find doctor |
||||
|
News for 03-Mar-10 Source: MedicineNet Diabetes General Source: MedicineNet Asthma General Source: MedicineNet Diabetes General Source: MedicineNet Diabetes General Source: MedicineNet Diabetes General Source: MedicineNet Asthma General Source: MedicineNet Diabetes General Source: MedicineNet Asthma General Source: MedicineNet Asthma General Source: MedicineNet Asthma General
|
The Best find doctor websiteAll the find doctor information you need to know about is right
here. Presented and researched by http://www.medical-mailings.com. We've searched
the information super highway far and wide to provide you with the
best find doctor site on the internet today. The links below will
assist you in your efforts to find the information that you are looking
for about
find doctor
Once you're at the find doctor site it's a simple matter of selecting the exact product or service you want to purchase. Nothing to it really. Whether you're just looking for information, or you're looking for something to buy right now, we've got the links to the exact find doctor website you need. As you can tell from all the effort we've put into building our find doctor site, it's something that we care about. You can be certain, when you follow one of the hyperlinks in the middle of this web page, or click on the pop up which might have appeared when you entered our site, we've chosen the best site about find doctor for you to go to. Thank you for coming to our find doctor information page. medical mailings Resources find doctor to md anderson
find doctor phors of the Mind (Part I) by: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
The brain (and, by implication, the Mind) has been compared to the latest technological innovation in every generation. The computer metaphor is now in vogue. Computer hardware metaphors were replaced by software metaphors and, lately, by (neuronal) network metaphors. Such attempts to understand by comparison are common in every field of human knowledge. Architects and mathematicians have lately come up with the structural concept of "tensegrity" to explain the phenomenon of life. The tendency of humans to see patterns and structures everywhere (even where there are none) is well documented and probably has its survival value added. Another trend is to discount these metaphors as erroneous, irrelevant, or deceptively misleading. Yet, these metaphors are generated by the same Mind that is to be described by them. The entities or processes to which the brain is compared are also "brain-children", the results of "brain-storming", conceived by "minds". What is a computer, a software application, a communications network if not a (material) representation of cerebral events? In other words, a necessary and sufficient connection must exist between ANYTHING created by humans and the minds of humans. Even a gas pump must have a "mind-correlate". It is also conceivable that representations of the "non-human" parts of the Universe exist in our minds, whether a-priori (not deriving from experience) or a-posteriori (dependent upon experience). This "correlation", "emulation", "simulation", "representation" (in short : close connection) between the "excretions", "output", "spin-offs", "products" of the human mind and the human mind itself - is a key to understanding it. This claim is an instance of a much broader category of claims: that we can learn about the artist by his art, about a creator by his creation, and generally: about the origin by any of its derivatives, inheritors, successors, products and similes. This general contention is especially strong when the origin and the product share the same nature. If the origin is human (father) and the product is human (child) - there is an enormous amount of data to be safely and certainly derived from the product and these data will surely apply to the origin. The closer the origin and the product - the more we can learn about the origin. The computer is a "thinking machine" (however limited, simulated, recursive and mechanical). Similarly, the brain is a "thinking machine" (admittedly much more agile, versatile, non-linear, maybe even qualitatively different). Whatever the disparity between the two (and there is bound to be a large one), they must be closely related to one another. This close relatedness is by virtue of two facts: (1) They are both "thinking machines" and, much more important: (2) the latter is the product of the former. Thus, the computer metaphor is unusually strong. Should an organic computer come to be, the metaphor will strengthen. Should a quantum computer be realized - some aspects of the metaphor will, undoubtedly, be enhanced. By the way, the converse hypothesis is not necessarily true: that by knowing the origin we can anticipate the products. There are too many free variables here. The existence of a product "collapses" our set of probabilities and increases our knowledge - to use Bohr's metaphor. The origin exists as a "wave function": a series of potentialities with attached probabilities, the potentials being the logically and physically possible products. But what can be learned about the origin by a crude comparison to the product? Mostly traits and attributes related to structure and to function. These are easily observable. Is this sufficient? Can we learn anything about the "true nature" of the origin? The answer is negative. It is negative in general: we can not aspire or hope to know anything about the "true nature" of anything. This is the realm of metaphysics, not of physics. Quantum Mechanics provides an astonishingly accurate description of micro-processes and of the Universe without saying anything meaningful about both. Modern physics strives to predict rightly - rather to expound upon this or that worldview. It describes - it does not explain. Where interpretations are offered (e.g., the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics) they run into insurmountable obstacles and philosophical snags. Thus, modern science is metaphorical and uses a myriad of metaphors (particles and waves, to mention but two prominent ones). Metaphors have proven themselves to be useful scientific tools in the "thinking scientist's" kit. Moreover, a metaphor can develop and its development closely traces the developmental phases of the origin. Take the computer software metaphor as an example: At the dawn of computing the composition of software applications was serial, in machine language and with strict separation of data (called: "structures") and instruction code (called: "functions" or "procedures"). This was really a "biological" phase akin to the development of the embryonic brain (mind). The machine language closely matched the physical wiring of the hardware. In the case of biology, the instructions (DNA) are also insulated from the data (amino acids and other life substances). Databases were handled on a "listing" basis ("flat file"), were serial and had no intrinsic relationship to each other (an alphabetic order is an extrinsic order, imposed from the outside and existing only in the mind of the "imposer"). They were in the state of a substrate, ready to be acted upon. Only when "mixed" in the computer (as the application was run) did functions operate on structures. This was, quite expectedly, followed by the "relational" organization of data (a primitive example of which is the spreadsheet). Data items were related to each other through mathematical formulas. This is the equivalent of the wiring of the brain, as the pregnancy progresses. The latest evolutionary phase has been the OOPS (Object Oriented Programming Systems). Objects are modules which contain BOTH data and instructions in self contained units. The user is acquainted with the FUNCTIONS performed by these objects - but not with their STRUCTURE, INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCESSES. Objects, in other words, are "black boxes" (am engineering term). The programmer is unable to tell HOW the object does what it does, how does external, useful function arise from internal, hidden ones. Objects are epiphenomenal, emergent, phase transient. In short: much closer to reality as we came to describe it in modern physics. Communication can be established among these black boxes - but it is not the communication (its speed or efficacy) that determine the overall efficiency of the system. It is the hierarchical and at the same time fuzzy organization of the objects which does the trick. Objects are organized in classes which define their (actualized and potential) properties. The object's behaviour (what it does and to what it is allowed to react) is defined by its very belonging to the class. Moreover, a principle of "inheritance" is in operation: objects can be organized in new (sub) classes, inherit all the definitions and characteristics of the original class plus new properties which distinguish it from its origin. In a way, these newly emergent classes are the products and the classes that they derived from are the origin. This process so closely resembles natural phenomena that it lends additional credibility to the metaphor. Thus, classes can be used as building blocks. Their permutations define the set of all soluble problems. It can be proven that Turing Machines are a private instance of a general, much stronger, class theory (back to the Principia Mathematica). The integration of hardware (computer, brain) and software (computer applications, mind) is d |
|||
|
http://www.gomailings.com/ |
||||
| fantasy-sports-directory Medical Presentations MD Meet |