DrmDoc

If you are serious, you're suggesting that the brain is merely a prism and the mind a projection from some outer-body location. If true, can you prove it? Can you prove, beyond belief or faith alone, that mind is a product of something other than brain function?

For those of us experiencing the latest North American Snowmaggedon, here's a link to a DNews YouTube video on the physiological effects of winter. Enjoy!

Mind, in my opinion, is the environment of cognitive activity within the brain that arises from brain function. In the brain, a mind is quantified by a functional capacity to integrate diverse sensory input (visual, tactile, auditory, etc.) through a process that produces behaviors independent of instinct. Essentially, a mind enables and evinced by proactive rather than reactive behaviors. I arrived at this perspective through the research I did several years ago for a book about the dreaming brain. In my opinion, a mind cannot exist without a neurological network (or equivalent) as its progenitor. I welcome your thoughts.

I've given this question of bonding through mutual survival interests a little more thought. I think all of this is predicated on whether our ancestors actually evolved pack-hunting large prey without weapons and without the examples they may have observed and learned from other animals. I don't think large game hunting among our most immediate ancestors could have successfully occurred without weapons. I think it likely that the first weapons were used in defense against predators rather than in hunting. The effectiveness of these weapons likely allowed our ancestors to evolve from being prey and scavengers to being pack-hunters who initially commandeered the prey of competitors and then hunted their own prey. Hunting in packs by wolves likely evolved long before our ancestors created their first tools or weapons for hunting larger game. I think it likely that our ancestors evolved their hunting strategy from the examples of predators they observed while scavenging. With weapons, early humans were likely able to partner in pack-hunts with animals who gain their proficiency thousands of years before our ancestors left the forest for the savannah. So I think it likely that humans joined the hunt initially rather than led the hunt.

Here's a link to a Washington Post article which contains another link to the published paper on the discovery.

Thanks for the link and I agree that tool use offered significant advantages. Have you considered Moontanman's example of observed cooperation between contemporary species of African primates and canines as a reflection of the initial human-canine bonding process pre-tool?

A cooperation that grew out of a mutual survival interest--as evinced by somewhat comparable contemporary species--is very convincing indeed. Perhaps this is the likely beginning of the human-canine bond. Thank you for your insight.

No doubt you've already heard, but here is a link to the article. Enjoy!

You've made a very valid point; however, I can't get around how much more intelligent our ancestors likely were. An intelligent species does indeed create tools and devise strategies that reflect their superiority. I think intelligent species are more likely to use the labor of other species, as a strategy, than risk injury and expend calories in pursuits other species can engage for them. It was likely less risky to steal the prey of predators injured or exhausted by their pursuits. Among competing species, wouldn't this have been the wisest strategy?

I agree that this added vigilance was likely a great advantage to evolve village living but I do think about the initial stages of this symbiosis where both humans and canine likely viewed the other as either competitor or prey. Initially, our ancestors must have slept with one eye open for fear of being attacked. Mutual trust must have been hard earn by both species.

Thanks for the repost, it seems that domestication may have involved a gradual process but could it have been the reverse of what we think about that process? Where humans participated in wolf hunts? Which do you think is more likely, that a faster, likely more efficient predator species followed our ancestors to prey or that our ancestors commandeer and shared the slaughtered prey of these efficient hunters? I think it more likely that our ancestors were wise opportunist who took advantage of the skills of lesser intelligent species. I welcome your further thoughts.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this link to a very interesting article on the current search for the origin of canine domestication. The article has a link to works suggesting that the relationship between human and ancient wolf may have been "parasitic" in nature rather than a result of wolf pup capture and breeding. The article also discusses evidence suggesting that this relationship may have began 30,000 years ago rather than 15,000 as many researchers believe. There is a collaborative effort now exploring all facets of canine evolution including its genome as a way of understanding its human impact. What do you think?

Although, from that abstract, the researchers believe their study results "give support for most of the predictions drawn from TST (Threat Simulation Theory)", I agree that dreaming was likely not adapted for that purpose. I believe the brain activations that precipitate dreaming are a byproduct of the neurometabolic processes that occur amid sleep as I have previously described. However, this neurometabolic distinction could be useful in understanding how the dreaming brain generates dream content that some have found to be of particularly real value.

If I understand, you've imagined how collective communication, if a possibility, might occur. Although you may link that possibility to the mechanisms of what some consider a mother's intuition, you should probably consider those intuitive mechanism as more terrestrially based. I think a mother's continual concern and vigilance likely produces the faux impression of intuition. Most mothers, I think, remain concern and vigilant even when a child is not in distress. So they will monitor their children's welfare even at a distance. On those occasions when they find real cause, I think we misinterpret a result of vigilance as intuition when it is not. However, it isn't beyond the realm of science to consider the subliminal nature of our behavior and exchanges and how that nature may influence dream content. Here is some historical content on the root of the subject. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. In a previous post to this thread I wrote: There’s a popular theory suggesting that dreaming evolved and persists as a preparatory means for potential survival threats and pivotal social experiences. The idea is that dreaming gave our evolving ancestors a means to simulate potential encounters without incurring irrevocable consequences. This 2005 study appears to support this dream-for-survival theory. Do you think it likely that some dream simulations have precisely presaged a real survival or social consequence or outcome? For example, Abraham Lincoln’s dream? Although I’m not sure that Lincoln’s dream is a unique experience for a sitting wartime president under continual threat, I think such dreams can occur. However, I disagree with why they likely occur.​ In retrospect, perhaps forecast would have been a better word choice than either precognitive or presage because it infers a prediction based on the collection of data, which is something I believe our brain subliminally or unconsciously does. However, precognitive is the correct nomenclature for the relevant dream type. I welcome your further thoughts.

Most eloquently explained; I have a lot to study and I greatly appreciate all the insight you've shared, thank you. NOTE TO MODERATORS: Please remove the negative rating on the previous post. I mistakenly selected the wrong arrow to register my approval of Mordred's post. I don't normally rate posts but was moved to do so because of his very helpful efforts. Thank you.

If I understand correctly, dark energy is conceived as a pressure-like or inflationary force filling the universe rather than some matter-intervening field of energy? I appreciate your continued indulgence.

Is dark energy considered the opposing force of both gravity and electromagnetism? As the theorized force behind the increasingly rapid expansion of our universe and eventual destroyer of atomic cohesion, can dark energy be viewed as an antimatter-like force opposite to gravity and electromagnetism?

At the risk of incurring the wrath of Jung's followers, I believe that his ideas were heavily influenced by his religious upbringing and his theories encompass what were likely aspects of his religious ideal. However, the idea that we may experience similar dreams because of our share conscious experiences is not beyond the realm of science. For example, the parents of a trouble or sickly child may experience similar dreams reflecting their shared conscious concerns for the child. Although this isn't telepathy, this would be a type of dream experience reflecting their shared unconscious concerns.

I think this is an interesting concept. From what we know of the metabolic processes of the brain, our mental processes consume energy (ATP) and obsessive thoughts may influence overconsumption causing a build-up of metabolic waste (adenosine, beta amyloids, etc.) and a depletion of our energy reserves (glycogen) in the affected brain areas. This waste likely impedes cellular potential, which is something to consider. Thank you for sharing your insight.

I'm familiar with some of the research of this topic and have reviewed several anecdotal reports. Here is a link to an article where you will find additional links to some of the available research. Although I believe in the extraordinary possibilities of our unconscious mind, my impression of the research I've reviewed regarding dream telepathic hasn't been favorable. I felt that the criteria for favorable telepathic hits weren't as rigid as it should be for a reliable scientific study. In such studies, vaguely similar hits were consider acceptable. Even those studies that appear to show solid hits did not account for how the shared conscious experiences, between the dream sender and receiver, influences their dream conceptions. In my view, people who share the same conscious concerns are more likely to have similar dreams about those concerns. This doesn't suggest that telepathy isn't possible but that we have to be more objective in our research approach. I welcome your further thoughts.

Ok, let see if we can come to some resolution. Here is a link to an abstract of the paper published in the Quaternary International upon which the first article (Gigantopithecus) is based. In that abstract, the paper's authors state that "A large spectrum of diets has been suggested for Gigantopithecus, ranging from carnivorous or grass-feeding in open savannah to a vegetarian diet dominated by fruits or bamboo." By this, the authors' operant appears to be a suggestion of a fruit or bamboo dominated diet rather than a conclusion. The authors go on to say that "The carbon stable isotopic composition of tooth enamel of this taxon compared to coeval and extant mammals from Southeastern Asia show that Gigantopithecus was a forest-dweller with a generalist vegetarian diet and was not specialized on bamboos." Clearly, the author of the first article inferred that the researchers exclusion of a bamboo eating taxa meant a dominance of fruit in Giganto's diet. This paper's authors clearly did not make that distinction in their abstract. In fact, grass-feeding was also a suggested operant that remain an excluded distinction.

Your right; however, the article goes on to say that they where strict vegetarians suggesting that their diet subsisted of other vegetation that became scarce during the Ice Age. The author further states that these large apes were likely not adapted for climbing trees and swinging from tree limb which, in my opinion, made fruit harvesting difficult regardless of abundance. The author also suggest that small apes were better adapted for the increasing savannah by subsisting on grasses and roots, which should have been easy for a strict vegetarian but likely not sufficient, in my opinion, for an animal of its size.

From the article: Examining slight variations in carbon isotopes found in tooth enamel, Bocherens and an international team of scientists showed that the primordial King Kong lived only in the forest, was a strict vegetarian, and probably wasn't crazy about bamboo. I reviewed the article and could find no specific reference to fruit. Although I titled this topic as a question, I was merely paraphrasing the title of the article to which I provided the above link. I found the article interesting and thought I might share it here.

I see; virtual particles not necessarily photons in the classical sense. So, if I now understand correctly, a field of photon-like particles, as quantum mathematics infer or conclude, maintains the attraction between atomic particles. Also, it isn't proper to think of that field as we might a field of light photons? I know that things get weird the deeper we peer, which isn't comforting but remains so very fascinating. Thank you Strange and swansont for sharing your insights.

The extinction of Gigantopithecus probably isn't news but new evidence on the probable cause of that extinction was recently published. They stood about 9 feet and are cousin to the Asian orangutan. A group researching the remains of teeth found that during an Ice Age, about 100,000 years ago, they likely could not adapt to the diminishing supply of the vegetation that serve their huge dietary needs. The link above will take you to the article. I welcome your thoughts.