Chapter 2: The Mind in the Machine

This chapter seemed to be mostly about the progress to date in the field of computers and implants.

• Introduction
• Lots of advances in the last 50 years.
• Learning network codes
• cochlear implant
• neural filters
• Brain Circuits vs. Computer Circuits
• Brains can learn, computers must be programmed.
• Making a brain larger gives it new abilities
• Making a computer with more memory or a faster processor does not result in new abilities.
• Brains always occur with an accompanying body.
• Human body is able to interact with human beings, etc.
• Computers still have a huge amount of trouble interacting
• Data in brains is about connections and sequence, memory in computers has no associations of this kind.
• Building an AI helps you understand how human cognition works.
• The Brain of John Von Neumann
• Background
• A true renaissance man
• Worked on the Manhattan Project
• Pioneer in the realm of computer science
• Computers (generally) work on serial data and instruction streams.
• The brain works in parallel.
• Point to point vs. associative brain systems
• Point to point: 
• touch, vision, motor system 
• If two points are physically near each other, then the corresponding neurons will have a similar physical relationship
• Associative
• Smell, taste and to some extent hearing
• Take unrelated stimula and relate them 
• Smell #1 = food source
• Smell #2 = predator
• No spatial relationship between sensations