"Doktor DynaSoar" <targeting at OMCL.mil> wrote in message
news:oue4uvsgfdqn37503bqc38f23ueh680b1p at 4ax.com...
> On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 11:21:22 -0500, r norman <rsn_ at _comcast.net>
> wrote:
>> } On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 12:49:39 GMT, "Glen M. Sizemore"
> } <gmsizemore2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> } [...]
> My money says the autapses are a tuning mechanism which makes the cell
> tend to fire at a certain rate in the absence of other input. Think of
> the "resting" oscillations of visual alpha, motor mu, auditory tau,
> etc. I think this would probably be most evident in the GABAergic
> interneurons that drive the 40 Hz "binding" (used here in the sense of
> functional Hebbian assemblies, not that of experiential gestalt).
> Something tunes them very tightly, and all the work trying to pin this
> on some characteristic inherent in the cell membrane has been
> unsatisfying.
Complete tuning cannot occur at the cellular 'level' because that'd
render global integration [unified consciousness] 'impossible'.
In other words, if it were so, then every neuron would have to
possess the ful functionality of the entire nervous system, which,
then, instantiates the larger 'problem' of explaining why more than
a single neuron is necessary.
The tuning occurs as a function of coordinated sub-systems inter-
action [for those who have it, as is explained in AoK].
This coordinated-sub-systems approach to tuning enables
hierarchical prioritization with respect to the real demands
imposed by the external environment - you know, with re-
spect to vision, audition, etc, which allows the overall tuning
problem to be distributed amongst sub-systems that are re-
fined with respect to particular energydynamics within the
external environment.
But this 'parcelized' stuff is, itself, tuned globally.
It's why one can speak a sentence that directs another's
attention to, say, the "Exit" sign down the corridor, and
the listener's motor systems orient his body to bring the
"Exit" sign front-center upon the retinal fovea.
This just could not occur if tuning happened at the cellular
'level'.
What does happen at the cellular 'level' is actualization of
globally-integrated tuning inputs [which, for those who have
it, occurs as is described in AoK, via TD E/I-minimization].
All the cellular stuff is in-there to actualize the globally-inte-
grated tuning, which is the only 'level' at which tuning actually
occurs within nervous systems.
All the cellular stuff is 'just' good-soldier stuff which gets its
marching orders from globally-integrated tuning.
In other words, individual neurons cannot decide on their
own to fire at this or that rate. To the degree that that were
the case, the overall system would be unable to learn. There
would be these non-cooperating neurons that, despite every-
thing else that's going on within the nervous system, do their
own thing independently, which would be absolutely non-
functional with respect to learning.
Of course this position is 'difficult' [and unpopular]. It's un-
popular be-cause it's easier to stick electrodes in-there, make
some observations, and get a paper discussing those observa-
tions published.
I'm =not= 'dinigrating' such. What I'm doing is discussing the
inadequacy of such, and working to encourage folks to lift
their finly-focussed experimental approaches up with respect
to the demands of global integration.
[It's been a long and lonely battle, but some folks have grasped
what's entailed. HURRAH!]
So I mean no offense.
I mean 'just'-the-opposite stuff.
It's just that individual cells can accomplish nothing without the
instruction that they receive from globally-integrated processes.
And it's good to understand this and keep such straight as one
wades through the details of experimental results.
[It's 'difficult' only because it's unfamiliar. Once one gets-it, every-
thing that one looks at, at any 'level' within nervous system function,
just falls together - everything becomes 'easy'.]
[But, please Forgive me for pinning this essay to your post. It just
needed to be worked-in somewhere, and your post constituted
an opportunity to do that. I'm actually addressing my comments
to folks who've had access to a much larger discussion that's
occurred here in b.n over the course of the last decade+.]
ken [k. p. collins]
