Could you specify what do you mean by synaptic response curve? If it is what I think it is it is far from linear, at least from the textbooks I read, so I am probably not following you.
On 7/9/08, Steve Richfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Mike, et al, > > When you look at the actual experiments upon which what we think we know is > based, the information is SO thin that it is hard to come to any other > rational conclusion. I could describe some of these, where for example a > group of people spent a year putting electrodes into every one of the > neurons in a lobster's stomatogastric ganglion so that they could > electrically quiet all but two of them. This so that they could plot the > synaptic response curve between those two cells. Why did it take a year? > Because the neurons would die before they could make a recording. It took a > year or trying and failing before blind luck finally worked in their favor. > > OK, so what does a synaptic response curve look like in our brain? Is it > linear like many people presume? NO ONE KNOWS. Everything written on this > subject is pure speculation. > > I see only one possibly viable way through this problem. It will take two > parallel research efforts: > 1. One effort is purely theoretical, where the optimal solutions to > various processing problems is first exhibited, then the best solutions that > can be achieved in a cellular architecture are exhibited, then potentially > identifiable features are documented to guide wet-science efforts to > confirm/deny these theories. > 2. The other effort is a wet science effort armed with a scanning UV > fluorescence microscope (or something better if something better comes > along) that is charged with both confirming/denying identifiable details > predicted by various theories, and with producing physical diagrams of > brains to guide theoretical efforts. > > At present, there is not one dollar of funding for either of these efforts, > so I expect to stay at the 2 micron point for the foreseeable future. > > Steve Richfield > ================ > ------------------------------------------- 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=106510220-47b225 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
