October 11, 2004

The Matrix! Vision! Reality! FERRETS. Recently, a University of Rochester scientist sat a bunch of ferrets down in front of a TV and had them watch “The Matrix.” He discovered that their visual cortexes worked like crazy even in the total absence of visual stimulus. (He observed this as the ferrets were watching Keanu Reeves emote. Wait, no, they were in a dark room.) Here’s the implication:

“This means that in adults, there is a tremendous amount of real-world processing going on—80 percent—when there is nothing to process,” says Weliky. “We think that if you’ve got your eyes closed, your visual processing is pretty much at zero, and that when you open them, you’re running at 100 percent. This suggests that with your eyes closed, your visual processing is already running at 80 percent, and that opening your eyes only adds the last 20 percent. The big question here is what is the brain doing when it’s idling, because it’s obviously doing something important.”

posted by sloan 20 years ago
  • I'm glad that this article starts off debunking the urban myth about people only using 10% of their brain. Whenever I try to debunk it, I get so much resistance that the myth starts to prove itself accurate. I think that the 80% of brain activity is thought (that sounds stupid and meaningless, I know. "Brain activity is thought? No shit?" I'll try to explain it better) When a person is thinking about something, they tend to form a visual image of it in their mind. Or at least I do. When I'm looking for my keys, I reproduce a visual image related to my keys, and I search through these images. When I come across something funny or interesting that I want to pass on to a friend, I artificially create a visual image of that proccess in my head. Even though it hasn't happened, and I haven't yet seen it, I still send visual information about it to my command center. So that 80% of brain activity in the visual command center is the reproduction of images that compliment the thinking process. When you sit in a dark room, you think about things. When you think about things, you imagine them visually. This requires activity from the visual cortex. I hope I'm making some sense. The words "thought" and "think" have multiple definitions, and I'm trying to use most of them at different times within one sentence. If I'm still haven't made sense yet, feel free to fling poo
  • Activity in the visual cortex has led some neurologists to say our brains are on some level(s) always dreaming, though this activity may not always surface into the awareness. Mind is ocean, these undersurrents, ongoing. Heart is fire, these reachings out, the burning.
  • No wonder I can't find my keys, I have an infinite loop of The Joy Suck Club playing in my head.
  • i heart beeswacky
  • *hearts the _bone* My hat's off to anyone able to get a ferret to sit down, let alone get one to sit still enough to watch TV. The ones I've met seem to be ncessantly questiong wee beasties when awake!
  • I gots sum ferrets with me. I got two ferrets named Jesus & Slasher.
  • *hearts Nostril, Jesus & Slasher* What a name for a law firm!
  • Wow, this is really neat. Good one (even if it did come from MeFi)!
  • *laughs, mostly in relief* Ah, well, homunculus, there are worse fates than to be dressed like a leprechaun.
  • What a name for a law firm! Pretty good, pretty good!
  • Their first case can be to sue Bush for sexual harrasment.