5 ms·

What a great comment, seriously. It just made me start thinking and then I realized perhaps another analogy is a just in time compiler where code or skills use

What a great comment, seriously. It just made me start thinking and then I realized perhaps another analogy is a just in time compiler where code or skills used often enough, your body manages to compile into native neurological code and stores that appropriately.

NKosmatos 3y ago
Both are spot on examples on what the cerebellum does. If I may, a third example/analogy that comes to mind is cache memory or L2ARC drives, at least that’s how I have it stored in my mind (pun intended) :-)
- rzzzt 3y ago
  "The brain is like a computer that"-style analogies are rarely fitting, or so vague as to being almost useless. My fridge is an L2 cache for food I want to eat soon.
  - burke 3y ago
    It would be a useful analogy for someone intricately familiar with computers but who was only sort of vaguely familiar with the concept of eating, has thought about houses only on occasion, and knows about refrigerators only insofar as they’re a food-related thing inside a house.
  - xattt 3y ago
    > My fridge is an L2 cache for food I want to eat soon. A less-volatile form of L2 cache. Food pocketed in my cheeks are the CPU registers?
  - kazinator 3y ago
    Some fridges are like magnetic tapes, with files from 1978.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    > My fridge is an L2 cache for food I want to eat soon. I would think fridge is RAM, L2 is table, L1 is plate. (I am deliberately ignoring the pun potential for Cold Storage.) But other than bickering about the exact mapping, I don't see the problem with that analogy?
    - doubled112 3y ago
      Cold storage is my freezer. There's often a delay between when I need it and when it is ready.
      - butlike 3y ago
        AC outlet is the clock speed!
    - taneq 3y ago
      Here comes the Forkbus! brm brm
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - chaxor 3y ago
    What's wrong with the fridge analogy? It's an analogy for a reason. It bothers me when people combat analogies so incredibly hard. Of course, it is not really fitting or the same thing - it's an analogy.
satvikpendem 3y ago
It is always funny to see brain metaphors morph to resemble our current stage of technological development, as the years go by. First it was anima, or hydraulic analogies of spirits and fluid moving through the body. Then it was clocks, the mechanistic processes of the brain. And so on and so on until today we metaphorize the brain to be like computer hardware. In vogue as well is comparing it to neural networks, due to the influence of machine learning and AI today. I wonder what metaphors we will come up with next. http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/w12/philneuro/metaphorsandconceptionsofbrain.key.pdf http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/w12/philneuro/metaphorsan...
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Though it's not like we're flitting from one bad analogy to another. Hydraulics are a great metaphor for understanding how computers work, for example.
  - shagie 3y ago
    Some 50 year old cartoons about said topic... https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/crunchly https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/crunchly
- passion__desire 3y ago
  I always liken this process of reality being a fractal boundary of mandelbrot and our attempts to understand it through language and metaphors as a way to approximate and fit that boundary. Consider the successive colored stripes like a updated and accurate metaphors in the following video https://youtu.be/u_P83LcI8Oc?si=ObkNyUfCCSUCb0Vt https://youtu.be/u_P83LcI8Oc?si=ObkNyUfCCSUCb0Vt
- interstice 3y ago
  I wonder if each iteration gets closer as we go
- chaxor 3y ago
  The next metaphor would be quantum computers. There are a few that have started suggesting quantum mechanics playing a large role in cognition, but very few take them seriously (obviously it has an effect, but likely much can be understood more classically, etc). The fact that few are moving toward that style of thinking seems to give a bit more credibility to NNs being closer to the correct model. If spiking NNs take off more, we'll probably see more arguments around that, and if Blue Brain's full in-silico modeling takes off we may see the succinct description given by those studies used to describe ideas. However, to first approximation, NNs and spiking NNs aren't really a bad way to reason about large descriptions of brain dynamics, in many circumstances.

NKosmatos 3y ago

Both are spot on examples on what the cerebellum does. If I may, a third example/analogy that comes to mind is cache memory or L2ARC drives, at least that’s how I have it stored in my mind (pun intended) :-)

rzzzt 3y ago
"The brain is like a computer that"-style analogies are rarely fitting, or so vague as to being almost useless. My fridge is an L2 cache for food I want to eat soon.
- burke 3y ago
  It would be a useful analogy for someone intricately familiar with computers but who was only sort of vaguely familiar with the concept of eating, has thought about houses only on occasion, and knows about refrigerators only insofar as they’re a food-related thing inside a house.
- xattt 3y ago
  > My fridge is an L2 cache for food I want to eat soon. A less-volatile form of L2 cache. Food pocketed in my cheeks are the CPU registers?
- kazinator 3y ago
  Some fridges are like magnetic tapes, with files from 1978.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > My fridge is an L2 cache for food I want to eat soon. I would think fridge is RAM, L2 is table, L1 is plate. (I am deliberately ignoring the pun potential for Cold Storage.) But other than bickering about the exact mapping, I don't see the problem with that analogy?
  - doubled112 3y ago
    Cold storage is my freezer. There's often a delay between when I need it and when it is ready.
    - butlike 3y ago
      AC outlet is the clock speed!
  - taneq 3y ago
    Here comes the Forkbus! brm brm
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- chaxor 3y ago
  What's wrong with the fridge analogy? It's an analogy for a reason. It bothers me when people combat analogies so incredibly hard. Of course, it is not really fitting or the same thing - it's an analogy.

satvikpendem 3y ago

It is always funny to see brain metaphors morph to resemble our current stage of technological development, as the years go by. First it was anima, or hydraulic analogies of spirits and fluid moving through the body. Then it was clocks, the mechanistic processes of the brain. And so on and so on until today we metaphorize the brain to be like computer hardware. In vogue as well is comparing it to neural networks, due to the influence of machine learning and AI today. I wonder what metaphors we will come up with next. http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/w12/philneuro/metaphorsandconceptionsofbrain.key.pdf http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/w12/philneuro/metaphorsan...

Dylan16807 3y ago
Though it's not like we're flitting from one bad analogy to another. Hydraulics are a great metaphor for understanding how computers work, for example.
- shagie 3y ago
  Some 50 year old cartoons about said topic... https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/crunchly https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/crunchly
passion__desire 3y ago
I always liken this process of reality being a fractal boundary of mandelbrot and our attempts to understand it through language and metaphors as a way to approximate and fit that boundary. Consider the successive colored stripes like a updated and accurate metaphors in the following video https://youtu.be/u_P83LcI8Oc?si=ObkNyUfCCSUCb0Vt https://youtu.be/u_P83LcI8Oc?si=ObkNyUfCCSUCb0Vt
interstice 3y ago
I wonder if each iteration gets closer as we go
chaxor 3y ago
The next metaphor would be quantum computers. There are a few that have started suggesting quantum mechanics playing a large role in cognition, but very few take them seriously (obviously it has an effect, but likely much can be understood more classically, etc). The fact that few are moving toward that style of thinking seems to give a bit more credibility to NNs being closer to the correct model. If spiking NNs take off more, we'll probably see more arguments around that, and if Blue Brain's full in-silico modeling takes off we may see the succinct description given by those studies used to describe ideas. However, to first approximation, NNs and spiking NNs aren't really a bad way to reason about large descriptions of brain dynamics, in many circumstances.