The Human Brain - part 3

Definition

Nowadays, the terms self-consciousness and self-awareness are used interchangeably, but according to wikipedia self-consciousness is a “preoccupation with oneself”, while self-awareness is “the awareness one exists as an individual being”. I would like write without distinction, so both terms so they we will be used synonymously.

Problem with self-consciousness

I believe that self-consciousness is product (or by-product) of evolution. It is not hard to imagine that it is extremely “useful” when to comes to any social behavior. I think it may be

that self-consciousness was developed to help better interact with other individuals of our specie and therefore maximize the chance of survival.

But there are some drawbacks. The common unpleasant situation for many students is to give presentation. When focus of attention is shifted towards yourself, you can almost feel everyone stare. Definitely you feel self-conscious. The problem is that common reaction to this sort of situation is stress. And one of stress responses is adrenaline shot, which is not helpful at all.

To be more specific. Some high levels of adrenaline causes brain to cease functioning in a way that allows to think clearly. And that’s the causes the effect which we call: ‘miałem pustkę w głowie” ;)

Are we the only self-aware beings?

Schopenhauer believed that only humans are self-consciousness and can make choice between affirming or denying the will. However recent studies shows that this statement is false. There is evidence that some apes, dolphins and elephants have capacity to be self-aware. Bear in mind that those animals use some sort of social structure. For example it is proven that dolphins have names which they use to identify each other and elephants have some kind of burial rites.

Despite last centaury advances in science, the human brain is still mystery to ourselves and many more researches have to be conducted until we gain suitable level of knowledge to fully understand it, and therefore to fully understand ourselves.

Thank you for reading and attention.

The Human Brain - part 2

Five(?) senses

When we think about senses we usually mean: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. However, according to wikipedia there are few additional senses such as: nociception (pain), thermoception(temperature), and equilibrioception(balance and acceleration), proprioception (kinesthetic sense) and “other internal senses”. I believe that names of first, second and third senses are self-explanatory. The fourth sense provides us with information on the relative positions of the parts of the body, e.g. when you try to touch your nose with your fingertip.

Stimulus processing

Each sense provides our brain with some kind of stimulus which is then processed. But we still don’t know how it works exactly. According to logic, each sense should be governed by its own region in brain, but some research clearly shows that auditory and visual information is processed together before the combined signals reach the brain’s cortex. It means that these two different types of signals are combined before brain can “think” about it. It is also explanation why when we are looking at some puppet show e.g. (click) we automatically associate the voice and mouth of the dummy.

My own experience shows that there is similar correlation with smell and taste. Ask yourselves, how often bad smelling food was in fact delicious? Or how often you haven’t something because its smell was bad?

Brain capability of adaptation

Take a look a the MRI below.

What you see is brain, to be more specific a half of brain of an 10 yo. German girl. She is a medical phenomena. Doctors are stunned that despite of absence of her right hemisphere (since her birth) she is capable of living normal life. Moreover her left hemisphere possessed functions of her right, missing, hemisphere. And what is more fascinating she have left and right visual fields. Normally each hemisphere is responsible for the opposite visual field, so the right hemisphere is responsible for left visual field. In other words her sight should be severly damaged.

Déjà vu

So. What is déjà vu? (no, I don’t mean matrix failure ;)). Generally it is anomaly of memory that gives impression that an experience is “being recalled”. One of theories states that déjà vu occurs when there is asynchronous in memorization of an experience. It happens when one hemisphere gets information slower than the other. In other words, one hemisphere is experiencing something that other already experienced.

Assuming that this theory is true. Do you think that “German girl” (mentioned above) will ever experience déjà vu?

PechaKucha 20x20

Hello Guys:)
I've got an extra task for you, for extra points.
Have you heard of PechaKucha ???
I took part in such an event the previous week.
Your task is to check what it is and present your point of view.Give links to interesting sites that present it. What do you think of this new trend? I liked it a lot?
Have Fun!

The Human Brain - part 1

Hello everyone,

Another week, another topic. This time the main area of interest is human brain.

My three part presentation will cover the following:

1. Brain structure, functions and other essential information

2. How it works? In this part I will concentrate on perception and cognitive functions of brain.

3. I? In the last part of my presentation I will write about self-consciousness and all related topics.

Info: The main source for this presentation is wikipedia unless stated otherwise.

Some well known facts

The human brain is the center of the human nervous system. It is divided in two hemispheres,

left and right. The exact numbers are not known but it consist around 50-100 billion neurons, of which about 10 billions are cortical pyramidal cells and are connected via approx. 100 trillion synaptic connections. The average (adult) human brain weighs about 1.5 kg with size around 1130cm³ for female and 1260cm³ for male. Of course these values varies for each individual. The colour also varies, but in generally it is mostly gray.

Did you know?

Despite their great achievements in architecture and profound knowledge of mathematics the ancient Egyptians were not aware what exactly brain is. They believed that brain is some kind of cooling organ, for the whole body. As proof to this theory they took common nose excretion (I didn’t know how to put it in gentle manner ;)). They thought that this is by-product of cooling process. :)

It is not related to topic but I would like add that, during mummification the brain was removed through nose by special hooks.

Structure overview

On the following image you can see brain divided into four area.

The blue area marks the Frontal Lobe (pol. Płat Czołowy) which is responsible for our motor functions, planning, reasoning, memory, awareness and emotions: pleasure, fear, frustration and anxious.

The yellow are marks the Parietal Lobe (pol. Płat Ciemieniowy) which is responsible for our senses, pain and temperature perception, understating of abstract symbols, concepts and geometry, movement and sight integration, sight and senses integration.

The brown area marks the Temporal Lobe (pol. Płat Skroniowy) which is responsible for our sight, colour and depth perception, image association.

The red area marks Occipital Lobe (pol. Płat Potyliczny) which is responsible for our speech and hearing, verbal memory, object recognition, musical sense, sound perception and fragrance recognition.

If you want to look at the brain very closely click here.

I think that this amount of knowledge is suitable for now. It will be useful when I write some about brain damages and brain capability of adaptation in next part of this presentation.

The last thing for today. Please take a look at this speech. The movie lasts twenty minutes but it is really worth it. I guess most of you already saw it.

Please let me know what you think.

Snowkiting

Snowkiting is winter form of kitesurfing. Powered by kite you're gliding on snow or ice, having on foot traditional snowboard or skies. The area for snowkiting can be flat, undulating or mountainous. Snowkiting differs from other alpine sports in that it is possible for the snowkiter to travel uphill and downhill with any wind direction.

Snowkiting is easier to learn that traditional kitesurfing, because of the fact that you're gliding on the tough surface. It can be very hazardous and should be learned and practiced with care.



The speed you can reach on the flat ground exceeds 100km/h. On the frozen lakes it can be even faster. Maximal hight of jump reaches about 40-50 metres, what makes snowkiting extreme sport.

Snowkiting gives also oportunity to slade from the really acute slope, and use kite to fly over obstacles like rocks in mountains. That opens new horizons and gives a huge variety of places where you can get.



In Poland snowkiting is quite new sport, but even though it is full of people practicing this sport in our country and it continuously increases, because it's quite easy to start practicing. There is no need of large snow layer, or downward slope. With skies or snowboard, kite and a scrap of area without energy tractions you can start the ride and feel free!

Living in Poland on... houseboat

The popularity of houseboats is gaining strength as time goes by in Western Europe and North America. They have become a primary option for families and friends who would want to take a break from their daily routines and try something new. Some people would take the idea of living in a houseboat on a whole different level and turning it into a way of life.

This kind of way of life was not common in Poland till now. Since last summer the first houseboat has arrived to Warsaw. The young couple, architect and fashion designer, decided to move M-2 flat to... houseboat. They have left house in Konstancin on moved to the houseboat located on the 512km of Wisla River, near Swietokrzyski Bridge.

Their houseboat is boat which have been modified and have been designed to be able to accommodate. It has motors and can be used to travel on the afloat waters. The living part consist of bathroom, bedroom, and living room linked with kitchen. On the deck there is a big viewing terrace.

They thought that will be the best solution for living in big city like Warsaw. Docked in the city center, there is no problem with traffic jams. The view of the city, reflected in the water is amazing.

But then the problems have started emerging. Because houseboats are something unusual in Poland there are regulations for them in Polish law. Couple coudln't fill the fuel on their boat, because houseboat is now regular boat. Filling water also became a problem. Then the docking space. Because of the fact, that Wisla River hasn't got regulated race it's hard to dock a houseboat without running it aground.

Despite this obstacles they don't want to move back to regular house. Now they're thinking about moving to Paris, where whole river is prepared for houseboat living.

Week 19-25.10

Your friend still hasn't published his presentation; therefore, go to other blogs to participate in the discussions this week.
http://uwb2ms.blogspot.com/
http://konwersatorium1pjwstk.blogspot.com/

Presentations

Because there are more of you than the weeks when you can do the presentation, please join somebody. Do not forget that to get a credit you are to comment each post, and each presentation.
Cheers

Self-presentation

Hello Guys!
I have been having e-classes with some of you for over a year, but we do not know much of each other; not even the looks;)
Could you please introduce yourself to all of us by finishing two sentences.
1. I like......
2. The thing that others in the group do not know about me is.....

I will participate in the introductory part as well:)
Moreover, put your personal photos in the profiles.

Presentation drafts

Important Information!
Before making a presentation send me please the draft of it.

Presentations

All of you will moderate the blog for a week. Therefore, put yourself on the list(the week when you would like to do it). Remember, this is an obligatory part of the course.

What are you to do as a moderator?

Choose some theme for your week.Put there links to interesting articles, films, presentations…invention is on your side. Comment on them and make others express their opinion.Your task is to involve your friends from the group. If you want, you can do this task in a pair. Just let me know

The weeks of presentations:
19-25.10 Adam Dąbrowski
26-01.11 Maciej Bielski
02-08.11 Kamil Świątkiewicz
09-15.11 Wojtek Kubiak
16-22.11 s4297
23-29.11 s3515, Piotr Rejczak
30-06.12 s4091, Mariusz Macieja
07-13.12 Adam Młodziejowski
14-20.12 Marta, s4085
04-10.01 Rafał Monkiewicz, s5549
11-17.01 Andrzej, Marek Drob

Profiles

Create your profiles.
You can use only your names or your student ID number (e.g. s4025)
No single nicknames, please (e.g. Anjo s4025)