AFTER DEATH

An unusual study of drug addicts concludes that an addict's body continues to crave drugs even after the person dies. The persistent addictive cravings are caused by a protein from chemical dependency which continues to transmit signals to the brain.

The shortened protein, FosB,  in the reward center of the brain is altered in those suffering from a chemical dependency.  The protein is a transcription factor in the brain which, together with other molecules, is involved in so-called signal transduction (transmission of stimuli to the cells). It is said to convey genetic information between the cells and also determines whether certain genes are activated or not.

Following numerous autopsies, Austrian researchers found the modified protein in deceased heroin addicts - suggesting cravings for the stimulus continued after their death.

The evidence that the modified protein lingers after death was discovered by the Medical University of Vienna's Department of Forensic Medicine, which examined tissue samples from the nucleus accumbens (an area of the brain) of 15 deceased heroin addicts.

When someone abuses drugs, such as heroin, it turns into DeltaFosB, which is increasingly stimulated in cases of chronic use and even influences growth factors and structural changes (neuronal plasticity) in the brain.  Due to a constant supply of drugs, such as heroin, FosB turns into DeltaFosB, which is increasingly stimulated in cases of chronic use and even influences growth factors and structural changes (neuronal plasticity) in the brain - approximately in the region where memory is formed.

The team found the protein was still modified even after a heroin addict had died.

Researchers believe the period is much longer in the living who are trying to recover – and it can last for months.

FosB is part of the activating protein AP1, which is involved with regulating gene expression in response to a range of stimulus, including stress and bacterial infections.

If this protein still stimulates the brain's reward and memory centers, one could speculate that a person's memories can still be active even though the person had died. In other words, there may be a transitory state between life and death where the brain continues to function. Perhaps this is what happens to people who claim to have experienced "near death." They are clinically dead for a time, but their brain continues to function to create new memories.

There were numerous LOST theories about the show being merely a connected memory of a character or characters. But this science study sheds another potential basis for the show's unknown foundation element: if it was a memory, a dream or illusion of a person, was that person alive or dead?

WHOLE WORLD SIMULATION PART TWO

There was a fan theory that LOST was just an elaborate computer game. The main characters were merely avatars in computer worlds (which do not have to conform to science, laws of physics or even continuity). Most fans discounted the game theory notion because the series had live actors so it seemed real.
 
But for a long time, scientists and philosophers have debated our own understanding of the world around us. There has been some traction that everything we know may just be part of a Matrix-style simulation, according to physicists who claim that we could all be part of a giant GAME.

A new theory has suggested that our entire lives and memories may not be real, instead being part of a computer program played by advanced robots, according to Yahoo News article.

The so-called ‘simulation argument’ has been theorized for several years, with noted academics including Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom, suggesting that the plot of The Matrix could be closer to real life than we think.

In the sci-fi classic, humans are bred in vats that are fed with simulations that make them believe they are living an ordinary life. Scientists say that we could all be living in the future, and our life in 2015 is nothing more than a series of numbers in a computer program.

It may sound like science fiction but scientists believe they may actually be able to PROVE that what you know isn’t what you know.

Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of artificial intelligence (AI) thinks that there may be tell-tale signs if the programmer of our mass simulation “has made some slips."

He said that some laws of physics that “aren’t quite right” could be the start of being able to prove that the universe is a simulation.

Silas Beane, from the University of Bonn, suggested several years ago that if humans were to build a small-sale simulation of the universe we would be able to identify any constraints. These constraints would include a cut-off in the spectrum of high energy particles - exactly the kind of cut off in the energy of cosmic rays. This would be the start of proving that our universe is not what it seems - and that it is part of a giant construct.

This is an interesting notion because of Daniel's express comments when he arrived at the island, that the light "acted differently" and the spectrum was off. This could be the biggest clue that the island itself was not what we viewed it as, but as another construct (with various other theories such as alternative dimension, time loop, mini-worm hole, alien space craft, different planet through a cosmic gateway, etc.)

These theories are not the first time that humans have debated whether we are actually real - French philosopher Rene Descartes theorized that nothing we perceive is true except our consciousness being aware of itself and its doubts - which is how the phrase ‘I think, therefore I am’ came about.

However, some believe that our own thoughts can also be part of a simulation or program that is being controlled by robots or aliens. The concept of "free will" may be artificial intelligence programming that allows people "choices" from various sets of rational, irrational, logical, illogical, emotional, intellectual, etc. 

But what about us as human beings? In the U.S.-U.K series Humans, android AI robots called synths look and act like human beings but they are just complex machines. They are called synths because that is what they are programmed to be; so there is no reason why artificial intelligent machines could be called "humans."

But then what about our own perceptions and senses, like touch, smell, vision? Again, in theory we occupy three dimensional space because that is what our brains process as three dimensional space. WE touch, hold, feel objects because our brain processes the tactile responses from the sensors in our hands and fingertips. At its core, that is merely data being processed by an organic computer module which automatically sends back feedback in the form of conscious recognition of touch, smell or imagines of the world around us.

It does put an introspective question to any human being. What is our true reality?

We may be organic beings, but could some other advanced civilization have created organic computing machines? We could be nanobots in a different universe. There is a basis for that belief because every time a scientist puts a prepared glass plate under a microscope, he will find an invisible world of microbes and viruses which have no perception of our world view. So, logically, in some other world view, we are microbes and viruses to another alien world.

Even our current generation of video games have graphics that begin to rival HD movie films. So the idea that perception is reality is something that everyone thinks about daily at a subconscious level.  It is when it reaches a conscious level discussion that things get strange.

In a logic program, the smoke monster may have been not a security system, but a software program to use to combat computer viruses (in the form of evil, destructive character avatars). 

But if humans are part of a complex computer program or network, does that put doubt into the meaning of our lives? Perhaps. And that may be the main reason why human beings need to pair bond, to form communities, share resources and values and create religious principles to calm and comfort those desiring a better explanation of life and death. All machines have a useful life expectancy. So do human beings. Creating circuit pathways to lead to productive output is the goal of both man and machine.  It may be the reason why some consider humans the greatest machines in history.

THE NEXT STEP

Another twist on our discussion of brain patterns, personality and ability to transfer data between human beings (to network them like computers). A new movie, Self/Less, has the premise of fully memory and personality transfer of human consciousness.

When business tycoon Damien Hale (played by Ben Kingsley) faces death from cancer in Self/Less, in theaters today, he doesn’t go gently into that good night. Instead, he undergoes a radical underground medical procedure called “shedding” that allows him to transfer his mind into another, younger, healthier, lab-grown body (Ryan Reynolds’s body, to be exact) and start a whole new life with a new identity.

For now, this is science fiction—but, says Charles Higgins,  a neuroscientist at the University of Arizona, it could one day happen. “We cannot yet conceive of a machine that could scan the brain to the extent required to do what is in the movie,” he tells mental_floss. “But 100 years ago we could not conceive that in our pockets we would carry what are, essentially, supercomputers and communicators that we can talk to anyone on the planet with.”

Studying the brain is Higgins's business. “I’m interested in the interface between the mind and the brain and quantifying things that are normally unquantifiable, like depression, mood, consciousness, and self,” he says. Among the things he and his team are working on in his research laboratory: grabbing electrical signals from insect brains to build high-tech robots with excellent vision; figuring out how cognition works by creating a simulated, computerized rat that wanders around a digital maze; and gathering data on human sleep with a device he built. So though he didn’t consult on Self/Less during production—the studio brought him on afterward—he’s an excellent source to talk to about the film’s science.

According to Higgins, there are huge hurdles to jump before we transfer consciousness from one body to another. For one, there’s a lot we don’t understand about how the brain—and consciousness in particular—work. “If you ask 100 different experts to list what the brain does, you’ll get 100 different answers,” Higgins says. “The brain definitely regulates your life support. Sometimes we use the word cognition—is that what the brain does? It’s a memory system as well. You could go on and on.”

Once we understand the brain in the same way we understand the heart or a computer, Higgins says, “we’ll be able to see how brains are related and understand what the important details we need to get out of the brain are.”

Another challenge: Computers have software, but the brain isn’t quite so simple. “The software and the hardware are all [together],” Higgins says. “So what details of the brain structure do I need to read out?”

Some people, he says, think we need to go down to a quantum level. Others think it might be unnecessary to go subatomic to scan consciousness: “You could go just to the level of of neurons and other connections,” Higgins says. “But we don’t really know.”

Even if we did know where consciousness was found, we don’t have the technology to transfer it. In Self/Less, the company Phoenix Biogenic uses what looks like a souped-up fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to access and transfer consciousness from one body to another. Higgins says this is “the right idea, although at this point fMRI technology does not allow us to get down to sub-neuron resolution.”

Computers use electromagnetic markers to store and access data. The human brain uses biochemicals and proteins to make connections to organic synapses. Science does not know how the brain encodes memories, emotions and data for storage and later retrieval. Medical science does not know why in the aging process, people begin to lose memories. Rehab therapists have trained patients to mentally use artificial, mechanical limbs. 

The next step in research is to find how a person's mind interacts with his or her organic materials in the brain. 

HARD WIRED BRAIN NET

A recent story in WIRED shows how close science is to science fiction. And the sci-fi is the Star Trek collective mind think called the Borg.

The premise is simple. Brains work better than computers. They’re faster, more creative, and can store a vast amount of accessible memory. So computer science has tried to emulate the brain to create faster, better and near human computers. One way to do this is to network brains.

Researchers at Duke University announced they have wired animal brains together so they could collaborate on simple tasks. Network monkeys displayed motor skills, and networked rats performed computations.


Lead researcher,  Miguel Nicolelis, is a neurobiologist who has been wiring animal brains to machines since 1999, when they connected a rat to a robot arm, says this is the first time that anybody has directly wired together multiple brains to complete a task—a so-called brain-to-brain interface.

To build the monkey network, Nicolelis’ team first implanted electrodes in rhesus macaque brains, positioned to pick up signals from a few hundred neurons. Then they connected two or three of the macaques to a computer with a display showing a CG monkey arm. The monkeys were supposed to control the arm, directing it toward a target like a boat crew rows forward. When the monkeys got the arm to hit the target, the researchers rewarded them with juice. The monkeys don’t think “move my arm” and the arm moves—they learn what kind of thinking makes the arm move and keep doing that—because monkeys want the juice reward.

The rat study was even weirder as it involved the transfer of data.  The neuroscientists directly wired four rats’ brains together—using the implants to both collect and transmit information about neural activity—so one rat that responded to touch, for example, could pass on their knowledge of that stimulus to another rat. Then the researchers set the rats to a bunch of different abstract tasks—guessing whether it might rain from temperature and air pressure data, for example, or telling the difference between different kinds of touch-stimuli. The brain collectives always did at least as well on those tests as an individual rat would have, and sometimes even better.

The goal of the research is see if networking brains might help accelerate medical rehab in people who have neurological damage such as relearning motor skills after a stroke or brain injury. Normally, this rehabilitation is a long, painstaking process. Nicolelis wants to learn if a healthy person’s brain could help a stroke patient re-learn how to move a paralyzed leg faster than current therapies do.

A few LOST theories speculated that the real premise of the show was a vast neuro-network linking various individuals together in a vivid, digital universe like Ghost in the Shell. Memories, emotions, experiences, goals, aspirations, fears and knowledge combine to be one's ghost in an alternative, cyber-reality.

If the main characters were not "real" in the sense of being humans surviving a plane crash on a mysterious island but virtual selves caught up in an illusion of surviving a plane crash on an island filled with the collective memories, emotions, experiences, goals, aspirations, and fears - - - that could create a very real looking, complex world. It would also explain how certain continuity errors, mistakes and criss crossed fantasy, science and sci-fi elements could co-exist in the same main story line.

The idea that the characters are actually institutionalized individuals connected by brain electrodes is not a new theory. Some speculated that this set up would be found in a mental institution (where Hurley went) or a medical research facility (like DHARMA) or even a prison hospital ward where illicit medical experimentation on mental patients used to be performed in secret. 

If this was the true premise, sedated or coma patients were linked together to share their dreams and nightmares in shared space, would this make the show experience any different to you? Would the ending make more sense to you?

MIND OF ITS OWN MIND

Adding another post on the science of the mind.

BBC.com recently reported that several studies indicate that the old notion that a person "controls" their conscious mind (while some psychologists propose that we don't have full control over our subconscious) is wrong.

We feel that we are in control when our brains figure out puzzles or read words, says Tom Stafford, but a new experiment shows just how much work is going on underneath the surface of our conscious minds.

Trusting your instincts may help you to make better decisions than thinking hard, a study quoted in the BBC article. A common misconception is that we know our own minds. As we move around the world, walking and talking, we experience ourselves thinking thoughts. "What shall I have for lunch?," one may ask himself. Or, "I wonder why she did that?" and try and figure it out. It is natural to assume that this experience of "myself" is a complete report of my mind. It is natural, but wrong.

There's an under-mind, all psychologists agree – an unconscious which does a lot of the heavy lifting in the process of thinking. If you ask yourself what is the capital of France the answer just comes to mind – Paris! If you decide to wiggle your fingers, they move back and forth in a complex pattern that  you didn't consciously prepare, but which was delivered for my use by the unconscious.

The big debate in psychology is exactly what is done by the unconscious, and what requires conscious thought. Or to use the title of a notable paper on the topic, 'Is the unconscious smart or dumb?' One popular view is that the unconscious can prepare simple stimulus-response actions, deliver basic facts, recognise objects and carry out practiced movements. Complex cognition involving planning, logical reasoning and combining ideas, on the other hand, requires conscious thought.

A recent experiment by an Israeli research team scores points against this position. They used a neat visual trick called Continuous Flash Suppression to put information into participants’ minds without them becoming consciously aware of it. It might sound painful, but in reality it’s actually quite simple. The technique takes advantage of the fact that we have two eyes and our brain usually attempts to fuse the two resulting images into a single coherent view of the world. Continuous Flash Suppression uses light-bending glasses to show people different images in each eye. One eye gets a rapid succession of brightly colored squares which are so distracting that when genuine information is presented to the other eye, the person is not immediately consciously aware of it. In fact, it can take several seconds for something that is in theory perfectly visible to reach awareness (unless you close one eye to cut out the flashing squares, then you can see the 'suppressed' image immediately).

The  key experiment involved presenting arithmetic questions unconsciously. The questions would be things like "9 - 3 - 4 = " and they would be followed by the presentation, fully visible, of a target number that the participants were asked to read aloud as quickly as possible. The target number could either be the right answer to the arithmetic question (so, in this case, "2") or a wrong answer (for instance, "1"). The amazing result is that participants were significantly quicker to read the target number if it was the right answer rather than a wrong one. This shows that the equation had been processed and solved by their minds – even though they had no conscious awareness of it – meaning they were primed to read the right answer quicker than the wrong one.

The result suggests that the unconscious mind has more sophisticated capacities than many have thought. Unlike other tests of non-conscious processing, this wasn’t an automatic response to a stimulus – it required a precise answer following the rules of arithmetic, which you might have assumed would only come with deliberation. The report calls the technique used "a game changer in the study of the unconscious", arguing that "unconscious processes can perform every fundamental, basic-level function that conscious processes can perform."

These are strong claims, and the authors acknowledge that there is much work to do as we start to explore the power and reach of our unconscious minds. Like icebergs, most of the operation of our minds remains out of sight. Experiments like this give a glimpse below the surface.

This adds some context to the LOST use of Room 23. It may have been twisted into a mind control room by Ben and his minions. But originally, we don't know if the "light" experiments were similar to these recent studies on consciousness and behavior. If what can find the "unconscious" between the subconscious and conscious, and that is really the control center of a person, there are great ramifications to this finding. Our human beings just organic animals or is there an energy being using the bodies like space ships or robots to chemical process the world around it?