IUBio

The Celebral Code - is it still reliable ?

yan king yin (no spam please) y.k.y at lycos.com
Fri Oct 19 17:13:45 EST 2001


Hey Brain

sorry i have been lazy to reply.  Im reading some papers by Squire
and Kandel also, so we can talk about them.

re the Cerebral Code, you seem to be very satisfied with this new
theory you bought =)  Can you explain his theory about memory?
I dont have the book here.

re the temporal aspect of neural coding..  I think the question is
somewhat artificial.  The real question is, what are the neurons
doing with the information?

I think anatomical data might be key to understanding the brain.
ie how do we understand the connections between various regions.
but im not sure... sometimes it feels like we might *never* figure out
how the brain works, and it feels suffocating.

"Brian" <zhil at online.no>
> Today I finished "The Celebral Code" by William.Calvin.
> It was an interesting read, but I have a question; is the theory still
> reliable ?
> (it evolves around this Darwin Machine).
> The book in it self was lighthearted and fun, and it was (for me) an easy
> read, although I had to stretch my mind a bit to see it from several angles.
> But I think it doesn't just explains Hebb's cell-assembly, but also
> consciousness, which I think is _the_ most important part of the book (for
> me).
> And I didn't even searched for an answer to the question of consciousness
> either.
> To Yin;
> I was asked why the feedback to the Thalamus was much less extensive than
> the strait-ahead neuro-gateway through the Thalamus.
> Now, I think I know why.
> There is no need for much feedback as the brain processes the incoming
> sensory information (and long time memory - internally), just enough to
> filter away whath the brain doesn't find particularily interesting.
> BTW I don't think the Thalamus is the first filter either, but it might be
> the first _combined area_-filter (an active filter).
> And long term memory is NOT directly by itself connected to short term
> memory, no - it (LTM) is established in another domain directly and
> indirectly (through the Corpus Callosum, aka the Faux Fax of Calvin) were
> the data will imprint itself onto an area.
> The bigger the area, the greater is the chance that this particular memory
> will survive.
> When ideas compete (in our brains) for attention, they occupy hexagonal
> areas (Hebb's cell-assembly), and the one with the greatest area usually
> wins.
> William called it his Darwin Machine, and all I can say is that I'm awed
> over his intelligence.
> But alas, I still have to study more - so I'm going to read "Memory - From
> Mind to Molecules" by Larry R.Squire and Eric R.Kandel.
> I think I'll have to spend some time on this one.






More information about the Neur-sci mailing list

Send comments to us at biosci-help [At] net.bio.net