PUBLIC MARKS from ogrisel with tag brain

Although many neuroscientists are trying to figure out how the brain works, Mark Changizi is bent on determining why it works that way. In the past, the assistant professor of cognitive science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has demonstrated that the shapes of letters in 100 writing systems reflect common ones seen in nature...

This week's New Scientist has a fascinating article on a possible 'grand theory' of the brain that suggests that virtually all brain functions can be modelled with Bayesian statistics - an approach discovered by an 18th century vicar.

The quest to understand the most complex object in the known universe has been a long and fruitful one. These days we know a good deal about how the human brain works - how our senses translate into electrical signals, how different parts of the brain process these signals, how memories form and how muscles are controlled. We know which brain regions are active when we listen to speech, look at paintings or barter over money. We are even starting to understand the deeper neural processes behind learning and decision-making.

Jeff Hawkins, Numenta: "Prospects and Problems of Cortical Theory". This is the 10th and final talk given at the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience