පඬි නැට්ටන්ගේ වික්‍රමය
අද (නොවමේබර් 30) පාලි හා බෞද්ධ විශ්වවිිද්‍යාලයේ පර්යේෂණ කමිටුව මගින් සංවිධානය කරන ලද සුම් දේශනය අවසානයේ පඬි නැට්ටකු විසින් කරන ලද ඉල්ලීමක් අනුව මොළයක් නැතුව ගණිතයෙන් ප්‍රථම උපාධියක් ලැබූ අය පිළිබඳ කියැවෙන ලිපිය මෙහි පළකරනවා.
අප කුඩා කළ පාසල් යෑමට දුම්රියෙන් පාණදුරේ සිට බම්බලපිටිය කරා ගමන් කිරීමේ දී ඇතැමුන් බටහිර වෙරළේ ඇන තියාගෙන මළපහ කරනු දැකිය හැකි වුණා. එය එකල සුලබ දර්ශනයක්. අද බටහිර ඉවුරේ ඇන තියාගෙන ඊනියා දර්ශනයක් ගැන කියවන පඬි නැට්ටෙක් ඒ ලිපිය පළ කරන මෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටියා. ඒ අනුවයි මෙය පළ කරන්නේ.
මා පුනබ්භවයක් නැතැයි කියන අයට අභියෝග කරනවා හැකි නම් මනස හරි ඔවුන් ඒ වෙනුවෙන් කියන වෙනත් දෙයක් හරි ශරීරයේ යම්කිසි අවයවයකට ඌනනය කරන්න කියා. එසේ නොකර මරණින් ශරීරය අක්‍රීය වීමත් සමග සියල්ල කෙළවර වෙනවා කියා කියන්න බැහැ.
අනෙක් අතට මා පසුගිය දා පළ කළ ලිපියකින් ( මනස භෞතික ශරීරය හා පුනබ්භවය) පැහැදිලි වෙනවා ඊනියා සිහිය (consciousness) පවා මොළයේ රසායනික ක්‍රියාවලින් ඔබ්බට යන බව.
අවිජ්ජාව නැත්නම් සසරක් නැහැ. අවිජ්ජාව ඇත්නම් සසරක් තියෙනවා. මේ අවිජ්ජාව නිසා සසර ඇති වීමක් නො වෙයි. සසර නැත්නම් අවිජ්ජාව ද නැහැ. සසර නැත්නම් අවිජ්ජාව ඇතැයි කිව හැක්කේ බටහිර ඉවුරේ දර්ශනය බඩ යන අයකුට පමණයි.
පඬි නැට්ටා තමා යම් කිසි දරුවකු ගැන කියැවෙන ලිපියක සබැඳියක් ප්‍රශ්න ඇසීමට මුවා වී ඉදිරිපත් කර තියෙනවා. එහි කියැවෙන දරුවා මේ ලිපියෙහි සඳහන් අය ම බව පඬි නැට්ටා සුපුරුදු ආත්ම විශ්වාසයෙන් කියා සිටියා. ඒ සබැඳිය ද මා ඉදිරිපත් කරන්නේ පඬි නැට්ටන්ගේ බටහිර ඉවුරේ ආත්ම විශ්වාසය අර බටහිර වෙරළේ මළ පහ කළ අයගේ තරමට ඉතා පහළින් බව පෙන්වීමටයි. මළ පහ කළ අයට හොඳ ආත්ම විශ්වාසයක් තිබුණා. ඔවුන් තමන් කරන්නෙ කුමක් ද කියා දැන හිටියා,
https://www.mirror.co.uk/.../boy-no-brain-stuns-doctors...
පඬි නැට්ටන්ටත් තෙරුවන් සරණයි
No Brainer.
For decades now, I have been haunted
by the grainy, black-and-white x-ray of a human skull.
It is alive but empty, with a
cavernous fluid-filled space where the brain should be. A thin layer of brain
tissue lines that cavity like an amniotic sac. The image hails from a 1980
review article in Science: Roger Lewin, the author, reports that the patient in
question had “virtually no brain”. But that’s not what scared me; hydrocephalus
is nothing new, and it takes more to creep out this ex-biologist than a picture
of Ventricles Gone Wild.
The stuff of nightmares. (From
Oliveira et al 2012)
What scared me was the fact that this
virtually brain-free patient had an IQ of 126.
He had a first-class honors degree in
mathematics. He presented normally along all social and cognitive axes. He
didn’t even realize there was anything wrong with him until he went to the
doctor for some unrelated malady, only to be referred to a specialist because
his head seemed a bit too large.
It happens occasionally. Someone grows
up to become a construction worker or a schoolteacher, before learning that
they should have been a rutabaga instead. Lewin’s paper reports that one out of
ten hydrocephalus cases are so extreme that cerebrospinal fluid fills 95% of
the cranium. Anyone whose brain fits into the remaining 5% should be nothing
short of vegetative; yet apparently, fully half have IQs over 100. (Why, here’s
another example from 2007; and yet another.) Let’s call them VNBs, or “Virtual No-Brainers”.
The paper is titled “Is Your Brain
Really Necessary?”, and it seems to contradict pretty much everything we think
we know about neurobiology. This Forsdyke guy over in Biological Theory argues
that such cases open the possibility that the brain might utilize some kind of
extracorporeal storage, which sounds awfully woo both to me and to the
anonymous neuroskeptic over at Discovery.com; but
even Neuroskeptic, while dismissing Forsdyke’s wilder speculations, doesn’t
really argue with the neurological facts on the ground. (I myself haven’t yet
had a chance to more than glance at the Forsdyke paper, which might warrant its
own post if it turns out to be sufficiently substantive. If not, I’ll probably
just pretend it is and incorporate it into Omniscience.)
On a somewhat less peer-reviewed note,
VNBs also get routinely trotted out by religious nut jobs who cite them as
evidence that a God-given soul must be doing all those things the uppity
scientists keep attributing to the brain. Every now and then I see them linking
to an off-hand reference I made way back in 2007 (apparently rifters.com is the
only place to find Lewin’s paper online without having to pay a wall) and I
roll my eyes.
And yet, 126 IQ. Virtually no brain.
In my darkest moments of doubt, I wondered if they might be right.
So on and off for the past twenty
years, I’ve lain awake at night wondering how a brain the size of a poodle’s
could kick my ass at advanced mathematics. I’ve wondered if these miracle
freaks might actually have the same brain mass as the rest of us, but squeezed
into a smaller, high-density volume by the pressure of all that cerebrospinal
fluid (apparently the answer is: no). While I was writing Blindsight— having
learned that cortical modules in the brains of autistic savants are relatively
underconnected, forcing each to become more efficient— I wondered if some kind
of network-isolation effect might be in play.
Now, it turns out the answer to that
is: Maybe.
Three decades after Lewin’s paper, we
have “Revisiting hydrocephalus as a model to study brain resilience” by de
Oliveira et al. (actually published in 2012, although I didn’t read it until
last spring). It’s a “Mini Review Article”: only four pages, no new
methodologies or original findings— just a bit of background, a hypothesis, a
brief “Discussion” and a conclusion calling for further research. In fact, it’s
not so much a review as a challenge to the neuro community to get off its ass
and study this fascinating phenomenon— so that soon, hopefully, there’ll be
enough new research out there warrant a real review.
The authors advocate research into
“Computational models such as the small-world and scale-free network”— networks
whose nodes are clustered into highly-interconnected “cliques”, while the
cliques themselves are more sparsely connected one to another. De Oliveira et
al suggest that they hold the secret to the resilience of the hydrocephalic
brain. Such networks result in “higher dynamical complexity, lower wiring
costs, and resilience to tissue insults.” This also seems reminiscent of those
isolated hyper-efficient modules of autistic savants, which is unlikely to be a
coincidence: networks from social to genetic to neural have all been described
as “small-world”. (You might wonder— as I did— why de Oliveira et al. would
credit such networks for the normal intelligence of some hydrocephalics when
the same configuration is presumably ubiquitous in vegetative and normal brains
as well. I can only assume they meant to suggest that small-world networking is
especially well-developed among high-functioning hydrocephalics.) (In all
honesty, it’s not the best-written paper I’ve ever read. Which seems to be kind
of a trend on the ‘crawl lately.)
The point, though, is that under the
right conditions, brain damage may paradoxically result in brain enhancement.
Small-world, scale-free networking— focused, intensified, overclocked— might
turbocharge a fragment of a brain into acting like the whole thing.
Can you imagine what would happen if
we applied that trick to a normal brain?
If you’ve read Echopraxia, you’ll
remember the Bicameral Order: the way they used tailored cancer genes to build
extra connections in their brains, the way they linked whole brains together
into a hive mind that could rewrite the laws of physics in an afternoon. It was
mostly bullshit, of course: neurological speculation, stretched eight
unpredictable decades into the future for the sake of a story.
But maybe the reality is simpler than
the fiction. Maybe you don’t have to tweak genes or interface brains with
computers to make the next great leap in cognitive evolution. Right now, right
here in the real world, the cognitive function of brain tissue can be boosted—
without engineering, without augmentation— by literal orders of magnitude. All
it takes, apparently, is the right kind of stress. And if the neuroscience
community heeds de Oliveira et al‘s clarion call, we may soon know how to apply
that stress to order. The singularity might be a lot closer than we think.
