[ExI] ANN question

[William Flynn Wallace]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 12:57 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 1:40 PM, William Flynn Wallace
> <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 3:09 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >> OK, I think we are in agreement:  you and the ANN at looking at the
> state
> >> of the neuron at a fixed point in time, and I am looking at it over a
> period
> >> of time.  Maybe we need to look at both to understand the neuron
>
> Pretty much - though I'm just explaining what the ANNs' simplification
> (relative to what you're thinking) is.  What you're looking at is
> closer to understanding actual neurons.
>
> > addition - come to think of it, whether the neuron is firing or not at a
> > specific point in time, is a function of where on its body you measure
> the
> > chemical exchange;  we know that the spike travels the length of the cell
> > body, a traveling wave, such that at the receiving end - the dendrite -
> you
> > can measure the influx of ions into the body, whereas at its opposite end
> > nothing is happening yet.  Maybe this makes no difference.  What do I
> know?
>
> Oh, it can make a difference.  Perhaps it would be better to say that
> ANNs model synapses and the things directly connected to the synapse
> (which is only parts of the neurons on each side), rather than entire
> neurons (which might be considered to have multiple
> if-x-then-input-to-next-stage bits inside themselves).  This might be
> akin to the difference between an individual transistor or gate, and
> an entire chip (neuron) that is itself part of a larger circuit board
> (brain).
>

​A good discussion - thanks. I still say that according to a book or two I
have read, they are going to have to include the now somewhat mysterious
influences of the glial cells on the neurons​.  A model, of course, has to
leave out some factors, but if those factors turn out to be important, we
might learn very little about what we are studying.

bill w

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