21–30 of 193 posts
I'm sure there is brain activity that prepares the baby for birth, but calling it a "dream" is just clickbait
Something about this reminds me of the 'Winning Ticket Hypothesis' in artifical neural networks: that some 'random' initializations prime a network far better for later faster learning. From https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03635 - the abstract: Neural network pruning techniques can reduce the parameter counts of trained networks by over 90%, decreasing storage requirements and improving computational performance of infere…
> Are these innate patterns of activity priming mammalian brains in a similar way? A newborn foal can stand within 55 minutes of being born and can walk or run within 90 minutes. That is crazy fast training speed. Is it training initialization or is it a form of transfer learning? Most human babies take 9-18 months to walk, and this is commonly attributed to the fact that human babies have immature brains that cannot…
Something about this reminds me of the 'Winning Ticket Hypothesis' in artifical neural networks: that some 'random' initializations prime a network far better for later faster learning. From https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03635 - the abstract: Neural network pruning techniques can reduce the parameter counts of trained networks by over 90%, decreasing storage requirements and improving computational performance of infere…
> Are these innate patterns of activity priming mammalian brains in a similar way? A newborn foal can stand within 55 minutes of being born and can walk or run within 90 minutes. That is crazy fast training speed. Is it training initialization or is it a form of transfer learning? Most human babies take 9-18 months to walk, and this is commonly attributed to the fact that human babies have immature brains that cannot…
I strongly doubt that human babies are physiologically capable of walking before 6-9 months regardless of their level of brain development. The entire baby is born many months "early" compared with other mammals due to the limitations of the human pelvis.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think brains are pre-wired to recognize 3D objects. There was an example case of a blind man with cataracts getting it fixed at around 50 years old. People were curious if he would be able to know if a sphere was round just by looking at it without touching it. IIRC - not only could he not do that, but he couldn't visually interpret shadows (saw them as black splotches - didn't recognize depth), and was confu…
Fascinating anecdote, and I'd love to see the report on this. I wonder what else they learned from such an interesting case study. But I doubt it's 100% "no pre-wiring". What about gravity and musculature? Surely brains must know or train on these in some way before birth. And what about fight or flight reflexes and presupposing monsters in the shadows? My understanding is that these had a primitive evolutionary basi…
The cataracts thing was an article I saw on HN a few years ago, but don’t remember the title.
I'm sure there is brain activity that prepares the baby for birth, but calling it a "dream" is just clickbait
I guess the suggestion that fetuses might dream probably seems outlandish if, for some reason, you were already committed to the idea that fetuses are "not alive."
Something about this reminds me of the 'Winning Ticket Hypothesis' in artifical neural networks: that some 'random' initializations prime a network far better for later faster learning. From https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03635 - the abstract: Neural network pruning techniques can reduce the parameter counts of trained networks by over 90%, decreasing storage requirements and improving computational performance of infere…
> Are these innate patterns of activity priming mammalian brains in a similar way? A newborn foal can stand within 55 minutes of being born and can walk or run within 90 minutes. That is crazy fast training speed. Is it training initialization or is it a form of transfer learning? Most human babies take 9-18 months to walk, and this is commonly attributed to the fact that human babies have immature brains that cannot…
Have you ever seen a new-born baby's legs?
They aren't even remotely strong enough to walk, no matter what the brain tells them. It takes those months to develop leg muscles. New-borns don't have them.
It's absolutely not restricted by the brain size.
Something about this reminds me of the 'Winning Ticket Hypothesis' in artifical neural networks: that some 'random' initializations prime a network far better for later faster learning. From https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03635 - the abstract: Neural network pruning techniques can reduce the parameter counts of trained networks by over 90%, decreasing storage requirements and improving computational performance of infere…
> Are these innate patterns of activity priming mammalian brains in a similar way? A newborn foal can stand within 55 minutes of being born and can walk or run within 90 minutes. That is crazy fast training speed. Is it training initialization or is it a form of transfer learning? Most human babies take 9-18 months to walk, and this is commonly attributed to the fact that human babies have immature brains that cannot…
> Eyes wide shut: How newborn mammals dream the world they’re entering
Reference to the Kubrick film I assume.