Yes, the connection at synapses does seem to be a special case of how cells are connected generally, through the blood stream or other medium of exchange. That relationship, cells creating a larger system by 'floating messages in a bottle' to each other is this same extremely improbable means of running things that nature uses and seems completely illogical from a machine design point of view. When cells interact with each other they just dump stuff in the stream and grab stuff from the stream (or have it sucked out of them and pushed into them), but there's actually no connection between the cells.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm > Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 9:01 AM > To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Neurons. > > > > Gaps exists because neurons are not only the building block > of the brain and the neural system, they are also cells, > the basic building block of any organic lifeform. Cells > existed long before any neural system (in eukaroytic > and prokaryotic form). To connect neurons by synapses has > the additional advantage of high flexibility and adaptivity > by providing countless possible combinations that are > modifiable during the "runtime" of the system, and > by offering the possibility of modulation at the gaps. > > Emotions in general have indeed a strong correlation to > modulation, they seem to be a kind of archaic control system > which evaluates > situations and controls the behavior (damping undesirable behavior > while amplifying desirable actions). They signal the state of > the system and control it at the same time - with the help of > the reward system, neural modulators and reinforcment > learning. It is no accident that > pleasant stimuli are commonly associated with reinforcing > neural modulators as dopamine. > > -J. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Russell Standish > Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 4:02 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Neurons. > > My guess is that the "gaps" or synapses, have a lot to do > with fine tuning the amount of damping in the brain's > dynamical function. It appears that brains need to operate > near the "edge of chaos", and some global control system fine > tuning this would be desirable. > > This probably explains the evolution of emotions. > > Phil Husband's group in Sussex have done a fair bit of work > with "GasNets", which is inspired by the design, to make > effective robotic controllers. > > Cheers > > > ============================================================ > 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 > > ============================================================ 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
