I love the twitter account of Neuroskeptic. He makes fun of all the asinine stuff people say about the brain:
Myths about how the brain works
51–60 of 129 posts
Re: Myths about how the brain works
#52I don't want to be too critical, because I've learned a lot from the author's books, but a fair amount of the article (mainly myths 1 and 2) seem to be over-generalization or skewed based on the author's bias. Her field is psychology, not primarily neuroscience; specifically, the psychology (and some neuroscience of) emotion. I recommend Jeff Hawkins's new book for a perspective closer to a neuroscientist's. (He's te…
> Her argument against this myth seems tortured. Of course the brain is not a simple impulse/response machine, but it's still essentially taking in inputs and responding in various ways. It just has a mind-bogglingly complex internal state.
The author was dispelling the myth that a significant fraction (or all) of neural activity happens between the time of the stimulus and time of the response, which is probably a common misperception.
Re: Myths about how the brain works
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're being overly pedantic over the exact difference between "scientific discovery" and "technical invention", a discussion which is completely irrelevant to the article. That line isn't even important to the article, it's just a bit of flowery language intended to frame the subject of myth vs. fact.
Okay, but pedantry aside, the 20th century kicked the 21st century's ass when it comes to scientific discovery. Some stuff discovered between 1900 and 1920: - Relativity - Atomic nuclei - Darwinian modern synthesis On the technological application side, there was the airplane and mass production of cars, plus the growth of telephony and radio. In the 21st century we have: - found a bunch of extra solar planets but th…
>In the 21st century we have:
In much the same way that much of 2020's progress was actually started from the 20th century, much of e.g. the year 2060's progress will be stuff actually started from 2020. We likely systemically underestimate the use of today's discoveries simply since the big stuff mostly isn't useful yet.
Re: Myths about how the brain works
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scientific discovery is learning new facts about the world. Inventing new contraptions to help us in our goals is technology. I.e. I don't think anyone would call Henry Ford a scientist or Albert Einstein an inventor. I thought it's basic and well-understood distinction.
If you follow the constructivist philosophy of science (spoiler alert: I do) then absolutely Albert Einstein is an inventor. He invented a mental model (essentially a lossy compression) of some parts of reality that better fit observed phenomena than its predecessor. Our mental/scientific models are not descriptions of reality; objective reality is unknowable. What they are, are tools (technologies!) that we can use…
Is constructivist philosophy of science an independent axiom or does it have testable predictions? E.g. is there a function from theorems of ZFC to {invented, not invented}?
Re: Myths about how the brain works
#55There are lots of popular tropes of how our brain works and I'd agree with this author that they are oversimplified and generally incorrect - I'd add the left brain right brain divide to the list. However the author appears to be arguing from a position that they (or someone) actually know how the brain works - having done a neuroscience degree, my one take home was that when it comes to modelling the brain against o…
Left/right divide is a myth-myth. Check out "Master and His Emissary" for the enormous amount of evidence about left/right divide.
The mirror neuron system is also a myth-myth. While there aren't "mirror neurons", per se (e.g., biochemically different), there is a system of mirroring and it is very important
Re: Myths about how the brain works
#56Great article, as usual from Nautilus! I would like to add one more myth the list. The idea that we all have a finite amount of brains cells. They used to teach that we’re all born with a certain amount of brain cells, and over time from aging, or getting a concussion, or if you ‘do drugs’, you would lose said cells. And that’s that. No more new brain cells :) We know this to be false now. I don’t know how much this…
Do you have links to share for what you're claiming is now false? I haven't seen any conclusive evidence yet for what you're claiming.
Re: Myths about how the brain works
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you follow the constructivist philosophy of science (spoiler alert: I do) then absolutely Albert Einstein is an inventor. He invented a mental model (essentially a lossy compression) of some parts of reality that better fit observed phenomena than its predecessor. Our mental/scientific models are not descriptions of reality; objective reality is unknowable. What they are, are tools (technologies!) that we can use…
Is constructivist philosophy of science an independent axiom or does it have testable predictions? E.g. is there a function from theorems of ZFC to {invented, not invented}?
it's a philosophy, so no it doesn't have testable predictions - but neither does objectivism, its counterpart. But then, testable predictions don't tell you about the nature of reality so c'est la vie.
> is there a function from theorems of ZFC to {invented, not invented}?
Can you derive definitions of inventions versus discoveries from set theory? No, probably not. You can't derive the smell of a rose from set theory either though so it's probably not a very good theory of everything.
Re: Myths about how the brain works
#58There are lots of popular tropes of how our brain works and I'd agree with this author that they are oversimplified and generally incorrect - I'd add the left brain right brain divide to the list. However the author appears to be arguing from a position that they (or someone) actually know how the brain works - having done a neuroscience degree, my one take home was that when it comes to modelling the brain against o…
Having done a neuroscience degree myself, I would double on your conclusion — I still have no clue how a brain works, apart of some simpler systems, like visual pattern recognition. I am out of the field for a single-digit number of years already, but in retrospective it is hilarious how all the literature in neuroscience is gently moving around the question of «guys, bit how all of it works»? People are happy to hack on single neurons or do some fishy fMRI studies instead. But of course, our tooling today is not adequate for this task.
Re: Myths about how the brain works
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm upvoting your comment but can you clarify on left brain/right brain? I thought split-brain/callosal syndrome showed us that a lot of our ideas about left brain right brain functional divide were true. Edit for clarification: I was not expecting folks to respond to this by linking split-brain experiments; I am specifically referring to split-brain experiments showing us that our ideas about left brain/right brain…
My best understanding (which, it's been a while since I took classes about it) is that there are some functions that tend to be more lateralized to one hemisphere or another -- with language being the prime example. However, some people do show more balanced functioning, and in some cases (more frequently among left-handed people) the lateralized functions can even be flipped from "normal". However, there's left-brai…
More accurately, in right-handed populations subjects there is good correlation between localized brain insults and specific functional deficits. The association between brain insult locations and specific functional deficits is less strongly correlated in left-handed people and certain other subpopulations. These are also very much tendencies and not predictors for individuals.
Re: Myths about how the brain works
#60> According to this myth, the brain is like a collection of puzzle pieces, each with a dedicated mental function. One puzzle piece is for vision, another is for memory, a third is for emotions, and so on.
The author makes too much about parts of the brain not being specialized.
As a neurosurgery resident in a former life who actually operated on brains and took care of people with strokes and trauma, yes, different parts of the brain are specialized to do different things. Yes, there is plasticity, but there are limits to it, especially once you reach adulthood.
I will give some anecdotes, but these are very, very typical.
Example, frontal lobe and impulse control. Saw an older patient with a giant tumor in the frontal lobe. His family came with him. Seeing where the tumor was, I asked the family if they had noticed any recent decline in his impulse control. Their response: "Now that you mention it,..." and out came all sorts of stories how their previously very proper father, was now doing all sorts of very things with very poor judgement and had even gotten in trouble with the law. If your frontal lobes get damaged, you will have issues with impulse control, long term planning, etc.
Another example is speech. Speech is very localized to areas of the left brain. As an example, there was patient with seizures in the left brain so bad that we would have to remove parts of the brain to control them. We did a surgery where we opened up the skull, and then woke the patient up. Psychologists asked the patient to do various verbal tasks, while we touched different parts of the brain with an electrode. When the electrode touched the parts of the brain that control speech, the effect was instantaneous, the patient suddenly stopped talking mid-word. By doing this, were were able to map precisely which parts were being used for speech, and in the surgery, avoid those areas. The patient had a very good outcome with his seizures stopped, and still able to speak.
Another example is movement disorders. Worked with a surgeon who is a world class expert in deep brain stimulation. In there you precisely place an electrode into a specific part of the brain and turn it on. Once you do that, you can have someone with severe tremor or Parkinson's who has been unable to even write their name for years, suddenly are able to write. You turn off the electrode, and the effect goes away. If the electrode is off by a millimeter, it does not work. It has to be precisely positioned.
In terms of mental illness, I have seen patients with severe depression and obsessive, compulsive disorder improve significantly after precise placement of an electrode in the correct part of the brain.
This thing about parts of the brain specializing is not just abstract theory. It is used every day by neurosurgeons, neurologists, etc to make life and death decisions. It has a lot of real world evidence backing it up. The most important question to answer when you see someone with a stroke or brain trauma, is "where is it located?" The same size injury can have vastly different effects on the person depending on where it is.