Negotiated practice B
Negotiated practice B
The neurally-controlled dreaming machine
Controlled Dream machine is an installation that uses Distributed patterns of neural activity to control the behavior of a robot legs body in his dreaming process (animations). It can be called as a neuron memory processing engine consisting in simulating and analyzing the dreaming process in a conscious and unconscious atmosphere. The controller of the system is a data collected of cultured embryonic rat neurons cells that grow on a surface containing a grid of electrodes (multi-electrode arrays, or MEAs) [1] capable of both recording and stimulating neural activity, they are living in a neuro-engineering lab, in Georgia institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA (Dr. Steve Potter's lab). The data collected from these neurons is used as the brain of the system; it controls the behavior of the robot leg and at the same time is guiding its dreaming process in symptomatic relation of feedbacks.
“Dissociated neurons begin forming connections within a few hours in culture, and within a few days establish an elaborate and spontaneously active living neural network. After one month in culture, development of these networks becomes relatively stable (Gross et al., 1993; Kamioka et al., 1996; Watanabe et al., 1996) and is characterized by spontaneous bursts of activity. The neural activity on the MEA was recorded by amplifiers and A/D converters producing a real-time data stream of 2.95 MB per second (60 channels sampled at 25 KHZ). The Controlled Dream Machine is using the recorded data of this activity to be the brain of the robot in its dreaming process.”[2]
The project integrates brain, body and unconscious environment in one system. The use of the neurally-controlled data in the project metaphors the formation of the unconscious and the memory, since this data is the tracing memory of the communication between thousand of neuron cells living in a cultured electronic circuit in a lab. Afterwards, the primary development reason for the experiment is for studying learning and memory in vitro, so, these very primitive embryonic neurons cells learning and growing in collective are working together and producing this huge amount of data that metaphors the collective unconscious of humanity and all the knowledge created for group minds in a growing process.
The neurons works in a neural network catching all the time references from sensations, memories and histories of the past. Through those connections they are conceptualizing new formats for the future as the human brain learning process. The future is all hooked in the past; the existence of future generations evolutes from past happenings creating a chain of moments; in a connection between past and future, concretizing the presence consciousness in the body and the unconscious in the mind. This movement is creating an enormous database that is similar the entire database a person can collect in the formation and development of the unconscious mind of the individual and the collective unconscious of humanity.
The behavior, sensation of these memories (neuron’s data) calls the symptoms of the body and at the same time reach the unconscious through dreams. The memory has the ability to retain and recall past states of consciousness. Memories bring symptoms to the body by recalling forgotten and repressed traumas. It is functioning similar as Freud model of heal: “trauma / repression / forgetting / symptom / remembering / healing.” [3].
The body (robot leg) is the consciousness of the system, the awake state, the conscience, the lucid memory, the REM (rapid eye movement) states. The body is the generator of the symptoms that comes from the memories and the mind desires, it is in a process of receiving the stimulus that come from the living neurons data behaving the same as the nerves impulses on the human nervous system. The project is not only analyzing the trajectory between formation of body neurotic symptoms and dreams constructions, but also reflecting what kind of symptoms relates and calls what kind of dream and how these symptoms responds to dreams and vice versa in a feedback process, also reflecting about the formation of the unconscious and memory in machines. “Freud says that the Conflict between conscious and unconscious impulses are said to give rise to anxiety, then to defense mechanisms, which counteract this anxiety. To tap the unconscious, Freud used a variety of techniques, including hypnosis, free association, and dream interpretation. Conscious cognitive processes, such as thinking, are performed by the ego and part of the superego. Freud used the idea of the unconscious in order to explain certain kinds of neurotic behaviors.” [4]
The feedbacks [5] between body (robot) and dreams are related as:
NIGHTMARES: When the robot legs goes to nightmares it starts shaking its legs continuously. The anxiety gives maximum rise, the finger lights starts blinking as the eyes shakes when in REM (rapid eyes movements) sleep states. [6] It is the freedom of the repressions and the fears in a concentrated way.
TRAUMAS: Usually traumas lead to nightmares; the road between them is very close. When the robot is walking and finds in traumatic areas it shakes, the scar lights strongly blinks. It is full of guilt, embarrassment, fear and shame.
SENSATIONS: the sensation area generates all other spaces through feelings; this is the starting point, the robot starts its dream’s journey by walking through unconscious from here.
“Sensation can be defined as our mental representation of our physiological signaling systems, and feeling as our mental cognizance, or processing, of the experience.” [7]
The sensation area gives rise to the robot leg’s mechanisms of defense.
Examples: Acceptance, Annoyance, Anger, Appreciation, Compassion, Confidence, Contentment, Creativity, Curiosity, Depression, Excitement, Fear, Frustration, Gratitude, Guilt, Happiness, Helplessness, Interest, Jealousy, Joy, Love, OK-ness, Pleasure, Resentment, Sadness, Shame.
MEMORIES: when in the memories, the robot leg walks and stop, the stop means remembering period. Also, white lights turns on.
COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS: This space unifies all the feelings, memories, of the entire human society of the world; it contains concepts as science, morality and religion. When the robot legs gets here it walks, stops and shakes.
REFERENCES:
[1] http://www.neuro.gatech.edu/groups/potter/research.html
[2] DeMARSE, THOMAS B.; WAGENAAR, DANIEL A.; BLAU, AXEL W. AND POTTER, STEVE M. (2001), Autonomous Robots 11, 305–310, The Neurally Controlled Animat: Biological Brains Acting with Simulated Bodies, Division of Biology 156-29, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA, P.306
[3] Sigmund Freud (1895), Studies on Hysteria, London: Penguin Books, p. 7
[4] http://www.answers.com/topic/unconscious
[5] Feedback is the signal that is looped back to control a system within itself. This loop is called the feedback loop. A control system usually has input and output to the system; when the output of the system is fed back into the system as part of its input, it is called the "feedback."
In cybernetics and control theory, feedback is a process whereby some proportion of the output signal of a system is passed (fed back) to the input. This is often used to control the dynamic behavior of the system. Examples of feedback can be found in most complex systems, such as engineering, architecture, economics, and biology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback
[6] Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is the normal stage of sleep characterized by rapid movements of the eyes. Physiologically, certain neurons in the brain stem, known as REM sleep-on, are particularly active during REM sleep, and are probably responsible for its occurrence.
[7] Harland, Philip (2002), paper Part 2, Issue 57, HOW THE BRAIN FEELS
Emotion and Cognition in Neuro-Linguistic Psychotherapy, First published in Rapport, UK.
[8] Tarnow, Eugen. How Dreams And Memory May Be Related. NEURO-PSYCHOANALYSIS 2003, Volume 5, Number 2.
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