models tested

The brain is not the computer we think it is.

The blueprint evolves based on our experience.

There may be inborn "tentative models" and they test reality and are confirmed if they work.

The brain reaches outwards, in other words.

Neural circuits are chosen (like antibodies) during interactions with the world (testing; science).

Immune system: a whole bunch of antibodies, pre-made and ready to be selected to fit "lock" of invaders.

Likewise, neural circuitry exists, ready to be selected (or abandoned)) if they match or don't match experience.

Antibodies are not "representations" of the virus.

Antibodies can be re-used in a future attack. So can neural connections, in a future, similar situation.

Simple examples: reach and grab, put into mouth, fell. Body and brain reach out with experiments like a scientist. Testing reality. Truth/results encoded in neural connections. Trial and error.

Memory is the capacity to repeat a physical or mental act later, in a different context.

Memory allows repetition (of a successful mental or physical event).

brain as scientist

The brain is a scientist. Religion was a crude but initially successful hypothesis. It has since been surpassed. Divide the consciousness problem into smaller problems.

Neural sense of time...very weird.

advantage

Consciousness of "reality" is hugely advantageous, and so it evolved.

development

We need to stop obsessing about the paradox of consciousness and look at the development of the brain. Memory is clearly a function of the developing brain. Memory in fact IS the brain developing. Consciousness will be explained via unconsciousness (sleep: when there is no self and no time).

changeux

Brain development is crucial to our understanding of consciousness. "Epigenetic" is a key word for Changeux. The brain does not develop from a blueprint. Rather, it evolves in stages and experience and thought are crucial at each phase. The brain cannot evolve without thought and experience. Take language. There are windows of opportunity, which, if missed, do not reappear. Changeux sees the brain as reaching out to the world. Successful brains have been able to attain truth. At first, this happened through myth and religion. The brain is rewarded. But science is proving much more effective. Changeux is optimistic that evolution will favor scientific brains. Residual religious brains will be less competitive. His description of scientific thought as brain activity is mind-boggling. Neural darwinism, yes. But most important is his notion that experience and thought change the course of the brain's development. Brain differences no longer mean you were born this way or that. You become who you are and it shows in your brain.

consciousness lets us know when "now" is

We need consciousness in order to remember the past and imagine the future. If we did not have a sense of the present (that we have when waking) we would not be able to know "when" we are. Memories would seem like hallucinations, as would imagined events. Maybe this is what goes on in dreaming. Maybe being conscious requires a huge amount of energy so the brain stops doing it at night to save energy (and we begin to hallucinate = dreams).

brain not a sponge

Humphries, Proust and many others are reversing the way we see the brain. Rather than a passive receptor, we need to think of it as an active outreacher. The child's brain reaches out into the world to test it. The successfully fired neurons are strengthened, the less successful ones die out. Think of the brain as being like a squid with tentacles (neurons) reaching out into the world. For Humphries, the goes back to a simple organism recoiling from a threat. Proust describes how we create our loved ones in our mind then project out into the world. This is why someone "not our type" is perfect: we need to project their qualities.