Sunday, 31 March 2024 ------------------------ Hello. All is well. In chapter five, we learn about phonology, the systems and sound patterns in speech. A phoneme is the prototype of phones. A phone is a distinct pronunciation of a phoneme. An allophone is a set of phones for the same phoneme. Phonemes determine the meaning of a word. We represent them with letters. In english, there's 26 letters and 44 phonemes (letters in words are not precise, phonetic symbols in IPA are). Incorrect pronunciation of a phoneme in an instance may sound odd, but we can usually still infer meaning, e.g. whether they meant pan or van. Words like pan, van, fan, that differ only in one phoneme, we call minimal pairs or sets, where a single sound makes all the difference in meaning. We combine phonemes into syllables. A syllable must contain a vowel (or vowel sound, e.g. diphthong), called the nucleus. The nucleus is part of the rhyme (or rime) of the syllable. A syllable can end with consonants, the coda in the rhyme part. If the syllable has consonants before the rhyme, it has an onset. So, a syllable is onset + rhyme (nucleus + coda), but only the nucleus is required, e.g. 'owe' (V). The syllable 'hi' (CV) has an onset, but it's an open syllable, as it has no coda, while, 'bean' (CVC) is a closed syllable, as it has a coda. Onset and coda can have a cluster of consonants, e.g. 'st' in stop or post. There are patterns for how these clusters come together that'll I skip, but clusters of three consonants always start with 's', like in string. When talking, we don't pronounce each word in full, as to keep the flow of speech fluent. This is known as coarticulation, where sounds come together, sound patterns emerge. Why phonemes have allophones. We look at coarticulation effects to see the ways this happens. First effect is assimilation, pronunciation changing dependent on nearby words by merging or assimilating, for example "you and me" is pronounced as 'juenmi'. Second effect is nasalization. Nasal sounds are when airflow passes through the nose. The phonemes 'n', 'm', 'ng' are nasal. A non-nasal vowel becomes nasal when it precedes a nasal consonant, for example in 'pin', the 'i' becomes nasal. In phonetics, if letter has a tilde (~) above it, it's pronounced nasally. I don't intend to go into phonetic symbols, this is just a specific example to show how phonemes have different pronunciations. Why the standard letters, that make up words, are not reliable for pronunciation, only the meaning, well, duh. The third effect is elision, works like a magic trick, vanishing or omitting sounds, both consonants ('d' in friendship) and vowels (second 'e' in every). I'll write about consciousness and free will now. If you have a story to guide your life that involves a high sense of ownership and agency in your life, that is critical to maintain to finish your current mission, I recommend not reading further. We experience agency as a property of consciousness. As in, we're the director of our mind and body, directing from consciousness. I have the controller. The character moves when I move. A kind sibling I have, to give me a controller too. The experience of consciousness is intrinsic. It's a never ending livestream with content that's always a little different each passing frame. We don't experience a predictable deterministic system. I think that's because of degeneracy (in neuroscience), making the brain a chaotic system. Deterministic but unpredictable. I wrote about default mode network (DMN) and task active network (TAN) previously. My understanding, or assumption, is that DMN activity relates to prediction tuning, at the higher levels of concept abstraction (intangible senses), while TAN activity relates to prediction tuning at the lower levels of concept abstraction (tangible senses). As I wrote earlier, when TAN activity increases, DMN activity decreases. I also wrote that fear or anxiety is an emotional construction to explain affective feeling in a given context. Context arises, bottom-up, from low-level senses, to high-level senses. In this process, at the top level, DMN activity increases, to begin the process in the opposite direction, top-down. At the top, construction of concepts start with the highest abstraction, the function. When your concepts are poor, as in you can't construct concepts that lead to regulation in the given context, your brain will have increased activity in DMN. This means, if you're stuck in your head with unpleasant emotions, ruminating, your body is failing to regulate itself. When your body is regulated, which can be many different states depending on the context, e.g. high stress can be a good state if it serves survival at that moment. DMN is intrinsic, with varying degrees of activity. If you're learning something requiring high level of abstraction, I assume DMN activity increases. What's interesting is how this works, by resolving and fine-tuning predictions? If you're actively reading a book, highly focused, your TAN activity should increase and your DMN activity should decrease. I watched a short clip that explained, when people are engaged in task, like reading study material. At some point, they have to step away from reading, to allow DMN activity to process it more abstractly, I assume making connections, conceptual combinations. That's why you hear the common phrase, if you can't figure something out, it can help to step away, and return to it later. I've never really resonated with this, until I started taking stimulants perhaps? As I wrote earlier, I am prone to be inattentive. I have a hard time focusing on a task. It's harder to increase TAN activity without strong stimulation. I assume it relates to dopamine, how much effort the brain determines is worth to give for a potential reward from a task. I'll have to look more into that sometime. When I go for walks after reading information, it does seem things clear in a way I haven't experienced before, or it's more announced, perhaps. As in, taking in information and processing the information is more asynchronous when I take stimulants. Without it, it's more synchronous, TAN and DMN oscillating more frequently? This is highly speculative, I would need to observe this more, I don't feel confident in this, perhaps because it's inherently very subtle process. All activities involve low and high level abstract concepts in varying degree. Driving a car is a relative low-level abstract activity. You can't learn to drive a car by reading. When you're driving, you perform worse if you're thinking of how to drive (overthinking). Learning philosophy academically is a relative high-level abstract activity. You can learn philosophy by reading. You must think a lot and reflect on what you read to comprehend. I assume flow state is when TAN activity is maximal and DMN activity is minimal. You are experiencing low-level tangible senses in consciousness. You lose your sense of self. Why is that? Perhaps the sense of self is simply nothing more than a construction, that requires higher-level abstract senses to manifest itself in our consciousness? I think reading/input has fewer benefits from stimulants, and more benefits for writing/output. Interesting to think about. If you have the high abstract senses sorted, it's more beneficial to be in higher TAN activity, to improve low abstract senses. And opposite, studying without allowing DMN activity, will make you forget it more easily or not understand it as well as it needs time to be processed more abstractly. When I was in school, before taking stimulants, I was known to hand in very short assignments, not going into the details of the abstract words used. I feel my thinking is getting more depth as my brain allows itself to spend more time on processing low-level senses. Just a speculation for now. Interestingly, while I'm meditating, at times, my consciousness breaks a sense of synchrony. I can be focusing on my breathing while simultaneously experiencing thoughts. Both happening at the same time. It's quite odd. I'm fully focused on the breath but have thoughts going at the same time. Are thoughts simply a manifestation of the high-level abstract senses in consciousness? The winning constructions in each passing moment, of the many parallel cascading firings? Thoughts being the abstract senses the DMN? Most of this is assumptions and speculation, it could be interesting to look into what exactly thoughts are a representation of. It seems like it's a bunch of tangible senses put together. Some have more visual thoughts, some have more audible thoughts. They're not simulated in their pure, tangible form though. Our consciousness seems to be bounded by our brain. I assume this from personal experience from when I was under general anesthesia. It felt like a part of my life was completely cut out. Sleeping has not been comparable to that for me. It was a distinctly different experience. I've only fainted once, and it was only for a few seconds, but it felt like more time had passed, because I had a dream during it, yes in the few seconds I was unconscious, weird, but interesting. I remember after the faint, the moment I became conscious again, I was frightened for a moment, as I had no idea where was until I regained my senses.