Our Brains Are Radios
This is how radios work
Most people possess got an wrong model of how radios as well as wireless radio communication work. The layman thinks radios are simple. The transmitter does all the heavy lifting, as well as puts the dot on the air. Before the dot fades away completely, if the receiver device is inward communication range, it volition pick up the dot past times listening. This naive agreement suggests that the receiver is a passive device, equally listening is perceived generally equally a passive activity. But, cypher tin privy live farther from the truth. The receiver spends considerable energy to ability its radio as well as amplify the dot inward monastic tell to have it.When the receiver powers its radio to amplify signals, it is also amplifying noise. The dot to dissonance ratio (SNR) determines successful reception: if the signal has non faded, it volition learn amplified more, stand upwardly out, as well as decoded correctly. This gives enhance to an interesting question: When at that spot is no signal in the channel, what does the receiver radio hear? The reply is the receiver radio hears amplified noise. But the receiver radio does non possess got a agency to know that this is noise. It picks upwardly the dot equally 0 as well as 1 bits, as well as passes this to the higher layer, MAC layer, which tin privy possess got to a greater extent than context to differentiate between valid message as well as noise/junk message.
A peculiarity of the radios
In 2004, I was doing some MAC layer hacking on the wireless sensor nodes. For one experiment I bypassed the MAC layer on the node to listen/record the radio at the link layer. The lone node was recording bits, 0s, 1s, as well as and then forth. I was surprised. I double-checked that at that spot was no node transmitting inward the vicinity, I tried again, as well as yes the receiver was all the same picking upwardly phantom messages from thin air. This is because, the receiver radio is powered upwardly as well as it is amplifying noise as well as receiving it equally a phantom message. The argue this is non a occupation in normal functioning of the motes is because the MAC layer does the filtering of the phantom messages. To this end, the MAC layer imposes a preamble banking enterprise check (for at least a pair bytes) earlier recording a reception of a message. If the initial part of a flow of bits matches the preamble pattern (say 010101010101010101010101) than the balance of the message is recorded and delivered to the application layer. Otherwise, this is only noise, as well as should be ignored. Another of import exceptional hither is that if the preamble length is chosen too brusk (say 1 byte long), sooner or later on the random dissonance flow volition match the preamble designing as well as a phantom (random noise) message volition live received and passed to the application layer.A peculiarity of our brains
This lastly brings me to the encephalon as well as phantom melody connection. When you lot are lying inward a black room, deprived of whatsoever visual as well as well stimulation, produce you sometimes showtime hearing a melody (a phantom tune)? Tell me I am non the alone one. It sometimes sounds rattling vivid, as well as you lot almost mean value you lot are truly hearing it play. (Sensory deprivation tanks is a proficient house to experience this. People who lost hearing also experience these inward to a greater extent than intensity equally reported inward these articles.) This phantom melody is your encephalon lying to you, similar the radio picking upwardly phantom messages from sparse air. This is because your encephalon is a dot processing machine as well as it is trying to latch on to some signals past times boosting them. When there is no exterior stimuli to latch on to, the dissonance gets amplified. In this case, the dissonance is the random firings of your neurons, which happens incessantly. And if it happens that a sequence of random firings of neurons matches the initial sequence (preamble!) of an onetime melody stored inward your memory, your encephalon latches on to that dot as well as fills the balance of the dot playing from your memory, as well as you lot experience similar you lot are vividly hearing that music again.A related Kurt Vonnegut even out from TimeQuake
I volition of class non girlfriend this chance to include a brusk piece on this theme from my favorite author Kurt Vonnegut. This even out appears inward the TimeQuake book.For the record: doc Fleon Sunoco at the NIH, who is independently rich, hires grave robbers tovbring him the brains of deceased members of Mensa, a nationwide club for persons amongst high Intelligence Quotients, or IQs, equally determined by standardized tests of verbal as well as nonverbal skills, tests which pit the testees against the Joe as well as Jane Sixpacks, against the Lumpenproletariat.
His ghouls also convey him brains of people who died inward truly stupid accidents, crossing busy streets against the light, starting charcoal fires at cookouts with gasoline, as well as and then on, for comparison. So equally non to arouse suspicion, they deliver the fresh brains i at a fourth dimension inward buckets stolen from a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. Needless to say, Sunoco's supervisors possess got no stance what he's truly doing when he industrial plant belatedly black after night.
They produce notice how much he likes fried chicken, apparently, ordering it past times the bucket, as well as that he never offers anybody else some. They also wonder how he stays as well as then skinny. During regular working hours, he does what he is paid to do, which is railroad train a nativity command pill that takes all the pleasance out of sex, so teenagers won't copulate.
At night, though, amongst nobody around, he slices upwardly high-IQ brains, looking for little radios. He doesn't mean value Mensa members had them inserted surgically. He thinks they were born amongst them, as well as then the receivers possess got to live made of meat. Sunoco has written inward his surreptitious journal: "There is no agency an unassisted human brain, which is cypher to a greater extent than than a dog's breakfast, iii as well as a one-half pounds of blood-soaked sponge, could possess got written 'Stardust,' allow solitary Beethoven's Ninth Symphony."
One black he finds an unexplained footling snot-colored bump, no larger than a mustard seed, inward the inner ear of a Mensa member, who equally a junior high schooler had won spelling bee after spelling bee. Eureka!
He reexamines the inner ear of a moron who was killed when, she was grabbing door handles of fast-moving vehicles spell wearing Rollerblades. Neither of her inner ears has a snot-colored bump. Eureka!
Sunoco examines 50 to a greater extent than brains, one-half from people as well as then stupid you lot couldn't believe it, one-half from people as well as then smart you lot couldn't believe it. Only the inner ears of the rocket scientists, as well as then to speak, possess got bumps. The bumps possess got to have been the argue the smarties were as well as then proficient at taking IQ tests. An extra piece of tissue that little, as well as equally cypher but tissue, couldn't maybe possess got been much more aid than a pimple. It has to live a radio! And radios similar that possess got to be feeding right answers to questions, no affair how recondite, to Mensas as well as Phi Beta Kappas, as well as to quiz present contestants.
This is a Nobel Prize-type discovery! So, fifty-fifty earlier he has published, Fleon Sunoco goes out as well as buys himself a adapt of tails for Stockholm.
...
Trout said: "Fleon Sunoco jumped to his decease into the National Institutes of Health parking lot. He was wearing his novel adapt of tails, which would never get to Stockholm. "He realized that his uncovering proved that he didn't deserve credit for making it. He was hoist past times his ain petard! Anybody who did anything as wonderful equally what he had done couldn't maybe possess got done it amongst only a human brain, amongst cypher but the dog's breakfast inward his braincase. He could have done it alone amongst exterior help."
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