About models, facts and strange PD-phenomena
If the human brain would be so simple that we could understand it, we would
be so simple that we couldn't.
(I don't remember the author)
Hi all listmembers,
As a child I read a funny story. It was about a small boy who had a book
about insects. It made him curious and he wanted to learn more about them.
So he got through the "varnish" into a picture full of insects. He visited
the ants and told them that a very learned man had written a book about
them. All their behavior was layed down in that book. The ants were impres-
sed, but got very confused and anxious too. They felt that now they had to
behave as was written by the learned man. The result was deep insecurity
and chaos among the ants.
The ants did not understand that the model has to adapt to the facts.
However having a model with a simple beauty and proven utility, nobody
should be too eager to throw it away as soon as something in reality seems
not to fit in. And even if some facts are in contradiction to a model, that
does not deny the model might keep its usefullness for that part of reality
that it was usefull for.
So whatever concepts and theories we make, as far as the model of Brian did
work it will do so the same way, like E = mc2 has not lost its usefullness
by the discovery of quantum mechanics.
However to deny the existence of facts because they don't fit in one's
model is making the same mistake the inquisition made with Galilei.
All science starts with facts that ask for a model. Archimedes in his
bathtub first believed that the small stone would sink and the much heavier
big piece of wood wouldn't. And than he got his brain wave, which made him
run naked into the street, shouting "Eureka".
Yesterday Vetter and Bruman wrote about the complexity of our brain.
Because our brain is so near to us and we take so much of its functioning
for granted, it is difficult to grasp just how little we understand of how
it functions.
For example if somebody asks: "do you know what "oiutgese" means", people
immediately say: "I don't know". But how do they know they don't know
without searching the immense content of their memory; the reaction coming
immediately without exertion is a big mystery for researchers of human
memory. Much research is done on memory and many models are develloped but
nobody has the least idea how to fit in so common a phenomenon as the one
described above.
George Lussier wrote yesterday about one of those incomprehensible can's
and can't's that are typical for PD.
Having no trouble to walk backward, to run, to hop as a child, to climb a
steep mountain path, to restore balance after been tripped up by something,
to ride a bicycle, and at the same time not being able to walk normal;
people can hardly believe it is possible. People who have seen many PD's
believe it only because they want to trust their eyes. When I was in
hospital to be diagnosed and I was walking backward jokingly saying: "
maybe the only thing I need is a driving mirror", nurses said it was at
that place not an original joke at all.
Nobody really understands these phenomena. I remember how strange it was,
being very tense and not able to relax, as soon as I walked backwards or
downstairs I immediately felt normal. While in hospital I walked friends
who visited to the door, had trouble to reach the stair and than came down
quick and flexible. I saw the disbelief in the eyes of others. And maybe
for this reason it is not much talked about on this list because PWP's
hardly believe it themselves.
Ida Kamphuis, 52/12+
Holland
