The Brain Abstracted
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| Author | : M. Chirimuuta |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 377 |
| Release | : 2024-03-05 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0262378639 |
An exciting, new framework for interpreting the philosophical significance of neuroscience. All science needs to simplify, but when the object of research is something as complicated as the brain, this challenge can stretch the limits of scientific possibility. In fact, in The Brain Abstracted, an avowedly “opinionated” history of neuroscience, M. Chirimuuta argues that, due to the brain’s complexity, neuroscientific theories have only captured partial truths—and “neurophilosophy” is unlikely to be achieved. Looking at the theory and practice of neuroscience, both past and present, Chirimuuta shows how the science has been shaped by the problem of brain complexity and the need, in science, to make things as simple as possible. From this history, Chirimuuta draws lessons for debates in philosophy of science over the limits and definition of science and in philosophy of mind over explanations of consciousness and the mind-body problem. The Brain Abstracted is the product of a historical rupture that has become visible in the twenty-first century, between the “classical” scientific approach, which seeks simple, intelligible principles underlying the manifest complexity of nature, and a data-driven engineering approach, which dispenses with the search for elegant, explanatory laws and models. In the space created by this rupture, Chirimuuta finds grounds for theoretical and practical humility. Her aim in The Brain Abstracted is not to reform neuroscience, or offer advice to neuroscientists, but rather to interpret their work—and to suggest a new framework for interpreting the philosophical significance of neuroscience.
| Author | : Dana H. Ballard |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 457 |
| Release | : 2015-02-20 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0262534126 |
An argument that the complexities of brain function can be understood hierarchically, in terms of different levels of abstraction, as silicon computing is. The vast differences between the brain's neural circuitry and a computer's silicon circuitry might suggest that they have nothing in common. In fact, as Dana Ballard argues in this book, computational tools are essential for understanding brain function. Ballard shows that the hierarchical organization of the brain has many parallels with the hierarchical organization of computing; as in silicon computing, the complexities of brain computation can be dramatically simplified when its computation is factored into different levels of abstraction. Drawing on several decades of progress in computational neuroscience, together with recent results in Bayesian and reinforcement learning methodologies, Ballard factors the brain's principal computational issues in terms of their natural place in an overall hierarchy. Each of these factors leads to a fresh perspective. A neural level focuses on the basic forebrain functions and shows how processing demands dictate the extensive use of timing-based circuitry and an overall organization of tabular memories. An embodiment level organization works in reverse, making extensive use of multiplexing and on-demand processing to achieve fast parallel computation. An awareness level focuses on the brain's representations of emotion, attention and consciousness, showing that they can operate with great economy in the context of the neural and embodiment substrates.
| Author | : Dana H. Ballard |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 457 |
| Release | : 2015-02-20 |
| Genre | : Computers |
| ISBN | : 0262028611 |
An argument that the complexities of brain function can be understood hierarchically, in terms of different levels of abstraction, as silicon computing is.
| Author | : Rita Carter |
| Publisher | : Penguin |
| Total Pages | : 258 |
| Release | : 2009-08-31 |
| Genre | : Medical |
| ISBN | : 075666215X |
The Human Brain Book is a complete guide to the one organ in the body that makes each of us what we are - unique individuals. It combines the latest findings from the field of neuroscience with expert text and state-of-the-art illustrations and imaging techniques to provide an incomparable insight into every facet of the brain. Layer by layer, it reveals the fascinating details of this remarkable structure, covering all the key anatomy and delving into the inner workings of the mind, unlocking its many mysteries, and helping you to understand what's going on in those millions of little gray and white cells. Tricky concepts are illustrated and explained with clarity and precision, as The Human Brain Book looks at how the brain sends messages to the rest of the body, how we think and feel, how we perform unconscious actions (for example, breathing), explores the nature of genius, asks why we behave the way we do, explains how we see and hear things, and how and why we dream. Physical and psychological disorders affecting the brain and nervous system are clearly illustrated and summarized in easy-to-understand terms.
| Author | : Eric R. Kandel |
| Publisher | : Columbia University Press |
| Total Pages | : 237 |
| Release | : 2016-08-30 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0231542089 |
Are art and science separated by an unbridgeable divide? Can they find common ground? In this new book, neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel, whose remarkable scientific career and deep interest in art give him a unique perspective, demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. Kandel illustrates how reductionism—the distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller, more tractable components—has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths. He draws on his Nobel Prize-winning work revealing the neurobiological underpinnings of learning and memory in sea slugs to shed light on the complex workings of the mental processes of higher animals. In Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Kandel shows how this radically reductionist approach, applied to the most complex puzzle of our time—the brain—has been employed by modern artists who distill their subjective world into color, form, and light. Kandel demonstrates through bottom-up sensory and top-down cognitive functions how science can explore the complexities of human perception and help us to perceive, appreciate, and understand great works of art. At the heart of the book is an elegant elucidation of the contribution of reductionism to the evolution of modern art and its role in a monumental shift in artistic perspective. Reductionism steered the transition from figurative art to the first explorations of abstract art reflected in the works of Turner, Monet, Kandinsky, Schoenberg, and Mondrian. Kandel explains how, in the postwar era, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Louis, Turrell, and Flavin used a reductionist approach to arrive at their abstract expressionism and how Katz, Warhol, Close, and Sandback built upon the advances of the New York School to reimagine figurative and minimal art. Featuring captivating drawings of the brain alongside full-color reproductions of modern art masterpieces, this book draws out the common concerns of science and art and how they illuminate each other.
| Author | : Paul M. Churchland |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 313 |
| Release | : 2012-01-20 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 0262300826 |
A noted philosopher draws on the empirical results and conceptual resources of cognitive neuroscience to address questions about the nature of knowledge. In Plato's Camera, eminent philosopher Paul Churchland offers a novel account of how the brain constructs a representation—or "takes a picture"—of the universe's timeless categorical and dynamical structure. This construction process, which begins at birth, yields the enduring background conceptual framework with which we will interpret our sensory experience for the rest of our lives. But, as even Plato knew, to make singular perceptual judgments requires that we possess an antecedent framework of abstract categories to which any perceived particular can be relevantly assimilated. How that background framework is assembled in the first place is the motivating mystery, and the primary target, of Churchland's book. Unexpectedly, this neurobiologically grounded account of human cognition also provides a systematic story of how such low-level epistemological activities are integrated within an enveloping framework of linguistic structures and regulatory mechanisms at the social level. As Churchland illustrates, this integration of cognitive mechanisms at several levels has launched the human race on an epistemological adventure denied to all other terrestrial creatures.
| Author | : Grace Lindsay |
| Publisher | : Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 401 |
| Release | : 2021-03-04 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 1472966457 |
The human brain is made up of 85 billion neurons, which are connected by over 100 trillion synapses. For more than a century, a diverse array of researchers searched for a language that could be used to capture the essence of what these neurons do and how they communicate – and how those communications create thoughts, perceptions and actions. The language they were looking for was mathematics, and we would not be able to understand the brain as we do today without it. In Models of the Mind, author and computational neuroscientist Grace Lindsay explains how mathematical models have allowed scientists to understand and describe many of the brain's processes, including decision-making, sensory processing, quantifying memory, and more. She introduces readers to the most important concepts in modern neuroscience, and highlights the tensions that arise when the abstract world of mathematical modelling collides with the messy details of biology. Each chapter of Models of the Mind focuses on mathematical tools that have been applied in a particular area of neuroscience, progressing from the simplest building block of the brain – the individual neuron – through to circuits of interacting neurons, whole brain areas and even the behaviours that brains command. In addition, Grace examines the history of the field, starting with experiments done on frog legs in the late eighteenth century and building to the large models of artificial neural networks that form the basis of modern artificial intelligence. Throughout, she reveals the value of using the elegant language of mathematics to describe the machinery of neuroscience.
| Author | : Felipe De Brigard |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 511 |
| Release | : 2022-02-01 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0262045435 |
Philosophers and neuroscientists address central issues in both fields, including morality, action, mental illness, consciousness, perception, and memory. Philosophers and neuroscientists grapple with the same profound questions involving consciousness, perception, behavior, and moral judgment, but only recently have the two disciplines begun to work together. This volume offers fourteen original chapters that address these issues, each written by a team that includes at least one philosopher and one neuroscientist who integrate disciplinary perspectives and reflect the latest research in both fields. Topics include morality, empathy, agency, the self, mental illness, neuroprediction, optogenetics, pain, vision, consciousness, memory, concepts, mind wandering, and the neural basis of psychological categories. The chapters first address basic issues about our social and moral lives: how we decide to act and ought to act toward each other, how we understand each other’s mental states and selves, and how we deal with pressing social problems regarding crime and mental or brain health. The following chapters consider basic issues about our mental lives: how we classify and recall what we experience, how we see and feel objects in the world, how we ponder plans and alternatives, and how our brains make us conscious and create specific mental states.
| Author | : György Buzsáki MD, PhD |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 465 |
| Release | : 2019-04-18 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 0190905395 |
Is there a right way to study how the brain works? Following the empiricist's tradition, the most common approach involves the study of neural reactions to stimuli presented by an experimenter. This 'outside-in' method fueled a generation of brain research and now must confront hidden assumptions about causation and concepts that may not hold neatly for systems that act and react. György Buzsáki's The Brain from Inside Out examines why the outside-in framework for understanding brain function has become stagnant and points to new directions for understanding neural function. Building upon the success of 2011's Rhythms of the Brain, Professor Buzsáki presents the brain as a foretelling device that interacts with its environment through action and the examination of action's consequence. Consider that our brains are initially filled with nonsense patterns, all of which are gibberish until grounded by action-based interactions. By matching these nonsense "words" to the outcomes of action, they acquire meaning. Once its circuits are "calibrated" by action and experience, the brain can disengage from its sensors and actuators, and examine "what happens if" scenarios by peeking into its own computation, a process that we refer to as cognition. The Brain from Inside Out explains why our brain is not an information-absorbing coding device, as it is often portrayed, but a venture-seeking explorer constantly controlling the body to test hypotheses. Our brain does not process information: it creates it.
| Author | : Asim Roy |
| Publisher | : Frontiers Media SA |
| Total Pages | : 147 |
| Release | : 2018-09-28 |
| Genre | : |
| ISBN | : 2889455963 |
This eBook contains ten articles on the topic of representation of abstract concepts, both simple and complex, at the neural level in the brain. Seven of the articles directly address the main competing theories of mental representation – localist and distributed. Four of these articles argue – either on a theoretical basis or with neurophysiological evidence – that abstract concepts, simple or complex, exist (have to exist) at either the single cell level or in an exclusive neural cell assembly. There are three other papers that argue for sparse distributed representation (population coding) of abstract concepts. There are two other papers that discuss neural implementation of symbolic models. The remaining paper deals with learning of motor skills from imagery versus actual execution. A summary of these papers is provided in the Editorial.
