IUBio

Neural Coding

Collins, Kenneth KPCollins at ameshome.com
Tue Oct 24 18:25:56 EST 2000


[msgs reposted after being 'returned' to me as 'undeliverable. kpc]

the question is a good one, but any answer to it is meaningless unless the
answer is embedded within a discussion of the global Neuroanatomy of the
nervous system.

one needs more than any number of 'neural' cells.

one must describe the integrated neural topology in 3 dimensions, all the
way down to ionic conductances.

only after this is accomplished does saying anything with respect to
contributions of discrete cells make any sense. it's so because the
functioning of any cell is determined by its 3-D interactions with
'neighboring' cells, where 'neighborhoods' are determined by a cells
ramifications within 3-Space and all the correlated ionic conductances.

all of this has to be worked out for the nervous system as a whole before
the role of any discrete cell can be discerned.

this seems 'a lot', but there's an extraordinarily-simple organizing
principle that makes doing it a straight-forward, if arduous (because
there's so much that needs to be integrated), task.

everything one needs is discussed in a ms. "On the Automation of Knowing
within Central Nervous Systems [...]" (AoK), and the refs cited in AoK. i'd
send you a copy of the ms., gratis, but i've no 'normal' email account.
perhaps if you ask around, someone else will be able to send you a copy.

you can email me at kpaulc at martinamcbride.net if you want to chat, or if you
can set up a presentation opportunity. if the latter, i'll come and discuss
everything.

k. p. collins (ken)

all 'coding' derives in the 3-D mapping of the neural architecture.

one of the 'difficulties' that this presents to readers in Neuroscience is
that, although the information can be garnered from reading broadly, one
must read broadly because Neuro-folks aren't familiar with the absolute
requirement to definitively describe the 3-D correlations within their
experimental designs.

they rely upon 'ancient' nomenclature that most folks interpret in
individually-unique ways, depending upon their prior experience.

Neuroscience must overcome this deficit in the nomenclature, and make
rigorous discussion of the 3-D neural architecture common practice because
all 'coding' derives in the 3-D mapping of the neural architecture.

k. p. collins (ken)

it's the preservation of the 3-D neural architecture's internal consistency
that through the TD E/I-minimization principle, gives the nervous system,
and its host, the body, the capacity for autonomous interaction within the
3-D external environment.

this's what enables the internal environment to 'know' the external
environment, consistently.

so, conceptualizations of 'coding' that don't preserve the internal
environment's 3-D stuff 'go off into the wild blue yonder'.

any of these can be brought back to Reality by imposing the correlated 3-D
transformations upon them... but when this is done, one arrives at "the
nervous system's" 3-D structural reality, which is the only thing that
works.

k. p. collins


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