I had a dream last night - how bizarre

 Dreams may often be bizarre – but what was bizarre about this one is I almost never have any dreams. I was walking a dog. I think it was my daughter's dog Kayleigh, somewhere (like most dreams the memories are fragmentary) and then I was taking some post cards out of a box to show someone, and when I came to put them back the box had vanished. A wild search followed, should I call the police, should I tell the university authorities, and where was Kayleigh?

London Bus with Picture Post Advert

However the subject of the dream really didn't matter. As a child I had vivid nightmares of a huge monster which prowled the streets and could eat you up. For anyone who lived in London during the war they would have taken the “monster” for granted, but as a 5 year old who had been brought up in rural Somerset I had never seen a double decker bus before – much less one with huge eyes. Perhaps this experience, at a formative stage, “convinced” my brain that dreaming (at least with visual images) was something to be avoided.

So why did I dream last night? It could have been that I took more exercise than usual (a 2 mile walk to the swimming pool (40 lengths) followed immediately by half a mile to the supermarket and half an hour pushing a trolley. Well I was tired but I don't think that was the main cause.

The Evolution of Intelligence – From Neural nets to Language

Brain Storms - 9
An Information Processing Approach to the Evolution of Human Language and Intelligence

The aim of this post is to suggest that the way to understand the evolution of language and human intelligence is to start from the assumption that the human brain is no more than an animal brain in which some of the features have been stretched – in a way analogous to the giraffe's neck or the elephant's trunk. It notes how a very simple recursive architecture, demonstrated by an unconventional experimental computer language called CODIL, can actually be used to support a wide range of “intelligent” information processing tasks, and suggests how the approach could be extended to support natural languages. In particular it suggests trigger points where a comparatively small change could lead to an explosive increase in the potential information processing power of the brain.

Chris Reynolds

Trapped by the Ice - at College Lake

College Lake, near Tring

I wonder what the two cygnets are thinking - as they will never have seen anything like this before. Two adult swans - and this year's brood - are swimming round and round in circles in the only remaining small hole in the ice on College Lake marsh. Several other swans are on the ice, together with a number of black headed gulls (which do not have black heads at this time of year).

 The day after this was taken we had about six inches of snow, and there were continuous streams of birds coming to the feeders in my garden, and most of the berries on the bushes round the kitchen window have been consumed. 

If the cold spell continues for long there will be many casualties, and it would be interesting to know how far the ability for individual birds to survive is due to genetically inherited responses - and how far by the ability to adapt behaviour due to innate intelligence.   

Is Language a Meme?

Perhaps the best way to think about language is that it is a very successful Meme because it clearly evolves and replicates - and most other memes depend on it.

A Rainfall Crisis looming in Eastern England

Some of you may have heard that there has been so little rainfall in Eastern England in recent months that there could be a serious crisis next year - so I popped out with my camera and took a few photographs to record what is happening.

First I went to College Lake

And found a seriously flooded track (The sign reads "No Access")

So I then went to Startops Reservoir - about a mile away

It was even lower than when I saw it a week ago - and this is the time of year when reservoirs should be rapidly filling up. The stream feeding the reservoir had completely dried up.

So what on Earth is Happening???

Original Ideas and Brain Research

When I saw this cartoon a bell rang in my mind – there's something there I should think about – and during a restless nigh the ideas came rushing out. The whole idea behind my “Trapped in the Box” blog is that we are all constrained by what we do, and how we think, by our experiences and the environment in which we find ourselves. Our brains have evolved to learn about the world we live in, in order to survive and as a result we are always having what to us are “original ideas” to add to our personal brain model of our surroundings. We feel we can be certain of known knowns, and we can ask questions about known unknowns – but we have no way of exploring unknown unknowns until something unexpected happens to highlight a gap in our personal knowledge base.

Eighteen Years in Prison because a box remained locked

In 1992 Paula Gilfoyle was found hanged in a garage, and despite the fact that there was a suicide note in her own handwriting her husband was found guilty of murdering her, in effect because she was not the kind of person who would have killed herself. Her husband repeatedly claimed his innocence and two appeals against the conviction were dismissed . After 18 years in prison he was released on parole. An important part of the case against him was that the suicide note was completely out of character with Paula's state of mind, so her husband must have forced her to write it. Many people thought it all sounded very improbable at the time.

So what has now happened, at least according to The Times. At the time of her death the police took, as evidence, a locked box and the defence only learnt of its existence and contents in 2010. The box contained Paula's diary – which revealed an earlier suicide attempt which the court had not been told about, and two suicide notes written by former boyfriends – one of which was echoed in the note her husband was alleged to have dictated. The case is currently being re-assessed in light of the new evidence about Paula's mental state and it seems likely that the verdict will be overturned. There is also likely to be an enquiry as to why clearly vital evidence was withheld from the defence at the time of the original trial and the subsequent appeals.

In part this case highlight a problem with the adversarial legal system which is devoted to allocating guilt – rather than finding out what actually happened and why, but looking at the evidence in a neutral way. If your job is to find someone guilty it is very easy, possibly even subconsciously, to leave on one side leads which may weaken your case. If this means leaving some documents in a box so that no-one knows of their existence, your excuse is that it was merely an oversight and of course you were not deliberately withholding evidence from the defence.`

Slava's Snowstorm – Comedy outside the box

Over the Christmas holiday we went to London to join our granddaughter (aged 7) at the Christmas Show at the Royal Festival Hall – and it was an unbelievable experience – in part because we had no idea what to expect – so if you are planning to go (possibly at another venue) and don't want to know what happened don't read below the fold.