This seems pretty hand wavy. I'm not seeing any actionable insights from this.
Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
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Re: Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no proof that smarter brain is what was targeted by evolution. It could be that the size of human brain was either purely accidental consequence of other factor or at least was driven by the needs like balancing when walking/running on 2 legs.
A simple reality check: Considering the large energy needs of the brain, there is an evolutionary pressure to make it smaller... so something pushed it the other way.
https://www.academia.edu/1276752/The_causes_of_brain_enlarge... didcusses that bigger brain could have evolved as it was easier to keep brain functional under intense heat.
Re: Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
#53Some questions: We act like stimuli are exact things but the brain is all about abstraction. In fact, a certain amount of entropy/information enters your beain every day from vision, smell, touch, etc. Its not stored in full fidelity. There arent enough nuerons or energy for that. So what is lost? Well...whatever isnt abstractable, right? You celebrate your birthday. You remember blowing out the cake in pristine visi…
To answer some of the questions:
"But how much of that 'movie reel' inside your head is actually a superposition of abstracted reality vs actual observed reality? All Im asking is, is it even worth it to think of a human being in terms of absolute information when their memories are so sparse from reality. We remember whats important. And the things that are important, weve remembered to remember. But ultimately, the actual holding power of the brain is quite small. The brain is a master of deep abstraction from sparsity. "
First, not everyone has a 'movie reel' type of memory [0]. ~2% of the adult human population 'just remember' and have no 'mind's eye' or 'movie' playing in their heads [1]. We also know of many savants[2] that have 'photographic' memory and can perfectly recall images and places, but many of them struggle with other tasks in life. Also, some savants can acquire their incredible abilities after brain trauma late in life. So, the answer to the questions is that it depends greatly on who you ask and when you ask them. Your brain is astoundingly strange and continues to be so at nearly every age.
"Is it like a quantum system? Where the superposition values of one subcortical system are flattened by another? So that a whole brain belief/memory is a function of the fuzzyness of each subsystem being exacted/wave function flattened by the heuristic correlation/connection between all the shitty data?"
Your brain is decidedly non-quantum. Very basically, as we understand it today, the way memory works is via synapses and the modulation of how 'strong' they are [3]. The 'stronger' a synaptic bond to a neuron, the better the transmission of 'signal' over other competing synapses to a neuron. Nature does some pretty crazy things to keep that 'idea' going, like the calyx of Held [4]. I'll repeat that, in many brain areas so far studied, but not all, your brain uses a competition system to transmit signal.
I don't really understand the next questions. What do you mean by 'flattened'?
On your points about the universe being 'flat', which I assume is different than the flattened statements you talked about, you have to remember what the brain is 'for'. Our brains eat up ~20-25% of our daily food intake [5]. That is a LOT for mega-fauna mammals. Nature has deemed that this increased usage of the food is ok though, as it helps us get more food than what we spent. Obviously, with the obesity epidemic, we are kinda past this point, but we have a big brain that helps us eat. That is one idea about why the brain is so complex, that it helps us eat more food.
Another is sexual competition. Large apes like Humans, Gorillas, and Ourangs have very complicated dominance and social structures. The reasons for this are another thesis, but it ends up helping us survive and have babies. If you have a 'theory of mind' about your troop-mates, then you can anticipate their actions and maybe be dominant and make the babies. That takes a LOT of 'processing power' and, I don't think, is a 2-D problem. Interestingly, this related highly to the eyes and knowing and guessing what a rival is doing, hence the glasses they give out to zoo patrons these days [6]. Also, dogs are the only non-primate that can do this, again a possibly co-evolution related mechanism.
Basically, your brain is 'for' 3 things. Other evo-devo scientists say it in this joking way:
You are a mammal and you encounter some thing that is novel and you have not seen before. The analysis schema is as such: 1) Can it eat me? A: No. 2) Can I eat it? A: No. 3) Can I have sex with it? A: No. 4) Ignore it forever.
The brain is 'for' trying to go through that schema as fast as possible and with as high a degree of fidelity as possible. Again, jokingly.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_projection_fallacy
[1]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34039054
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savant_syndrome
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_plasticity
[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calyx_of_Held
[5]https://www.sharecare.com/health/calories/brain-calories-at-...
[6]https://boingboing.net/2009/04/17/gorilla-viewing-glas.html
Re: Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
#54This seems pretty hand wavy. I'm not seeing any actionable insights from this.
For real though. We already knew that neurons can do binary logic, they either fire or they don't and neurons higher up the chain fire based on converging inputs.
Also what do those plots actually 'show'. The authors claim repeatedly that the plots show the existence of 15 clusters, but without stating p values relating to any sort of classification for many of the plots.
Re: Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
#55I spent way too long staring at figure 1, before realizing that they're not using the word "permutation" in the way that people with exposure to CS or discrete math would use it. They're assigning a "neural clique" (possibly not exactly a clique in the graph theory sense) to each subset in the powerset of inputs, and then ignoring the empty set. _Now_ 2^i - 1 makes sense; ordering does not matter to the authors.
Re: Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
#56I spent way too long staring at figure 1, before realizing that they're not using the word "permutation" in the way that people with exposure to CS or discrete math would use it. They're assigning a "neural clique" (possibly not exactly a clique in the graph theory sense) to each subset in the powerset of inputs, and then ignoring the empty set. _Now_ 2^i - 1 makes sense; ordering does not matter to the authors.
It seems like you are saying that the headline is nonsense because the authors of the article are using non-standard meanings for their words.
Any system with optional components has a factor of 2^n in its count of configurations -- each optional component might be absent. That's an interesting fact of math, not of any particular system.
Re: Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
#57I spent way too long staring at figure 1, before realizing that they're not using the word "permutation" in the way that people with exposure to CS or discrete math would use it. They're assigning a "neural clique" (possibly not exactly a clique in the graph theory sense) to each subset in the powerset of inputs, and then ignoring the empty set. _Now_ 2^i - 1 makes sense; ordering does not matter to the authors.
It seems like you are saying that the headline is nonsense because the authors of the article are using non-standard meanings for their words. Any system with optional components has a factor of 2^n in its count of configurations -- each optional component might be absent. That's an interesting fact of math, not of any particular system.
I am not saying it is nonsense -- just that it was hard for me to understand their claim, in part due to a background that I expect many other readers here share.
Re: Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
If language is required for forming memories, surely babies that have learned sign-language would remember something, no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia As a bilingual person, do you dream in both languages, or one particular language?
In my case after living in another country for about 3-6 months I've started having dreams in new language. It came more less together with having inner dialogue in the head in new language. New one replaced the old one.
That just means your language is part of your memory, not that it is necessary for it to function.
Re: Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
#59Except for the Dopaminergic neurons, among other "subsystems".
That is explicitly mentioned in the article.
Re: Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
#60This sets off my BS detector.
The approach is to make a "thought experiment" about how neural computation might work mathematically, then look for evidence that the guess is correct. Their thought experiment makes them guess powers of 2 are special, that they should expect to see organization at sizes 1,3,7,15.
But when they analyze data, I don't see any comparison saying that 7 is really more prevalent than 6 or 8, or 15 is more prevalent than 14 or 16. Indeed 15 seems to be the largest they looked at.
The whole numerology theory driving the headline looks like unlikely, unsupported nonsense to me!