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NO QUESTION

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sofapizza:

“I know origami”

“Show me”

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acronyms:

Recently, I have been reading up on some research works done by Dr. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and found it to be really inspiring. I chanced upon this article from Scientific American Mind July/August issue last week and thought that I should share part of the article here. This article generally talk about how something as common as a mirror can help us to understand about the brain and sense of self without using any fancy brain-imaging machines.

I hope it intrigues you as much as it did for me.

Using two bricks, or some duct tape, prop up an 18-inch-square mirror vertically on a table. Sit on that the edge faces you (a). Now put your left hand on the table at the left side of the mirror (either palm up or down) and match your right hand position on the right side. If you now look into the right side of the mirror, you will see the right hand’s reflection optically superimposed in the same place where you feel your left hand to be. (You may need to adjust the position of the left hand to achieve this sensation.) It will now look like you are viewing your own left hand, but of course you are not. Now try the following experiments.

While continuing to look in the mirror on the right side and keeping your left hand perfectly still, move your right hand, wiggle its fingers to make a fist. The “left hand” in the mirror will appear to move in perfect synchrony with the right but, paradoxically, feel completely still. The conflict creates a slight jolt; it feels spooky, sometimes mildly uncomfortable. The brain abhors discrepancies.

Now do the opposite; keep the right hand still and move the left hand. The left hand appears still but feels like it is moving. You will feel the same kind of jarring sensation, but it will be less powerful than in the preceding case. The reason for the asymmetry is not clear.

Why the jolt? The answer resides in the right superior and interior parietal lobules (located above your right ear), where signals from your various senses—visuals, somatic— converge to create your internal sense of body image. Stand up now and close your eyes. Either raise your arms or let them dangle by your side. Obviously you have a vivid sense of being “anchored” in your body except under special circumstances (such as ketamine, anesthesia). Now open your eyes, and you have visual confirmation of what your other senses are telling you: you see your hand where you felt it to be. In short, your senses normally blend different sensory inputs to create a vivid dynamic image of your body moving in space and time.

The mirror experiment you did earlier disrupts this consistency of signals in the right superior parietal lobule. The discrepancy is picked up in part by the right insular cortex (buried in the temporal lobe), and that information is then relayed to the right frontal lobe, where it can be picked up through brain imaging (shown by Richard Frackowiak, Ray dolan and Chris Frith, all at University College London, and Peter Halligan of Cardiff University in Wales).

Source: Ramachandran, V. S., & Rogers-Ramachandran, D. (2011, June 23). Reflections on the mind. Scientific American Mind, 22, 18-22.

“Obviously you have a vivid sense of being “anchored” in your body except under special circumstances - such as ketamine” 

Well that explains the floating sensation. 

liquidatomicgonads:

All hail your deep-fried idol.

WHY did I not get fried chicken, why oh why.

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