Posted by
Louis Macovsky, Dynamic BioSystems on
Jul 09, 2006; 7:52pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Neurons-tp522095p522096.html
Hi,
There is also chemical feedback at the synapse such that the neuron can
influence itself as to when the next transmission of nerotransmitter packet
can be released.
And
The gap between polarization and depolarization along the neuron introduces
a temporal importance as to the role a particular neuron will play within
the network for any single set of information transmission.
Lou
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicholas Thompson" <
[hidden email]>
To: <friam at redfish.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2006 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Neurons.
> Dear All,
>
> I think I am with Doug on this one. Isn't it the case that through the
> interweaving of dendrites neurons can effect their probabilities of firing
> over substantial distance? So the "powers" of a neuron include not only
> firing or not firing, but influencing analogically the firing of other
> neurons through dendritic potentials.
>
> Or is this just old-fangled neurology?
>
> N
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> nickthompson at earthlink.net
>
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: <friam-request at redfish.com>
> > To: <friam at redfish.com>
> > Date: 7/9/2006 12:00:16 PM
> > Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 37, Issue 9
> >
> > Send Friam mailing list submissions to
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http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
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> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> > than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
> >
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> > 1. Re: Google Trends - plus an unexpected(?) result (Bill Eldridge)
> > 2. 100 billion neurons (Jochen Fromm)
> > 3. Re: 100 billion neurons (doug)
> > 4. Re: 100 billion neurons (Jochen Fromm)
> > 5. Re: 100 billion neurons (Martin C. Martin)
> > 6. Re: 100 billion neurons (Robert Cordingley)
> > 7. Mexican Elections fraud (Carlos Gershenson)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 23:29:19 +0200
> > From: Bill Eldridge <dcbill at volny.cz>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Google Trends - plus an unexpected(?) result
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> > Message-ID: <44B023AF.7070208 at volny.cz>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> >
> > Robert Holmes wrote:
> > > Google now offer a product called Google Trends
> > > (
http://www.google.com/trends) which aggregates peoples' searches by
> > > city, region etc. It's been described as "a place holder for the
> > > intentions of humankind ? a massive database of desires, needs, wants,
> > > and likes that can be discovered, subpoenaed, archived, tracked, and
> > > exploited to all sorts of ends." (From the New York Times
> > >
>
> =94404589c34afe7e&ei=5070&emc=eta1
> > >
>
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/business/05leonhardt.html?ex=1152763200&e
> n=94404589c34afe7e&ei=5070&emc=eta1>)
> > >
> > > Anyway, just for fun I type in LANL. The "Cities" tab gives the
> > > expected results:
> > > 1. *Los Alamos*, NM, USA
> > >
> > >
> > > 2. *Livermore*, CA, USA
> > >
> > >
> > > 3. *Santa Fe*, NM, USA
> > >
> > >
> > > 4. *Oak Ridge*, TN, USA
> > >
> > >
> > > 5. *Albuquerque*, NM, USA
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > The "Regions" tab is altogether more intriguing.
> > > 1. *Iran*
> > >
> > >
> > > 2. *United States*
> > >
> > >
> > > 3. *India*
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Time to call our friends at Homeland Security?
> > >
> > Not until you make sure that "lanl" doesn't mean "holiday spice cake" in
> > Persian ;-)
> >
> > -------------- next part --------------
> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> > URL:
>
/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060708/0b8ae453/attachment-0001.h
> tml
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 02:03:10 +0200
> > From: "Jochen Fromm" <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] 100 billion neurons
> > To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> > Message-ID: <000001c6a2eb$11017400$19568a54 at Toshiba>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> >
> > A typical human brain has about 100 billion (10^11=100.000.000.000)
> neurons,
> >
> > but each neuron follows only very simple integrate-and-fire rules. If we
> > distribute a comparatively simple program on 1.000.000 machines (which
is
> > only a small fraction of the Internet, Google alone has between 50.000
> and
> > 100.000 machines, and SETI at home has over five million volunteers), and
> each
> > is responsible for the simulation of 100.000 neurons, then we come close
> > to the capacity of the human brain. How long will it take until we can
> > build such a system and connect it successfully to the real world
> > (through a robot) or a realistic virtual world (through an agent) ?
> > I guess it won't be long. As Greg Egan describes in his novel
> > "Permutation City", at first the simulation may be much slower than
> > reality, but enough computers are already there. What do you think ?
> >
> > -J.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 3
> > Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 17:23:37 -0700
> > From: "doug" <doug at dougcarmichael.com>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 100 billion neurons
> > To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> > Message-ID: <000c01c6a2ed$ec7928f0$c56b7ad0$@com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > "A typical human brain has about 100 billion (10^11=100.000.000.000)
> > neurons,
> >
> > but each neuron follows only very simple integrate-and-fire rules.'
> >
> > Comment: this implies a discrete ensemble of discrete events. But isn't
> each
> > neuron's likelihood of firing dependent on the solution in which it
sits,
> > the gradients of ions, and proximities to tier multiple firing neurons?
> >
> > In which case the brain is an infinite ensemble of an infinity of analog
> > events.
> >
> > doug
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
> > unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 4
> > Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 02:53:31 +0200
> > From: "Jochen Fromm" <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 100 billion neurons
> > To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> > Message-ID: <000101c6a2f2$19cae330$19568a54 at Toshiba>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> >
> > Interesting remark, but I don't think it really works this way.
> > It is not an infinite ensemble of an infinite number of analog events.
> > A neuron fires or not - a boolean event - and spikes are certainly
> > discrete events. The ion channels, the gradients of ions, and all
> > the chemical substances are only the "hardware" of the brain. One
> > could compare it to transistors, wires, etc. If the genes could
> > produce transistors instead of proteins, they would perhaps use
> > digital circuits. However, the interesting part seems to be the
> > software, esp. the code which is used (if there is any). There
> > are of course at least four different levels of modelling,
> > from boolean networks and sigmoid networks to spiking networks,
> > see Fig. 3 in
http://www.vs.uni-kassel.de/~fromm/Articles/LI.pdf> >
> > -J.
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On
> Behalf
> > Of doug
> > Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2006 2:24 AM
> > To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 100 billion neurons
> >
> > Comment: this implies a discrete ensemble of discrete events. But isn't
> each
> > neuron's likelihood of firing dependent on the solution in which it
sits,
> > the gradients of ions, and proximities to tier multiple firing neurons?
> >
> > In which case the brain is an infinite ensemble of an infinity of analog
> > events.
> >
> > doug
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 5
> > Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 21:15:48 -0400
> > From: "Martin C. Martin" <martin at martincmartin.com>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 100 billion neurons
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> > Message-ID: <44B058C4.9000300 at martincmartin.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >
> > I suspect you'd like Hans Moravec's books:
> >
> >
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674576187> >
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195136306> >
> > He uses Moore's law and estimates of the brain's computing power to
> > calculate when we'll have human equivalence in "a computer." I forget
> > the date, but it's not far. He also talks about a number of very
> > interesting consequences of this.
> >
> > - Martin
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 6
> > Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 23:56:08 -0500
> > From: Robert Cordingley <robert at cirrillian.com>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 100 billion neurons
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> > Message-ID: <44B08C68.3090500 at cirrillian.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >
> > I recollect that some years ago the AI community (at a AAAI conference I
> > attended) claimed that each of the 10^11 neurons also had on average
> > 10^4 connections resulting in a 10^15 computational 'size' for the
> > brain. They also predicted we'd have a computer of similar power by
> > 2015. Furrthermore it also stuck in my mind that 40% of the brain was
> > claimed to be involved in vision (including reading). So these
> > estimates lead one to think that it's going to be quite close to 2015
> > before we have a system with just the power of human vision. Being able
> > to program such a machine was not part of the discussion at the time,
> > which is a big question to me.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Robert Cordingley
> > www.cirrillian.com
> >
> > Martin C. Martin wrote:
> >
> > >I suspect you'd like Hans Moravec's books:
> > >
> > >
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674576187> > >
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195136306> > >
> > >He uses Moore's law and estimates of the brain's computing power to
> > >calculate when we'll have human equivalence in "a computer." I forget
> > >the date, but it's not far. He also talks about a number of very
> > >interesting consequences of this.
> > >
> > >- Martin
> > >
> > >============================================================
> > >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 7
> > Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 15:51:21 +0200
> > From: Carlos Gershenson <cgershen at vub.ac.be>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] Mexican Elections fraud
> > To: ECCO ECCO <evolcomp at listserv.vub.ac.be>, The Friday Morning
> > Applied Complexity Coffee Group <Friam at redfish.com>
> > Message-ID: <7508A12F-CCA2-401B-97AF-D36C496E274F at vub.ac.be>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; delsp=yes;
> > format=flowed
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > This has not much to do with research, but I feel everybody should
> > know...
> >
http://complexes.blogspot.com/2006/07/mexican-presidential-election-> > fraud.html
> >
http://complexes.blogspot.com/2006/07/more-on-mexican-elections-> > fraud.html
> >
> > And also
> >
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/world/americas/09mexico.html> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Carlos Gershenson...
> > Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
> > Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium
> >
http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/> >
> > ?Tendencies tend to change...?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> > End of Friam Digest, Vol 37, Issue 9
> > ************************************
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org>