tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17558167.post5970230071267815461..comments2024-01-22T04:53:37.483-08:00Comments on A Radial Mind: ConsciousnessGerard Toonstrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17067969645449987498noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17558167.post-10638459071673024022008-01-04T07:05:00.000-08:002008-01-04T07:05:00.000-08:00And this is only a part of it. Imagine the complex...And this is only a part of it. Imagine the complexity for a full human brain!<BR/><BR/>“Artifical NN's however can only "service" a neuron one at a time, because it depends on a CPU. In your previous post you said you read somewhere that the freq. of the brain is around 40Hz. (allegedly).”<BR/><BR/>I didn’t realize that about artifical NNs. What I recall is that there is a 40Hz pattern associated with memory “refresh”. I believe there are a number of other brain waves associated with other activities (like problem solving). <BR/>I know the brain accounts for about one fifth of the body’s energy consumption. I find I am not drawn to the actual engineering/construction of NNs, being more of a generalist.<BR/><BR/>With regard to consciousness I came across this little piece that suggests the fundamental architecture is at least partially culturally driven.<BR/><BR/>Cultural Influences on Neural Substrates of Attentional Control<BR/><BR/>The abstract from Hedden et al. of the article with the title of this post (in Psychological Science, Volume 19, pp 12-17, 2008). I thought it was interesting enough to mention, though I don't have access to the full text, so can't determine exactly what is meant by culturally preferred and non-preferred judgements:<BR/><BR/> Behavioral research has shown that people from Western cultural contexts perform better on tasks emphasizing independent (absolute) dimensions than on tasks emphasizing interdependent (relative) dimensions, whereas the reverse is true for people from East Asian contexts. We assessed functional magnetic resonance imaging responses during performance of simple visuospatial tasks in which participants made absolute judgments (ignoring visual context) or relative judgments (taking visual context into account). In each group, activation in frontal and parietal brain regions known to be associated with attentional control was greater during culturally nonpreferred judgments than during culturally preferred judgments. Also, within each group, activation differences in these regions correlated strongly with scores on questionnaires measuring individual differences in culture-typical identity. Thus, the cultural background of an individual and the degree to which the individual endorses cultural values moderate activation in brain networks engaged during even simple visual and attentional tasks.<BR/>http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2008/01/cultural-influences-on-neural.htmlDon Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04814669413022486958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17558167.post-49495533489168365132008-01-01T23:32:00.000-08:002008-01-01T23:32:00.000-08:00And this is only a part of it. Imagine the complex...And this is only a part of it. Imagine the complexity for a full human brain!<BR/><BR/>Another thing I considered this morning in the metro... Biological NN's have cells and these cells burn some energy, fueled by biological processes (blood). Artifical NN's however can only "service" a neuron one at a time, because it depends on a CPU. In your previous post you said you read somewhere that the freq. of the brain is around 40Hz. (allegedly).<BR/><BR/>I'm wondering if it's possible to think of the human brain as an artificial model where each neuron has its own "CPU", which only has to be 40Hz or so. We could also scale this up to 80Hz CPU's and then load it with 2 neurons.<BR/><BR/>A theoretical CPU of 3GHz can serve 7.5M neurons. Since processing in a single neuron is not a single clock cycle but more, it would be very interesting research to balance some energy consumption equation... I don't believe that the brain can consume more energy (or consumes x times less energy) than a computer to achieve the same thing. So insight into how much energy the brain burns should provide more insight into the limitations or design challenge for an artificial smart computer.Gerard Toonstrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17067969645449987498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17558167.post-16871971186034572762008-01-01T11:51:00.000-08:002008-01-01T11:51:00.000-08:00What ever we figure consciousness to be, came acro...What ever we figure consciousness to be, came across picture of the basket work.<BR/>"Here's a nice video demonstrating a technique called serial block face-scanning electron microscopy, which can be used to reconstruct complex neural networks from sequential slices of tissue. The neurons in this case are from the retina of a rabbit."<BR/><BR/>http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid263777539?bctid=1313685700Don Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04814669413022486958noreply@blogger.com