An Open Letter to Neuroscience

[kenneth paul collins]

Stephan Anagnostaras wrote:
> 
> No, that's not why.

..."no that's not why" with respect to what? 

>  You present yourself as the messiah of neuroscience;

Stephan, I know what I've done... I know with certainty that I have, for 
instance, completely resolved the question of why decussation occurs 
ubiquitously within mamallian CNSs... a long-standing problem... I've 
discussed it here... apparently, no one recognized the magnitude of the 
problem that was being resolved... what can I say? if one can post an 
easily-verified explanation of why decussation occurs in a Neuroscience place, 
and no one "celebrates", it means only one thing... the Neuroscience 
educational process is failing to give students what they need to do 
Neuroscience...

> you have ideas that are not based on other people's work, and seem to
> be invented out of thin air.

...what you say is False... everything within the "Automation of Knowing..." 
ms, for instance, is constructed exclusively from the published Neuroscience 
experimental results... if you think it's otherwise, then you're comments are 
with respect to yourself... you don't know enough Neuroscience to recognize 
Neuroscience when it's laid in your lap...

> This is the hallmark of a bad scientist. 

...we agree

> There is no such thing as a visionary in science, only innovators.

...I don't know about "visionaries"... but there are plenty of 
"revolutionaries"... Copernicus, Gallileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, the list 
goes on an on... because of the way our nervous systems process information, 
it is, in fact, most-likely that breakthroughs arise within the minds of 
individuals... this is all explained, in a way that reduces to the proven 
Neuroscience experimental results, in the work that you dismiss without even 
trying to understand...

> The worst thing is that you actually do sound manic with talk as "I will 
> bring the truth to neuroscience," " the great fight," etc.

...these are False attributions... if you are going to quote me, quote me... 
don't imagine words and attribute them to me...

> I have been around a lot of psychiatric patients, and I'm not kidding that I 
> hear the same kind of stuff all the time.

...do you think I do not understand the likelihood of knee-jerk reactions such 
as you express...? Tell me, how does knowing that folks will tend to react as 
you have "excuse" one from doing what is required of him as Scientist...? If 
the logic you offer were to determine things, virtually nothing would ever get 
accomplished... everyone would be paralyzed with the fear that someone would 
turn common notions against them to devastating effect... 

> If you have a half-way decent article, you will not have any trouble
> getting it published somewhere; sure you mgiht have trouble in a good
> journal, but given how easy it is to get a paper accepted in some bad
> journals at the very least you should have published this stuff.

...I have a densely-written 100-page document, just about every sentence of 
which can be expanded into a chapter-length article... what can anyone 
expect...? the document presents a unified theory of CNS function, after 
all... there's just no way to be "brief" re the CNS because the CNS is so 
massively integrated... so I wrote the doc in a densely-packed fashion, hoping 
that folks would deal with it because it's only about 100 pages... actually, 
the doc is 5 pages (discussing decussation), and 10 appendices for folks who 
wish to go further... all I've ever asked folks to deal with are the 5 
pages...

> Of course, the problem is you don't have any experiments, just vague nutty 
> ideas which are dreamed out of thin air.

...this is a False statement... what's presented in the "Automation of 
Knowing..." ms (AoK) is my own work... it's a synthesis... but everything in 
the doc reduces directly to the proven experimental results... I can 
demonstrate this before any Scientists, anywhere...

> Personally, I'm sick of your uninformed posts, to people who need
> accurate information.

...if you actually believe that it's so, why don't you =quote= something from 
what I've posted...?

> For example, someone recently asked about what the hippocampus does to which 
> you made a long, complicated and nonesensical response.

...this is False... my post was short and to the point... here it is:

=Yes HM... but, it is =important= to be clear about the fact that the
=hippocampus is not where the LTMs are stored... the hippocampi store
=supersystem =configuration= information... externally-relevant
=information is correlated with such configuration information, but only
=via an indirect route... basically, the hippocampi function as TD
=E/I-minimization "tools"... they blindly strive to achieve TD E/I(min),
=and the supersystem configurations are produced as by-products of the
=degrees to which TD E/I(min) is, in fact, achieved... it's the
=configurations that the hippocampus imposes upon the supersystem that
="hold the sypersystem steady" which enable LTM consolidation... of
=course, this "cascade" can be interfered with at many points... it's
=been the case that the hippocampi have been viewed as the "seat of
=memory" =only= because the hippocampi are so much more
=compactly-localized than is the rest of the neural architecture that's
=involved in the formation of LTM... if the hippocampi are lost, the
=effect is more dramatic re. memory than is, say, if an equivalent volume
=of non-primary neocortex is lost... but this doesn't mean that "memory"
=is "in" the hippocampi...

...one cannot reiterate everything upon which a point is based every time 
one discusses the point... in this post, I was referring back to my prior 
work... if you think what's here is "nonsensical", then if only you ask, I'll 
fill the gaps in your understanding...

> This is in the face that a great deal is known about what the hippocampus 
> does, because people have been doing experiments on it for at least 45 
> years. 

...yes, and all of that work is described in the literature... I've come here 
to discuss what's pointed to by the experimental results but which has not 
been written up in the literature... one cannot repeat everything... one 
depends upon folks' understanding...

> What's worse, your overconfident tone in your posts (also not the hallmark 
> of a scientist) might actually be taken by a newbie as being a sign that you 
> know what you're saying.

...Stephan, if you're so confident that I do not know Neuroscience, then why 
don't you put together the meanest bunch of Neuroscience critics on the 
planet, allow me to bring along fair witnesses, find a university library that 
will have us, lock the doors, and let us have at it... no one leaves until the 
matter is settled...

> Anyway, I'm wasting my time with you, since I'm just part of the
> conspiracy against you.

...no, you just don't know enough Neuroscience to understand... ken collins
_____________________________________________________
People hate because they fear, and they fear because
they do not understand, and they do not understand 
because hating is less work than understanding.