News of the Odd

pibbur said:

4 One final question: How do children "inherit" the tastes, preferences and habits of their parents? Well, you may inherit physiological properties affecting for instance taste. I've read somewhere, don't bother checking it, that cats lack taste buds sensitive to sugars, and therefor is not attracted to sweets. Similar mechanisms may be involved in humans, I don't know. But in general I think most shared preferences are the result of you learning a lot from your parents during the 20 years or so you live with them. It's called social inheritance in Norway.

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:applause: Superb explanation, pibbur.

I've read that they've actually isolated the gene responsible for the way we perceive bitterness. It seems that the more copies of it you have, the higher your tolerance for it. If you have zero or one copies, you will find it very difficult to learn to like things like coffee, hoppy beer, or grapefruit; if you have six or more, you'll probably wake up to a double espresso (no sugar) washed down with straight grapefruit juice, and finish the day with a nice stout. I understand that there's an ethnic group in Africa that averages twelve copies -- and their cuisine is pretty much totally unpalatable to outsiders.

Sorry, I don't remember the reference. I just thought this was interesting because I tend to love bitter tastes, whereas my wife barely tolerates them; OTOH she loves acid tastes -- for example, she'll cheerfully chug down a fresh lemon squash (no sugar), whereas I'll only be able to drink it much diluted and sugared (or with vodka.) We've taken to pressing citrus fruits for breakfast, and she likes to cut her orange juice with lemon, me, I like to cut my grapefruit juice with orange... (No vodka, though. That would be rather too much in the morning...)

azraelck said:

O.O

My brain just tried to crawl out of my ear.

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I won't recommend that. Usually the brain is much larger than your ear ducts. Passing through those will squeeze your brain significantly. It would turn out to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Thanks very much for taking the time to give me such a detailed answer to my silly question, pibbur. I appreciate it, even if I don't totally understand all of it. I do understand this though, because my trainer at the gym a few years ago sort of explained it to me regarding all the exercises he was giving me, telling me that "after awhile, your muscles will remember them, and they'll get easier."

And now comes the interesting part: The resistance may change over time, and this is how we learn new things, by lowering resistance in some synapses, and increasing resistance in others. The result is a narrowing and a change in the paths nerve signals take through the brain. Consider how an infant learns to catch a toy. Or a spider. Or tha daddy's glasses. Initially it's mainly random movements, occasional hits, but mostly misses. Over time the movements becomes more an more precise, as the brain finds the most efficient pathway of the nerve signals involved.

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I also understand that a lot of what we get from our family background is socialization and habit, but thanks for the bits about the actual physical elements of some things being passed along. (For instance, being unable to survive without coffee and appalled at those who start their day with a cold can of soda, even if the caffeine content is the same. )

So do you have any rational explanation of this incident, besides fraud or misunderstanding? Also, while we're on the subject of odd things the brain may or may not be capable of, is there any scientific explanation of the sense of experiencing an old memory of something you haven't done, commonly referred to as deja vu? I just find this stuff tantalizing in the extreme, even though explaining it may take all the romantic nonsense out of it all.

Here is an explanation that made a lot of sense to me while I was delirious with a fever:

Perhaps languages have a much greater structure than we even realize. And while somebody is in a coma, their brain for whatever reason, devotes it's time to mapping out the structure of a language that the person was just starting to learn before the coma.

I use the term "structure" very loosely here, don't read too much into that.

And, yeah, it doesn't sound as plausible now that my brain isn't boiling in my skull...

@magerette: Some rational explanations:

1. It didn't happen. It's just an urban legend. Urban legends can - because of alleged references seem trustworthi. I would definitely put stores where people start talking in biblical languages or other languages they've never been exposed to in this category.

2. Something happened. Perhaps a few words was spoken. Then came the news media and eventually it turned into something much bigger. The story starting this thread may very well be in this category.

I agree with Korplem to some degree: The brain does a lot of processing while we're sleeping, which should facilitate remembering what you've learned. Whether the same happens in a brain where processes are impaired by fever, trauma and such? Perhaps, but I wouldn't count on it.

Regarding deja vu. I' studied some psychology at med school, but not that much (I know more psychiatry), so I'm definitely not an expert. JemyM?

Anyhow here are my tentative explanations. It doesn't take much for the brain to recall memory fragments similar to parts of the situation you are in: The smell of flowers, a piece of music, noises, voices and such. This could creating a feeling of having seen it, been there, experienced it before.

And also, when you come to a place and feel you've been there before, but you know you haven't. Maybe you've read something about it in a book, seens something on a TV show?

All these are in my head very likely explenations. And much more likely than you having been there in a previous life.

magerette said:

Also, while we're on the subject of odd things the brain may or may not be capable of, is there any scientific explanation of the sense of experiencing an old memory of something you haven't done, commonly referred to as deja vu? I just find this stuff tantalizing in the extreme, even though explaining it may take all the romantic nonsense out of it all.

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I've heard that déja vu is an event that's somewhat similar to a very mild epileptic seizure. Essentially, your brain gets momentarily borked up, which makes you think you're remembering when you're actually experiencing.

To go off on a bit of a tangent… the "I" is really a very fragile and nebulous thing, although it tries its best to fool you into thinking it's solid. Memories, especially, which is what it builds itself around.

I spent a year in Nepal when I was 15 — 16, in 1987. One day, as I was riding my (cheap, crappy) bike along New Road, near one of the water reservoirs and an army barracks, close to one of the bigger markets in Kathmandu, my way was blocked by a bit of commotion. There was a clutch of very agitated people there, along with a light-blue small beat-up pickup truck with fruit on it. I got off my bike, and walked closer. Since I was a fair bit taller than the average Nepalese, I could easily see over their heads what was going on.

It was a big-ass cobra, right in the middle of the crowd, looking very upset. There were mangos on the truck, and I assumed it had hitched a ride from the Terai, where they grow those things, and had only gotten off here, when they started to unload the mangoes for the market.

I just remembered this incident the other day, as I was flipping through Wikipedia and came on an article on cobras, and recognized the snake I had seen there — a king cobra.

Dramatic story, eh? I can remember it quite vividly.

But I'm not sure at all if it actually happened. I don't remember telling anyone about it at the time. I don't remember being shit scared, as I surely should have been. I can't connect it to what I was doing over there — it wasn't on my way to school or back, although I did explore the town a fair bit. In other words, it's entirely possible that I made the whole thing up, or that it's based on an incident someone else told me that caught my imagination, or a dream, or something. It could have happened — there's nothing fundamentally impossible or even extremely unlikely about it; snakes do hitch rides on fruit trucks, and there are all kinds of cobras living on the Terai. But something about that memory just doesn't wash. I can compare it to memories that I'm pretty damn sure did happen, and it just feels… different.

Funky.

When I took a course on source criticism, one of the rules of thumb I got was to treat anyone's memories that are older than three years and not supported by documentary evidence as suspect in the extreme. We're capable of remembering just about anything, if properly prompted, whether it happened or not. Memory isn't at all like a recording medium; it's more like a big ol' lump of clay with a bunch of monkeys madly sculpting and re-sculpting it into ever new shapes as shit happens. The recent stuff is relatively accurate, but the older stuff only stays that way by accident, or if it's really big.

pibbur said:

I agree with Korplem to some degree: The brain does a lot of processing while we're sleeping, which should facilitate remembering what you've learned. Whether the same happens in a brain where processes are impaired by fever, trauma and such? Perhaps, but I wouldn't count on it.

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Could something like this happen as a result of the brain's healing process after trauma? I'm pretty sure we don't really know how complex structures like language are "stored" in the brain. It doesn't seem inconceivable to me that as healing happens, the synapses could rearrange themselves in ways that formerly weak pathways — e.g. ones related to grammar and vocabulary of a language you've just started to learn — suddenly end up much stronger, whereas other pathways are temporarily or permanently cut off.

IOW, I don't buy that you can magically learn a new language by getting walloped upside the head. However, allowing for a bit of exaggeration, the story doesn't sound completely inconceivable to me. Suppose it really went something like this:

1. Girl is passively exposed to German around the age of 0-3 years for a bit. Say, the TV is on with Der Alte going, whatever. However, she learns Croatian the usual way. Of course, since this is such a completely trivial incident, nobody would even take note of it, let alone remember it by now.
2. Girl takes a few classes in German.
3. Girl gets head trauma. This knocks out some bits that deal with language.
3b. Suppose that now the brain's language structure consists of a set of weak and messed-up pathways that deal with German, and a set of damaged (=weak and messed-up) pathways that deal with Croatian, plus a set of strong and intact pathways that deal with language in general.
4. Brain starts healing itself. Suppose it starts "building up" from those pathways that deal with language in general, and mistakenly rewires them to the pathways that deal with German instead of the ones that deal with Croatian, and then proceeds to "heal" the pathways that deal with German.
5. Girl wakes up. Now she finds herself unable to speak Croatian, but manages an intelligible and possibly even relatively fluent German (although it would be with a relatively limited vocabulary and simple, probably somewhat incorrect grammar).
6. Family calls reporter.
7. "Croatian Girl Goes Into Coma, Wakes Up Speaking German!"

Prime Junta said:

I've heard that déja vu is an event that's somewhat similar to a very mild epileptic seizure. Essentially, your brain gets momentarily borked up, which makes you think you're remembering when you're actually experiencing.

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I'm not sure that deja vu is in itself epileptic in nature. But it's not unlikely that some types of epileptic seizure can involve deja vu.

There are many types of epileptic seizures, not all of them involve spasms. One type of seizure is the psychomotor seizure, mainly affecting the mind and behaviour. It would not suprise me if some of these patients experience a sense of deja vu.

In addition, some types of seizure have warning signs, symptoms that indicate that a seizure is imminent. This phenomenon is called an "aura" (it has nothing to do with the term used by some so-called "healers"). Among the symptoms are changes in perception. Maybe a feeling of deja vu can be part of this.

So, I think maybe it's the other way around, some types of epileptic seizures can involve deja-vu experiences. If so deja vu is not in itself epileptic like. NB!! This is not something I know, it's an (hopefully) educated guess.

I think the TV/internet/radio/ modern society syndrome is part of this also just like PJ said… let us say the said person watched TV and heard chinese accent / german whatever.

Acctually this happens to us everyday…. I am never effected by commercials… what should I buy in the store.. ok I buy l'oreal.. why… hmm…. there are even a more subtle variant… where a message is showed every 1 frame per second, the other 49 frames are normal. Your brain register the message which is shown every 1 frame.. but your eyes don't visilize it.. voila you are drinking jolt cola without ever knowing that you had been manipulated….

I think when we watch tv / movies / video games the brain also register a lot and it is saved in our brain… when a trauma happens these things might get messed up in the brain archieve. I am sure you could find a trace where the person has been subjected to chinese / german… even if they never met any chinese or german they were still affected through tv or internet….

Interesting stuff. I like all the ways we can imagine to explain the inexplicable almost more than the actual explanations.

That's an interesting story about the cobra, Prime J. I have similar memories that pop up from time to time about which I'm unsure, like I once wrote a long letter to an ex explaining how I'd been told a traumatic fact about my childhood by my mother, the location, my age, the words used, etc. Now when I read my old copy I can't remember details of the (actual) incident itself, only the letter, and I wonder if what I wrote actually happened in anything like the way I wrote about it, because that's the only memory I have of the incident. Makes you crazy.

@pibbur; thanks for all your attempts to explain the physical and real ways our brains work. I still feel that a lot of how and what we experience is difficult to nail down, and I'm keeping my little vision of our brains as an attic full of locked trunks stacked to the ceiling only a few of which we've found the keys to, not because it's actually factual, but because I enjoy the simile. As the guy in my first post says"We like to think there's a logical reason, we just haven't found it yet."

I think the really fascinating thing is that while we're able to explain a fair bit of what goes down in the brain, experience and consciousness itself remain inaccessible to science. You know, the old conundrum of the computer that's programmed to respond in every way like a conscious entity: is it really conscious, or is it merely a very good simulation of consciousness... or is the question even meaningful?

Okay, here's a really nice one for the News of the Odd file: according to BBC News, there's a Jain ascetic who's survived without food or water for seventy years. He's been admitted into a hospital where he's now been for the better part of a week, without eating, drinking, pooping, or passing water.

[ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8652837.stm ]

Any thoughts? Fraud, self-deception, combination of the above? I think we can pretty safely discount the idea that there's actually someone out there living and functioning without eating or drinking.

I too think we can safely assume no one can survice no foord and especially no water for years.

As to what this is - my personal bet is on fraud and all the things that can affect a story from the source to the targets. I think this story will face the same destiny as similar miracle stories: Lots of publicity at the start, no publicity when it turns out it was nothing.

Perhaps he's figured out how to live on light—all that meditation producing a …vegetative…state?

I've heard this type of story before—and even from the Indian subcontinent I think—but usually the individual still consumes liquid, or in the case of one woman, milk, making it slightly (but not much) more believable.

I'm thinking definitely fraud. Perhaps unintentional; perhaps the guy is able to occasionally sneak some nourishment, but his conscious mind doesn't retain the memory of it.

Yeah, it'd be way-cool if he's developed photosynthesis. A bit on the unlikely side, though.

I'm sure it's possible to train your body to survive on much smaller amounts of food and water than normal, but the second law of thermodynamics isn't just a guideline.

Tangentially related: [ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7067989.ece ]

One-line summary: plenty of fake swamis, babas, and other spiritual tricksters in India.

Prime Junta said:

Yeah, it'd be way-cool if he's developed photosynthesis. A bit on the unlikely side, though.

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Well, since we assume that chloroplasts running the photosynthesis originated from bacteriae, just like the mitochondriae, a small infection is all that we need….

Eh.. perhaps it's not that easy.

I'm sure it's possible to train your body to survive on much smaller amounts of food and water than normal, but the second law of thermodynamics isn't just a guideline.

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It certainly is possible to adjust to a reduced food intake. I think the need for water is not as easy to reduce. There are lower limits to loss of water from breathing, invisible perspiration - we're fairly close to those levels by default. And there's a limit to how much the kidneys can concentrate urine, which determines a minimal urine production in a healthy organism.

And water deficiency will soon (depending on how much electrolytes we loose in addition to water) cause serious symptoms due to loss of blood volumne (and thereby lowered blood pressure) and disturbed electrolyte balance (which can cause seizures and irregular heart rythm).

All in all, water supply is more critical than food supply.

DON'T KILL ME!!!

By the way, remember that discussion about quantum nondeterminacy and the brain we had? Looks like someone is taking those kinds of possibilities seriously:

[ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2...ired/index+(Wired:+Index+3+(Top+Stories+2))*]

(Although still squarely in the "Odd" category, but unlike the good swami, this one seems to be legit science, even if the result, once out, is likely to be negative.)

Here's an interesting and creepy report about a very strange disaster that caused the mysterious death of 1800 people and countless wildlife animals 24 years ago. It's not really "news" as the article is three years old, too, but it's a compelling read.

[ http://www.neatorama.com/2007/05/21/the-strangest-disaster-of-the-20th-century/ ]