Saturday, March 20, 2010

T_T

My server is up, in a sense. but its not working. i was able to ssh into it for a time, but i am unable to get into it anymore. the ssh operation is timing out. help would be wonderful!

Servers!

why hello there, my miniscule readership!

I have (had) a server, that went temporarily offline for reasons i dont quite know. i will be putting it back online tonight, for any of you interested though. i will probably also be putting a Minecraft server on there, as well as apache, (and maybe an email server. why not?) while im at it. so bear with me, if you will. I will post again with the address when I have it running.

Monday, March 15, 2010

How does the brain work? (or 'How the brain works')

Ok, this is a rather big question, so bear with me- a lot of this is musings that I've drawn from a lot of seemingly random places, and it will probably seem rather disjointed.

So this being rather daunting, I will start with the basics. As far as we know, the brain does three main things- It interprets data (from eyes, etc.), It juggles the interpretation of that data (here meaning 'thought'), and it converts that back into 'physical' signals like sound waves. Using a computer as an analogy, the input devices (mouse, keyboard, etc.) are equivalent to the eyes (etc) themselves, not the process in the brain. the 'translator' in the computer that Im talking about is basically the software in the keyboard (or computer, im sure it varies) that interpretes the keystrokes in a way the computer can process. The brain itself it the CPU, although as i will go into later the specific construction of the 'hardware' is radically different in the brain. The output interpretation would be the various 'sound cards' or 'video cards' that interprets the computers output in a way the monitor or speaker can deal with.

I will deal with each 'third' in detail now, however from here out im not drawing analogies so much as theorizing.

[I'll say it again: all theory, all based on thought experiments and experiences, and nothing more. dont shoot me for being 'incorrect' or out of line with current thoughts on the matter)

We perceive 'the world' (ill go as far as I can without going into existentialist rhetoric) as two two-dimensional plains wich we compose in our head as a 3d environment, which we then place ourselves inside of. this is the 'illusion' of being- our 'ID' (which ill reference later) is somehow placed in this created environment in a way in which all of our senses line up. when our eyes see something 'there' and we hold our hand out to touch it, we feel it 'there'. Of course it is 'there' but it is difficult to talk about existence from the point of view of our brains. (this is similar to the 'if a tree falls in a forest' problem)
so anyway, my point here is that part of our brain takes our sensory data and turns it into a 'model' that approximates reality in a way our minds can work with, or in less abstract terms, our brain cant work with the raw data of photons buzzing around hitting our eyes, but we work perfectly well with the illusion of color that some sub-process creates with that data.


Now the bulk of the idea here comes in with the 'central processer' of the brain, and this itself requires a 'lead in'
Everything we do, we do in order to fulfill a need (or an 'objective') and little 'sub needs' (sometimes called tactics) form 'under' that need. So eventually, each need is distilled to tactics, then to individual movements needed to complete the tactic, and so on down until it becomes something interpretable by muscle-tissue alone. Back to the computer analogy, each processer of the computer carries out a task as it is instructed to by the motherboard, wich is instructed by the user. the big practical difference is that a computers task management is limited by the number of processers it has installed- our brain is somehow capable of constantly rewiring itself to produce huge numbers of these amorphous 'processers': each one responsible for a particular need. they break apart to isolate tactics, and then singular movements, wich then pop back out of the system. when a need is fulfilled, or when part of the processer isn't being used anymore, the neurons dedicated to running that 'process' are recycled and put to use as something else. Conceptually, the biggest diference is, again, this amorphousness. because in a single system we will have multiple processes fighting for attention, (but all running (and fading in and out of usefulness) simultaneously). Also, one need can harbor more than one tactic at once.

A practical example: your walking down the street, going to a friends house. at this point your objective is entertainment, and you accessed your memory to discover that 'your friends house' is a place you are likely to fulfill that need. your mind has distilled this to 'walk to your friends house', which you proceed to do. (in the meantime, a whole bunch of other 'needs' may have popped up, or more temporary tactics to fulfill that one need). as you approach your halfway point, you discover that you are hungry- a new need has emerged. you quickly weigh the odds- maybe the two needs converge on the same tactic eventually, and say 'oh, i can get entertainment AND food at my friends house- i have before' and you keep going on. maybe your experience doesn't suggest that your friends house would be a good place to eat, and the hunger need being more immediate, it takes over and you turn home. (there are a million and one possible outcomes, this is just a quickie)

As for memory- I am still unsure about this (our brains obviously dont have hardrive disks). maybe there is a sub-process (like the sight-translator) that just buzzes around remembering things, using up space that isn't required for some other process. maybe its something else totally different. but either way, we can't possibly work without memory.



Now out-put is the simplest thing. our body really has only one direct output, that being muscles. Even our voice is completely controlled by muscles. The only thing worth mentioning here is that muscles also act as input, allowing some sub-process to help us balance, and whatnot.


Im sure there are gaping holes here, and i know its probably a horrible thing to read. but oh well. comment. or not. whatever.


Sunday, March 14, 2010

Oh Hai.

I have just rediscovered this blog, and as none of you have noticed (as there are none of you yet... I think that still makes 100%, oddly enough) i have deleted the two blog posts i managed to make before this. considering they amounted to 'hi, im me' and 'oh hey, a fanboy-ish idea!', they really didn't mean much and nobody will miss them, least of all me.

Anyway, this is another introductory post. here is the litte obligatory 'who i am' section.
(feel free to skip it though, i would almost prefer it)

I am Paul, I am a programmer, musician, student, and many other things. That list is not really in any particular order- if I had to put them in order that list would be reverse in order of importance, I think.
My life may not be interesting by the normal standard, but I manage to squeeze a fair amount of enjoyment out of it. What I miss in day-to-day excitement (as of now) i make up with the amount of time I spend thinking. This sounds strange, possibly very solipsist-ish of me, so I may need to mention that I am in fact aware that other people get into thinking ruts and have epiphanies, but they are for most highly personal experiences. It is such a large part of my life, however, that I feel it needs mentioning, so I apologize if i have made an asshole out of myself with that sentence, and urge you to forget it if i have.

Anyway- this blog, if I manage to keep it up, will be about anything and everything. I am an opinionated person, so I will probably rant a fair deal. I may also post about all sorts of other things that may end up popping up. Expect a fair amount of pseudo-technical rambling about philosophy or music or science or math (or any number of these things at once). I will attempt to make it interesting.

and again, if i manage to keep this up- I make no promises -I will probably post a few random ramblings a week, probably no more than two legitimate posts about anything in detail a month though. we will see.

anyway- that is all for now, I believe.