and Teratology. 15: 11-20
27 April 2007
Baptizing in Beer
"Since as we have learned from your report, it sometimes happens because of the scarcity of water, that infants of your lands are baptized in beer, we reply to you in the tenor of those present that, since according to evangelical doctrine it is necessary "to be reborn from water and the Holy Ghost" (John III:5) they are not to be considered rightly baptized who are baptized in beer."
-Cum sicut ex, Pope Gregory IX to Archbishop Sigurd of Norway, 13c
I find it funny that beer was more available than water in Norway in the 13th century.
-Cum sicut ex, Pope Gregory IX to Archbishop Sigurd of Norway, 13c
I find it funny that beer was more available than water in Norway in the 13th century.
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