The brain is like a surface - a hypersurface - a maximum hypersurface.

I learned from John McCrone in 2003 of a scene that took place in the
early 90s between the theoretical neurobiologist, Karl Friston and
Harvard Psychologist, Stephen Kosslyn as they stood by a pond at London
Zoo.

"Look," said Friston, "Traditional thinking holds that the brain is
some kind of computer, crunching its way through billions of inputs
each second to output a state of consciousness. But really, the brain
acts more as if the arrival of imput provokes a widespread disturbance
in some already existing state."

Friston nodded down at the pond, "That gives you a better way of
thinking about it. The brain is like a surface, its circuts drawn tight
in a certain state of tension. You toss in a pebble - that´s your
sensory input - and you immediately get ripples of activity. Sure the
patterns say something about the way the pebble hit the surface, but
they are mixed with the lingering patterns of earlier pebbles of input.
And then everything begins echoing off the sides of the pond. The
overall shape of the system has an effect on the patterns you see.
Nothing is being calculated. The response of the system evolves
organically. Or to use the proper term, dynamically."

"And as we throw more pebbles - or rather - experiences - into this
particular pond, we change its shape, and thus the kinds of patterns it
tends to produce. This is a system that learns," agreed Kosslyn. "It
has a memory!"

To discover that top brain scientists were thinking geometrically gave
me a very nice feeling. Yes, they could see how the metaphor of a
surface and of shape were far closer to the realty of the brain than a
computer. I knew I was going to have a much easier time convincing the
world to take seriously the idea that evolution maximized hypersurface
and that the mind and brain are unified in shape in seven dimensions,
than I had expected.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The brain is like a surface - a hypersurface - a maximum hypersurface.
    ... > early 90s between the theoretical neurobiologist, Karl Friston and ... Stephen Kosslyn as they stood by a pond at London ... The brain is like a surface, ... > they are mixed with the lingering patterns of earlier pebbles of input. ...
    (sci.math)
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