linkstream2 microblog

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“In a recent paper titled “The Scientific Case for Brain Simulations,” several HBP scientists argue that big simulations “will likely be indispensable for bridging the scales between the neuron and system levels in the brain.” In other words: Scientists can look at the nuts and bolts of how neurons work, and they can study the behavior of entire organisms, but they need simulations to show how the former creates the latter. The paper’s authors draw a comparison to weather forecasts, in which an understanding of physics and chemistry at the scale of neighborhoods allows us to accurately predict temperature, rainfall, and wind across the whole globe.”
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https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/ten-years-human-brain-project-simulation-markram-ted-talk/594493/

https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ap.html

The strange link between the human mind & quantum physics
http://www.BBC.com/earth/story/20170215-the-strange-link-between-the-human-mind-and-quantum-physics Wave packet collapse & decision making. A potential connection between #QuantumComputing & #Neuroscience

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“As a result, physicists are often embarrassed to even mention the words “quantum” and “consciousness” in the same sentence.

But setting that aside, the idea has a long history. Ever since the “observer effect” and the mind first insinuated themselves into quantum theory in the early days, it has been devilishly hard to kick them out. A few researchers think we might never manage to do so. …
One particularly puzzling question is how our conscious minds can experience unique sensations, such as the colour red or the smell of frying bacon. With the exception of people with visual impairments, we all know what red is like, but we have no way to communicate the sensation and there is nothing in physics that tells us what it should be like.

Sensations like this are called “qualia”. We perceive them as unified properties of the outside world, but in fact they are products of our consciousness – and that is hard to explain. Indeed, in 1995 philosopher David Chalmers dubbed it “the hard problem” of
consciousness.
…
This has prompted him to suggest that “we could make some progress on understanding the problem of the evolution of consciousness if we supposed that consciousnesses alters (albeit perhaps very slightly and subtly) quantum probabilities.””
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Thought experiments
https://www.Economist.com/technology-quarterly/2018-01-06/thought-experiments Amazing progress in Brain-computer interfaces (#BCIs): paralyzed patients manipulating silverware. Communicating w/ “locked-in” individuals. Will this scale?

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Brain-computer interfaces sound like the stuff of science fiction. Andrew Palmer sorts the reality
from the hype

IN THE gleaming facilities of the Wyss Centre for Bio and
Neuroengineering in Geneva, a lab technician takes a well plate out of an incubator. Each well contains a tiny piece of brain tissue derived from human stem cells and sitting on top of an array of electrodes. …
To see these signals emanating from disembodied tissue is weird. The firing of a neuron is the basic building block of intelligence. ..

This symphony of signals is bewilderingly complex. There are as many as 85bn neurons in an adult human brain, and a typical neuron has 10,000 connections to other such cells. The job of mapping these connections is still in its early stages. But as the brain gives up its secrets, remarkable possibilities have opened up: of decoding neural activity and using that code to control external devices.

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Computers Are Taking Design Cues From…Brains
https://www.NYTimes.com/2017/09/16/technology/chips-off-the-old-block-computers-are-taking-design-cues-from-human-brains.html Bio-inspired computing, or the connection machine redux HT @EricTopol

How to make…brains better at noticing threats
https://www.Economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21725543-target-recognition-warfare-how-make-soldiers-brains-better-noticing beyond AR – AT, augmented thinking! Where machines help us recognize

https://linkstream2.gerstein.info/tag/brainmyths0mg/

https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Myths-Exploded-Lessons-Neuroscience/dp/B01MUA54I0

You Look Familiar. Now Scientists Know Why
https://www.NYTmes.com/2017/06/01/science/facial-recognition-brain-neurons.html #Privacy implications: determining whether a suspect recognizes a face

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“One day, the authors suggested, it might even be possible to render a face seen by, say, a crime witness just by analyzing his brain activity.

“Cracking the code for faces would definitely be a big deal,” said Brad Duchaine, an expert on face recognition at Dartmouth.

Human and monkey brains have evolved dedicated systems for recognizing faces, presumably because, as social animals, survival depends on identifying members of one’s own social group and distinguishing them from strangers.”
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Sight Unseen http://www.NewYorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/seeing-with-your-tongue/amp New devices let one see w/ one’s tongue; they also open the
possibility for new types of #perception