(C)1995 Lee Kent Hempfling All Rights Reserved
In the 18th-century Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus grew a garden that told time. In
that garden flowers opened or closed their blossoms an hour apart around the clock . Each one
carefully chosen to perform the function it was controlled by. That function has been known for
centuries. Science has chosen to call it, circadian rhythm. So what makes the rhythm of the
plants differ from us? Or does it?
Gonyaulax polyedra is the name given to colonies of the microscopic alga luminescent at
night, especially if the water is agitated, and relatively nonluminescent during the day that
illuminate ocean waves at certain times of the year. Under constantly dark laboratory conditions,
this regularity of rhythm of luminescence and nonluminescence continues.
Our planet can be said to go through certain regular patterns of rhythm as well. The rising
and setting of the sun has been a noticeable event since man first began to comprehend
duration of events and then the necessity of regularity in planning and farming. Thus the
concept of measurable time was discovered and implemented using the Sun's regular pattern. At
that time the Sun was indeed considered to be rotating around the earth.
When applied to humans though the regularity of rhythm is neatly tucked away in the
examination and study of sleep patterns.
Almost Daily
It had been the rhythmic activity of most living things at certain times of the day and night
that offered strong support for the existence of biological clocks. When scientists first studied
these rhythms, they dealt mainly with the rhythmic leaf movements of plants. Many plants go
through a rhythmic daily cycle--their leaves are extended during the day and droop or are folded
at night. When such plants were kept under laboratory conditions of constant darkness or low
intensity light, the sleep movements continued for days.
Under these conditions, however, the frequency, or time required to complete a cycle, of
the rhythm was not exactly 24 hours. Afterward it was learned that the daily rhythms of many
living things continued when they were subjected to similar laboratory conditions. For most
organisms, the frequency of the persistent rhythm varied from 23 to 27 hours.
Since these rhythms had a frequency not exactly 24 hours long, they were called circadian
rhythms, from the Latin words circa, meaning "about," and dies, meaning "daily." Or about 24
hours. Almost daily.
A pattern of study had already begun to emerge. What was being studied as internal clock
frequencies was being imposed to have regulation by the Sun. 24 hours. And when it was found
that nature does not adhere to what man had invented a name indicative of that was not chosen.
One that was indicative of not meeting man's expectation was chosen.
Since the scientists were determined to find an adherence to their concept of time in
natural events the name seemed appropriate. But why 24 hours? That is one whole day as
measured on earth. Why not the parts of that day? Why did the scientists choose to observe in
relation to a full rotation of the planet? Because the events they observed seemed to follow in
conjunction with day and night. Flower pedals opening in day and closing at night. If those same
flower pedals had opened in the morning and closed at mid day and opened in the evening
(which some do) would the name have been based upon that sequence of events?
What's In A Name?
Perspective. What starts out to attempt to describe an event or a situation study becomes
the definition. Circadian is the prime example. Who says clock rhythms are based on a day?
Definitely not the plants. Who says any name is clearly responsible for defining an entire theory?
Who says relativity does not define the observer and not the observed? Sorry to say that it is the
use of a name that lends to it's credibility and then the study itself is no longer the primary issue.
Circadian rhythms at or near 24 hours studied in plants led to the study in animals.
In experiments on rats, Matthew A. Wilson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and Bruce L. McNaughton of the University of Arizona inserted electrodes into the hippocampus,
a region of the brain thought to be involved in spatial memory. As the rats learned to navigate a
maze, Wilson and McNaughton concluded that their neurons fired in certain patterns
corresponding to specific parts of the maze. But did they?
Firings corresponding with any singular event would indicate a similar event but would a
firing indicate the event was the visual notice of a corner or would it indicate the touch receptor's
acceptance of the texture of a certain part of the maze's floor? Or does the brain take complete
pictures including sound and smell and touch of an event and store and process it all in the
same place?
For several nights after the rats' maze exercises, their hippocampal neurons displayed
similar firing patterns; the rats were apparently playing back their memories of running the maze.
Or were they? Were the rats playing back visual reception of a corner that matched the same of
another corner that matched the same as the corner of their cage?
Wilson and McNaughton noticed that the major difference was the firing was more rapid,
as if the memories were being run on fast-forward. The firing occurred during slow-wave sleep, a
phase of deep (but not dreamless) sleep marked by low-frequency pulses of electrical activity in
the brain.
What did Wilson and McNaughton observe? We'll see.
Then the studies of humans. A team led by Avi Karni and Dov Sagi at the Weizmann
Institute of Science in Israel trained volunteers to quickly recognize the orientation of symbols
hidden in images flashed at the periphery of their vision. The workers had previously noted
improvements in performance over a 10-hour period following a training session.
To determine whether sleep played a role in this phenomenon, Karni and Sagi disrupted
the sleep of volunteers after they had had their training session. Interfering with the subjects'
slow-wave sleep had no significant effect. But an equivalent disruption of REM sleep, which is
marked by rapid eye movements (hence its name) and vivid dreaming, kept the subjects from
improving overnight.
What was it that Karni and Sagi observed? Was it something totally foreign to the
foundations made by Wilson and McNaughton?
In an article appearing in Scientific American October 1994 Volume 271 Number 4 by
John Horgan, Karni and Sagi were quoted as saying, "These results indicate that a process of
human memory consolidation, active during sleep, is strongly dependent on REM sleep," .
The article then concluded that the experiments lend support to a theory advanced by
Jonathan Winson of the Rockefeller University that dreams represent, in effect, "practice
sessions" in which animals hone survival skills. Why did Karni and Sagi detect memory
consolidation during REM sleep and Wilson and McNaughton only during slow-wave sleep? The
answer seems to be that each group studied a different type of memory, one involving a highly
repetitious task and the other the recollection of a place.
Neither research group considered the one single monumental hurdle to understanding
the brain. Instead of considering that one observation was the result of one level of computation
and the other result was the observance of another level of computation both groups assigned a
determination based upon what they assumed. The repetition of a task and the recollection of a
place.
From a study of clock rhythms the circadian process evolved into a study of sleep patterns
which could be comparatively judged by circadian rhythm theory. So the process that began by
examining regularity in nature was converted to study something totally different. And that is
where circadian rhythms remain today.Time Piece vs. Regularity
In science, the measurement of time involves two steps: specifying the exact moment when
something happens, and establishing a standard interval of time, or how long something lasts.
Various devices--including sundials, watches, and clocks--have been developed to indicate time
and to measure time intervals. It is when something other than time is at work that science
becomes confused. Yes. Confused.
Examine the turtle. It can represent a device. Our turtle leaves the turtle farm running
(sorry, make that scooting) for it's very life at exactly 3PM Central Standard Time. It's destination
is unknown. It will stop when it no longer senses fear. How long will it take to no longer sense
fear? The notion of time can not answer a question when the parameters are not present. The
question of how long something lasts cannot be determined.
So it is with examination of the events that are a part of the process of thinking. There are
other mitigating factors involved in thinking. Those other factors are more observable than what
may or may not control them. It has been easy for science to declare that if something is not
known and no one has determined how to make it known then it is random. Without cause.
The Issue
In conversations on the newest marvel of modern technology, the internet newsgroup I
have had the pleasure of introducing thought experiments to people in other parts of the world.
Such contact is priceless as far as I am concerned and it has resulted in quite a few interesting
'threads' as they are called. Conversations in open and closed (email) cyberspace.
One such conversation was regarding my assertion that the brain is controlled by a single
clock frequency.
I had forwarded a copy of a Boston Globe article: FRIDAY October 7, 1988 PAGE: 8
By Judy Foreman, Globe Staff entitled BOSTON TEAM PINPOINTS
MAN'S*'BIOLOGICAL*CLOCK'*. Which read...
" A team of Boston researchers has pinpointed the mechanisms in the brain that underlie
the ticking of the human*''biological*clock.''* The*biological*clock,*located in an area of the brain
behind the eyes known as the SCN is believed to govern a number of important daily biological
patterns, known as circadian rhythms, including the sleep-wake cycle.
Scientists believe that this clock is reset every day by ''entrainment'' or synchronization
with nature's own cycle of lightness and darkness. When circadian rhythms become disturbed,
such as by crossing a number of time zones in an airplane or working at night and sleeping by
day, temporary derangement of the biological clock is at fault, according to circadian theory.
The new research, published in the journal Science, was led by Massachusetts General
Hospital researcher Dr. Steven M. Reppert, also associate professor of pediatrics and neural
sciences at Harvard Medical School and Edward Stopa, Tufts University School of Medicine
associate professor of neuropathology and also a neuropathologist at McLean Hospital Brain
Bank.
The MGH-Tufts team found that the SCN, or suprachiasmatic nuclei, contains specialized
receptors for capturing a hormone called melatonin, which is made elsewhere in the brain in the
pea-sized pineal gland.
Curiously, they said, these specialized melatonin receptors seem to exist only in the SCN
and nowhere else in the surrounding brain region called the hypothalamus, which regulates
pituitary function and plays a major role in triggering the flight or fight response, rage, fear and
other emotional reactions.
The new finding, Reppert and Stopa said in interviews, buttresses other recent findings
showing that giving melatonin to people suffering from jet lag seems to alleviate their symptoms.
Now that its biological site of action is better understood, they added, melatonin should also be
useful for treating sleep problems of shift-workers and blind people and possibly helping
newborn babies get onto an adult sleep-wake cycle.
The MGH-Tufts team also found that melatonin receptors exist not only in the SCN of
adults but in the brains of fetuses as well. They studied fetal tissues obtained after therapeutic
abortions. Although fetuses, unlike adults, cannot respond directly to light-dark signals,
melatonin from the mother may provide the fetus with important time-of-day information, they
added. "
To which a response was eagerly anticipated. I will refrain from identifying the
correspondent out of a kind gesture to his stature and healthy professional respect for the
author of the following.
Subj: biological clocks Date: 95-11-16 09:38:41 EST
"I'm familiar with the concept of a "biological clock." In fact, more than one has been
discovered. This is not at all the same thing as applying the concept of "clock speed" to a
system of neurological activity (like the brain). The former implies a periodic glandular activity
which in turn stimulates changes in neural activity in certain parts of the brain. The latter (as
outlined in the excerpts you provided) involves neural activity whose elements are coordinated
with some common frequency.
This is not the case. Neurons do not operate according to a common clock signal; they
respond individual ly to the stimuli presented to them, and thus asynchronously. Impulses speed
up or slow down in this asynchronous manner depending upon the strength of the stimulus.
Graded potentials, on the other hand, do not result in changes in firing rate but in quantity of
neurochemicals released.
The result in both types of transmission is a change in the amount of neurochemicals
released per unit of time by individual neurons, either because there are more (or fewer)
releases of a fixed amount of neurochemical per unit time, i.e., firing speeds up or slows down
(impulse); or because more (or less) neurochemical is released per fixed firing rate per unit of
time (graded potential). Even in the latter case, this fixed firing rate is characteristic of
particular cell types, with some considerable variation among individual cells within a given type.
Neurons are quite anatomically variable, even sometimes within a given cell type (e.g., number
of appendages and connections) and this has a physiological affect.
The important thing here is that all of these processes are more or less independent as far
as individual neurons are concerned. The concept of clock speed would only make sense if
human neurophysiology operated along the lines of a synchronous digital system, which it
doesn't.
The mere fact that periodic events occur (such as the release of hormones which affect
sleep or wakefulness) does not mean that the neurons so affected are synchronized -- it simply
means that they are activated. General activity, though occurring at the same time, does not
mean that the individual elements are synchronized.
Imagine the difference between a group of soldiers who are given orders to march in step
at some given speed (perhaps by the "clock signal" of an officer counting-off), and the reaction of
a crowd when some of its members are sprayed with buckshot. There will be simultaneous
activity in both cases, but only to the former (formal marching) could one apply the concept of
clock speed."
As can be seen from this 'thread' quotation the author is living in a digital world whereby
things are compared to this digital and knowing that the brain is not digital finds any reference to
anything possibly also used in digital to be erroneous.
Furthermore before disclosing my response it must be evident that the author is also
suffering from the dreaded observational illusion bug. Seeing the process as the outcome and
not the process as the process.
In my response:
"And where pray tell does this stimuli come from? From whence is it submitted? Is it
submitted by chance? Is it submitted by ruse? is it not submitted it just happens? Does
something responding to an order to respond make it less than something that acts upon
something when it receives it? Does it make it different?
The strength of the stimulus can be seen as the value of it. In a chemical process the
strengths of the stimulus would indicate the value. So a value of (0) would appear to indicate non
firing. Numerous stimuli firing in an order of (0) and other variable values would appear to be
value based when it is actually process based. A whole bunch of values would be observed as
the neuron fires upon the presence of the strengths that does not preclude the value of (0) which
does not cause a neuron to fire as there is nothing to send further. Thus keeping the firing
pathway in (0).
The observer 'sees' what appears to be non activity when it is in fact non values. Activity
continues unless of course the subject is DEAD.
Individual neurons are parts of the whole. If they were more or less independent then
there would be no binding and if there was no binding not even you would be you you'd be all of
you'all. The whole is it's parts but the parts are not the whole they just make it up.
The brain of living creatures is not digital as you say. It operates as a synchronous analog
system. It's called a multiple serial pathway synchronous parallel system.
In reference to: "The mere fact that periodic events occur (such as the release of
hormones which affect sleep or wakefulness) does not mean that the neurons so affected are
synchronized -- it simply means that they are activated. "
Would mean that there is no logic to the system that determines logic. Which means that
chaos determines logic. Which is the opposite of the truth. It takes logic to determine if chaos is
present and it is the lack of input that precludes logic from inferring logic upon seemingly chaotic
behavior.
The living brain has far too many inputs to ignore efficiency. A neuron in a living brain is
used by more than one pathway of computation. The syncronicity keeps things in order. The
appendages and connections are indicative of the multiple use of a particular neuron not of it's
being any different. Drugs and other foreign substances and occurrences interfere with that
order and in doing so disrupt normal thought patterns. A brain born with a deficiency in pattern
order will make disassociated connections and result in observable deficiencies in output. A
planned drug therapy will interfere with that order and in doing so potentially correct a deficiency.
The concept of clock speed is also applied to the reaction difference of the crowd. The
one nearest the blast receives the impact sooner. The one farthest receives the impact later. The
one closer the muzzle receives the audible report sooner the one farthest receives the audible
report later so upon observation the group appears to move as a unit in response but in fact the
result is a wave effect.
The officer counting off the clock speed is no different than the muzzle explosion. They are
both causes. Singular causes. The reaction of the soldier's to the officer is one based on known
and reinforced action to a known and expected cause. The one associated with the blast is a
startle and not known cause making each individual group member react according to his
previously inputted reinforced reaction to startling events with the potential outcome of personal
harm. No two persons will make the same reaction. Once again the observer sees a group
reaction in both cases but in fact the reaction is singular on all cases orchestrated by a singular
causative action.
So therefore a disinterested observer would declare the group to function by it's outcome
where an interested observer would declare the group to function by it's motivation.
Every input
receptor of the brain acts as a singular motivator for further calculation. Each input's variable
values which cause the calculative chain of neurons for that receptor to activate the
computational process is regulated in it's firing order by a synchronicity to a single motivator
clock frequency. Each step along that pathway is another syncratic breakdown of the same base
frequency.
Let us examine a simple experiment if you will: Your wrist watch. (let us assume it is a
quartz movement.) It functions at 60 clicks per second for the second hand and 60 clicks per
hour for the minute hand and 12 hours per clock face rotation of the hour hand. All of which
happens twice a day to make up 24 hours of telling time. What is the frequency the clock
operates at? It would not be 60 as it would not denote a clock face rotation and that would
account for only seconds. It would not be 60x60 as that would account for only seconds and
hours. It would be 60x60x12 or a frequency of 43,200.
The second hand advances once every 43,200 waves and we see the seconds change
slowly as it ticks along at increments of one second. The minute hand advances once every
count of 60 sets of seconds or every 2,592,000 waves and the hour hand advances once every
count of 60 sets of minutes or 155,520,000 waves. So 43,200 is wonderful. For a clock.
If you were an uninterested observer you would look at the clock face and determine that
there were three hands operating in what appeared to be a regular basis but using the soldier
and crowd analogy there could be no singular causative action for all three since they function in
different rotation speeds.
Now. Put the idea of that wrist watch into turning it into a hypothetical table clock that
made an audible click with ever second, minute and hour. Now gather up hundreds of thousands
of clocks the same make, model and sound and set them side by side and on top of each other
in a giant room. Connect them all to ONE quartz oscillating frequency. But stagger them so they
won't all click at the same time. Each wave of the frequency would be assigned to one clock,
some would be assigned to the same wave of the frequency as there would be more clocks than
frequency waves. Then stand aside and cover your ears as the clicks would seemingly cease to
make sense as they all blended together into what would appear to an uninterested observer as
a hodge podge of noise when in effect it is a synchronous symphony of sound. We might call it
pink or white noise.
To the interested observer it is indeed a symphony. Something else would emerge as well.
Every clock tick that matched another clock tick would cause that simultaneous click to set up it's
own wave function. Clicks would be heard to oscillate at a regular louder and measurable rate.
Some of those waves would be measured and someone would build a machine to do that and
would call it an EEG. The result of joint frequency firing order would be measured while the
actual frequency calling the shots and the frequencies resulting in the clicks would be too quiet
to be noticed and housed too deep within the room of clocks to be easily measurable by anything
other than room surgery. Until Francis Crick identifies the click that is a harmonic of the
analogy's hour hand movements.
Now. Replace the central quartz controlling movement with one who's frequency functions
in reverse to the clock analogy. Replace those clocks with receptors and have each receptor
send an inputted value once every 21,600 waves.(Two times per second.) Replace the clicks of
hand movements with neurons at subconscious level and fire them at once every 60 waves and
in the conscious level once every 6 waves and you have an understandable representational
model of the syncronicity of the living brain's biological clock.
(NOTE: The frequency in the above analogy is NOT the frequency of the human brain and
the ratios of synchronicity between levels of computation are given for reference only and are not
indicative of actual multiples of the ratio firing sequences...)
The brain's clock breaks down in ever faster computation whereby the clock extends in
ever slower computation. It's upside down. But the brain must do more than click. It has to
calculate. So each click represents the firing of a neuron while the value the neuron processes
and the synapse transmits varies by a computational process that is described in quantum
mechanical formula based upon the organic original of the artificially designed movement of the
free electron in the electric current since the intent is to build one in an artificial environment not
chemical. The process itself is chemical and not electronic.<BR>.<BR>
The uninterested observer then sees the above illustrations and declares them not to be
indicative of brain functions. Thinking chemical when the process that functions is indeed
chemical yet explainable in the same qm as electronic processing with a slight twist. "
And his response:
"On the contrary, it is quite different. The concept of clock speed cannot be applied to the
asynchronous units. Talking about causes simply confounds the issue."
Excuse me here but if there is no cause then there is only chaos and if there is only chaos
there is only random order and that has been more or less excused from scientific thought for
quite a few days now. The brain does not 'fire' at random. But there is more:
"You evidently fancy yourself to be some sort of master of psychological manipulation. It
is not a delusion shared by others. "
There was more but it got personal as it always seems to regress to when the
correspondent fails to comprehend the argument and can not think of an intellectual response. I
do not feel a desire to embarrass the author.
An article I was unable to forward to the correspondent who digressed to apparent
feelings of insecurity was the following from The Boston Globe. FRIDAY, April 29, 1994 PAGE:
3. As provided by the Associated Press.
ADVANCE REPORTED ON INTERNAL CLOCK GENE
WASHINGTON -- A gene for the*internal*clock*that sends the body wake-up alarms in the
morning and that brings on slumber at night has been located in laboratory mice, a finding that
may prompt a similar discovery in humans.
Joseph Takahashi of Northwestern University, senior author of a report to be published
today in the journal Science, said the research could lead to drugs that will overcome jet lag,
keep night workers from falling asleep on the job and solve narcolepsy, one of the most common
sleep disorders.
The biological clock, located in the brain, controls the daily, or circadian, rhythms of life. It
triggers changes that invigorate or slow the body. It is the circadian rhythm that is disrupted by
flight across time zones, causing jet lag.
Circadian rhythms have fascinated scientists, and the work by Takahashi and his group is
the first to locate in a mammal the gene that plays a key role in the cycle.
Takahashi said researchers in his lab located the gene by finding and then breeding mice
that lacked the gene.
The gene was located by a system that measured the circadian rhythm of 300 mice
automatically at the same time.
Takahashi said that exercise wheels in each of the mouse cages were connected to a
computer. When each mouse awoke and started exercising, a switch was thrown that recorded
the time.
''They all started within a minute or two of the same time each day,'' he said.
Except for one mouse. Researchers discovered that this rodent started an hour later.
Some descendants also started late.
By comparing the genetic pattern of the prompt and the tardy mice, Takahashi said they
located a mutation in a chromosome. "
<
Imagine a room full of clocks. Now replace them with mice. Then notice that mice were the
first experiments in circadian rhythms which led to such in humans which led to finding the
neurons that perform the function which led to finding a gene that controls it. Then imagine that
perhaps along with the establishment of a biological clock and the potential of a frequency that
"controls the daily, or circadian, rhythms of life"... Perhaps, just perhaps science has also been
confused about what that rhythm actually is.
Yawn
Time has been viewed differently in different cultures and at different times. In some
religions, time--particularly human time on Earth--is thought to run in cycles in which people die
and are reborn again and again. Some ancient Greek philosophers believed that time is an
illusion and reality is unchanging and motionless. Some major religions teach that time was
created and is destined to end one day in a terrifying climax. Isaac Newton believed in a time
and space that were absolute, ideal, and unchanging. His vision was overthrown by Albert
Einstein's theories of relativity, which required people to think of a space-time combination that
contradicted common sense. Under no circumstances will this work manage to discuss either
General or Special Relativity.
In an article appearing in the New York Times March 14, 1995 'Modern Life Suppresses
an Ancient Body Rhythm' Natalie Angier writes..." As the vernal equinox advances, and the sun
lingers in the sky a bit longer each day, and the buds poke forth like babies' fists from every
barren twig, even urbanites may feel the pagan craving to revel in seasonal rhythms.
After all, the lengthening of the day and the warming of the air exert a tremendous
influence on virtually every other life form, inspiring migrations, ending hibernations, inciting
growth and exciting lust. Surely humans, too, must be prey to the power of the seasons, the
return of light and the chastening of night. Surely people's innate circadian clocks must react to
the return of spring, resetting themselves to keep pace with the extra daytime hours."
There it is again. The name making itself the definition. The above conclusion indicates
the author, like most scientists, believe the internal or biological clock is controlled by light. By
the presence of light or the absence of light. After all isn't light the day and lack of light the night
and do not both together make up what should be a day and doesn't a day come close to the
definition of the rhythm ? The almost daily rhythm?
There is much study to support the notion that light controls the biological clock. Referred
to as the internal clock, - the part of the brain that responds to light and dark. But is it light that
controls the clock or is it light that feeds the clock? And wouldn't the feeding of the clock tend to
slow it down when there is less food and speed it up when there is more food?
It is common knowledge that when a light bulb is connected to a battery with a
potentiometer in series between the two, the potentiometer will control the amount of power
applied to the light and therefore make it bright or dim. But just as the light responds to the
increase or decrease in power through the control it also responds to the battery's power supply.
The less power in the battery the dimmer the light will get and no amount of increasing the
potentiometer will increase the light from a dying battery.
Likewise the battery can be recharged by applying current to the battery or to the line attached to
the potentiometer. The result is almost the same with one twist. Recharging a battery by
connecting it to another battery will drain the good battery. But recharging the battery by
connecting it to a power supply that is separated from the battery (such as in a recharging unit)
will recharge the battery without draining the recharging source.
But we're discussing the brain here. The brain contains memory of the rhythm set up in
cycles of activity that correlate to actions and events of a normal and relatively regular schedule.
When that schedule is broken the brain continues to function as if it were still following the same
pattern. What has come to be known by the obvious culprit in this phenomena as Jet lag occurs
when the brain continues but reality changes.
A good deal of study and many recent commercial ventures have been dedicated to
applying the use of bright light to alleviate the stress caused to the brain by that change in
reality. Patients are subjected to long periods of bright and even light that has been noticed to
'reset' the biological clock. When in effect the clock hasn't changed the brain has been retrained
to accept the difference in reality by a steady flow of continuous equal values observed by the
brain's levels of computation as another pattern and one that eventually equals the previous
pattern. If it works. Each patient is different.
Dinner Time
Could the results that jet lag study receive actually be the result of feeding the clock to the
point where it catches up with the brain's perceived rhythm? Thereby 'resetting' that which is
timed , the memory, instead of the 'timer' so to speak?
It is the result of this researcher's work that indicates that light does indeed feed the visual
sensors of the body and in doing so aids in the body's natural recharge that works in a faster and
more stressful manner the same as the at rest period we experience with sleep (when sensors
are not working to full potential.)
To understand why that is it is necessary to comprehend a very important difference
between life and artificial.
Life lives. Artificial does not. That may seem self evident but the difference has been lost
in understanding. Life is alive and as such can not possibly permit an assumption of being 'off'
unless that 'off' were something altogether different than we perceive it to be in our creation of an
artificial world.
A clock is artificial. It performs a functions we humans designed for it to do based upon the
way we perceive existence to behave. It counts in increments upwards in longer periods of
duration. Seconds to minutes to hours to days. But there are shorter periods than seconds. And
it takes quite a deal of precision to artificially create the measurement of shorter and shorter
periods. It is the requirement of an artificial system. It can not be real so it has to adapt.
The living biological clock is natural and counts in increments downward in shorter periods
of duration. This guarantees a natural limit on one end of computations. That limit keeps the
biological clock and the living creature it controls being what it is. Acting how it does. Performing
tasks and making decisions how it does.
Unlike the artificial clock the biological clock starts at it's maximum but never uses it. It is
an established operating frequency. Increments of it are used to control differing levels of brain
computations. Input receptors do their reception twice a second. Muscles do their movement
functions 10 times a second. Between the 2 in and 10 out sequence is a host of varying levels
and different clock speeds all derived from one maximum operating frequency.
So in effect it can be said, based upon one perspective, that the function processes of life
are upside down to the functioning processes of the artificial systems we have designed to mimic
life. From the other perspective it can be said that artificial systems are upside down to the
natural way of computational processing and that is the stumbling block.
It is this upside down perception that has kept the greatest minds in science from 'seeing'
fact. It does not appear when the vision is trained to see upside down.
Perception
It is well known that the visual process of the brain 'sees' what the eye's receptors send to
it. And that 'sight' is upside down to the reality of the vision. The brain functions in opposite sides
to it's inputs and outputs. How then does the brain 'see' upside down and act right side up?
If you've ever sat upon a see saw you know how. Down goes one side up goes the other. It
is a transfer of energy applied to one side to an expulsion of energy at the other side. Upside
down input can result in right side up output but it is the center post, the bridge of the teeter
totter, that is required to transfer the energy.
In the brain that center post is the process of mental computation. But as unlike the
evenly balanced teeter totter where a 50 pound kid will launch his little sister, balance another 50
pound kid and hardly budge his parent the brain has 2 per second in and 10 per second out.
From an artificial perspective that would be an increase in power. Quite difficult if not
impossible to duplicate by mechanical means without pulleys and ropes or a cantilever off
balance center post. Artificial applications of the distribution of energy.
How then is 2 in and 10 out achieved? By the single controlling living biological clock
functioning in upside down fashion.
Making Sense
Remember the clocks in the room? All running from a single quartz frequency with each
one beginning it's cycle on a different wave of the frequency the results are staggered and
blending and therefore seemingly continuous in their output of clicks. Let us use those
simultaneous clocks as a logical process and perform a computation using only the clock clicks.
To begin, we establish 100 of the clocks as our input receptors. We remove the second
and minute hands from these 100 clocks as they are dedicated to only perform a single task.
Then we set them to begin their cycles so that each clock's hour hand clicks twice each second.
We do that by assigning each clock a firing pattern of once every 17,860 cycles. Keeping in mind
that each click represents a value received by the receptor.
Next, we assign another group of clocks as the first level of memory. These clocks will
compare the value of their clicks to the value of the input receptor's clicks at a faster rate. We
want these clocks to function at a 30 to 1 ratio to the input clock clicks. So each one is assigned
to a firing pattern of every 595 cycles. The minute hand is left on these clocks to click 30 times
for each input click or 60 times per second. The result of this value comparison is sent to the
second memory (mid term) which also functions at 60 times per second.
Next, we assign another group of clocks as the third memory (short term) and we use the
second hand alone to display this movement. We want this function to operate at a 30 to 1 ratio
to the second memory's click rate. So we assign each clock to fire it's pattern once every 19
cycles. The result of that computation of values is sent back to the third memory. This 'back
action' as noted Physicist Jack Sarfatti has theorized is what permits humans to be conscious.
Aware of self.
The base operating frequency varies from creature to creature with some even and some
odd in count. The example shown above is only one such frequency.
This process has built the center post to our brain's teeter totter. But unlike the
conventional artificial teeter totter the center post of the brain is not a single point in the middle.
It is the entire length of the board. input places a value into the system. Output expels a value
out of the system. So the weights of both are not felt by the system.
The input was right side up. The system made it upside down. That means another part of
the system is still necessary to 'convert' the values back to right side up. This is the limbic
system.
On The Other End
The hypothalamus, and parts of the thalamus sometimes considered a functionally related
collection of parts called the limbic system is thought to be involved particularly with the sense of
smell and with certain complex emotional responses, but it also plays a role in regulating basic
body functions.
One part of that regulation is in it's conversion of upside down brain functioning values into
right side up brain outputs. It operates at 10 cycles per second which means our clocks
assigned to this function would fire their pattern every 3572 cycles. With a steady stream of
values entering the limbic system every 595 cycles for subconscious movements and every 19
cycles for conscious movements the output to muscle groupings and body functions is quite
smooth.
Even though the muscles will only function in varying values 10 times per second that is
10 times per second per computational pathway. In between those values is a value sent in
opposition of the muscles movement. So that which is sent is a 'don't rest' value.
To Wilson and McNaughton the major difference was that the firing was more rapid, as if
the memories were being run on fast-forward. The firing occurred during slow wave sleep.
Looking at signals being received from the unconscious brain of a rat the signals would indeed
seem fast.
What did Wilson and McNaughton observe? The subconscious computation of the rat. As
fast as the rat's brain can compute.
Karni and Sagi disrupted the sleep of volunteers after they had had a training session.
Interfering with the subjects' slow-wave sleep had no significant effect. But an equivalent
disruption of REM sleep, kept the subjects from improving overnight. Looking at training results
being received from the conscious brain of a human would indeed interrupt only when the
conscious level is active. REM sleep.
What was it that Karni and Sagi observed? Was it something totally foreign to the
foundations made by Wilson and McNaughton? Not at all. Not foreign just not the same.
The article then concluded that the experiments lend support to a theory advanced by
Jonathan Winson of the Rockefeller University that dreams represent, in effect, "practice
sessions" in which animals hone survival skills. Another observational illusion.
Why did Karni and Sagi detect memory consolidation during REM sleep and Wilson and
McNaughton only during slow-wave sleep? The answer seems to be that each group studied a
different type of memory, one involving a highly repetitious task and the other the recollection of
a place.
When in effect each group studied a different type of memory processing, one involving
subconscious (as the rat is not capable of consciousness yet acquires REM sleep in a lower
computational level) memory comparison that function at a greater speed than input and one
involving conscious memory processing that occurs during REM sleep. Red apples and green
apples. Both apples yet from separate trees.
When does all of this start to take place? At the moment the brain is formed. When does
all of this cease to take place? At the moment the brain ceases to function. Each, a stage of
development of the brain.
So what makes the rhythm of the plants differ from us? Plants do not compute their inputs
in comparison to previous inputs. They react to their values in comparison to established value
norms. Brains compute the inputs and react to the values of them compared to the values of
memory. One brain is different from another as one is only able to compute based upon previous
input. The other is able to compute based upon previous comparisons to previous comparisons
of previous comparisons.
In between are the enormous variations of mental abilities and the wonderful levels of the
development of life that are the creatures that make this world all that more interesting to ask ....
Why?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ahlgren, Andrew, and Halberg, Franz. Cycles of Nature (Natural Science Teachers, 1990).
Angier, Natalie. Modern Life Suppresses an Ancient Body Rhythm. (New York Times 1995)
Associated Press, Advance Reported On Internal Clock Gene. (Boston Globe 1994)
Foreman Judy, Globe Staff. Boston Team Pinpoints Man's Biological Clock. (Boston Globe 1988)
Glass, Leon, and Mackey, M.C. From Clocks to Chaos (Princeton Univ. Press,1988).
Jespersen,James . Watch And Clock. (Comptons Encyclopedia 1995)
Lerner, Eric J. Early History of Timekeeping. (Comptons Encyclopedia 1995)
Leutwyler, Kristin. Depression's Double Standard. (Scientific American Library 1995)
Waterhouse, J.M., and others. Your Body Clock (Oxford Univ. Press, 1990).
Winfree, A.T. The Timing of Biological Clocks (Scientific American Library,1993).
