You have started reading the article. This is not a process that is generally considered too laborious, but just think: your brain manages to use extremely complex mechanisms in the simple matter of deciphering symbols and text, inaccessible to the most powerful modern computing technology, spending a minimum amount of energy. Our own "carbon computer" consumes only 20 watts, while the Chinese supercar Tianhe-2, the fastest at the time of writing, is no less than 17.6 million watts (17.6 MW). The numbers, of course, are impressive, but is it possible, in principle, to compare these processes. Are they similar in nature? Why is something that is easy for the brain (for example, pattern recognition) is difficult for a computer and vice versa?
Let's go back to the title. From a set of letters (trees, adhering to our metaphor), the meaning of the phrase in its entirety was extracted without difficulty and temporary hitch - the forest. If we take into account the cultural context (knowledge of sayings), then we can conclude that quite quickly a visual stimulus in the form of light waves of different lengths for our brain turned into a whole forest park.
Reading and understanding text from a neurophysiological point of view is a non-trivial process. Let's start with recognizing individual characters: the letters are understandable, even if they are written in the Gothic style. When unnecessary curls are piled up on a familiar graphic frame, there is no big confusion, and a huge number of drawing methods blurs the boundaries of the canonicity of the outline itself, which is perceived, among other things, thanks to context and expectations. The doctor's handwriting, which has evolved from calligraphy to abstract art, will be understandable to his colleagues.
And recognition disorders without disturbances at the level of the sense organs are called "agnosias", they will be discussed below.
Let's talk a little about neuroanatomy. Our sensations and movements, which together form the basis of the neuropsychiatric organization, have a complex hierarchical structure not only within the central nervous system, that is, the brain and spinal cord, but also at the last, cortical level. The cerebral cortex is divided into anterior and posterior sections. The former (frontal) are responsible for drawing up a program of behavior, individual actions and motor acts, and the latter can be called agents of perception and gnosis. Let's try to figure out what the map of this "agency" looks like.
It is known that we receive information about the world around us from five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and the structures that ensure its transmission from each of them are called “analyzers”. There are also five of them. Signals from them, with the exception of the olfactory sense (this feeling stands somewhat apart and has direct connections with the most ancient parts of our brain), are sent to the clusters of switch cells in the diencephalon (I? The thalamus or geniculate bodies) and only then into the cortex. This is where the image arises, that is, the actual awareness takes place.
On the primary, like a searchlight on the screen, something from the underlying core is displayed with a repetition of its organization. For example, it contains cells that received information about touching the right hand, and next to them - those that respond to touching the right forearm. In the primary cortex, similar “sensors” also coexist (and in the same proportions). This structure is responsible for individual simple sensations: a smooth surface, round outlines, red color, something of an irregular shape is moving on the left, and an intermittent loud and high-frequency sound was heard on the right … The picture of the world is absent here - the surrounding universe appears to be a chaos of unified elementary sensations.
For the folding of these simple details and the formation of a more complex perception, the secondary fields of the cortex are used, which are adjacent to the primary ones and, unlike them, are not divided into zones of the body and do not have clear boundaries. They summarize: the red and round became a tomato, and the intermittent sound became the annoying squeak of the microwave.
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But these images cannot yet be called recognition in the true sense of the word. The final integration of sensations, directly gnosis, the formation of ideas about space, time, various contexts and the place of the object in them is the function of the tertiary cortex, which for the posterior parts of the brain is located mainly in the region of the junction of the parietal, temporal and occipital lobes of the hemispheres. The formed images correspond to the already available information about the world, expectations, linguistic competence. Placing the received signals in a frame from memory, forecasts, knowledge, we get a complete picture, or gestalt. Active completion of construction plays a major role here. Yes, yes, we are biased at the neurophysiological level. There is even the so-called cohort hypothesis, according to which the set of stimuli is analyzed as deeply and fully as necessary,to activate the expected information, and nothing more.
However, what about the fact that the gestalt built by the brain sometimes turns out to be fundamentally different with similar physical characteristics of the input data? Why is one set of sounds - music, and the other - cacophony, although they are very close in wave-frequency characteristics? How is this determined at the physiological level? But there are brain lesions in which the ear for music in the Gnostic sense of the word disappears: for such a poor fellow, the melody turns into a set of noises, sometimes extremely unpleasant, and this despite the fact that the very ability to perceive sounds is not lost! How the brain, receiving electrical signals from cells that simply pick up acoustic vibrations, is able to quickly distinguish non-speech noise from speech,carrying information in symbolic form? Why could the taste of Madeleine cakes evoke the whole gamut of forgotten childhood sensations in the protagonist of M. Proust's cycle of novels "In Search of Lost Time"? It would seem that the dessert molecules simply stimulated taste and olfactory receptors, but in the brain, on a very large scale, in its entirety, a long-forgotten pattern was reproduced, a drawing of the lights of millions of excited neurons, which just in this configuration once burned and now returned the sweet aroma of childhood …which, in this configuration, once burned and now returned the sweet scent of childhood.which, in this configuration, once burned and now returned the sweet scent of childhood.
There is no clearly delineated area responsible for the occurrence of gestalt in the brain. The approach that implies the presence of such zones is called "localizationist", and it is becoming less popular. He is opposed by the holistic theory, according to which the higher functions are distributed throughout the brain, but this too is a thing of the past. Modern science is trying to "reconcile" these points of view.
In his book "Refraction" Lotto talks about why we do not perceive reality as it is, and how this can lead to the development of creativity and helps to take a fresh look at work, love, play, relationships with relatives and other important events of our life.
For example, the image of a lemon is both appearance (secondary visual cortex), and taste (with its cortical territory), and touch, as well as a word, that is, sound, a way of pronouncing, contexts of use, memories of how a mother did lemonade … The "subdivisions" whose neurons should be involved in the formation of such an ordinary image can be enumerated endlessly.
In scientific terms, an ensemble of neurons forms a dynamic pattern of neural network activity. Why dynamic? Because it is not formed once and for all, it changes as you gain experience, some connections weaken, others strengthen, and, of course, new ones appear. The reproducibility of this pattern, that is, the ability of all, or rather, most of the members of the ensemble to activate, lies at the heart of memory. Accordingly, the dynamism that we talked about is a necessary condition for learning in the broad sense of the word, learning as adaptation.
Once an ensemble of a certain set of neurons was excited, their connections from such joint activity were strengthened, and the likelihood that the subsequent excitation of one would activate a certain percentage of other members of this group, having received electrical support from him, slightly increased. The more there were joint tanning, the, according to Hebb's rule, the stronger this gestalt ("cells that fire together, wire together"). The problem is that one neuron can enter into a myriad of ensembles, which, moreover, replace each other in the brain every fraction of a second. Their exact repetition is extremely unlikely, therefore, the volume of all life experience statistically determines our perception and understanding of the world.
Look at the faces of your loved ones. What is required in order not to confuse them with anyone? At first glance, the question is strange. Here is my mother, I recognize her, even if she changes her hair color, hairstyle, loses weight or gains weight, completely renews her wardrobe, paints her face for Halloween, in the end. Most likely, this does not surprise you too much, but believe me: from the point of view of information systems, the described situation is not even trivial. Let's say your friend doesn't have conspicuous facial features such as an ugly scar, a cleft lip or a mustache in the style of Salvador Dali, there is nothing that would make the brain instantly and accurately place what it saw in the Petya Bublikov folder. How to algorithmize the instant recognition of a person if we consider the brain as a large computer?
The problem of agnosia is splendidly revealed in the work of the famous neurologist and popularizer of medicine Oliver Sachs "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat." The main character, a talented musician, professor, according to the observations of his relatives, began to have “vision problems”. In fact, the professor did not have eye diseases, and absolutely fantastic unrecognition of ordinary, everyday objects and the faces of close people were the result of visual agnosia.
By the way, such isolated disorders are not common in the practice of a neurologist and certainly not so pronounced. Usually, these disorders interfere with recognizing "noisy", repeatedly crossed out images in special tests, but no one takes a wife for a wardrobe item. In addition, the pathological process in the brain, as a rule, is not so selective, and the destructive effect extends to a variety of higher mental functions, therefore, agnosias in the patient are mixed with many other disorders, and it becomes an impossible task to separate one from the other.
So the professor's case is fascinating, and his behavior with a high level of intelligence and culture causes genuine bewilderment. He scrutinizes the glove and makes a timid attempt to define this wardrobe item as "rolled up surface with five pockets." Yes, it is difficult to recognize her by such a description, but, unfortunately, the professor has only visual abstractions. He takes his foot for a shoe - apparently, paying attention to the outlines and thinking out the rest logically, he does not recognize his own face and brother in the photo, but there were no problems with the image of Einstein, because the mischievous shot with his tongue out became practically a meme. Finally, he mistook his wife for a hat, and the list of the hero's eccentricities does not end there.
Sachs's book may seem creepy or, on the contrary, funny, but the question remains extremely interesting, what is the professor's world after all? What does he look like? And is the word “look like” a good thing in this context? The fact is that the visual space of the hero, which fell apart into separate fragments, which ceased to unite into meaningful images and turned into a cluster of abstractions, was saturated with music.
If a person stood behind a conveyor belt every day, then came home, lay down on the sofa, watched TV and did this all his life, that is, “walked along marked lines” and did not compensate for this “underutilization” of the brain, then in old age he will not feel only difficulties with memory and other intellectual problems, but, most likely, physical problems.
The hero seemed to live in the world drawn by Picasso, where among broken lines, shapes and spots of color there is no way to grasp the essence of what is happening and interact with these abstractions.
The described problem contains much deeper layers than the "banal" difficulties with the recognition and formation of a "picture". It is directly related to issues such as the phenomenon of subjective reality arising from a set of different signals, the experience of experience and memory as the possibility of its partial or complete reproduction. What is the purpose of such cognitive constructs, which go far beyond the necessary "perceive and react"? What is the evolutionary meaning of our mental life, if, as a behavioral response, it is redundant, since it does not ensure our survival? And how correct is the comparison of the brain with a computer in the light of all that has been said?
As we have already said, there are things that are easy for the brain, but for the machine with great difficulty: instant processing of images, gestalt perception, quick reasoning like "ingenuity" and much more, requiring more banal everyday inspiration than strict logical constructions.
The very idea of artificial intelligence is based on the assumption that our cognitive processes (and some researchers extend this range to all mental reactions) are treated as computation. But we are not talking about arithmetic, but about formal operations - about everything that, in principle, can be programmed. Today it has become clear that this is not entirely true, and AI researchers are forced to rethink the computer paradigm. Brain thinking architectures have practically nothing to do with electronic computing, according to modern cognitive scientists such as T. V. Chernigovskaya and K. V. Anokhin. The language of computer science is convenient as a metaphor when we talk about data processing, storage, access, reading, etc. But the very principle underlying computer algorithms is completely different. Primary signaling system for the brain,with which cognitive activity begins - figurative; symbolic, he must learn, and for this he needs a social environment. The images in our head are processed quickly, how - it is not yet clear; All things being equal, a computer takes more time to do this, but it manages to analyze them at about the same speed as the brain, just because its processor is a million times more powerful.
There is more and more talk about the need for a new theory. For example, attempts are being made to explain consciousness by quantum anomalies, and it is even proposed to move to quantum cognitive science, which would help overcome the problem of reducing obscure phenomena of consciousness to physiological processes.
Qualia, the Latin term for subjective experience in all its diversity, is not a copy or even a sum of physical signals coming through our analyzers. The brain builds it independently, forming subjective images that are unique for each individual. Two global questions of today's neuroscience: "How does qualia arise?" and "What is it for?" - so far remain unanswered. Objective research in this case is extremely difficult, we can only judge the qualia of another, and then only through the refractive medium of our own.
“If you are stuck in a tablet / phone - and so every day, do not expect your brain to thank you. If a person falls asleep with a difficult question in his head and does not know how to solve it, the next morning he will have an answer. The brain doesn't like fat and meat.
The renowned neuroscientist Joseph Bogen, trying to define consciousness, found a good analogy. According to the scientist, it "is like the wind: it is impossible to see and catch it, but the results of its activity are obvious - bending trees, waves or even a tsunami."
Summarize. We are the happy owners of something we need, but so highly appreciated and praised by artists and poets, a conscious experience, or inner world, which is not clear why. Its content is of considerable interest, but the origin of this phenomenon is much more intriguing. Surprising neurological disorders, such as agnosias, only bring us closer to answering the question of what is inner reality. The tremendous advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning have not led to the creation of anything truly perceptive. The gaping gap between a simple human sensation and an insensitive neural network, even capable of conducting sentimental or other "too human" conversation, seems insurmountable. Will we ever be able to cognize its own structure through the prism of subjective reality (and we have no other way)? One way or another, understanding the range of issues and problems facing neuroscience only sharpens our own perception and enriches our personal experience, makes us wonder at simple things, understand ourselves in a new way and, possibly, others.
