Thursday, April 19, 2012
A Flawless Face
 “Oh, when shall I see that noble lady’s flawless face, with its raised nose, white teeth, pristine smile, eyes like lotus petals, and which resembles the lord of stars, the bright moon?” (Hanuman, Valmiki Ramayana, Sundara Kand, 13.68)
tad unnasam pāṇḍura dantam avraṇam |
śuci smitam padma palāśa locanam | drakṣye tad āryā vadanam kadā nv aham | prasanna tārā adhipa tulya darśanam ||
A killer smile, a sleek figure, an enchanting countenance - these things can be quite harmful to one who is trying to control their senses. One who is sober, or dhira, cannot be distracted from his assigned duties in life despite any impediment. Yet the man vying for supremacy in spiritual efforts, for overcoming the influence of the senses that have led him astray for far too long, can best be attacked by the sight of a beautiful woman, who can lure him into the depths of danger. In this respect, the eyes of the more renounced spiritualists steer clear of women, even if the women potentially being viewed pose no threat. In the spiritual world, however, such rules don’t apply. With the most beautiful woman, her vision is always appreciated, beneficial, and never harmful to one’s spiritual aspirations. The wise eagerly anticipate that meeting with her and take any and all risk to ensure that the successful outcome arrives before their very eyes, that they drink the sweet nectar that is the beautiful spiritual form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead’s eternal consort, Sita Devi.
 One person saw her, however, and didn’t seem to gain any benefit. The king of Lanka during a particular period of time in the Treta Yuga took Sita way from the side of her husband through a nefarious plot. Sita is the energy of God, the purified form of it. She doesn’t know any other business except loving her husband. As a divine personality, she can grant benedictions to others, such as by expanding herself in the form of opulence and wealth, but these valuables have an ideal use. Just as a currency may be traded for goods and services in a specific country, the notes printed up by the goddess of fortune and distributed to those she favors are meant to be cashed in for service to her husband, the Supreme Lord Himself, who roamed the earth during Ravana’s time in the guise of a warrior prince named Rama. Not any ordinary prince mind you; this was the most beautiful and the handsomest man in the world, who also happened to be the most capable bow warrior.
When the wonderful benedictions given by Sita Devi are used for other purposes, those that lack a relation to Rama’s pleasure, they can cause great harm to the person having temporary possession of them. Imagine having a car battery and installing it incorrectly in the car. There can be both sparks and an explosion when the battery is put in the wrong way. Imagine having scissors, a key, or some other metallic object and deciding to stick it into an electrical socket. These actions seem silly, but then so is taking the opulence provided by the goddess of fortune and using it for any purpose besides devotional service, the real occupational duty of the soul.
Ravana tried to use Sita Devi for his own pleasure. He didn’t have the courage to fight Rama one on one to win her hand. He knew from the words of Akampana, one of his fiendish contemporaries, that Rama would smoke him in battle in an instant. Therefore he approached Sita in a false guise and then forcefully took her back to his island kingdom of Lanka. He got to see her in person, marvel at her beauty, and personally give himself over to her. Yet she rejected him outright, as she has no desire to be with any man except Rama. Ravana was anxious to see Sita and he got his desire fulfilled. Yet his vision was clouded, and this flaw would cause him to act in the wrong way. When something is done improperly, there are negative consequences; otherwise where does the incorrectness come into play?
 In Ravana’s case, the punishment would come in two stages. First there was the visit by Hanuman, Rama’s messenger. Lord Rama, the prince of Ayodhya and all-knowing Supreme Lord, could have found Sita Himself, but then what work would have been left for others? If one person in the company took on all the tasks, what would the other employees do? In the business environment, it’s difficult for one man to do everything, but we know by the wonders of this creation that the Supreme Lord can do whatever He wants. Through His energies the large land masses known as planets float in the air without any machine to prop them up. The material elements operate seemingly like clockwork, which is again instituted by the Supreme Lord and His energies. Therefore finding Sita would have been no problem for Rama.
Hanuman and the Vanaras residing in Kishkindha were very eager to please the Supreme Lord; so they were given opportunities for service. Hanuman was the most eager, so he was provided the most difficult task. One who can complete the toughest mission under very difficult conditions earns even more fame with their success. The obstacles faced by Hanuman were unimaginable, so much so that they tax the brain of the person who hears about them. He had to deal with people obstructing his path, the fact that the enemy territory was infested with ogres given to sinful behavior, and his own mental demons. Doubt can get the better of even the most confident person, especially when the time factor is considered. A person can be dexterous and resourceful, but if they start running out of time to finish their task, their abilities get neutralized. You can have the best quarterback in the world with the ball in his hands, but if there is little time left on the clock, there is not much he can do to help his team win.
Hanuman had to deal with the time factor in relation to Sita’s well-being. If she was in Lanka as had been previously learned, then surely Ravana was waiting to kill her. If Hanuman failed to find Sita, what would he tell his friends back home? How could he look Rama in the face? Hanuman had no reason to lament or be disappointed, for just getting to Lanka and searching the area unnoticed were amazing feats in their own right. But he is never focused on temporary accomplishments or patting himself on the back. The mission that would please Rama was not successfully complete yet, so that’s all he was worried about.
 Finally, Hanuman decided to search the one place he hadn’t entered yet: a nearby Ashoka grove. Just prior to entering it, he offered prayers to Sita, Rama and Lakshmana, the Lord’s younger brother. He also asked the many divine figures in the heavenly realm to be favorable upon him. In the above referenced verse we see him asking the question to himself of when he will finally see Sita. He lists her specific qualities as a reminder of why she is so brilliant. He also reveals his eagerness to have the divine vision of such a wonderful person, who had no flaws whatsoever.
Today, we know from Hanuman’s stature that his eagerness to see Sita, a beautiful woman even by the material estimation, was not harmful, but for Ravana it was. Ravana eventually lost everything because of his desire to see Sita, while Hanuman gained eternal fame and adoration from pious people looking to remain committed to the path of bhakti-yoga. In the Vedic tradition, it is emphatically stressed that a man should look upon every woman except his wife as his own mother. This way the urges for sex are curbed and the proper respect is given to females. Regardless of how the female behaves, whether she is married or unmarried, young or old, the same respectful treatment should be offered.
This guiding principle reveals the difference in outcomes. Hanuman saw Sita properly, even though he had never met her before. He eagerly anticipated being graced with the presence of Rama’s wife, but Hanuman had no desire to enjoy Sita in the way that Ravana did. Rather, anyone who sees the beautiful princess of Videha, the beloved daughter of Maharaja Janaka, and worships her in the proper mood can be granted only benedictions in life. Hanuman’s eagerness would pay off, as he would later beat down every opposing force that came his way.
 In his initial meeting with Sita, whom he would finally find in the Ashoka wood almost emaciated due to the pain of separation from Rama, there would be some difficulties to overcome. Hanuman was so anxious to defeat Ravana and make Rama happy that he suggested to Sita that she come back to Kishkindha with him. Hearing this, Sita practically insulted Hanuman by saying that his monkey nature must have been coming out, for how could he suggest such a ridiculous thing like carrying her on his back? Hanuman felt a little hurt, but he did not get angry nor did his love for Sita diminish. Sita’s reservation related entirely to her love for Rama. She did not want to touch another man again. She was forced to by Ravana, but her vow was to always be devoted to Rama in every act. Moreover, she did not want her husband’s reputation sullied by the fact that someone else had to come and rescue His wife.
The admonition was harmless, and Sita would be so pleased by Hanuman and his bravery that she would shower him with so many gifts, benedictions that continue to arrive to this day. On his way out of Lanka to return to Rama, Hanuman would be bound up and have his tail set on fire by Ravana. While being paraded around the city in this way, Sita saw Hanuman and immediately prayed that the fire would feel as cool as ice for him. Of course who can ever deny the requests of Rama’s wife, who has more accumulated pious deeds than anyone else? Hanuman, not feeling the pain of the fire anymore, freed himself from the shackles and then proceeded to use his fiery tail to burn Lanka. This was how Ravana’s first punishment for having taken Sita arrived.
Ravana’s ultimate reward would be delivered by Rama Himself, who would shoot the arrows that would take his life. Thus Ravana’s lusty desires led to his eventual demise, whereas Hanuman’s pure desires relating to Sita brought him eternal fame. To this day, Sita ensures that Hanuman has whatever he needs to continue his devotional practices. He daily sings the glories of Sita and Rama, and we daily remember and honor Hanuman, who keeps the divine couple safely within his heart. He had the sight of Sita that he wanted so badly, and everything favorable came about in his life because of that eagerness. Anyone who is similarly eager to see Hanuman and remember his bravery, courage, honor, dedication to piety, and perseverance in pleasing Rama will meet with auspiciousness in both this life and the next.
In Closing:
Hanuman was full of eagerness,
To see Sita, she of face flawless.
Her countenance resembled the moon that is bright,
Lotus-petal eyes and white teeth made for brilliant sight.
Taking Sita, Ravana did something very unwise,
Through Hanuman and Rama, to find ultimate demise.
Hanuman had similar desire but it was pure,
So for benedictions he was assured.
Sita’s prayer to fix his burning tail,
Her gifts to devotees never fail.
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VENICE ITS ARCHITECTURE AND ITS ARTWORKS
VENICE IS A CITY IN THE NORTHEAST ITALY WHICH IS RENOWNED FOR THE BEAUTY OF
ITS SETTINGS, ITS ARCHITECTURE AND ITS ARTWORKS.
The First Afghan war 1879 Photos Portraits, Amazing first Anglo-Afghan war Images Collection
The failure of the mission in 1837, the governor-general of India, Lord Auckland, the invasion of Afghanistan restore Shuja Shah, who ruled Afghanistan from 1803 to 1809 were the first Anglo-Afghan war, demonstrated the ease of a failure in Afghanistan and the difficulties to maintain. British and Indian army soldiers , at the end of December 1838, arrived in Quetta Marcio 1839th in late April, the British took Kandahar without a fight. In July, two months later, in Kandahar, the British attacked the fortress of Ghazni, some British troops returned to India, but it soon became clear that only the presence of British military control Shuji. Fire Jalalabad, Ghazni, Kandahar, Kalat iGhilzai (light), and Bamiyan.
Crime and punishment: The neurobiological roots of modern justice
A pair of neuroscientists from Vanderbilt and Harvard propose that five specific areas in the brain have been repurposed by evolution to enable third party punishment, which makes human prosociality possible. Credit: Rene Marois, Deborah Brewingtons / Vanderbilt University
A pair of neuroscientists from Vanderbilt and Harvard Universities have proposed the first neurobiological model for third-party punishment. It outlines a collection of potential cognitive and brain processes that evolutionary pressures could have re-purposed to make this behaviour possible.
The willingness of people to punish others who lie, cheat, steal or violate other social norms, even when they weren't harmed and don't stand to benefit personally, is distinctly human behaviour. There is scant evidence that other animals, even other primates, behave in this "I punish you because you harmed him" fashion. Although this behaviour – called third-party punishment – has long been institutionalized in human legal systems, and economists have identified it as one of the key factors that can explain the exceptional degree of cooperation that exists in human society, it is a new subject for neuroscience.
In a paper published online on April 15 by the journal Nature Neuroscience, a pair of neuroscientists from Vanderbilt and Harvard universities propose the first neurobiological model for third-party punishment. The model outlines a collection of potential cognitive and brain processes that evolutionary pressures could have repurposed to make this behavior possible.
"The concepts of survival of the fittest or the selfish gene that the public generally associates with evolution are incomplete," said René Marois, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt, who co-authored the paper with Joshua Buckholtz, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard. "Prosociality – voluntary behavior intended to benefit other people even when they are not kin – does not necessarily confer genetic benefits directly on specific individuals but it creates a stable society that improves the overall survival of the group's offspring."
One of the underlying mental abilities that allows humans to establish large-scale cooperation between genetically unrelated individuals is the capability to create, transmit and enforce social norms, widely shared sentiments about what constitutes appropriate behavior. These norms take a variety of forms, ranging from culturally specific standards of behavior (such as "thou shall greet an acquaintance of the opposite sex with a kiss on each cheek") to universal standards that vary in strength in different cultures (such as "thou shalt not commit adultery") to universal norms that are so widely held that that they are codified into laws (such as "thou shalt not kill").
"Scientists have advanced several models to explain the widespread cooperation that is characteristic of human society, but these generally fail to explain the emergence of our large stable societies" said Marois.
One model holds that individuals will perform altruistic actions when they benefit his or her kin and increase the likelihood of transmitting genes that they share to future generations. However, it doesn't explain why individuals cooperate with people who do not share their genes.
"You scratch my back and I'll scratch your back" is the essence of another model called reciprocal altruism or direct reciprocity. It argues that when two people interact repeatedly they have a mutual self-interest in cooperating. Although this can explain cooperation among unrelated people, scientists have found that it only works in relatively small groups.
Similarly, theories of indirect reciprocity, which focus on the benefits an individual gains by maintaining a good reputation through altruistic behavior, cannot account for the widespread emergence of cooperation because the benefits that individuals accrue through one-shot altruistic interactions are negligible.
There is one class of models, however, that has been successful in explaining the maintenance of cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals. According to these strong reciprocity models, individuals will reward norm-followers or punish norm-violators even at a cost to themselves (altruistic punishment).
Strong reciprocity models, like the other models mentioned above, have primarily been developed to account for second-party interactions. While second-party interactions may prevail in non-human primate and small human societies, there is evidence that the evolution of our large-scale societies hinged on a different, and more characteristically human form of interaction, namely third-party punishment ("I punish you because you harmed him").
The codification of social norms into laws and the institutionalization of third-party punishment "is arguably one of the most important developments in human culture," the paper states.
According to the researchers' model, which is based on the latest behavioral, cognitive and neuro-scientific data, third-party punishment grew out of second-party punishment and is implemented by a collection of cognitive processes that evolved to serve other functions but were co-opted to make third-party punishment possible.
In the modern criminal justice system, judges and jury members – impartial third-party decision-makers – are tasked to evaluate the severity of a criminal act, the mental state of the accused and the amount of harm done, and then integrate these evaluations with the applicable legal codes and select the most appropriate punishment from available options. Based on recent brain mapping studies, Buckholtz and Marois propose a cascade of brain events that take place to support the cognitive processes involved in third-party punishment decision-making. Specifically, they have localized these processes to five distinct areas in the brain – two in the frontal cortex, which is involved in higher mental functions; the amygdala deep in the brain that is associated with emotional responses; and two areas in the back of the brain that are involved in social evaluation and response selection.
According to Buckholtz and Marois' model, punishment decisions are preceded by the evaluation of the actions and mental intentions of the criminal defendant in a social evaluation network comprised of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ).
While it is often assumed that legal decision-making is purely based on rational thinking, research suggests that much of the motivation for punishing is driven by negative emotional responses to the harm. This signal appears to be generated in the amygdala, causing people to factor in their emotional state when making decisions instead of making solely factual judgments.
Next, the decision-maker must integrate his or her evaluation of the norm-violator's mental state and the amount of harm with the specific set of punishment options. The researchers propose that the medial prefrontal cortex, which is centrally located and has connections to all the other key areas, acts as a hub that brings all this information together and passes it to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), where the final decision is made with the input from another rear-brain area called the intraparietal sulcus, involved in selecting the appropriate punishment response. As such, the DLPFC may be at the apex of the neural hierarchy involved in deciding on the appropriate punishments that should be given to specific norm violations.
The current model focuses on the role of punishment in encouraging large-scale human cooperation, but the researchers recognize that reward and positive reinforcement are also powerful psychological forces that encourage both short-term and long-term cooperation.
Marois adds: "It is somewhat ironic that while punishment, or the threat of punishment, is thought to play a foundational role in the evolution of our large-scale societies, much research in developmental psychology demonstrates the immense power of positive reinforcement in shaping a young individual's behavior." Understanding how both reward and punishment work should therefore provide fundamental insights into the nature of human cooperative behavior. "The ultimate 'pot of gold at the end of the rainbow' here is to promote a criminal justice system that is not only fairer, but also less necessary," said Marois.
This work is the latest contribution of Vanderbilt researchers to the newly emerging field of neurolaw and was supported by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, directed by Owen Jones, New York Alumni Chancellor's Chair in Law and professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt.
Provided by Vanderbilt University
"Crime and punishment: The neurobiological roots of modern justice." April 18th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-crime-neurobiological-roots-modern-justice.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
New study sheds light on how selective hearing works in the brain
The longstanding mystery of how selective hearing works – how people can tune in to a single speaker while tuning out their crowded, noisy environs – is solved this week in the journal Nature by two scientists from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Psychologists have known for decades about the so-called "cocktail party effect," a name that evokes the Mad Men era in which it was coined. It is the remarkable human ability to focus on a single speaker in virtually any environment—a classroom, sporting event or coffee bar—even if that person's voice is seemingly drowned out by a jabbering crowd.
To understand how selective hearing works in the brain, UCSF neurosurgeon Edward Chang, MD, a faculty member in the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery and the Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience, and UCSF postdoctoral fellow Nima Mesgarani, PhD, worked with three patients who were undergoing brain surgery for severe epilepsy.
Part of this surgery involves pinpointing the parts of the brain responsible for disabling seizures. The UCSF epilepsy team finds those locales by mapping the brain's activity over a week, with a thin sheet of up to 256 electrodes placed under the skull on the brain's outer surface or cortex. These electrodes record activity in the temporal lobe—home to the auditory cortex.
UCSF is one of few leading academic epilepsy centers where these advanced intracranial recordings are done, and, Chang said, the ability to safely record from the brain itself provides unique opportunities to advance our fundamental knowledge of how the brain works.
"The combination of high-resolution brain recordings and powerful decoding algorithms opens a window into the subjective experience of the mind that we've never seen before," Chang said.
In the experiments, patients listened to two speech samples played to them simultaneously in which different phrases were spoken by different speakers. They were asked to identify the words they heard spoken by one of the two speakers.
The authors then applied new decoding methods to "reconstruct" what the subjects heard from analyzing their brain activity patterns. Strikingly, the authors found that neural responses in the auditory cortex only reflected those of the targeted speaker. They found that their decoding algorithm could predict which speaker and even what specific words the subject was listening to based on those neural patterns. In other words, they could tell when the listener's attention strayed to another speaker.
"The algorithm worked so well that we could predict not only the correct responses, but also even when they paid attention to the wrong word," Chang said.
SPEECH RECOGNITION BY THE HUMAN BRAIN AND MACHINES
The new findings show that the representation of speech in the cortex does not just reflect the entire external acoustic environment but instead just what we really want or need to hear.
They represent a major advance in understanding how the human brain processes language, with immediate implications for the study of impairment during aging, attention deficit disorder, autism and language learning disorders.
In addition, Chang, who is also co-director of the Center for Neural Engineering and Prostheses at UC Berkeley and UCSF, said that we may someday be able to use this technology for neuroprosthetic devices for decoding the intentions and thoughts from paralyzed patients that cannot communicate.
Revealing how our brains are wired to favor some auditory cues over others may even inspire new approaches toward automating and improving how voice-activated electronic interfaces filter sounds in order to properly detect verbal commands.
How the brain can so effectively focus on a single voice is a problem of keen interest to the companies that make consumer technologies because of the tremendous future market for all kinds of electronic devices with voice-active interfaces. While the voice recognition technologies that enable such interfaces as Apple's Siri have come a long way in the last few years, they are nowhere near as sophisticated as the human speech system.
An average person can walk into a noisy room and have a private conversation with relative ease—as if all the other voices in the room were muted. In fact, said Mesgarani, an engineer with a background in automatic speech recognition research, the engineering required to separate a single intelligible voice from a cacophony of speakers and background noise is a surprisingly difficult problem.
Speech recognition, he said, is "something that humans are remarkably good at, but it turns out that machine emulation of this human ability is extremely difficult."
More information: The article, "Selective cortical representation of attended speaker in multi-talker speech perception" by Nima Mesgarani and Edward F. Chang appears in the April 19, 2012 issue of the journal Nature. http://dx.doi.org/ … /nature11020
Provided by University of California, San Francisco
"New study sheds light on how selective hearing works in the brain." April 18th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-brain_1.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
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