Posted on 14th July 2009 by Judy Breck in Connective Expression and Networks
blue_brain, education, emergence, network, Networks
The Blue Brain project, first reported on GoldenSwamp in January 2008, is the subject today of a Wall Street Journal feature: In Search for Intelligence, a Silicon Brain Twitches. The illustration above compares excerpts of Blue Brain’s neural network construction (left) and connections in the internet among science articles from the Map of Science (right).
The left network is thicker because brain connectivity is thicker than the connectivity of ideas about science on the internet. But the same thing is happening in both places: a structure from which idea patterns emerge is present.
Of course, the Blue Brain is not flesh-and-blood. It is a model made of silicon, and yet, as the WSJ reports:
Dubbed Blue Brain, the simulation shows some strange behavior. The artificial “cells” respond to stimuli and suddenly pulse and flash in spooky unison, a pattern that isn’t programmed but emerges spontaneously.
“It’s the neuronal equivalent of a Mexican wave,” says Dr. Markram, referring to what happens when successive clusters of stadium spectators briefly stand and raise their arms, creating a ripple effect. Such synchronized behavior is common in flesh-and-blood brains, where it’s believed to be a basic step necessary for decision making. But when it arises in an artificial system, it’s more surprising.
The implications for this same sort of activity within networks of human knowledge online are a big “Hello” to educators — a Mexican wave, as it were, hailing them to harness the internet for reflecting knowledge to students.
Posted on 13th June 2008 by Judy Breck in Connective Expression and Networks
blue_brain, brain, cerebral, cortex, learning, Learning Handbook, network, standards
Blue Brain Project models and images simulate, as they describe it: “The cerebral cortex, the convoluted “grey matter” that makes up 80% of the human brain, is responsible for our ability to remember, think, reflect, empathize, communicate, adapt to new situations and plan for the future. ”
The Learning Standards we impose on children are in little boxes, as the superimposed image above illustrated in a post I wrote a couple of days ago. As a follow up to that post, I suggest you view Blue Brain Project’s video called Flying through the column!
One can only wonder how ideas packaged in little boxes could become become useful in the awesomely networked structure the Blue Brain Project lets us fly through.
Posted on 3rd January 2008 by Judy Breck in Networks
blue_brain, brain, cerebral, cortex, network
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.
