I just had this really interesting idea about neuroplasticity as I'm sitting here listening to a speeches at the Singularity Summit.
I was trying to figure out how neuroplasticity works and why the hell is it that the brain can find the same patterns in input from completely different senses. For example, if born without eyes, we can see with touch. If born without hearing and vision, we can also see and hear with touch! (an example of this is a blind and deaf person putting their hand on your mouth and neck to detect and understand your speech. this is a real example). How the hell does the brain do that?! The brain knows how to process certain inputs just the right way. For example, it knows to group things by color or that faces have certain special meanings. How does it know to process this sensory input the right way? I don't think it's purely pattern recognition. Actually, it cannot be just pattern recognition alone. So, I realized that it would make sense that cells don't create a network and wait for input. The cells are not specialized *before* they get sensory inputs or other types of input (such as input from nearby cells). These cells specialize AFTER receiving input! That means that our DNA defines what patterns we should look for and how to process those patterns. Guess what that means! That means that if these patterns come from completely different sensory organs, the brain can still recognize the patterns and the cells that receive these patterns can specialize just right to process them a certain way! That would perfectly (so I believe) explain neuroplasticity. Basically, it is a side-effect of the specific design of our brains. But, it means that the brain is not just a pattern recognizer. It has built-in knowledge which is absolutely essential to process inputs correctly. This supports my hypothesis that artificial neural nets are not correctly design to be able to achieve AGI the way the brain does. This would also explain my beliefs that the brain knows how to process in ways that correctly represent true real-world relationships. It would also explain why this processing can self assemble correctly. The knowledge for how to process inputs is built in(my hypothesis), but it self assembles only when inputs that have certain patterns and chemical signals are presented to the cells. This would explain the confusion for between purely self-assembling models and built-in knowledge of how certain patterns or input should be processed. Clearly, the brain does not evolve to process world input correctly every single time a person is born. We solved this problem already through our DNA and billions of years of evolution. So, the solutions to the problems are built into our DNA. This would also explain how the brain is able to handle other important functions such as: memory, hierarchical relationships, etc. When the brain detects the need and the right patterns of specialized cells, it can then create even more specialized cells or cellular changes to perform: memory and other important brain functions. I also came up with an interesting idea to explain why people go into comas. I could be completely off. It's just an uneducated guess. The cause of comas could be that the brain circuit that controls attention has been damaged. The attention part of the brain probably drives everything by deciding what circuits to activate and why! Without that circuit creating activity, the brain's neurons have no reason to fire normally and the brain's normal activity does not occur. Dave ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
