VeganVernonJune 12, 2019 at 12:041800 views4 comments
If the brain only receives electrical impulses from the senses, what template does it use to construct reality?
Comments (4)
Terrapin StationJune 12, 2019 at 12:16#2969270 likes
West Virginia is still working on it.
(A joke that will be funnier to anyone who has done a lot of driving around the U.S.--West Virginia is infamous for seeming to always be doing major highway construction.)
Terrapin StationJune 12, 2019 at 12:18#2969280 likes
A more important question might be: if we are constructing reality, why did we construct brains so that they seem to only receive electrical impulses from the senses, where we then have to construct reality?
If the brain only receives electrical impulses from the senses, what template does it use to construct reality?
Both the brain and electrical impulses are already part of "constructed reality", so the question seems confused to me.
FrumiousBandersnatchJune 17, 2019 at 19:40#2987240 likes
If the brain only receives electrical impulses from the senses, what template does it use to construct reality?
As I understand it, the templates consist of the basic architecture and connectivity of the sensory cortices. These facilitate the conversion of raw sensory input into contextual maps of the perceptual world, but what these basic mappings mean must be learnt through experience. In the process, a lot of pruning and rewiring of neural connections occurs.
So, for example, the visual cortex processes the spike trains from the eyes into lines and shapes and colours, but how these correspond to the world, e.g. as objects of varying sizes and distances, must be learnt through experience.
Comments (4)
(A joke that will be funnier to anyone who has done a lot of driving around the U.S.--West Virginia is infamous for seeming to always be doing major highway construction.)
Both the brain and electrical impulses are already part of "constructed reality", so the question seems confused to me.
As I understand it, the templates consist of the basic architecture and connectivity of the sensory cortices. These facilitate the conversion of raw sensory input into contextual maps of the perceptual world, but what these basic mappings mean must be learnt through experience. In the process, a lot of pruning and rewiring of neural connections occurs.
So, for example, the visual cortex processes the spike trains from the eyes into lines and shapes and colours, but how these correspond to the world, e.g. as objects of varying sizes and distances, must be learnt through experience.