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Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals

news.mit.edu

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Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals

#41

Post by Jensson »

mdp2021 wrote: post #39
Jensson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand how science works. The aim isn't to be correct, the aim is to find potential areas of progress. Is my hypothesis here most likely incorrect? Yes, of course it is, but that doesn't matter since if it is correct it would be huge and therefore it is worth exploring. But thanks for your comment, now I understand better how luddites thinks. So in the future when I make comments like above I'll…

> I don't think you understand how science works I have some understanding of how science works. The purpose remains to find plausible explanations to phenomena, explanations that show some solidity. The same value - linked to grounds - remains valid for statements in general. This is why we refine them, in the internal "lab", where they are tried under duress of criticism. Which is scientific process.

And how is "weakening the electric signals between cells makes it easier for cells to alter the message and therefore might give rise to stronger forms of learning" not a plausible link? It costs more energy to ignore a stronger signal, making it harder for cells to learn to change input signals. Humans having weaker signals could therefore be related to our ability to learn, while animals could have stronger signals making them worse at learning but better at following instincts.

Of course I could be wrong, but can you really say there is no way my hypothesis could be right?

Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals

#42

Post by Jensson »

mdp2021 wrote: post #40
Jensson wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The levels to which humans can learn rationality is in a completely different league from animals, so yes I'll say I'm pretty sure about that. It is like the difference between merge sort and bogo sort, sure they solve the same problem but bogo sorting doesn't work for anything but datasets with a few elements. Animals reasoning chains breaks down extremely quickly, they can do a few steps, but humans can do hundreds…

That is a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one. And it is probably related to a synergy of functions.

Quantitative differences becomes qualitative differences when they get large enough. For example, the difference between merge sort and bogo sort are qualitative, you can't sort anything with 50 or more elements using bogo sort while you can sort billions of elements with merge sort.

Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals

#43

Post by ifdefdebug »

tmccrary55 wrote: post #23
samstave wrote: post #21

Can they please take samples from living humans and compare them -- compare the tissue from the brains of say einstein (I think its in a jar some place) to some other modern "great brain" -- and compare them between musk and bezos (as an example of two successful, 'peers' currently living)

Does having rich parents at the right place and time really put you in the same category as someone like Einstein, who changed humanity's entire view of reality and the nature of the universe?

Bezos is more like a garage startup founder though.

Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals

#45

Post by sva_ »

tux3 wrote: post #28
laser wrote: post #26

I like the aesthetics of interpreting this through the academically fringe lens of “Quantum mechanics/entanglement plays some role in the human brain and solving the binding problem” and hope this relates more to making quantum-scale events capable of triggering action potentials at a statistically meaningful rate, than it does to mere energy savings.

The aforementioned binding problem, which I'm now reading about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem

Interesting stuff. I believe the OP is also refering to this theory by Roger Penrose:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose#Physics_and_co...

Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals

#46

Post by quickthrower2 »

samstave wrote: post #21

Can they please take samples from living humans and compare them -- compare the tissue from the brains of say einstein (I think its in a jar some place) to some other modern "great brain" -- and compare them between musk and bezos (as an example of two successful, 'peers' currently living)

Putting aside if this is a good idea at all, I think Terrance Tao might be a better comparison for Einstein?

Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals

#48

Post by bell-cot »

mikewarot wrote: post #7

>They were able to obtain brain tissue from 10 mammalian species: Etruscan shrews (one of the smallest known mammals), gerbils, mice, rats, Guinea pigs, ferrets, rabbits, marmosets, and macaques, as well as human tissue removed from patients with epilepsy during brain surgery. Offbeat question: Could it be that epilepsy is a disorder caused by this missing ion channel, and this isn't true for all humans?

Or the ion channel deficit was a side-effect of anti-seizure drugs often given to people with epilepsy, or a side-effect of having seizures, or ...

Presumably there is some "gotta be ultra-fresh" reason why they aren't taking just tissue from cadavers donated to medical schools. But this study sounds like it was pretty crappy science, even before the MIT press office folks got hold of it.

Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals

#49

Post by Garlef »

Jensson wrote: post #35
Garlef wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say it less politely: To me it seems more like stoner talk. "Quantum entanglement, ... blablabla, ... collective subconscious, ... blablabla, ... everything is connected, man!"

I don't think you understand how science works. The aim isn't to be correct, the aim is to find potential areas of progress. Is my hypothesis here most likely incorrect? Yes, of course it is, but that doesn't matter since if it is correct it would be huge and therefore it is worth exploring. But thanks for your comment, now I understand better how luddites thinks. So in the future when I make comments like above I'll…

> how science works... hypothesis

This is precisely what I would criticise:

It's not actually a hypothesis in terms of being a testable statement:

How would you even operationalize "rationality"?

Re: Study finds a difference between neurons of humans and other mammals

#50

Post by Garlef »

Jensson wrote: post #41
mdp2021 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you understand how science works I have some understanding of how science works. The purpose remains to find plausible explanations to phenomena, explanations that show some solidity. The same value - linked to grounds - remains valid for statements in general. This is why we refine them, in the internal "lab", where they are tried under duress of criticism. Which is scientific process.

And how is "weakening the electric signals between cells makes it easier for cells to alter the message and therefore might give rise to stronger forms of learning" not a plausible link? It costs more energy to ignore a stronger signal, making it harder for cells to learn to change input signals. Humans having weaker signals could therefore be related to our ability to learn, while animals could have stronger signals…

The learning part might be right.

I'm put off by the "rationality" part.

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