NEURON

This is my Ist post. I am Shivakeshavan - Philosopher, wanna-be neuro-modeller, a selectively tech- crazy guy, and an absolute pessimist. I created this blog mainly out of boredom just like all the others. I aim to project my discordant N-d mind on this 2d plane. I have the writer’s block already so don’t expect much from me. Well just for starting ….

The brain is said to be the seat of consciousness, so lift the seat up before flushing..Nah just kidding. The brain is possibly the most complex network we know. Which is why we have hardly been able to scratch the surface of its functioning. I am currently working in this field and I must say that most of the knowledge about the human brain is so very volatile. What is seemingly a right assumption today is a criminal mistake tomorrow. This resembles the earlier days of physics. Not that physics is in a great shape right now, but at least physicists can be sure of some things. Right now all neuroscientists can agree on is that the brain is in the hollow space we call the skull. Theories abound in this field and all try to desperately fit experimental data. In fact there are as frequent revisions to theories as there are Microsoft security updates. Imagine Brain_Theory v.0.1a followed by Brain_Theory v.0.1 stable , until new experimental data surfaces and both the theories are ditched in favour for a totally new one. Well its a dangerous profession this, neuroscience. Tread lightly or you’ll be shot.

Most mathematicians and physicists on the other hand have their way of dealing with the brain. They ignore the intrinsic connections and bountiful complexities of the brain and minimize it to two words: error minimization and so we get neural networks under the cloak of machine learning. All just extensions of McCulloch & Pitts, Hebbian learning, SOMs etc. Well there is a very basic similarity in these networks to the real neuron but if these networks were what nature had actually intended, I’d be biting off my own arm for no reason right now. Well all is not bad totally. I may have exaggerated a little. Regions of the brain have been mapped. Certain linear mappings have been identified. But on the whole we have just mined like 1/trillionth of all the info we really need to understand the brain. We are uncovering more faster, experimentally, but a few good theories to fit the data are the missing keys. What we need is a Newton or Einstein with the power of insight to unravel at least a bit of the mystery. So long.