Mind Behind the Learning a Brain's Functionality of Deep Concepts

""Researchers provided 16 healthy adult volunteers with a series of instructions on four mechanical items, detailing how each of them work. The participants were also given diagrams of the bathroom scale, fire extinguisher, trumpet, and car brake system.

As they were learning this new information, the scientific team used fMRI to scan their brains. They followed how each concept made its way from the input of words and images through the brain's various regions. They found that learning how something works is a several-stage process that occurs in different parts of the brain.

First, the visual part of the brain is activated by looking at the images. The middle stages follow with "mental animation" — inwardly picturing the functioning of the given item. That involves the parietal, temporal and frontal regions of the brain. Finally, the frontal and motor brain regions are activated by imagining what it would be like to engage with the particular object — putting everything that has been learned to use.

For example, after seeing the image of the bathroom scale, the volunteers' brains processed the information visually. Then other parts of their brains helped them understand how each part inside the scale moved. Finally, their brains imagined how the scale works.

"This provides evidence that appropriate instruction can bring out the fundamental understanding of how things work at a deep level," said Robert Mason, lead author of the study. "In the future, teaching to this deep level as measured in terms of brain representations may be applicable to other disciplines and scientific concepts."

Understanding how the brain processes technical information could help scientists program artificial intelligence to "think" in similar ways, although such advanced AI is a ways off.

In the more immediate sense, the research could see application in the classroom, especially in understanding how well the combination of images and text can work in teaching students science and math.""

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/40379/20150317/scientists-discover-how-the-brain-functions-when-learning-how-things-work.htm

Opinion, Science, Faith: By Which Does One Subscribe on a Daily Basis to Become Enlightened?

Three fronts

""There are three areas of attack against expertise and taking a long term, analytical view of the world: from the Right, the Left and the anxious Centre.

From the Right there have been systematic and well-financed attacks by lobbyists from the fossil fuels industry and electricity generators. This has been highly personal, often abusive, sometimes threatening.

The anxious Centre includes people working in particular industries and regions (such as Hunter Valley, La Trobe Valley, Tasmanian forests), understandably fearful of potential job losses, without much prospect of creating new jobs. The trade union movement is deeply divided on this –- as is the business community.

But from the Left, or some segments of the intellectual Left, a deconstructionist mind-set has partly undermined an evidence-based approach to policy making or problem solving.

The pluralist or deconstructionist or post-modern theory of knowledge is contemptuous of expertise, rejects the idea of hierarchies of knowledge and asserts the democratic mantra that –- as with votes in elections –- every opinion is of equal value, so that if you insist that the earth is flat, refuse vaccination for children or deny that HIV-AIDS is transmitted by virus, your view should be treated with respect.

Similarly, there has been a repudiation of expertise and or taste -– dismissing the idea of people like Harold Bloom, or myself, that there is a "Western canon" which sets benchmarks. "No," say the deconstructionists, "the paintings of Banksy, the mysterious British graffiti artist, are just as good as Raphael, and hip-hop performances are just as valid as Beethoven's Opus 131."

The Welsh geneticist Steve Jones asks an important question: if there is a division of scientific opinion, with 999 on one side, and one on the other, how should the debate be handled? Should the one dissenter be given 500 opportunities to speak?

Yet Graham Lloyd, The Australian's environment editor – perhaps more accurately described as the anti-environment editor – trawls the web, finds obscure and unsubstantiated critiques of mainstream science, then publishes them as front page attacks on professional integrity.

Science and common-sense

There are major problems when it comes to explaining some of issues in science, and there have been ever since science began. Some fundamental scientific discoveries seem to be counter-intuitive, challenging direct observation or our common-sense view of the world.

Common sense, and direct observation, tells us that the Earth is flat, that the sun (like the moon) rotates around the Earth and that forces don't operate at a distance.

Aristotle with his encyclopedic –- but often erroneous –- grasp of natural phenomena, was a compelling authority in support of a geocentric universe, and that the seat of reason was in the heart, not the brain, and that females were deformed males. His views were dominant for 1,500 years.

The Greek astronomer Ptolemy, following Aristotle, provided ingenious proofs in support of geocentrism. Then along came Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler who said: "Your common sense observation is wrong. The orbits of sun and moon are completely different, although they appear to be similar." (Our use of the terms "sunrise" and "sunset" preserves the Ptolemaic paradigm.)

By the 20th Century, electronics enabled us to apply force from a distance, to do thousands of things remotely, manipulating spacecraft and satellites, or receiving signals (radio, telephony, television), setting alarms, opening garage doors and, one of the great labour saving devices, the remote switch for television.

The most obvious disjunction between science and common sense is the question: "right now, are we at rest or in motion?"

Common sense and direct observation suggests that we are at rest. But science says, "wrong again". We are moving very rapidly. The earth is spinning on its axis at a rate of 1,669 kmh at the equator, and in Melbourne (37.8°S) at 1,317 kmh. We are also orbiting round the sun even faster, at nearly 30 kms, or 107,200 kmh. There is a third motion, harder to measure, as the galaxy expands -– and it's speeding up, as Brian Schmidt postulates.

But, sitting here in Footscray, it is hard to grasp that we are in motion, kept in place by gravity. Psychology resists it. Essentially we have to accept the repudiation of common sense on trust, because somebody in a white coat says, "trust me, I'm a scientist". I would challenge anyone to reconcile common sense and quantum theory or to satisfactorily explain the Higgs boson or -– hardest of all -– to define gravity.

The factors that limit the psychological carrying power of much science –- not all -– include these:

• its complexity, often requiring use of a language known only to initiates
• outcomes are seen as too expensive
• outcomes are seen as too slow
• the history of science has been badly taught, often portrayed as an effortless success story, proceeding from triumph to triumph, instead of the passionate and dramatic reality.
  

Science at the core

Scientists and learned societies have been punching below their weight in matters of public policy, and they are careful to avoid being involved in controversies outside their disciplines, possible threats to grants being among them.

Some distinguished scientists are outstanding advocates, including Gus Nossal, Peter Doherty, Ian Chubb, Fiona Stanley, Robert May, Brian Schmidt, Ian Frazer, Mike Archer, Tim Flannery and Dick Denton.

Science must be at the core of our national endeavour and you are well placed to examine the evidence, evaluate it, then advocate and persuade. Our nation's future depends on the quality of its thinking, and its leaders.

There is a wide-spread assumption by industry and government that Australia's economic, social and technological future will be a mirror image of the past. We can be confident that this just won't happen. We have not even begun to talk seriously about the threats and opportunities of a post-carbon economy.

I encourage you, whatever your political persuasion, or lack of it, to argue for higher recognition of the role that science must play in our future, and drive your MP mad unless or until he/ she does something about it.

Remember Archimedes and his lever. But first you have to find a fulcrum, then you push the lever.""

Scientific Secrets Concealed Behind Closed Doors

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-defend-science-prosperous-future.html

Dangerous Ideas In Science Cosmology: This year (2015), debates in physics circles starting to bewilder

Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole: its structure, its origins and its fate. Fundamental physics is the study of reality's bedrock entities and their interactions. With these job descriptions it's no surprise that cosmology and fundamental physics share a lot of territory. You can't understand how the universe evolves after the Big Bang (a cosmology question) without understanding how matter, energy, space and time interact (a fundamental physics question). Recently, however, something remarkable has been happening in both these fields that's raising hackles with some scientists. As physicists George Ellis and Joseph Silk recently put it in Nature:

"This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done. They began to argue — explicitly — that if a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally, breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical."

The root of the problem rests with two ideas/theories now central for some workers in cosmology (even if they remain problematic for physicists as a whole). The first is string theory, which posits that the world is made up not of point particles but of tiny vibrating strings. String theory only works if the universe has many "extra" dimensions of space other than the three we experience. The second idea is the so-called multiverse which, in its most popular form, claims more than one distinct universe emerged from the Big Bang. Instead, adherents claim, there may be an almost infinite (if not truly infinite) number of parallel "pocket universes," each with their own version of physics.


Both string theory and the multiverse are big, bold reformulations of what we mean when we say the words "physical reality." That is reason enough for them to be contentious topics in scientific circles. But in the pursuit of these ideas, something else — something new — has emerged. Rather than focusing just on questions about the nature of the cosmos, the new developments raise critical questions about the basic rules of science when applied to something like the universe as a whole.

Here is the problem: Both string theory and the multiverse posit entities that may, in principle or in practice, be unobservable. Evidence for the extra dimensions needed to make string theory work is likely to require a particle accelerator of astronomical proportions. And the other pocket universes making up the multiverse may lie permanently over our "horizon," such that we will never get direct observations of their existence. It's this specific aspect of the theories that has scientists like Ellis and Silk so concerned. As they put it:

"These unprovable hypotheses are quite different from those that relate directly to the real world and that are testable through observations — such as the standard model of particle physics and the existence of dark matter and dark energy. As we see it, theoretical physics risks becoming a no-man's-land between mathematics, physics and philosophy that does not truly meet the requirements of any."

Finish Reading Article:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/01/27/381809832/the-most-dangerous-ideas-in-science?

Robots Use Youtube Learning Tutorials to Cook Food at Institute for Advanced Computer Studies

""When it comes to teaching robots how to do things, there are some very key differences. A human knows what you mean when you say "I need a cup". A robot needs to be taught that that means it has to turn around, go to the cupboard, open it, take out the cup, close the cupboard, turn back around, return to you, manoeuvre the cup over the bench, and release the cup.

This is one of the key parts of figuring out machine learning: How can you program a robot so that it can intuit that a plastic cup, a glass and a mug may all be classified under the general term "cup"? How can you design a robot that is able to teach itself?

One way, as researchers at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies are finding out, is YouTube. More specifically, cooking tutorials on YouTube. By watching these videos, robots are able to learn the complicated series of grasping and manipulation motions required for cooking by observing what humans do on the Internet.

"We chose cooking videos because everyone has done it," said UMD professor of computer science and director of the UMIACS Computer Vision Lab Yiannis Aloimonos. "But cooking is complex in terms of manipulation, the steps involved and the tools you use. If you want to cut a cucumber, for example, you need to grab the knife, move it into place, make the cut and observe the results to make sure you did them properly."

The robot uses several key systems in order to learn from YouTube videos. Computer vision, with two different recognition systems, allows the robot to visually process how the presenter grabs something, artificial intelligence processes that information, and finally language parsing helps it understand spoken commands and translate it into an action.

In this way, the robot can gather individual steps from various videos and assign them rules according to its programming, putting them together in the correct order.""

Follow Link More Information 

http://www.cnet.com/news/robots-learning-to-cook-by-watching-youtube-videos/#ftag=CAD590a51e

Psychic's Betsy Balega, Tara Greene and Shawn Robbins Tell Health Predictions in the Field of Homeopathy 2015

According to psychics Betsy Balega, Tara Greene and Shawn Robbins, plenty of news will come from the health field in 2015 – some bad but mostly good.

Balega predicts that a link will be found “between negative emotions and poor health.” This is something that many scientists and even common folk thought might be true but in 2015, it will be confirmed, she says. It seems the power of positive thinking will be more vital than ever to maintaining good health.

Balega also predicts, “Ebola will not yet be conquered.” As well she notes, “There will be a vaccine shortage” even in North America. These governments might “mean well but expect a lack of medicines when they are needed.” She adds that there will also be “more outbreaks of viruses moving from animals to people.”

Greene foresees Ebola becoming a “pandemic." Many more new viruses will appear and will threaten travel.” She also predicts that “Mad Cow” disease will surface in England again, which will cause “food scares” related to pork, chicken and other meats. As a result, she says, “more people become vegans.”

Greene also predicts, “Travel may be restricted because of fears of Ebola.”

Robbins predicts that scientist will be “astounded when a compound is found in jellyfish that halts the spread of Cancer cells.” This would signal a major breakthrough in treating this horrid disease.

She also predicted that Turmeric, which is a “common spice used in Indian cooking, will be hailed as the next wonder drug to treat the symptoms of Glaucoma, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Crohn’s disease.”

Balega predicts that "energy medicine" will become “a favored way to treat illness” by getting to “the root cause” rather than simply treating the symptoms. She adds, “People like Dr. Zhi Gang Sha and Dr. Eric Pearl will be recognized.”

More inspiring news comes from Robbins who predicts that 3D printers will be used to provide “human organs,” which will bring “new hope to transplant patients by not having to rely upon human organ donors.” This would also eliminate the need to use cadaver organs, which are most prevalent on the black market organ trade.

Robbins predicts more good news for patients who are paralyzed.

“A microchip implanted in the spine will be able to send electrical currents to nerve cells,” she says. This microchip would be “activated by a hand held computer and would allow paralyzed patients to regain a sense of feeling in their arms and legs.”

A June 2014 article in the National Post entitled Science fiction come true: Paralyzed man moves arm with his thoughts using microchip in his brain calls this new technology a “neurobridge.” The microchip, which reads the patient’s thoughts, was created “by doctors at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center,” along with “engineers from a non-profit research center called Battelle.” The Columbus, Ohio man is the first person who has been able to accomplish this.

Greene says that Jupiter in Virgo this year will bring more “grassroots” ways of dealing with health matters. “Learning from the past, herbalism (the use of plants for medical purposes) will become mainstream,” she says adding that “all naturopathic and homeopathic healing methods will surge in popularity. Osteopathy and cranio-sacral therapies also become popular.”

As well Greene predicts, “Spiritual healing will get very mainstream. With Jupiter in Virgo (the body) opposite Neptune in Pisces squared by Saturn” she says, “spiritual healing, sound healing, crystals, color therapy, shamanism, ayahuasca, sacred plants, cleansing diets and positive outlooks will all be factored into any patient’s healing methodology as standard practice.

Many More Predictions Found Here:

http://www.examiner.com/article/health-predictions-cover-ebola-new-inventions-return-to-natural-cures-part-4

Ormus Modern Alchemy: Books I Recommend for the Modern Day Alchemist & Philosopher - A New Golden Age

Modern Day Philosopher's & Alchemist's Rejoice of a Golden Age

I recently gave my family members the gift of books in alchemy for the Christmas Holiday as well as a dispenser of 12 mineral cell salts along with some Ormus in Hermetic liquid form. Not knowing if they would understand let alone try delving into the mysteries of of the ancient 'occult' literature. Not many humans in the world are aware that 'astrology' before it was banished and ridiculed from the face of the planet by the 'ill' gotten conquering government leaders of our violent radical history was in fact a 'real' modern day science in it's day. Unfortunately not only has it been frowned upon and belittled for the last several hundred years or so, but it's science has been replaced with a convoluted half-assed mock up. Be rest assured and be fruitful inasmuch though, there is still an incredible library's worth of genuine content in a vast array on this divine subject. - SeraphSirius

 I'll leave you with some wonderful books to read in 2015:

 Ormus Modern Day Alchemy: 

Primer of Ormus Collection 

Processes Reference Edition

Chemistry of Essential Oils Made Simple: 

God's Love Manifest in Molecules

Ormus The Secret Alchemy Of Mary Magdalene 

Revealed - Part [A]: Historical & Practical 

Applications Of Essential Alchemical Science

Real Alchemy: A Primer of Practical Alchemy

The Next Stage of Human-Robot Love: Meet Meka’s Anime Robot Girl - Lovotics, The Science of Human-Robot Love

""When we first covered the emerging field of lovotics, the science of human-robot love, we had no idea that it would turn out to be one of the most popular stories ever published on ExtremeTech. It seems, as a culture, we have a deep-seated interest in robots and automatons, and if we can love an animal or other non-humanoid creature, what’s to stop us from falling in love with a robot? And if you had the choice of falling in love with an amorphous, decidedly odd-looking furball, or a cute, perky anime girl, which would you choose?


Introducing Meka Robotics’ S2 Humanoid Head: It has seven degrees of freedom, high-resolution FireWire cameras in each eye, zero-backlash Harmonic Drive gearing in the neck, and a ton of unnervingly-human movements and postures. She weighs 7.6kg (16.7lbs), has a pair of luminous, waggling doggy-like ears, and can be attached to a Meka torso and arm, if you prefer your robots to be slightly more corporeal. The girly, anime face is just a custom skin, incidentally: Meka will customize the shell to look like anything you desire. We’re told that they value their client’s confidentiality — and more importantly they don’t judge.""

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/99573-the-next-stage-of-human-robot-love-meet-mekas-anime-robot-girl

'If the God Particle Exists We Will Find it by Next Year,' Says CERN Boss Rolf Heuer

""'I think by this time next year I will be able to bring you either the Higgs boson or the message that it doesn't exist,' said Rolf Heuer, director general of CERN, whose LHC is at the focus of the search.  

He was echoed by KEK's Atsuto Suzuki and Pier Oddone of Fermilab, which last weekend shut off - after 26 years - its Tevatron accelerator, which has also been seeking the Higgs in the debris of billions of particle collisions.""

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

""Reports in July seemed to indicate that the Higgs boson might have been detected among data the LHC.

But since then, those signals hinting it may have a mass between 120 and 140GeV look much less conclusive. 

Last month Guido Tonelli, a spokesman for the Compact Muon Solenoid Detector, a huge particle detector at CERN, said that even if the LHR was able to rule out the existence of the Higgs boson, that would be a major achievement in itself.""

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2046537/If-God-particle-exists-year-says-CERN-boss.html?ito=feeds-newsxml