Slashdot Mirror
Tool Use Is Just a Trick of the Mind
TwistedOne151 writes to recommend a ScienceNOW article describing the work of a team of Italian neurobiologists who have found the roots of the capacity for tool use in the primate brain: the brain treats the tool as part of the body. The experiment as described is passing clever.
So, essentially, a computer is an extension of my body?
Concievably, input, output, and expected responses could be considered an extension, but what about thought process? Is this similar to the human body considering a crutch as an extension of the body while walking?
Somehow, I sense that "tool" is too broad of a word, or perhaps too distorted of a definition, to be used when referring to, well, tools. If I give a thousand monkeys one typewriter each, does that typerwriter become considered as an extension? I can understand a pair of pliers being considered a mechanical extension to the hand, but what about the actually pressing of keys?
I've met some people who really are tools! Fortunately, they're usually marketing.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
By this logic, guys with small penii should have trouble using a hammer.
Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
Does that make me a cyborg now?
It's interesting to have scientific confirmation of this. I've often considered how it is that humans are so well adapted to controlling vehicles. (e.g. driving a car, flying a plane, etc.) It didn't take much consideration to come to the conclusion that the vehicle becomes an extension of the driver. You stop thinking in terms of your physical body's size and start thinking in terms of your vehicle's size. You stop paying attention to the sensations on your skin and start paying attention to the vibrations and force feedback that are transmitted through the vehicle. Even your visual patterns change as you begin checking various mirrors, gauges, windows, and other situational monitoring devices.
Perhaps nothing is more telling than the data published on crashes. I don't have the figures in front of me right now, but I recall that you're significantly more likely to survive a crash if you're sitting on the driver's side (either the driver himself or the passenger in the back) than if you're sitting in the passenger seat. When this was investigated, it was found that the natural (and often unconcious) reaction in a crash situation is for the driver to turn his side of the vehicle away from the situation in an attempt to protect himself. Sort of the vehicular equivalent of throwing up your arms to stop a blow to the face.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
So, physical tool use in primates is result of a trick of the mind... activating and training certain regions of neurons to perceive the new tool as part of the body... what does it mean that I use a computer which is a mental tool? Does that mean my psyche is extended into my computer? If so, it would explain a great many things...
I feel like I sort of knew this already. It make sense. In a video game I don't think about smashing "A", "B", or "X", "Y" I just think about the action I want to perform and I hit the right keys... after a learning period. Same with touch typing. I just think about characters and they come out of the keyboard. But, I can't think without a computer anymore... or at least if I don't have one I feel like part of my mind has gone missing. Perhaps it's the part that can spell? I mean I've got the firefox spell checker plugin or else this post would be full of badly spelled words.
[signature]
For years, I wore watches on my left wrist. (Nonstop, from 1996 to about 2004; also a lot of the time from 1990-1994.) It got to the point that I would look at my wrist for the time, even if I wasn't wearing the watch, and I would feel like a part of me was missing if I didn't have the watch on.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Humans treat tools as an extension of ourselves? Amazing. How much grant money did they spend on that gem?
Although the article is interesting and the research findings seem to be somewhat reasonable, I would be especially interested in applying a similar experiment to birds. Some birds, it should be said, have the ability to not only use wires to grab items in experiments, but can use a wire to open a box to get a key to open a door. They can also bend the wire as needed in order to achieve their goal. If we assume they also think of the tool as a part of the body, this does not at all explain how tool manipulation arose (you don't see animals reshaping their limbs in order to achieve a certain task).
I guess the point here is that the finding is interesting from a topological perspective (which area of the brain is active in tool use), but doesn't at all approach the more interesting, deeper questions of how an animal can construct a tool for a particular purpose.
But how else would you use a tool besides "as extensions of the body?" Isn't that the whole point of those sort of tools?
The study sounds really cool, but to be perfectly honest, I don't find it at all riveting. We developed a highly dextrous hand and fingers, complete with opposable thumbs, and so we use them. It wasn't an instant process, though. Our basic hand got every so slightly more flexible, and with this came a new ability to perform slightly more complex mechanisms. This allowed our hand and fingers to get even more flexible and so on and so forth. That is was a gradual process lends itself to the thought that these things developed together - our coordination is not because of our hands and our hands are not because of our coordination. The brain would be remiss in not sensing that we had a new extension when holding pliers since the pliers are "attached" to our hand in a similar way that walls are attached to the ground. That would be akin to not being aware of our own bodies, and since we're quite capable of not bumping into door ways and can recognize a mirror when we see one, we seem to be doing just fine.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
It should be no surprise that the brain treats tools as an extension of the body, because that's exactly what tools are.
There is nothing that we do which does not affect the outside world. And there is nothing we do which the outside world does not affect. The illusion is in the initial perception of separateness and not in the realization that it is part of us.
Treating the world as an extension of ourselves is a form of enlightenment, not trickery.
Wow! Where do I start? I think I'll just say that I have always considered my tool to be an extension of my body, but I do not think it's root is in my brain.
Sorry, I just could not resist.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Didn't marshal mcluhan say something like this 3 decades ago?
:(
when i was a kid my mom made me take tennis lessons, and the tennis teacher always used to say "treat the tennis racquet as an extension of your hand; as if you were hitting the ball with your hand"
Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
Certainly explains Italian driving.
I just knew there was more to a guy's attatchment to his remote control. I just didn't know it ran so deep.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Well, this would add more weight to what my martial arts instructor always told me: "Treat your sword/weapon/etc. well, for it is an extension of your body and soul."
Consider when you touch-type that you're using a tool to produce data. To me, a fairly accomplished typist, typing on a keyboard is barely a step removed from telepathy - the thought occurs and the text appears.
One might consider a keyboard a 'data tool' in which the outputs are not the physical motion of a tool or limb, but rather information. So too, consider the information transferred in a mechanical limb the instructions to move are merely numbers. Presently, the bandwidth may be low but the increase in bandwidth of a trained prosthesis seems inevitable.
I predict that a 'data prosthesis' computer interface, in which information and commands from a user's brain are received either through stimulated nerves or muscle, is not something from the far future, but rather near future technology which could be achieved with the same training and feedback used in robotic replacement limbs. An experienced user will find it indistinguishable from touch-typing.
-Paul Pounds
so, my cellphone is an extention of my body?
does this explain why I get phantom rings in my leg, even when I left my phone at home?
-I only code in BASIC.-
"I've often considered how it is that humans are so well adapted to controlling vehicles. "
Not on initial exposure.
Competent driving requires time and practice...repetitive situations that are eventually rehearsed subconsciously (to the point of prediction) that make it appear that the driver is adept, when in actuality, there is a specific percentage of basic scenarios that have simply been memorized.
You can't take a driver used to a sub-compact and expect them to apply their familiarity with a small sedan to a large tractor-trailer, as an example. The process of rehearsal must be repeated, and certainly does not rely strictly on a given level of adaptation. It's all in the mind.
as i type on this keyboard, and my thoughts appear in the ether as a comment on slashdot, and then my thoughts generate responses from... um... tools
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
But everybody's experienced this: from art to videogames we extend our bodies and our minds with tools.
I guess we all agree that tools are indeed percepted as parts of our body. Even computers. I always marvel at the things I do with computers without even thinking about it. A few weeks ago I had to explain to my aunt, who had never used a computer or anything else then typing and browsing before, how to rip a CD and put it on het mp3 player. That was about as hard for me as explaining how to hold a pen and write with it. It comes so natural I don't even think about it. Our brains are miraculous things. How difficult would our lives be if we had to think about how to use the knife every time we want to make a sandwich!
BTW, is there anything known about diseases where people don't see tools as an extension of the body?
-- Cheers!
the world is your canvas.
If you're interested in facts I'll tell you what they are and I'll give you sources - Chomsky on The Big Idea
What's more fascinating to me is that someone got paid for this research. This is just common sense. Anyone that's ever gotten adept at any "tool" does not use it as an other but an addition to ones own body. A painter, a carpenter, a sculptor, a technician... all use their tools in this manner. To waste money to tell us what is so painfully obvious... *sigh*... it's just like studies that say smoking is bad for your lungs.
See Heidegger's Hammer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heideggerian_terminology#Ready-to-Hand
The moment where you cease seeing a tool as a tool, and start "just using it". Ubiquitous Computing's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing) philosophy is based on the idea of embedding technology where you need it in a way that you cease to notice the interface.
Seems to me that they solved some of the problem, but not the problem they were looking for. The F5 neurons in question appear to be the sort of task visualization center. As in, when you're operating a tool, from the remote crane on the space shuttle, to playing Super Mario Brothers, you imagine the task happening. If you're opening a ziploc bag, the opening task will be the same regardless of if you're using your hand, pliers, or reverse pliers (which close when they open and open when they close, according to the article) -- you imagine the ziploc bit getting prised apart. Apparently, since these neurons fire exactly the same way when they do their task, this is probably what they found.
The more important part, how the brain can sublimate operating complex machinery so that it doesn't require conscious thought to operate, isn't explained here. Shuttle operators are actually trained to treat the crane like an extension of their arm, video game players eventually move past the controls to directly control the player on the screen, experienced skiers just imagine themselves turning without consciously having to weight their skis or edge, etc. All of these tasks originally required a lot of conscious control and expenditure of brain power (and in the case of skiing, a lot of bruises). And as long as it stays at this level, it stays awkward and stilted. It is at the point in which you transcend the raw mechanics and are capable of controlling it at a higher level (which is what this study found), that the skier becomes graceful, the video game player can race through flaming rotating death traps in super mario brothers, and the space shuttle control can quickly and adroitly manipulate stuff.
The human brain really is a fascinating thing, and capable of really amazing feats, if you think about it.
They trick my mind pretty hard...
Name...That...Autocomplete!
interesting... not to be sexist about it, but i wonder if there is a gender component to this also. i know there are some distinct differences between the male and female brain. ...i get the feeling i just set someone up for a joke.
There is no spoon
Yeah, so there are some neurons that fire in grasping tasks. The same sort of task is done whether grasping is done with hands or with pliers, so we would expect some neurons to show the same firing pattern, just by virtue of the fact that we perceive the tasks as the same in some ways and that perception must take place in the brain. How does this mean our brain is tricked?
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
Isn't this simple "projection"? You use a screwdriver, you feel the surface of the screwdriver using the tip of the screwdriver. It should be obvious.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Did kdawson just call himself a tool?
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
I've studied this for a while, and even taken courses about this exact subject. For a detailed explanation of this principle and its background in philosophy/psychology, check http://www.amazon.com/What-Things-Philosophical-Reflections-Technology/dp/0271025409/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201672012&sr=8-1. I have that book on my shelf, and it sets off these theories against the background of "philosophy of technology" (as the general field is called), to explain why people (and other primates) can interact this way with tools.
Crows, well some of them, are able to not only use tools as an extension of their body, but they can MAKE the tool first. How many primates can do that? Movie of crow making and using a tool here.
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
So what about manipulative people that are known to use people as "tools." Does their manipulation activate any other regions of their brains in addition to tool use (other than the speech, body language, etc areas required to use such a tool)? Do they think of the person that they are trying to use as just a complex tool with a complex interface, or as something more? Do they have empathy for the person in that moment of manipulation? I think that the most severe and antisocial manipulators probably do treat people just like tools or (non-physical) extensions of their own bodies. Do we all think like that when we are trying to get something we want from someone, or is it more balanced with our feelings of empathy?
This reminds me of how I learned to hit a golf ball. For years, every time I tried it, it would just wizzle (is that a word?) along the ground for 15 or 20 feet.
Finally, one day, in frustration, I hit upon the answer--just think of it as a very low pitch baseball. I knew how to hit a baseball. Right then, I knew I had it and I tured to my friends and said, "watch this"--and sure enough it went flying.
It's all in the head.
expandfairuse.org
There's a very interesting book that lays out an argument about treating tools about part of the body in detail. It's called Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. Check it out, it's an interesting read.
Human/Ranger/Zangband
You are the spoon.
And then Neo was an extension of his own mind.
This sounds just like the function of a driver. Allow a generic process to control a more specific one. Just consider the learning curve to be the development of the brain's "driver" for a particular tool and the analogy sticks.
This may explain the innate appeal of the wii control scheme.
When you drive a car, the car becomes an extension of your body. For most people. Some people really struggle with the car and presumably it's more like trying to move around a prosthetic limb. Hey, at least we don't have nerve endings going through into the tires. Driving through the desert: "OW! OW! OW!"
Look back even further. Anthropologists have long dismissed the 2001-concept of primitive man suddenly discovering tools, preferring to suggest that there was no real "start" to the use of tools, that they merely evolved into being something recognizably manufactured. That being the case, one might well ask if the concept of a "tool" has much meaning, if it can (in principle) be traced back by continuous lineage to non-intelligent utilization of objects in their natural state.
On the other hand, we should consider whether that is always true. Are all tools manufactured by humans today merely descendants - direct but heavily evolved - of objects utilized by sea urchins (shell fragments for camouflage) or birds (just about anything to make nests)?
This is not a trivial question. We know crows can manufacture tools, we have extremely well-documented evidence under (quite literally) laboratory conditions. If we assume all tools have evolved from simpler tools, how do we explain the fact that even close relatives to the crows have only the vastly simpler proto-tools? Manufacturing is definitely not something we see a lot of in the avian world. Utilization, yes, manufacturing, no. This clearly isn't from a lack of intelligence, as studies on African Grey parrots show the avian brain to be quite capable of an impressive level of thought, including the abstract.
Nor do we see much evidence of tool manufacture in Chimpanzees. Studies appear to have shown rudimentary culture and primitive belief systems. We know Neanderthals had discovered stone tools and had gone at least as far as discovering music and the octave scale, long before anything recognizably human evolved. We know that chimps and gorillas are capable of learning sign language, so understand communication to a fairly advanced level. But neither has ever been seen to manufacture anything. Use, yes. Chimps use sticks to get at food all of the time, but using something that already exists is quite different from making something that would not otherwise have ever existed.
Are these evidence of a break in the chain? Evidence that there are actual leaps forward that must be made in their entirety or not at all? If so, then what these researchers have found is not enough. It's important, but it isn't enough. There is a gap, a gap between using and making that distinguishes the very few animals that have tools from everything else. That gap is what distinguishes tools from merely being an extension to the body, which all animals seem to be aware of and capable of using. If you don't explain the gap, then you have not really explained the human use of tools, you have merely explained the multi-cellular use of tools. A very different problem.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It is insanely difficult to drive a car. There is so much information to process in real time. Computer drivers aren't even close to true driving ability. But for us, driving is easy: it doesn't take too many hours behind the wheel before the average human gets the hang of it.
I think the reason is its user interface. When driving a car, the brain is using its innate knowledge of physics and object recognition in much the same way as natural transportation (walking). The user interface of a car does a great job in mapping something humans are good at to accomplishing the task at hand. Few other technological devices get this right.
This sort of study shows how much instinct plays into learning. When trying to do a task where the rules are very different from natural history, like driving a submarine or writing a C program, learning is difficult and the final result is clumsy at best.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
These findings are interesting but to some extent expected if you are familiar with the findings on mirror neurons and on the evidence that tools are neurally incorporated into the body schema, both of which were findings from around 1995. I spent a couple years trying to computationally model/simulate tool use in monkeys that had been trained to use rakes to acquire food. They recorded from an area of their brains called the intraparietal sulcus (specifically PEip) and then set the monkey into a restrictive device called a monkey chair so that they could only move their arms for the most part. A rake was placed in front of the monkey and so was some food. Initially the neurons in this area fired when the monkey reached for things and seemed to encode the angles and velocity of the joints in the arm (and to some extent chest and neck) using only somatosensory (touch) information, since they were inactive when the monkey was blindfolded. However, after two weeks of daily rigorous training, the monkeys learned how to utilize the rake in order to reach food that was out of reach with just its arm and hand. When the cells were recorded from they found that the cells still fired when the monkey moved specific joints, but now they also fired when the monkey looked at its hand. When the monkey was actively using the rake (and not just playing with it) the neurons receptive fields (activity) enclosed not only the hand but the whole of the rake. The expansion of the receptive fields was interpreted as the process by which the rake was incorporated into the monkey's body schema (which is its internal representation of itself with respect to near-by space). The group did several follow up studies, one including training monkeys to use mice to play simple computer games in which the monkey had to move around a mouse in order to move around a monkey hand on the screen. They found a similar set of context dependent neural receptive fields after they were trained for the game, except the neurons were visually active when they were looking at the hand on the screen. This is akin to not only the mouse but also the mouse cursor being incorporated into your body schema. There are also studies on humans who suffer from near-by spacial neglect. These people can't correctly interpret space near their bodies and ignore say the left half of their visual field for near-by space, but they can see things that are out of reach. However, if you give this person a stick and ask them to use it to touch something they couldn't have reached with their hand alone but could have seen before they picked up the tool, they now can't since the tool supposedly was incorporated into their body schema enhancing their reach and the range of their deficit. If you are interested in any of this, I suggest you read papers by Atsushi Iriki, Scott Frey, and Michael Arbib. There are a few earlier papers by Rizzolatti's group that show the existence of tool responding mirror neurons. Incidentally, I didn't have much luck modeling these findings in a computer simulation. I study how objects are visually recognized now.
Primates are not the first animal/creature to use tools or even to create tools. Beavers, birders, spiders and ants have used tools and countless over creatures.
I can't believe the educated public and some scientists still believe their is some 'magical' link about other primates.
I don't think "trick" is the proper term to use here. How about "ability". The brain has the ABILITY to interpret tools as an extension of the body in order to use them more precisely and smoothly. This is like saying speech is the brain tricking the vocal chords into vibrating at the proper frequency. There's no trick to it. It's a skill. And as for scientific studies... this one falls squarely into the "common sense" category.
Just ask any musician.
TFA mentions "mirror neurons" at one point. I guess that's why people who really enjoy boxing will find themselves ducking and dodging along with a match, and why some people feel so uncomfortable watching someone else drive a car.
I wonder what causes some people who are new to video gaming to try to move their physical body while attempting to navigate on the screen with a controller....
I've never posted to correct spelling, grammar, etc before...but percepted? Perceived. Perception is a noun that already has a verb form, no need for another.
I've also been learning all the major and minor scales - there are twelve major and thirty-six minor scales, all played with different combinations of keys and fingering. I know all but a few of them now. All the ones I know well I can play just by thinking of their sound, without thinking of the keys or fingering.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Philosopher Andy Clark has been seriously arguing the point for some time now that the human mind is not confined to just the brain, but can include the tools we use and the environment we manipulate. This view rejects the old Mind-Inside-The-Head concept, and says that the real genius of the human mind is its ability to export intelligence into the environment, so that we can then be "dumb in peace".
Some light reading:
Iriki, Tanaka, and Iwamura published a paper in 1996 showing that, when macaque monkeys were given a rake with which to retrieve distant objects, the receptive fields of neurons coding for the body schema of the hand changed to encompass the rake. I haven't read the Rizzolatti paper yet, and I'm sure that it adds something new to the research, but this basic idea was around more than 10 years ago.
TOOL LYRICS
"Part Of Me"
I know you well.
you are a part of me.
I know you better than I know myself.
I know you best,
better than anyone.
I know you better than I know myself.
You don't judge.
You can't speak.
You can't leave.
You can't hurt me.
You're just here for me to use.
I know you best,
better than one might think.
I know you better than I know myself.
It's time for you
to make a sacrifice.
It's time to die a
little.
Give it up.
You are a part of me.
The lecturer tells students that the natural (ie normal) response is to feel pressure "in the pencil", and because they trust him, they believe ...
:-)
It works for me, and I sure as hell don't trust anyone on Slashdot.
Try it with something longer, like a long kitchen knife, or a sword if you have one. You definitely don't think of the touch as occurring in your fingers, but in the tip of the blade. It probably helps when your entire hand is in contact with the handle, so that you can't localize the pressure on a single finger. It works!
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Well I've always treated this vibrating tool as an extension of someone else's body. But It's made in Soviet Russia so I guess it's fine.
Since we are wired into starting to use tools as "part of our body" once we get used to them, it becomes even clearer what the difference between a good and a bad tool is (be it software or physical tool), even if both of them technically perform the same job to the same quality.
A good tool does things exactly the same way every time and does new things in a way which is exactly how you expect it to be. This way you learn how to operate it without thinking.
A bad tool does things slightly different every time and does new things in an unexpected way. This way you never manage to operate it without thinking, because you have to consciously think about how to operate it every time you use it.
This is why a poor GUI is much worse for productivity than a good text-mode tool (think DOS Word Perfect vs. first GUI Word processors) even if it may be easier to use the first time.
And it is also what so many applications still to wrong. I'd much rather have a small, feature anemic, but consistent tool than a large, inconsistent tool full of features (yes Vista, I am looking at you).
The age old saying that goes with pilots, drivers and other sophisticated tool users : the way to get the best out is "to feel one with the machine". This seems to be scientific proof of what people already intuitively know!
Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Mentality of Apes
Here is a more familiar example. Try writing something large on a blackboard. Try writing something tiny. Your hadwriting style is probably recognizeable. However, you are probably using different muscles in each. When writing scles. When writing very large you may be using your arm and shoulder muscles too. When writing small, you may be using your fingertip muscles - perhaps holding the tool very tightly and using the balances of strains in the fingertips to move the tool. Nevertheless, it seems we have some learned kinematics, which we can rapidly map from one set of muscles to another, in a way we can't when trying to walk on our hands.
The example of 'feeling the pressure at the tip of the pencil' is not wrong, but most people when asked will claim they know they are pressing on the pencil all the time. Then again. most people will claim they are in concious control of their body. It is sometimes a bit of a shock to discover that different parts are doing complex stuff 'by themselves'.
Aristotle described the hand as the "tool of tools," by which he meant to say something about its indeterminacy and potentiality for indefinitely many and varied uses.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
So,it takes lotsa money to pay degreed researchers taking loads of time to figure out the brain considers tools an extension of the body?
Perhaps I,alone believed this from childhood.Perhaps the advent of manufacturers producing ergonomic tools is on par with millions of these same primates reproducing shakespears writing desk with these same tools.
Damn,where do I go to get a grant to prove a degree actually makes you more likely to waste time and money?Let da research and money shower begin!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
That's why driving a BattleMech is so fucking cool!
I'm not sure training monkeys to use pliers is the most responsible thing to do. When those monkeys take over I don't think I want them knowing how to use the Testicle-Crushing and Fingernail-Pulling device...
Our handheld tools should give a lot more feedback directly to our hands. We're starting to make our tools "smarter", or at least automated (power tools evolving to electric screwdrivers). But I don't know of any tools that give any feedback other than the coarsest momentum cues from the point where the tool contacts the target material back into the hand itself. At best we've got visual cues from bubble levels. If my nailgun vibrated my hand while I rotated it until it felt level, I'd be a lot more productive securing things straight. If my circular saw felt like it were diverging from the planned cut, my cuts would be a lot more accurate and faster (and my eyes would be safer out of the loop).
The front ends of our tools should be more sensitive, and the back ends should fit more like a glove, or an elbow.
--
make install -not war
It's just an extension of your body.
I expect that mapping to get connected inside the basal ganglia that interconnect motor and prefrontal cortices. It will be fascinating to watch (probably literally, with MRI) already learned hand use get quickly mapped to newly learned handtool use. The feedback loops for that learning, once mapped, will present an extremely valuable target for automation or synthetic enhancement, whether by chemical facilitators, electrochemical signals, or outright replacement with prostheses.
--
make install -not war
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental disorder that involves a distorted body image. All tool users must,apparently, suffer (or benefit) from this condition.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Crows and several birds of paradise also use tools for various things. It would be interesting to know if their brains showed the same patterns.
However I think it would be more difficult to convince a crow to do this experiment.
Be the ball, and throw yourself. -- Mr T. (Not Another Teen Movie)
The more important part, how the brain can sublimate operating complex machinery so that it doesn't require conscious thought to operate, isn't explained here.
Same way the body can sublimate operating the body itself so it doesn't require conscious thought. Solve that problem, and you've solved this one.
I mean, look at how babies learn. Look at how you learn any skill. It all comes down to contracting muscles and getting feedback of a successful result... what this is demonstrating is that whether the levers the muscles are pulling are inside the body or outside is not a major factor.
And I doubt very much whether this capability was something that developed in primates or mammals or birds... any species that learns how to use its own body probably has this ability.
To add to this, take a look at a kid or teen experiencing his (or her) first growth spurt. A lot of them will be very awkward and not spatially aware of themselves for the first while. I remember when I hit my first growth spurt I was forever brushing against things, knocking stuff over, bumping the milk glass with my elbows, etc.
I find that comparative when driving a new car. If the dimensions are significantly different than my old vehicle, getting a spacial sense of it when parking, turning, etc can be a real pain.
This is nothing new, Michael Polanyi had this figured out 50 years ago. We "inhabit" the tools we use. We also inhabit ideas the same way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi
This reminds me a lot of Heidegger's Being & Time (1927.) In it, he advances a new philosophy that denies a rational subject/object separation between man and tool, such as when an individual is involved deeply in a state of "flow" on a particular task. Could this be a case of science confirming philosophy? :)
-jc
This idea is discussed in the book, The Body Has a Mind of Its Own. It talks about all the different brain maps for the body, including how the map is stretched to include a tool that we're using. I haven't actually read the book, but I heard an interview on Science Friday.
The ultimate goal of science is to unify all forces of nature to a single law that can be silk-screened onto a T-shirt.
Phantoms in the Brain by Ramachandran doesn't go into detail onto the neurons firing like this article, but he does suggest an interesting experiment:
Note that it doesn't work on everyone, for some reason. But it will work on about half the people you try (I think. Half in my experience, at least.)
Also, read Phantoms in the Brain. It's an awesome book.
IIRC, he defined media as an extension of the body, or extension of the senses, and went beyond this to include tools such as the automobile.
I am not near my McLuhan library to give specific references, sorry.
you had me at #!
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
The brain treats the body as though it was a tool!
(and it is one)
This is also why you can make movies basically about tools and some people will still watch them.
:D NO sense, just emotion and character.
Make a movie about a electric generator sitting there generating, and it's totally boring.
Make a movie about a person rushing about desperately only through a car or podracer- or a person chopping other people, only through a lightsaber- and suddenly you'll find a lot of people consider it interesting!
Just because a thing exists in the real world doesn't stop it being an effective fantasy-extension of human ability, and the more character you get into it the better. Witness the people-racing-cars movie fad. Swords and lightsabers also have more character than projectile weapons, but there's something to be said for just raw pointless energy blasts from the hands
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I must be defective.
As a blacksmith (and IT worker...go figure), I've found this to be very true. I work for hours with tongs, which effectively extend my grasp up to two feet. The funny part is that I don't really think of it, I just do it. When my sister and I visited the Air and Space museum, they had a "be an astronaut" exercise where you had to use tools made for space. They were basically 2 feet long. People were having all sorts of problems with them, banging around, missing, etc. I had absolutely no issues because I'm used to thinking about 2 feet beyond my hands.
Now, that being said, you do condition yourself in other ways. When you drop things in a blacksmith shop, you watch them fall, you don't try to catch them. This lesson is learned once and never repeated again! :-)
FritzHuh?
Intelligence is a trick of the mind.
Physics!