[MD] Social Intellectual

[Krimel]

> [Krimel]
> Learning to play tennis "re-wires" the brain, as does meditation,
listening
> to the radio and pretty much everything we do. The amount of effort
required
> to learn a set of facts or skills is a pretty good indicator of the amount
> of rewiring involved.

[Dave]
The "rewires" analogy may not have been the best. The point of the article
was that the brain permanently changes so the previous visual aspect was no
longer present. While I understand that some research suggests that long
term meditation can permanently, biologically, and physically change the way
the brain functions, I did not know that "everything we do" does that.

[Krimel]
"Rewiring" actually does work. The brain is an impossiblly complex network
of 100 billion neurons. Each neuron connects to as many as 50,000 other
neurons. Within this vast neural network, brain activity consists of
patterns of neurons firing. As a sequence of neural firings occurs on
multiple occasions that pattern begins to occur more efficiently, it becomes
more probable. It is not rewiring in the sense of new neuron or new
connections being formed but in the sense on changes in the probability of
particular patterns of firing. Actual rewiring can occur in cases of brain
damage such as stoke where areas of brain function are destroyed and nearby
regions are taken over to restore function. If you like I can provide you
with lots of examples of this, Jill Bolte-Taylor would be one.

These changes is the probability distribution of firing within the neural
net are what learning and experience are all about. Within this enormous 3D
fractal the possibilities for interaction are infinite but infinite
possibility gets reduced to actual probability through ongoing interaction
of sensory input and motor output. 

If a meditator only meditates once or twice the brain will change very
little; no more than say a tennis play who only takes one or two tennis
lessons. But it one devotes years of practice to either task, the pattern of
neural firing in either case will change in proportion.