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"some of your learning is stored in your nervous system outside of your brain seems compelling" The keyword here is "your," as in what kind of organism we're t
by jonnathanson 13y ago
"some of your learning is stored in your nervous system outside of your brain seems compelling"
The keyword here is "your," as in what kind of organism we're talking about, and what kind of nervous system we're talking about. In organisms like worms, what we'd think of as a brain is obviously a few orders of magnitude less centralized and less specialized than ours. The nervous system plays a much larger role. Ditto starfish, the organisms famous for being brainless (literally). Starfish run entirely on distributed nervous systems, having nothing that passes for a brain.
It's very tough to draw comparisons between what happens in the nervous system of a worm and what happens in the nervous system of a human. Even rats, which we've been using for decades as neurological proxies in drug trials, are proving to be less than ideal as analogues for the human nervous system. It turns out that we're so much more advanced than other animals that there's a lot less common ground than traditionally assumed.
- juliangamble 13y ago> It turns out that we're so much more advanced than other animals that there's a lot less common ground than traditionally assumed. Interesting claim. Any chance of a reference for that one?
- a-priori 13y agoI disagree with the term 'more advanced', but there is a huge difference between the invertebrate and vertebrate nervous systems: we have myelin, which insulates the axons and allows signals to travel many times faster. Without myelin, large bodies with centralized nervous systems are not possible. To illustrate the difference, take an example of stubbing your toe. It's a good example because it's unexpected, sudden and originates at the furthest point in your body away from the brain. When you stub your toe, you feel two waves of pain. The first arrives quickly, within about a tenth of a second, and is a sharp stabbing pain. That signal travels by the A-delta fibres, which are myelinated and have a conduction speed of 2 to 30 m/s. The second wave is delayed by 1-2 seconds and is a dull sort of pain. That signal is conveyed by the C fibres, which are unmyelinated and have a conduction speed of <2 m/s. If we did not have myelin, all of the signals to and from the extremities would be similarly delayed. It would be impossible to respond to stimulus or coordinate whole-body actions like walking.
- coldtea 13y ago>Interesting claim. Any chance of a reference for that one? For one, other animals don't ask for references. And surely not to academic publications.
- Terretta 13y ago> It turns out that we're so much more advanced than other animals that there's a lot less common ground than traditionally assumed. Not sure the scientific consensus is "turning out" that way at all. ... new discoveries about animals’ cognitive and emotional complexity ... have blurred the bold lines traditionally drawn between humans and other species. Some animals are now known to exhibit a number of qualities once thought exclusively human, such as self-awareness, abstract thought, and altruism. -- Boston Globe, July 13, 2013 See the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness from last summer, or DDG any of the reporting on it for more points and counterpoints. http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious... TLDR summary: http://io9.com/5937356/prominent-scientists-sign-declaration-that-animals-have-conscious-awareness-just-like-us http://io9.com/5937356/prominent-scientists-sign-declaration...