All models are convenient fictions. I heard a neuroscientist once describe averaging as a low-pass filter. People know it hides high-frequency dynamics. But unless you have a way to interpret the high-frequency signal, it looks an awful lot like noise.
> But unless you have a way to interpret the high-frequency signal, it looks an awful lot like noise. In other words, they're looking for their lost keys under the lamp-post because it's easier there. If there is a signal in the HF, it's not yet understood. This feels like "junk DNA" -which is I believe receiving more attention than the name suggests.
This is a strange criticism. If you're looking for your keys in the dead of night, and there is a lamp post where they might be, you should start there.
The streelight effect criticises "only search[ing] for something where it is easiest to look" [1]. Not searching where it's easiest in all cases.
In this case, we know averaging destroys information. But we don't know to what significance. As the author says, "we now have the tools we need to find out if averaging is showing us something about the brain’s signals or is a misleading historical accident." That neither confirms nor damns the preceding research--it may be that averaging is perfectly fine, hides some of the truth that we can now uncover or is entirely misleading.
