On 07 Feb 2014, at 21:36, Chris de Morsella wrote:
From: Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, February 7, 2014 7:09 AM
Subject: Re: Eidetic memory and the comp hypothesis
Thanks for the link Chris.
>>It has also been discovered, some years ago, that glial cells are
involved in chronic pain. Since then, I follow them closely. They do
communicate chemically in some wavy way, and they do communicate to,
and influence, neurons.
I still tend to think that neurons play the key role in the
information treatment, and probably in the basic loops needed for
consciousness, but I would not been astonished, that glial cells
would be important for surviving some long period of time.
(Needless to say, for the UDA reversal, this is only a matter of
making the substitution level lower, and this does not change the
consequences.)
I agree that it seems highly probable that most of the brain
activities underlying the mind -- out of which we experience the
spontaneously arising sense of self, the awareness of that self and
all the other magnificent mysteries of consciousness -- are
occurring primarily as phenomenon primarily rooted in the electro-
chemical chirping, crackling activity occurring in our highly folded
cortexual sheets and the hugely parallel neural/axonal networks.
Though if indeed (as it appears) glial cells play a key role in
cementing memories (and maybe in some chemically based manner
perhaps even storing long term memories -- perhaps like an archival
storage medium for (slow) chemically mediated recall mechanisms --
then, in fact, it would be impossible to describe the working of the
brain/mind without factoring in and understanding their role(s). It
seems to me that -- at least some large portion of -- the glial
cells may play a role like the one I am conjecturing.
Is the glial brain underlying the cortexual sheet is in fact a kind
of chemical only -- and hence much slower by orders of magnitude --
processor that the brain/mind uses as a permanent archive for long
term memories that adjacent populations of neurons use kind of like
a hard drive or maybe an archival drive/tape backup? It certainly
seems like these cells are playing some role; what if our brains
have glial cell hard drives.
I was not aware of the role these types of brain cells (comprising
around 90% of the brains cells) also are somehow involved in
mediating the experience of pain (what about other sensations and
emotions?) -- that is interesting.
In terms of information theory -- or comp in this case -- not all
that much changes. It is more like an extension of the electro-
chemical cortex and the operations it performs are chemically
mediated and so are much slower than electrical switches. However I
also agree that this would not qualitatively change the essential
nature of the brain as a biological computer, albeit an incredibly
complex and highly parallel one with vast numbers of neurons and
even vaster numbers of vertices.
I would not be astonished that, if someone accept a brain transplant
based on on the neuronal network, he would pretend having survived,
when coming back from the hospital, but then get sleep problems, and
developing chronical pains, long term memory damages, so that after
one month, he has to come back to the hospital, and wait for a better
transplant taking into account more of the glial cells. Of course that
would be more expensive. Lowering the level makes the transplant more
expensive of course.
Brains are terribly complex structures, that seems rather clear.
Bruno
Chris
Bruno
On 06 Feb 2014, at 07:59, Chris de Morsella wrote:
Liz - The pace of what we are discovering about the brain makes
everything we know about it a moving goal post; case in point the
key role it now appears astrocytes or glial cells play in the
formation of memories. Astrocytes account for around 90% of all
brain cells. This indicates to my view of things that until we
really do understand the actual mechanisms (and the second follow
on ring of emergent meta-mechanisms that characterize and emerge
within vastly parallel networks as well), it is too early to put
hard upper boundaries on capacity. If we are just now discovering
previously overlooked critical actors for the formation of
memories; do we even really know that much about the physical
mechanisms for memory in the brain?
This is, as you may have guessed, a subject in which I am fairly
interested; I believe a rigorous micro and dynamic network scale
understanding of brain functioning is required in order to form a
theory of consciousness, self-aware intelligence etc. I also feel
we are getting tantalizingly close to a kind of gestalt moment when
all the pieces will emerge naturally as one whole dynamic elegant
theory that will win someone a Nobel prize and a grand
understanding of the brain/mind and of ourselves emerges.
Cheers,
Chris
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com
] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2014 9:32 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Eidetic memory and the comp hypothesis
This is a very interesting point. What is the estimated capacity of
the human brain? I seem to recalls some 10^17 bits being mentioned
somewhere, or at least that figure has stuck in my mind (but not
having an eidetic memory, or much of a normal one, I can't say
where from).
On 6 February 2014 15:58, Richard Ruquist <yann...@gmail.com> wrote:
An aspect of my string cosmology is that the metaverse contains a
4D-space (in which one space axis is time)
that records every event that ever happened in this and every
universe much like the Akashic Records.
Eidetics and gurus can apparently time travel in this block-space.
Richard
On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 8:32 PM, Pierz <pier...@gmail.com> wrote:
The phenomenon of eidetic (photographic) memory is well established
as a reality. For an example of what it means, read the top answer
to thisquora.com question. People with this gift/disability
remember every moment of their lives in perfect detail. To me this
raises real questions about the comp hypothesis and the 'yes
doctor'. Consider the 'RAM' required for this type of recall.
Memories are 3d and 'retina' resolution. If we consider that an
hour of Blu-ray footage consumes about 30Gb, then some rough
calculations show that Blu-ray quality footage of an entire life of
60 years would consume around 17,000 terabytes of storage. But
these memories include tactile, olfactory and cognitive channels as
well as visual and auditory information, and of course the
resolution of the visual system is far better than Blu-ray. I'd
take a rough guess and say that full recording of a person's mental
experience in all external and internal channels would have to
require hundreds or even thousands of times the bandwidth of Blu-
ray. But even at what I'd think would be an extremely conservative
estimate of a hundred times, we're up near two million terabytes
(two exabytes). What's more, there appears to be no strain, no sign
of running out of space at all, as if capacity was simply not an
issue. This type of example makes me really question whether
digital prosthetics are a real possibility at all - it looks to me
strongly suggestive of a totally different way of recording
information, or even of the possibility that recording and storage
are the wrong metaphor entirely. 'Christian' in the above quora
response says that he has little means of distinguishing a memory
from a live experience, making for a very confusing mental life.
This type of memory looks more like a kind of time travel than a
recording. Perhaps this is still compatible with Bruno's version of
comp - the universal subject inhabiting the pure space of Number -
but it's more problematic for step one of the whole argument that
leads to this vision, namely saying 'yes' to a digital brain.
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