Hullo all,
Well... the long delay was due to fact that i had forgotten my password. Ofcourse, i knew that such a contingency could arise when i was creating the blog. So, i had written the username and password down securely. BUT, i also forgot where i had written those crucial details down :P
This "oversight" of mine then brings us to the problem of why we forget? Or to put it differently, why we remember? (Although there is a subtle difference between these two questions and, thus, between their answers)
Ofcourse, evolutionarily speaking, we can see the advantage of having the ability to remember. Thus, we can say we know why we remember. This line of thought is undermined by the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of species on this planet and yet only a handful can boast of a memory power comparable to ours (humans). Notice that i refer only to our ability to memorise and NOT our intelligence. I have reason to believe that our claim that we are intelligent is not founded on fact :P Coming back to our discussion... We know that there MANY (more than i'd care to count, anyway) species which DON'T have any decent ability to memorise. And YET, they survive just as well, if not better and in bigger numbers, as we do... SO, our contention that it is evolutionarily beneficial to us to have a memory is true only if we take a very narrow view and guage its importance in our CURRENT state. There wasn't any reason for us to get to this stage in the first place. It was pure chance that brought us here. And, so, now we enter the realm of philosophy... and i don't wish to go there.
Maybe, for a more scientific approach (and by that, i mean an approach where we have reasonable hope of getting definite answers) we should try another question... HOW do we remember?? That would be more like it... Now we can enter the realm of molecular biology, synaptic interaction, cellular signal transduction etc. etc... Way cooler and much more satisfying in that at least we'll get SOME answers...
It is this that i wish to study... Will one of you PLEASE take me on as PhD Student??? I have finished my Masters degree in Biophysics... PLEASE????
Well... the long delay was due to fact that i had forgotten my password. Ofcourse, i knew that such a contingency could arise when i was creating the blog. So, i had written the username and password down securely. BUT, i also forgot where i had written those crucial details down :P
This "oversight" of mine then brings us to the problem of why we forget? Or to put it differently, why we remember? (Although there is a subtle difference between these two questions and, thus, between their answers)
Ofcourse, evolutionarily speaking, we can see the advantage of having the ability to remember. Thus, we can say we know why we remember. This line of thought is undermined by the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of species on this planet and yet only a handful can boast of a memory power comparable to ours (humans). Notice that i refer only to our ability to memorise and NOT our intelligence. I have reason to believe that our claim that we are intelligent is not founded on fact :P Coming back to our discussion... We know that there MANY (more than i'd care to count, anyway) species which DON'T have any decent ability to memorise. And YET, they survive just as well, if not better and in bigger numbers, as we do... SO, our contention that it is evolutionarily beneficial to us to have a memory is true only if we take a very narrow view and guage its importance in our CURRENT state. There wasn't any reason for us to get to this stage in the first place. It was pure chance that brought us here. And, so, now we enter the realm of philosophy... and i don't wish to go there.
Maybe, for a more scientific approach (and by that, i mean an approach where we have reasonable hope of getting definite answers) we should try another question... HOW do we remember?? That would be more like it... Now we can enter the realm of molecular biology, synaptic interaction, cellular signal transduction etc. etc... Way cooler and much more satisfying in that at least we'll get SOME answers...
It is this that i wish to study... Will one of you PLEASE take me on as PhD Student??? I have finished my Masters degree in Biophysics... PLEASE????
11 comments:
hey,
they say that data is stored in the brain in the form of neuronal connections...
to me it is difficult to imagine the picture of say a cow being represented as a network of neurons...
i mean wat wud a network achieve by weaving togeder more n more neurons...i just cant fathom how this bunch will ever represent a cow
but i guess thrs evidence or popular belief that this is how it works. but its certainly beautiful if really works this way..
i so need to read up on these matters...lol
interesting blog topic tho...
Hi Pushkar,
Well yes, the idea IS rather hard to fathom... But from what i've read the concept is that for every particular "memory" or "thought" a particular "Pattern" of neurons is fired... And since the possible patterns are infinite... Our ability of think is, by extension, infinite...
Though there is no projection screen where we "see" the images that our mind forms... And that has always been my problem... I understand how it works (there is very good experimental work to support the pattern-firing theory) AND YET i don't understand it :P
As far as reading is concerned... "Phantoms in the Brain" by V.S. Ramchandran and "what makes you tick: the brain in simple english" by Thomas Czezner are excellent books for getting an overall understanding of the field...
one more interesting Q. which occured. n i just remembered it now...
say the picture of a cow is remembered by one in form of a certain pattern of neuronal firing...
wat abt sm other guy's brain...wud one expect to necessarily find the same pattern for his cow memory :-?
tx for the books :P thrs another which i heard abt recently - Shadows of the Mind - Roger Penrose...
Ah well, eventhough i don't know of any experimental evidence for this... i still think that it is different in every individual... Which is why our perceptions of things are different... What i mean to say is that i might think of a cow as a menace on the roads, but a farmer who's lived around livestock all his life will think of a cow differently... So, everyone neuronal firing pattern would depend on their precise experience with the object...
Also, i derive evidence from the fact that two individuals who are at the same scene, remember very different things about the places... their memories are never EXACTLY the same...
hmmmm...yeah true...perception of smthn complex as a cow might be diff for diff ppl and mayb reflected in their neuronal firing pattern...all of them still might share a minimalistic description of a cow in the brains...
newayz...
i think i shud hv chosen a simpler uninteresting object than a cow :P...smthn which has a v v good chance of being known universally and perceived, also identically by people...for e.g. the object "numeral one"...
if say the population we study is an english population and knows this term "1"...
thn wat can one say abt the pattern of neurons representing this object in these people ??
has it been possible to dissect out (in a reductionist sense) a neuronal data structure having one-to-one coresspondance with a memorised object ?
hmmmm...yeah true...perception of smthn complex as a cow might be diff for diff ppl and mayb reflected in their neuronal firing pattern...all of them still might share a minimalistic description of a cow in the brains...
newayz...
i think i shud hv chosen a simpler uninteresting object than a cow :P...smthn which has a v v good chance of being known universally and perceived, also identically by people...for e.g. the object "numeral one"...
if say the population we study is an english population and knows this term "1"...
thn wat can one say abt the pattern of neurons representing this object in these people ??
has it been possible to dissect out (in a reductionist sense) a neuronal data structure having one-to-one coresspondance with a memorised object ?
well, there-in lies the problem... What can you possibly think of which will have the EXACT same connotation for a reasonably large sample of individuals... The answer so far is... NOTHING... For example the numeral 1... Everyone knows what it signifies....true... But everyone ALSO has specific memories LINKED to the numeral... Also, some people with numeric synesthesia percieve the number line as being twisted and not straight... So perception is still a big player regardless of how much one simplifies... At least in humans... There is evidence that female Swans will take anything with a smooth surface (even a red cube) which is kept in the vicinity of their nest to be an egg. it will then promptly put it under itself to provide it with the proper warmth for hatching...
As far as the reductionist approach is concerned... We can assign general areas of the brain to specific tasks/emotions etc... We can also assign sensory input from various body parts to different areas of the brain... That's called the sensory Homunculus... But when it comes to the EXACT firing pattern... we're at a loss... or atleast i am... i haven't heard on any experiments that have enebled us to so that...
...and smthng more which occurred...
people imagine, memorise, remember things...all of them involving some sort of neural circuit firing up somewhere...
in any such event, a neuron fires or a bunch of them fire....then a few more fire...a cascade i suppose...neuron after neuron after neuron...what next ?
how does firing increasingly more number of neurons, be it in any whichever pattern that it may, lead to imagination or recollection...? i get stumped!
Well everyone is stumped on that one... That's what's known as the "Big question" viz., "What is Consciousness??"
There is no answer yet... some experimentation in the field has been done but the interpretation of results is disputed...
As far as how we imagine (or visualise) things is concerned... i think it may have to do with our senses... We can see, smell, taste, touch etc... may be the brain recreates these when we think of particular things... But, yes, HOW or WHERE it does that is sort of a mystery and no answer presents itself immediately...
However, the answer may well lie in the vedic idea of 'Maya' wherein it is argued that all perception is just a creation of the brain and none of really exists... Also, it is said that to attain enlightenment or a "true" understanding, one must stop using the senses or "indriyas"... leading to the idea that the true nature of the brain and its function may only be visible if it stops getting any input from the senses (which, alter our worldview)... This is mere philosophy, of course, but it is an intriguing aspect to probe further...
So, I liked the layout of this blog better..its easier to navigate, more organised..yada yada..but the content in ur lifeisnotfunny blog is better..
Its not that this blog isn't well written bcoz it is, however its way more profound and serious than the other..then again I guess thats because its easier for me to relate to zany funny stuff, rather than actual serious thought :P
hehehe... this one's easier to navigae because there's nothing here... just two decent posts... I suppose it's easier for me to write senseless stuff as compared to articulating serious thought :P
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