Did the Holocaust Kill Western Civ's Concept of Universal Humanism?

On the Nazi Jewish betrayal and backlash...  Every Gentile's an Anti-Semite Now!

Identity trump's Universal Classes!

...or is Good Old-Fashioned 'Sex Universalism' Making a Comeback?

Aneural Learning

from Google AI:

Aneural learning refers to the ability of organisms or systems that lack a nervous system (neurons/brain)—such as single-celled organisms, plants, and bacteria—to exhibit behavioral plasticity, memory, and cognitive-like processes. This field challenges the traditional view that learning is solely a function of nervous systems, suggesting that cognitive processes may have predated the evolution of neurons.

Key Aspects of Aneural Learning:

Examples in Nature:

• Single-celled Organisms: Physarum polycephalum (slime mold) can be trained to associate time with a cold shock or respond to stimuli as a sign of food. Ciliates like Stentor roeselii demonstrate complex decision-making and avoidance behaviors when exposed to harmful stimuli.
• Plants: Pea plants have been conditioned to associate air movement with light, demonstrating associative learning without a brain.
• Immune System: Immune cells can show learning-like behaviors such as generalization, based on molecular mimicry.

Mechanisms: Aneural learning is often supported by molecular networks within cells that process and store information, acting as "wetware". These systems can exhibit habituation (reducing response to a familiar, harmless stimulus) and sensitization (increasing response to a harmful stimulus).

Significance: Studying aneural learning helps researchers understand the basic components of behavior and decision-making, such as:

• Perception and Memory: Storing information about environmental stimuli.
• Behavioral Plasticity: Changing behavior based on experience.
• "Irrational" Cognition: Some aneural organisms demonstrate creative or "wrong" solutions (irrational learning) that may still offer survival advantages.

Research Applications: Insights from aneural systems are being used to develop new computational models, such as "weightless" networks or non-connectionist neural networks.

On Probing, then Rushing, the GIN Gatekeepers and Crashing the Gates!

Before the Truth....

...but more often like Thieves Picking at and Robbing the Corpses Abandoned in a Kurosawa Film at the Upper Levels of the Gate

Which 'Conspiracy Theory' Will the Various Conservative Movement Self and Financially Interested and Anointed Gatekeepers Permit the Audience to Hear, Let Alone Believe?

Gatekeeping the 'Woke' Institutional Narrative (Woke GIN)...

A Kayfabed Moral Identity Performance by an Elite Vanguard Member of an Institutionally Gatekept Ideology for the General Peer Meant to Establish One's Own-Self as a 'Good' Person AND to Prevent the Listener from Considering Contradictory Messages that Might Lead Him to a Different Conclusion by Defaming Contradictory Speakers as Immoral/ "Bad People" (racist/ fascist/ authoritarian) whose views, a priori,  are Unworthy of Consideration.  Welcome to the Distributed Idea Suppression Complex (DISC)

James & Jordan Projecting Nefarious Moral Motives onto Their In-Group Rivals

"I Want to be 'Uniquely' Authentic

... Just Like Everyone Else... but We All Need to be Authentic in the Same Way, MY Way!" @@

"Woke Right" - A Term of Art used by Certain Political Gatekeepers to Scandalize Conservatives Who Disagree with them and Paint them with the Colours of their "Progressive" Political Opponents.

Online Life: The Source of Our Hyper-Reality

 "You get your information on the facts merely by looking at what others have to say about it."

- Niklas Luhmann, "Introduction to Systems Theory"

from Google AI:

This quote from Niklas Luhmann (often rendered within the context of "second-order observation") describes how modern society handles knowledge and reality, as discussed in his work Introduction to Systems Theory (specifically regarding observations and the "observation of observers"). 

Context of the Quote

Luhmann argues that modern society has shifted from directly observing reality to "second-order observation"—the observation of observers. 

Descriptions of Descriptions: Instead of looking at "facts" directly, we look at reports, news, scientific papers, and opinions about those facts.

Advanced Mode of Perception: This is not seen as a failing, but as the "advanced mode" of perceiving the world in functional domains like academia, economy, art, and politics.

Examples: We know about global warming, economic trends, or current events not by direct observation, but by "looking at what others have to say about it". 

Meaning in Systems Theory

Observation of Observers: In a complex, functionally differentiated society, we cannot experience everything. Instead, we observe how others (scientists, journalists, politicians) observe the world.

Structural Complexity: Because function systems (like law, science, or media) are "operatively closed," they only observe their own operations and create their own version of reality.

Reducing Complexity: We "get our information on the facts" by selecting from the massive amount of communication produced by these systems. 

This approach highlights that in the modern world, knowledge is essentially social, mediated, and constructed, rather than a direct perception of objective reality. 

"Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

T. S. Eliot

Flaneurial Fascinations...

...and Victims of the DISC (Distributed Idea Suppression Complex)

...as a Shooter exposes the Commedia dell' Arte of Social Media and Modern Politics

Echoes of AIPAC Leading America...

New Particle Re-Combinatorics... A Heavy (x4) Proton?

Scientists discover heavier version of proton with upgraded detector

Snappily named Xi-cc-plus, Cern physicists spotted the particle in shower of debris that lit up Large Hadron Collider

Scientists at the Cern nuclear physics laboratory near Geneva have discovered a heavier version of the proton, the subatomic particle that sits at the heart of every known atom in the universe.

They spotted the particle in a shower of debris that lit up a detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located deep beneath the ground at Cern, which smashes protons together at close to the speed of light. The collisions recreate in microcosm conditions that prevailed just after the big bang, with the energy converting to particles that spray in all directions.

The newfound particle, which is four times heavier than the regular proton, should help physicists refine their understanding of the strong nuclear force that glues together the innards of all atomic nuclei. The force is unusual because it behaves like a rubber band, getting stronger as the distance between subatomic particles increases.

Physicists working on the LHCb experiment found the heavy proton after the detector was upgraded to make it more powerful.

“This is just the first of many expected insights that can be gained with the new LHCb detector,” said Prof Tim Gershon at the University of Warwick, who takes over as the LHCb international lead in July. “The improved detection capability allowed us to find the particle after only one year, while we could not see it in a decade of data collected with the original LHCb.”

Atoms of hydrogen, the simplest and most abundant element in the observable universe, contain only a proton and an electron. Protons, along with neutrons in heavier atoms, consist of elementary subatomic particles called quarks. A proton contains two up quarks and one down quark, but there are heavier, unstable versions of quarks known as charm, strange, top and bottom.

In the heavy proton detected at Cern, both up quarks are replaced with charm quarks. The particle, snappily named Xi-cc-plus, was revealed by its signature decay into other particles. After popping into existence, it does not hang around: scientists suspect it survives for less than a millionth of a millionth of a second before breaking down.

“The more we learn about these particles, the more we can learn about the strong force, and that is the same strong force that binds our protons and neutrons together,” said Prof Chris Parkes, a physicist at the University of Manchester.

The discovery comes as UK Research and Innovation(UKRI), the nation’s science funder, faces fierce criticism for its plans to pull £50m funding for the LHCb’s final upgrade in the 2030s. The revamp would ensure the detector made the most of a major transformation to the LHC that could substantially improve its discovery potential.

UK scientists working in particle physics, astronomy and nuclear physics have been told their grants will be slashed following cost overruns at major science facilities. Projects have also been hit, including the next LHCb upgrade and an electron-ion collider under development with researchers in the US.

Last week, Chi Onwurah, chair of the Commons science committee, sent a scathing letter to Prof Ian Chapman, chief executive of the UKRI, and Patrick Vallance, the science minister, calling the cuts “wholly unacceptable” and “a failure” by UKRI, the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

The letter demands “swift and decisive action” and asks whether the decision on the LHCb upgrade is final.

“It is so important that we can overcome the problems caused by the UKRI decision to deprioritise the funding for this project,” Gershon said. “No other experiment either running or planned will be able to do this physics.”

John Wheeler's Participatory Universe

"It from Bit!"