Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Metathoughts about brains

It occurs to me that there is an interesting connection between the two posts tonight. (This and this.) The first touches on the evolutionary origins of brains as sensory organs. The second (or rather, some references it contains) shows how sensory functions of human brains are still expanding – into huge space telescopes and even huger devices to sense gravitational waves.

Worth thinking about?

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3 Comments:

Blogger Quantum Moxie said...

Have you read Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid? If not, you should. It is particularly relevent to this.

7/24/2007 08:25:00 PM  
Blogger Charles Daney said...

Well, I look over my right shoulder and see the book on my shelf. Hmmm. On examination, I see my copy is 27 years old. I guess it's about time I actually read it...

The discussion of "strange loops in government" on page 692 (president vs. congress vs. supreme court) is still very apt today.

Can the DOJ prosecute itself, even if it had any such inclination?

7/25/2007 01:24:00 AM  
Blogger Quantum Moxie said...

LOL. I haven't gotten to that part yet, but I, too, have a 27-year-old copy that my father purchased way back when. Since I'm only 33 and am not some wunderkind I am only now just reading it despite having tried when I was in high school.

Well, see, the way to solve all of these governmental strange loops problems is to simply take Dick Cheney at his word: he's outside the loop. He's the meta-loop. Hell, he's just plain loopy.

7/25/2007 09:54:00 AM  

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