#neural connections

[marilynpalmer]

epistaxis

it’s 7 am

I’m awakened by the sound of a storm

you’re sipping coffee from your favorite mug

lighting up the first cigarette of the day

it’s noon

you’re closing your eyes,inhaling the June heat

I’m running my fingers through the shaggy carpet

I’d rather have them tangled in your hair

it’s 11 pm

I’m swirling my third cuba libre as if it’s mouthwash

you’re scribbling under a tiny desk lamp

sheets cover the floor like snow;

all these thoughts obstruct my being

they drip like blood from my nose -

I can’t stop the flow;

it’s 3 am

you’re sleeping soundly,dreaming of new galaxies

I’m crying my eyes out

[spectraparanormalchronicles]

Exploring Neuroplasticity and Paranormal Cognition

Introduction

In recent years, the concept of neuroplasticity has revolutionized our understanding of the human brain's capacity for adaptation and change. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life in response to learning, experience, injury, or disease. This remarkable phenomenon opens up intriguing possibilities for exploring the link between brain plasticity and paranormal cognition—phenomena such as precognition and remote viewing that challenge conventional scientific explanations.

Understanding Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity underscores the brain's dynamic nature, demonstrating that it is not a static organ but a highly adaptive and malleable structure. Throughout life, the brain can create new neural pathways, strengthen existing connections, and even reassign functions to different areas in response to various stimuli and experiences. This ability is essential for learning, memory formation, recovery from injury, and overall cognitive flexibility.

Exploring Paranormal Cognition

Paranormal cognition encompasses a range of abilities that defy current scientific understanding but are reported across cultures and historical contexts. Key examples include:

Precognition: The purported ability to foresee future events or outcomes before they occur, often through dreams, visions, or intuitive flashes.

Remote Viewing: The alleged ability to perceive distant or unseen targets without the use of known sensory channels, sometimes described in espionage or psychic experimentation.

These phenomena challenge traditional scientific paradigms, yet they continue to intrigue researchers and enthusiasts alike because of their potential implications for understanding consciousness and human perception.

Neuroplasticity and Paranormal Abilities

Given the brain's capacity for neuroplasticity, researchers propose that changes in neural connectivity and function could play a role in facilitating or enhancing paranormal cognition:

Formation of New Neural Networks: Learning and practicing paranormal abilities such as precognition or remote viewing may involve the formation of new neural networks specialized for processing intuitive or extrasensory information. This process could be facilitated by neuroplastic changes that optimize brain regions involved in perception, intuition, and information processing.

Enhanced Cognitive Flexibility: Individuals who exhibit paranormal cognition abilities might demonstrate heightened cognitive flexibility, allowing them to adapt neural networks more readily to perceive information beyond conventional sensory inputs. Neuroplasticity could support the development of cognitive strategies that enhance these abilities over time.

Environmental Influences: External factors such as meditation, mindfulness practices, or specific training regimens may induce neuroplastic changes that facilitate paranormal cognition. These practices could potentially alter brain structure and function in ways that enhance sensitivity to subtle environmental cues or information.

Challenges and Future Directions

While the concept of neuroplasticity offers an interesting framework for exploring paranormal cognition, significant challenges remain:

Empirical Validation: Demonstrating a causal relationship between neuroplasticity and paranormal abilities requires rigorous empirical research integrating neuroscience, psychology, and parapsychology.

Methodological Considerations: Developing standardized protocols and methodologies for studying paranormal cognition within a neuroscientific framework is essential for advancing our understanding.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Bridging gaps between traditionally distinct fields, such as neuroscience and parapsychology, is crucial for fostering collaborative research efforts that can address complex questions about brain function and consciousness.

Conclusion

The intersection of neuroplasticity and paranormal cognition represents a frontier where scientific inquiry meets the mysteries of human perception and consciousness. As researchers continue to probe the brain's adaptive capabilities and their potential links to extraordinary cognitive abilities, such as precognition and remote viewing, we may gain new insights into the nature of consciousness and expand our understanding of human potential.

[daveinediting]

If what I described previously about myself growing up is, in fact, a recipe for who I am today...

What happens when we change the recipe?

What happens when we change the experience of reading, of writing, of engaging knowledge and learning... and replace that with the practice of getting answers to everything on the fly?

It's a tricky line of questioning for me for two reasons.

1) While I did experience a traditional education, I also make  good use of answers on the fly in both my personal and professional life, and

2) Just because my experience worked doesn't mean some other experience won't work or might work better.

Change being the natural state of things, what I wanna know is what we're giving up for what we're getting.

For example, human experience used to include keeping navigational maps in our minds. We used to plot the way from here to there in our heads. Not always but certainly on a daily basis for people who regularly drove. Now we use navigation apps on our phones. And they're fantastic!

Is there a downside to abandoning an ability we once used on a daily basis or is this straight up a no harm no foul outsourcing of a single mental task?

I can see that as being no big deal, by the way. We used to keep maps in our heads. Now we don't.

No big deal.

Where it could be a big deal, however, is if that ability makes some contribution to another mental ability. It could be a big deal if we allow our neural connections, our mental muscles, to atrophy and then somehow compromise adjacent abilities we didn't know were connected.

It's the neural connections I'm fixating on. At one point we had stronger neural connections related to the use of memory. At a later point we had stronger neural connections related to processing the written word.

At different times in our history we had different mental strengths, different neural pathways we bulked up that presumably met the needs of the moment. Or maybe it was the other way around and those bulkier pathways helped to craft the world for which they were best suited.

I don't know.

What I do know is that over the course of our existence, even the course of our geography, our mental abilities have changed, are changing as we change ourselves and the methods by which we do what we've always done.

In the past, such changes occurred slowly (ish). An oral tradition to a written one. The printing press. A habit of reading and the discipline reading demands that eventually gave way to a habit of watching and the discipline it demands. A tradition of processing pages of information to a tradition of processing sound bites then communicating in 140 words. All of these methods, habits, and traditions shape our neural pathways. They literally change our internal mental wiring.

Is that transformation optimizing us for our present moment?

Is that transformation insufficient to our present moment?

Is that transformation creating our present moment?

And seriously. 

How are we objectively being changed?

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Our experience with Kimmer's aunt Jacquie through this month has caused us to wonder, causes me to wonder, about memory and the brain. About losing and gaining cognitive abilities. And yes, even about the where of where "we" are.

As in Where is Jacquie right now?

I didn't know what I thought about all this until it came up. My baseline was that, once you lost some cognitive ability, that was it.

Gone.

Irrevocably gone.

Except... no. Because Jacquie regained certain cognitive functions, then lost them again. There have been days when she was more capable than other days. Moments that surprised us. That made us scratch our heads.

How on earth could she regain what was gone...

And then lose it again?

And if something lost could appear again, then...

Where's it been this whole time?

I talked to Jacquie's son about the idea that it's as if Jacquie's abilities are being haphazardly turned on and off. Or as if someone's randomly connecting, disconnecting, reconnecting, and cross-connecting different parts of Jacquie's brain to the point where certain memories that were gone came back.

Temporarily.

For sure I thought that wasn't possible. I imagined memories that are gone are literally no longer there. Cease to exist. Empty rooms where specific experiences used to reside.

What I've forgotten, of course, is that our brains have a storage function, an access mechanism, and a sort of catalog system.

Catalog system?

Yeah. It's how we know we know something... without having access to that information even though we know we know it.

As far as storage goes, from the outside it's impossible to know whether a memory's no longer there or if access to the memory's somehow been severed. And the idea that we can lose the connection to our memories without losing the memories themselves, well...

It makes me wonder:

What else can we lose in there that's still, in fact, there?

What keeps these thoughts swirling about is the fact that connections do remain between Jacquie's perceptions, her vision, her hearing, her touch... and the Jacquie who's seemingly hidden from us. We see that Jacquie in her facial expressions, in her reactions to things we just said or a laugh we just indulged. We hear her in her tone of voice when she responds or when she asks or when she declares. We feel her in her touch. And especially, over the last nine months, we saw her in classically Jacquie responses and behaviors involving specific phrases, tones of voice, facial expressions, and hand/arm movements.

These are things that are only Jacquie. And no one else.

They're what we'd use to ferret out an impostor Jacquie if we all found ourselves trapped in a Spy movie.

What we're responding to is a breathtaking experience in which some small thing about Jacquie invokes the Whole Jacquie. It's a particular thing she does, tone, action, facial expression, that causes something in our brains to go

There she is! There's Jacquie!

Even as she becomes less verbal and less verbally understandable, the essential Jacquie still appears from time to time from wherever she is when she's not present with us. And in many ways the experience feels like we're not so much losing her as we're losing contact with her.

We're losing our connection to wherever Jacquie resides in her brain while the processes that undermine her physical health have their way.

So.

Is that a difference that makes a difference? Is losing our connection with Jacquie substantially different from losing Jacquie herself?

I have no idea.

To me, though, the implication that a connection's been lost means Jacquie's still there. In there, somewhere. Personality. Behaviors. Memories.

All of it.

She just spends a lot of her time in mental exile.

But she is there.

Does that make a difference?

I'm gonna have to go with Yes. Obviously it does.

To us.

It's hard to explain otherwise the strong gravitational force to share this last chapter of her life in her seemingly diminished state. It's hard to explain otherwise our need to let her know she's loved wherever she is right now.

It's hard to explain otherwise our need to end well with her.

If Jacquie was flatlined I'm certain this would be a much shorter story. It wouldn't be so much about maintaining our connection with her or trying hard to hear and understand what she's trying to tell us in all the ways she's trying to tell us verbally and nonverbally.

If Jacquie was flatlined I think we'd be more determined to say goodbye. I think we'd be more focused on coming to grips with our loss and grief.

If Jacquie was flatlined this story would be about us, not her.

Instead, what seems most important is to let her know she's not alone as the moments slip away. It seems most important to maintain a human connection, a family connection, a relational connection regardless of where Jacquie is inside herself.

Regardless of how far along in the process her body is in shutting down.

In the end, I don't know where Jacquie is. No more than I know where a single memory in my own brain resides. I just know that everything in me, everything in us, recognizes her when she pops through the constraints of her physical condition.

When she's Jacquie, no matter what.

And it is that recognition and that recognition alone that causes us to believe with everything we are, with everything we know, that when we're in that room with her...

We're in that room with her.

And so yesterday was Jacquie's 81st birthday... and a birthday party was had. Kimmer (who constantly tells Jacquie that she's Jacquie's favorite niece), Jacquie's son, and Jacquie's grandson were on hand to celebrate with german chocolate cupcakes, balloons, roses, and a silver birthday tiara for the birthday girl. It's their way of honoring Jacquie in the properly festive manner she'd enjoy.

It's also the attitude.

With which they will walk this last mile with her.

Our experience with Kimmer's aunt Jacquie through this month has caused us to wonder, causes me to wonder, about memory and the brain. About losing and gaining cognitive abilities. And yes, even about the where of where "we" are.

As in Where is Jacquie right now?

The answer of course is...

She's with family.

[isolophilian]

the minute "Seaweed Brain" and "Wise Girl" are uttered, I will become the most annoying person you know

[spriteofmushrooms]

The first time Jin Guangyao held Jin Ling did not go as he'd expected. Jiang Wanyin, half-mad and barely functional, for some reason had been allowed into the nursery by Jin-furen. The moment whispers of this reached Jin Guangyao, of course he went to intercede; and it was fortunate he had. He could hear wailing halfway down the corridor.

"Why is he crying?" Jiang Wanyin demanded of the wetnurse as he held the baby incorrectly.

"This one is sure Sandu Shengshou knows better than her," she replied, eyes wide. Jin Guangyao made note of this, but he had few hopes of improvement. Jin servants knew to be meek.

"Obviously, I don't," Jiang Wanyin snapped, brows furrowed as he stared down at Jin Ling. Jin Guangyao purposefully brushed the silk of his robe, and like a dog Jiang Wanyin raised his head at the sound. "Lianfang-zun, what am I doing wrong?"

With a smile, Jin Guangyao moved between the shaking wetnurse and the mad dog of Lotus Pier. "Jiang-zongzhu, babies require support. Adjust your hand--yes, ah, slightly to the side--"

"Please just show me," Jiang Wanyin said, sounding tired as he held out Jin Ling.

The moment stilled. If his cultivation were better, Jin Guangyao believed he would hear the wetnurse's breath stop. She was, after all, expressly forbidden from allowing his whoreson hands to touch his nephew; yet neither of them could deny a sect leader.

A-Ling was warm and soft, sweetly heavy as all babies should be. His embroidered, daffodil-colored swaddling still burned with the heat of Jiang-zongzhu's high cultivation. Automatically, Jin Guangyao checked the boy for a fever; but of course no illness was allowed to fester in this child.

His chubby cheeks were red from crying, but as Jin Guangyao settled him in his arms, Jin Ling slowly quieted.

"As expected of Lianfang-zun," Jiang Wanyin said, slightly mocking.

When Jin Guangyao gauged his expression from under his eyelashes, however, Jiang Wanyin seemed wistful. He looked as young as he was.

(For a moment, Wen Ruohan's laughter filled his mind. "Xiao-zongzhu" had been a common target of derision, in the beginning. Wen Chao's account of the rape of Lotus Pier had been unusually thorough, and its contents were well-known amongst Wen Ruohan's inner circle. Jin Guangyao had not included the details in his reports to either his father or Lan Xichen. He doubted that this discretion would matter at all to Jiang Wanyin, who had tortured Wen Chao at the side of Wei Wuxian. What would he do to Jin Guangyao for being the last to know?)

Choosing to ignore the self-deprecation and memories both, Jin Guangyao instructed Zidian's master on the handling of human children. Jiang Wanyin made an attentive student, but he did not reach to take Jin Ling even once Jin Guangyao finished. "Would you like to hold him?"

Frowning with concentration, Jiang Wanyin nodded and sidled closer. He held his arms as Jin Guangyao had shown him, and then he checked Jin Guangyao's face, seeking approval.

"Good," Jin Guangyao said. Jiang Wanyin didn't smile, but some tension eased. Careful not to touch hands, Jin Guangyao returned Jin Ling to his jiujiu.

The wetnurse's gentle "oh" described the scene well.

Against the black and violet, Jin Ling looked like a ray of sunshine piercing clouds. Jiang Wanyin's face cleared until he looked as delicately beautiful as gossip painted him to be; while Jin Guangyao generally considered him fragile, it was more in the sense of an arrow point designed to break once it pierced flesh. Now, though, he could understand why Jiang Wanyin was so often painted as a mourning lover spurned by the Yiling Laozu.

Then Jin Ling fell asleep, and Jiang Wanyin's eyes watered. He slowly settled onto the couch, careful not to jostle their nephew.

"How long can I stay?"

Ideally, half an incense stick. Jin Guangyao turned to the wetnurse. "Could you please ask Jin-furen to advise us?"

She bowed her head and left.

After a few moments, Jiang Wanyin said, "She needs guards in the room with her. If she can't even tell me I've fucked up, how will she fare against assassins?"

"Gold Scale Tower has many guards," Jin Guangyao began, but Jiang Wanyin snorted.

"Where do you think we are? If some pompous Jin cousin demands Jin Ling, would she say no? Much less someone with weapons drawn."

"As a servant--"

"Jiang servants can and would."

Jin Guangyao smiled. "Is it not true that Jiang servants are entirely comprised of disciples, disciple candidates, and those who failed to cultivate but chose to stay?"

"It's a sect," Jiang Wanyin answered. "Typically, they are operated like sects, yes."

"Gold Scale Tower must run in accordance with its scale," Jin Guangyao said. "The servants are often merely servants."

Jiang Wanyin, whose face displayed his opinion of that, said nothing for a moment, allowing Jin Guangyao to notice his headache. "She needs guards for herself, not just outside of the room," he repeated.

"Perhaps this is something you can address with Jin-furen?"

Looking up from Jin Ling, Jiang Wanyin studied him. "Alright. Is there anything else you want me to say?"

Jin Guangyao's fingers twitched with the desire to straighten his gold robes. "Between Jin-furen and Jiang-zongzhu, I am sure that all concerns have been considered."

"Please, you notice everything and didn't accept one single item I suggested for a-jie's wedding," Jiang Wanyin said. "Do you expect me to believe you don't have opinions on Jin Ling?"

Jin Guangyao inclined his head, and then he tentatively offered an observation and a suggestion. When Jiang Wanyin merely looked thoughtful, Jin Guangyao continued; while Jiang Wanyin occasionally asked clarifying questions, he never reacted emotionally.

It was... strange, to be in a room with this man, discussing the care of a child he wasn't allowed to do anything for. He wondered what he must look like to Jiang Wanyin to be accepted so easily as an expert on Jin Ling, on anything. Unsettling.

Yet unlike Nie Mingjue, being seen didn't seem dangerous; unlike Wen Ruohan, being noticed didn't accompany invitations to violence.

No, Jiang Wanyin observed him, and his conclusion was that Jin Guangyao could teach him how to hold his one treasure.

For the first time, it seemed like sharing a nephew with this man might be interesting, not simply alarming. Jin Guangyao looked forward to observing him further.

[april]

only just realised that "EST. [YEAR]" means "established". i was reading it as "estimated" even though that clearly makes no sense.

[puffycinnabunny]

take my humble offering: digital notes and an ungodly number of pathways

[blingusdlingus]

i got a new journal and ive been taking notes on how to create the most diabolically powerful ship dynamic for metal sonic and gemerl. just you fucking wait you guys

[ismailfazil1-blog]

The Human Brain vs. Supercomputers: The Ultimate Comparison

Are Supercomputers Smarter Than the Human Brain?

This article delves into the intricacies of this comparison, examining the capabilities, strengths, and limitations of both the human brain and supercomputers.

[clonememesfrikyeah]

You know what would be the worst? If at the end of the war when all is said and done, after the clones lost every little thing they had, after Vaders rise and the Jedi’s fall, after all that death and hardship and misery? It would be terrible to be a clone and wake up like suddenly coming out of a coma, in a stasis chamber that they grew up in and rarely left, there was the craziest dream just before and there’s the lingering feeling something important just happened, this is Kamino 35bby, all the information they were just fed is already neatly stored in their perfect flash-memory brain. No ones died yet, all of that was a simulation based on a calculation of events to instal orders and hone the discipline of troops. It’s dark, there’s no way of telling if anyone or anything exists beyond the boundary’s of the inside. There’s a designated call sign and designation along with vitals displayed in the line of vision, it’s also counting down the seconds to when a new simulation is set to begin.

[bonjourbinch]

made a shark coochie and crudité board of my own volition . i could not prevent it

[daveinediting]

Okay so...

RESUME or RECIPE?

I grew up reading DC Horror comic books. I grew up reading collections of short stories and then moving on to novels. Edgar Allen Poe. HP Lovecraft. Mary Shelley. Stephen King. Frank Herbert. I grew up reading sci-fi magazines like Starlog. I also grew up with classical music. Piano lessons. All kinds of choirs straight on through high school. I was hooked by The Beatles, Yes, Supertramp, Pink Floyd. Loved the scope of their music. I dove deep into their lyrics. I copied some of the album cover art like those created by Roger Dean for a raft of Yes albums.

So yeah.

I would say, starting early, I created and exercised specific parts of my brain, neural connections, certain mental muscles, throughout my life into a profession that prizes imagination and creativity.

Today, that experience is the frame through which I consider the proposition of replacing the acquisition of general knowledge with a mastery of prompting answers from Large Language Models, a proposition that was sparked by a podcast question directed from a student to a professor: 

Why should I read Shakespeare?

What would the point be of reading Shakespeare when his writings can be summarized and analyzed in seconds by Large Language Models? 

Of course that question jumped from the podcast right into my brain where it quickly transformed into Why should we read anything?

Does it really matter how we get to right answers so long as they're, you know, right?

Hmmm.

Even though ChatGPT could answer any question in mere seconds, what I already understand is that education, my education at the very least, has been about tuning me into the person I am today.

Passionate about reading.

Passionate about writing.

Passionate about ideas and creativity.

And still exercising neural connections I've been exercising since I was a kid. Much like exercising physical muscles in our daily lives, there's a specific, objective benefit to doing what I do.

It's also a reason I wonder about what happens when we replace reading and writing and engaging knowledge...

With masterful prompts and answers to everything on the fly.

Is how I was formed being replaced by something that is better for the human experience, worse, or makes no difference at all?

And if what I described about myself growing up is, in fact, a recipe for who I am today...

What happens when we change the recipe?

[ytvideoseo]

Explore the fascinating parallels between human structure and stimulation, and their intriguing connection with our canine companions in this captivating YouTube video. Discover how the intricate workings of the human body mirror aspects of canine physiology, shedding light on our shared evolutionary journey. From neural responses to sensory experiences, delve into the captivating realm where humans and dogs intersect, offering insights into the profound bond between species. Join us on a journey of discovery and appreciation for the wonders of human and canine biology. If you want to know more about this, Click here 

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[arolesbianism]

I’ve been thinking abt one of my older oni colonies and decided to doodle my first three dupes in that save

[mangor]

... neural link ...