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Neuroscience Discovery, Cognitive biases, Cognition

Brain science

• A framework for a concept, for something coordinate invariant, is a tensor. So a cortical microcolumn expresses something like a tensor, like a coordinate system. And each tensor is related to a wide variety of coordinate systems, which is to say, to other tensors.
• Default mode network - address of ego in the brain.

Dehahn:

• Unconscious calculations done by Bayesian logic, based on past. Conscious required for ambiguous situations (thus for what we don't know).
• Conscious needed to interpret ambiguous images, simplify perception, hold perception in working memory, hold onto a thought, entertain lasting thoughts, step-by-step thinking, create algorthims, flexible routing of information, making a final decision. Important for learning. Abstracting and condensing information for social sharing.
• Our self is a database developed through social experience (including with oneself-AK).
• We consciously perceive only one object at a time. (Thus notion of "object" is important.)
• The brain predicts and we consciously perceive only differences from what was predicted.

Neural networks

• (1969) Marvin Minsky, Seymour Papert - Perceptrons_ An introduction to computational geometry
• Geoffrey Hinton
• Capsule neural network
• Recurrent networks don't have cycles. So how does the three-cycle arise?

Consciousness

• Replacing (unconscious) weights with (conscious) addition and multiplication may be equivalent to removing a neuron and reconstructing it (by replacing it with two).

Basal ganglia

• Gregory Berns. The field of neuroeconomics involves the study of "the relationship of neural systems to decision-making by using a combination of computational and functional imaging techniques" and particularly "the role of the basal ganglia in processing novelty and reward and how this region guides decision-making" and in "risky decision-making." (Is the basal ganglia the seat of consciousness?)
• Damage to the basal ganglia cells may cause problems controlling speech, movement, and posture. This combination of symptoms is called parkinsonism. A person with basal ganglia dysfunction may have difficulty starting, stopping, or sustaining movement. Depending on which area of the brain is affected, there may also be problems with memory and other thought processes. In general, symptoms vary and may include:
  • Movement changes, such as involuntary or slowed movements
  • Increased muscle tone
  • Muscle spasms and muscle rigidity
  • Problems finding words
  • Tremor
  • Uncontrollable, repeated movements, speech, or cries (tics)
  • Walking difficulty
• Parkinsonism
• Basal ganglia Popular theories implicate the basal ganglia primarily in action selection – in helping to decide which of several possible behaviors to execute at any given time. In more specific terms, the basal ganglia's primary function is likely to control and regulate activities of the motor and premotor cortical areas so that voluntary movements can be performed smoothly.

Qualia Research Institute Discovering the Mathematical Structure of Consciousness

• Research lineages
• Welcoming Steven Lehar as a QRI Lineage

I saw a half-hour video on subjective time that my friend Bill alerted me to. I think it's worth watching. It has a lot of content that might relate to your physics ideas.

• You live in the past. So the brain, in stitching everyting together, is lagging behind reality. There is a delay as the brain waits for all the possible signals to come in. So a moment in subjective time corresponds to an interval in objective time.
• You have a window where the brain waits for the various signals that it will align. As long as signals (sight, sound, etc.) are within 80 milliseconds of each other, the brain will synchronize them. So if you see a person dribbling a ball and they are less than 110 feet away then the sight and sound will be synchronized in the brain but if they are further away then they won't (because of the speed of sound being too slow).
• The brain will have a harder time synchronizing under various conditions (such as a dark room). So the brain needs to recalibrate the length of the window. If you get trained at a longer window and then the conditions are changed and the window shrinks, you will have the illusion that the effect came before the cause. You can have pathologies of time where a person feels that they were caused to do something.
• When signals are repeated, the brain can compress them, code them more efficiently, thus use fewer resources, less energy. In subjective time, perceived duration equals mental energy (brain energy) used. (This fits well with how space and time are discussed in complexity theory.)

David Eagleman: Brain resource usage corresponds to length of subjective time.

• Compare with complexity theory for Turing machines and the resources they have available.
• Neural Mechanisms
• The brain carves up mental space. The brain models itself, just as it models the body. The brain fosters, cultivates, strengthens the related fixed points through which it models itself.
• Neurocognitive Foundations of Mind 2022
• Jennifer Mather. The Case for Octopus Consciousness: Unity. Octopus has two hemispheres and developed that independently of fish.