From: ct (tilley@att.net)
Date: Mon Dec 11 2000 - 22:43:28 MST
From: "Emlyn" <emlyn@one.net.au>
> Backing up even one of the statements you make here would help your
> credibility.
> From: "Steve Nichols" <steve@multisell.com>
> > ...Phantoms (limbs &c)
> > do not "exist" in space separate from the brain, but the feelings (of
"I")
> > are where they are felt. The phantom toe is felt as if it is from a foot
> > that
> > is no longer present. Undetectable by science, but subjectively very
real.
Spitzer, M.1999. The Mind Within The Net. Cambridge: MIT Press:148-163
ISBN 0-262-19406-6
This section in the chapter on neuroplasticity covers phantoms and amputated
networks.
One example deals with the subjective experience of a patient with an
amputated arm. [A teardrop running down the face is experienced
simultaneously as if it were also running down the phantom arm....As the
face is not adjacent to the arm, but the cortical representation of the face
is adjacent to the cortical representation of the arm, this finding can only
be explained by a cortical mechanism involving former "hand-neurons"
starting to pick up input from the face and thereby becoming
"face-neurons."]
And
[In sum, the model of cortical reorganization proposed...not only
exemplifies an important principle of neural-network functioning - that is,
that noise facilitates neuroplasticity - but it also rejects the argument
that computer simulations are of no use when it comes to understanding
purely subjective phenomena. What could be more subjective than the
sensations of something that is not present?]
ct
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