Database And Brain

Haruki Murakami is one of the most interesting writer in the world today.

As he often mentions, he likes Raymond Carver.

Once you read Ray's works, you never forget his taste. It is strange. In the begining, it looks normal, but in the end, it becomes totally scary world as if you got through to the other world.

Ray puts a little difference one by one. You can move on without paying too much attention. You can just put an ordinary image on the gap.

But if you do, you find it's hard to picture such a scene. So you have to imagine.

Then, in the end, you made up the story with bunch of images you had.

That is a blank or difference effect, I think. So you find something new whenever you read.

With this hypothesis in your mind, take a look at popular novels. They are filled with pictures, no blanks left.

You can enjoy for the first time, second?, third?, boring, boring, boring...

They are made to be consumed. While something with lots of blanks or differences is to be created in users.

Here, I see a significant difference. And it is a key, I think, to the coming world.

With such a concept, I made a search system, which will give you "How come? Ah-ha!" search experience. Available in 4 languages.

cSearch

Examples are blogged here in English. Just try, and tell me what it is.

This world is changing. From the one "how to do" matters, to the other "what to do" does.

Then, problems people have are changing accordingly.

Answering to "what to do" is not something others can do or should do. But to make a decision on "what to do" makes sense when there's any change on its field.

"Chigai" is Japanese that means "difference". An interesting property of "Chigai" is not the difference itself, but the gap that tells A is different from B. So I could say, "Chigai" holds something new information that A and B do not hold.

A change is recognized as "Chigai". And then perceived or interpreted to get accepted.

With this "Chigai" in mind, to deal with the "what to do" era, Database that tells "Chigai" is making more sense. An interesting fact is that such a database can tell a new information that the database doesn't store.

Okay, so how we recognize "Chigai"? Some recent brain sciences answer to this question. By expecting what'll come next, and to which a reality is compared.

I love the concept "Chigai", and its interesting property that says a gap, 無(emptiness), holds the source of creativity.

A bit late, but Enjoy!

Kenichiro Mogi, who is a brain scientist, explains how inspiration works in his book, "Hirameki-Nou".

"Hirameki" is an inspiration in Japanese, and "Nou" is a brain.

So what is "inspiration" at all?

It is a difficult question. So let's look at a couple of similar events first.

FOK, "Feeling Of Knowing".

FOK is an interesting feeling. "I think I know, but I don't know". If you don't know, how did you know that you know it!?

This is something a today's computer never does.

When you have FOK in a exam or something, you feel "emergency". "emergency" will produce "emergence". It is a kind of "inspiration".

Savant syndrome

There're people who have an unbelievable ability, called Savant syndrome. They can take a picture of something, as it is, exactly the same.

Paintings in Lascaux looks done by people with Savant syndrome. Or an acient people had Savant syndrome.

Human might have lost the ability for the sake of language.

But people with Savant syndrome are not good at communication. You can imagine the movie "Rainman".

Our brain can produce "meanings" out of our memories, which are interweaved by our experiences/learnings.

The ability to find "meanings" looks having a trade-off against the ability of "Savant syndrome".

Slow learnings

2+3=?

It is solved by fast learnings. Modern people are good at fast learnings, each of which has a clear process to solve based on a certain algorithm.

"Computer" is the typical outcome.

While "inspiration" can not be solved by fast learnings. It takes some time to get an inspiration. No one has no idea when it comes.

"Inspiration" requires slow learnings.

ACC and LPFC

ACC(Anterior Cingulate Cortex) is a watch tower in our brain, which is in frontal cortex. When we feel something like pain, ACC reacts at first.

ACC tells LPFC the event. LPFC stands for Lateral Prefrontal Cortex. Then, LPFC issues orders to related parts like "Take a rest" or "Do this immediately".

Blanks

It seems that our brain tries to fill blanks unconsciously. As if it is the purpose for them.

What are those blanks?

Looks like an inconsistency in one's own world out of all the experiences/learnings.

For example, Newton had been wondering "why doesn't the Moon fall down?". It is an inconsistency in his world.

Inspiration encouraged by blanks

Blanks are produced in a bottom up fashion unconsciously. They drive you to fill them.

It will create a certain environment/feeling similar to FOK.

Then, you will learn and experience a lot. They are slow learnings.

Someday, you'll get it, successfully being inspired. Or may not.

In this way, an inspiration is encouraged by blanks.

The mechanism to find "blanks" or an inconsistency is interesting. It can not only suggest an inconsistency, but also tell new findings.

A database that can suggest something has to recognize this kind of blanks, inconsistencies in its world. It is nothing but "inspiration".

According to "The Nervous System in the Context of Information Theory" by M. Zimmermann, a bandwidth of consciousness is 40bit/s at most.

How did they measure? It is a good question.

But through various researches, any conscious activities are likely bounded by the bandwidth. For example, reading, typing, playing piano, doing math, etc.

While, unconscious input is said to be more than 11 million bit/s, output is 0.1 million bit/s.

So almost all the input are lost at conscious level. And showing lots more than we think consciously.

An interesting thing is that we can feel its underlying information unconsciously. That's why I feel Clifford Brown is great, but today's players are somewhat boring.

As long as you're doing lots of things consciously, reading a book, working on a desk, what you learn is very limited. Instead, close your computer, go outside, and open all your neurons to this world!

But, it is worthwhile to read "The User Illusion" to know who you are and what you're doing.

Suppose you can record your whole life, what happens to you, and in the world?

Exabyte is equal to a million tera bytes, or a billion giga bytes. "エクサバイト" is a Japanese word of Exabyte, and also a title of SF novel written by Masumi Hattori.

It is a story around 2025. A storage device called "Unit" is appeared on this planet, which can be embedded into your head to record what you see, your whole life.

In this book, an interesting research result is refered. "all data ever recorded by human beings is only 12 exabytes, according to California University".

Where's the source? Here about "Exabyte" in the wikipedia, some clues are written with exact references. And actually, there is the same estimate.

Earlier Berkeley studies estimated that by the end of 1999, the sum of human-produced information (including all audio, video recordings and text/books) was about 12 exabytes of data.

Then, you can find the other estimate.

International Data Corporation estimates that approximately 160 exabytes of digital information were created, captured, and replicated worldwide in 2006.

No way! 10x more in only one year!?

OK, so how big storage is required to record one's whole life? Say, 100 years.

Down at "Exaflood", it says:

One exabyte is the equivalent of about 50,000 years of DVD quality video.

To record your whole life, 1/500 exabytes is enough. When you think about the growth of technology, you couldn't say that "Unit" is completely unrealistic.

Do you need so much information at all? I don't.

I just got scared of the fact. I think we need Maxwell's Devil, who can prevent entropy from swelling. Otherwise, otherwise...

I found many people are looking for an easy way to memorize something.

I am a guy who needs a nap to memorize well. This has been said that it is just an excuse of my nap in a class.

Here's a logical explanation why a sleep lets you memorize well. It is again from the talk.

It is popular to make a test about memory to see how an animal reacts when a blow gets in your eyes. When you do, you close your eyes, don't you.

After making an animal listen to a sound, the animal gets a blow in its eyes. Sound, Blow, Sound, Blow, repeatedly. Then, when the animal listens to the sound, the animal will close its eyes. It is the Pavlov's conditional reflex.

It is memory that makes the animal understood, "a blow is coming soon after the sound". There is nothing to do with hippocampus at this stage.

Then, we put an additional step. We shed light on the animal at the same time when making the sound. Later, we do the previous test, Sound-Blow.

And then, against the light, an animal closes its eyes, and waits for a blow. For this memory, hippocampus is necessary.

Both look the same. But there's a big difference. It is that Light is apart from Sound and Blow in terms of time. Putting things, which are apart in terms of time, together is very difficult.

This is syllogism. Light and Sound. Sound and Blow. Then, Light and Blow. This kind of syllogism can't be done without hippocampas.

Let's look back the mouse test(please refer to "Sleep to Memorize").

The locations, A, B, C, and D, are distant from each other. But in a REM sleep, ABCD is compressed alltogether. Then, some information, which is apart from each other in terms of time, can mean the others in a series.

So this kind of "sensing" happens when sleeping.

He says well-reorganized-information-in-sleep is limited. So try hard before you sleep!

This is translated from this page, titled "Things you didn't understand may get clear when sleeping".

「海馬(hippocampus)」 is the book by the researcher, Yuji Ikegaya.

Yuji Ikegaya is a leading reseacher of brain, particularly in hippocampus. This is a talk between Shigesato Itoi, the famous ad copy writer, with him.

The topic is about sleeping.

While you are awake, about 30% of neurons are active at some point in time.

While you are in REM sleep, only 30% of neurons are active, but in non REM speep, almost 100% of neurons are active.

While you are in REM sleep, you would have a dream.

Our brain does two simple things.

1. Garner information
2. Memorize information

In computer, it is the same thing. But our brain can't do that at the same time. First, garner information, then memorize it. Garnering is done when you are conscious, awake or in REM sleep, while memorizing is done in non REM sleep.

At times, I see he has great expertise/experiences in computer science. He have tried a crazy test. With a 6-legs-computer, he broke one leg, then observed how it can evolve its program to make it work. According to him, in the process, the computer made similar trials as human do in a dream.

I am a specialist of hippocampus especially in CA3. CA3 garners information while you are awake, and does a very interesting activity in non REM sleep. It is a compression of information.

Then, he explains about it refering to an experimentation with a mouse.

the following image is from the talk page

He let a mouse walk in a place. Neuron A becomes active only at place A. Neuron B only at place B, and so on. So he can get where the mouse is without checking it as long as he is watching the monitor.

Then, he let the mouse take a sleep, then sees it is having a dream in the same order. Suppose the mouse moved A->B->C->D, it is having a dream A->B->C->D. So what happens in non REM sleep?

It is, again, A->B->C->D, but, at a tremendous speed. About 100x faster. Besides, they are compressed.

And then, the compressed information is sent back to cerebrum and is memorized permanently.

It is interesting that our brain has two types of memory, temporal and permanent. And to be memorized permanently, a temporal memory has to be processed by CA3.

Locations are different or only forms to be memorized are different?

I read that a permanent memory in our brain is never deleted. So what about temporal memory? If they are not deleted, our brain is supposed to have duplicated information.

I also read that, while having a dream, our brain randomly put memories together. The process must be required to determine the exact place to store information permanently.