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FeedA continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space
Monday, June 27, 2005 → by Danieru
"For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have treated mental processes as though they involved passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next or in a string of individuated binary symbols -- like a digital computer," said Spivey. "More recently, however, a growing number of studies, such as ours, support dynamical-systems approaches to the mind. In this model, perception and cognition are mathematically described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space; the neural activation patterns flow back and forth to produce nonlinear, self-organized, emergent properties -- like a biological organism."This is facinating stuff. It would suggest that the brain has an analogue ability in terms of cognition and perception... The wave functions described on the right are those of an analogue and digital sound wave, but they can be used to describe any type of wave function. The bottom figure shows what happens when a wave is processed in binary form. The limited nature of the space available to store audio information (i.e. on a CD) means that the sound is processed in steps, in 'bits'. This is due, in part, to the limited aspects of digital storage. The analogue sound wave though is represented in the perfect curve; what the excerpt above calls "a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional... space".
Everyone knows that the perfect circle does not exist in true natural form. The circle, the sphere, the curve are mathematical assumptions of reality. The analogue wave function is a represenation of infinity, just as the true mathematical circle is. To acheive a superb digital wave form you need more and more bits, up until to the point where the bits are perceptually indistiguishable from a true curve. The absolute truth of a wave is only expressed at levels of bits reaching infinity, a level abstracted from normality.
Is the human brain working on an infinite level of complexity? To produce a true "continuous trajectory" it might need to be. Consciousness as akin to the perfect wave form. I like that. It only takes science to prove the universe is digital (look into the idea of planck units for more on this) and we've got a real reality splitter on our hands. Afterall, light is understood in both forms: in packets of descreet data and in a true wave form. It is one of the holy grails of science to unite these two aspects of reality. Does our brain already do this?
My bad for any vagueness I produced in this post. Science and me get on, but I've definitely not got a digital brain when it comes to understanding it. Analogue all the way baby...
Read the full quoted article below, and my previous posts on Consciousness and Perception please check out their tags...
Categories: Science, Cognition, Perception, Consciousness, Reality, News, Philosophy, Mental Processing
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Related to your insight into the brain's functioning (hardware), I've long believed that memes, (brain software) which are often mistakenly compared to biological genes, also behave more like quantum mechanics, where we can either see the particle (the meme's core idea itself as it pertains to one individual), or we can see the effect of the energy as it moves (the wave function of fashion and cultural beliefs shared by the masses), but we can never see both at the same time because the meme seems to change its energy state when a person is asked to observe and explain their thinking.
Perhaps there are patterns throughout the universe that repeat again and again naturally. Perhaps waves and particles are one of those patterns. Perhaps brains fit this pattern.
June 28, 2005 4:55 AM
June 28, 2005 5:50 AM
i often wonder what could be considered the first ever meme. a more religious man than myself might say that the first meme was God itself. the meme has always been here
July 02, 2005 7:02 AM
I very much enjoy the following mathematical equation. I think whoever originally wrote it must have been a machine elf from a parallel universe, or a parallax scrolling daemon of the near-to-far.
Voila!
October 27, 2005 11:45 PM
..which you, Mr. Anonymous Sir, seem to be a master of...
November 14, 2005 11:56 AM
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