How does the Mind emerge from the Brain // nobody knows
Why should we think that Mind emerges from the Brain? But from what then?)
“We don’t have a logic for the transformation of neural activity into thought..” — Richard Axel, 2018
State changes of individual neurons? // we can simulate billions of neurons now, but it is useless.. There is no mind or thought. Just numbers sum(Wij).
Is time discrete or continuous? // in reality
- NEMO (NEural MOdel) is presented as a hypothesis for how cognition and higher level functions emerge from neural activity in the brain.
- The model has only one basic data type — neural assemblies, which are densely interconnected groups of neurons that represent concepts when they fire together.
- It has a few simple operations like projection, association, pattern completion, and merging that allow assemblies to be created, linked, and combined into hierarchies.
- The model demonstrates emergent capabilities like memory formation, association, sequence learning, pattern completion, and can implement arbitrary computations like finite state machines and Turing machines.
- This is achieved through simple local rules like random connectivity, firing the top k most activated neurons, and Hebbian plasticity, without any centralized control.
- The model aims to be a formal mathematical theory that explains how higher cognitive functions can emerge from neural computations in a way that is consistent with neuroscience.
- It suggests that neural assemblies and their interactions may form a “calculus” that supports cognition and gives a path towards developing a computational theory of the brain.
