tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21352846511176345042024-03-04T21:23:03.590-08:00Prof Zeki's MusingsSince 1970 Zeki has been based at University College, being appointed the Professor of Neurobiology in 1981 and most recently, Professor of Neuroesthetics . Here he details his theories on the intimate connections between the brain, the mind and experienceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-32290405433767500592024-01-28T07:09:00.000-08:002024-01-28T07:18:30.382-08:00Scientific publication by bureaucratic ideology – the case of Brain Communications <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: start;">Science is about curiosity and curiosity itself can often be triggered by a seemingly banal and trivial observation. In neurology, it has often been triggered by observation of the consequences of brain damage in single cases. These observations can appear totally trivial until shown otherwise, sometimes years later. The single case study of Louis Verrey (1888) describing a lesion in a specific part of the visual brain producing an achromatopsia (an inability to see the world in colour) was quickly dismissed with contempt by George MacKay in 1888. Eleven years later MacKay had a Damascene conversion based (you guessed it) on a single case study of his own (MacKay and Dunlop (1899). But even two single cases were seemingly not convincing enough to eminent neurologists like Salomon Henschen (1900) and Gordon Holmes (1918). Henschen dismissed these findings with this powerfully argued scientific statement: “The two cases of achromatopsia published by Verrier [</span><i style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: start;">sic</i><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: start;">] and Machay [</span><i style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: start;">sic</i><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: start;">] do not demonstrate, in my opinion, what these authors want to demonstrate”. Gordon Holmes (1945) was more assertive; he wrote. “</span><i style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: start;">My</i><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: start;"> observations tend…tend to show that an isolated loss or dissociation of colour vision is not produced by cerebral lesions” (my emphasis).</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: start;"> </span></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was only over 70 years later that Verrey’s evidence re-surfaced when it was found that there is indeed a part of the visual brain, located in the area that Verrey had indicated, damage to which leads to cerebral achromatopsia.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Verrey’s single case study is rather less well know today than the single, and very brief, case study of Pierre Paul Broca. Broca’s single case study revolved around a patient called <i>Tan</i>, who had lost the ability to speak and had been admitted to hospital 10 years before Broca examined him. Tan was only able to utter a single word, <i>Tan</i>; hence the name given to him. Broca started studying him on 12 April 1861, four days before <i>Tan</i> died. At autopsy, the causative lesion was shown to be in the left frontal lobe. Broca did not waste time; he delivered his results and his conclusion to the Société d’Anthroplogie in Paris on the afternoon of the autopsy; he postulated that the third convolution of the left frontal lobe is critical for the production of articulate language and the area is now commonly referred to as Broca’s area. It constitutes a foundational landmark in the study of brain activity as it relates to language and has been described as one that “revolutionized psychiatry” (<i>Scientific American</i>, 2013). But, of course, Broca was fiercely attacked for his single case study, the significance of which became evident much later, retrospectively.</span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Not much later, in 1889 Hughlings Jackson published a single case study in <i>Brain</i> (of which he was one of the founders). He wrote of a Dr Z who suffered from an unusual type of epilepsy which had, as a consequence, a bewildering amnesia; Z retained consciousness during his seizures and could even examine patients and prescribe the correct medication but had no recollection of having done so later.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>CR Butler (2006) wrote in <i>Practical Neurology</i> that similar cases have appeared sporadically since the description of Hughlings Jackson but that they often go unrecognized – a situation which refusal to publish single cases presumably promotes or at least does not help.</span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Among the more recent, and more extensively studied, single cases, is patient HM, whose memory system was charted extensively by Brenda Milner and her colleagues; HM developed severe memory problems after surgery for epilepsy, which included resection of the hippocampus and adjacent structures. The initial studies on HM were published by Milner and Scoville (1957) and, according to Larry Squires (2009), met with resistance “especially because of the difficulty for many years of demonstrating anything resembling his impairment in the experimental animal”. As with Broca’s study, the importance of this single case became apparent only later, i.e. retrospectively,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and it is now generally agreed that this single case<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>revolutionized our knowledge of human memory mechanisms. Larry Squire has described patient HM “as probably the best known single patient in the history of neuroscience…Work with him established fundamental principles about how memory functions are organised in the human brain.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It would be hard to find an equivalent description of work based on a study of scores of patients, with detailed statistical tables, rather than a single one. And in view of Larry Squire’s view of why Milner and Scoville evidence met with resistance, it is interesting to note here that there is another single case study published (yes, you guessed correctly again) in <i>Brain</i> (1983 and 1991). This is of patient LM who became akinetopsic (lost the ability to perceive objects when in motion) after bilateral cortical lesions affecting the territory of V5, the brain area critical for the perception of visual motion.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Even though the physiology of V5 had been charted extensively in the monkey by then (V5 is perhaps one of the most extensively studied cortical areas), nothing of the same severity and longevity has been described in experimental animals.</span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In fact the exclusion of single cases, or their absorption into a study of the many because their authors could not bring themselves to believe in the results obtained from outlier, single cases can, and has, seriously compromised results reached from study of groups of patients. A good example is that of the much-revered study by Sir Gordon Holmes, of the effects of lesions in the primary visual cortex (area V1) in humans (Holmes 1918). Among Holmes’ patients was one – a single case – whose condition did not conform to that of the group. This one patient, though also blinded by a lesion in his V1, was nevertheless able to experience visual motion consciously when a moving stimulus was presented to his blind field. Holmes grappled with this one patient – especially in light of a similar discovery (but derived from 5 patients) described a year earlier by George Riddoch (1917) – but Holmes evidently decided against publishing it as a single case; instead, he absorbed this single case into his other cases and lost a great opportunity. His reluctance to isolate this single case was doctrinaire; Holmes cared nothing for any study that showed residual and specialized visual capacities after lesions in V1. In spite of the single case in his own study, Holmes dismissed the findings of Riddoch (and with it his own single case); Riddoch’s study had similarly shown that conscious experience of visual motion in patients otherwise blinded by lesions in V1 is possible. Holmes wrote that Riddoch was “certainly incorrect” because<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“…in all <i>my</i> cases the blindness was total” (my emphasis). Had there been a journal in those days that encouraged the publication of single case studies or at least accepted them if only for review, Holmes might have been encouraged to consider his single case more seriously and describe it separately. At any rate, his much revered 1918 paper has, in my view, suffered a serious intellectual setback resulting from not describing a single case that did not conform to the results obtained from examining many cases.</span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In fact, a study published in <i>Brain</i> in 1993, based on (you guessed it again) a single case showed that Riddoch was right and that patients blinded by lesions in V1 can perceive motion selectively and consciously, thus questioning a doctrine that supposed that such patients, when they see at all, can only “see” unconsciously (the so-called syndrome of <i>blindsight</i>).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is now well attested that George Riddoch was right and the phenomenon has indeed been deservedly named after him.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Note in passing that this single case study of 1993 was published in <i>Brain</i> when its editor was the neurologist Ian MacDonald. <i>Brain</i> currently has the much-misguided policy of strongly discouraging single case studies (see below).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There is, in brief, a price to be paid for ignoring single cases and a good deal to be said for taking them into account, if only to review them seriously, as with any other scientific study. I have given only a few examples above, but there are many more that can be given.</span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Imagine therefore my surprise when I received on Monday 27 November 2023 a letter from the Editor of <i>Brain Communications</i> in response to a paper that my colleagues and I had submitted to that journal on Friday 24 November 2023. The paper described the results obtained from examining an unusual single patient who had<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>what seemed to us very interesting visual disturbances. The nature of these disturbances and their scientific validity is not at issue here. What is interesting is that the paper was returned after spending a weekend on the editor’s desk, with the following comments:</span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“After careful consideration [during the weekend of Friday November 24 ending on Monday November 27], I regret to inform you that…<i>we do not typically consider case studies as it is difficult to draw robust conclusions about the neurobiology of disease or about the wider implications of the work for other people</i>” (my emphasis), a statement that is evidently based on scientific ideology and policy rather than on the science itself since it is hard to believe that the paper was carefully considered in any other sense than that it was a single case study that did not fit with the journal’s rigid policy. As for not drawing robust conclusions from single case studies, please read above again.</span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The policy behind such a statement has scientific mediocrity writ large all over it – it does both neurobiology and its practitioners a serious dis-service; it is based on a crass ideology and policy that discourages any neurologist who may come across a patient with an interesting syndrome to pursue their studies, knowing full well that there are out there journals with a pretence to eminence who follow the identical crass policy, with acceptance of articles dictated not by scientific interest but by scientific <i>diktat</i> regarding what scientific papers can and cannot be reviewed, let alone published. It would be totally useless to counter such <i>diktats</i> by saying that a scientific study is either good or not good – good science often does not proceed by following rules established by editors.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Another example is provided by a sister journal to <i>Brain Communications</i>, the journal <i>Brain</i> itself (of which, incidentally, Sir Gordon Holmes was editor between 1922 and 1927). The current, and equally idiotic, policy of this venerable journal, established in the 19<sup>th</sup> century and in which many landmark papers in neurology have been published, is as follows: “…<i>single case studies are not considered. More detailed studies of single cases may - in rare instances - be considered as a Report…only when they resolve definitively an important problem in the field or when the data lead to a significant conceptual advance. Studies of single cases that can be readily performed on groups of patients will not be considered</i>.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What an extraordinarily unscientific statement: since when has any scientific study resolved <i>definitively</i> an important problem? And the whole point of single case studies is that they cannot readily be performed on groups because naturally occurring lesions in the brain are never perfectly localised to one and the same place. And as to the data leading to a significant conceptual advance, surely that can only be judged retrospectively, after a single case study has been published, as indeed has been the case with the single case studies of Verrey, Broca, Hughlings Jackson and Milner & Scoville – among others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But there is of course always the argument based on statistics, generally a good fall back position in attacking single case studies. I will not go into that here because it has been compellingly argued against in a recent study by Nickels et al. in an article entitled <i>Single case studies are a powerful tool for developing, testing and extending theories</i>, published in 2022 in <i>Nature Reviews Psychology</i>. I doubt that it will influence editors who will not consider single case studies although it should because journals have a responsibility to serve their subjects well.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There are of course many merits to studies that involve scores of patients, and which are acceptable to these editors, in principle. I will not details these merits here but leave it to those journals that proscribe single case studies to do so.</span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #454545; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Semir Zeki<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p></div><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>zekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05850721922861088256noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-87411687196292433162016-09-08T04:26:00.002-07:002016-09-08T04:37:30.393-07:00The macro- and micro- worlds in physics and perception<div class="MsoNormal">
It is well established that there is a contradiction between
gravitational physics and quantum mechanics. I shall refer to the former as
macro-physics and to the latter as micro-physics. The laws of one do not apply
to the laws of the other. The behaviour of particles in the micro-physical
world is so unpredictable from the known laws that operate in the
macro-physical world that Niels Bohr reputedly said, “Anyone who is not shocked
by quantum mechanics has not really understood it”. Schrodinger – a pioneer in
quantum mechanics - reputedly said, “I don’t like it and I wish I had had
nothing to do with it”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ever since the early part of the last century, there have
been many attempts to reconcile the two – among them string theory and quantum
gravitation. These attempts has so far had no success, which is not to say that
they will not be successful in the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is an apparent contradiction in perception which, in
some ways, parallels that in physics, although the similarity must not be
exaggerated. It is, however, always interesting to draw parallels between
remote fields, even if one does not illuminate the other.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As is common knowledge, in ordinary experience different
visual attributes such as the colour, form and direction of motion of an object
are perceived to be in precise spatial and temporal registration. Let us refer
to this as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">macro-perception</i>, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">macro-vision</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One would be forgiven to assume from this common, daily,
experience that, likewise, the very earliest visual experience, in what we can
refer to as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">micro-vision</i> – in the
first 150 milliseconds after the appearance of a visual stimulus – its
attributes of colour, form and motion will also be perceived as being in
precise spatial and temporal registration. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/264/1380/393.short">experiments</a> show that this is not necessarily so.
Apparently – <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejn.13270/abstract">dependent upon the task</a> – subjects often perceive colours before
perceiving the form (orientation) of the stimulus, and before perceiving its
direction of motion. The difference in time between perceiving colour and
direction of motion is about 80 milliseconds. This is a huge difference in
neural terms, given that it takes about 0.5 to 1 milliseconds for the nervous
impulse to travel from one nerve cell to the next. And, crucially, this
temporal perceptual asynchrony could not have been (and was not) predicted from
the apparently synchronous perception of different attributes in the macro-world
of perception, just as the properties of the micro-physical world cannot be
predicted from the laws governing the macro-physical world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In general, physicists working in the macro-world are
capable of developing their theories without paying much attention to the rules
that operate in the micro-world; likewise, those working in micro-physics can
ignore the rules that operate in the macro-world, which accounts for the
enormous success of quantum mechanics.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Equally, neurobiologists concerned with macro-perception can
(and have) generally ignored the rules that govern perception in the
micro-world. This is well and good, except that it raises questions about the
problem of what is known as “binding”, which refers to the bringing together of
separately processed attributes (eg of colour, form and motion) to give us a
coherent visual picture, with no trace of the asynchronous operations evident
in the micro-world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A similar dilemma faces physics. While it is possible for
one arena of physics to ignore the other, this becomes a problem when things
are projected backwards in time – billions of years ago – when the whole of the
Universe was contained in a particle of infinite mass but of the size
equivalent to a millionth of a millionth of that of an atom (or so physicists
now believe). At such a small, micro-level, it is the rules governing the
micro-world that must have been in operation. How these rules got transformed
into the rules of the macro-world as the Universe began to expand after the
“Big Bang” remains a puzzle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Similarly, how the micro-perceptual, asynchronously
operating world is transformed into the synchronous world of macro-perception
remains a puzzle. An obvious explanation might be that the responses of cells
are somehow ‘bound’ together to give us our unitary perception. But such a
supposition brings numerous hurdles, among them that of the physiological
mechanisms through which one group of cells in one area “waits” for another
group of cells in a separate, specialized area, to terminate its task. This, so
far, remains an unaddressed problem and no one has yet managed to clarify
successfully how binding occurs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dragan Rangelov and I have <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00749/full">suggested</a> that the binding
process that leads to the macro-world may lie in interactions beyond the
perceptive cortex, but this is an idea that is entirely conjectural.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remote though the worlds of physics and perception may seem,
these parallels are worth drawing attention to.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #252525; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">©Semir Zeki</span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-78853670846683689882016-09-08T04:26:00.000-07:002016-09-08T04:35:49.700-07:00The macro- and micro- worlds in physics and perception<div class="MsoNormal">
It is well established that there is a contradiction between
gravitational physics and quantum mechanics. I shall refer to the former as
macro-physics and to the latter as micro-physics. The laws of one do not apply
to the laws of the other. The behaviour of particles in the micro-physical
world is so unpredictable from the known laws that operate in the
macro-physical world that Niels Bohr reputedly said, “Anyone who is not shocked
by quantum mechanics has not really understood it”. Schrodinger – a pioneer in
quantum mechanics - reputedly said, “I don’t like it and I wish I had had
nothing to do with it”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ever since the early part of the last century, there have
been many attempts to reconcile the two – among them string theory and quantum
gravitation. These attempts has so far had no success, which is not to say that
they will not be successful in the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is an apparent contradiction in perception which, in
some ways, parallels that in physics, although the similarity must not be
exaggerated. It is, however, always interesting to draw parallels between
remote fields, even if one does not illuminate the other.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As is common knowledge, in ordinary experience different
visual attributes such as the colour, form and direction of motion of an object
are perceived to be in precise spatial and temporal registration. Let us refer
to this as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">macro-perception</i>, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">macro-vision</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One would be forgiven to assume from this common, daily,
experience that, likewise, the very earliest visual experience, in what we can
refer to as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">micro-vision</i> – in the
first 150 milliseconds after the appearance of a visual stimulus – its
attributes of colour, form and motion will also be perceived as being in
precise spatial and temporal registration. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/264/1380/393.short">experiments</a> show that this is not necessarily so.
Apparently – <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejn.13270/abstract">dependent upon the task</a> – subjects often perceive colours before
perceiving the form (orientation) of the stimulus, and before perceiving its
direction of motion. The difference in time between perceiving colour and
direction of motion is about 80 milliseconds. This is a huge difference in
neural terms, given that it takes about 0.5 to 1 milliseconds for the nervous
impulse to travel from one nerve cell to the next. And, crucially, this
temporal perceptual asynchrony could not have been (and was not) predicted from
the apparently synchronous perception of different attributes in the macro-world
of perception, just as the properties of the micro-physical world cannot be
predicted from the laws governing the macro-physical world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In general, physicists working in the macro-world are
capable of developing their theories without paying much attention to the rules
that operate in the micro-world; likewise, those working in micro-physics can
ignore the rules that operate in the macro-world, which accounts for the
enormous success of quantum mechanics.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Equally, neurobiologists concerned with macro-perception can
(and have) generally ignored the rules that govern perception in the
micro-world. This is well and good, except that it raises questions about the
problem of what is known as “binding”, which refers to the bringing together of
separately processed attributes (eg of colour, form and motion) to give us a
coherent visual picture, with no trace of the asynchronous operations evident
in the micro-world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A similar dilemma faces physics. While it is possible for
one arena of physics to ignore the other, this becomes a problem when things
are projected backwards in time – billions of years ago – when the whole of the
Universe was contained in a particle of infinite mass but of the size
equivalent to a millionth of a millionth of that of an atom (or so physicists
now believe). At such a small, micro-level, it is the rules governing the
micro-world that must have been in operation. How these rules got transformed
into the rules of the macro-world as the Universe began to expand after the
“Big Bang” remains a puzzle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Similarly, how the micro-perceptual, asynchronously
operating world is transformed into the synchronous world of macro-perception
remains a puzzle. An obvious explanation might be that the responses of cells
are somehow ‘bound’ together to give us our unitary perception. But such a
supposition brings numerous hurdles, among them that of the physiological
mechanisms through which one group of cells in one area “waits” for another
group of cells in a separate, specialized area, to terminate its task. This, so
far, remains an unaddressed problem and no one has yet managed to clarify
successfully how binding occurs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dragan Rangelov and I have <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00749/full">suggested</a> that the binding
process that leads to the macro-world may lie in interactions beyond the
perceptive cortex, but this is an idea that is entirely conjectural.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remote though the worlds of physics and perception may seem,
these parallels are worth drawing attention to.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-4020154351921720362016-08-03T01:38:00.000-07:002016-08-03T01:38:55.763-07:00The myth of "interdisciplinarity"
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<b>The </b>great buzz word in research applications is
“interdisciplinarity”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often research
councils frame their invitations to applicants in terms which make it seem that
they favour interdisciplinary research. And of course there is much that speaks
in favour of such research. In a way, it has been happening slowly and almost
imperceptibly at universities. Departments have changed their names and their
structures as well to reflect this fact, or so they believe.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>In </b>truth, interdisciplinarity is just a word used to soothe
the conscience of funding bodies that they are “with it” in the world of modern
research. In fact, a recent report from <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/meet-the-challenge-of-interdisciplinary-science-1.20185?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews">Australia</a> shows that the chances of
being funded for an inter-disciplinary project are significantly less than that
in mono-disciplines. Interdisciplinarity, it seems, often means nothing more
than combining neuroanatomy with neuropathology, or neurochemistry with
neuropharmacology, or parallel studies in English and German Romantic
literature. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>But</b> try to combine science with the humanities (e.g.
neurobiology with mathematics, or physics with philosophy) and you will end up
against a brick wall. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>In</b> fact the British Academy has set up an <a href="http://www.britac.ac.uk/interdisciplinarity">investigation</a> into
interdisciplinarity in higher education and research, a sure sign that the buzz
word<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has not had much effect.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The</b> reason for this is to be sought, so we are told, in the
structure of the committees that oversee funding and there is no doubt that this is partly true. When applying for a grant,
the applicant must choose a panel that will decide the fate of the application,
but the panels are often composed of people who are highly specialized in their
fields. There are some examples when the funding agencies seek to cross
the border and seek opinion from the “other” field. But this is somewhat rare.
Hence, interdisciplinary applications commonly fail, with utterly banal "feed-back" to the applicants,
such as “you have not convinced the committee that this is transformative
research” or “you have not made a case for incorporating humanities into your
work”. Often the work is thus dismissed through the “triage” system overseen by those who have little understanding of the "other" discipline, without
going to referees for a full appraisal. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The</b> dearth of genuine inter-disciplinary research is also reflected
in the dearth of journals which publish articles that genuinely cross
disciplines.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>There</b> is another, and unacknowledged, factor that impedes
interdisciplinarity -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>territoriality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many, especially
in the humanities, are consciously or unconsciously resentful of the incursion
of sciences into what they regard to be their discipline; they fear being
relegated into second-class participants. Scientists, on the other hand, have a
general tendency to dismiss research in the humanities as not having
the high standards of proof that they claim for their own fields. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>I</b> naturally do not want to tar all scientists and humanists
with the same brush. There are many, many honourable exceptions in both camps;
but they remain exceptions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>This</b> territoriality, I suggest, is perhaps an even more important
factor in impeding the progress of inter-disciplinarity. It is also much more
difficult to combat because it operates silently. After all, no member of any
panel is going to declare publicly that “this application is trespassing into
my field”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Hence</b>, research councils must protect themselves against
that but it is not an easy task.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Of</b> course, any changes to the structural and administrative
organization of funding councils will take years. Meanwhile, for those
increasing number of young researchers who are enthusiastic about research that
crosses boundaries, because in the world of knowledge there are no such artifical boundaries, there is this word of advice – don’t waste your time
applying to the research councils for big cross-disciplinary research. Try
instead some other source<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– for example
big companies which see a commercial return from funding such research.Better still, identify a wise and enlightened benefactor - a sort of modern Lorenzo de' Medici, if you can find one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>It</b> may be cynical to say so; it is certainly sad. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>But</b> it is also true, and will remain true until such time as
the research councils wake up and realise that research aspirations have
changed beyond recognition while they were snoozing.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-69012818287622619102016-07-01T01:57:00.000-07:002016-07-01T01:57:41.505-07:00Unconscious intuition and its conscious resolution
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<div class="normal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Contributed by</span></i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Mikhail Filippov, Varun
Prasad and Semir Zeki</span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>Ever</b> since the description of the <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00068/full">neural correlates of the experience of mathematical beauty</a>, we have been wondering to what extent
mathematical beauty falls into the category of biological beauty<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>This</b> has led us to enquire further into the extent to which
mathematics itself constitutes a study of the brain’s logical architecture; in
other words, the extent to which the study of mathematics also belongs in a branch
of biology and more specifically neurobiology.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>We</b> start by enquiring into the processes which led one of the
most interesting mathematicians of the last century, namely <span style="color: windowtext;">Srinivasa Ramanujan, to his conclusions. </span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="color: windowtext;"><b>They</b> are
commonly referred to as INTUITION.</span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>But</b> what is intuition? </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>The</b> term is commonly used to signify that a significant insight
or conclusion has been reached without thinking and without reasoning. This is
true in all languages to which we (the writers of this post) have access. One would
no doubt find definitions which are more sophisticated but, as the quotations
below show, the absence of logical process in having an intuition is the most
common definition and reflects, in fact, what the lay person usually means by
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>The</b> term has been much written about recently, especially since
the publication of a book about Ramanujan by Robert Kanigel entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Man who Knew Infinity</i>, recently made
into a film. </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>Consider</b> the following definitions of intuition, which exclude
any reasoning process:</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Direct perception of
truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process, immediate apprehension</i>”</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An immediate cognition
of an object not inferred or determined by previous cognition of the same
object</i>”<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>(from
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dictionary.com</i>)</div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 14.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The immediate
apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning
process; a particular act of such apprehension.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span></i>(from
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oxford English Dictionary</i>)</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>The</b> French definitions given in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Larousse</i> are even more explicit in this regard:</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Connaissance directe,
immédiate de la vérité, sans recours au raisonnement, à l'expérience</i>.”
</div>
<div class="normal">
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sentiment irraisonné,
non vérifiable qu'un événement va se produire, que quelque chose existe</i>”</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>One </b>Italian dictionary defines intuition as follows:</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Intuizione: Conoscenza
diretta e immediata di una verità, che si manifesta allo spirito senza bisogno
di ricorrere al ragionamento, considerata talora come forma privilegiata di
conoscenza che consente, superando gli schemi dell’intelletto, una più vera e
profonda comprensione”</i></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
while its Spanish counterpart states:</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Percepción clara e
inmediata de una idea o situación, sin necesidad de razonamiento lógico</i>”</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>Nor</b> are such definitions restricted to Western European
languages. Much the same definition appears in Japanese.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: SimSun; mso-hansi-font-family: SimSun;">直感</span><span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">" = </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to capture things by feeling rather than
reasoning or discussion</i>.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
Or</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: SimSun; mso-hansi-font-family: SimSun;">直観</span><span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">" </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is to directly understand the essence of
things without relying on reasoning.</i></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>We</b> give these definitions in different languages only to show
that much the same applies to all. Central to most (but not all) definitions is
the absence of reasoning or logical thinking during the intuitive process or
its result. Hence, the dictionary definitions given do indeed reflect the way
in which the term is commonly understood. </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>Other </b>definitions come closer to the arguments we give below;
they make no reference to the absence of reasoning logic, but only to the
absence of proof or evidence.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
For example, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Merriam-Webster
</i>and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Free Dictionary</i> define
intuition as follows, respectively:</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">“A natural ability or power
that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence: a
feeling that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding
why” </span></i></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">Something that is known or understood without
proof or evidence</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">” <span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span></span>(from
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Merriam Webster</i>)</div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The faculty of knowing
or understanding something without reasoning or proof</i>”</div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-left: 180.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
(from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Free Dictionary</i> )</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
which is not dis-similar to the definition given in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Great Soviet Encyclopaedia</i> </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“ИНТУИЦИЯ(позднелат.
intuitio, от лат. intueor - пристально смотрю), способность постижения истины
путём прямого её усмотрения без обоснования с помощью доказательства.” </i></div>
<div class="normal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(Intuition is an ability
to comprehend the truth through direct discovery without its justification with
the proof)</i></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>We</b> propose below an alternative definition that may be obvious
to some but is not to many and therefore worth giving: </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An intuition is an unconscious logical brain
process with an outcome or conclusion in the form of a <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>statement or proposition. But whether the
outcome of the intuitive process is “right” or “wrong”, or “correct” or
“incorrect”, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>can only be determined by a
conscious logical process. </i></b></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>The</b> closest dictionary definition to this that we know of is to
be found in the Russian<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Dictionary of
Psychology</i>, which of course targets a more specialized audience:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">“Интуиция</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> (</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">от</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">лат</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. intueri
– </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">пристально</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">внимательно</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">смотреть</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">) - </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">мыслительный</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">процесс</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">состоящий</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">в</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">практически</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">моментальном</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">нахождении</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">решения</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">задачи</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">при</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">недостаточной</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">осознанности</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">логических</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">связей</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">.”</span></i></div>
<div class="normal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">(Intuition - thought process allowing almost instant finding of the
solutions to the problem with the lack of awareness of logical connections.)</span></i></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>Mathematics</b> is a subject in which intuition is often invoked. </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>But</b>
the end result of the unconscious logical process that is intuition can only be
“right” or “wrong” (correct or incorrect) when consciously scrutinized. </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>As</b> examples of “right” and “wrong” mathematical intuitions
consider the following:</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>A</b> right (correct) intuition: Pick a point at random on the
Earth (assume that the Earth is a sphere). The probability that the point
picked lies in the northern hemisphere is 50%.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>Most </b>students of mathematics (i.e. those who have enough
knowledge to understand the above statements, but who do not know if they are
right or wrong) would intuitively guess this statement to be true and it is.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>A </b>wrong (incorrect) intuition: Pick a real number randomly. The
probability that the real number picked is rational is zero.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>Most</b> mathematics students would intuitively guess this
statement to be false (you can obviously pick a rational number!). However, it
is correct.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>But</b> the conclusion that they are correct or incorrect can only be
reached through a conscious logical process.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
R<b>amanujan</b> was reluctant to submit his intuitions to the
conscious process of deductive logic, until Hardy brought him to England and
forced him to do so – i.e., to provide proofs for his intuitions – a conscious
process. </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>The</b> absence of any logical process or reasoning in the
intuitive process is not the only weakness of the definitions of intuition;
some also exclude the role of experience in reaching conclusions through
intuition, as in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Larousse Dictionary</i>
or the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dictionary.com</i> definitions
given above. </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext;">We believe, however, that to have an
intuition in any area, one must have experience of that area or knowledge of it,
to provide a conclusion or statement, whether correct or incorrect. </span></i></b></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>Since</b> we suspect that there is only a limited set of deductive logical
processes in the brain, it follows that the same logical processes must be used
to derive intuitions in different domains; what distinguishes intuitions in
different domains, and the logical processes that lead to them, is past
experience and knowledge in the relevant domain.</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>The</b> result of this unconscious logical process (the intuition)
depends on initial conditions or inputs, which are based on previous <span style="color: windowtext;">(conscious) knowledge, consciously or unconsciously
obtained.</span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>Our </b>proposed definition raises interesting and important issues
and leads to the suggestion that</div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span>There are many (but a limited number of) logical
processes, which operate in the unconscious state. </div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span>These processes are undisciplined and unruly but still
obey some sort of brain logical process.</div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span>They become disciplined and eliminated by revisiting them,
and the conclusions to which they lead, in the conscious state. </div>
<div class="normal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">d.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span>The latter eliminates many of the undisciplined and
vagrant unconscious logical processing possibilities, thus stabilizing the
logical processing systems of the brain. </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b>The </b>study of intuition in mathematics thus belongs as well to
neurobiology. Or, put another way, mathematicians are also covert
neurobiologists. </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="background: white; color: #252525; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">© Mikhail Filippov, Varun Prasad and Semir Zeki</span></span> </div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-88515304268530305182015-08-14T06:06:00.001-07:002015-08-14T06:11:13.050-07:00Are lines always a means to more complex forms? Aleksander Rodchenko would not agree<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Orientation selective cells of the visual
cortex, which respond to lines of specific orientation, were discovered in
1959. They were first encountered in the primary visual cortex of the brain
(area V1) – considered by many for much too long to be the only entering place
of visual information into the rest of the visual brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such cells have usually been thought of as
the initial staging post for the elaboration of more complex forms. Some,
indeed most, believe that they are the sole source for the elaboration of more
complex forms such as faces, houses and objects. I am becoming increasingly
skeptical of this view. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">First of all, evidence which is largely
ignored or at least marginalized, although it has been available since 1980,
shows that V1 is not the only entering place of visual signals into other areas
of the visual brain; there are alternative routes which reach them without
passing through V1. Secondly, orientation selective cells are found in at least
four other visual areas of the visual brain, and these cells survive
functionally even when deprived of an input from V1 (i.e. they remain
orientation selective cells); they are, very likely, fed by these alternative
inputs. Thirdly, visual signals related to form (oriented lines) reach V1 and
the other visual areas within the same time frame. And, finally, clinical
evidence shows that humans can become agnosic (blind) for line drawings without
at the same time becoming agnosic for real objects.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Hence, one must seek for sources besides V1
for elaborating orientation selective cells and complex forms, which is not to
say that V1 cells do not contribute significantly to this process. But perhaps
one should also consider, at the same time, that oriented lines stand on their
own as forms in every sense, without their being mere “building blocks” for
elaborating more complex forms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Neurobiologists are not alone in
considering oriented lines a means towards a more complex end. Mondrian, among
others, sought for the constant elements in all forms and settled on the
straight lines, provided they are vertical and horizontal. He abhorred diagonal
lines, breaking off his working relationship with a colleague because “of the
high handed way in which you have treated the diagonal line”. Ever the
reductionist (though not accused of it, as we commonly are), he believed that
“there are also constant truths concerning forms” and it was the function of
the artist “to reduce natural forms to the constant elements”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Many others, including Kazimir Malevich,
Ellsworth Kelly and Barnet Newman, among others, have emphasized lines in some
of their paintings, for different reasons. But it was perhaps Aleksander
Rodchenko, the Russian Constructivist artist, who was most explicit in giving the straight line its autonomy.
Influenced by Malevich and Suprematism, he wrote: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“ I introduced and proclaimed the line as an
element of construction and as an independent form in painting”. In another
context, he also wrote </span><span style="background: white; color: #252525; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"I reduced painting to its logical conclusion” (although
he, too, was not (as far as I know) accused of reductionism). There are, incidentally, very good perceptual reasons for why he should not have been accused of reductionism, but I will leave that to a future post.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #252525; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The point of all this is simple: that lines are not
only a means towards something more complex; they can also stand on their own as a
form or forms; that, as the Gestalt psychologists emphasized, “the whole is
other than the sum of the parts” and that a complex form, even when constituted
from lines, is one that is other than a combination of lines – an important
lesson in the physiology of forms; and that there is much more to the construction
of forms in and by the brain than a single source which lies in the orientation
selective cells of V1.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #252525; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It seems to me that the physiology of form
construction by the brain is still, in spite of all the excellent work that has
been done in the field, a field that is rich for exploration but also requires
some of the facts mentioned above to be taken into consideration. In that
exploration perhaps the products of artists should also play some role, even if only a minor one.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #252525; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #252525; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">© Semir Zeki</span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-80875711971256378322015-08-07T05:52:00.000-07:002015-08-07T05:52:55.468-07:00What does the brain do to ensure that contradictory truths are valid? Answer: it ensures that they never meet. <div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Contributed by Mikhail Filippov and Semir Zeki</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mathematical and physical theories constitute one means of
acquiring knowledge about our Universe. We build models of the way the Universe
is constructed through experimental facts. But what happens when they contradict each
other. How do we accommodate them both?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the sensory world, contradictions can occur in vision.
This is commonly referred to as ambiguity or instability. We will discuss them
first before addressing the question of contradictory truths about the nature
of the Universe. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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For vision, a good example of an ambiguous, though finished,
work is Vermeer’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Johannes_Vermeer_(1632-1675)_-_The_Girl_With_The_Pearl_Earring_(1665).jpg">Girl with a Pearl Earring</a></i>. The painting is capable of many interpretations – of someone who
is distant or inviting or resentful or approving. The important point is that
(a) there is no clear solution because all solutions are valid (se<a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405185589.html">e Zeki 2008</a>) and (b) only one
solution can be valid and occupy the conscious stage at any one moment (see <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=zeki+2004+consciousness+and+cognition">Zeki 2004</a>), before
ceding place to another, equally plausible, solution or interpretation, which
then becomes sovereign until it, too, is replaced.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With bi-stable or multi-stable<a href="http://www.twobigtwolittle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Duck-Rabbit_illusion.jpg"> figures</a>, the image transmutes
perceptually from, say, a <a href="http://www.optical-illusionist.com/imagefiles/hiddenfacecountry.jpg">face to a house</a>. Again, only one image – face or
house – is possible at any given moment, even if one knows that the image is
bi-stable.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The transition from one perceptual state to another is not
generally under our control. The images flip over between two or more states
with prolonged viewing and it is not evident that even the length of time when
one state reigns can be controlled. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thus the brain has devised a system where, when there is no
certainty as to the solution, it will entertain two more solutions as equally
plausible, even if these solutions are significantly different. But it ensures
that the two solutions do not coincide.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The same general rule applies, we believe, to grander and
more exalted cognitive states. One such example is to be found in the laws of
gravitation and time-space, which are derived from what has come to be known as
classical logic. These laws are different from quantum logic, though we would say that both are derived from brain logic, just as two contradictory images are derived from the brain's perceptual mechanisms.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Indeed, it can be
said that classical logic cannot reach the conclusions reached by quantum
logic. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In their statement on Quantum Logic, <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-1795-4_1#page-1">Birkhoff and von Neumann</a> put it
like this,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The object …is to discover what logical structure one may hope to find
in physical theories which, like quantum mechanics, do not conform to classical
logic</i>.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We note that, in the above quote, they write of the logical
structure of physical theories. We believe that the logical structure of
physical theories is derived from brain logic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We would therefore re-formulate what they say, as follows:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The object …is to
discover what variations there are in the logical system of the brain that
allows it to accommodate the facts that lead to quantum logic as well as to
logic dictating classical Newtonian mechanics</i>”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In truth, quantum logic and classical logic, both of which
are brain logic, are not in contradiction. They are just two different models
of the physical reality and, like bi-stable images, only one can occupy the
conscious stage at any given moment. Also, as in ambiguous stimuli, there is no
correct solution, because both solutions are correct.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The overall conclusion that we draw is that the brain does
not devise too many <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>different solutions
to acquire (apparently contradictory) knowledge about the world. It uses the
same general approach to sensory knowledge as to cognitive knowledge. It
accepts even what may amount to contradictory facts, if these conform to its
logic system and will reject them both if they do not.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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If it accepts them both, it will however not accept them
both simultaneously, just as it will not accept two contradictory
interpretations of a visual image at the same time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hence, in addition to deriving knowledge about the world
through its logical deductive system, the brain has another, intrinsic, logical
system which allows it to separate out contradictory models as truthful,
whether derived from the sensory or cognitive world, but ensure that they do
not contradict each other because only one can occupy the conscious stage at
any given moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This it does by
ensuring that they do not co-occur. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This, in fact, is the solution, that the brain has adopted
to deal with contradictory but equally valid facts: by making sure that they do
not co-occur. In more popular language, it ensures that they never meet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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©Mikhail Filippov and Semir Zeki</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-88300306442925124362015-07-03T02:50:00.000-07:002015-07-03T04:56:50.749-07:00Colour Vision and Mathematics<style>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Contributed by Mikhail Filippov and Semir
Zeki</span></b></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>That</b> the experience of mathematical beauty,
derived from a highly cognitive source, correlates with activity in the same
part of the (emotional) brain as the experience of beauty derived from sensory <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00068/abstract">sources</a> </span><span lang="EN-US">makes it interesting to enquire what other common factors mathematics shares
with sensory experiences.</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>We</b> choose colour vision as an example.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>One</b> of the primordial functions of the brain
is to acquire knowledge and it has to do so in the face of continually changing
conditions, often referred to as the Heraclitan doctrine of flux (after Plato). To extract that knowledge, the brain has to somehow stabilize the world, since it is difficult to acquire knowledge in constantly changing and often unpredictable conditions.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">With colour vision, a surface or object of any colour can be viewed in different
lighting conditions (for example sunlight or indoors in tungsten or fluorescent
light), when the composition of the light (in terms of energy and wavelength
composition) reflected from it and from its surrounds changes continually.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>Yet</b>, by a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=EH+Land+Proceedings+of+the+National+Academy+1983">process</a> dictated by brain logic
(usually referred to as an algorithm), the brain discounts these continual
changes to assign a constant colour to the object or surface. This is what is
meant by colour constancy.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>Without</b> it, the task of acquiring knowledge
about objects and surfaces through colour becomes difficult, if not impossible;
without it, colour would lose its importance as a biological signaling
mechanism.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>How</b> it does so, in terms of the neural mechanisms
involved, is not entirely clear but it does involve a specialized centre in the
brain and the pathways leading to and from it. Through this process the brain
stabilizes an ever-fluctuating world and is thus capable of acquiring knowledge
about it through the colours of objects in it.</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>Our</b> Universe, at the other end of the scale,
presents an even more complex picture; but, similarly, the only way to acquire
knowledge about it is to stabilize it by reducing all its complexity to some
fundamental rules, reflected in equations or mathematical formulations. </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>These</b> formulations are the products of a deductive
logical system that belongs to the brain; their end-result is to stabilize the
world through simple, all-embracing formulae, and hence acquire knowledge about
it. </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>Thus</b> the knowledge-acquiring system of the brain
uses a logical system to acquire knowledge about, on the one hand, a sensory
category such as colour, which is continually experienced throughout the day
and, on the other, knowledge about the structure of the Universe which is not possible
to experience directly. The end-result is to stabilize the world, sensorially
in the case of colour vision and cognitively in the case of what determines the
structure of the Universe</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>There</b> is another feature that mathematical
formulations about truths governing the
Universe share with sensory experiences such as colour vision – in both, there
is one route and one route alone and, once established, there is no appeal
against its conclusions.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>All</b> knowledge that a green leaf is reflecting more
red light (as it commonly does at dawn and at dusk) will not enable one to see the leaf as red. The operation that the brain applies to generating constant colours in spite of
variations in the wavelength-composition of the light reflected from surfaces
and objects under different lighting conditions allows one to see the green leaf as green only (although its hue, or shade, will change under different illuminants).</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>And</b> all cognitive knowledge acquired through daily experience, that time and space
are separate entities, will not invalidate the conclusions postulated by the theory of
relativity, which show that time and space are continuous, at least to those
who know the language of mathematics. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>There</b> are, of course, conditions, in which two
fundamental truths are in apparent contradiction to each other, as in macro-
and micro- physics. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>Here</b>, too, the brain’s system for acquiring
knowledge through the sensory system shows strong similarities with its system
for acquiring more abstract knowledge.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>We</b> will return to it in the next post.</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-61981303700113906952015-05-19T03:32:00.000-07:002015-05-19T03:32:55.031-07:00The crushingly boring centrepiece at the Venice Biennale
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Venice Biennale is, according to most accounts of it, an
exhibition of the latest in contemporary art. But this year it appears to have
taken contemporary art to new and unheard of dimensions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Apparently, the aim of the biennale this year is to enquire
into “how art reflects the nature of our imaginings”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So far, so good. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But then come all these indigestible phrases about “atomized
space” from which to create a “molecular space”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Beginning to sound somewhat dodgy?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, it gets much worse.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It takes imagination of the tenth power to make the
centrepiece of the biennale this year the - wait for it – continuous reading by
professional actors, over a period of seven months, of Karl Marx’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Das Kapital</i>. Apparently this will allow
us to <a href="http://www.labiennale.org/en/mediacenter/video/56-1b.html">create</a> an “interpretive concept” through which “to reflect on these
incredible times”. The ultimate aim, apparently, is to move from a state of
continual transition to a state of harmony, where presumably things have
settled down to allow us to experience heavenly bliss.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first thing to say about this is that it must be
crushingly boring to listen to seven months’ worth of continuous reading of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Das Kapital</i>, whatever truths it may or
may not articulate. I mean even Shakespeare will not pass that test.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But next, I somehow doubt that even Marx believed that we
will end up in a state of harmony, where all struggles will cease. He was,
after all, an admirer of Hegel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since contemporary art is now being appropriated in the
service of politics, it is worth recalling that Marx was an avid reader, and
among his favourite authors was Balzac.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It may have been more appropriate to use some of Balzac’s
masterpieces to explore the dilemma of continual conflict resulting from our
natural tendency to exploit. It would have certainly been more entertaining.
Whether Balzac could pass the test of continuous reading over 7 months is,
however, another matter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For in Balzac’s pages one will find that it is not only the
bourgeoisie that exploits the proletariat; rather, exploitation is part of our
constitution, our neurobiological make-up. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Balzac’s pages, the rich exploit the poor, but they also
exploit each other. The poor do likewise. Women exploit men, and men exploit
women. And that most extraordinary creation of Romanesque literature, Balzac’s
Vautrin (who, Balzac tells us, is like a vertebral column that runs through
three of his most famous novels) exploits everyone in his efforts to dominate
society.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The will and capacity to exploit, and dominate, is part of
our neurobiological constitution.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marx understood this
well.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Communist
Manifesto</i> (Chapter 1), he writes that “the bourgeoisie<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of
revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange”; he well understood
that “it [the bourgeoisie] was an oppressed class under the sway of feudal
nobility” and how, with increasing power, it turned oppressor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And of course, exploitation being in
our very nature, whenever the opportunity presents itself, the exploited become
the exploiters. Doesn’t the communist revolution show this admirably?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Perhaps a rendering of Balzac’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harlot High and Low</i> would have been a
better choice when appropriating art in the service of politics. It would
certainly have been a lot more entertaining.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, as far as I am concerned, it is a
big “Ciao” to Venice this year. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-39413361019138610262015-04-30T06:24:00.002-07:002015-04-30T06:34:42.422-07:00The Experience of Mathematical and Biological Beauty <span style="font-size: large;">Contributed by Mikhail Filippov and Semir Zeki</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The</b> experience of mathematical beauty is perhaps the extreme
case of the experience of beauty conditioned by culture and learning. One
cannot experience mathematical beauty unless one is mathematically cultured. Those
not versed in mathematics are unlikely to experience beauty in equations that
mathematicians find beautiful and sometimes are even moved by.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>And</b> yet, mathematical language is universal. Mathematicians
of different culture – from China, Western Europe, Africa, Russia – are able to
experience beauty in the same equations even in spite of their profound
cultural and linguistic differences. Hence, in another sense, mathematical
beauty is not conditioned by culture and language. Indeed, it can perhaps be
said that mathematical beauty is less culturally biased than other
forms of beauty.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>We</b> must seek its source elsewhere than in cultural differences.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>An</b> interesting <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00068/abstract">article</a> on the experience of mathematical
beauty suggests that Immanuel Kant saw the source of the beauty in mathematical
equations in the fact that “they make sense”. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>This</b> raises two questions:
what does it “make sense” to, and why does it make sense to people of
different cultures, who are nevertheless apart from people of all cultures, even their own, who are not versed in the language of mathematics. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Our</b> answer is that it makes sense to the logic of the brain,
in that it is consistent with the logic that has evolved in the brain. The
implication is obviously that the logical system of the brain is similar to
those from different cultures. In other words, these mathematical equations
make sense to people of different cultures because the logic of the brain is
similar, in spite of cultural differences. Hence the common experience of
beauty in the same equations reveals something about that logic. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>It</b> is therefore not surprising to find that there was, in
our <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00068/abstract">sample</a> of mathematicians, a fair consensus in rating Leonard Euler’s
identity formula,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> 1 +
e<i>i</i>
<img src="http://www.math.com/tables/pi-s.gif" height="15" width="10" /> = 0
</span><style>
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<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">which links 5 fundamental mathematical constants with three
basic arithmetic operations, each occurring once, as very beautiful.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>But</b> is this significant uniformity in rating an equation as
beautiful vastly different from the rating of visual beauty by subjects belonging
to different cultures? It is a subject worth addressing. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>We </b>surmise that, if
subjects from different cultures were asked to rate what we broadly call “biological”
stimuli, such as human faces and bodies, in terms of beauty, there would also be
a fair consistency. We also surmise that there will be a similar consistency
when subjects from different cultures rate human faces and bodies as ugly. This
consistency may not be apparent when subjects are asked to rate the beauty of
artefactual stimuli, such as buildings; here culture and learning may play a
more significant role. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Hence</b> the experience of what we broadly refer to here as
“biological” beauty, beauty in art, may be dictated by inherited brain concepts
of what is “right” and makes sense, just as in mathematical formulae what is
experienced as beautiful makes sense. Both, in other words, fall into a
biological category, which distinguishes them from the beauty dictated by
acquired, synthetic, brain concepts, as in the experience of architecture as beautiful.
<a href="https://www.overdrive.com/media/668414/splendors-and-miseries-of-the-brain">Acquired brain concepts</a> are more conditioned by culture and learning and are
hence are modifiable throughout life. Mathematical beauty is more resistant to
cultural influences.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The</b> experience of mathematical and biological beauty, even
in spite of the fact that the former depends upon learning and the latter does
not, therefore share, paradoxically, a similarity in that both are dictated by
inherited brain concepts which makes them impervious to cultural differences
but which, in the case of mathematics, can only be revealed through a language –
that of mathematics – that individuals must acquire before the experience can
be enabled. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>This</b> of course raises the question of what the logic of the
brain represents and how it developed and evolved? Was it in response to the
structure of the Universe, as Plato in ancient Greece and Paul Dirac in more
modern times, would claim?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>These</b> are problems worth thinking about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-56287017960723599922015-03-07T01:07:00.000-08:002015-03-07T01:26:00.919-08:00The Philosophical Transactions and Michelangelo<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yesterday, I was pleased to celebrate two birthdays: the
birth of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society</i> (of which I was Editor in Chief between 1997 and
2003), and the birth of Michelangelo.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The birth of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Philosophical Transactions</i> (established March 6, 1665) was celebrated at a party at the Royal Society
(accompanied, strangely enough, by hot dogs and French fries!!). Phil Trans, as
it is now commonly referred to in abbreviation, is the world’s first scientific
journal, its longest running, the first to introduce the peer-review system and
the first to publish a paper by a woman scientist (Caroline Herschel in 1787). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the President of the Royal Society reminded those gathered
to celebrate last night, before Phil Trans was established, scientists used to
correspond with each other, often in code, for fear that their findings may be
stolen. Phil Trans changed all that and hence made science more accessible,
while at the same time giving a scientist priority for his/her findings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was established by Henry Oldenburg, German by birth and
the first Secretary of the Royal Society, and has since published many
interesting papers, including ones by Newton, Boyle and others. More recently,
these have been in the form of reviews and the issues have often been theme
issues, devoted to a particular topic. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Soon after its birth, London was hit by the Great Plague and
then the Great Fire. Phil Trans was spared because, at that time, its offices
had moved to Oxford.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But Oldenburg himself was incarcerated briefly at the Tower
of London. He had been in correspondence with some Dutch scientists and, during
the Anglo-Dutch wars, the security services suspected him of having Dutch
sympathies and therefore of being a security risk.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 1887, the journal divided into two sections, one devoted
to the physical sciences (A) and the other to the biological sciences (B) and
has continued in that form (I was Editor of the B section). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The birthday was also a moment of reflection about the future
of scientific publication and the peer-review system. The latter is often
abused but not nearly as much, I think, as people believe. But with so many
scientists producing so much, can the peer-review system survive in its present
form? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a sense, the peer-review system is itself somewhat
outdated now, or rapidly becoming so. Scientific findings, especially ones that
are considered to be important, are subject to post-publication scrutiny. Just
think of what happened to a certain well-known paper published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> last year. This perhaps will
rapidly reduce the peer-review system to a sort of check-list, to ensure that
it is broadly respectable, without too much quibbling about the interpretation
of the results.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Plus of course, any scientist who is completely shut out can always publish results on the internet. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, post-publication review has been with us
for as long as Phil Trans and even longer. Good papers stand the test of time
because they are found to be good post-publication and bad or indifferent ones
wither away and are forgotten, no matter how glowing the peer review may have
been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No one invited me to a celebration of Michelangelo’s
birthday (March 6, 1475) – assuming that any had been organized.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I celebrated it with friends, all of them Michelangelo nuts, at a dinner.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Altogether a very nice day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-67105930014238527682014-10-12T06:42:00.001-07:002014-10-12T07:05:39.890-07:00Box office success from questionable science<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was inevitable!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It had to happen! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Nature</i> <a href="http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/10/stem-cell-fraud-makes-for-box-office-success-2.html">reports</a> that a film, called The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Whistleblower</i>, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has been made,
based on the Woo Suk Hwang <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/specials/hwang/index.html">scandal </a>in South Korea, concerning the creation of embryonic stem cells by cloning. The film stars top
actors. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The disputed papers were published in a famous scientific journal, <i>Science</i>, and subsequently <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/misc/webfeat/hwang2005/">retracted</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The film apparently paints a sympathetic portrait of Hwang
as a man with human frailties, like the rest of us.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The real whistleblower would seem not to have been very pleased with this film because, according to the report, “his own contributions
and those of online bloggers were credited to the reporter” (in the film).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The <i>Nature</i> report draws attention to the fact that <i>Nature</i>
itself was the first to report that Hwang had procured the eggs for his experiments unethically.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, there is another film in the (potential) making,
this time about a paper published in another famous scientific journal, and which had even
more tragic consequences. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wonder when such a film will be made. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-12445127891117727682014-10-09T02:05:00.000-07:002014-10-09T02:05:35.690-07:00A non-binding resolution to the binding problem?
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Contributed jointly by Dragan Rangelov and myself</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The binding problem is a specific example
of a more general problem in brain studies, namely that of integration, that is
to say of how the many, specialized, areas of the brain interact to provide the
integration that is evident in our perceptions, thoughts and actions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Binding has come to refer more to this
problem within the confines of the visual brain. Here the binding problem becomes
the problem of how the several, parallel, processing systems in the brain
interact to give us our unitary perception of the visual world, in which
different attributes such as form, colour and motion are seen in precise
spatial and temporal registration.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The initial mistake is to suppose that we
do see these attributes at precisely the same time. In fact, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9107055">psychophysicalexperiments</a> show that this is not true and that we see and become aware of some
visual attributes such as colour before we see and become aware of others, such
as motion. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This raises a question which has so far
remained un-addressed, namely of whether there is some central station in the
brain that “waits” for all the processing systems to complete their tasks
before “binding” the results of their operations. There clearly is no such system because, over very brief
time windows, we bind the colour that we see at time x to the motion that we had
perceived 80 ms before. We therefore mis-bind in terms of the objective
reality.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We discussed this issue some two years ago
while at a meeting and thought that we should conduct some more experiments on
this problem. Our approach was as follows: we presented subjects with lines of
different orientation that could be in a number of colours. If colour is bound
to orientation at perceptual or pre-perceptual stages, then the accuracy of
reporting one attribute, say colour, should co-vary with the accuracy of
reporting the other attribute (orientation), when the two are presented to
subjects over very brief time windows. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If, however, the two attributes are not
bound at the pre-perceptual or perceptual stage, then the accuracy of reporting
one attribute (colour) should vary independently from the accuracy of reporting
the other (orientation). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Our results, just <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00749/abstract">published</a>, showed that
the accuracy of reporting the two attributes is independent, with the accuracy
of reporting colour being always greater than the accuracy of reporting the
orientation, probably reflecting the fact that colour is perceived before the
orientation of lines by about 40 ms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This suggests that these two attributes, at
least, are not bound at either pre-perceptual or perceptual stages.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This result leads us to conclude that
binding does not occur by physiological interaction between cells in the visual
areas, but rather occurs at pos-perceptual stages, perhaps through the
intervention of memory. We only <i>experience</i> attributes as being bound even though
they are not bound physiologically, and only because they occur within the
same, very brief memory time window.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Our results may provide, we think, an
interesting resolution to the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>binding
problem, namely that there is no such problem to resolve at the perceptual
level. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If binding occurs post-perceptually, then
the search for how binding occurs shifts to a different arena.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Time will tell whether we are correct in
our interpretation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We may of course be wrong, but we hope that
our new view provides the ground for interesting new experiments and debates.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-40224027916423645442014-09-04T13:00:00.000-07:002014-09-04T13:00:00.672-07:00(Literally) blind experts
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">An American friend drew my attention
recently to a paper published last year and entitled <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3964612/">The Invisible Gorilla Strikes Again: Sustained Inattentional Blindness in Expert Observers.</a> It is the report of a study in which experts failed to
detect an unexpected occurrence (gorilla) in their area of expertise even when viewing it
directly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This phenomenon, known for a long time and,
to my knowledge, first described in a paper published in 1999 by <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10694957">Simons andChabris</a>, is known as <i>inattentional blindness</i>.
In the past, it has been demonstrated with naïve subjects in unfamiliar tasks.
The authors of the above study asked: <i>does inattentional blindness also occur
frequently among experts?</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">A very interesting and highly relevant question!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">To study this, they asked 24 radiologists
(hence experts) to screen CT (Computed Tomography) scans of lungs for nodules.
The radiologists ranged in age from 28 – 70 years; hence some must have had
very considerable experience. Their eye movements were tracked as they viewed
the scans. But embedded in the scans was a gorilla which was some 48 times the
size of the average lung nodule that the radiologists were searching for;
moreover, it was positioned close to a nodule. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">20 of the 24 experts did not report seeing
the gorilla and eye tracking revealed that, of the 20 radiologists who did not
report seeing the gorilla, 12 had looked directly at where the gorilla was
located.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The authors conclude that, “This is a clear
illustration that radiologists, though they are expert searchers, are not
immune to the effects of IB [inattentional blindness] even when searching
medical images within their domain of expertise”. They add, “Presumably, they
would have done much better at detecting the gorilla had they been told to be
prepared for such a target…perhaps a smaller gorilla would have been more
frequently detected because it would have been more closely matched the size of
the lung modules” [sic].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">A sobering thought!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I imagine that, on the whole, radiologists
do end up detecting the nodules, even if they are apparently often not able to detect something
that is blindingly obvious (if I may use the phrase in this context).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But just think of experts in other domains, say economics, and above all of expert politicians of all
stripes and in all countries. Thinking about them, one cannot help but suppose
that they, too, must suffer from inattentional blindness, but this time of a
more cognitive variety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In fact, I am increasingly inclined to
believe that many of today’s problems are due to the inattentional blindness of
politicians to the continual and rapid and huge changes occurring (and here the size of the gorilla compared to the lung nodules comes to mind). I am increasingly led
to believe that politicians just do not have their ears to the ground and, in
many instances, are – because of this inattentional blindness - way behind
public opinion on a great many issues. Hence they are not up to date experts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Perhaps this puts the inattentional
blindness of radiologists to huge gorillas embedded in the scans they are
examining in perspective. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-56988262416810011802014-07-26T10:23:00.001-07:002014-07-26T10:23:53.185-07:00Tracey Emin's "My Bed, My Bed" sells for £2.5 million.
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This may come as a surprise to those who
know about my distaste for much that passes for “contemporary art”. Many would
include Tracey Emin’s <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Tracey+Emin+My+Bed+My+Bed&client=firefox-a&hs=Eim&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=tuLTU4uiN-qf0QXcyICwCQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1200&bih=603#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=SdY4jzeT4ySk7M%253A%3B5yiFoZbgNtbDvM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.unisnotforme.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2014%252F07%252FTracey-Emin-My-Bed-600x448.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.unisnotforme.com%252Fdefinition-art%252F%3B600%3B448"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Bed My Bed</i></a>
in that category. But Emin’s creation is something that I actually rather like.
It is far better than much in contemporary art. I do not think that it is beautiful and would not want to have it in my house. But it is something that I would
seriously consider having in my art gallery, if I had been fortunate enough to
have one. It is certainly far better than the creations of a certain gentleman
whose works fetch equivalent, if not much higher, prices.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Apparently created when she was in
depression, and in the state in which it was when she had not got out of it for
several days, lying on the floor next to the bed is a variety of objects – condoms,
cigarettes, knickers and so on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Why would such a creation be of the
slightest interest? Why would anyone even want to consider it a work of art?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I argued in my book <i>Inner Vision: an
exploration of art and the brain</i>, that one of the functions of art is to give
and gain knowledge. And <i>My Bed My Bed</i> gives, I think, knowledge about thousands, and
more likely millions, of beds in bed-sitting rooms in all major cities of the
world. It replays a scenario that you will find time and time again if you were
to peep into bedrooms or walk into them un-invited. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It gives you knowledge about how many, many
millions live like every day and their states of mind. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><i>My Bed My Bed</i> is therefore giving knowledge
not only about bedrooms but also about states of mind that keep bedrooms in that
state. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">All art is abstraction. A portrait painting
is great if it succeeds in being an abstraction of a certain kind of character.
The actual person portrayed becomes irrelevant, because the portrait gives
knowledge about a character, not an individual person.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">And so with Tracey Emin’s <i>My Bed</i>. It is far,
far more interesting than bisected sharks and cows. These also give knowledge
but that knowledge is much better obtained in museums of natural history which are, after all, open to all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Tracey Emin’s <i>My Bed</i> gives knowledge about
something that is normally hidden from view.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So, I am not at all surprised that <i>My Bed
My Bed</i> should have been sold at auction this month in London for £2.5 million.
It is much better than many other works of art that fetch equivalent prices. It is one of the much better examples of contemporary art.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-11947044976863485392014-07-18T05:24:00.000-07:002014-07-18T05:24:34.726-07:00Juncker and Cameron the best of friends
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Looking at the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/17/junker-cameron-high-five-european-meeting-brussels">picture</a> published in <i>The
Guardian</i>, no one would suspect that David Cameron tried to block the
appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker for Presidency of the European Union, and
lost big time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Instead, they appear as if they are, and
have been, the best of friends.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is as if it was all water off a duck’s
back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This is the stuff of successful diplomacy,
on the back of hypocrisy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I would have loved to determine the pattern of brain activity in both at this "oh-so-friendly" moment! </span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-90620105175398797492014-07-18T05:00:00.000-07:002014-07-18T05:52:11.686-07:00"Nature" and the retracted STAP cell paper<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">After its publication in January this year,
to much fanfare and international acclaim, the two STAP cell papers have been
retracted because, it seems, there were flaws in them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In an <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/papers-on-stress-induced-stem-cells-are-retracted-1.15501">editorial</a>, <i>Nature</i> has absolved itself
of all responsibility for the flawed papers, claiming that neither its referees
nor its editorial team could have spotted the apparently serious flaws in the them, flaws which led to the papers’ rapid demise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><i>Nature</i> is in fact quite correct. It is not
the function of editors or journals to look for manipulated images or plagiarism. I have no doubt that the very great majority of referees would notify the editors at once if they detect such flaws. There is,
or ought to be, a certain element of trust between authors, journals and their
editors. Moreover, as I understand it, <i>Nature</i> and its referees did not give
these papers an easy ride. It took several months before the papers were
published, implying that the referees had asked for substantial modifications
to the manuscript.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Thus, <i>Nature</i> could be said to come out of
it smelling like roses.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Yes, but not quite so fast.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><i>Nature</i> should take a leaf from one of its
sister publication, <i>Frontiers in Human Neuroscience</i>, which is in fact owned by
the Nature Publishing Group.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">After a paper is accepted in <i>Frontiers</i> (but
not before, and not if it is rejected), the names of the referees are published
on the front page of the article. Publication in <i>Frontiers</i> is also not an easy
ride, but at least the authors are allowed to enter into dialogue with the
referees to put right or respond to criticisms, something that few journals
allow, to the disadvantage of authors. The referees remain anonymous throughout
this process, and only if a paper is accepted for publication are their names
published.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Hence, if a paper is of extraordinary
significance, some of the glory is reflected onto the referees and of course onto the journal. I mean, just
imagine, if the Crick-Watson DNA paper had the names of the referees on it,
they would no doubt have wanted to share in the glory to some minor extent.
Indeed, <i>Nature</i> itself periodically reminds its readers that the DNA article was
published in their pages, thus basking in the reflected glory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Since all reasonable people understand that
referees and editors cannot be held accountable for things like manipulated
images or plagiarism in a paper, publication of their names in an accepted
paper would do no harm, if the published paper turns out to have serious flaws.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If, on the other hand, the paper turns out
to be some extraordinary contribution, then they can at least feel pride in
helping to bring it to fruition and bask in its glory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is a classic case of “heads I win, tails
you lose”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Why not try it?</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-16000191178325078262014-06-23T13:12:00.002-07:002014-06-23T13:18:14.332-07:00Why impact factors are here to stay<style>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">I had intended to follow up my earlier post
on impact factors (<a href="http://profzeki.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/impact-factorsin-defence-of-nature-and.html">in defense of Nature and Science</a>) with this one some weeks
ago but could not get to it until now. This is fortunate for, in the meantime,
my colleague David Colquhoun has <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>written
an excellent <a href="http://www.dcscience.net/?p=6636">post</a> about impact factors and such like, with which I agree
completely. In fact, David is using facts and figures to give teeth to what we
all know – that impact factors are deeply flawed and that no self respecting
academic institution or individual should take the slightest notice of them
when judging an individual for a position or for a grant application. Above
all, papers should be judged by their content – which of course implies reading
them, not always an easy thing to do it seems. A particularly important point
that David makes is that the importance and influence of a paper may emerge
years after its publication. This is why I regard the reason given by the open
access <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">journal<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>e-Life</i> for declining my paper – that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“we only want to publish the most influential papers” - as among the silliest, and indeed the most stupid, I have ever
received from a journal, and a journal, moreover, which is viewed as a rival to
the so-called “glamour” journals, at least by some. I suspect that the editors
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i> have had much too much experience to write anything quite
so silly.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">It is now generally acknowledged in the
academic community that there is something unsavoury about impact and allied
factors. Indeed, there is a San Francisco declaration (<a href="http://am.ascb.org/dora/">DORA</a>) which is a sort of
code for honourable conduct for the academic community. I have signed the DORA
declaration – even though I detected a few cynical signatures there – and
applaud its aims. Given the large number of academics and those from allied
trades who have also done so, it is obvious that we all know (or most of us do) that
impact factors and the allied statistics regularly collected to classify scientists
and their standing are dangerous because so flawed. Yet in spite of this
knowledge, impact factors continue to be used and abused on unprecedented
scales. Therefore the more interesting question, it seems to me, is why this
should be so. That, I think is the question that the academic community must
address.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Here
to stay because they serve deep-seated human needs</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">I believe that, whatever their flaws, impact
factors are here to stay because they serve at least two needs, as I stated in
my last post on the question in respect of editors. They increase their
self-esteem and allow them, in the endless and often silent competition that
goes on between journals, to declare to others, “we are better than you”. Hence
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> sent out emails some time ago
stating that “To celebrate our impact factor…” we are doing such and such. They
were the producers and consumers of their own propaganda, declaring in the same
breath to themselves and to others that they are better than the competition.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">What applies to editors applies equally to
individuals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When a scientist declares <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I have published 20 papers in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> and 15 in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i>”, s/he is also saying “I am a better scientist [than those
of you who cannot publish in these high impact journals], without actually
having to spell it out in words, perhaps even without thinking about it. In this way, they give notice to their
colleagues, both superior and inferior, that they are better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They too are producers and consumers of their
own propaganda, since it elevates their self-esteem on the one hand and the
esteem accorded them on the other. In other words, impact factors serve the
same purposes for both editors and contributors. And the desire for esteem is
deeply ingrained, and any means of obtaining it – of which impact factors is
one - is bound to enjoy great success. Impact factors, in brief, are not going
to be easily brushed aside by pointing out their flaws, when they cater for
much deeper needs. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Two
examples</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">This was dramatically illustrated for me
during a lecture I attended fairly recently, given not by an aspirant to a job
but by a senior professor. Slide after slide had emblazoned on it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i> in conspicuous letters at least four times the size of the
title of the article displayed, the face of the professor growing ever more
smug with each additional slide. The irony is that I remember nothing of his
lecture, save this and the title of the lecture. And that, of course, was part
of the intended effect. For I now remember that the eminent professor publishes
in “glamour” journals. He must therefore be good, which is what I assume he was
trying to tell us.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Another example: Some four years ago, an
advertisement for a research fellow from a very distinguished institution
stated that “the successful candidate will have a proven ability to publish in
high impact journals”. Nothing about attracting research grants or, better
still, attacking important problems. Presumably, if someone publishes in
glamour journals, s/he is worthy of consideration because they must be good. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">When I made my disapproval of the wording
known to the Director of the institution (whom I knew vaguely) he looked at me
as if I had come from another planet, or perhaps one who had seen better days
and had not kept up with the world. What he said in defense of his preposterous
ad confirmed this. I was shocked.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Actually, I should not have been, because
he was right and I was wrong. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Centuries
of impact factors</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">There is in essence nothing new in impact
factors, although they have been with us for only about 15 years or so. In one
guise or another, they have actually been with us for centuries. Does such “in
your face” advertising differ radically from putting some grand title after
one’s name? Fellows of the Royal Society have for centuries put FRS after their
name, to indicate to all their somewhat elevated status. In France, those who
have a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">é</span><span lang="EN-US">gion d’Honneur</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> do
it more conspicuously “in your face”, by wearing permanently a badge on their lapel
to announce their higher status. In Britain, in official ceremonies, guests are
often asked to wear their decorations – to signify their status to others.
Impact factors, as used by scientists, are just another means of declaring
status. The difference between these displays of superiority and impact factors
is simply a difference in the means of delivery, nothing else. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">It all really boils down to the same thing.
So, if impact factors were to be banished by some edict from the scientific <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nomenclatura</i>, their place would be taken
by some other factor. And what replaces it may in fact be worse.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Impact
factors as short-cuts</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Impact factors appeal to another feature of
the human mind, namely to acquire knowledge through short-cuts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where we do not understand easily or cannot
be bothered or are sitting on a committee that is judging dozens of applicants for a top position, impact factors become a welcome aid.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How
does saying that “s/he has published in high impact factor journals” differ
from a common phraseology used by many (not only trade book authors), along the
lines of, “Dr. X, the Nobel Prize physicist, has affirmed that the war in Mont
Blanc is totally unjustified from a demographic point of view”, when there is
not the slightest guarantee that a Nobel Prize in physics qualifies its
recipient to give informed views on such wars? Once again, the difference
between this and impact factors is simply a difference in means of delivery. Like
impact factors, this one short-cuts the thinking process and, since similar
phraseologies are used so often, we must assume that most of us, when handling
issues outside our competence, welcome the comfort of a label that apparently
guarantees superior knowledge or ability and hence soothes our ignorance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">There was a hilarious correspondence years
ago (so my memory of it is somewhat blurred) in, I think, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Times</i>, about the nuclear deterrent. Someone, anxious to
convince readers of the wisdom of maintaining our nuclear deterrent, wrote that
he knew of two Nobel laureates who had come to the conclusion that we should
keep our nuclear deterrent. In response, Peter Medawar (the Nobel laureate, if
I may say so) wrote back: “If we are going to conduct this dialogue by the
beating of gongs, let me say that I know of 5 Nobel laureates who think that we
should not keep our nuclear deterrent”. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">A recent <a href="http://iai.asm.org/content/79/10/3855.full">paper</a> states that “… <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">publication in journals with high impact
factors can be associated with improved job opportunities, grant success, peer
recognition, and honorific rewards, despite widespread acknowledgment that
impact factor is a flawed measure of scientific quality and importance</i>”. It
is obvious why this is so; the habit of short-cutting the thinking process,
common to most, is wonderfully aided by impact factors. I know of only one
outstanding scientist (you guessed it, he was a Nobel laureate) to whom impact
factors and all other short-cuts made not the slightest difference in assessing
the suitability of a person; he searched for the evidence by reading the papers;
that was his sole guide and authority. He was, of course, a loner; almost all
of us are vulnerable to being impressed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">It is totally fatuous to assume that, sitting
in a committee that is trying to appoint a new research fellow, I would not –
like countless others and absent the process of assessing all the evidence– be
impressed by someone who has published 10 papers in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> and 20 in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i> and
not show a preference for him over someone who has published entirely in those
“specialized” journals which the editors of glamour journals<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i> so cynically advise those
whose papers they reject without review to publish in. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Hence, for editors, administrators, ordinary
and extraordinary scientists alike, impact factors serve deep-seated human
needs – to classify people easily and painlessly on the one hand, to declare to
others one’s superiority, and to soothe oneself with the belief that one is
actually better. There is no way in which all the flaws attached to impact
factors could overcome these more basic needs.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">One can point to other similarities, where
what is considered to be flawed nevertheless is durable and highly successful.
Take, for example, posh addresses, say in Belgrave Square in London or Avenue
Foch in Paris, or Park Avenue in New York. There is absolutely no guarantee
that those inhabiting such addresses are in any way better than those who do
not, although they may be (and often are) far richer. This is not unlike those
who advertise incessantly that they have published in the glamour journals.
There is no evidence whatever that those who publish in them are better
scientists. But giving an address such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i>
on a paper is like giving an address in Belgravia. It works like magic. Once
again, the difference lies only in the means of delivery.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">So, let us sink back and get used to it…impact
factors are here to stay, and for a very long time. No good blaming editors of
journals for it, no good blaming scientists, no good blaming administrators. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It all has to do with the workings and habits of
the mind, as well as with its needs.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">The only way to deal with the crushing and
highly undesirable influence of impact factors in science is to prohibit their
use in judging candidates and research grants and indeed the merit of
individuals. That would be a great help, and some research organizations are
actually implementing such procedures, with what success I cannot guess. But I fear that even that will not be
enough. To get rid of it completely, one must change human nature. And that is
not currently in our gift.</span></span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-36709126311937523452014-04-27T07:57:00.000-07:002014-04-30T07:39:13.135-07:00Impact factors...in defence of "Nature" and "Science"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">More often than not, when the corrupting influence of impact
factors on science is discussed, fingers are pointed at <i>Nature</i> and <i>Science</i>, as if
these two scientific journals invented impact factors and as if they are the
main culprits in debasing science. This is not even remotely true. Rather, the
finger should be pointed at the academic community exclusively and on no one
else. In fact, there are even limits as to how much the academic community can
be blamed, as I argue in my next post.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i>, and especially the former, are
the best known and most sought after of what has come to be known as the
“glamour” journals in science. There are, of course, other “glamour journals”,
as well as ones that aspire to that status, but none has reached quite the
same status as these two. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that they
should bear the brunt of the blame. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But it would be hard for even the enemies of these two
journals not to acknowledge that both have done a remarkably good job in
selecting outstanding scientific papers over so many years. Journals do not
gain prestige status by impact factors alone; if they did, their prestige wouild fall, and their impact factors along with it. I myself have little doubt but
that the editors of both journals are hard-working, conscientious people,
striving to do the best by themselves, by their journal and by science. One way
of measuring their success is through impact factors, which is a guide to how
often papers in the journal are cited. Impact factors are blind to quality,
readability, or importance of a paper. They are simply one measure – among
others – of how well a journal is doing and how wide an audience it is
reaching. One could equally use other measures, for example the advertising
revenue or some kind of Altmetric rating. Impact factors just happen to be one
of those measures. And let us face it, no editor of any journal would be
satisfied with low impact factors for their journal; if s/he says otherwise,
s/he lies. The un-ending search for better impact factors really boils down to
human behaviour - the desire to convince oneself and others that one is doing a
good job, to esteem oneself and gain the esteem of others. Editors of journals
are no different. Like the rest of us, they aspire to succeed and be seen – by
their employers, their colleagues and the world at large – to have succeeded. Is it any wonder that they celebrate their impact factors?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">To the editors of these journals – and to the rest of us -
impact factors are therefore a guide to how successful they have been. I see
nothing wrong with that, and find it hard to blame them for competing against
each other to attain the best impact factor status. In other words, there is
nothing really wrong with impact factors, except the uses to which they are
put, and they are put to undesirable uses by the academic community, not by the
journals.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In spite of the sterling service both have done to science, by
publishing so many good papers, it is also true that they have published some
pretty bad ones. In fact, of about the ten worst papers I have read in my
subject, in my judgment one (the worst) was published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature Neuroscience</i>, one in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i>,
and one in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have, as well, read many mediocre papers in
these journals, as well as in others aspiring to the same status, such as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Current Biology</i>.
This is not surprising; the choice of papers is a matter of judgment, and the
judgment made by these journals is actually made by humans; they are bound to
get it wrong sometimes, and apparently do so often. By <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i>’s own admission in an editorial some time ago, there are
also “gems” in it which do not get much notice. Hence, not only does one find
some bad or mediocre papers in these journals but un-noticed good ones as well.
Retraction rates in both journals are not much worse or better than other
journals although retraction rates apparently <a href="http://iai.asm.org/content/79/10/3855.full">correlate</a> with impact factors,
the higher the impact factor, the more frequent the retractions. But it would
of course be entirely wrong to blame the journals themselves, or their
referees, if they publish papers which subsequently have to be retracted. The
blame for that must lie with the authors. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Send it to a
specialized journal” (euphemism for “Your paper won’t help our impact factor”)</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I recently had an interesting experience of how they can
also be wrong in their judgment, at least their judgment of the general
interest in a scientific work (of course the more the general interest, the
higher their impact factor is likely to be). We sent our paper on <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00068/abstract">“The experience of mathematical beauty and its neural correlates”</a> first to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i>, which rejected it without
review, stating <span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">that “</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">These editorial judgements are based on such
considerations as the degree of advance provided, the breadth of potential
interest to researchers and timeliness</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">(somewhere in that sentence, probably at</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">“breadth of potential
interest”, they are implicitly saying that our paper does not have the breadth
of potential interest – in other words will not do much to improve their impact
factors).</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span>We then sent it to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i>, which again returned it without
sending it out for review, saying that “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">we feel that the scope and focus of
your paper make it more appropriate for a more specialized journal</span></i>.”
(Impact factors playing a role again here, at least implicitly, because, of
course, specialized articles will appeal to a minority and will not enhance the
impact factor of a journal, since they are also likely to be cited less often
and then only by a minority). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Finally, going several steps down a very steep ladder, we
sent it to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Current Biology</i>, which
also returned it without sending it out to referees for in-depth review,
writing that<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <span lang="EN-US">“…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">our feeling is that the work you describe
would be better suited to a rather more specialized journal than Current
Biology”</i></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></i>(my translation- it will do nothing for our impact
factor since only a limited number of workers are likely to read and cite it).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The paper was finally published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frontiers in Human Neuroscience</i> (after a very rigorous review).
Given that this paper has, as of this writing, been viewed over 71,000 times in
just over 2.5 months, and that it has been viewed even in war-torn countries
(Syria, Libya, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kashmir, Crimea, Ukraine), it would seem that
our article was of very substantial interest to a very wide range of people all
over the world; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>very few papers in
neuroscience, and I daresay in science generally, achieve the status of being viewed
so many times over such a brief period. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On this count, then, I cannot say that the
judgment that the paper should be sent to a specialized general or that its
breadth of interest was potentially limited inspires much confidence. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We only want to
publish the most influential papers</i>” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It is of course a bit rich for these journals to pretend
that they are not specialized. I doubt that any biologist reading the
biological papers in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i> would comprehend more than one
paper in any issue, and that is being generous. In fact, very often what makes
their papers comprehensible are the news and views sections in the same issue, a practice that some othert journals are taking up, though somewhat more timidly. By any standard,
<i>Nature</i> and <i>Science</i> and all the other journals that pretend otherwise are in
fact highly specialized journals.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Be that as it may, they are only pursuing a policy that many
other journals also pursue. Consider this letter from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">e-Life</i>, a recently instituted open access journal, which I have
seen being written about as if it is a welcome answer to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Well, they returned a (different) paper I sent within 24
hours, after an internal review, saying that “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The consensus of the
editors is that your submission should not be considered for in-depth peer
review</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">”, adding
prissily “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This is not meant as a
criticism of the quality of the data or the rigor of the science, but merely
reflects our desire to publish only the most influential research</i>”,
apparently without realizing that a research can only be judged to have been
influential retrospectively, sometimes years after it has been published. But
what does “influential” research amount to – one which is cited many times,
thereby boosting – you guessed it – the impact factor of the journal. Indeed, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">e-Life</i> (which has also published some interesting articles) even has a section in its regular
email alerts that is intended for the media – which of course help publicize a
paper and boost – you guessed correctly again – the impact factor!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So why
single out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i>, when so many journals are also
pursuing impact factors with such zeal? It is just that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i> are
better at it. And their higher impact factors really means that the papers they
select for publication are being cited more often than those selected in other
journals with aspirations to scientific glamour. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So, instead
of pointing fingers at them, let us direct the enquiry at ourselves, while
acknowledging that both journals, in spite of all their blemishes and warts,
have done a fairly good job for science in general. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In my next post, I will discuss why impact factors - however repellent the uses to which they are put by us - are here to stay. </span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-90050201899050847482014-01-27T14:06:00.000-08:002014-01-27T14:07:34.183-08:00Art and science meet up, sort of...Some time ago, I <a href="http://profzeki.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/60000-for-self-reflection.html">wrote</a> about an empty canvas by Bob Law, entitled <i>Nothing to be Afraid Of</i>, which was to be auctioned for an estimated £60, 000. Law was described by the head of the contemporary art department at the auction house as the "most underestimated and overlooked minimalist artist in Britain...who didn't get the recognition that he deserved". In his painting he had apparently "... applied the seductive idea of nothing to a canvas, and asks the viewer to reflect”.<br />
<br />
A somewhat puzzled David Hockney was reported as saying "It seems to me that if you make pictures there should be something on the canvas".<br />
<br />
In the end, the empty canvas was never sold, at least not at that auction.<br />
<br />
Now, I have just read in Real Clear Science about the <a href="http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/01/shortest_science_papers.html">shortest paper</a> ever published.<br />
<br />
It is entitled "The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of Writer's Block" by one Dennis Upper.<br />
The paper is an empty page. The referee's comments are reproduced below the empty page and read as follows:<br />
<br />
"I have studied this manuscript very carefully with lemon juice and
X-rays and have not detected a single flaw in either design or writing
style. I suggest it be published without revision. Clearly it is the
most concise manuscript I have ever seen-yet it contains sufficient
detail to allow other investigators to replicate Dr. Upper's failure. In
comparison with the other manuscripts I get from you containing all
that complicated detail, this one was a pleasure to examine. Surely we
can find a place for this paper in the Journal-perhaps on the edge of a
blank page."<br />
<br />
There is nothing on the page -- and yet "it contains sufficient detail to allow other investigators to replicate..."<br />
<br />
Bob Law asked the viewer to reflect by applying "the seductive idea of nothing to a canvas"<br />
<br />
Both scientists and artists can now, in the absence of all detail, create their own details.<br />
<br />
So science and art do meet, sort of, don't they? After all, who can deny the similarity here?<br />
<br />
Maybe someone should ask the auction house to sell a copy of the paper (preferrably signed by Dennis Upper) alongside Bob Law's empty canvas.<br />
<br />
That will be a true meeting of art and science - united under money. <br />
<br />
The question is: which one will fetch the higher price?<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-83875034535402151292013-12-29T06:55:00.001-08:002013-12-29T07:09:12.201-08:00Wonderful, transient, art in the snow<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The British artist, Simon, Beck has created
some memorable art over snow at a ski resort in France, some of which can be
seen <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198730/Simon-Beck-Artist-creates-giant-crop-circles-snow-painstakingly-walking-10-hours-time.html">here</a>. The pictures are attractive to look at but they must be more
exciting to see for real.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">With every new snowfall, the creations will
gradually change and then disappear altogether. The art is therefore, of
necessity, transient and has, therefore, transience as an added element. I
wonder whether these creations, and their transience, will not be even more
appealing to those of a Japanese culture, which emphasizes transience (<i>wabi</i>) as
a feature of beauty.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Perhaps some contemporary art gallery
should buy good quality photographs of these creations, to exhibit permanently
what is only transient. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Just a thought!</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-33624398261675814352013-12-24T00:14:00.000-08:002014-01-27T14:06:50.055-08:00The great Stephen Hawking<style>
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<span lang="EN-US">At a recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/12/stephen-hawking-physics-higgs-boson-particle">event</a> to launch the exhibition
on the Large Hadron Collider at the Science Museum in London, the great Stephen
Hawking made what must seem to many an unusual declaration. He said, “Physics
would be far more interesting if [the Higgs boson] had not been found”.
Physicists would then have to re-think many of their fundamental ideas about
particles and the forces that bind or repel them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">By saying so, Hawking was displaying both
the qualities and perhaps the failings of scientists. Scientists, or at least
the great ones like him, love the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">process</i>
of solving great and difficult problems. The solution may be quite marvelous
and exciting to think about; it may even be very moving. But, once solved, it
ceases to be a problem, which the enquiring mind needs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So, what Hawking was saying, it seems to
me, is that if the Higgs boson had not been found, the problem would have
persisted and exercised and concentrated minds, which is what scientists like
so much.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This of course is very distant from those
who wish that a problem should never be solved, because they fear the results.
Some have written of their fear of work on the neurobiology of love, because it
will “de-mystify” it; others have written, of neuroesthetics, that they would find it unwelcome to
learn what happens in their brains when they view a work of art or listen to
music. Hawking wants to learn; they don’t. If Hawking prefers that the Higgs
boson had not been found, it is simply that he relishes the process of
discovery. He is not fearful of the results; they are.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Why, then, should this also be a failing. I
think it is because lesser scientists (and let us not under-estimate the degree
to which scientific progress also depends upon lesser scientists) can easily be
distracted from trying to solve great problems into solving relatively minor
ones, precisely because they love the process of solving problems! I have seen
it happen many times.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But there are of course many problems that
remain in physics and astronomy. And Hawking is hoping that physicists will
move on to solving even grander problems about the nature of our universe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Hawking is not afraid of de-mystification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not at all. The mark of a real intellect.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-48387404741050269022013-12-23T08:36:00.000-08:002013-12-23T08:36:10.868-08:00The paradox of Shunga
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<span lang="EN-US">The quite wonderful exhibition, <i>Shunga: sex
and pleasure in Japanese art</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>at the
British Museum in London, carries with it a surprising paradox or
contradiction, which no one has so far been able to explain to me adequately. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Japanese culture in general emphasizes the
unstated and the understated, leaving much to the imagination. Yet Shunga art,
which is basically erotic art, is the exact opposite. Here, almost nothing to
do with the genitals is left to the imagination; instead they are given
prominence, the size of the organs more often than not exaggerated beyond
reasonable dimensions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Yet, in spite of this prominence, most of
the rest of the body is covered up in many, if not most, depictions of sexual encounters; in many it is the genitalia alone that are
exposed. There is of course, also something of the artificial in these works;
couples make love with their clothes on; the hair is usually immaculately
coiffed, in some a lady is having her hair combed while having intercourse
while in others there are spectators, including children, witnessing the scene.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Why would a culture that has traditionally
emphasized the understated produce work that is anything but under-stated? Some
Japanese friends have told me that Shunga is nothing but pornography. I do not
believe it. In spite of the fact that they may have been used as stimulants or
as props for sexual pleasure, these are works of art as well. It is the
brilliant depiction of interiors, the wonderful colour combinations, and the
immaculate detail with which clothes are represented that turns them into
visually pleasurable works. Indeed, it may be said that the genitalia are in
fact often a distraction from the rest of the work, especially the depiction of
the graceful women in the Shunga work of Kitigawa Utamaro. If “art is
fantasy”, as a quote at the exhibition proclaims, then it is those graceful
figures that invite the viewer into a world of fantasy, not the prominently
exposed genitalia. A critic once wrote that the sexual figure in Boticcelli’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birth of Venus</i> is not the naked lady but
her richly dressed companion to the right, presumably meaning that it is the
latter who draws the viewer into a world of fantasy. Maybe the great masters of
Shunga art were trying to balance the explicitness of their images with depictions that allow a world of
fantasy and imagination to come into play, all in one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Shunga was apparently not legal in Japan for very
long periods, though tolerated throughout and popular with all levels of society. It is, I
gather, still frowned on in Japan. Indeed, I am told that, in modern-day Japan,
adult movies in hotels often blur the genitalia – in striking contradiction to
Shunga art of earlier times. And there is the contradiction: explicit
pornographic films that blur the genitalia on the one hand (perhaps in keeping
with the understated in Japanese culture), and great art that is implicit in
everything but the genitalia (quite unlike the understated characteristic of
Japanese culture).</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-60064719344142896472013-11-16T09:47:00.000-08:002013-11-16T12:01:45.136-08:00The shocks of Francis Bacon<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Francis Bacon claimed that he wanted to
give “a visual shock”, and his paintings over the decades never seem to have
departed from that aim. One of his first exhibitions, in New York, was
described as a “chamber of horrors” and Margaret Thatcher, perhaps echoing the
views of many outside the art world, once described him as “that man who paints
those horrible pictures”. As I understand it, most people (even those who
admire his painterly style) would prefer not to have his paintings hanging in
their living rooms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Last week, his three-panelled painting,
entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Three Studies of Lucian Freud</i>,
produced another shock – a financial one. It fetched a record price in New
York, being <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/13/francis-bacon-painting-lucian-freud">sold</a> for the sum of $142.4 millions. What is it that attracted
buyers to spend so much (the bidding started at $80 million)?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I believe that Bacon subverted the brain’s normal
representation of faces and bodies, which is what turned his pictures into
shocking displays. The brain, it seems, cannot easily <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=chen+zeki+2011">adapt</a> to departures from what
constitutes a normal face; it cannot adapt easily to the disfigured faces
and bodies that Bacon specialized in, as a means of making images of the
violent reality which, according to him, was so prevalent in the world. Hence
the enduring shock effect that he produced.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Most of the discussions I heard and
articles I read on this sale revolved around the topic of money. It is not that
buyers were only speculating. Rather “deep-pocketed” buyers were also ready, it
seems, to splash out considerable sums to buy paintings for their national
museums or their homes. I am inclined to the view that when it comes to
spending such vast sums, the long-term value is naturally important but cannot
be the only or even dominant factor. So what, beyond the prestige of Bacon,
drove prices so high? How could paintings reviled through the use of phrases
like “horrors” or “mutilated corpses” or “extremely repellent”, which so many (including
one on the radio last week) declared they would rather not see hanging in their
living rooms, be so much sought after.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Perhaps we have a very deep-seated
fascination with horror, especially when it is so evocatively depicted. Perhaps
those who yearn to view such paintings are an infinitely more sophisticated and
refined, indeed artistic, version of those who jam the roads on their way to see a crashed plane.
There are, of course, huge artistic qualities to Bacon’s work – they are
formally masterful works, with a quite spectacular, and often unusual,
combination of colours. But the fact remains that they also depict mutilated
and savaged faces and bodies – viewing of which almost certainly stimulates
strongly sub-cortical centres such as the amygdala and the insula, which
seemingly respond to fear and horror. And let us not forget that Bacon once
said that he was not appealing to the intellect: “I make paintings that the
intellect cannot make” he once said, which also implies that he was appealing
to something more primitive in his work. In his quite wonderful book on Francis
Bacon, Michael Peppiat says that Bacon’s aim was to deliver a visual shock
before things got spelled out in the brain (or words to that effect). Perhaps,
combining the aesthetically pleasing colours with the mutilation that he so
consistently depicted makes the latter more palatable – and even pleasing. The
more so if one knows that such a combination is a good place to park one’s
money.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135284651117634504.post-33669948350075865922013-10-06T14:32:00.003-07:002013-11-16T12:02:10.385-08:00Academic violence<style>
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<span lang="EN-US">One is always somewhat surprised when
academics who, in the words of HL Mencken, are generally as “harmless as so
many convicts in the death house”, turn to violence. In general, academics
dislike violence and prefer to pursue their trade peacefully, although there are many examples of verbal violence. I know of an English university department
which speakers are reluctant to speak at because of the extreme verbal violence
of one member there.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Yet it is surprising when this violence
escalates to the level of arms. The BBC <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24178570">reports</a> one such incident in which an
argument about the German philosopher Immanuel Kant escalated to such levels
that it ended by the use of rubber bullets fired by one protagonist against
another. What the bone of contention was is not recorded. It could have been the
“a priori synthetic” or the “categorical imperative” or perhaps the
“transcendental synthetic”. At any rate, one of the protagonists was charged
with causing grievous bodily harm.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Kant himself would probably have been very
surprised. His book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Critique of Pure
Reason</i>, apparently sold only five copies when first published, of which two
were purchased by himself (I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this story, which
I read somewhere years ago). He was in general a very peaceful man whose habits
were so punctual that housewives apparently set their watches by when he went
to work and when he returned. The French critic R</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é</span><span lang="EN-US">my de
Gourmont marveled that a man like Kant who had neither wife nor mistress, who
died a virgin (as Gourmont believed) could have written a book on the metaphysics of
morals!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Yet, violence in academic circles has been
recorded before (I mean real violence, not the verbal one, which is very
common). There is, for example, the story of Pierre Marie, an eminent French
neurologist, who accused another eminent French neurologist, D</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é</span><span lang="EN-US">jerine, of doing science as some play roulette. But, upon being
challenged to a duel, Marie wisely chose to retract his accusation. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">On one occasion, I was told not to mention
40Hz when giving a seminar if a certain gentleman was in the audience, for fear
that he may suffer a heart attack. I wisely obeyed. But I am told that he later
died of a heart attack anyway.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Perhaps it is only fear that keeps
academics from resorting to real violence. I know of stories of one German
physiologist saying of another, “Now that I have shown that he cannot use a
slide ruler, I intend to take no further notice of his work”, while another
accused a colleague of “auto-plagiarizing”. I can well imagine such incidents boiling over and resulting in - well, the firing of rubber bullets, at least.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It all goes to show that the dispassionate
academics, searching for truth in their ivory towers, may not be impervious to
these human instincts, just like the rest. </span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.profzeki.blogspot.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0