Sunday, October 10, 2004

Answer to Neural Networks Question

Neural networks form with each new piece of knowledge that our brains come across. Each new memory is given a specific pathways that it travels down in the brain. Every new neural network is completely unique from all of those that were created before it. However, sometimes these pathways overlap and a few pathways will work together to do one task. When certain pathways are fired more than others, they form attractors which are used as the basis of comparison for what we know. The limbic brain has its own emotional attractors. These are formed on the basis of the first view of "love" that we see in our lives. For the rest of one’s life, they will always compare their new views of love to this original one and will try to justify their own views in the context of the new ideas about love that they come across. This could be what is meany about "love altering the structure of our brains."
"Re-shaping your H’s" refers to the human mind’s ability to recognize visual images, even if they are skewed. For example, when a child learns the letter "H" as looking a certain way. Over time, they see the same letter depicted in many different ways, such as in typing, workbooks, the handwriting of various people, etc. The child will form a vision of the letter H that is a conglomerate of all of these different prototypes of the letter. Therefore, if the child one day sees an abstract shape that somewhat resembles an H in the context of where an H would normally be used, they will recognize it as an H. (if that makes any sense!)
Limbic revision refers to the way that we, as humans, can affect other people’s limbic systems just by making contact with that person. Also, the limbic brain can be rewritten through the formation of new neural networks and by "reshaping one’s H’s." A psychotherapist could use this information to help a patient who is "frustrated with love" and keeps going through the same cycles in his/her relationships to help them do things differently and change the outcome of their love life.

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