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We are products of complexity,
but our evolution has focused our
understanding on the situation of hunter gatherers on the
African savanna.
As humanity has become more powerful we can significantly impact
the systems we depend on. But we struggle to comprehend
them. So this web frame
explores significant real world complex
adaptive systems (CAS):
- Assumptions of randomness & equilibrium allowed the
wealthy & powerful to expand the size and leverage of
stock markets, by placing at risk the insurance and
retirement savings of the working class. The
assumptions are wrong but remain entrenched.
- The US nation was built
from two divergent political
views of: Jefferson and Hamilton. It also
reflects the development
of competing ancient ideas of Epicurus and
Cyril. But the collapse of Bretton Woods forced Wall
Street into a position of power, while the middle and
working class were abandoned by the elites. Housing
financed with cash from oil and derivative transactions
helped hide the shift.
- Most US health care is still
operating the way cars built in the 1940s did.
Geisinger is an example of better solution. But
transforming the whole network is a challenge. And
public health investment has proved far more
beneficial.
- Helping our children learn to be
effective adults is part of our humanity, but we have
created a robust but deeply flawed education system.
Better alternatives have emerged.
- Spoken language, reading and writing emerged allowing our
good ideas to
become a second genetic material.
- The emergence
of the global economy in the 1600s and its subsequent
development;
It explains how the examples relate to each other, why we all
have trouble effectively comprehending these systems and
explains how our inexperience with CAS can lead to catastrophe. It
outlines the items we see as key to the system and why.
Example systems frame |
Dietrich Dorner argues complex adaptive systems (CAS) are hard to understand and
manage. He provides examples of how this feature of these
systems can have disastrous consequences for their human
managers. Dorner suggests this is due to CAS properties
psychological impact on our otherwise successful mental
strategic toolkit. To prepare to more effectively manage
CAS, Dorner recommends use of:
- Effective iterative planning and
- Practice with complex scenario simulations; tools which he
reviews.
Complexity catastrophes |
E. O. Wilson reviews the effect of man on the natural world to
date and explains how the two systems can coexist most
effectively.
Adaptive ecology |
Barton Gellman details the strategies used by Vice President
Cheney to align the global system with his economics, defense, and
energy goals.
US vds alignment |
Kevin Kruse argues that from 1930 onwards the corporate elite
and the Republican party have developed and relentlessly
executed strategies to undermine Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Their
successful strategy used the credibility of conservative
religious leaders to:
- Demonstrate religious issues
with the New Deal.
- Integrate the corporate
elite and evangelicals.
- Use the power of corporate
advertising and Hollywood to reeducate the American
people to view the US as historically religious and
the New Deal and liberalism as anti-religious
socialism.
- Focus the message through evangelicals including Vereide and Graham.
- Centralize the strategy through President Eisenhower.
- Add religious elements to
mainstream American symbols: money, pledge;
- Push for prayer in
public school
- Push Congress to promote prayer
- Make elections more
about religious positions.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Strategy is the art of the possible. But it also depends
on persistence.
Inventing Christian America |
Charles Ferguson argues that the US power structure has become
highly corrupt.
Ferguson identifies key events which contributed to the
transformation:
- Junk bonds,
- Derivative
deregulation,
- CMOs,
ABS and analyst fraud,
- Financial network deregulation,
- Financial network consolidation,
- Short term incentives
Subsequently the George W. Bush administration used the
situation to build
a global bubble, which Wall Street
leveraged. The bursting of the
bubble: managed
by the Bush Administration and Bernanke Federal Reserve;
was advantageous to some.
Ferguson concludes that the restructured and deregulated
financial services industry is damaging to
the American economy. And it is supported by powerful, incentive aligned academics.
He sees the result being a rigged system.
Ferguson offers his proposals
for change and offers hope that a charismatic young FDR will appear.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. Once the constraints are removed from CAS
amplifiers, it becomes advantageous to leverage the increased flows. And it is often
relatively damaging not to participate. Corruption and parasitism can become
entrenched.
Financial WMD |
Matt Taibbi describes the phenotypic
alignment of the American justice system. The result
he explains relentlessly grinds the poor and undocumented into
resources to be constrained, consumed and ejected. Even as
it supports and aligns the financial infrastructure into a
potent weapon capable of targeting any company or nation to
extract profits and leave the victim deflated.
Taibbi uses five scenarios to provide a broad picture of the:
activities, crimes, policing, prosecutions, court processes,
prisons and deportation network. The scenarios are:
Undocumented people's neighborhoods, Poor neighborhoods, Welfare
recipients, Credit card debtors and Financial institutions.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. The alignment of the
justice system reflects a set of long term strategies and
responses to a powerful global arms race that the US leadership intends to
win.
Aligned justice |
Jonathan Powell describes how the government of, the former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
actually operated. Powell was Blair's only chief of
staff.
Mechanics of power |
H. A. Hayek compares and contrasts collectivism and
libertarianism.
Libertarianism |
John Doerr argues that company leaders and their
organizations, hugely benefit from Andy Grove's OKRs.
He promotes strategies
that help OKR success: Focus,
Align, Track, Stretch; replaces yearly performance
reviews, and provides illustrative success
stories.
Doerr stresses Dov Seidman's
view that employees are adaptive and will
respond to what they see being measured. He asserts culturally supported OKRs/CFR processes will be transformative.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them
framed by complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Doerr's architecture
is tailored for the startups KPCB
invests in. It is a subset of the general case of schematic plans, genetic operators and Shewhart cycles that drive all
CAS. Doerr's approach limits support of learning and deemphasizes the
association to planning.
Startup PDCA |
David Bodanis illustrates how disruptive effects can take
hold. While the French revolution had many driving forces
including famine and
oppression the emergence of a new philosophical vision ensured
that thoughtful leaders
were constrained and conflicted in their responses to the
crisis.
Voltaire's disruptive network |
An epistatic meme suppressed for a thousand years reemerges
during the enlightenment.
It was a poem
encapsulating the ideas of Epicurus rediscovered by a
humanist book hunter.
Greenblatt describes the process of suppression and
reemergence. He argues that the rediscovery was the
foundation of the modern world.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the memetic mechanisms
are discussed.
Constraining happiness |
Isaacson uses the historic development of the global cloud of
web services to explore Ada
Lovelace's ideas about thinking
machines and poetic
science. He highlights the value of computer
augmented human creativity and the need for liberal arts to
fulfill the process.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agent networks and
collaboration are discussed.
Arts technology & intelligence |
Haikonen juxtaposes the philosophy and psychology of
consciousness with engineering practice to refine the debate on
the hard problem of consciousness. During the journey he
describes the architecture of a robot that highlights the
potential and challenges of associative neural
networks.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory is then used to illustrate the
additional requirements and constraints of self-assembling
evolved conscious animals. It will be seen that
Haikonen's neural
architecture, Smiley's Copycat
architecture and molecular biology's intracellular
architecture leverage the same associative properties.
Associatively integrated robots |
Good ideas are successful because they build upon prior
developments that have been successfully implemented.
Johnson demonstrates that they are phenotypic expressions of
memetic plans subject to the laws of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Developing ideas |
A government sanctioned monopoly
supported the construction of a superorganism
American Telephone and
Telegraph
(AT&T). Within this Bell Labs was at the center of
three networks:
- The evolving global scientific
network.
- The Bell telephone network. And
- The military
industrial network deploying 'fire and missile
control' systems.
Bell Labs strategically leveraged each network to create an innovation
engine.
They monitored the opportunities to leverage the developing
ideas, reorganizing to replace incumbent
opposition and enable the creation and growth of new
ideas.
Once the monopoly was
dismantled, AT&T disrupted.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the innovation mechanisms are
discussed.
Strategic innovation |
Roger Cohen's New York Times opinion about the implications of
BREXIT is summarized. His ideas are then framed by complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory and
reviewed.
BREXIT |
Scott Galloway argues that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google
are monopolists that
trade workers for technology. Monopolies that he argues
should be broken up to ensure the return of a middle
class.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on these arguments
assuming they relate to a complex adaptive system (CAS).
While Scott's issue is highly significant his analysis conflicts
with relevant CAS history and theory.
Monopoly job killers |
The IPO of Netscape is
defined as the key emergent event of
the New Economy by Michael Mandel. Following the summary
of Mandel's key points the complex adaptive system (CAS) aspects are highlighted.
New economy |
Ed Conway argues that Bretton Woods produced a unique set of
rules and infrastructure for supporting the global economy. It was
enabled by the experience of Keynes
and White during and after the First World War, their dislike of the Gold Standard,
the necessity of improving
the situation between the wars and the opportunity created
by the catastrophe of the Second
World War.
He describes how it was planned
and developed. How it
emerged from the summit.
And he shows how the opportunity inevitably allowed the US to replace the UK at the center of the global economy.
Like all plans there are
mistakes and Conway takes us through them and how the US recovered the situation as
best it could.
And then Conway describes the period after
Bretton Woods collapsed. He explains what followed
and also compares the relative performance of the various
periods before during and after Bretton Woods.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of Complex Adaptive System (CAS)
theory. Conway's book illustrates the rule making and
infrastructure that together build an evolved amplifier.
He shows the strategies at play of agents that were for and
against the development
and deployment of the system. And The Summit provides a
key piece of the history of our global economic CAS.
Bretton woods |
A key agent in the 1990 - 2008
housing expansion Countrywide is linked into the residential
mortgage value delivery system (VDS)
by Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla. But they show the VDS
was full of amplifiers and control points. With no one
incented to apply the brakes the bubble grew and burst.
Following the summary of Muolo and Padilla's key points the
complex adaptive system (CAS)
aspects are highlighted.
Housing amplifiers |
Satyajit Das uses an Indonesian company's derivative trades to
introduce us to the workings of the international derivatives
system. Das describes the components of the value delivery
system and the key
transactions. He demonstrates how the system
interacted with emerging economies
expanding them, extracting profits and then moving on as the
induced bubbles burst. Following Das's key points the
complex adaptive system (CAS)
aspects are highlighted.
Derivative systems |
Johnson & Kwak argue that expanding the national debt
provides a hedge against unforeseen future problems, as long as
creditors are willing to continue lending. They illustrate
different approaches to managing the debt within the US over its history and of the
eighteenth century administrations of England and France.
The US embodies two different political and economic systems which
approach the national debt differently:
- Taxes to support a sinking
fund to ensure credit to leverage fiscal power in:
Wars, Pandemics, Trade disputes, Hurricanes, Social
programs; Starting with Hamilton,
Lincoln & Chase,
Wilson, FDR;
- Low taxes, limited infrastructure, with risk assumed by
individuals: Advocated by President's Jefferson & Madison,
Reagan,
George W. Bush (Gingrich);
Johnson & Kwak develop a model of what the US
government does. They argue that the conflicting
sinking fund and low tax approaches leaves the nation 'stuck in
the middle' with a future problem.
And they offer their list of 'first principles' to help
assess the best approach for moving from 2012 into the
future.
They conclude the question is still political. They hope
it can be resolved with an awareness of their detailed
explanations. They ask who is willing to
push all the coming risk onto individuals.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Historically developing within the global cotton value delivery
system, key CAS features are highlighted.
National debt |
Robert Gordon argues that the inventions of the second
industrial revolution were the foundation for
American economic growth. Gordon shows how flows of people
into difficult rural America built a population base
which then took the opportunity to move on to urban settings: Houses, Food in supermarkets,
Clothes in
department stores;
that supported increasing productivity and standard of living.
The deployment of nationwide networks: Rail, Road, Utilities;
terminating in the urban housing and work places allowing the workers to
leverage time saving goods and services, which helped grow
the economy.
Gordon describes the concomitant transformation of:
- Communications
and advertising
- Credit
and finance
- Public
health and the health
care network
- Health insurance
- Education
- Social
and welfare services
Counter intuitively the constraints
introduced before and in the Great Depression and the demands of World War 2
provide the amplifiers that drive the inventions deeply and
fully into every aspect of the economy between 1940 and 1970
creating the exceptional growth and standard of living of post
war America.
Subsequently the
rate of growth was limited until the shift of women
into the workplace and the full networking of
voice and data supported the Internet and World Wide Web
completed the third industrial revolution, but the effects were
muted by the narrow reach of the technologies.
The development of Big Data, Robots,
and Artificial Intelligence may support additional growth,
but Gordon is unconvinced because of the collapse of
the middle class.
Following our summary of Gordon's book RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
American growth |
Carl Menger argues that the market induced the emergence of
money based on the attractive features of precious metals.
He compares the potential for government edicts to create money
but sees them as lacking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
With two hundred years of additional knowledge we conclude that
precious metals are not as attractive as Menger asserts.
Government backed promissory notes are analogous to:
- Other evolved CAS forms of ubiquitous high energy
transaction intermediates and
- Schematic strategies that are proving optimal in
supporting survival and replication in the currently
accessible niches.
Emergence of money |
Eric Beinhocker sets out to answer a question Adam Smith
developed in the Wealth of Nations: what is wealth? To do
this he replaces traditional
economic theory, which is based on the assumption that an
economy is a system in
equilibrium, with complexity
economics in which the economy is modeled as a complex
adaptive system (CAS).
He introduces Sugerscape
to illustrate an economic CAS model in action. And then he
explains the major features of a CAS economy: Dynamics,
Agents, Networks, Emergence, and
Evolution.
Building on complexity economics Beinhocker reviews how evolution applies to
the economy to build wealth. He explains how design spaces
map strategies to instances of physical and
social
technologies. And he identifies the interactors and
selection mechanism of economic
evolution.
This allows Beinhocker to develop a new definition
of wealth.
In the rest of the book Beinhocker looks at the consequences of
adopting complexity economics for business and society: Strategy, Organization, Finance,
& Politics
& Policy.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS explores his conclusions
and aligns Beinhocker's model of CAS with the CAS theory and evidence we
leverage.
Economic complexity |
Sven Beckert describes the historic transformation of the
growing, spinning, weaving, manufacture of cotton goods and
their trade over time. He describes the rise of a first global
commodity, its dependence on increasing: military power, returns for
the control points in the value delivery system(VDS), availability of land
and labor to work it including slaves.
He explains how cotton offered the opportunity for
industrialization further amplifying the productive capacity of
the VDS and the power of the control points. This VDS was quickly
copied. The increased capacity of the industrialized
cotton complex adaptive system (CAS) required more labor to
operate the machines. Beckert describes the innovative introduction of wages
and the ways found to
mobilize industrial labor.
Beckert describes the characteristics of the industrial cotton
CAS which made it flexible enough to become globally interconnected.
Slavery made the production system so cost effective that all
prior structures collapsed as they interconnected. So when
the US civil war
blocked access to the major production nodes in the
American Deep South the CAS began adapting.
Beckert describes the global
reconstruction that occurred and the resulting destruction of the traditional ways
of life in the global countryside. This colonial expansion
further enriched and empowered the 'western' nation
states. Beckert explains how other countries responded
by copying the colonial strategies and creating the
opportunities for future armed conflict among the original
colonialists and the new upstarts.
Completing the adaptive
shifts, Beckert describes the advocates for industrialization in
the colonized global south and how over time they joined
the global cotton CAS disrupting the early western manufacturing
nodes and creating the current global CAS
dominated by merchants like Wal-Mart
pulling goods through a network of clothing manufacturers,
spinning and weaving factories, and growers competing with each
other on cost.
Following our summary of Beckert's book, RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The transformation of
disconnected peasant farmers,
pastoral warriors and their lands into a supply chain for a
highly profitable industrial CAS required the development over
time: of military force, global transportation and communication
networks, perception and representation control networks, capital stores and flows,
models, rules, standards and markets; along with the support at
key points of: barriers, disruption, and infrastructure and
evolved amplifiers. The emergent
system demonstrates the powerful constraining influence of
extended phenotypic alignment.
Globalization from cotton |
The structure and problems of the US
health care network is described in terms of complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory.
The network:
- Is deeply embedded in the US nation state. It reflects the
conflict between two
opposing visions for the US: high tax with safety net
or low tax without. The emergence
of a parasitic elite supported by tax policy, further
constrains the choices available to improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of the network.
- The US is optimized to sell its citizens dangerous
levels of: salt,
sugar, cigarettes,
guns, light, cell phones, opioids,
costly education, global travel,
antibacterials, formula, foods including
endocrine disrupters;
- Accepting the US controlled global supply chain's
offered goods & services results in: debt, chronic stress,
amplified consumption and toxic excess, leading to obesity, addiction, driving instead of
walking, microbiome
collapse;
- Globalization connects disparate environments in a network. At the edges,
humans are drastically altering the biosphere. That
is reducing the proximate natural environment's
connectedness, and leaving its end-nodes disconnected and
far less diverse. This disconnects predators from
their prey, often resulting in local booms and busts that
transform the local parasite
network and their reservoir and amplifier
hosts. The situation is setup so that man is
introduced to spillover
from the local parasites' hosts. Occasionally, but
increasingly, the spillover results in humanity becoming
broadly infected. The evolved
specialization of the immune system
to the proximate environment during development
becomes undermined as the environment transforms.
- Is incented to focus on localized competition generating
massive & costly duplication of services within
physician based health care operations instead of proven
public health strategies. This process drives
increasing research & treatment complexity and promotes hope
for each new technological breakthrough.
- Is amplified by the legislatively structured separation
and indirection of service development,
provision, reimbursement and payment.
- Is impacted by the different political strategies for
managing the increasing
cost of health care for the demographic bulge of retirees.
- Is presented with acute
and chronic
problems to respond to. As currently setup the network
is tuned to handle acute problems. The interactions
with patients tend to be transactional.
- Includes a legislated health insurance infrastructure
which is:
- Costly and inefficient
- Structured around yearly
contracts which undermine long-term health goals and
strategies.
- Is supported by increasingly regulated HCIT
which offers to improve data sharing and quality but has
entrenched commercial EHR
products deep within the hospital systems.
- Is maintained, and kept in
alignment, by massive network
effects across the:
- Hospital platform
based
sub-networks connecting to
- Physician networks
- Health insurance networks - amplified by ACA
narrow network legislation
- Hospital clinical supply and food
production networks
- Medical school and academic research network and NIH
- Global
transportation network
- Public health networks
- Health care IT supply
network
Health care |
Deaton describes the wellbeing
of people around the world today. He explains the powerful benefit of public
health strategies and the effect of growth in
material wellbeing but also the corrosive effects of
aid.
Following our summary of Deaton's arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. The situation he describes is complex including
powerful amplifiers, alignment and incentives that overlap
broadly with other RSS summaries of adaptations of: The
biosphere, Politics, Economics,
Philosophy and Health care.
Improving wellbeing |
Donald Barlett and James Steele write about their investigations
of the major problems afflicting US
health care as of 2006.
Problems of US health care |
Glenn Steele & David Feinberg review the development of the
modern Geisinger healthcare business after its near collapse
following the abandoned merger with Penn State AMC. After an overview of the
business, they describe how a calamity
unfolding around them supported building a vision of a
better US health care network. And they explain:
- How they planned
out the transformation,
- Leveraging an effective
governance structure,
- Using a strategy
to gain buy in,
- Enabling
reengineering at the clinician patient
interface.
- Implementing the reengineering for acute, chronic
& hot
spot care; to help the patients and help the
physicians.
- Geisinger's leverage of biologics.
- Reengineering healing with ProvenExperience.
- Where Geisinger is headed next.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments on them. We
frame their ideas with complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory.
E2E insured quality care |
Robert Pearl explains the perspectives of a health care leader
and son who know that the current health care network interacts
with human behavior to induce a poorly performing system that
caused his father's death. But he is confident that these
problem perceptions can be changed. Once that occurs he
asserts the network will become more integrated, coordinated,
collaborative, better led, and empathetic to their
patients. The supporting technology infrastructure will be
made highly interoperable. All that will reduce medical
errors and make care more cost effective.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS comments on them. We
frame his ideas with complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
including synergistic examples of these systems in
operation. The health care network is built out of
emergent human agents. All agents must model the signals
they perceive to represent and respond to them. Pinker
explains how this occurs. Sapolsky explains why fear and
hierarchy are so significant. He includes details of Josh
Green's research on morality and death. Charles Ferguson
highlights the pernicious nature of financial incentives.
Bad medical models |
US healthcare is ripe for
disruption. Christensen, Grossman and Hwang argue that
technologies are emerging which will support low cost business
models that will undermine the current network. Applying
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory to these arguments suggests that the current power hierarchy can effectively resist
these progressive forces.
Disrupting health care |
Atul Gawande writes about the opportunity for a thirty per cent
improvement in quality in medicine by organizing
to deploy as agent based teams using shared schematic
plans and distributed signalling or as he puts it the use of checklists.
With vivid examples from a variety of situations including construction, air crew support and global health care Gawande illustrates
the effects of
complexity and how to organize to cope with it.
Following the short review RSS
additionally relates Gawande's arguments to its models of
complex adaptive systems (CAS) positioning his discussion within
the network of US health care,
contrasting our view of complexity, comparing the forces shaping
his various examples and reviewing facets of complex
failures.
Complexity checklists |
Friedman and Martin leverage the lifelong data collected on
1,528 bright individuals selected by Dr. Lewis Terman
starting in 1921, to understand what aspects of the subjects'
lives significantly affected their longevity. Looking
broadly across each subject's: Personality,
Education, Parental impacts,
Energy
levels, Partnering,
Careers, Religion,
Social networks,
Gender, Impact from war and
trauma; Friedman and Martin are able to develop a set of model pathways,
which each individual could be seen to select and travel
along. Some paths led to the traveler having a long
life. Others were problematic. The models imply that
the US approach to health and
wellness should focus
more on supporting
the development and selection of beneficial pathways.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The pathways are most
applicable to bright individuals with the resources and support
necessary to make and leverage choices they make. Striving
to enter and follow a beneficial pathway seems sensible but may
be impossible for individuals trapped in a collapsing network,
starved of resources.
Promoting longevity |
Gawande uses his personal experience, analytic skills and lots
of stories of innovators to demonstrate better ways of coping
with aging and death. He introduces the lack of focus on
aging and death in traditional medicine. And goes on to
show how technology has amplified
this stress point. He illustrates the traditional possibility of the
independent self, living fully while aging with the
support of the extended family. Central
planning responded to the technological and societal changes
with poorly designed infrastructure and funding. But
Gawande then contrasts the power of
bottom up innovations created by experts responding to
their own family situations and belief
systems.
Gawande then explores in depth the challenges
that unfold currently as we age and become infirm.
He notes that the world is following the US path. As such it will
have to understand the dilemma of
integrating medical treatment and hospice
strategies. He notes that all parties
involved need courage to cope.
He proposes medicine must aim to assure
well being. At that point all doctors will practice
palliative care.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agency, death,
evolution, cooperation and adaptations
to new technologies are discussed.
Agent death |
Sonia Shah reviews the millennia old (500,000 years) malarial arms race between Humanity, Anopheles
mosquitoes and Plasmodium. 250 - 500 million people are
infected each year with malaria and one million die.
Malaria |
Peter Medawar writes about key historic events in the evolution
of medical science.
Medical science events |
Using John Holland's theory of adaptation in complex
systems Baldwin and Clark propose an evolutionary theory of
design. They show how this can limit the interdependencies
that generate complexity
within systems. They do this through a focus on
modularity.
Modular designed systems |
Lou Gerstner describes the challenges he faced and the
strategies he used to successfully restructure the computer
company IBM.
Compartmented systems |
Grady Booch advocates an object oriented approach to computer
software design.
Object based systems |
Bertrand Meyer develops arguments, principles and strategies for
creating modular software. He concludes that abstract data
types and inheritence make object orientation a superior
methodology for software construction. Complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory suggests agents provide an alternative strategy
to the use of objects.
Software construction |
Tools and the businesses that produce them have evolved
dramatically. W Brian Arthur shows how this occurred.
Tools |
Matt Ridley demonstrates the creative effect of man on the
World. He highlights:
- A list of
preconditions resulting in
- Additional niche
capture & more free time
- Building a network
to interconnect memes processes & tools which
- Enabling inter-generational
transfers
- Innovations
that help reduce environmental stress even as they leverage fossil
fuels
Memetic trading networks |
E O. Wilson argues that campfire gatherings on the savanna supported
the emergence of human creativity. This resulted in man
building cultures and
later exploring them, and their creator, through the humanities. Wilson
identifies the transformative events, but he notes many of these
are presently ignored by the humanities. So he calls for a
change of approach.
He:
- Explores creativity:
how it emerged from the benefits of becoming an omnivore hunter-gatherer,
enabled by language & its catalysis of invention, through stories told in the
evening around the campfire. He notes the power of
fine art, but suggests music provides the most revealing
signature of aesthetic
surprise.
- Looks at the current limitations of the
humanities, as they have suffered through years of neglect.
- Reviews the evolutionary processes of heredity and
culture:
- Ultimate causes viewed
through art, & music
- The bedrock of:
- Ape senses and emotions,
- Creative arts, language, dance, song typically studied
by humanities,
&
- Exponential change in science and
technology.
- How the breakthrough from
our primate past occurred, powered by eating meat,
supporting: a bigger brain, expanded memory &
language.
- Accelerating changes now driven by genetic cultural coevolution.
- The impact on human nature.
- Considers our emotional attachment to the natural world: hunting, gardens; we are
destroying.
- Reviews our love of metaphor, archetypes,
exploration, irony, and
considers the potential for a third enlightenment,
supported by cooperative
action of humanities and science
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames these from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory:
- The humanities are seen to be a functionalist framework
for representing the cultural CAS while
- Wilson's desire
to integrate the humanities and science gains support from
viewing the endeavor as a network of layered CAS.
Evening campfire rituals |
Brynjolfsson and McAfee explore the effects of Moore's law on the
economy. They argue it has generated exponential
growth. This has been due to innovation.
It has created a huge bounty of
additional wealth.
But the wealth is spread unevenly across
society. They look at the short and long term implications of
the innovation bounty and spread
and the possible future of
technology.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory.
Brilliant technologies |
Salman Khan argues that the evolved global education system is
inefficient and organized around constraining and corralling
students into accepting dubious ratings that lead to mundane
roles. He highlights a radical and already proven
alternative which offers effective self-paced deep learning
processes supported by technology and freed up attention of
teams of teachers. Building on his personal experience of
helping overcome the unjustified failing grade of a relative,
Khan:
- Iteratively learns how to teach: Starting with Nadia, Leveraging
short videos focused on content,
Converging on mastery,
With the help of
neuroscience, and filling
in dependent gaps; resulting in a different approach
to the mainstream method.
- Assesses the broken US education system: Set in its ways, Designed for the 1800s,
Inducing holes that
are hidden by tests, Tests
which ignore creativity.
The resulting teaching process is so inefficient it needs to
be supplemented with homework.
Instead teachers were encouraging their pupils to use his tools at home so
they could mentor them while they attended school, an
inversion that significantly improves the economics.
- Enters the real world: Builds a scalable service,
Working with a
real classroom, Trying stealth
learning, At Khan Academy full time, In the curriculum at
Los Altos, Supporting life-long
learning.
- Develops The One World Schoolhouse: Back to the future with
a one
room school, a robust
teaching team, and creativity enabled;
so with some catalysis
even the poorest can
become educated and earn credentials
for current jobs.
- Wishes he could also correct: Summer holidays, Transcript based
assessments, College
education;
- Concludes it is now possible to provide the infrastructure
for creativity to
emerge and to support risk taking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Disruption is a powerful force for
change but if its force is used to support the current teachers
to adopt new processes can it overcome the extended phenotypic alignment and evolutionary amplifiers sustaining the
current educational network?
Education versus guilds |
Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld's New York Times opinion based on The
Triple Package is summarized. Their ideas are then framed
by CAS theory and reviewed.
What drives success |
Peter Turchin describes how major pre-industrial empires
developed due to effects of geographic boundaries constraining
the empires and their neighbors' interactions. Turchin
shows how the asymmetries of breeding rates and resource growth
rates results in dynamic cycles within cycles. After the
summary of Turchin's book complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
is used to augment Turchins findings.
Warrior groups |
Through the operation of three different food chains Michael
Pollan explores their relative merits. The application of
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory highlights the value of evolutionary
testing of the food chain.
Natural systems |
E. O. Wilson & Bert Holldobler illustrate how bundled cooperative strategies can
take hold. Various social insects have developed
strategies which have allowed them to capture the most valuable
available niches. Like humans they invest in
specialization and cooperate to subdue larger, well equipped
competitors.
Insect superorganisms |
Computational
theory of the mind and evolutionary
psychology provide Steven Pinker with a framework on which
to develop his psychological arguments about the mind and its
relationship to the brain. Humans captured a cognitive niche by
natural selection 'building out'
specialized aspects of their bodies and brains resulting in a system of mental organs
we call the mind.
He garnishes and defends the framework with findings from
psychology regarding: The visual
system - an example of natural
selections solutions to the sensory challenges
of inverse
modeling of our
environment; Intensions - where
he highlights the challenges of hunter-gatherers -
making sense of the objects
they perceive and predicting what they imply and natural
selections powerful solutions; Emotions - which Pinker argues are
essential to human prioritizing and decision making; Relationships - natural selection's
strategies for coping with the most dangerous competitors, other
people. He helps us understand marriage, friendships and war.
These conclusions allow him to understand the development and
maintenance of higher callings: Art, Music, Literature, Humor,
Religion, & Philosophy; and develop a position on the meaning of life.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) modeling allows RSS to frame Pinker's arguments
within humanity's current situation, induced by powerful evolved
amplifiers: Globalization,
Cliodynamics, The green revolution
and resource
bottlenecks; melding his powerful predictions of the
drivers of human behavior with system wide constraints.
The implications are discussed.
Computationally adapted mind |
The stages of development of the human female, including how her brain changes and the
impacts of this on her 'reality' across a full life span:
conception, infantile
puberty, girlhood,
juvenile pause, adolescence, dating years, motherhood, post-menopause; are
described. Brizendine notes the significant difference in
how emotions are processed
by women compared to men.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory associates the stages with
the evolutionary under-pinning, psychological implications and
behavioral CAS.
Evolved female brain |
The complexity of behavior is explored through Sapolsky
developing scenarios of our best and worst behaviors across time
spans, and scientific subjects including: anthropology,
psychology, neuroscience, sociology. The rich network of adaptive flows he
outlines provides insights and highlight challenges for
scientific research on behavior.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory builds on Sapolsky's
details highlighting the strategies that evolution has captured
to successfully enter niches we now occupy.
CAS behavior |
Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
Emergence of time |
Consciousness has confounded philosophers and scientists for
centuries. Now it is finally being characterized
scientifically. That required a transformation of
approach.
Realizing that consciousness was ill-defined neuroscientist
Stanislas Dehaene and others characterized and focused on conscious access.
In the book he outlines the limitations of previous
psychological dogma. Instead his use of subjective
assessments opened the
window to contrast totally unconscious
brain activity with those
including consciousness.
He describes the research methods. He explains the
contribution of new sensors and probes that allowed the
psychological findings to be correlated, and causally related to
specific neural activity.
He describes the theory of the brain he uses, the 'global neuronal
workspace' to position all the experimental details into a
whole.
He reviews how both theory and practice support diagnosis and
treatment of real world mental illnesses.
The implications of Dehaene's findings for subsequent
consciousness research are outlined.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the brain's development and
operation introduce constraints which are discussed.
Conscious access |
Reading and writing present a conundrum. The reader's
brain contains neural networks tuned to reading. With
imaging a written word can be followed as it progresses from the
retina through a functional chain that asks: Are these letters?
What do they look like? Are they a word? What does it sound
like? How is it pronounced? What does it mean? Dehaene
explains the importance of
education in tuning the brain's networks for reading as
well as good strategies for teaching reading and countering dyslexia. But
he notes the reading
networks developed far too recently to have directly evolved.
And Dehaene asks why humans are unique in developing
reading and culture.
He explains the cultural
engineering that shaped writing to human vision and the exaptations and neuronal structures that
enable and constrain reading and culture.
Dehaene's arguments show how cellular, whole animal and cultural
complex adaptive system (CAS) are
related. We review his explanations in CAS terms and use
his insights to link cultural CAS that emerged based on reading
and writing with other levels of CAS from which they emerge.
Evolved reading |
Read Montague explores how brains make decisions. In
particular he explains how:
- Evolution can create indirect abstract models, such as the dopamine system, that
allow
- Life changing real-time
decisions to be made, and how
- Schematic structures provide
encodings of computable control
structures which operate through and on incomputable,
schematically encoded, physically active structures and
operationally associated production
functions.
Receptor indirection |
Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson describe a scientific
investigation of meditation's
impact on the brain. They introduce
the book by describing their experiences with meditation,
science and the research establishment, their friendship, how
meditation is now used in two distinct ways: deep - leading to altered
traits & wide - that can reach the multitudes; which
the book reviews as it critiques the claims and research used to
back them up.
Goleman and Davidson describe meeting as Harvard psychology
graduate students, interested in consciousness, and how minds
work. They rebel against the behavioral orthodoxy, visit Asia and discover the Eastern
tradition of exploring and altering the mind.
Goleman had travelled to Sri Lanka to understand an Asian model
of the mind, which he presented to the undergraduates at
Harvard. Goleman and Davidson developed it into a shared vision of
consciousness. It took over twenty years for
scientific theory and experimental data to catch up and align
with this model. Much of the prior
experimental data had to be abandoned.
They introduce meditation's
impact on the amygdala
responding to pain and stress.
They look at the changes in:
- Stress
- Compassion
- Attention
- Self-awareness; and the
potential for use of mediation
in psychiatry.
And they warn of the occurrence of dark
nights.
They detail how scientists were able to study the brains of Tibetan meditation masters,
starting with Mingyur Rinpoche,
and detect meditation altering
traits.
Finally they discuss the potential
benefits of meditation and strategies to distribute it
broadly to a busy America.
Meditating neurons |
Tara Brach was worried from
a young age that there was something terribly wrong with
her: she like many others felt unworthy. She responded
by developing Radical
Acceptance. Brach then explains the steps in
applying it: pause,
greet what happens next with unconditional
friendliness; allowing us to:
- Initially attend to the sensations
of our body,
- Accept the
wanting self and discover its source of boundless
love.
- Welcome
fear with a widening
attention, accept the pain of death and become
free.
- Use adversity as a gateway to limitless compassion for ourselves
and others.
- Focus on
our basic goodness to counter Western culture turning anger, at being betrayed,
towards ourselves. Extend observing this goodness in
everyone. This enables the use of loving-kindness.
- Leverage
friendships to understand more about our shared nature
and strengthen Radical Acceptance.
- Realize our Buddha nature.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory describes the emergence of
the dualistic self and the tree of life linked by the genetic
code and machinery. It provides an analog of the Buddhist
presence.
Compassionate CAS |
The influence of childhood on behavior is significant.
Enneagrams define personality
types: Reformer, Helper, Achiever,
Individualist, Investigator, Loyalist, Enthusiast,
Challenger and Peacemaker; based on the impact of
childhood driven wounds.
The Enneagram becomes
a tool to enable interested people to transform from the
emotionally wounded base, hidden within
the armor of the type, to the liberated underlying essence.
Childhood leaves each of us with some environmentally specific Basic Fear. In response each
of us adopts an induced Basic Desire
of the type. But as we develop the inner observer, it will
support presence and
undermine the identification
that supports the armor of the type.
The Enneagram reveals three sets of relations about our type
armor:
- Triadic self
revealing: Instinctive,
feeling, thinking; childhood needs
that became significant wounds
- Social style
groupings: Assertive, compliant, withdrawn; strategies for
managing inner conflict
- Coping styles: Positive outlook, competency, reactive; strategies for
defending childhood wounds
Riso and Hudson augment the Enneagram with instinctual
distortions reflected in the interests of the variants.
The Enneagram also offers tools for understanding a person's level of development:
unhealthy, average, healthy,
liberation; including their
current center of gravity,
steriotypical social role,
wake-up call, leaden rule, red
flag, and direction
of integration and disintegration.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory associates the models
presented by the Enneagram with evolved behaviors and structures
in the mind: feelings, emotions, social behaviors, ideas; driven
by genetic and cultural evolution and the constraints of family
and social life. Emergent evolved amplifers can be
constrained by Riso and Hudson's awareness strategies.
Enneagram strategies |
Antonio Damasio argues
that ancient
& fundamental homeostatic processes,
built into
behaviors and updated by evolution
have resulted in the emergence
of nervous systems and feelings. These
feelings, representing the state of the viscera, and represented with general
systems supporting enteric
operation, are later ubiquitously
integrated into the 'images'
built by the minds of higher animals
including humans.
Damasio highlights the separate
development of the body frame in the building of
minds.
Damasio explains that this integration of feelings by minds
supports the development of subjectivity and consciousness. His chain of
emergence suggests the 'order of things.' He stresses the
end-to-end
integration of the organism which undermines dualism. And he reviews Chalmers
hard problem of consciousness.
Damasio reviews the emergence of cultures
and sees feelings, integrated with reason, as the judges of the
cultural creative process, linking culture to
homeostasis. He sees cultures as supporting the
development of tools
to improve our lives. But the results of the
creative process have added
stresses to our lives.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Each of the [super]organisms
discussed is a CAS reflecting the theory of such systems:
- Damasio's proposals about homeostasis routed signalling, aligns
well with CAS theory.
- Damasio's ideas on cultural stresses are elaborated by CAS
examples.
Emergence of feelings |
Robert Coram highlights the noble life of John Boyd. John
spent a lot of time alone
during his childhood.
He: excelled at swimming and was a lifeguard, enlisted in the
Army Air Corp while at school which rejected him for pilot
training, was part of the Japan occupation force where he swam;
so the US paid for him to attend University
of Iowa, where he: joined the Air Force Officers' training
corps, was accepted to be an Air Force pilot, and got engaged to
Mary Bruce.
Boyd trained at Nellis AFB to become a
combat ready pilot in
the Korean War.
While the US Air Force focused on
Strategic bombing, Boyd loved
dogfights. His exceptional tactical ability was
rewarded with becoming an instructor. Boyd created new
ways to think about dogfighting and beat all-comers
by using them in the F-100.
He was noticed and enabled by Spradling. As he trained, and defeated the top
pilots from around the US and allied base network, his
reputation spread. But he needed to get
nearer to the hot spring in Georgia, and when his move to
Tyndall AFB was blocked he used the AFIT to train in engineering at
Georgia tech. While preparing to move he documented his FWS training
and mentored Ronald Catton.
While there he first realized the
link between energy
and maneuverability.
At Eglin, in partnership with Tom Christie,
he developed tools to model the link. They developed
comparisons of US and Soviet aircraft which showed the US
aircraft performing poorly. Eventually General Sweeney
was briefed on
the theory and issues with the F-105, F-4, and F-111.
Sent to the Pentagon
to help save the F-X budget, Boyd joined forces with Pierre Sprey to
pressure procurement into designing and
building tactically exceptional aircraft: a CAS tank killer and a
lightweight maneuverable
fighter. The navy aligned with
Senators of states with navy bases, prepared to sink the
F-X and force the F-14 on
the Air Force. Boyd saved
the plane from the Navy and the budget from Congress, ensuring
the Air Force executive and its career focused hierarchy had the
freedom to compromise
on a budget expanding over-stuffed F-X (F-15). Boyd requested to
retire, in disgust.
Amid mounting hostility from the organizational hierarchy Boyd
and Sprey secretly
developed specifications for building prototype lightweight
fighters with General Dynamics: YF-16;
and Northrop: YF-17; and enabled by Everest Riccioni.
David Packard
announced a budget of $200 million for the services to spend on
prototypes. Pierre Sprey's friend Lyle Cameron picked a
short takeoff and landing transport aircraft and Boyd's lightweight fighter to
prototype.
Boyd was transferred to Thailand
as Vice Commander of Task
Force Alpha, inspector general and equal opportunity
training officer; roles in which he excelled. And he
started working on his analysis of creativity: Destruction
and Creation. But on completion of the tour Boyd was
apparently abandoned and sent to run
a dead end office at the Pentagon.
The power hierarchy moved to protect the F-15, but: Boyd,
Christie, Schlesinger,
and the Air Force chief of staff; kept the
lightweight fighter budgeted and aligned with Boyd's
requirements in a covert campaign. The Air Force
threw a phalanx of developers at the F-16, distorting Boyd's
concept. He accepted he had lost the fight and retired
from the Air Force.
Shifting to scholarship Boyd reflects on how rigidity must be destroyed to enable
creative new assemblies. He uses the idea to explain
the operational success of the YF16 and F-86 fighters, and then
highlights how the pilot can take advantage of their
infrastructure advantage with rapid decision making he
explains with the O-O-D-A Loop.
Boyd encouraged Chuck Spinney
to expose the systemic cost overruns
of the military procurement process. The military
hierarchy moved to undermine the
Spinney Report and understand the
nature of the reformers. Boyd acted as a progressive
mentor to Michael
Wyly, who taught the
Marine Corps about maneuver
warfare, and Jim Burton.
Finally, after the military hierarchy appears to have
beaten him, Boyd's ideas are tested during
the First Gulf War.
Following our summary of his main points, RSS frames the details from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Boyd was Darwinesque, placing the art of
air-to-air combat within a CAS framework.
Air warrior |
Alfred Nemeczek reveals the chaotic, stressful life of Vincent
van Gogh in Arles.
Nemeczek shows that Vincent was driven
to create, and successfully
invented new methods of representing feeling in paintings, and
especially portraits. Vincent
worked hard to allow artists like him-self
to innovate. But
Vincent failed in this goal, collapsing into psychosis.
Nemeczek also provides a brief history of
Vincent's life.
Following our summary of his main points, RSS frames the details from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Vincent creates |
My song |
Richard Feynman
outlines a series of amusing vignettes, as he reviews his life story.
Richard's personality
encouraged him to patiently
seek out fun: performing Shewhart cycles
with electricity, in his childhood laboratory, and aligning theory, and
practice through building and fixing radios.
Leonardo's life inspired him to try
innovation, which he
concluded was hard. He played
with the emotion
in communications, a skill
which he used later at
Caltech. And he made a game of avoiding following
orders at MIT. Working during
the holidays revealed the benefit of joining theory and
practice.
Feynman enrolled as a graduate
student at Princeton, where the successful
approach to science was just like his.
His approach was based on
patience and fun: he used his home lab and other tools for
qualitative exploration. Overtime he added experimental
techniques. He would test
the assertions in articles with amusing investigations;
with his mind aligned by
feelings of joy. Everyone at Princeton heard he would want to be hypnotized.
He was driven to compare the challenges of complex subjects being
taught at Princeton to his current pick. In his summer
recess he explored biology.
Gathering problems in challenging areas of science, and then picking one to solve, supported his
creativity. And his practical
orientation and situation when growing up in Far Rockaway,
supported his desire for choices
and adolescent dislike for purely intellectual and cultural
pursuits. Being mostly self-taught, he
developed different approaches to problems than the
standard strategies provided by mass education.
Richard saw his skill set as very different to that exhibited by his father. But are they very
different?
While Richard was at Princeton, America became concerned about
the implications of the European war. After a friend
enlisted he decided to dedicate his
summer holiday to helping the war effort. Feynman got involved in the
Manhattan Project, and went to Los Alamos where he
experienced constraints, applied by: the military, the
physics of the project, him on Niels
Bohr; but was
freed from them by Von
Neumann. The records & reports of the project
were kept in filing cabinets. Richard explored the weaknesses of
the locks and safes deployed to secure these
secrets. Just after the war he was called up by the draft
board for a medical but was rejected for being mentally
unfit.
After the war, Richard was asked to become a professor at Cornell.
He initially struggled in this role: Too young to match
expectations, stressed by the demands of his new job and his
recent experiences; until he adopted an approach that focused on
fun. He enjoyed knowing
about numbers: using, learning about them and the tools to
use them, and competing with others; to calculate, interpolate
and approximate a value the fastest.
Traveling to Buffalo in a light plane once a week to give a
physics lecture before flying back the next morning wasn't much
fun for Richard. So he used
the stipend to visit a bar after each lecture to meet
beautiful women. Richard liked bars and nightclubs, spending a summer in Albuquerque
frequenting one, and later
ones in Las Vegas, as he explored how to get the girls he
drank with to sleep with him.
Richard reflects on various times when he made government
officials obey their parts of contracts: patent fees, limits on red tape;
Richard became frustrated with his life at Cornell, seeing more
things that interested him on the sunny west coast at Caltech. Both
institutions, and Chicago, offered him incentives to help his decision making,
but Richard began to find reevaluating the alternatives a waste
of time and he saw risks in
a really high salary, deciding he would move to Caltech
and stay there.
Richard is invited to attend a scientific symposium in
Japan. Each of the US attendees is asked to learn a little
Japanese. Richard takes lessons, persists, can converse
effectively, but stops when he
finds the cultural parts of the language conflict with his
individualism.
Richard was unhappy with his achievements in physics. He
felt: slower than his peers, not keeping up or understanding the
latest details, fearful that
he could not cope; as the community
worked to understand the laws of beta decay. But
Martin Block pushed him to question the troubling parity
premise. Encouraged by Oppenheimer the community focused
on parity and failures were discovered in a cascade of
reports. Richard attended a meeting where Lee & Yang
discussed a failure and a theory to explain it. Richard
felt terrified and could not understand what they said.
His sister pushed him to change his attitude: act like a student
having fun, read every
line and equation of their paper; he would understand it.
And he did, as well as developing additional insights about what
was happening and what still seemed conflicted. He
reported his ideas back to the community. After Richard
returned from Brazil he reviewed the confusion of facts with
Caltech's experimental physicists who made him aware of
Gell-mann abandoning another former premise of Beta decay.
Feynman realized his ideas were consistent: fully and simply
describing the details of beta decay. He had identified
the workings of a fundamental law. Years later he was awarded the Nobel
prize for physics. He was conflicted about the prize
and attending the ceremony, but eventually enjoyed the trip,
where he discussed cultural achievement with the Japanese
ambassador.
Richard was interested in the operation of the brain, modeling
it on a digital computer. He explored hallucinations and the reality of
experiences.
Richard lobbies for integrity
in science.
In aspects of his life that weren't focused directly on science,
Richard was quirky. He would tease those who asked for his
help: pushing bargains to their logical conclusion; insisting on everyone keeping to
their part of the agreement. And he paid no attention to the
logistical details of planning. He loved percussion,
playing: drums, bongos, baskets, tables, Frigideira; and became quite a success. He
eventually discovered art could be
fun, and tried to express his joy at the underlying
mathematical beauty of the physical world. He had a great
art teacher. But he discovered although he could
eventually draw well he did not understand art.
Many of the artists he met were fakers, and even the powerful,
who were interested in integrating art and science, did not
understand either subject. He found the situation was
similar in other complex adaptive systems: philosophy, religion and
economics; which he dabbled in for a while but found the
strategies of other people practicing the study of such subjects
made him angry and
disturbed, so he avoided participating in them. It seemed
ironic that he was eventually asked to help in bringing
culture to the physicists!
He discusses issues in teaching creative physics in Brazil. He gets
involved in the California public school text
book selection process which he concluded was totally
broken, but also reveals how his father
provided him with a vision of how our world works,
inspiring his interest in experimentation and physical
theory.
Following our summary of his main points, RSS reviews how his personality, family and cultural history supported
his creative development from the perspective of complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Richard draws |
Desmond & Moore paint a picture of Charles Darwin's life,
expanded from his own highlights:
- His naughty
childhood,
- Wasted
schooldays,
- Apprenticeship with Grant,
- His extramural
activities at Cambridge, walks with Henslow,
life with FitzRoy on the
Beagle,
- His growing
love for science,
- London: geology, journal and Lyell.
- Moving from
Gower Street to Down and writing Origin and other
books.
- He reviewed his position on
religion: the long
dispute with Emma, his
slow collapse of belief
- damnation for unbelievers like his father and brother, inward conviction
being evolved and unreliable, regretting he had ignored his father's
advice; while describing Emma's side of the
argument. He felt happy with his decision to dedicate
his life to science. He closed by asserting after Self &
Cross-fertilization his strength will be
exhausted.
Following our summary of their main points, RSS frames the details from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Darwin placed
evolution within a CAS framework, and built a network of supporters whose
complementary skills helped drive the innovation.
Darwin emerges |
Richard Dawkin's explores how nature has created implementations
of designs, without any need for planning or design, through the
accumulation of small advantageous changes.
Accumulating small changes |
Russ Abbott explores the impact on science of epiphenomena and
the emergence of agents.
Autonomous emergence |
Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
Constraint based phenomena |
|
|
My song
Summary
Reginald Dwight, better known as Elton John, writes a hilarious
memoir, full of anecdotal and sometimes morbid humor and gossip is an evolved mechanism to enforce: fairness, indirect reciprocity, and avoidance of despotism. It allows: reality testing, transfer of news, and consensus building; to maintain norms. Barkow notes reputation is determined by gossip, with casual conversations of others affecting a person's relative standing and acceptability as a mate and partner in a social exchange. It is a favorite passtime. , which describes his
immediate family, upbringing, development is a phase during the operation of a CAS agent. It allows for schematic strategies to be iteratively blended with environmental signals to solve the logistical issues of migrating newly built and transformed sub-agents. That is needed to achieve the adult configuration of the agent and optimize it for the proximate environment. Smiley includes examples of the developmental phase agents required in an emergent CAS. In situations where parents invest in the growth and memetic learning of their offspring the schematic grab bag can support optimizations to develop models, structures and actions to construct an adept adult. In humans, adolescence leverages neural plasticity, elder sibling advice and adult coaching to help prepare the deploying neuronal network and body to successfully compete. as a singer
songwriter, stardom and its support for his problems, collapse
and eventual recovery.
Elton stresses the serendipitous nature
of his emergence as a musician is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. . He describes
the contributions of his parents, Stanley was Reg's father, who worked in the Royal Air Force, but also played trumpet in a band, through which he met his first wife Sheila - who came to watch. He also loved football (soccer) and his nephews were professional footballers. He was often away from home, was stubborn and rule bound when he was there, had a terrible short temper, was always critical of Reg, and arguing with his wife. After they divorced he remarried and had four more boys who adored him. But he was never able to show any affection to Reg. He died in 1991 and Reg could not bring himself to attend the funeral. & Sheila was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. , mother's
sister, and her mother Ivy was Reg Dwight's maternal grandmother. He recalls her as: no nonsense, hard-working, kind, funny, a great cook, loved a drink and a game of cards. She always had music playing, from the radio, record player or their piano. After her first husband died of cancer, she had remarried Horace Sewell, who was a gardener, introverted, had lost a leg in the Great War and was kind. ;
who formed his early
childhood proximate environment which prepared
him for a job in entertainment: he
developed his performance in the club circuits, setup a
commercial partnership with Bernie Taupin to write songs;
entering a network based around Dick James Music (DJM): - Is a music production company in New Oxford Street, London
- Administered Ray Williams of Liberty Records, production company
- Employed Caleb Quaye as in-house engineer. And Steve Brown as studio manager.
- Dick James funded Elton John and Bernie Taupin's song publishing, paying Elton extra to sing and play piano on the demo recordings. Once James realized the potential of Elton & Bernie's second album he drove it and them through the evolved amplifier of American entertainment and communications.
- Tony King worked on publishing and promotion for George Martin's association of independent record producers (AIR) from a desk he rented from DJM. He influenced Elton's style, introduced him to his network of friends, and helped him find work as a session musician.
.
And he almost got married.
DJM is Dick James Music:
- Is a music production company in New Oxford Street,
London
- Administered Ray Williams of Liberty Records,
production company
- Employed Caleb Quaye as
in-house engineer. And Steve Brown as studio
manager.
- Dick James funded Elton John
and Bernie Taupin's song publishing, paying Elton extra to
sing and play piano on the demo recordings. Once
James realized the potential of Elton & Bernie's
second album he drove it and them through the evolved amplifier of American
entertainment and communications.
- Tony King worked on
publishing and promotion for George Martin's association
of independent record producers (AIR) from a desk he
rented from DJM. He influenced Elton's style,
introduced him to his network of friends, and helped him
find work as a session musician.
focused Elton and Bernie's initial song writing
while they studied the songs they admired and Elton did session
work, tightening his performance skills and paying for the
food. A first album supported touring and the formation of
a band. A second one sent them to the US is the United States of America. where Elton became an
overnight sensation. And during this period of time
Elton's testosterone is a hormone secreted by the testes, ovaries, and adrenal glands, in response to stimulation from the hypothalamic/pituitary/testicular cascade, that makes humans more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status, according to Sapolsky. That means players of the Ultimatum Game, if previously given testosterone can become more generous. High testosterone in a fetus masculinizes the brain. Males generate 10 times the amount. It is the trigger for sexual desire in males and females, stimulating the hypothalamus. Testosterone's effect is highly socially contextual so it may encourage acts of kindness or aggression (when challenged). The level of testosterone does not predict which individuals will be aggressive in: Birds, Fish, Mammals including primates. Genes impact the potency of testosterone by altering the enzymes that: Construct it, Convert it to estrogen, code the androgen receptor. This androgen receptor includes a variable polyglutamine repeat which alters the sensitivity to the testosterone signal. The more potent form is associated with boys showing more dramatic 'masculinization' of the cortex. But the detected genetic influences are small. Testosterone decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex and its functional coupling to the amygdala while increasing the coupling between the amygdala & the thalamus. Testosterone shortens the refactory period of amygdaloid & amygdaloid target neurons. This results in impulsive risk taking and more focus on unfamiliar faces and distrust of them. Testosterone increases activity in the ventral tegmentum projecting dopamine to enhance place preference. Winners of fights become more willing to fight in part due to testosterone increasing confidence and optimism and reducing fear and anxiety. And winning at: Chess, Athletics, Stock trades; induces the BNST to add testosterone receptors increasing its sensitivity to the hormone. People become overconfident and overly optimistic.
level ramped. Life changed
dramatically.
Stardom provided many rewards but there
were still life's problems to deal with. Elton was
befriended by his idol, John Lennon; he achieved new heights of
success but, sensitive to any hint of failure and fraud, suicidally disassociated.
His career crested, he struggled with loneliness and drugs, and
foresaw a fearful vision of his future, as fame caged him idly
in hotels between concerts. His hair abandoned him.
But he was saved by the challenge of
transforming the collapsed Watford football club. He
retired from touring which allowed him the time to reconstruct his life.
Empowered by success, supported by the removal of constraints,
Elton dominates signals the power to hurt a rival. Maynard Smith & Parker explain that in group situations females compete for food and males compete for females. Maleness is a huge factor for violence. Fighting to the death is costly for all participants so instead they indicate: - Size and weapons to demonstrate who will win. Males who are, or look like, better fighters: Large heads, Big men, Height; gain in dominance.
- Political acumen to demonstrate they won't be pushed around and have the support of other powerful groups. Dominant males push other rivals aside and gain interest of females, enabling themselves to replicate more. Being a signal its authenticity can be challenged and so must be defended to remain credible. Hotheads leverage the doomsday machine to constrain rational challenges. Bands and cultures leverage honor. Youth and lack of resources reduce the power of rivals' political constraints.
- limiting feedback, doing whatever he
hopes will bring him happiness is an emotion which functions to mobilize the mind to seek capabilities and resources that support Darwinian fitness. Today happiness is associated with Epicurean ideas that were rediscovered during the renaissance and promoted by Thomas Jefferson. But natural selection has 'designed' happiness to support hunter-gatherer fitness in the African savanna. It is assessed: Relative to other's situations, Based on small gains or losses relative to one's current situation; and so what makes us [un-]happy and our responses can seem a counter-productive treadmill. For Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in the savanna there were many ways for losses to undermine fitness and so losses still make us very unhappy. Smoking, drinking and excessive eating were not significant and so don't make us unhappy even though they impact longevity. :
trying new options, expanding the range and increasing the
quantity of mind altering substances; eventually hitting John Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. and marrying
Renata.
He allows his drug use to enter the recording studio. Problems stress him. He is
frightened by a cancer is the out-of-control growth of cells, which have stopped obeying their cooperative schematic planning and signalling infrastructure. It results from compounded: oncogene, tumor suppressor, DNA caretaker; mutations in the DNA. In 2010 one third of Americans are likely to die of cancer. Cell division rates did not predict likelihood of cancer. Viral infections are associated. Radiation and carcinogen exposure are associated. Lifestyle impacts the likelihood of cancer occurring: Drinking alcohol to excess, lack of exercise, Obesity, Smoking, More sun than your evolved melanin protection level; all significantly increase the risk of cancer occurring (Jul 2016).
scare, AIDS is acquired auto-immune deficiency syndrome, a pandemic disease caused by the HIV. It also amplifies the threat of tuberculosis. Initially deadly, infecting and destroying the T-lymphocytes of the immune system, it can now be treated with HAART to become a chronic disease. And with an understanding of HIV's mode of entry into the T-cells, through its binding to CCR5 and CD4 encoded transmembrane proteins, AIDS may be susceptible to treatment with recombinant DNA to alter the CCR5 binding site, or with drugs that bind to the CCR5 cell surface protein preventing binding by the virus. Future optimization of drug delivery may leverage nanoscale research (May 2016). , inspired by
Ryan White, angered is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. Anger is mostly experienced as a rapid wave that then quickly dissipates. When it is repressed, for example by a strong moral sense (superego), it can sustain, inducing long term stress. by the
Sun, and saddened is a feeling, which can induce empathy and compassion. It can last for days, in contrast to the emotions, fear & anger. Mild sadness induces a beneficial state in the brain: improved judgment, memory, motivation, and more socially sensitive and generous. at
breaking Renata's heart. But he was there for Ryan White's
final days. And his lover Hugh Williams confronted Elton
about his string of addictions results from changes in the operation of the brain's reward network's regulatory regions, altering the anticipation of rewards. Addictive drugs mediate the receptors of the reward network, increasing dopamine in the pleasure centers of the cortex. The learned association of the situation with the reward makes addiction highly prone to relapse, when the situation is subsequently experienced. This makes addiction a chronic disease, where the sufferer must remain vigilant to avoid relapse inducing situations. Repeated exposure to the addictive drug alters the reward network. The neurons that produce dopamine are impaired, no longer sending dopamine to the reward target areas, reducing the feeling of pleasure. But the situational association remains strong driving the addict to repeat the addictive activity. Destroying the memory of the pleasure inducer may provide a treatment for addiction in the future. Addiction has a genetic component, which supports inheritance. Some other compulsive disorders: eating, gambling, sexual behavior; are similar to drug addiction. .
Elton finally agreed he had a problem.
He went to rehab, stopped hating himself,
gave up his current addictions, accepted the influence of a
higher force, and began admiring the everyday world and other
people.
It seemed the higher force was
supporting Elton's progress: he wrote the music for the
Lion King, met David Furnish who accepted Elton warts and all;
they both enjoyed a friendship with Gianni Versace; until Gianni
was murdered. Princess Diana
died soon after, and Elton performed at the funeral.
He toured with Billy Joel and aimed to do the same with Tina
Turner. While his new records sold well he found
himself in debt and terminated the management relationship
with John Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired.
Enterprises.
Elton and Bernie improved their
situations: Elton started writing film scores, he helped
turn the film Billy Elliot into a musical, Bernie lobbied Elton
to improve the way they were making records, Elton and David
entered into a civil partnership, and Elton made a record with
his seminal influence: Leon
Russell.
Elton and David became parents of
two boys: Zachary and Elijah; using their sperm a surrogate
mother and network in California. They quietly get married
when the UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. allows.
Elton's mum was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. remains
difficult and cruel to him, but he is sad is a feeling, which can induce empathy and compassion. It can last for days, in contrast to the emotions, fear & anger. Mild sadness induces a beneficial state in the brain: improved judgment, memory, motivation, and more socially sensitive and generous. when she dies, and many
at the funeral recall her fun side with him. Being parents
increases the long-term
stresses is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. In order for the body to destroy bacteria in wounds, pro-inflammatory cytokines increase blood flow to the area. The induced inflammation signals the brain to activate the insula and through it the ACC. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- Increases the risk of autoimmune disease (Jan 2017)
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
on their lives, forcing them to adjust, so they can be there for their boys.
But Elton needs to go out with a bang!
And everyone helps.
Following our summary of his main points, RSS is Rob's Strategy Studio frames the details
of the creative process from the perspective of complex
adaptive system (CAS) This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
theory.
Me
In Reginald Dwight/Elton John's autobiography
'Me', he recalls chronologically the key
points in his life, once he has described his pivotal shift of identity.
Prologue
Working in the backing band for Long John Baldry was an exceptional British 12-string guitarist and entertainer, who had the misfortune to become popular because of 'Let The Heartaches Begin,' an orchestral arrangement with a female chorus that became a number one hit. Baldry was suddenly in demand at high paying supper clubs. He was an important catalyst in Reg Dwight's emergence as Elton John: hilarious, eccentric, openly gay, told Reg that he was also gay, that Reg should not get married, and Baldry moved Bluesology from performing at rhythm & blues clubs to the supper club circuit; so even Reg could see he needed a change. ,
as the organ player in Bluesology was a second rate British blues band, which became Long John Baldry's backing band, after the breakup of Steampacket. The lineup included: Stu Brown - singer, Pete Gavin, drummer Mick Inkpen, Elton Dean - jazz sax player, Reg Dwight on electric-piano & house organ. It was funded and managed by Soho jeweler Arnold Tendler. ,
while rock music was transforming popular culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
, it became apparent
to Reg Dwight, already rejected by Liberty Records was a progressive rock label. Ray Williams was scouting for talent but rejected Reg Dwight. However, Ray gave Reg the details of a lyricist, Bernie Taupin, and later helped the song writing pair produce records through his own publishing company which was administered by Dick James Music. ,
that he must change - everything!, to achieve dominance signals the power to hurt a rival. Maynard Smith & Parker explain that in group situations females compete for food and males compete for females. Maleness is a huge factor for violence. Fighting to the death is costly for all participants so instead they indicate: - Size and weapons to demonstrate who will win. Males who are, or look like, better fighters: Large heads, Big men, Height; gain in dominance.
- Political acumen to demonstrate they won't be pushed around and have the support of other powerful groups. Dominant males push other rivals aside and gain interest of females, enabling themselves to replicate more. Being a signal its authenticity can be challenged and so must be defended to remain credible. Hotheads leverage the doomsday machine to constrain rational challenges. Bands and cultures leverage honor. Youth and lack of resources reduce the power of rivals' political constraints.
as a
performer. He, resigned from Bluesology, assumed the
identity of Elton John (Elton from Elton Dean and John from Long
John Baldry) and partnered with, a far superior lyricist to him,
Bernie Taupin with the goal of making a business out of writing
and supplying songs to Denmark
Street in Central London was Britain's Tin Pan Alley, a value delivery system, transforming song writer's creations into sheet music and recordings of singers and musicians performing them. With the advent of Bob Dylan and the Beetles, this network started a Schumpeterian collapse. .
9 One
Reg explains that his mom was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while.
introduced him to Elvis
Presley was a singer and entertainer who, according to Elton John, transformed southern US black blues and rock & roll music and introduced the result: Heartbreak Hotel - raw, sparse, slow, reverberating and eerie; to white audiences who felt the 'energy' Elvis signalled. Presley's appearance: clothes, hair, stance; was as striking and remarkable for the time as his music. 's Heartbreak Hotel. After work each Friday,
she liked to bring home new records, exploring new musical is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. genres, which he
loved. On this occasion, taking in Presley's power deeply
impacted Reg. He had an eye for performance, already
inspired by Winifred
Atwell was a Trinidadian pianist and performer. She entertained on stage with two pianos: baby grand for light classical music and an upright for ragtime & pub songs; which, according to Elton John, she performed with glee, giving the impression she was having the best time in the world. , but Presley's presence changed everything for him
and many others.
His 'love is the outcome of the dopamine reward system, argues UCSF professor Robert Lustig. He, like the early Christians, contrasts [addiction oriented] pleasure with serotonin driven happiness & contentment. ' of music is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. was enhanced by playing
records and the piano, including rock and roll when his father
was out, with positive, W. Brian Arthur's conception of how high tech products have positive economic feedback as they deploy. Classical products such as foods have negative returns to scale since they take increasing amounts of land, and distribution infrastructure to support getting them to market. High tech products typically become easier to produce or gain from platform and network effects of being connected together overcoming the negative effects of scale.
feedback from the family when he performed during their
sing-songs. He took piano lessons, and his teacher
encouraged him to test for the Royal Academy of
Music, part of the University of London, located on the Marylebone Road in London, teaches music composition, conducting, musicianship and performance, including singing and playing instruments. It has a Junior Academy where young musicians under the age of 18 train, and a Senior Academy teaching for degrees. , which he attended most Saturday mornings from age
11. The Academy
focused only on classical music is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized.
and was very intimidating to Reg, who admits to being a lazy
student. But he liked singing in the choir, and playing
melodic music: Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin; and had a
motivating teacher Helen Piena. While he was more
interested in improvisation and didn't have the large hand-span
of a concert pianist, he notes that his subsequent music
compositions were all influenced by the classical ideas he
learned there: collaboration, chord structures, how to construct
a song, and writing songs with more than three or four
chords. And he collaborated with talented people from
there: the producer Chris Thomas, the arranger Paul Buckmaster,
harpist Skaila Kanga and percussionist Ray Cooper.
Reg's dad was Reg's father, who worked in the Royal Air Force, but also played trumpet in a band, through which he met his first wife Sheila - who came to watch. He also loved football (soccer) and his nephews were professional footballers. He was often away from home, was stubborn and rule bound when he was there, had a terrible short temper, was always critical of Reg, and arguing with his wife. After they divorced he remarried and had four more boys who adored him. But he was never able to show any affection to Reg. He died in 1991 and Reg could not bring himself to attend the funeral. worked
for the RAF and was often away from home. So Reg grew up
with his mom was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. , aunt
Win, maternal grand-mother was Reg Dwight's maternal grandmother. He recalls her as: no nonsense, hard-working, kind, funny, a great cook, loved a drink and a game of cards. She always had music playing, from the radio, record player or their piano. After her first husband died of cancer, she had remarried Horace Sewell, who was a gardener, introverted, had lost a leg in the Great War and was kind.
and her second husband. Reg loved his grand-mother, who
was the matriarch: cook, and always surrounded by visitors and
music: on the radio, record player, or sing-songs around the
piano. This helped Reg develop an affinity for
music.
Reg's father, Stanley was Reg's father, who worked in the Royal Air Force, but also played trumpet in a band, through which he met his first wife Sheila - who came to watch. He also loved football (soccer) and his nephews were professional footballers. He was often away from home, was stubborn and rule bound when he was there, had a terrible short temper, was always critical of Reg, and arguing with his wife. After they divorced he remarried and had four more boys who adored him. But he was never able to show any affection to Reg. He died in 1991 and Reg could not bring himself to attend the funeral. never showed
any affection towards him. Strongly critical, stubborn,
short tempered and angry is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. Anger is mostly experienced as a rapid wave that then quickly dissipates. When it is repressed, for example by a strong moral sense (superego), it can sustain, inducing long term stress.
most of the time, he did however, praise Reg for his
performances in family sing-songs. And he encouraged Reg's
supporting and attending Watford Football Club. Even after
Stanley had died in 1991, Elton writes that he was still "trying
to show my father what I'm made of."
Reg's mother, Sheila was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. ensured that
as a child, Reg was terrified of
her is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amygdala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala. Tara Brach notes we experience fear as a painfully constricted throat, chest and belly, and racing heart. The mind can build stories of the future which include fearful situations making us anxious about current ideas and actions that we associate with the potential future scenario. And it can associate traumatic events from early childhood with our being at fault. Consequent assumptions of our being unworthy can result in shame and fear of losing friendships. The mechanism for human fear was significantly evolved to protect us in the African savanna. This does not align perfectly with our needs in current environments: U.S. Grant was unusually un-afraid of the noise or risk of guns and trusted his horses' judgment, which mostly benefited his agency as a modern soldier. . As often happens he worried that he was the
cause of her rage is a doomsday machine emotion of uncontrollable righteous anger. . But
her sister, Win, assured Reg that his mother had always been angry is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. Anger is mostly experienced as a rapid wave that then quickly dissipates. When it is repressed, for example by a strong moral sense (superego), it can sustain, inducing long term stress. . His mom
supported Reg leaving school early to become a musician is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. .
Reg's mom was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. and dad was Reg's father, who worked in the Royal Air Force, but also played trumpet in a band, through which he met his first wife Sheila - who came to watch. He also loved football (soccer) and his nephews were professional footballers. He was often away from home, was stubborn and rule bound when he was there, had a terrible short temper, was always critical of Reg, and arguing with his wife. After they divorced he remarried and had four more boys who adored him. But he was never able to show any affection to Reg. He died in 1991 and Reg could not bring himself to attend the funeral. did not get on,
making them difficult to live with and hard to please. His
dad discouraged Reg's interest in becoming a performer while his
mother supported it. Once they divorced, Reg stayed with
his mom and when she remarried, to Fred, who Reg: liked, rapidly
accepted as his step-dad and nicknamed Derf; they all moved in
together. Derf also encouraged Reg's interest in
performing, collecting tips for him as Reg sang and played piano
at the pub: the Northwood Hills Hotel public bar; where, as the
alcohol flowed, fights broke out. But that audience
appreciated Reg's performance: Jim Reeves songs, Johnnie Ray, Elvis Presley was a singer and entertainer who, according to Elton John, transformed southern US black blues and rock & roll music and introduced the result: Heartbreak Hotel - raw, sparse, slow, reverberating and eerie; to white audiences who felt the 'energy' Elvis signalled. Presley's appearance: clothes, hair, stance; was as striking and remarkable for the time as his music. , Al
Jolson, and British pub songs; which they loved. Reg got
great tips.
Focused on music is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. ,
especially performance, and supporting Watford football club,
Reg's school work suffered, so when his professional footballer
cousin, Roy, got him the offer of a job in the music industry in Central London was Britain's Tin Pan Alley, a value delivery system, transforming song writer's creations into sheet music and recordings of singers and musicians performing them. With the advent of Bob Dylan and the Beetles, this network started a Schumpeterian collapse. Reg
took it, with the support of his mom and headmaster. He
guesses his father disapproved.
33 Two
Reg loved Denmark
Street in Central London was Britain's Tin Pan Alley, a value delivery system, transforming song writer's creations into sheet music and recordings of singers and musicians performing them. With the advent of Bob Dylan and the Beetles, this network started a Schumpeterian collapse. even though his own job was mostly logistical:
packaging sheet music and taking it to the post office.
There were lots of young, keen musicians is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. ,
instrument shops, and fun. He notes the business model of
writers, and producers creating songs for entertainers, was
clearly being This page reviews Christensen's disruption
of a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism is discussed with examples from biology and
business.
disrupted by the new
generation of player-composers: Bob Dylan, Beetles; who did not
need writers to create songs for them.
Reg became part of a band, playing his electric-piano in Bluesology was a second rate British blues band, which became Long John Baldry's backing band, after the breakup of Steampacket. The lineup included: Stu Brown - singer, Pete Gavin, drummer Mick Inkpen, Elton Dean - jazz sax player, Reg Dwight on electric-piano & house organ. It was funded and managed by Soho jeweler Arnold Tendler. . With a
little funding and lots of bookings from its manager, the group
performed on the blues circuit in the UK, and went over to
Germany's Reeperbahn. Reg notes the wild life of
Hamburg passed him by. He was totally focused on playing
and buying records and was very ambitious. Bluesology was a second rate British blues band, which became Long John Baldry's backing band, after the breakup of Steampacket. The lineup included: Stu Brown - singer, Pete Gavin, drummer Mick Inkpen, Elton Dean - jazz sax player, Reg Dwight on electric-piano & house organ. It was funded and managed by Soho jeweler Arnold Tendler. provided
backing to top-rate entertainers from the US, who Reg observed
closely, learning the form of the art.
But Reg also observed other bands: The Move with guitarist and
writer Roy Wood; who were much better than Bluesology. And
he knew he wasn't an organist: it was a complicated instrument
played by specialists: Brian Auger, Steve Winwood; that often
left him flummoxed when it misbehaved.
For a while,
when Long John
Baldry was an exceptional British 12-string guitarist and entertainer, who had the misfortune to become popular because of 'Let The Heartaches Begin,' an orchestral arrangement with a female chorus that became a number one hit. Baldry was suddenly in demand at high paying supper clubs. He was an important catalyst in Reg Dwight's emergence as Elton John: hilarious, eccentric, openly gay, told Reg that he was also gay, that Reg should not get married, and Baldry moved Bluesology from performing at rhythm & blues clubs to the supper club circuit; so even Reg could see he needed a change. leveraged Bluesology was a second rate British blues band, which became Long John Baldry's backing band, after the breakup of Steampacket. The lineup included: Stu Brown - singer, Pete Gavin, drummer Mick Inkpen, Elton Dean - jazz sax player, Reg Dwight on electric-piano & house organ. It was funded and managed by Soho jeweler Arnold Tendler.
as his backing band, Reg found him such great company that he
could ignore his dissatisfaction with his career progress.
Eventually, he resigned from Bluesology,
adopted the persona of Elton John, and responded to a talent
advert by Liberty Records, which initiated his
partnership with Bernie Taupin. Elton found Bernie's
lyrics magical and their disjoint way of working: composing
separately, lyrics produced first by Bernie with music
subsequently added by Elton; invigorating. Liberty was a progressive rock label. Ray Williams was scouting for talent but rejected Reg Dwight. However, Ray gave Reg the details of a lyricist, Bernie Taupin, and later helped the song writing pair produce records through his own publishing company which was administered by Dick James Music. 's Ray
Williams agreed to publish their songs through his own company,
which leveraged the resources of Dick James Music (DJM): - Is a music production company in New Oxford Street, London
- Administered Ray Williams of Liberty Records, production company
- Employed Caleb Quaye as in-house engineer. And Steve Brown as studio manager.
- Dick James funded Elton John and Bernie Taupin's song publishing, paying Elton extra to sing and play piano on the demo recordings. Once James realized the potential of Elton & Bernie's second album he drove it and them through the evolved amplifier of American entertainment and communications.
- Tony King worked on publishing and promotion for George Martin's association of independent record producers (AIR) from a desk he rented from DJM. He influenced Elton's style, introduced him to his network of friends, and helped him find work as a session musician.
:
Caleb Quaye worked as the in-house engineer at Dick James Music. He focused his time and DJM's resources on developing recordings of Elton John & Bernie Taupin's songs. Against company rules, he secretly worked on them at night, bringing in session musicians to try out arrangements and production ideas. When discovered he played the tapes to Dick James who offered to fund Elton and Bernie's productions. , Tony King worked in the offices of DJM, renting a desk where he did publishing and promotions for George Martin's association of independent record producers (AIR). Elton explains he was notable for his style: suits, velvet trousers, satin items, from the hippest tailors in London, antique silk scarves, dyed hair with blond highlights; was openly gay. He had worked for The Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison and was friends with The Beetles. Elton found Tony hilarious and wanted to be like him - stylish, exotic, and outrageous. Tony included Elton in his dinner parties with friends including John Reid. And through his network of connections at AIR and Abbey Road, Tony helped Elton become one of their session musicians. Later when Tony was general manager of Apple Records' US operation he introduced Elton to John Lennon. Tony went on to focus on helping the Rolling Stones and Elton make their tour shows exceptional. ; who helped
with the innovation is the economic realization of invention and combinatorial exaptation. Keynes noted it provided the unquantifiable beneficial possibility that limits fear of uncertainty. Innovation operates across all CAS, being supported by genetic and cultural means. Creativity provides the mutation and recombination genetic operators for the cultural process. While highly innovative, monopolies: AT&T, IBM; usually have limited economic reach, constraining productivity. This explains the use of regulation, or even its threat, that can check their power and drive the creations across the economy.
and got Dick James to agree to fund them. Elton &
Bernie focused
on writing two types of songs: those targeted at middle of the
road performers, those extending the musical forms they liked to
listen to: The Beetles, The Moody Blues, Cat Stevens, Leonard
Cohen; numbers that they emulated and Walter Shewhart's iterative development process is found in many
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
The mechanism is reviewed and its value in coping with random
events is explained.
iteratively
This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolved; which eventually led to them
writing Skyline Pigeon - their first unique sounding song.
While still performing with Bluesology was a second rate British blues band, which became Long John Baldry's backing band, after the breakup of Steampacket. The lineup included: Stu Brown - singer, Pete Gavin, drummer Mick Inkpen, Elton Dean - jazz sax player, Reg Dwight on electric-piano & house organ. It was funded and managed by Soho jeweler Arnold Tendler. , Elton met Linda Woodrow who was
independently wealthy and decided to become Elton's wife.
She admired Buddy Greco and worked to shape Elton in this
image. She purchased a flat in Islington and Elton and
Bernie moved in. Even when Elton feigned suicide, Linda
persisted with her goals. But Elton's mom was against the
arrangement, and Bernie felt bullied by her, and that she was a
threat to the developing business partnership with Elton.
Elton suggests his stubborn nature and dislike for confrontation
led him to go along with Linda and set a date for the
marriage. It took Long John Baldry was an exceptional British 12-string guitarist and entertainer, who had the misfortune to become popular because of 'Let The Heartaches Begin,' an orchestral arrangement with a female chorus that became a number one hit. Baldry was suddenly in demand at high paying supper clubs. He was an important catalyst in Reg Dwight's emergence as Elton John: hilarious, eccentric, openly gay, told Reg that he was also gay, that Reg should not get married, and Baldry moved Bluesology from performing at rhythm & blues clubs to the supper club circuit; so even Reg could see he needed a change. ,
surrounded by other notable musicians at the Bag O' Nails to
convince Elton: of his homosexuality, that he liked Bernie more
than Linda; to break off the relationship.
55 Three
Initially there was no interest in either type of
song that Elton and Bernie were writing. They made
the best of a bad situation:
- Making the room they were sharing hip with a record player
where they could listen to the music that inspired them: The
Band's: Chest Fever, Tears of Rage, The Weight; and Elektra is a West Coast record label, run by Jac Holzman, which produced: The Doors, Love, Tim Buckley, and Delaney and Bonnie; records that inspired Elton John and Bernie Taupin's song writing.
's Delaney
& Bonnie (Elton loved Leon Russell's piano playing);
- Through Tony King worked in the offices of DJM, renting a desk where he did publishing and promotions for George Martin's association of independent record producers (AIR). Elton explains he was notable for his style: suits, velvet trousers, satin items, from the hippest tailors in London, antique silk scarves, dyed hair with blond highlights; was openly gay. He had worked for The Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison and was friends with The Beetles. Elton found Tony hilarious and wanted to be like him - stylish, exotic, and outrageous. Tony included Elton in his dinner parties with friends including John Reid. And through his network of connections at AIR and Abbey Road, Tony helped Elton become one of their session musicians. Later when Tony was general manager of Apple Records' US operation he introduced Elton to John Lennon. Tony went on to focus on helping the Rolling Stones and Elton make their tour shows exceptional.
's
AIR studios & Abbey Road connections, Elton
took a job as a session musician, which was both fun and
tightened up his musicianship and singing. He was
working alongside the best: very To benefit from shifts in the environment agents must be flexible. Being
sensitive to environmental signals
agents who adjust strategic priorities can constrain their
competitors.
flexible,
fast and adaptable in evolutionary biology is a trait that increased the number of surviving offspring in an organism's ancestral lineage. Holland argues: complex adaptive systems (CAS) adapt due to the influence of schematic strings on agents. Evolution indicates fitness when an organism survives and reproduces. For his genetic algorithm, Holland separated the adaptive process into credit assignment and rule discovery. He assigned a strength to each of the rules (alternate hypothesis) used by his artificial agents, by credit assignment - each accepted message being paid for by the recipient, increasing the sender agent's rule's strength (implicit modeling) and reducing the recipient's. When an agent achieved an explicit goal they obtained a final reward. Rule discovery used the genetic algorithm to select strong rule schemas from a pair of agents to be included in the next generation, with crossing over and mutation applied, and the resulting schematic strategies used to replace weaker schemas. The crossing over genetic operator is unlikely to break up a short schematic sequence that provides a building block retained because of its 'fitness'; In Deacon's conception of evolution, an adaptation is the realization of a set of constraints on candidate mechanisms, and so long as these constraints are maintained, other features are arbitrary.
professionals.
DJM is Dick James Music:
- Is a music production company in New Oxford Street,
London
- Administered Ray Williams of Liberty Records,
production company
- Employed Caleb Quaye as
in-house engineer. And Steve Brown as studio
manager.
- Dick James funded Elton John
and Bernie Taupin's song publishing, paying Elton extra to
sing and play piano on the demo recordings. Once
James realized the potential of Elton & Bernie's
second album he drove it and them through the evolved amplifier of American
entertainment and communications.
- Tony King worked on
publishing and promotion for George Martin's association
of independent record producers (AIR) from a desk he
rented from DJM. He influenced Elton's style,
introduced him to his network of friends, and helped him
find work as a session musician.
's Steve Brown reviewed the
song writing progress and concluded they should make records of
their own style of composition. Empty Sky didn't sell well
but it allowed Elton to perform and form
a power trio with drummer Nigel Olsen and bass player Dee
Murray. That format allowed them to improvise, play solos,
and Elton to perform with the aggression of Jerry Lee Lewis
combined with Winifred
Atwell was a Trinidadian pianist and performer. She entertained on stage with two pianos: baby grand for light classical music and an upright for ragtime & pub songs; which, according to Elton John, she performed with glee, giving the impression she was having the best time in the world. 's bonhomie! Elton and Bernie's material was
getting better and better, and the process had really clicked:
Your Song was developed in less than an hour; leveraging all
their prior experiences.
It became
clear to Dick James (DJM): - Is a music production company in New Oxford Street, London
- Administered Ray Williams of Liberty Records, production company
- Employed Caleb Quaye as in-house engineer. And Steve Brown as studio manager.
- Dick James funded Elton John and Bernie Taupin's song publishing, paying Elton extra to sing and play piano on the demo recordings. Once James realized the potential of Elton & Bernie's second album he drove it and them through the evolved amplifier of American entertainment and communications.
- Tony King worked on publishing and promotion for George Martin's association of independent record producers (AIR) from a desk he rented from DJM. He influenced Elton's style, introduced him to his network of friends, and helped him find work as a session musician.
that the second album: Elton John; was going to be a big hit in
the UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. and US is the United States of America. . While Elton argued and
protested, James leveraged a This page reviews the catalytic
impact of infrastructure on the expression of phenotypic effects by an
agent. The infrastructure
reduces the cost the agent must pay to perform the selected
action. The catalysis is enhanced by positive returns.
US
partnership with UNI to prime the sales channels, promote
the album, and have Elton perform at the Troubadour, where the
top US artists, producers and music press, came to see &
hear. They concluded the increasingly flamboyant performer
was a star. Elton, now 23 years old and suddenly getting a
burst of adolescent in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged, encouraging male adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen; while females become highly focused on friendships and communications. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
testosterone is a hormone secreted by the testes, ovaries, and adrenal glands, in response to stimulation from the hypothalamic/pituitary/testicular cascade, that makes humans more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status, according to Sapolsky. That means players of the Ultimatum Game, if previously given testosterone can become more generous. High testosterone in a fetus masculinizes the brain. Males generate 10 times the amount. It is the trigger for sexual desire in males and females, stimulating the hypothalamus. Testosterone's effect is highly socially contextual so it may encourage acts of kindness or aggression (when challenged). The level of testosterone does not predict which individuals will be aggressive in: Birds, Fish, Mammals including primates. Genes impact the potency of testosterone by altering the enzymes that: Construct it, Convert it to estrogen, code the androgen receptor. This androgen receptor includes a variable polyglutamine repeat which alters the sensitivity to the testosterone signal. The more potent form is associated with boys showing more dramatic 'masculinization' of the cortex. But the detected genetic influences are small. Testosterone decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex and its functional coupling to the amygdala while increasing the coupling between the amygdala & the thalamus. Testosterone shortens the refactory period of amygdaloid & amygdaloid target neurons. This results in impulsive risk taking and more focus on unfamiliar faces and distrust of them. Testosterone increases activity in the ventral tegmentum projecting dopamine to enhance place preference. Winners of fights become more willing to fight in part due to testosterone increasing confidence and optimism and reducing fear and anxiety. And winning at: Chess, Athletics, Stock trades; induces the BNST to add testosterone receptors increasing its sensitivity to the hormone. People become overconfident and overly optimistic. , was more
interested in John Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. .
78 Four
The first US
tour was transformational:
- Reg:
- Changed his legal name to Elton Hercules John,
- Fell in love with John
Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired.
(Elton notes his bad
habit of getting infatuated, unable to tell a crush from
real love, demanding the object of his desire come on
tour with him and abandon their own lives with
disastrous results for both of them), moved in with him -
signalling, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. his
being gay but
needing to keep it quiet, and made John the band's manager, and
- Told his mum was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while.
he was gay.
- The band toured the US as support for: Leon Russell, The
Byrds, Poco, The Kinks and Derek and the Dominos. It
was all great promotion. As usual Elton observed their
performances and learned from those with more
experience.
- The performances and songs became of interest to Elton and
Bernie's heroes: the Band, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson; much to
their astonishment. They got to party with Mama Cass
Elliot, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson, called by Joan, in 1942 in Regina Saskatchewan explains Sheila Weller, to father William Anderson: whose family had come from Scandinavia to Alberta to farm, who was a manager at a supermarket chain, was a very easygoing person and played trumpet; and Myrtle McKee who was: upwardly driven, a controlling mother, from poor Scottish Canadian farmers where frustrated mothers were trapped raising children in difficult marriages, a creative school teacher and bank clerk; who also enjoyed music, both parents encouraged Joan to behave as an artistic princess only child, as she worked to improve on her constrained 'reality:' a highly attractive girl, with a compartmentalized and determined personality. She was also touched deeply by hearing certain pieces of music. She always enjoyed competing in beauty pageants and modeling. Myrtle's obsessive cleaning and being an only child increased the risk of Joan having a serious case of polio. She pushed herself to recover. Struggling with a vaginal discharge from an antibiotic, she was accused by the family's PCP of being sexually active and was shocked that her mother sided with the physician. At school and college she gravitated towards writing, art and performance. Even by 13 she had developed a secret defiance of her parents, sneaking out to watch burlesque shows. As her singing became more appreciated than her art she focused more intently on performing music. She was advised to focus her writing on her own experiences by Arthur Kratzmann while an art teacher Henry Bonli's surname induced her to refer to herself as Joni. The secret rebel side of Joni liked drinking, drugs and sex, resulting in her becoming pregnant. She left Saskatoon with the father of her baby, Brad MacMath, ostensibly to perform in Toronto, but actually to have the child, Kilauren Gibb (originally Kelly Green), in secret as an unmarried mother. At the same time Joni wrote and performed her songs in the coffee house folk clubs while waitressing and carefully observing the techniques of other performers. This highly traumatic emotional experience generated lots of ideas for songs which Joni worked hard to craft. Conflicted about keeping the baby or having it adopted, Joni married American folk singer Chuck Mitchell, who she was then able to blame for the adoption of the baby. Within two years Joni had developed a reputation as a beauty, and an exceptional song writer with leading performers covering her songs, and had left Chuck to focus on building her career.
.
Neil Young performed 'Heart Of Gold' at Elton & John's
new London flat as the neighbor protested for quiet through
the adjoining wall. Elton notes he
was one of a wave of artists who had worked on the UK club
circuit, who suddenly became famous: Rod Stewart, Marc
Bolan, David Bowie; he was close friends with both Rod and
Marc. Groupies and music executives were chasing after
Elton who repeatedly hid in the toilet. Elton and
Bernie were losing
touch with their earlier reality - "What the fuck is
happening."
- Prolific creation
of hit songs by Bernie and Elton supported the recording and
release of four additional albums for the US market within a
year.
- On a
hunch, and ignoring the advice of others, Elton added
Guitarist Davey Johnston to
the band, which toured globally to packed
venues. And when Paul Buckmaster lost them a day of
recording through a mistake Elton was so angry is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. Anger is mostly experienced as a rapid wave that then quickly dissipates. When it is repressed, for example by a strong moral sense (superego), it can sustain, inducing long term stress.
with him, they
didn't work together again for over a decade.
95 Five
Elton and John Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired.
moved from London to a bungalow they purchased in Virginia
Water. It was near Bernie's new home. And Keith Moon
and Ringo Star's homes were close by too. The bookshop in
town was owned by Brian Forbes and Nanette Newman. Brian and
Nanette would invite Elton and John is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. to meet their high society friends.
And the whole family would go on holiday with Elton and
John. Brian introduced and coached Elton on collecting
art. And, as usual, Elton became an addict results from changes in the operation of the brain's reward network's regulatory regions, altering the anticipation of rewards. Addictive drugs mediate the receptors of the reward network, increasing dopamine in the pleasure centers of the cortex. The learned association of the situation with the reward makes addiction highly prone to relapse, when the situation is subsequently experienced. This makes addiction a chronic disease, where the sufferer must remain vigilant to avoid relapse inducing situations. Repeated exposure to the addictive drug alters the reward network. The neurons that produce dopamine are impaired, no longer sending dopamine to the reward target areas, reducing the feeling of pleasure. But the situational association remains strong driving the addict to repeat the addictive activity. Destroying the memory of the pleasure inducer may provide a treatment for addiction in the future. Addiction has a genetic component, which supports inheritance. Some other compulsive disorders: eating, gambling, sexual behavior; are similar to drug addiction. . Brian and
Nanette's friends included the Queen Mother. After
Elton and the band performed for Princess Margret, they were
invited back for supper. But, after Lord Snowdon arrived
home, and demanded his dinner, the party collapsed.
Apart from the bungalow, expanding art collection and Aston
Martin, Elton's newly acquired wealth is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche.
allowed him go shopping, again developing into an
addiction. He had always loved to explore for presents to
give people. He was also able to tour the US is the United States of America. in a chartered Boeing 720,
previously configured for Led Zeppelin. He admits to often
locking himself in the private bedroom, sulking. On one
birthday he was angrily refusing to come out, while the rest of
the tour organization was waiting to celebrate with him.
Eventually, they convinced him to begrudgingly come out.
Stevie Wonder had been waiting patiently to sing happy birthday
to him!
Elton demonstrated workaholism results from changes in the operation of the brain's reward network's regulatory regions, altering the anticipation of rewards. Addictive drugs mediate the receptors of the reward network, increasing dopamine in the pleasure centers of the cortex. The learned association of the situation with the reward makes addiction highly prone to relapse, when the situation is subsequently experienced. This makes addiction a chronic disease, where the sufferer must remain vigilant to avoid relapse inducing situations. Repeated exposure to the addictive drug alters the reward network. The neurons that produce dopamine are impaired, no longer sending dopamine to the reward target areas, reducing the feeling of pleasure. But the situational association remains strong driving the addict to repeat the addictive activity. Destroying the memory of the pleasure inducer may provide a treatment for addiction in the future. Addiction has a genetic component, which supports inheritance. Some other compulsive disorders: eating, gambling, sexual behavior; are similar to drug addiction. , touring and
recording albums constantly. The band was able to use
studios at exotic destinations: Kingston, Jamaica, Rocky
Mountains; Elton recorded even when ill with glandular
fever. He would throw
tantrums: sulking, eye are major sensors in primates, based on opsins deployed in the retina & especially fovea, signalling the visual system: Superior colliculi, Thalamus (LGN), Primary visual cortex; and indirectly the amygdala. They also signal [social] emotional state to other people. And they have implicit censorious power with pictures of eyes encouraging people within their view to act more honorably. Eyes are poor scanners and use a saccade to present detail slowly to the fovea. The eye's optical structures and retina are supported by RPE. Eyes do not connect to the brain through the brain stem and so still operate in locked-in syndrome. Evo-devo shows eyes have deep homology. High pressure within the eye can result in glaucoma. Genetic inheritance can result in retinoblastoma. Age is associated with AMD.
rolling, swearing; and refuse to sing songs he didn't like such
as Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me, and fought the release of
Benny And The Jets as a single in the US is the United States of America. , even after being told it was
a top play on Detroit's African American radio stations.
It became a major hit in the US and UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. . Elton's performances
while touring developed into grander and grander
spectacles. Bernie felt are subjective models: sad, glad, mad, scared, surprised, and compassionate; of the organism and its proximate environment, including ratings of situations signalled by broadly distributed chemicals and neural circuits. These feelings become highly salient inputs, evolutionarily associated, to higher level emotions encoded in neural circuits: amygdala, and insula. Deacon shows James' conception of feeling can build sentience. Damasio, similarly, asserts feelings reveal to the conscious mind the subjective status of life: good, bad, in between; within a higher organism. They especially indicate the affective situation within the old interior world of the viscera located in the abdomen, thorax and thick of the skin - so smiling makes one feel happy; but augmented with the reports from the situation of the new interior world of voluntary muscles. Repeated experiences build intermediate narratives, in the mind, which reduce the salience. Damasio concludes feelings relate closely and consistently with homeostasis, acting as its mental deputies once organisms developed 'nervous systems' about 600 million years ago, and building on the precursor regulatory devices supplied by evolution to social insects and prokaryotes and leveraging analogous dynamic constraints. Damasio suggests feelings contribute to the development of culture: - As motives for intellectual creation: prompting detection and diagnosis of homeostatic deficiencies, identifying desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments required by the cultural process over time
this was detracting from the music is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. .
John Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. introduced
Elton to cocaine,
which soon became a compulsive addiction results from changes in the operation of the brain's reward network's regulatory regions, altering the anticipation of rewards. Addictive drugs mediate the receptors of the reward network, increasing dopamine in the pleasure centers of the cortex. The learned association of the situation with the reward makes addiction highly prone to relapse, when the situation is subsequently experienced. This makes addiction a chronic disease, where the sufferer must remain vigilant to avoid relapse inducing situations. Repeated exposure to the addictive drug alters the reward network. The neurons that produce dopamine are impaired, no longer sending dopamine to the reward target areas, reducing the feeling of pleasure. But the situational association remains strong driving the addict to repeat the addictive activity. Destroying the memory of the pleasure inducer may provide a treatment for addiction in the future. Addiction has a genetic component, which supports inheritance. Some other compulsive disorders: eating, gambling, sexual behavior; are similar to drug addiction. . Elton
notes it was an unfortunate decision to keep taking it: Without
it he was full of energy, inquisitive, had a strong sense of
humor and possessed a thirst for knowledge, but his situation
had become so unusual he didn't feel he belonged. Cocaine
made him feel accepted, but also to become self-obsessed,
unreasonable, irresponsible and demanding - my way or the
highway. Elton recalls being invited on stage at a Rolling
Stones concert, but befuddled by cocaine he outstayed his
welcome by three or four songs, eventually noticing Keith
Richards getting very upset.
Elton was
happily pair
bonded is an increase in the strength of relationship between parents and parents and children in some species: prairie voles, bonobos - not monogamous, and humans. NIMH's Thomas Insel, Emory's Larry Young & Illinois's Sue Carter's research highlighted prairie voles, where pair-bonding is enabled by a genetic difference from montane voles in the operon controlling generation of the vasopressin receptor. Oxytocin is associated with pair bonding. There are: Higher levels of receptors in males (vasopressin) having lots of sex and in females (oxytocin) performing grooming & physical contact, Sex releases oxytocin in the nucleus accumbens of female prairie voles. Such pair-bonded males are less interested in other females. Insel, Young & Carter engineered: (1) Male mice brains to express the prairie vole version of the vasopressin receptor in their brains resulting in grooming and huddling with familiar females. (2) Male montane vole brains to add vasopressin receptors to the nucleus accumbens resulting in their being more socially affiliative with individual females. E.O. Wilson notes in humans the need to extend the bond out to support the long and costly development of their children has resulted in adjustments in genitalia and brains to encourage continued sexual activity to support and maintain pair-bonding. with John Reid, but like most males John is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. was very
promiscuous, making Elton unhappy is an emotion which functions to mobilize the mind to seek capabilities and resources that support Darwinian fitness. Today happiness is associated with Epicurean ideas that were rediscovered during the renaissance and promoted by Thomas Jefferson. But natural selection has 'designed' happiness to support hunter-gatherer fitness in the African savanna. It is assessed: Relative to other's situations, Based on small gains or losses relative to one's current situation; and so what makes us [un-]happy and our responses can seem a counter-productive treadmill. For Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in the savanna there were many ways for losses to undermine fitness and so losses still make us very unhappy. Smoking, drinking and excessive eating were not significant and so don't make us unhappy even though they impact longevity. .
Worse John was violent: he punched various people who angered is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. Anger is mostly experienced as a rapid wave that then quickly dissipates. When it is repressed, for example by a strong moral sense (superego), it can sustain, inducing long term stress. him during the tours,
getting jailed in New Zealand; eventually he is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. hit Elton during an
argument so Elton broke off the relationship. But he kept
John is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. as his
manager.
115 Six
Tony King worked in the offices of DJM, renting a desk where he did publishing and promotions for George Martin's association of independent record producers (AIR). Elton explains he was notable for his style: suits, velvet trousers, satin items, from the hippest tailors in London, antique silk scarves, dyed hair with blond highlights; was openly gay. He had worked for The Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison and was friends with The Beetles. Elton found Tony hilarious and wanted to be like him - stylish, exotic, and outrageous. Tony included Elton in his dinner parties with friends including John Reid. And through his network of connections at AIR and Abbey Road, Tony helped Elton become one of their session musicians. Later when Tony was general manager of Apple Records' US operation he introduced Elton to John Lennon. Tony went on to focus on helping the Rolling Stones and Elton make their tour shows exceptional. became Apple
Records US general manager, based in Los Angeles, where he
introduced Elton to another of his idols, John Lennon.
Lennon, then separated from Yoko and divorced from Cynthia,
began palling around with Elton. They were remarkably
similar: focused on musical is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized.
achievement, efficient in the studio, worried they would fail at
their next goal, funny, both fun seeking, Potential for
tantrums, addicted results from changes in the operation of the brain's reward network's regulatory regions, altering the anticipation of rewards. Addictive drugs mediate the receptors of the reward network, increasing dopamine in the pleasure centers of the cortex. The learned association of the situation with the reward makes addiction highly prone to relapse, when the situation is subsequently experienced. This makes addiction a chronic disease, where the sufferer must remain vigilant to avoid relapse inducing situations. Repeated exposure to the addictive drug alters the reward network. The neurons that produce dopamine are impaired, no longer sending dopamine to the reward target areas, reducing the feeling of pleasure. But the situational association remains strong driving the addict to repeat the addictive activity. Destroying the memory of the pleasure inducer may provide a treatment for addiction in the future. Addiction has a genetic component, which supports inheritance. Some other compulsive disorders: eating, gambling, sexual behavior; are similar to drug addiction. to
buying things, and they shared a passion for cocaine.
Elton played and sang with John on two of the tracks for
Lennon's new album. Lennon was worried that one of these
songs, What Ever Gets You Through The Night, would not be a hit
single. Elton bet him it would. When it reached
Number One, Lennon agreed to accompany Elton and the band at the
Thanksgiving performance at Madison Square Garden. It was
a fantastic experience for Elton. Elton had helped John
out by escorting Cynthia & Julian to New York on the SS
France.
During each lunch period on the SS France, Elton composed, and consolidated is the process by which memories are made more stable and long lasting. Short-term memory traces maintained by attention supported working memory become represented by transduction cascades of kinase signalling pathways. Long term memory formation starts when these cascades successfully induce transcription, translation and protein synthesis and transport to synapses to support strengthening. Subsequently salient memories are further consolidated during sleep.
in memory in the brain includes functionally different types: Declarative, or explicit, (episodic and semantic), Implicit, Procedural, Spatial, Temporal, Verbal; Hebb suggested that glutamate receptive neurons learn by (NMDA channel based) synaptic strengthening: short term memory. This was shown to happen for explicit memory formation in the hippocampus. This strengthening is sustained by subsequent LTP. The non-real-time learning and planning processes operate through consciousness using the working memory structures, and then via sleep, the salient ones are consolidated while the rest are destroyed and garbage collected. , the music to
Bernie's new lyrics. The result was Captain Fantastic and
the Brown Dirt Cowboy, a chronology of Elton & Bernie's
lives. They recorded it at Caribou along with: a cover of
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds that John Lennon sang backing
vocals and played guitar on; and Philadelphia Freedom written by
Bernie and Elton for Billie Jean King's tennis team which they
both adored. Captain Fantastic became the first album to
enter the US charts at Number One.
Elton was still
evolutionarilly driven to achieve more, and discarded Dee and Nigel from the band,
seeking a funkier and more hard-driving sound. He replaced
them with session musicians: Caleb Quaye worked as the in-house engineer at Dick James Music. He focused his time and DJM's resources on developing recordings of Elton John & Bernie Taupin's songs. Against company rules, he secretly worked on them at night, bringing in session musicians to try out arrangements and production ideas. When discovered he played the tapes to Dick James who offered to fund Elton and Bernie's productions. , Roger
Pope, James Newton Howard, and Kenny Passarelli; but since
Bernie's wife Maxine had left him for Passarelli there were
built in problems with Elton's plan. These were made worse
by the interest everyone in the new band had in drugs. Elton was deeply unhappy:
after breaking up with John
Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. , he had repeatedly fallen in love with men who didn't
love him, and used and discarded many other lovers. He
became obsessed with observing group gay sex - a habit that kept
HIV is human immunodeficiency virus, an RNA retrovirus which causes AIDS. It infects T-lymphocytes helper cells slowly destroying the host's immune system. The main pandemic form of HIV is HIV-1 M which has been traced back to a spillover to Cameroon/Congolese forest Chimpanzees of SIVs that weakly infected proximate humans and then was amplified by social conditions in expanding towns: Ouesso, Brazzaville, Leopoldville; down river from these forests during the 1900 - 1920s. Additional amplification occurred through public health programs: Trypanosomiasis, STDs; which cross-infected subpopulations of Leopoldville/Kinshasa around the same time. UNESCO organized Haitian support for the DRC in the 1960s vectored HIV-1 M back to Haiti where the blood plasma trade provided an evolved amplifier for HIV-1 M infected plasma to flow into the US healthcare supply chain through Miami. Some HIV's enter the lymphocytes by leveraging the T cells CCR5 protein. The HIV X4 variant leverages CXCR4. at a distance. He
used suicide as a cry for help multiple times. Things got
even tougher when he miss-designed a huge Wembley show where he
committed to playing Captain Fantastic all the way
through. He persisted even when it was clear he had lost
the audience and people were leaving. Still, Rock of the
Westies followed Captain Fantastic straight to Number One in the
US charts and the mayor of Los Angeles declared Elton John Week,
so he flew his family and friends over to LA, held a big party
and then attempted suicide again. He still performed the
Dodgers Stadium shows and they were both huge hits but he felt
there was no place to go but down.
137 Seven
Elton could see his career cresting. Worse, when he and
his mum was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. went
backstage at an Elvis was a singer and entertainer who, according to Elton John, transformed southern US black blues and rock & roll music and introduced the result: Heartbreak Hotel - raw, sparse, slow, reverberating and eerie; to white audiences who felt the 'energy' Elvis signalled. Presley's appearance: clothes, hair, stance; was as striking and remarkable for the time as his music.
concert, he could imagine himself as the drug addled, bloated,
super star, surrounded by hangers-on, that they met. Sheila was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. was right when
she commented that Elvis would be dead within a year.
Elton's love life continued with a string of unhappy
failures. He and Bernie were still making successful
records, but the songs became more jazzy, and darker, reflecting
what was going on in their lives. And although he
enjoyed performing, fame left him trapped in his hotel between
concerts. It seemed like a good time to retire.
His thinning hair became a popular topic of the tabloid
press. And most of it fell out after a problem dye
job. After hair transplants failed he opted for a
wig. He finally admitted to a journalist, working for
Rolling Stone, that he was bisexual and that his love-life was a
disaster. It turned out that few people cared, except once
he bought Watford
Football Club and became its chairman; the opposing team's
supporters would sing hilarious bawdy songs to & about
him.
Turning round Watford
football (soccer) club, gave him a new goal to achieve and
helped ground him. The board and manager, Graham Taylor,
would not tolerate his being drunk or an embarrassment to the
club. He funded Taylor's player purchases, staffing, and
infrastructure upgrades, and was repaid with rapid success that
led to bigger gates, an FA cup final, international
competitions, and profits.
156 Eight
Having retired
from performing, Elton had a lot more free Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time to organize his life and take
drugs. Woodside, his recently purchased estate, in Old
Windsor, was large enough to justify paid help. And he
also invited his mother was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while.
and Derf to manage
the house and his personal expenses. Elton hoped this
would bring him closer to his mum and make them both happy is an emotion which functions to mobilize the mind to seek capabilities and resources that support Darwinian fitness. Today happiness is associated with Epicurean ideas that were rediscovered during the renaissance and promoted by Thomas Jefferson. But natural selection has 'designed' happiness to support hunter-gatherer fitness in the African savanna. It is assessed: Relative to other's situations, Based on small gains or losses relative to one's current situation; and so what makes us [un-]happy and our responses can seem a counter-productive treadmill. For Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in the savanna there were many ways for losses to undermine fitness and so losses still make us very unhappy. Smoking, drinking and excessive eating were not significant and so don't make us unhappy even though they impact longevity. . He was
mistaken: visibility into his extravagant spending - gifts for
his friends, and furniture, art and oddities he purchased for
the house - and his ever changing series of romantic partners;
enabled her anger is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. Anger is mostly experienced as a rapid wave that then quickly dissipates. When it is repressed, for example by a strong moral sense (superego), it can sustain, inducing long term stress. .
And she also imperiously attacked the other staff.
Eventually Sheila was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while.
and Derf moved away to the south coast. He setup his Grandmother was Reg Dwight's maternal grandmother. He recalls her as: no nonsense, hard-working, kind, funny, a great cook, loved a drink and a game of cards. She always had music playing, from the radio, record player or their piano. After her first husband died of cancer, she had remarried Horace Sewell, who was a gardener, introverted, had lost a leg in the Great War and was kind. in a
self-contained apartment in the grounds of Woodside, where he
introduced her to the Queen
Mother.
Left alone again by a failed romance, Elton recalls hearing
Janet Street-Porter interviewing
the Sex Pistols. He loved punk, the
latest adolescent in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged, encouraging male adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen; while females become highly focused on friendships and communications. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
transformation of music is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. ,
and was ecstatic to hear Johnny Rotten declare 'Rod Stewart is a
useless old fucker.' He informed Rod,
who was then 32, of the comment, and contacted Street-Porter,
who became a long-term friend.
He left DJM is Dick James Music:
- Is a music production company in New Oxford Street,
London
- Administered Ray Williams of Liberty Records,
production company
- Employed Caleb Quaye as
in-house engineer. And Steve Brown as studio
manager.
- Dick James funded Elton John
and Bernie Taupin's song publishing, paying Elton extra to
sing and play piano on the demo recordings. Once
James realized the potential of Elton & Bernie's
second album he drove it and them through the evolved amplifier of American
entertainment and communications.
- Tony King worked on
publishing and promotion for George Martin's association
of independent record producers (AIR) from a desk he
rented from DJM. He influenced Elton's style,
introduced him to his network of friends, and helped him
find work as a session musician.
,
resulting in an acrimonious lawsuit, which Elton won. But
Dick James (DJM): - Is a music production company in New Oxford Street, London
- Administered Ray Williams of Liberty Records, production company
- Employed Caleb Quaye as in-house engineer. And Steve Brown as studio manager.
- Dick James funded Elton John and Bernie Taupin's song publishing, paying Elton extra to sing and play piano on the demo recordings. Once James realized the potential of Elton & Bernie's second album he drove it and them through the evolved amplifier of American entertainment and communications.
- Tony King worked on publishing and promotion for George Martin's association of independent record producers (AIR) from a desk he rented from DJM. He influenced Elton's style, introduced him to his network of friends, and helped him find work as a session musician.
died
of a heart attack is an AMI. It can induce cardiac arrest. Blocking the formation of clots with platelet aggregation inhibitors, can help with treating and avoiding AMI. Risk factors include: taking NSAID pain killers (May 2017). There is uncertainty about why AMI occur. Alternative hypotheses include: - Plaques started to gather in the coronary arteries and grew until no blood flow was possible. If this is true it makes sense to preventatively treat the buildup with angioplasty.
- Plaques form anywhere in the body due to atherosclerosis and then break up and get lodged in the coronary artery and start to clot. If this is true it makes sense to preventatively limit the buildup of plaques with drugs like statins or PCSK9 inhibitors.
which his son Steve asserted was due to the stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. In order for the body to destroy bacteria in wounds, pro-inflammatory cytokines increase blood flow to the area. The induced inflammation signals the brain to activate the insula and through it the ACC. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- Increases the risk of autoimmune disease (Jan 2017)
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
of this case.
And in bad faith, to fulfill a contractual commitment, Elton
provided UNI
with an album of his interpretations of other people's disco
music.
He agreed
with Bernie that they should split up to try working with other
people. But then he was jealous is an emotion driven by the large investment by parents in their children's development combined with a human sexual asymmetry: fertilization occurs inside the female's body, so a male can't be sure it is supporting its own ofspring. when Bernie and
Alice Cooper made a great record together, supported by Dee Murray and Davey Johnston.
Elton experimented with soul/disco, started collaborating with
Tim Rice, and even wrote the lyrics to some of his own
songs.
After changing his mind about retirement on multiple, expensive
occasions, he did start touring small clubs accompanied only by
Ray Cooper.
That demanded razor sharp play and concentration. He found
the apprehension and excitement before each performance
exhilarating. And Ray would get the audience involved in
the performance, which was particularly useful when they
performed in the Soviet Union: they had to get the fans involved
and out of their seats which were always behind those of the
dignitaries sleeping at the front. Re-motivated, Elton
decided to do another global tour with a full band and
outrageous costumes. But part way through the tour, Elton
learned that John Lennon had been brutally murdered by a total
stranger! Instead, Elton remembers Lennon by his surreal,
biting, satirical humor - John would have loved Mr. Creosote
exploding.
178 Nine
Meeting Duran Duran on the way to the bar in his hotel, Elton is
introduced to Vodka Martini, which when consumed in excess makes
him aggressive, exhibitionist and without any recollection of
these events. He has previously
removed most of the Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
constraints
on his decision
making integrates situational context, state and signals to prioritize among strategies and respond in a timely manner. It occurs in all animals, including us and our organizations: - Individual human decision making includes conscious and unconscious aspects. Situational context is highly influential: supplying meaning to our general mechanisms, & for robots too. Emotions are important in providing a balanced judgement. The adaptive unconscious interprets percepts quickly supporting 'fast' decision making. Conscious decision making, supported by the: DLPFC, vmPFC and limbic system; can use slower autonomy. The amygdala, during unsettling or uncertain social situations, signals the decision making regions of the frontal lobe, including the orbitofrontal cortex. The BLA supports rejecting unacceptable offers. Moral decisions are influenced by a moral decision switch. Sleeping before making an important decision is useful in obtaining the support of the unconscious in developing a preference. Word framing demonstrates the limitations of our fast intuitive decision making processes. And prior positive associations detected by the hippocampus, can be reactivated with the support of the striatum linking it to the memory of a reward, inducing a bias into our choices. Prior to the development of the PFC, the ventral striatum supports adolescent decision making. Neurons involved in decision making in the association areas of the cortex are active for much longer than neurons participating in the sensory areas of the cortex. This allows them to link perceptions with a provisional action plan. Association neurons can track probabilities connected to a choice. As evidence is accumulated and a threshold is reached a choice is made, making fast thinking highly adaptive. Diseases including: schizophrenia and anorexia; highlight aspects of human decision making.
- Organisations often struggle to balance top down and distributed decision making: parliamentry government must use a process, health care is attempting to improve the process: checklists, end-to-end care; and include more participants, but has systemic issues, business leaders struggle with strategy.
, so Elton dominates signals the power to hurt a rival. Maynard Smith & Parker explain that in group situations females compete for food and males compete for females. Maleness is a huge factor for violence. Fighting to the death is costly for all participants so instead they indicate: - Size and weapons to demonstrate who will win. Males who are, or look like, better fighters: Large heads, Big men, Height; gain in dominance.
- Political acumen to demonstrate they won't be pushed around and have the support of other powerful groups. Dominant males push other rivals aside and gain interest of females, enabling themselves to replicate more. Being a signal its authenticity can be challenged and so must be defended to remain credible. Hotheads leverage the doomsday machine to constrain rational challenges. Bands and cultures leverage honor. Youth and lack of resources reduce the power of rivals' political constraints.
, and his
friends let him proceed to avoid the "Dwight temper."
Elton is seeking happiness is an emotion which functions to mobilize the mind to seek capabilities and resources that support Darwinian fitness. Today happiness is associated with Epicurean ideas that were rediscovered during the renaissance and promoted by Thomas Jefferson. But natural selection has 'designed' happiness to support hunter-gatherer fitness in the African savanna. It is assessed: Relative to other's situations, Based on small gains or losses relative to one's current situation; and so what makes us [un-]happy and our responses can seem a counter-productive treadmill. For Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in the savanna there were many ways for losses to undermine fitness and so losses still make us very unhappy. Smoking, drinking and excessive eating were not significant and so don't make us unhappy even though they impact longevity.
with the strategies that
have helped him achieve stardom. He got back together with
Bernie. They created exceptional recordings with an
expanded team of record producers, and a full orchestra.
But having contracted with a new US is the United States of America.
label, Geffen Records, Elton didn't like the experience
much.
Out of control, he went to a session to record a video for I'm
Still Standing, where, blind drunk he stripped naked, hit John Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. and
subsequently smashed up a hotel room. The experience
didn't change his approach, or make him happy.
He heard from his
step-brothers that his father was Reg's father, who worked in the Royal Air Force, but also played trumpet in a band, through which he met his first wife Sheila - who came to watch. He also loved football (soccer) and his nephews were professional footballers. He was often away from home, was stubborn and rule bound when he was there, had a terrible short temper, was always critical of Reg, and arguing with his wife. After they divorced he remarried and had four more boys who adored him. But he was never able to show any affection to Reg. He died in 1991 and Reg could not bring himself to attend the funeral. was ill and needed
surgery. He offered to help and took his father to a
football game, where they spent time with the directors and
managers of Watford Football Club. But it made no
difference. His father refused his offer, was as cold as
ever, and they never saw each other again.
Elton started to pursue a quiet German recording engineer, a
girl named Renata Blauel. They married on Valentine's
Day. Elton recalls the telegram from his close friend Rod
Stewart: "You may still be standing, dear, but the rest of us
are on the fucking floor."
194 Ten
Elton's power over his life becomes totally destructive as he
starts using drugs at the recording and production of Leather
Jackets. His judgment is undermined allowing poor quality
material onto the record.
Elton started to be affected by health issues:
- He began to lose his voice, particularly while speaking,
but as time went on even when singing. Eventually he
had to see a specialist. The doctor, Dr. John Tonkin,
concluded from an examination of Elton's larynx that he had
cysts developing on his vocal chords, probably caused by
smoking dope. Only
a biopsy would determine if they were cancerous is the out-of-control growth of cells, which have stopped obeying their cooperative schematic planning and signalling infrastructure. It results from compounded: oncogene, tumor suppressor, DNA caretaker; mutations in the DNA. In 2010 one third of Americans are likely to die of cancer. Cell division rates did not predict likelihood of cancer. Viral infections are associated. Radiation and carcinogen exposure are associated. Lifestyle impacts the likelihood of cancer occurring: Drinking alcohol to excess, lack of exercise, Obesity, Smoking, More sun than your evolved melanin protection level; all significantly increase the risk of cancer occurring (Jul 2016).
. If they
were he would never speak or sing again. Otherwise his
voice might be altered. Elton found the diagnosis
terrifying. Eventually he had the cysts removed.
They were not cancerous and while his voice changed he could
still sing.
- He began to hear of close friends, or friends of friends
who were dying of AIDS is acquired auto-immune deficiency syndrome, a pandemic disease caused by the HIV. It also amplifies the threat of tuberculosis. Initially deadly, infecting and destroying the T-lymphocytes of the immune system, it can now be treated with HAART to become a chronic disease. And with an understanding of HIV's mode of entry into the T-cells, through its binding to CCR5 and CD4 encoded transmembrane proteins, AIDS may be susceptible to treatment with recombinant DNA to alter the CCR5 binding site, or with drugs that bind to the CCR5 cell surface protein preventing binding by the virus. Future optimization of drug delivery may leverage nanoscale research (May 2016).
.
He found it horrifying. And having been disturbed by
the story of Ryan White, a hemophiliac is the inability to form blood clots. There are multiple forms: A, B; with mutations of different clotting factor genes. Traditional treatment: Advate; is expensive for the hemophiliacs (Jan 2016). Gene therapy holds the promise of replacing the defective somatic genes in the liver of the sufferer (Aug 2018). , who
caught AIDS from a contaminated treatment and was ostracized
and attacked by his local community for having AIDS.
Elton offered to provide finance to assist in the family's
moving away. Ryan's family refused the gift but
accepted a loan. Elton took Ryan to Disneyland,
marveling at his stoic resolve to enjoy life even in his
awful deteriorating situation.
To add to his stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. In order for the body to destroy bacteria in wounds, pro-inflammatory cytokines increase blood flow to the area. The induced inflammation signals the brain to activate the insula and through it the ACC. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- Increases the risk of autoimmune disease (Jan 2017)
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
, the
Sun ran an expose on Elton, accusing him of participating in,
and funding, an underage gay orgy. It happened to be
fabricated. Against Mick Jagger's advice, Elton sued the
Sun. They increased the pressure with additional reports,
leaving Elton developing bulimia and worrying about the impact
on his mother was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. and grandmother was Reg Dwight's maternal grandmother. He recalls her as: no nonsense, hard-working, kind, funny, a great cook, loved a drink and a game of cards. She always had music playing, from the radio, record player or their piano. After her first husband died of cancer, she had remarried Horace Sewell, who was a gardener, introverted, had lost a leg in the Great War and was kind. . But
he persisted and they settled out of court, paying a huge
penalty and printing a full page apology.
After four years of marriage, Elton's personality describes the operation of the mind from the perspective of psychological models and tests based on them. Early 'Western' models of personality resulted in a simple segmentation noting the tension between: individual desires and group needs, and developing models and performing actions. Dualistic 'Eastern' philosophies promote the legitimacy of an essence which Riso & Hudson argue is hidden within a shell of personality types and is only reached by developing presence. The logic of a coherent essence is in conflict with the evolved nature of emotions outlined by Pinker. Terman's studies of personality identified types which Friedman and Martin link to healthy and unhealthy pathways. Current psychiatric models highlight at least five key aspects: - Extroversion-introversion - whether the person gains mental dynamism from socializing or retiring
- Neuroticism-stability - does a person worry or are they calm and self-satisfied
- Agreeableness-antagonism - is a person courteous & trusting or rude and suspicious
- Conscientiousness-un-directedness - is a person careful or careless
- Openness-non-openness - are they daring or conforming
problems: anger is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. Anger is mostly experienced as a rapid wave that then quickly dissipates. When it is repressed, for example by a strong moral sense (superego), it can sustain, inducing long term stress. , drug binges; drove
Renata to accept a divorce. He still loved her and she
unconditionally loved him, but he had broken her heart.
211 Eleven
Elton indulged his passion for shopping until he had filled
every bit of free space at Woodside including the squash
court. After Renata left he decided to auction off almost
everything in the house, so he could start over!
With no one powerful enough to stop him, he further distorted
his judgment with drugs and alcohol. Even the other rock
and roll stars found his behavior increasingly bizarre!
But he pressed on, and had more career success with the album,
Sleeping With The Past, themed for the old soul music he
played at nightclubs in the sixties, which included
Sacrifice, his first British solo Number One. But he
finally allowed himself to perform while intoxicated. He
knew he was making mistakes but couldn't stop.
He got involved with Hugh Williams, who lived in Atlanta, so he
spent more time in the US allowing him to see more of Ryan
White. And he was there for Ryan White's final days, after
which, comparing himself to friends, including Elizabeth Taylor,
he became convinced that he wasn't doing enough to help
others. His lover Hugh, told him he was going into rehab,
which Elton tried to stop by throwing a terrible tantrum.
Hugh went anyway and Elton followed him to the rehab and caused
another scene demanding Hugh leave. Hugh continued with
the program and then moved into a halfway house. Elton,
back in London, collapsed into total misery and degeneracy: drugs, alcohol,
porn, binge eating and bulimia. Desperate to see Hugh and
terrified of what he was doing to himself, Elton agreed to an
intervention. Hugh and his counselor confronted Elton
about his string of addictions results from changes in the operation of the brain's reward network's regulatory regions, altering the anticipation of rewards. Addictive drugs mediate the receptors of the reward network, increasing dopamine in the pleasure centers of the cortex. The learned association of the situation with the reward makes addiction highly prone to relapse, when the situation is subsequently experienced. This makes addiction a chronic disease, where the sufferer must remain vigilant to avoid relapse inducing situations. Repeated exposure to the addictive drug alters the reward network. The neurons that produce dopamine are impaired, no longer sending dopamine to the reward target areas, reducing the feeling of pleasure. But the situational association remains strong driving the addict to repeat the addictive activity. Destroying the memory of the pleasure inducer may provide a treatment for addiction in the future. Addiction has a genetic component, which supports inheritance. Some other compulsive disorders: eating, gambling, sexual behavior; are similar to drug addiction. .
Elton, burst into tears, and finally agreed he had a problem and
wanted to get better.
227 Twelve
With so many
addictions results from changes in the operation of the brain's reward network's regulatory regions, altering the anticipation of rewards. Addictive drugs mediate the receptors of the reward network, increasing dopamine in the pleasure centers of the cortex. The learned association of the situation with the reward makes addiction highly prone to relapse, when the situation is subsequently experienced. This makes addiction a chronic disease, where the sufferer must remain vigilant to avoid relapse inducing situations. Repeated exposure to the addictive drug alters the reward network. The neurons that produce dopamine are impaired, no longer sending dopamine to the reward target areas, reducing the feeling of pleasure. But the situational association remains strong driving the addict to repeat the addictive activity. Destroying the memory of the pleasure inducer may provide a treatment for addiction in the future. Addiction has a genetic component, which supports inheritance. Some other compulsive disorders: eating, gambling, sexual behavior; are similar to drug addiction. Elton
struggled to find a suitable rehabilitation center. He
checked in to the Lutheran Hospital, at Park Ridge,
Illinois. He had to do chores himself which he began to
enjoy. The treatment program used a twelve step process
which forced Elton to abandon his current addictions, confront
the shameful is an emotional reaction to being discovered cheating on a friend. creature that
he had become, understand other addicts' lives and compare
himself to them. This allowed him to: realize that he has
always seen himself negatively, to accept the struggles of his
childhood, and to befriend Reg Dwight. He wrote I AM WORTHY, I AM A GOOD PERSON
on the folder in which he took notes.
Part of the twelve step program was to accept God, which Elton
notes was a problem for him and many other addicts that he later
helped recover. They did not want to accept the dogma and
bigotry of the Kevin Kruse argues that from 1930 onwards the corporate elite
and the Republican party have developed and relentlessly
executed strategies to undermine Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Their
successful strategy used the credibility of conservative
religious leaders to:
- Demonstrate religious issues
with the New Deal.
- Integrate the corporate
elite and evangelicals.
- Use the power of corporate
advertising and Hollywood to reeducate the American
people to view the US as historically religious and
the New Deal and liberalism as anti-religious
socialism.
- Focus the message through evangelicals including Vereide and Graham.
- Centralize the strategy through President Eisenhower.
- Add religious elements to
mainstream American symbols: money, pledge;
- Push for prayer in
public school
- Push Congress to promote prayer
- Make elections more
about religious positions.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Strategy is the art of the possible. But it also depends
on persistence.
Moral Majority.
Eventually he
rationalized the serendipitous aspects of
his life with the influence of some higher force.
But this aspect of rehabilitation had left George Michael, for
example, unable to follow Elton's path and avoid
self-destruction.
Once he completed the rehab program Elton, stopped working for a
year, lived alone, got up early each day, did his chores, went
to 12 step programs for each of his addictions daily, and
related to the ordinary people who described their lives and
their struggles, and he admired the everyday world as he walked
his rescue dog, Thomas.
All this Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time life was
proceeding. Stevie Ray Vaughan, on tour with Eric Clapton,
died in a helicopter crash, while Elton was in rehab. It
had been difficult to find out if Ray Cooper, who was
performing with Eric on the tour, was also dead. And
Elton's father was Reg's father, who worked in the Royal Air Force, but also played trumpet in a band, through which he met his first wife Sheila - who came to watch. He also loved football (soccer) and his nephews were professional footballers. He was often away from home, was stubborn and rule bound when he was there, had a terrible short temper, was always critical of Reg, and arguing with his wife. After they divorced he remarried and had four more boys who adored him. But he was never able to show any affection to Reg. He died in 1991 and Reg could not bring himself to attend the funeral.
died. He did not go to the funeral.
248 Thirteen
Elton concluded that the higher force
was supporting his post rehabilitation progress:
- Tim Rice asked him if he would write the music to
accompany his lyrics to Disney's film, The Lion King.
To Elton it was like composing Captain Fantastic. The
soundtrack was a commercial hit which kept Voodoo Lounge off
the US Number One spot!
- He finally found a serious partner, Canadian advertising
executive, David Furnish, who accepted Elton warts and
all. David even coped with meeting Elton's mum was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while.
, Derf and a
seriously deranged Michael Jackson at a lunch they
hosted. David helped Elton produce the tell-all
documentary Tantrums and Tiaras, which Elton liked, while it
horrified George Michael.
- Elton and David enjoyed a friendship with Gianni Versace,
who was like Elton's personality describes the operation of the mind from the perspective of psychological models and tests based on them. Early 'Western' models of personality resulted in a simple segmentation noting the tension between: individual desires and group needs, and developing models and performing actions. Dualistic 'Eastern' philosophies promote the legitimacy of an essence which Riso & Hudson argue is hidden within a shell of personality types and is only reached by developing presence. The logic of a coherent essence is in conflict with the evolved nature of emotions outlined by Pinker. Terman's studies of personality identified types which Friedman and Martin link to healthy and unhealthy pathways. Current psychiatric models highlight at least five key aspects:
- Extroversion-introversion - whether the person gains mental dynamism from socializing or retiring
- Neuroticism-stability - does a person worry or are they calm and self-satisfied
- Agreeableness-antagonism - is a person courteous & trusting or rude and suspicious
- Conscientiousness-un-directedness - is a person careful or careless
- Openness-non-openness - are they daring or conforming
double. Gianni invited them into his family, although
Elton found it difficult to cope with Donatella's cocaine addiction results from changes in the operation of the brain's reward network's regulatory regions, altering the anticipation of rewards. Addictive drugs mediate the receptors of the reward network, increasing dopamine in the pleasure centers of the cortex. The learned association of the situation with the reward makes addiction highly prone to relapse, when the situation is subsequently experienced. This makes addiction a chronic disease, where the sufferer must remain vigilant to avoid relapse inducing situations. Repeated exposure to the addictive drug alters the reward network. The neurons that produce dopamine are impaired, no longer sending dopamine to the reward target areas, reducing the feeling of pleasure. But the situational association remains strong driving the addict to repeat the addictive activity. Destroying the memory of the pleasure inducer may provide a treatment for addiction in the future. Addiction has a genetic component, which supports inheritance. Some other compulsive disorders: eating, gambling, sexual behavior; are similar to drug addiction. ; until
Gianni was murdered by a serial killer. It was a terrible
blow to Versace's family and to Elton and David. Elton
performed a duet at the funeral with Sting.
271 Fourteen
While Elton found it strange and interesting to mix with the
Royal Family, he noted that Princess Diana was the most down to
earth. But she was also a focus of interest and desire,
and after her divorce from Prince Charles, would attend Elton
and David Furnish's dinner parties where media stars: Stallone
& Gere; would fight for her attentions. Elton and
Diana fell out but became friends again after Gianni Versace's
murder. But soon after, Diana died, and Richard Branson
asked Elton to construct a tailored version of Candle In The
Wind, and perform it at the funeral. Elton and Bernie did
this, and the version was released with the profits going to
Diana's charities.
To cope with the sad series of events, Elton focused on
touring. He and Billy Joel would tour around the world,
singing each other's songs. Elton aimed to do the same
with Tina Turner, but it turned out their personalities did not
align. Elton loved to improvise, enjoying the reward is a synaptic signal supporting generalized goal-directed behavior & anticipation of reward. Its significance is that the receptors that detect the signal are of the slow acting type and are used to alter (modulate) the response of fast acting dopaminergic neural circuits in which the receptors are deployed (LTP). The signal detects significant changes including predictions of models and actual results which differ unexpectedly. Dopamine is released primarily by neurons of the ventral tegmental area and the substantia nigra. The dopamine network architecture is designed to signal the possibility of any type of reward: Norm violation punishment, Winning a lottery, & Misfortune of an envied competitor. Dopamine signalling: - Rescales continuously to accommodate the range of intensity offered by different stimuli. So dopamine's responses to any reward habituate. GABA is released by some tegmental neurons to induce habituation. This allows addictions to develop.
- Reflects the anticipation of reward. It supports establishment of a relationship between a signal, working for a reward and obtaining the reward, but subsequently dopamine is mainly released encouraging the work, right after the signal supporting anticipation of the reward. Anticipation requires learning and is reflected in hippocampus activity. That explains context dependent cravings. And the learning architecture means reliable cues become rewarding. The accumbens supports willpower. And dopamine
- Promotes goal-oriented behavior needed to obtain & likely to achieve the reward - through the dopamine projections to the prefrontal cortex. That makes dopamine central to:
- Motivation. This binding fails in depression - due to stress and in anxiety - due to signals from the amygdala.
- The prefrontal cortex's mesocortically stimulated support for willpower to act to delay rewards. To sustain work for delayed rewards additional dopamine is released based on the length of the delay and the rewards uncertainty (modelled in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - which promotes the long term and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - which promotes the short term) and the anticipated size of the reward (modelled in the accumbens). Impulsiveness in ADHD is reflected in abnormal dopamine processing. Addictive drugs bias the dopamine network towards impulsiveness.
- Is lowered by certain gene variants which induce: less dopamine in the synapse, fewer receptors, lower responsiveness of receptors; associated with (as tiny effects in hugely varying social scenarios): sensation seeking, risk taking, attentional problems, extroversion; where:
- The receptor D4's gene shows high variability. The D47R form is relatively unresponsive to dopamine.
- Dopamine is degraded by COMT. The COMT gene includes a variant which is highly efficient reducing dopamine signalling but with complicating gene/environment interactions.
- Dopamine is removed from the synapse by a reuptake transporter DAT.
of
hearing a clever new musical is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized.
idea from one of the band. Tina wanted everything to be
accurate and each performance to be identical. They could
not work together.
Elton had
no interest in his financial affairs. He left all that to
John Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired.
Enterprises. Elton had sold records and toured
successfully since he was twenty and assumed that revenue would
cover his expenses and excessive spending. He accepted
Reid's plan to sell his current and future record royalties for
a lump sum of capital. Elton used this to buy four houses,
and pay off his team's mortgages. Elton and David were
shocked to discover they were deep in debt. They
terminated the management relationship with John Reid is an outrageous, gay Scotsman. He grew up as a tough guy from Paisley, but is also funny, ambitious, confident and the UK label manager for Tamla Motown. He convinced Motown to release Tears Of A Clown as a single. He and Elton John became a couple and he became Elton's manager. After they split up, John managed other stars including Billy Connolly and Queen. Once again he picked out Bohemian Rhapsody as a huge hit. John continued to manage Elton's financial affairs, while Elton generated revenue and royalties from record sales and performances and spent exorbitantly. After Elton agreed with Reid to sell his historic and future royalty stream for a lump sum, Elton's revenues did not cover his expenses and spending. Elton disputed the fairness of John Reid Enterprises' management of his accounts, demanded that Reid return some capital, and terminated the management relationship. John Reid returned $5 million to Elton, gave up his share of Elton's future royalties, closed down his management company and retired. Enterprises and
had a lawyer claw back some of the funds Elton had paid
Reid. Another significant relationship had died.
291 Fifteen
Elton started writing film scores, which turned out to be an
interesting technical challenge, and the film Billy Elliot
reminded Elton of his
struggles with his dad was Reg's father, who worked in the Royal Air Force, but also played trumpet in a band, through which he met his first wife Sheila - who came to watch. He also loved football (soccer) and his nephews were professional footballers. He was often away from home, was stubborn and rule bound when he was there, had a terrible short temper, was always critical of Reg, and arguing with his wife. After they divorced he remarried and had four more boys who adored him. But he was never able to show any affection to Reg. He died in 1991 and Reg could not bring himself to attend the funeral. , driving him to
help it become a musical.
Bernie was so frustrated with their recent records he travelled
to France to lobby Elton, to change the process they were
using. Bernie felt their recent records had been
disasters, and inconvenient to make. So they agreed to
make the next ones in Los Angeles, near where Bernie lives, to Walter Shewhart's iterative development process is found in many
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
The mechanism is reviewed and its value in coping with random
events is explained.
explore and extend the musical is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. Good ideas are successful because they build upon prior
developments that have been successfully implemented.
Johnson demonstrates that they are phenotypic expressions of
memetic plans subject to the laws of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
ideas they had worked on in their early twenties. This
resulted in creations:
Songs from the West Coast, Peachtree Road, The Captain and the
Kid, The Driving Board; they felt are subjective models: sad, glad, mad, scared, surprised, and compassionate; of the organism and its proximate environment, including ratings of situations signalled by broadly distributed chemicals and neural circuits. These feelings become highly salient inputs, evolutionarily associated, to higher level emotions encoded in neural circuits: amygdala, and insula. Deacon shows James' conception of feeling can build sentience. Damasio, similarly, asserts feelings reveal to the conscious mind the subjective status of life: good, bad, in between; within a higher organism. They especially indicate the affective situation within the old interior world of the viscera located in the abdomen, thorax and thick of the skin - so smiling makes one feel happy; but augmented with the reports from the situation of the new interior world of voluntary muscles. Repeated experiences build intermediate narratives, in the mind, which reduce the salience. Damasio concludes feelings relate closely and consistently with homeostasis, acting as its mental deputies once organisms developed 'nervous systems' about 600 million years ago, and building on the precursor regulatory devices supplied by evolution to social insects and prokaryotes and leveraging analogous dynamic constraints. Damasio suggests feelings contribute to the development of culture: - As motives for intellectual creation: prompting detection and diagnosis of homeostatic deficiencies, identifying desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments required by the cultural process over time
,
that would stand the test of Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time,
but which had less commercial success.
The UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. was finally ready to
provide LGBTQ people with legal rights including civil
unions. Elton and David Furnish entered into a civil
partnership and almost everyone came to celebrate: people lined
the streets heading to the Windsor Guildhall, and handed out
flowers and food, 600 friends attended their party at Woodside,
and David's parents flew over from Canada. But while his mother was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. and Derf
attended, it was to protest the union and David's parent's
acceptance of it. It hurt Elton, but he was now in a
committed long-term relationship with David, that wasn't built
around codependency.
Elton discovered that Leon Russell was ill and had fallen upon
hard times. Leon was still Elton John's early inspiration, and an exceptional
singer and piano player. Elton got in contact with him and
they agreed to make a record, The Union, together. It was
a success, helping Leon get a new record deal, be made a member
of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, make money and tour until he
died in 2016.
313 Sixteen
Elton was befriended twice by orphans at centers supported by
his AIDS is acquired auto-immune deficiency syndrome, a pandemic disease caused by the HIV. It also amplifies the threat of tuberculosis. Initially deadly, infecting and destroying the T-lymphocytes of the immune system, it can now be treated with HAART to become a chronic disease. And with an understanding of HIV's mode of entry into the T-cells, through its binding to CCR5 and CD4 encoded transmembrane proteins, AIDS may be susceptible to treatment with recombinant DNA to alter the CCR5 binding site, or with drugs that bind to the CCR5 cell surface protein preventing binding by the virus. Future optimization of drug delivery may leverage nanoscale research (May 2016). charity: First,
Noosa, in Soweto, South Africa, and then Lev in Donetsk,
Ukraine. The effect is transformational on Elton making
him as interested in parenting as
David already was. So they decide to have a family:
Zachary and Elijah; using their sperm, a surrogate mother and
network in California.
Elton and David quietly get married when the UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. allows. The only
attendees are Zachary and Elijah, as ring bearers.
Elton's mum was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. remains
difficult and cruel to him and David. He takes to avoiding
her because he still
becomes as terrified as when he was ten when she is
present. He is sad is a feeling, which can induce empathy and compassion. It can last for days, in contrast to the emotions, fear & anger. Mild sadness induces a beneficial state in the brain: improved judgment, memory, motivation, and more socially sensitive and generous.
when she dies, and many at the funeral recall her fun side with
him. Uncle Reg breaks the silence as her body is driven
away: 'you can't answer anyone back now, can you, Sheila?'
331 Seventeen
Elton enjoys being a father and coach to the boys: cinema,
football, dinner at Pizza Express, exploring the department
store Daniel's in Windsor, school work; which allows him and
David to get to know the other parents with children attending
Zachary and Elijah's school. It is a pragmatic and
grounded group like the
managers at Watford Football Club.
Elton is often away touring, or working in the studio with a new
generation of artists, or performing at his show in Las Vegas,
or doing private shows to finance his charities, and when he is
not David is enveloped in the chaos provides an explanation for the apparently random period between water droplets falling from a tap. Typically the model of the system is poor and so the data captured about the system looks unpredictable - chaotic. With a better model the system's operation can be explained with standard physical principles. Hence chaos as defined here is different from complexity.
of living in the public eye with him, while doing much of the parenting.
To cope with the long-term
stress is a multi-faceted condition reflecting high cortisol levels. Dr. Robert Sapolsky's studies of baboons indicate that stress helps build readiness for fight or flight. As these actions occur the levels of cortisol return to the baseline rate. A stressor is anything that disrupts the regular homeostatic balance. The stress response is the array of neural and endocrine changes that occur to respond effectively to the crisis and reestablish homeostasis. - The short term response to the stressor
- activates the amygdala which: Stimulates the brain stem resulting in inhibition of the parasympathetic nervous system and activation of the sympathetic nervous system with the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed around the body, Activates the PVN which generates a cascade resulting in glucocorticoid secretion to: get energy to the muscles with increased blood pressure for a powerful response. The brain's acuity and cognition are stimulated. The immune system is stimulated with beta-endorphin and repair activities curtail. In order for the body to destroy bacteria in wounds, pro-inflammatory cytokines increase blood flow to the area. The induced inflammation signals the brain to activate the insula and through it the ACC. But when the stressor is
- long term: loneliness, debt; and no action is necessary, or possible, long term damage ensues. Damage from such stress may only occur in specific situations: Nuclear families coping with parents moving in. Sustained stress provides an evolved amplifier of a position of dominance and status. It is a strategy in female aggression used to limit reproductive competition. Sustained stress:
- Stops the frontal cortex from ensuring we do the harder thing, instead substituting amplification of the individual's propensity for risk-taking and impairing risk assessment!
- Activates the integration between the thalamus and amygdala.
- Acts differently on the amygdala in comparison to the frontal cortex and hippocampus: Stress strengthens the integration between the Amygdala and the hippocampus, making the hippocampus fearful.
- BLA & BNST respond with increased BDNF levels and expanded dendrites persistently increasing anxiety and fear conditioning.
- Makes it easier to learn a fear association and to consolidate it into long-term memory. Sustained stress makes it harder to unlearn fear by making the prefrontal cortex inhibit the BLA from learning to break the fear association and weakening the prefrontal cortex's hold over the amygdala. And glucocorticoids decrease activation of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of emotional faces. Accuracy of assessing emotions from faces suffers. A terrified rat generating lots of glucocorticoids will cause dendrites in the hippocampus to atrophy but when it generates the same amount from excitement of running on a wheel the dendrites expand. The activation of the amygdala seems to determine how the hippocampus responds.
- Depletes the nucleus accumbens of dopamine biasing rats toward social subordination and biasing humans toward depression.
- Disrupts working memory by amplifying norepinephrine signalling in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala to prefrontal cortex signalling until they become destructive. It also desynchronizes activation in different frontal lobe regions impacting shifting of attention.
- Increases the risk of autoimmune disease (Jan 2017)
- During depression, stress inhibits dopamine signalling.
- Strategies for stress reduction include: Mindfulness.
David starts to depend on drink. Soon he
has to seek treatment and join alcoholics anonymous.
Empowered by his sobriety, David becomes Elton's business
manager driving forward a variety of projects: Rocketman biopic,
the set and accompanying animations for the farewell tour; and reducing
costs.
Adding to the stress, group bassist Bob Birch commits suicide,
very close friend Ingrid Sischy dies of cancer is the out-of-control growth of cells, which have stopped obeying their cooperative schematic planning and signalling infrastructure. It results from compounded: oncogene, tumor suppressor, DNA caretaker; mutations in the DNA. In 2010 one third of Americans are likely to die of cancer. Cell division rates did not predict likelihood of cancer. Viral infections are associated. Radiation and carcinogen exposure are associated. Lifestyle impacts the likelihood of cancer occurring: Drinking alcohol to excess, lack of exercise, Obesity, Smoking, More sun than your evolved melanin protection level; all significantly increase the risk of cancer occurring (Jul 2016). , and Elton has a
variety of health scares:
- A diagnosis of prostate
cancer is cancer of the prostate gland. Genomics detected several common DNA variants associated with increased risk of prostate cancer. Dr. Francis Collins explains that a cluster of these risk variants lies in a stretch of 1 million DNA base pairs on chromosome 8. The cluster contains seven or more risk variants, each of which can raise the risk of prostate cancer by 10 to 30%. The high risk variants occur more frequently in African-American men than European or Asians. African-Americans die from prostate cancer at more than twice the rate of Europeans. Research in mice may explain a link between obesity and prostate cancer (Jan 2018). The average diagnosis is at age 66. Worldwide in 2012 there were 1.1 million cases from which 307,000 died. A common life-saving (Feb 2017) treatment is androgen deprivation therapy, but it has worrying side effects. Various classically defined types of cancer can occur. The most common is adenocarcinoma associated with the epithelial gland cells that generate seminal fluid. Epithelial cell differentiation potency makes these significant cancer agents. Other very rare types of cancer that can start in the prostate are:
- Sarcomas
- Small cell carcinomas
- Neuroendocrine tumors
- Transitional cell carcinomas
during a regular checkup is handled by surgery
to excise the cancer. But Elton has some painful emerged as a mental experience, Damasio asserts, constructed by the mind using mapping structures and events provided by nervous systems. But feeling pain is supported by older biological functions that support homeostasis. These capabilities reflect the organism's underlying emotive processes that respond to wounds: antibacterial and analgesic chemical deployment, flinching and evading actions; that occur in organisms without nervous systems. Later in evolution, after organisms with nervous systems were able to map non-neural events, the components of this complex response were 'imageable'. Today, a wound induced by an internal disease is reported by old, unmyelinated C nerve fibers. A wound created by an external cut is signalled by evolutionarily recent myelinated fibers that result in a sharp well-localized report, that initially flows to the dorsal root ganglia, then to the spinal cord, where the signals are mixed within the dorsal and ventral horns, and then are transmitted to the brain stem nuclei, thalamus and cerebral cortex. The pain of a cut is located, but it is also felt through an emotive response that stops us in our tracks. Pain amplifies the aggression response of people by interoceptive signalling of brain regions providing social emotions including the PAG projecting to the amygdala; making aggressive people more so and less aggressive people less so. Fear of pain is a significant contributor to female anxiety. Pain is the main reason people visit the ED in the US. Pain is mediated by the thalamus and nucleus accumbens, unless undermined by sleep deprivation. complications with
lymph drainage, and incontinence.
- He catches a critical infection while touring in South
America. After powerful antibiotic are compounds which kill bacteria, molds, etc. Sulfur dye stuffs were found to be effective antibiotics. The first evolved antibiotic discovered was penicillin. Antibiotics are central to modern health care supporting the processes of: Surgery, Wound management, Infection control; which makes the development of antibiotic resistance worrying. Antibiotics are:
- Economically problematic to develop and sell.
- Congress enacted GAIN to encourage development of new antibiotics. But it has not developed any market-entry award scheme, which seems necessary to encourage new antibiotic R&D.
- Medicare has required hospitals and SNFs to execute plans to ensure correct use of antibiotics & prevent the spread of drug-resistant infections.
- C.D.C. is acting to stop the spread of resistant infections and reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics.
- F.D.A. has simplified approval standards. It is working with industry to limit use of antibiotics in livestock.
- BARDA is promoting public-private partnerships to support promising research.
- Impacting the microbiome of the recipient. Stool banking is a solution (Sloan-Kettering stool banking).
- Associated with obesity, although evidence suggests childhood obesity relates to the infections not the antibiotic treatments (Nov 2016).
- Monitored globally by W.H.O.
- Regulated in the US by the F.D.A. who promote voluntary labeling by industry to discourage livestock fattening (Dec 2013).
- Customer demands have more effect - Perdue shifts to no antibiotics in premier chickens (Aug 2015).
treatment administered over days in an ICU is intensive care unit. It is now being realized that the procedures and environment of the ICU is highly stressful for the patients. In particular sedation with benzodiazepines is suspected to enhance the risk of inducing PTSD. Intubation and catheterization are also traumatic. Sometimes seperated into MICU and SICU. eICU skill centralization may bring down costs. , and weeks of
convalescence at Woodside, Elton accepts he will have to
retire from touring if he is to survive to enjoy his
family.
351 Epilogue
David ensured the retirement tour started lavishly and
stunningly with the help of Tony
King worked in the offices of DJM, renting a desk where he did publishing and promotions for George Martin's association of independent record producers (AIR). Elton explains he was notable for his style: suits, velvet trousers, satin items, from the hippest tailors in London, antique silk scarves, dyed hair with blond highlights; was openly gay. He had worked for The Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison and was friends with The Beetles. Elton found Tony hilarious and wanted to be like him - stylish, exotic, and outrageous. Tony included Elton in his dinner parties with friends including John Reid. And through his network of connections at AIR and Abbey Road, Tony helped Elton become one of their session musicians. Later when Tony was general manager of Apple Records' US operation he introduced Elton to John Lennon. Tony went on to focus on helping the Rolling Stones and Elton make their tour shows exceptional. .
Elton found the simple actions of
parenting were enjoyable. Previously, these were
things he would avoid, things that reminded him of being unhappy is an emotion which functions to mobilize the mind to seek capabilities and resources that support Darwinian fitness. Today happiness is associated with Epicurean ideas that were rediscovered during the renaissance and promoted by Thomas Jefferson. But natural selection has 'designed' happiness to support hunter-gatherer fitness in the African savanna. It is assessed: Relative to other's situations, Based on small gains or losses relative to one's current situation; and so what makes us [un-]happy and our responses can seem a counter-productive treadmill. For Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in the savanna there were many ways for losses to undermine fitness and so losses still make us very unhappy. Smoking, drinking and excessive eating were not significant and so don't make us unhappy even though they impact longevity. , of being Reg Dwight.
But now he could see they were a connection to reality.
Elton John hid from Reg and things went
horribly wrong. But overall, he found joy by a most
unexpected and This page discusses the impact of random events which once they
occur encourage a particular direction forward for a complex
adaptive system (CAS).
unpredictable
path. And he asserts
'The only question worth asking is: what's next?'
This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS analysis suggests various
contributors to Elton John's creation
of innovative is the economic realization of invention and combinatorial exaptation. Keynes noted it provided the unquantifiable beneficial possibility that limits fear of uncertainty. Innovation operates across all CAS, being supported by genetic and cultural means. Creativity provides the mutation and recombination genetic operators for the cultural process. While highly innovative, monopolies: AT&T, IBM; usually have limited economic reach, constraining productivity. This explains the use of regulation, or even its threat, that can check their power and drive the creations across the economy. songs
and striking musical is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized.
performances:
- Reg's father, Stanley was Reg's father, who worked in the Royal Air Force, but also played trumpet in a band, through which he met his first wife Sheila - who came to watch. He also loved football (soccer) and his nephews were professional footballers. He was often away from home, was stubborn and rule bound when he was there, had a terrible short temper, was always critical of Reg, and arguing with his wife. After they divorced he remarried and had four more boys who adored him. But he was never able to show any affection to Reg. He died in 1991 and Reg could not bring himself to attend the funeral.
's
lack of empathy is the capability to relate to another person from their perspective. It is implemented by spindle neurons. Empathy towards others is controlled by the right-hemisphere supramarginal gyrus. Empathy is context dependently mediated by estrogen. It develops over time: Piaget's preoperational stage includes rudimentary empathy, Theory of mind supports the development; initially feeling someone's pain as one integrated being, then for them and eventually as them. In adults, when someone else is hurt the anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala & insula activates projecting [scapegoating] to the vmPFC. If the pain is physical the PAG activates and motor neurons for the area where the other person was injured. The intertwining of the ACC amygdala & insula in adults results in attribution of fault even when there is none which can make it hard to step in and actually help. But in seven-year-olds the activation is concrete: PAG and sensory & motor cortexes with minimal coupling to the rudimentary vmPFC. In older children the vmPFC is coupled to limbic structures. Ten to twelve year olds abstract empathy to classes of people. Brizendine asserts young girls develop empathy earlier than boys, because their evolved greater neuronal investment in communication and emotion networks. Year old girls are much more responsive to the distress of other people than boys are. At 18 months girls are experiencing infantile puberty. By adolescence the vmPFC is coupled to theory of mind regions and intentional harm induces disgust via the amygdala. Sapolsky explains adolescent boys are utilitarian and tend to accept inequality more than girls do. But both sexes accept inequality as the way it is. Sociopaths do not develop empathy. and
nurturing towards
him, pushed Reg towards the few activities which were
appreciated. As a developing is a phase during the operation of a CAS agent. It allows for schematic strategies to be iteratively blended with environmental signals to solve the logistical issues of migrating newly built and transformed sub-agents. That is needed to achieve the adult configuration of the agent and optimize it for the proximate environment. Smiley includes examples of the developmental phase agents required in an emergent CAS. In situations where parents invest in the growth and memetic learning of their offspring the schematic grab bag can support optimizations to develop models, structures and actions to construct an adept adult. In humans, adolescence leverages neural plasticity, elder sibling advice and adult coaching to help prepare the deploying neuronal network and body to successfully compete. child
Reg was being encouraged
to adopt the achiever
personality
type. Its ambition
ensured he prioritized the path of personal success.
He
valued status is a publically accepted, signal that one possesses assets: wealth, beauty, talent, expertise, access & trust of powerful people; to be able to help others.
and displayed workaholism
and competitiveness. And he disassociated, with angry is an emotion which protects a person who has been cheated by a supposed friend. When the exploitation of the altruism is discovered, Steven Pinker explains, the result is a drive for moralistic aggression to hurt the cheater. Anger is mostly experienced as a rapid wave that then quickly dissipates. When it is repressed, for example by a strong moral sense (superego), it can sustain, inducing long term stress. displays, addictive
behavior and suicide
attempts. Deep expectations defined in childhood
weren't met:
- Reg was terrified is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amygdala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala. Tara Brach notes we experience fear as a painfully constricted throat, chest and belly, and racing heart. The mind can build stories of the future which include fearful situations making us anxious about current ideas and actions that we associate with the potential future scenario. And it can associate traumatic events from early childhood with our being at fault. Consequent assumptions of our being unworthy can result in shame and fear of losing friendships. The mechanism for human fear was significantly evolved to protect us in the African savanna. This does not align perfectly with our needs in current environments: U.S. Grant was unusually un-afraid of the noise or risk of guns and trusted his horses' judgment, which mostly benefited his agency as a modern soldier.
of his mother.
But she was Reg's mother, who was a shop worker. When she wanted to she was fun, and loved music: Billy May and His Orchestra, Ted Heath, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell; and dancing, but she liked people to fear her. She looked for arguments, was stubborn and had a terrible short temper. After she left her first husband, Stanley, she married Fred and life became more tranquil for a while. encouraged
him to become a musician is a complex emergent capability supported by sexual selection and generating pleasure. It transforms the sensing of epiphenomena: Contour, Rhythm, Tempo, Timbre; to induce salient representations: Harmony, Key, Loudness, Melody, Meter, Pitch, and perceptions: Reverberation - echo; which allow musicians: Elton John, Elvis Presley; to show their fitness: superior coordination, creativity, adolescent leadership, stamina; true for birds and humans. Levitin showed that listening to music causes a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: auditory cortex, frontal regions, such as BA44 and BA47, and finally the mesolimbic system, culminating in the nucleus accumbens. And he found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout the session. He argues music mimics some of the features of language and conveys some of the same emotions. The brain regions pulse with the beat and predict the next one. As the music is heard it is modeled and generates dopamine rewards for matching each beat and noting creative jokes in the rhythm. The cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized. .
With the near
continuous conflict between his mother and father,
young Reg found security
in his room, playing with collections of the objects is a collection of: happenings, occurrences and processes; including emergent entities, as required by relativity, explains Rovelli. But natural selection has improved our fitness by representing this perception, in our minds, as an unchanging thing, as explained by Pinker. Dehaene explains the object modeling and construction process within the unconscious and conscious brain. Mathematicians view anything that can be defined and used in deductive reasoning and mathematical proofs as an object. These mathematical objects can be values of variables, allowing them to be used in formulas. he loved:
football teams, records; strengthening is lasting change to the brain that occurs throughout life. It is also termed neural plasticity. The changes include:
- The strength of dendritic input alters due to genetic,
neural and hormonal signals
- Hebb notes that memories
require strengthening of preexisting synapses. Glutamate
responsive neurons' post
synaptic dendritic spines have two types of receptor:
non-NMDA and NMDA.
NMDA channels are responsible for this strengthening
mechanism. LTP then occurs
to prolong the increase in excitability of the
synapse.
- The LTP operation results in calcium diffusion which
triggers new spine formation in adjacent parts of the
dendrite. Eventually that can stimulate dentrite
growth enabling more neurons to connect.
- Short term stress promotes hippocampal
LTP.
- Sustained stress promotes:
- Hippocampal & frontal
cortex LTD &
suppresses LTP. Subsequent reductions in NCAM then reduce dendrite and
synapse density.
- Amygdala LTP and
suppresses LTD boosting fear
conditioning. It increases BDNF
levels and expands dendrites in the BLA.
- Depression and anxiety reduce hippocampal
dendrite and spine number by reducing BDNF.
- The axon's conditions for
- Initiating an action
potential.
- Progesterone boosts GABA-ergic neurons response to GABA
decreasing the excitability of other neurons over a
period of hours.
- Duration of a neuron's
refractory period. Testosterone
shortens the refractory period of amygdala and amygdala target
neurons over a period of hours.
- Synaptic connections being
constantly removed and recreated
- Synapses being created or destroyed. Stimulation
generates additional dendritic spines which become
associated with a nearby axon terminal and within weeks a
synapse forms. The synapse then contributes calcium
diffusion through LTP triggering more spine
formation. When dendritic spines recede synapses
disappear.
- Cortical maps change to reflect alterations in the
inputs and outputs from the body.
- Birth of brain cells in many areas of adult brains: the
hippocampus (where 3% are
replaced each month) and olfactory bulb and lesser amounts
in the cortex.
- Restructuring after brain damage including axonal plasticity.
Distant rerouting of axons is observed but no mechanism
has been identified yet.
- Vision is plastic in predators, where the eyes are moved
during final development. Dehaene
argues for neuronal
recycling supporting reading.
development of his enthusiast
personality type. Keen to sustain choice, Elton exited contracts and tried out new
options: writing
partners, band members.
- Reg's step-dad, Fred liked rock and roll and by collecting
tips at Reg's pub performances, ensured Reg made enough money is a region within the basal ganglia. It is a target of the tegmentostriatal dopamine pathway. It has been captured by brain imaging assigning values to subliminal symbols experimentally associated with winning (highly valued) and losing (low valuation) money. During adolescence, prior to the deployment of the prefrontal cortex, the ventral striatum helps balance/control emotional decision making.
to invest in the necessary musical instruments. This
enabled Reg to focus his adolescence in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged, encouraging male adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen; while females become highly focused on friendships and communications. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
on
performing music: as a singer, pianist and organist in Bluesology was a second rate British blues band, which became Long John Baldry's backing band, after the breakup of Steampacket. The lineup included: Stu Brown - singer, Pete Gavin, drummer Mick Inkpen, Elton Dean - jazz sax player, Reg Dwight on electric-piano & house organ. It was funded and managed by Soho jeweler Arnold Tendler. .
- The Royal
Academy, part of the University of London, located on the Marylebone Road in London, teaches music composition, conducting, musicianship and performance, including singing and playing instruments. It has a Junior Academy where young musicians under the age of 18 train, and a Senior Academy teaching for degrees.
provided Reg's
enthusiast with
the intellectual
and practical tools to become an effective musician
and performer. Working as
a session musician honed his use of these tools.
- Elton describes
a
This page discusses the impact of random events which once they
occur encourage a particular direction forward for a complex
adaptive system (CAS).
frozen accident: being given
an envelope of Bernie's lyrics by Ray Williams, which
initiated their partnership and friendship, as a consolation
for his rejection by Liberty Records was a progressive rock label. Ray Williams was scouting for talent but rejected Reg Dwight. However, Ray gave Reg the details of a lyricist, Bernie Taupin, and later helped the song writing pair produce records through his own publishing company which was administered by Dick James Music. ;
which reoriented his career towards eventual
stardom.
- DJM is Dick James Music:
- Is a music production company in New Oxford Street,
London
- Administered Ray Williams of Liberty Records,
production company
- Employed Caleb Quaye as
in-house engineer. And Steve Brown as studio
manager.
- Dick James funded Elton John
and Bernie Taupin's song publishing, paying Elton extra to
sing and play piano on the demo recordings. Once
James realized the potential of Elton & Bernie's
second album he drove it and them through the evolved amplifier of American
entertainment and communications.
- Tony King worked on
publishing and promotion for George Martin's association
of independent record producers (AIR) from a desk he
rented from DJM. He influenced Elton's style,
introduced him to his network of friends, and helped him
find work as a session musician.
provided
the This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
network of Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents, the innovation is the economic realization of invention and combinatorial exaptation. Keynes noted it provided the unquantifiable beneficial possibility that limits fear of uncertainty. Innovation operates across all CAS, being supported by genetic and cultural means. Creativity provides the mutation and recombination genetic operators for the cultural process. While highly innovative, monopolies: AT&T, IBM; usually have limited economic reach, constraining productivity. This explains the use of regulation, or even its threat, that can check their power and drive the creations across the economy. The complex adaptive system (CAS)
nature of a value delivery system is first introduced. It's a network
of agents acting as relays.
The critical nature of hub agents and the difficulty of altering
an aligned network is reviewed.
The nature of and exceptional opportunities created by platforms are discussed.
Finally an example of aligning a VDS is presented.
VDS, including catalytic, an infrastructure amplifier. promotion by
UNI, that drove Reg's persona, Elton to entertainment
industry This page reviews the strategy of setting up an arms race. At its
core this strategy depends on being able to alter, or take
advantage of an alteration in, the genome
or equivalent. The situation is illustrated with examples
from biology, high tech and politics.
amplified
stardom.
- Elton's
instinctive gut decisions, and my way or
the highway stance, are typical
of Challenger
personality types, probably reflecting the 'wing' of his
enthusiast strategy. As his adolescent in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged, encouraging male adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen; while females become highly focused on friendships and communications. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents:
- Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
hormones are signalling molecules: ACTH, TRH, Melanocyte stimulating hormone, Testosterone, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Insulin, Growth hormone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Angiotensin II, Asprosin, EPO, Irisin, Leptin, FGF21 hormone, Prostaglandins, TSH, Thyroxine, Glococorticoids: Cortisol; that are transported by the circulatory system to interact with target organs having appropriate receptors. The levels of hormones can fluctuate massively, as in pregnancy. surged he moved to reach the apex of a This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
node in the network, and was not surprised to see
others do this too. But this personality describes the operation of the mind from the perspective of psychological models and tests based on them. Early 'Western' models of personality resulted in a simple segmentation noting the tension between: individual desires and group needs, and developing models and performing actions. Dualistic 'Eastern' philosophies promote the legitimacy of an essence which Riso & Hudson argue is hidden within a shell of personality types and is only reached by developing presence. The logic of a coherent essence is in conflict with the evolved nature of emotions outlined by Pinker. Terman's studies of personality identified types which Friedman and Martin link to healthy and unhealthy pathways. Current psychiatric models highlight at least five key aspects: - Extroversion-introversion - whether the person gains mental dynamism from socializing or retiring
- Neuroticism-stability - does a person worry or are they calm and self-satisfied
- Agreeableness-antagonism - is a person courteous & trusting or rude and suspicious
- Conscientiousness-un-directedness - is a person careful or careless
- Openness-non-openness - are they daring or conforming
pairing
also left him terrified by
(2) cancer with its
potential implications of pain emerged as a mental experience, Damasio asserts, constructed by the mind using mapping structures and events provided by nervous systems. But feeling pain is supported by older biological functions that support homeostasis. These capabilities reflect the organism's underlying emotive processes that respond to wounds: antibacterial and analgesic chemical deployment, flinching and evading actions; that occur in organisms without nervous systems. Later in evolution, after organisms with nervous systems were able to map non-neural events, the components of this complex response were 'imageable'. Today, a wound induced by an internal disease is reported by old, unmyelinated C nerve fibers. A wound created by an external cut is signalled by evolutionarily recent myelinated fibers that result in a sharp well-localized report, that initially flows to the dorsal root ganglia, then to the spinal cord, where the signals are mixed within the dorsal and ventral horns, and then are transmitted to the brain stem nuclei, thalamus and cerebral cortex. The pain of a cut is located, but it is also felt through an emotive response that stops us in our tracks. Pain amplifies the aggression response of people by interoceptive signalling of brain regions providing social emotions including the PAG projecting to the amygdala; making aggressive people more so and less aggressive people less so. Fear of pain is a significant contributor to female anxiety. Pain is the main reason people visit the ED in the US. Pain is mediated by the thalamus and nucleus accumbens, unless undermined by sleep deprivation.
and early death.
Elton John's light hearted auto-biographic study chronicles the
formative experiences and creative
life of an enthusiast
achiever.
.
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