We continue on with chaos. At he beginning he touches on convergence with examples demonstrating how items with different starting states and the same reproductive rules end up looking the same.
Emergence relates to the way in which complex behaviors can be coded for with the right simple rules.
Neural networks. Monet, Impressionist paintings, pastels. Varying degrees of understanding - parallel processing, similarities. Groups of neurons that come together and can produce info from associations, partial knowledge. Neurons kind of team up to produce the information.
Divergent wiring, creativity. Association cortex - bulk of cortical neurons, they respond to all sorts of prompts.
At the beginning, Alzheimer's pops up as difficulty in recalling info. Likely that some of the associational pathways have been cut off. This is the weakening of the network as the tau proteins choke off connections. Stronger priming can still pull the info.
Fractal genes - grow this tube until it is 5 times longer than it is wide, then bifurcate. Rinse and repeat.
No cell in the body is more than 5 cells away from a blood vessel, but the circulatory system takes up less than 5% of the body. Fractal distribution makes it possible to jam all that into a small space. With these fractals you can create a seeming impossibility - an object with infinite surface area within a finite area.
The slightest gene mutation can wreak havoc. If the division is off by just a little bit, the end result will be the cells not reaching their destination, overall function would then be disrupted, perhaps fatally.
Wisdom of crowds. Galton, country fairs and weight of the cows. Millionaire tv show, ask crowd, they're right 91% of the time. As long as the crowd is reasonably well informed, variances in opinion balance out and the average answer is right at a surprisingly high rate. Sadly, this is also why it's difficult to win the office football pool.
Traveling salesman and swarm intelligence. As the ants travel, they lay down a pheromone trail. The shorter the path, the stronger the scent. The scent dissipates over time, so as second and third generations come by, they'll be more and more likely to follow stronger (and shorter) trails.
Neurons are arranged in a power law style. In autistics, there are unusual clusters, local and very powerful. Fewer long connections. Thus you see a lack of integration with corresponding increases in processing power in certain areas. Males have fewer long range connections than females. Again, the hyper male hypothesis with autism.
Bottom up systems, such as wikipedia and amazon, provide good info about the world and products. But they have a bias toward conformity. Outlying opinions and ideas drop by the wayside.
Kasparov vs. Deep Blue. Computer AI being able to "out-think" grandmaster. Not really so impressive. In constructing the software programs the engineers plug in as many matches as are possible in order to cue the computer program in how to respond, so the program can draw on nearly any possible scenario imaginable while playing within a confined board with limited range of motion and a small set of rules. This is the chess equivalent of playing the original Tecmo Bowl when your opponent picked the same play as you. You get a few Bo Jackson runs for TD, but in the end, you'd lose.
Kasparov noted that with enough quantity, you develop quality. Our off the rack neurons are similar to other living beings' neurons, but we have way more in quantity.
So we share 98% of our DNA with chimps. The 2% amplification factors, transcription factors, transposons. About 1,000 fewer genes for olfactory receptors. Hair, morphology, bipedal...Punchline, the big difference in human versions have something to do with cell division, specifically the number of rounds of division. And these are relatively free from deterministic control since they don't specify what goes in or how they should be wired.
Simple - good. Random - good. This is how you stumble onto good stuff.
He closes in typical Sapolsky style, highlighting that while we all have different "failings" that make us feel inadequate or not quite right, the truth is that life revolves around strange attractors, that we are ourselves one of these in many good ways, and that the notion of a correct standard is a myth.
Emergence relates to the way in which complex behaviors can be coded for with the right simple rules.
Neural networks. Monet, Impressionist paintings, pastels. Varying degrees of understanding - parallel processing, similarities. Groups of neurons that come together and can produce info from associations, partial knowledge. Neurons kind of team up to produce the information.
Divergent wiring, creativity. Association cortex - bulk of cortical neurons, they respond to all sorts of prompts.
At the beginning, Alzheimer's pops up as difficulty in recalling info. Likely that some of the associational pathways have been cut off. This is the weakening of the network as the tau proteins choke off connections. Stronger priming can still pull the info.
Fractal genes - grow this tube until it is 5 times longer than it is wide, then bifurcate. Rinse and repeat.
No cell in the body is more than 5 cells away from a blood vessel, but the circulatory system takes up less than 5% of the body. Fractal distribution makes it possible to jam all that into a small space. With these fractals you can create a seeming impossibility - an object with infinite surface area within a finite area.
The slightest gene mutation can wreak havoc. If the division is off by just a little bit, the end result will be the cells not reaching their destination, overall function would then be disrupted, perhaps fatally.
Wisdom of crowds. Galton, country fairs and weight of the cows. Millionaire tv show, ask crowd, they're right 91% of the time. As long as the crowd is reasonably well informed, variances in opinion balance out and the average answer is right at a surprisingly high rate. Sadly, this is also why it's difficult to win the office football pool.
Traveling salesman and swarm intelligence. As the ants travel, they lay down a pheromone trail. The shorter the path, the stronger the scent. The scent dissipates over time, so as second and third generations come by, they'll be more and more likely to follow stronger (and shorter) trails.
Neurons are arranged in a power law style. In autistics, there are unusual clusters, local and very powerful. Fewer long connections. Thus you see a lack of integration with corresponding increases in processing power in certain areas. Males have fewer long range connections than females. Again, the hyper male hypothesis with autism.
Bottom up systems, such as wikipedia and amazon, provide good info about the world and products. But they have a bias toward conformity. Outlying opinions and ideas drop by the wayside.
Kasparov vs. Deep Blue. Computer AI being able to "out-think" grandmaster. Not really so impressive. In constructing the software programs the engineers plug in as many matches as are possible in order to cue the computer program in how to respond, so the program can draw on nearly any possible scenario imaginable while playing within a confined board with limited range of motion and a small set of rules. This is the chess equivalent of playing the original Tecmo Bowl when your opponent picked the same play as you. You get a few Bo Jackson runs for TD, but in the end, you'd lose.
Kasparov noted that with enough quantity, you develop quality. Our off the rack neurons are similar to other living beings' neurons, but we have way more in quantity.
So we share 98% of our DNA with chimps. The 2% amplification factors, transcription factors, transposons. About 1,000 fewer genes for olfactory receptors. Hair, morphology, bipedal...Punchline, the big difference in human versions have something to do with cell division, specifically the number of rounds of division. And these are relatively free from deterministic control since they don't specify what goes in or how they should be wired.
Simple - good. Random - good. This is how you stumble onto good stuff.
He closes in typical Sapolsky style, highlighting that while we all have different "failings" that make us feel inadequate or not quite right, the truth is that life revolves around strange attractors, that we are ourselves one of these in many good ways, and that the notion of a correct standard is a myth.
