@Steve, Colin The link here provides a list of papers that I pulled together from prior research in hope of nudging the discussion along. I have not been following all of the details here, but would be interested in your reaction to any of these (mostly) divergent theories and models as it relates to Colin's approach.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/105aUd43l76Qk/collections/47987407/public/ On Wed, May 6, 2015 at 3:07 AM Steve Richfield <[email protected]> wrote: > Colin, > > I'm going to take a shot at restating your hypothesis in a more > physics-tractable form. The remainder of this posting are what I think you > are trying to say: > > Colin in effect says that the computational unit is NOT the synapse, but > rather is the ion channel. These are MUCH more numerous than synapses. > While the voltages seen in extracellular recordings are quite low, the > field GRADIENT near an active ion channel is HIGH - enough to have major > effects on nearby/contacting structures. Brains are a lot like a bowl of > spaghetti, and every place the "noodles" touch becomes a point of high > field interaction. We don't yet know what those interactions do, but we DO > know that there are a lot of synapses that interconnect contacting neurons, > so at minimum such points of contact are probably capable of spawning > synapses, if the "data" indicates a synapse would be useful. > > Then there is the far-field effects from neurons that are near but NOT in > contact. The activity (or lack thereof) should be an important parameter to > use in development, because it is an indicator of just how successful > learning has been throughout the entire system. Where learning has been > UNsuccessful, neurons should probably be more plastic in their > functionality. > > Ion channels are capable of fairly complex computation, including memory > (from ion accumulation and physical alterations), nonlinearities, etc. It > has previously been presumed that ion channels are just "pumps" that keep > neurons doing what neurons do, but the prospect for ion channel computation > can NOT be ignored. > > When a neuron becomes active, its many ion channels radiates complex > patterns of field-gradients, which could affect the operation of other > nearby neurons, especially if the ion channels in the other neuron were to > align themselves with a radiating neuron. > > While I now grok the importance of field gradients generated by ion > channels, I still don't see how/why this should affect consciousness any > more than it affects the many other functions of a neural systems. I am not > yet even convinced that consciousness exists - except in our minds as a > simplistic model for whatever happens behind our eyeballs. How do you link > consciousness (over other neural functions) with EM fields? > > C'mon; help me put Colin's hypothesis into a solid physics form. > > Steve > > > > > *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/18488709-8cf25195> | > Modify > <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> > Your Subscription <http://www.listbox.com> > ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
