IUBio

Modelling the human brain by modelling its evolutionary emergence

mat mats_trash at hotmail.com
Tue Feb 19 09:13:36 EST 2002


I actually did visit your website hoping to find the basis of a real
research project that you were simply clouding in language for some
reason.  However, what I found is essentially more akin to a treatise
on philosophy of mind or evolution.  That in itself is no bad thing
but to suggest that through simply reasoning about the supposed
evolution of the brain you are going to find the asnwer to how it
works is just plain silly.  What experiments are you going to conduct?
what are you going to model? as far as I can tell you are planning to
somehow model the evolution of the brain from the simple orgainsms
that existed billions of years ago.  By your own admission evolution
is not directed, therefore it is critically dependent on the inital
conditions and the changes in the envrionment that have occured in the
intervening period.  Small changes in climate or something might have
drastically altered the evolutionary path.  So how exactly are you
going to account for this tremendous complexity in envrionmental
conditions - its even more complex than detailing the synaptic
connections and dynamics of the brain itself!

And you say:

'If you base estimates for succes on present beliefs and present
approaches
to the
understanding of the brain's functionality, than it is a fair guess
that
chances for succes are
indeed very low; I personally estimate it at close to 0%. I would not
dare
to initiate a modelling
effort of this scope, when it is based only on our knowledge of
present
functionality in Homo
sapiens sapiens.'

Well what I would actually say is that there is very little chance of
it occuring during my lifetime, but eventually this process should
yield a full theory of the brain.  I don't and should not expect the
answers in my lifetime - that would be to deny the complexity of the
problem

If you want to theroize thats fine, if you want a more abstract,
higher-level discussion of the evolutionary adaptaions or philosophy
of mind thats fine, but don't pretend that 'modelling the evolution of
the brain' is going to be the quick way to solve brain function.

And please, if you reply, can you actually answer the questions rather
than just pasting your thesis from your website.  Are your essays
refereed/published?  I did notice in one that you reference yourself
as having found the sole and correct interpretation of evolution?!
Can't imagine that would have gotten past many editors.




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