Someone wrote in response to the following article The Matrix is a step closer to reality; Neuroscientists break code on sight Its said that "neurons at different sites in IT produce distinct patterns of activity"; but the the excitation activity & number of neurons being affected are based on the experience. As the experience of the mind over the image increases the excitation levels in the neurons also change, also the current state of neurons is also a factor because the reaction of neurons to the current image is also based on the previous image. We can use "conditional probability reasoning" for finding the effect of previous state to current state of neurons. Thought is complex to think about, much like a strand of DNA. So hard to fully know. Don't stimulations connect with each other? Memory, and each of the five senses, eventually spark the resources that become algorithms and thoughts? Wait, no, no. If a fetus can learn....Definitely more advanced then instinct. I don't know what to fully say. Only years from now, after all of the brain scanning and mapping, will true and full understandings come about. ________________________________________________ I have many questions to ask you, so I'll list them to keep orgainized. 1.) I understand that neuron activity in the infortermporal and parietal lobe are responsible for catagorizing and recognizing visual stimuli, relatively. There is a different code for every object. But, I gather from what you the poster said, that the neural codes are not as simplistic as the article made it seem because each code created at an instant in time is based on the previous state of the neurons. This explains why one memory, or visual image can spur another memory or visual image. So even though these codes change because of "experience over image", won't they still be similar to the code that would be created without previous stimuli (such as we are thinking of nothing and immediately look at car, and nothing else)? 2.) This is probably my most important question. How does the neuron activity of visual processing areas of the brain, such as the parietal and infotemporal cortex, relate to the cerbral cortex? After the information is recognized and catagorized and assigned specific neural patterns, do those patterns stay constant when we are recalling the information, awake and asleep? How is the information transferred to the cerebral cortex. Is it even transferred at all? Could you access the patterns via the cerebral cortex alone? ( I know these seem like stupid questions. I am a layman, afterall) 3.)He says that we will never know until full scanning and mapping of the brain has taken place. Could you describe this event in detail? Which areas would be mapped and how? 4.) I eluded to this next question in one of my earlier ones. When we are dreaming, and recall information such as visual objects and memories, are the neural codes that fire away similar to those which would have been created if we were awake. Or are is there a whole set of different codes for sleeping state images?
You'd probably get more action by posting this in the Biology section. Many of our scientists don't spend a lot of time in this one. As a layman with a great deal of interest in this topic, I would respond to your first question by noting that our brains are qualitatively different from other mammals in the very high ratio of the volume that provides programmable, conscious processes like learning and reasoning to the volume that provides genetically preprogrammed and largely unconscous processes. Each code change due to experience may result in code that is recognizably similar to the previous version, but in aggregate over time they may end up with few or no commonalities. Like the New Englander's trusty axe, such a perfect tool that it had been handed down through several generations of this family. The handle had been replaced eight times, the blade five... but it was still the same axe. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I did post this in the Biology section, but I guess no one is knowledgeable enough to answer my question and/or no one is interested enough..... So Fraggle, do you think that the code developed by one human being from one experience will be the same as another human beings code for that same experience?
Like, for example, the Matrix. I am sure that the Matrix code was not different for every human being. In order to extract a full code that covers all experiences possible in life, what would one do? Using one's imagination, of course!
