Could the mind run on binary codes?

[ISamson]

Hello,

I was wondering:
Since the mind works on electrical signals, it must work on binary codes, because there is electrical signal or not. If so, is the only thing that distinguishes us from a computer the length of the "bit"?
What do you think?
Thanks.

 

[Asymptotic]

Hello,

I was wondering:
Since the mind works on electrical signals, it must work on binary codes, because there is electrical signal or not. If so, is the only thing that distinguishes us from a computer the length of the "bit"?
What do you think?
Thanks.

It's fair to say no one knows precisely what's going up up in our noggins, but strings of zeros and ones it hain't. From what I recall from my lay reading, neurons either fire or they don't (digital), but biochemical pathways behave more in an analog manner. Wiki's 'simulation model' section on "Mind Uploading" outlines several of the issues involved.

 

[ISamson]

From what I recall from my lay reading, neurons either fire or they don't (digital), but biochemical pathways behave more in an analog manner.

Since they fire or they don't means that there is signal or not. This is binary, right? I agree, there are no strings of ones and zeros in our mind, but it is still similar to the binary system. Right?

 

[phinds]

Since they fire or they don't means that there is signal or not. This is binary, right? I agree, there are no strings of ones and zeros in our mind, but it is still similar to the binary system. Right?

Do you understand that not all electricity is digital? There is this thing called analog, and for all we know the amplitude of the firing is important in which case the neurons are analog, not digital.

Also, you mentioned the "length of the bit". That is a contradiction in terms.

 

[AgentSmith]

Nerve impulses increase in frequency as the stimulus increases. They do not increase in amplitude. A loud sound, for instance, does not increase the amplitude of the nerve impulse, but increases the frequency of the impulses.

 

[Asymptotic]

Since they fire or they don't means that there is signal or not. This is binary, right? I agree, there are no strings of ones and zeros in our mind, but it is still similar to the binary system. Right?

Neuron firing is binary - 0 or 1, off or on, false or true - but these pulses are presented as @AgentSmith describes, and although I don't know if the resemblance is more than skin deep, it puts me in mind of pulse density modulation in the electronics realm. Browsed through several recent articles, and it appears our understanding of how the brain operates has changed since the late '90s when I'd been reading up on neural networks and fuzzy logic controllers.

Excerpted from the March 2017 SingularityHub article "Is the Brain More Powerful Than We Thought? Here Comes the Science".

What’s even stranger is how the dendrites managed their own activity. Neuron spikes—the cell body type—is often considered “all or none,” in that you either have an action potential or not.

Zero or one; purely digital.

While dendrites can fire digitally, in addition, they also generated large, graded fluctuations roughly twice as large as the spikes themselves.

“This large range…shows analog computation in the dendrite. This has never been seen before in any neural activity patterns,” says Mehta.

This hybrid digital-analog, dendrite-soma, duo-processor parallel computing “is a major departure from what neuroscientists have believed for about 60 years,” says Mehta. It’s like uncovering a secret life of neurons, he adds.

Dr. Mayank Mehta

 

[BillTre]

The idea that the nervous system operates on a mix of "binary" (action potentials as on/off functioning) and analog (dendritic and cell body summation of grade potentials) has been around since before I want to graduate school (1980's). So, Dr. Mehta is http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/336299!

The digital part is almost exclusively restricted to transmission over the distances between different neurons.
The actual communication points between an axon and dendrite or cell body through a chemical synapse involves a lot non-digital-ish biochemical events: the action potential coming down the axon depolarizes its terminal (end), which triggers calcium influx, which triggers synaptic vesicles to release their contents (neurotransmitters), which diffuse across the space between the pre- and post-synaptic cell surfaces and bind receptors, which let ions flow in or stimulate intracellular biochemical changes, which can cause small local changes in membrane potential, which can add up (summation) to either trigger or not trigger an action potential. Each of these steps is subject to modulation due to its local biochemistry, the geometry of the cell it is part of, it location in the cell, the metabolic status of the cell (it previous history). It gets complex.
Each neuron has often been thought of as a little computer due to the complexity of these input/output relationships some cases, just single dendrites (a sub-part of the whole neuron) can act independently in a similar way.

In addition, the brain is massively parallel in its operation. This may or may not be considered digital (I think of it more as a computer architecture aspect), but it is a big part of its functioning.

All intensity coding in the brain is not based on rate of impulse production.
Sometimes more neurons in a group will be recruited to fire.
That could be considered adding additional transmission channels (more neurons in parallel), which I guess could also be digital.

 

[WWGD]

Hello,

I was wondering:
Since the mind works on electrical signals, it must work on binary codes, because there is electrical signal or not. If so, is the only thing that distinguishes us from a computer the length of the "bit"?
What do you think?
Thanks.

In case you're interested, Roger Penrose wrote a whole book on this: " The Emperor's New Mind" .https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-emperors-new-mind-roger-penrose/1110858490

 

[Stavros Kiri]

I recall Na⁺ , K⁺ switches ... Kind of like a binary ... (?)

 

[sgall]

Hello,

I was wondering:
Since the mind works on electrical signals, it must work on binary codes, because there is electrical signal or not. If so, is the only thing that distinguishes us from a computer the length of the "bit"?
What do you think?
Thanks.

The brain does not just run on electrical signals.

Axons transmit signals electrically (via ion flows) but transmission to a another nerve is via synapse. This is a small space between the cells ("synapse") in which are deposited chemicals called neurotransmitters. These are released as a result of the electrical signal. At this critical point, the transmission is via chemicals such as acetylcholine, serotonin glutamate, noradrenaline etc. There does not have to be only one transmitter. Some neurotransmitters may be stimulatory and some may be inhibitory and these can be deposited in the same synapse, so this is a somewhat "analogue" process. Neurotransmitters are recycled and the rate of recycling an storage may affect transmission. Synapses show fatigue so the degree of stimulation lessens over time with a given transmitter. Ion concentrations such as Ca, K ,Na and Mg concentration may affect signalling.

There may well be other less well understood factors that impact on signalling. For instance it is thought the glial cells in the brain such as astrocytes may be able to "dial up" or "dial down" signalling. Interestingly astrocytes are highly branched cells, even compared to neurones, so neurones (and electrical signally) may not be the full story.

In electrical terms it is not just "duration" of the bit that counts (like PWM) but also the frequency of firing. Actually probably the frequency of firing (or spiking) is very important but the actual duration of the spike is not that important.

 

[ISamson]

The brain does not just run on electrical signals.

Axons transmit signals electrically (via ion flows) but transmission to a another nerve is via synapse. This is a small space between the cells ("synapse") in which are deposited chemicals called neurotransmitters. These are released as a result of the electrical signal. At this critical point, the transmission is via chemicals such as acetylcholine, serotonin glutamate, noradrenaline etc. There does not have to be only one transmitter. Some neurotransmitters may be stimulatory and some may be inhibitory and these can be deposited in the same synapse, so this is a somewhat "analogue" process. Neurotransmitters are recycled and the rate of recycling an storage may affect transmission. Synapses show fatigue so the degree of stimulation lessens over time with a given transmitter. Ion concentrations such as Ca, K ,Na and Mg concentration may affect signalling.

There may well be other less well understood factors that impact on signalling. For instance it is thought the glial cells in the brain such as astrocytes may be able to "dial up" or "dial down" signalling. Interestingly astrocytes are highly branched cells, even compared to neurones, so neurones (and electrical signally) may not be the full story.

In electrical terms it is not just "duration" of the bit that counts (like PWM) but also the frequency of firing. Actually probably the frequency of firing (or spiking) is very important but the actual duration of the spike is not that important.

Yeah, I also now think that signals in the brain are chemically transmitted rather than electrically. Right?

 

[Auto-Didact]

Gap junctions are electrical transmission lines between neurons whose signals can travel in both directions between neurons, while synapses are chemical transmission lines between neurons whose signals can only travel one way i.e. from the pre-synaptic to the post-synaptic neuron.

Moreover, the topic discussed over here is extremely relevant to the discussion in this thread.

 

[Pythagorean]

Many neurons are binary'ish, brains are not; and the concept of binary doesn't really apply to "minds", depending on what you might mean by that.