For the purposes of GoldenSwamp’s core message, these images of the cerebral cortex give striking insight into the knowledge patterning within Internet. They are a visual analogy: they represent for us the closest images I know of for what the Internet looks like. There is not much of a leap here because both the cerebral cortex and the Internet are networks that process information.
The 3 parts of the image above are screenshots posted this month in the Gallery at the Blue Brain Project. The originals can be seen by clicking the following links to the Blue Brain Project website: Left image, middle image, right image. They represent, left to right, a single neuron, inside the network, and an entire neocortical column. In effect, they let us zoom out visually from a single brain cell to a view of the rich network of brain cells such as the neuron, to a “microcircuit” in which the first 2 images are located within within the cerebral cortex. The images are copyrighted by the Blue Brain Project. GoldenSwamp refers you to that website to examine these and other still images in the Gallery, along with video clips that provide new ways to visualize the mammalian brain.
Here is the sort of analogy these images support: When you want to relate the ideas in the 3 books shown here, you must read the books and then use your brain to connect what they say in various patterns. When the content of the 3 books is within an open interconnected network such as the brain or the Internet, the connectivity is already built-in.
In the top image, let’s say the red neuron is United States history, the yellow British history and the pink native American history. At Saratoga the US won a battle against the Brits with native American participation. The connections can be linked in the network of the brain and the network of the Internet. When the books are stacked or together on a shelf, there are no links available among the ideas within the books except in the mind of someone who reads all three of them.
The Internet does that connecting of ideas in near real time, mirroring (primitively) what the brain does. Though the mirror is primitive, it is essentially accurate. I understand that what this post says is no more than analogy. The Blue Brain Project has this disclaimer: “Although we may one day acheive insights into the basic nature of intelligence and consciousness using this tool, the Blue Brain Project is focused on creating a physiological simulation for biomedical applications.” About the Blue Brain Project
What is extremely interesting here is that quite literally, nodes of American, British and Native American history DO CONNECT within the Internet. My Learnodes.com website is dedicated to showing examples of those kinds of connections.
