The Human Nervous System Is A Pretty Damn Impressive Thing
Via Scientific American… It’s not only our brains that make us stand out from the rest of the critters here on planet Earth. Brains actually receive a lot of pre-processed input. Turns out our auditory system has a few neat tricks of its own too…
Anyone with normal hearing can distinguish between the musical tones in a scale: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. We take this ability for granted, but among most mammals the feat is unparalleled.
This finding is one of many insights into the remarkable acuity of human hearing garnered by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, reported in January in the journal Nature.
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The study revealed that groups of exquisitely sensitive neurons exist along the auditory nerve on its way from the ear to the auditory cortex. In these neurons natural sounds, such as the human voice, elicit a completely different and far more complex set of responses than do artificial noises such as pure tones. In this mixed environment humans can easily detect frequencies as fine as one twelfth of an octave—a half step in musical terminology.
The vexing question is: Why? Bats are the only mammal with a better ability to hear changes in pitch than humans do. Predatory species such as dogs are not nearly as sensitive—they can discriminate resolutions of one third of an octave. Even our primate relatives do not come close: macaques can resolve only half an octave. These results suggest the fine discrimination of sound is not a necessity for survival.
More likely, the researchers speculate, humans use their fine hearing to facilitate working memory and learning capabilities, but more research is needed to explore this puzzle.
I have a strong hunch about that. It isn’t memory and learning. It’s communication. Speech. Try this sometime while listening to people around you chatting: try to ignore the words and just listen to the sounds of the voices as if you were listening to birds, or dogs or some other animals. Humans have an Amazing range of vocalizations. You think birds are good at it, but compared to humans birds are johnny one-notes. Think of how much information is conveyed by tone of voice alone, in a conversation.
Consider the sentence "The cow jumped over the moon". A human speaking those words could convey astonishment or indifference or anger or fear simply by how they inflect the speaking of that string of words. Just by slightly changing the inflection on the word "moon" you can change the sentence from a statement into a question. It’s not just cadence. It’s tone. The better you can decode tone, the better you can tell what other people mean…how they feel…the better you can grasp what is being said. And not only that, but the greater becomes the potential bandwidth of communication. Because now information can be carried by both words and tone of voice.
Tone is the first language we have. Human infants don’t do words. They do coos and gurgles and squeals and cries. A human sitting not far from a baby knows exactly how it’s feeling by all the little non-verbal vocalizations it’s making. Is it content? Is it delighted? Is it curious? Is it upset? Does it need its diapers changed? It needs to tell you these things and it can’t if it has to use words it hasn’t had time to learn yet. But as we grow older, we don’t discard the language of tone. In fact, it grows and develops along with us. We learn to use it better…more deftly…just like we do our verbal languages. How much is conveyed by lovers to one another, simply by a sigh? And the longer a couple has been together, the more intimately they learn each other’s tone signals. Like music, how the words are spoken goes right to the heart.
That’s why we evolved the more highly attenuated detection of tone. It’s a communication thing. The bigger brain needed it. Words alone weren’t enough. And I’ll bet this is why music affects us so profoundly, yet so irrationally. Recall this from the article…
In these neurons natural sounds, such as the human voice, elicit a completely different and far more complex set of responses than do artificial noises such as pure tones.
Music isn’t pure tones though. Not even minimalist scores like those of Philip Glass. A gathering of instruments in an orchestra, or even a single instrument playing a melody all by itself, produces a complex layering of tones that I’ll bet hits those neuron in just the same way. It Is communication, but a different kind. It’s communication that goes right past the logical analytical brain with its ear for words, to the heart, which listens to tones. Tone was the first language.
The stereotype of our pre-human ancestors is that they communicated in simple grunts and barks. Perhaps. But even without language yet, those vocalizations may have carried a lot of information in them simply by tone alone. Language evolved from those vocalizations, and gave them more precision, because the growing brain needed that. But as our capacity for language developed and grew, so did our capacity to decode tone, because that was also a channel of communication. But they’re different channels. The logical rational brain likes words. The emotional intuitive brain responds to tone. When interacting with others, the one who can decode both those things best has a big advantage.
So Orpheus probably didn’t tame the savage beasts by the sound of his lyre, because the beasts are mostly tone deaf. But the beast within…yeah. Absolutely. Here’s an experiment: Humans that are tone deaf, or who have difficulty decoding tone…how well do they interact socially?
You Thought They Jumped On The Anti-Gay Bandwagon Just Yesterday Did You?
People seem to be discovering that, surprise, surprise, the Mormon church has been working against gay equality for a bit longer then just Proposition 8…
This memo was reportedly sent from a LDS General Authority to a member of the Quorum of the Twelve.
It deals with the issue of same-sex marriage and it is dated, March 4, 1997.
This eleven-year-old memo gives a glimpse into President Gordon B. Hinckley’s strategy for dealing with same-sex marriage.
It talks of a meeting with President Hinckley who reportedly said to "move ahead" with the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage.
This memo also discusses joining forces with the Catholic Church, saying:
"…the public image of the Catholic Church is higher than our Church. In other words, if we get into this, they are the ones with which to join."
But President Hinckley apparently urged caution as the memo makes clear, "he (President Hinckley) also said the (LDS) Church should be in a coalition and not out front by itself.
And this is a key point…
You best believe it is. They’ve been waging a semi-stealth campaign against gay people for a decade now, and probably much longer then that. It’s not surprising in the least, coming from a religion that declared black skinned people got their skin color because their spirit ancestors defied God. The mindset that the different ‘other’ wasn’t really human was there right from the beginning.
You may have heard that an Australian named Matthew Mitcham won the gold in the 10 meter diving event. You may have heard that in doing so, he broke the Chinese sweep of the diving events. You may have heard that a string of disappointments some years ago caused him to drop out of the sport briefly and that his comeback this year was the end result of a lot of very hard and determined work. What you might not have heard, if your only exposure to the China Olympics was our mainstream news media, is that Mitcham is openly gay…
According to OutSports.com, of the 10,708 athletes at the Olympics this year, just 10 have identified themselves publicly as being gay. Of the 10, Australian diver Matthew Mitcham is the only male gay athlete.
NBC did not mention Mitcham’s orientation, nor did they show his family and partner who were in the stands. NBC has made athletes’ significant others a part of the coverage in the past, choosing to spotlight track athlete Sanya Richards’ fiancee, a love triangle between French and Italian swimmers and Kerri Walsh’s wedding ring debacle.
As Atrios said the other day: love triangle okay…gay, not so much.
There are two parts to the culture of violence toward gay people. The first is the relentless demonization of gay people. By churches, by religious leaders, by politicians and their parties, by bigots with a platform. The public is told we are a threat to children, to families, to society, to the very existence of the human race. We are portrayed as sexual predators, disease spreading sociopaths, self-centered narcissistic parasites on society. We are said to be shallow, vain, self-centered and interested only in self gratification on the one hand, and self-hating, self-destructive and miserable on the other. When we are not dangerous sociopaths we are contemptible faggots. The other part is the silencing of gay voices. Where we are not allowed to tell our own stories, in our own voices, where social invisibility is imposed upon us, as though we are a dirty secret best kept away from view, the only voices that are heard, are the voices of those who hate us. The hatemongers go unanswered, and this is what happens…
Oh…and this…
I now feel very fortunate that I was able to spend some private time with Matt last summer during my vacation from Saudi Arabia. We sat and talked. I told Matt that he was my hero and that he was the toughest man that I had ever known. When I said that, I bowed down to him out of respect for his ability to continue to smile and keep a positive attitude during all the trials and tribulations that he had gone through. He just laughed. I also told him how proud I was because of what he had accomplished and what he was trying to accomplish. The last thing I said to Matt was that I loved him, and he said he loved me. That was the last private conversation that I ever had with him.
Impact on my life? My life will never be the same. I miss Matt terribly. I think about him all the time—at odd moments when some little thing reminds me of him; when I walk by the refrigerator and see the pictures of him and his brother that we’ve always kept on the door; at special times of the year, like the first day of classes at UW or opening day of sage chicken hunting. I keep wondering almost the same thing that I did when I first saw him in the hospital. What would we have become? How would he have changed his piece of the world to make it better?
Impact on my life? I feel a tremendous sense of guilt. Why wasn’t I there when he needed me most? Why didn’t I spend more time with him? Why didn’t I try to find another type of profession so that I could have been available to spend more time with him as he grew up? What could I have done to be a better father and friend? How do I get an answer to those questions now? The only one who can answer them is Matt. These questions will be with me for the rest of my life. What makes it worse for me is knowing that his mother and brother will have similar unanswered questions.
Impact on my life? In addition to losing my son, I lost my father on November 4, 1998. The stress of the entire affair was too much for him. Dad watched Matt grow up. He taught him how to hunt, fish, camp, ride horses, and love the state of Wyoming. Matt, Logan, dad, and I would spend two to three weeks camping in the mountains at different times of the year—to hunt, to fish, and to goof off. Matt learned to cook over an open fire, tell fishing stories about the one that got away, and to drive a truck from my father. Three weeks before Matt went to the Fireside Bar for the last time, my parents saw Matt in Laramie. In addition, my father tried calling Matt the night that he was beaten but received no answer. He never got over the guilt of not trying earlier. The additional strain of the hospital vigil, being in the hospital room with Matt when he died, the funeral services with all the media attention and the protesters, [and] helping Judy and me clean out Matt’s apartment in Laramie a few days later was too much. Three weeks after Matt’s death, dad died. Dad told me after the funeral that he never expected to outlive Matt. The stress and the grief were just too much for him. Impact on my life? How can my life ever be the same again?
Excerpt of Dennis Shepard’s Statements to the Court
November 4, 1999
There are two parts to the culture of violence toward gay people…and to all minorities. The first is hate. The second is that silencing of the voices of the hated, which allows hate to go unchallenged and unquestioned. Last week a young Australian diver, after a difficult struggle to come back from burnout and defeat, won a gold medal for the 10 meter dive, beating out the best of the Chinese diving team. You were allowed to know that. He is openly gay, and his parents and his lover were there to support him in his quest for the gold. He said his boyfriend was part of the support network that made his dream possible. You weren’t allowed to know that. Because then you might start wondering about all those things you were taught about homosexuals.
And then you might start wondering why the news media doesn’t give a damn.
I’m copying the following from Brad DeLong’s blog comments in their entirety. Some days you read the news and you just want to write off the human race altogether. When those moments hit you, it’s good to be able to keep things in perspective…
Hoisted from Comments: The Dawn of Humanity
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Brad DeLong’s Semi-Daily Journal: The Dawn of Humanity: What astonishes me is the speed. They’ve got the origin date at -56,000, and the oldest modern human remains in Australia are -40,000. The route from East Africa across Asia to Northern Australia is 10K+ miles, which means humans were expanding at close to a mile a year. That’s just unbelievably fast.
We have all sorts of branches of homo surviving stably for a million plus years all over africa, asia, and europe, and this new branch comes out of Africa and by the end of the Great Migration, only a little over ten thousand years later, they are building boats to sail to Australia. And wiping out or out-competing every one of our homo sibling species on the way.
The Singularity is truly in our past.
Posted by: tavella | January 23, 2007 at 05:15 PM
Here’s a link, in case you’re wondering about that reference to "The Singularity". It was coined mostly to refer to advances in machine intelligence, but others have co-opted the term to refer to where the acceleration of change reaches a point where humanity itself simply becomes unrecognizable from anything we once were. Those ancient branches of the humanoid family tree, long gone now, would certainly never comprehend us now, but they probably didn’t back when we first emerged, and they first laid eyes on us.
We can do this…we can survive. We can endure. We can find our way to the stars. Maybe it’ll take another ten thousand years. But we’ll do it. And in another 56 thousand years they’ll be looking back in amazement at how quickly we did it…
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