'Mechanical medicine' is a thing ...

Planet Medicine

"Mechanical Medicine: Ancient surgery, poultices; some herbal medicine and bodywork; all Western technological medicine. 

Since healing occurs in the physical world, all medicines must have some substance, if only the substance from which a potency is derived or the bodies of the participants. The acupuncture needles are not pure energy, and the herbs of the Ayurvedic or Basque doctor grow from real soil; even the mind has the external properties of the brain. The San Pedro cactus of Peru which, according to Eduardo Calderon, transfers its light and vibration to the patient and locks with his aura to drive all physical and mental aspects of alienation to the surface, originates in the physical properties of the desert." p.374.

Grossinger, R. (1982) Planet Medicine - from stone age shamanism to post-industrial healing, London: Shambala Publications Inc.

Book cover: Ebay.

ERCIM News No. 125 Special theme: "Brain-inspired Computing"

Dear ERCIM News reader,

ERCIM News No. 125 has just been published at https://ercim-news.ercim.eu/

The Special Theme of this issue highlights ongoing brain-inspired computing research with contributions from some of the leading academic and industrial research laboratories in Europe, coordinated by our guest editors Robert Haas (IBM Research Europe) and Michael Pfeiffer (Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence).

Thank you for your interest in ERCIM News. Feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.

Next issue:
No. 126,  July 2021
Special Theme: "Privacy-preserving computation"

Announcements in this issue:

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Call for Proposals: Dagstuhl Seminars and Perspectives Workshops
Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik is accepting proposals for scientific seminars/workshops in all areas of computer science, in particular also in connection with other fields. https://www.dagstuhl.de/dsproposal

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ERCIM "Alain Bensoussan" Fellowship Programme - postdoctoral fellowships available at leading European research institutions.
Simple application procedure. Next application deadline: 30 April 2021
https://fellowship.ercim.eu/

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ERCIM News
is published quarterly by ERCIM, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics.
With the printed and online edition, ERCIM News reaches more than 10000 readers.

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About ERCIM
ERCIM - the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics - aims to foster collaborative work within the European research community and to increase co-operation with European industry. Leading European research institutes are members of ERCIM. ERCIM is the European host of W3C.
https://www.ercim.eu/
https://twitter.com/ercim_news 
ERCIM LinkedIn Group
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Peter Kunz*                  	
ERCIM Office
2004, Route des Lucioles
BP93
F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex 

*With many thanks.

Includes: 

 

Higher Cognitive Functions in Bio-Inspired Artificial Intelligence 

by Frédéric Alexandre, Xavier Hinaut, Nicolas Rougier and Thierry Viéville (Inria) 

"From a modelling point of view, this organisation of architecturally similar loops is very interesting because it implies that similar computing principles (implemented in the circuitry of cortico-basal loops) are exploited on different kinds of information to implement different kinds of behaviour (reflexive and reflective)." p.20.

http://www.imn-bordeaux.org/en/teams/mnemosyne-mnemonic-synergy/ 

 

Humanity: Still trying to join the Dots - Individual :: Collective

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

sub-conscious pattern recognition   "Differences in belief have substantial impacts ranging from personal identity formation ...	"Our ancestors once saw the faces of gods in the stars - joining the dots in the heavens to create a celestial pantheon." Whipple
... to social/group affiliation and exclusion ...	... to national and international political dynamics."

 

Sources: 

Whipple, T. (2020) Join the dots for a glimpse of the Almighty, The Times, September 10. p.17.

Adam B. Weinberger, Natalie M. Gallagher, Zachary J. Warren, Gwendolyn A. English, Fathali M. Moghaddam, Adam E. Green. Implicit pattern learning predicts individual differences in belief in God in the United States and Afghanistan. Nature Communications, 2020; 11: 4503 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18362-3