[ExI] Blue Brain Project

[jameschoate at austin.rr.com]

There is very little actual 'suppose' in your commentary, the homeobox and related genetic affects are critical to this sort of organization. It is far from stochastic. Besides that, this model completely ignores the chemotaxis effects of development as well. 

---- Richard Loosemore <rpwl at lightlink.com> wrote: 

> Markram is NOT, as many people seem to assume, developing a biologically 
> accurate model of a cortical column circuit.  He is instead developing a 
> model that contains neurons that are biologically accurate, down to a 
> certain level of detail, but with random connections between those 
> neurons.  The statistical distribution of wires is supposed to be the 
> same as that in a cortical column, but the actual wires... not so much.

> Further, he ignores the possibility that the self-assembly mechanisms 
> are dependent on such factors as (a) specific wiring circuits in the 
> column, or (b) specific wiring in outside structures (subcortical 
> mechanisms, for example) which act as drivers of the self-assembly process.
> 
> (To couch this in terms of an example, suppose the biology causes loops 
> of ten neurons to be set up all over the column, with the strength of 
> synapses around each loop being extremely specific (say, high, high, 
> low, high, high, low, high, high, low, low).  Now suppose that the 
> self-organizing capability of the system is crucially dependent on the 
> presence of these loops.  Since Markram is blind to exact wiring he will 
> never see the loops.  He certainly would not see the pattern of synaptic 
> strengths, and he probably would never notice the physical pattern of 
> the ten-neurons loops, either.)

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