3 ms·

Agreed. This article struck me as exceedingly pedantic. Given the author's background, I'd put money on the idea that this is the result of years of frustratio

Agreed. This article struck me as exceedingly pedantic. Given the author's background, I'd put money on the idea that this is the result of years of frustration at having his life's work dismissively reduced by casual observers to something like "yeah, it's basically a computer" and thinking they therefore understand all the intricacies of the human brain. I can see how that might grate on a person in his field and trigger a response like this.

radarsat1 10y ago
It's not even pedantic, it's just wrong. He's ignoring years of neuroscience. We know that the brain uses signals, and that these signals are composed of codes. We know that to interpret the world, certain information processing must take place. We are learning more about the exact nature of this processing, more about how neurons and even other fundamentals of the body code information and contribute to processing (e.g. chemical processes), but they definitely process information. We even know some of the codes. On the other hand, if the author wants to argue about the nature of what is information, what is processing.. he's going to have a steep hill to climb.
- karmajunkie 10y ago
  Got a few citations on that? Neurons react to stimuli, that's certainly well-established. But codes?
  - wickedgain 10y ago
    Not necessarily established, but you'll find some hypotheses here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_decoding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_decoding
  - radarsat1 10y ago
    Well, afaik we can't easily record individual neurons inside the brain, although there are some studies towards that goal. Most brain studies work on areas of activity. Even MRI is not that precise, to be frank. But for studying human perception, a technique often used is called microneurography, which involves sticking a probe into the nerve fibers along a known neural pathway and recording the electrical stimulations. From this we can often find things like: - frequency of impulses increases as stimulus increases - different numbers of neurons in a similar area fire simultaneously Things like that. The wikipedia articles linked by wickedagain contain a good summary. I won't link specific sources, since there are thousands, but here's one for instance: http://jn.physiology.org/content/85/4/1561 http://jn.physiology.org/content/85/4/1561 There in fig 6 for example you can see that the frequency of nerve firing increases in the tibial nerve as heat is applied to the paw. (Yes, a lot of information comes from horrible animal studies. It's part of the reason I didn't continue in this domain of work -- although rest assured, this technique is possible with humans, without harm.) So, do impulses in the perceptual nervous system reflect how brains work, how we think? It's hard to say for sure, but it's clear that information is coded according to certain possibilities related to how neurons work, and this information must be combined and processed somehow to create what we call perceptions. Is it such a stretch to imagine that these perceptions become their own codes, abstract reductions of correlations of perceptual information, that are evaluated, compared, and combined in the much, much more nerve-dense central cortex to produce what we call "thought"?
- hackney 10y ago
  A human being is not a machine just as "a brain" is not a computer. To say that the sum is greater than the individual parts is truly an understatement. I find it sad that scientists are so naive. The brain exists to tell the body what not to do. No machine will ever be able to replace it no matter how much you think you know about it.
transpy 10y ago
> Forgive me for this introduction to computing A further frustration might be with computers themselves. I don't see why an introduction/exposition to computing should be something that needs pardon.

radarsat1 10y ago

It's not even pedantic, it's just wrong. He's ignoring years of neuroscience. We know that the brain uses signals, and that these signals are composed of codes. We know that to interpret the world, certain information processing must take place. We are learning more about the exact nature of this processing, more about how neurons and even other fundamentals of the body code information and contribute to processing (e.g. chemical processes), but they definitely process information. We even know some of the codes. On the other hand, if the author wants to argue about the nature of what is information, what is processing.. he's going to have a steep hill to climb.

karmajunkie 10y ago
Got a few citations on that? Neurons react to stimuli, that's certainly well-established. But codes?
- wickedgain 10y ago
  Not necessarily established, but you'll find some hypotheses here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_decoding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_decoding
- radarsat1 10y ago
  Well, afaik we can't easily record individual neurons inside the brain, although there are some studies towards that goal. Most brain studies work on areas of activity. Even MRI is not that precise, to be frank. But for studying human perception, a technique often used is called microneurography, which involves sticking a probe into the nerve fibers along a known neural pathway and recording the electrical stimulations. From this we can often find things like: - frequency of impulses increases as stimulus increases - different numbers of neurons in a similar area fire simultaneously Things like that. The wikipedia articles linked by wickedagain contain a good summary. I won't link specific sources, since there are thousands, but here's one for instance: http://jn.physiology.org/content/85/4/1561 http://jn.physiology.org/content/85/4/1561 There in fig 6 for example you can see that the frequency of nerve firing increases in the tibial nerve as heat is applied to the paw. (Yes, a lot of information comes from horrible animal studies. It's part of the reason I didn't continue in this domain of work -- although rest assured, this technique is possible with humans, without harm.) So, do impulses in the perceptual nervous system reflect how brains work, how we think? It's hard to say for sure, but it's clear that information is coded according to certain possibilities related to how neurons work, and this information must be combined and processed somehow to create what we call perceptions. Is it such a stretch to imagine that these perceptions become their own codes, abstract reductions of correlations of perceptual information, that are evaluated, compared, and combined in the much, much more nerve-dense central cortex to produce what we call "thought"?
hackney 10y ago
A human being is not a machine just as "a brain" is not a computer. To say that the sum is greater than the individual parts is truly an understatement. I find it sad that scientists are so naive. The brain exists to tell the body what not to do. No machine will ever be able to replace it no matter how much you think you know about it.

transpy 10y ago

> Forgive me for this introduction to computing A further frustration might be with computers themselves. I don't see why an introduction/exposition to computing should be something that needs pardon.