5 ms·
The human brain is often described as the most complex object in the universe. Tens of billions of nerve cells-tiny tree-like structures—make up a massive netwo
by hirundo 5y ago
The human brain is often described as the most complex object in the universe. Tens of billions of nerve cells-tiny tree-like structures—make up a massive network with enormous computational power. -- Trees of the Brain, Roots of the Mind
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/trees-brain-roots-mind https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/trees-brain-roots-mind
Our thoughts literally flow through and exist as tree structures. In the sense that we are the thing that is aware, we are each great forests of neurons. It does not necessarily follow that mapping the world in the form of tree-like hierarchies is conducive to thought but it is suggestive.
As social animals we are bred to be exquisitely sensitive to dominance hierarchies in families and tribes. The less sensitive stumble in the mating dance. The survivors of eons of such selection are good at remembering hierarchies.
The typical Memory Palace works by associating objects with our spacial memory. We seem to have a separate set of registers for recording dominance hierarchies, available for use as a separate memory palace channel.
- sva_ 5y ago> The human brain is often described as the most complex object in the universe. [*] (* according to the brain)
- R0b0t1 5y agoI think this follows your general thrust. Apéry's constant was mentioned on HN earlier, and to me it links the underlying nature of the vacuum to trees.
- sva_ 5y agoI can't edit my other comment anymore, but on a more serious note I'd like to debate the claim that the brain has a tree like structure. A tree is by definition acyclic, whereas the brain surely is not. A neuron can even connect from it's axon terminals to its own dendrites. Surely more cycles are present. Hence I oppose the idea of hierarchical note-taking.