2004-12-11 - 2:49 p.m.

The most effective component of the brain's ability to create memories is the ability to ignore or forget the majority.of the signals it receives. The depth, complexity and multiplicity of the brain's incoming sensory data streams makes permanent lossless storage of all received data an impossibility.

What the brain deals with in terms of memory storage isn't a measure of the actual data values themselves, therefore, but rather a constantly updated map of recurringly observed patterns. These patterns can exist in any dimension defined by a parameter that corresponds to any of the input streams. Receiving an intense, unfamiliar signal simultaneously in the audio and video streams would be an example of a typical pattern, as would receiving a recurring waveform on the audio stream alone. Any recurring pattern in any of the available parameters of all input streams combined is fair game.

I think the reason this works is that the brain's physical rules reflect and are similar to the rules governing what the brain learns about, rules governing the patterns received on the input streams. The best analogy I can come up with off the top of my head is to imagine two variations of the newton fractal (from fractint) projected onto parallel planes, and how changing which variation of the fractal is projected on the top and bottom affects the shape of the set of lines that could be drawn between corresponding set points of the top and bottom projections. Because the fractals both exist in the same fractional dimension, the vectors connecting them will also be in that dimension, allowing the use of standard linear mathematics for analysis.

Wow.

What a mental picture. I'm seeing this map of lines, moving over time, their endpoints tracking the centres of the nodes in the newton fractals as the number of nodes is increased and decreased smoothly in, say, the top representation of the fractal, while the bottom stayed static. That would be like an opening and closing flower motion. Then if the bottom one moved at the same time, in sync, it would be like a growing and shrinking djinn. If you rotated the bottom one using a higher number of nodes and at a higher speed, the lines would begin to resemble a tornado.

This kind of way of thinking of how to generate a graph out of data could be really useful in analysing the kinds of mathematics found in nature. If I used the newton fractal projection to discern where to place the petal endpoints of a flower, then did this manipulation of the fractal projections at the start point and end points of all the petals, I could simulate the motion of an opening flower.

It would be relatively easy to calculate the incoming energy from the sun on the various patches making up the petals, and to "send" energy packets down the graph of cells to the roots, where the growth variable could be bumped up in response, causing new cells to appear.

Wow, I really do want to program the growth of a plant at the cellular level. I've thought about it a lot over the past 10 years or so.

The hard part isn't really coding what the cells would do in response to the sun's rays as it is simulating the physical interaction of the cells with other cells and with the soil.

I need to stop thinking along the lines of simulating every particle. The particles of sand do not need to be individual agents. Thinking of the reaction of a region of soil to the pressure of plant growth, I shouldn't try to simulate how the force is distributed at the granular level, but instead how it acts on the macro level. I visualize a 3d cone of pressure response emanating out into the soil, representing the compression force being felt by the surrounding material. As say a new root tip pushes out, a cone is calculated which projects opposite the direction of growth and is "denser" / more forceful at the origin, fading gradually out toward the end of the cone in an exponential curve. That sounds about right.

Then I would have in effect a graph of the plant with these cones of force attached to the nodes representing the forces applied by the plant. The soil would be modelled separately, and its graph would be fed the forces generated by the plant. These forces would be considered separately from "immediate forces", which need immediate response at a more granular level. I would consider these "agglomerate forces". (Hmm.. dictionary.com... "agglomerate adj : clustered together but not coherent".. ok that'll do) Forces which are calculates over a larger grain of time and that represent fractional forces that were too small to be represented in the "immediate force" simulation, but which, if lost, would lead to loss of the subtle effects that are so important in capturing "real" model behaviour. Small subtle effects which produce a chaotic result.
This way, each plant could grow using the same algorithm, but each would look different.
OOh, I'm seeing the soil model having its nutrient level variable bumped down as the plant grows and future generations of plants being a bit stunted on the side feeding from that soil region, on and on until maybe no more baby plants will find enough nutrition to grow out of that region, or perhaps some random organism will die in the region and the nutrient level will pop up significantly.

Now that's what I'm talking about. Grade school kids would totally grasp a visualization of this process, would grasp the true state of life on our planet in ways the vast majority of people around me are completely ignorant of. Not only ignorant, but petulantly disdainful of as something that is beneath deserving their notice as free citizens. It is their right to stand there mesmerized in front of the wall of televisions. While beneath their very feet, the future of their children is cemented over, a stagnant mausoleum of misjudgments, lack of foresight carved into the ugly angular shapes of greed.
Kids would "get" what it means that the soil slowly dishes out life to every little plantling, a constant supportive presence of nutrients that is only sporadically replenished from some random source. They would "get" that extinction of these random sources of nutritional bonuses would equate to loss of life giving support to future generations of plants. They would "get" that generations of humans could sleep in peace without seeing the gradual decline, and they would definitely "get" that these people needed to be warned. I could imagine them shouting at the little sim people "look out! wake up! you need to save the balance! you need to plug the hole in the dam! you need to snap out of it and look where you're headed. Don't you see the decline? That you're a rolling weight trundling surely into the gutter of failed evolution?

Lol.

Ok that's getting silly. I like it though, almost a Family Guy-ish overdoing of the point, which in reality is important to discuss, but which isn't discussed enough because people don't know how. Interesting.

I think of my writing as being written on separate planes, like a game played on a vast 3d checkers board, each new subject on a different page, each representing the tip of an iceberg of thoughts that I just don't have time to go into, but that on rereading I go "ahhhh yeah" in remembrance of. That's why it doesn't bother me anymore. I used to think "damn, that's incoherent. How could anyone understand what I'm talking about when I don't introduce or wrap up concepts, just pour them out in no particular order. I'll never get to the end of any of these semi-thoughts if I don't stop wandering constantly."

I'm good at picking on me. I'm good at nagging me. I'm good at slapping myself in the face, punishing myself, putting myself in my place when I'm misbehaving. I'm good at making myself feel bad for the way I've behaved, for keeping at myself even though I don't want to hear any more, because I need to hear it, it's good for me, it's the only way things will get better. I learned well.

And I learned more. I learned that I had learned, that I had learned without realizing, automatically, by nature. And I learned that some of the things I'd learned this way were lies. I learned a lot of people don't know what they're talking about. I've learned a lot of people are more concerned with what's going on in their emotional selves in any given situation than the sometimes more important events that are going on around them. I've learned this shit happens to all of us, and that some of us are callous and don't treat the others the way they would describe themselves as being, and that others are shouldering more than their share of the burden, knowingly giving more of themselves, gritting their teeth and doing it all for love, because it would hurt them more not to do anything, because they can't not care.

Wow.. which goes full circle to the first thought. I have completed my journey. I started on ignoring, and my ignoring, and how ignoring is an essential aspect of knowing, learning, seeing, being. I don't need to get rid of all these bad things in me, because they're not bad things, they're things out of balance. Getting rid of them hurts, sometimes unnecessarily, and being hateful of them is the worst, fostering guilt and shame in innocent minds in the name of greed and control. Ugh.

Ok I said I was done. Good ending. Ready to go on. Next activity. wholenote.com? liveforspeed.net? dayport.com?

carlbrennan.com? heh. I let that one expire. I let a lot of things expire.

Like I need to let this expire. ugh.

previous - next