(nerding out for a moment) DO NEURONS ACT LIKE PEOPLE OR DO PEOPLE ACT LIKE NEUR

(nerding out for a moment)
DO NEURONS ACT LIKE PEOPLE OR DO PEOPLE ACT LIKE NEURONS? 😉

You know, we’re writing the chapter on embodiment, and presently explaining dendritic computation, and then how associative neurons work together to produce useful information for the body (and mind).

I try to remind people that evolution not only ‘finds a way’ but ‘finds every way possible’ to assist in information transfer within and across cells.

And it’s one thing to understand this complexity, and another to render it comprehensible for a college level audience of readers.

And in rendering it comprehensible I’m repeatedly filled with wonder. Because a neuron is just a specialization of an ordinary cell that can transmit information both long distances (nerves are neuron’s axons), and identify patterns in time and space (a neuron’s dendrites), and cooperate with other neurons (axons and dendrites) in a network and hierarchy to identify larger and larger patterns in time and space until they produce a representation of the internal body state , the body, and the outer world, and using that information and memory of previous representations (episodic memories) predict future possibilities risks and opportunities.

So it’s tempting to think of a neuron as a capacitor, but realistically they are analogous to little humans … which shouldn’t be surprising since humans are largely a collection of neurons that manipulate a body to produce the resources to fed the organs that enable the neurons and the body.

So there is something very beautiful and wondrous about that understanding – and looking at neurons as cooperating like people in families in societies, and in countries … well, it’s an easy way to explain what they’re doing way down there in extraordinary numbers. 😉

Cheers.
CD