Welcome to the worlds of Steven Michael Harris (Author, Theorist, Educator and Performer).
Thank you for your message. I haven't had time to respond until now and I'll do my best to cover the points you mentioned and answer your question.
To be able to think of theory and to communicate it are different skills and I appreciate your observations. There are many issues that need clarification and I'm not perfect in articulating my ideas.
You wrote: "I believe that it is becoming apparent that a transmitter has different actions in different circuits, depending on a) the receptor type, b) the region-specific coupling of this receptor to cellular events, and c) local metabolic and regulatory factors, d) region-specific control of gene expression and intracellular enzymatic events. It is not even probable any more that one neuron has the same transmitter-release pattern at all its synapses at all times."
A particular cell can possibly and probably will deal with different information depending on the exact inputs at a particular moment. You are right that one neuron does not have the same transmitter-release patterns at all times. The changes in these patterns are part of the mathematics of processing information. What I'm trying to illustrate is that in a consistent pattern of firings in one neuron, what I call a cellular event [See Essay: The "Cellular Event"], the change takes place in certain ways and certain neurons under consistent impulses will be inhibited from firing by the application of a medication (inhibitory or excitatory). That particular event is inhibited out of the processing of information and the passing of impulses to other cells. Other neurons will be affected very differently by the same application of medication. But even though different actions are occurring in different circuits under the influence of a chemical globally released into the nervous system, the biggest influence for processing data is cell to cell and not by globally released chemical to a wide variety of cells, and the changes that occur in a particular neuron due to the impulses coming from other cells is rapid and powerful and is the real processing of the brain and globally released chemicals could only interfere with a variety of these decisions as the cell to cell processing is moving (changing) the sensitivities in a variety of directions even if there are different kinds of receptors and setups. I believe that chemicals released into the bloodstream or the cerebral fluid are serving a temporary purpose of changing levels of focus in different regions of the brain but are not serving to communicate particular decisions which occur with cell to cell communication through the axons. (In the language of the nervous system, a "change in focus" could last a long time if the changes are being implemented by a sexual hormone during puberty, for example, or the change in focus could be very quick with a release of chemical that dims processing in a large group of cells in the central nervous system.)
Yes, the release of hormones and other chemicals that affect the nervous system has an effect on the communications, but the mathematics of creating intelligence is in the connections of the cells to each other and in their messages directly from cell to cell. I have much more to write before I can make this at all clear.
The problem with communicating my point is very difficult because all of the language necessary to explain my point of view on this has not been established.
You asked me to answer a question: "Why does the body temperature go down during the course of the night of sleep?"
There are also several essays that need to be written to be clear about that issue as well, but you picked an easier one of the questions and I think I can give you an idea of where I'm heading on that one.
You should first read my essay "Another Very Big Clue" (starting with the sentence "Scientists and doctors in the field of neurology have made claims that there is no coordinated language of the nervous system in the manner of nerve cell firings").
I'll be writing more about how a coordinated and simplified system of cell to cell communication is buried in the nervous system and difficult to spot because of complications and twists that have occurred with evolution of complex organisms.
The two lists in that essay are important. I'll be explaining more about how certain kinds of firings are akin to inhibition (fast-cycling high frequency) and other firings akin to excitation (slower frequency firings with lengthier firings per unit of time) in the language of cells to each other. The feedback loops are there to insure that the cells cycle out faster with high-frequency firings (also related to stress) and that the cells fire longer with slower-frequency firings (giving more health and "pleasure" to the cell). This point I have not argued yet and you just need to accept it for a moment as I'm answering your question. (All thought/consciousness/perception involves the accumulation of cellular experiences as all processing is in pixels like in vision - you see a complete picture but you are really seeing an accumulation of very small units of vision and any perception or thought is not a single thing or unit but an accumulation of such small units or "pixels" of thought that have no meaning but when accumulated. This gets pretty heavy and there will be many essays about consciousness in the future.)
Sleep is something that occurs on the cellular level 24-hours a day. Anytime a cell is not firing it is asleep and when it is firing it is awake. A cell can wake and sleep many times a second. What we call sleep (for the larger organism) is just a coordination of sleep necessary because of the problem of high activity for a very small percentage of the cells (or small percentage of certain firing events - certain consistent patterns of input - for a group of cells in the nervous system). There is a mathematical advantage of inhibition over that of excitation and cells that are very busy tend to become more receptive to inhibition in the sensitivities if they don't get any rest from the activity. Most cells in the nervous system don't need sleep. But the system needs to coordinate a shutdown for the minority of cells that need to adjust sensitivities by having a break from activity.
The reason for this is that when a cell is firing it is changing towards more receptivity to inhibition to eventually stop, and when a cell is not firing, for a period of time, chemical changes and structural changes are occurring that will increasingly make it possible to fire again with greater response to the excitatory chemicals. A very active cell (or rather a very active cell event under the impulses of signals from a particular group of input cells) with a lot of high-frequency firing is moving towards greater inhibition over time because of the slight mathematical advantage of inhibition over excitation. (Part of this mathematical advantage lies in the fact that too much excitation leads to inhibition but too much inhibition leads to further inhibition.)
When you look at the two lists (in that essay) there is a group of sensations that I consider to be on the stress side of perceptions as they are akin to the firings that relate to inhibition in the cellular language. All perception resides in the accumulated simple experiences of the many cells having their different experiences at a period in time.
The increasing movement to the inhibition side of processing with activity will lead the body to experience (and to change it's balances as well) in a particular direction because of this activity. This could be considered stress. (The stress of living through a day in this example.) The stress of activity will lead the system to move in the direction of greater perceptions and settings in that category of stress, so the particular perceptions/balances that are on that end of the binary scales will increase.
So the more tired you become: lights will seem dimmer, body will feel and set itself as warmer, muscles will be more contracted and posture worse. Some items on the list are more complicated because sweetness might be more intense as all tastes will be more intense because the logic of the system is that the greater the stress of hunger, the more intense taste will be experienced. Also, sleep is a form of withdrawal so the morning after sleep will bring about different changes in some perceptions relating to how that person's nervous system is dealing with sleep... some cells will not be experiencing anything at the end of the day and will wake up for a period of time after sleep, but wake in a stressed state until they go into "coma" again. I'm describing the coma of a cellular event. (See Essay: The "Cellular Event.")
Stress is related to inhibition. Stress occurs during the day. Warm is on the stress end of the spectrum in the nervous system and cold is on the other (excitation) end of the spectrum. Stress causes greater warmth (witness the fever that occurs with the stress of sickness). Removal of that stress moves the settings in the direction of experiencing cooler sensation. The same occurs in the cells acting as the body's thermostat changing actual body temperature as well.
This is a simplistic explanation in answer to your question. Other ways of explaining this are possible but need to come later.
[Click to Go Back to Unified Theory Directory Page]
placeholder
This is a placeholder
Copyright © 1997-2008
steven michael harris
Lexington, virginia, usa