[ExI] Fwd: neurons

William Flynn Wallace foozler83 at gmail.com
Tue May 20 22:49:36 UTC 2014


OK, so they rest.  I give up.  But do you agree that there are three states
of the neuron?


On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 5:46 PM, Giovanni Santostasi
<gsantostasi at gmail.com>wrote:

> In fact, one per second is resting for neurons. That is what happens when
> you have slow waves oscillations that corresponds to the deepest state of
> sleep.
>
>
> On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 5:23 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> ​p.s.  Still, there are three states:  one in which the neuron fires at
>> one per second (resting level - no input), one in which it fires faster
>> (receiving excitatory input), and one in which it fires slower (receiving
>> inhibitory input).​  So, firing or not firing is wrong in the context.
>> bill w
>>
>>
>> Well, OK, but the slowest they get is about one spike per second (up to
>> 30) without external stimulation.  Not exactly resting.  bill w
>>
>>
>> On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 4:03 PM, Giovanni Santostasi <
>> gsantostasi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> What you are thinking that neurons are at a particular potential when at
>>> rest (about -70 mV). But they are not firing all the time at all. There are
>>> times when they are silent.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 3:42 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
>>> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In The Future on the Mind, by Michio Kaku, he says as follows (facing
>>>> page 342):
>>>>
>>>> "Define complex in terms of the total amount of information that can be
>>>> stored.  The closet rival to the brain might be the info contained w/in our
>>>> DNA.  Three billion base pairs containing one of four aids, therefore total
>>>> amount of info is four to the three billionth power.  The brain can store
>>>> much more - one hundred billion neurons, *which can either fire or not
>>>> fire*.  Hence there are two raised to the one-hundred-billionth power
>>>> initial states of the brain.... the states change every few milliseconds.
>>>> A simple thought may contain  one hundred generations of neural firings.
>>>> Hence there are two raised by one hundred billion, all raised to the
>>>> hundredth power possible thoughts contained in one hundred generations.
>>>> Brains are ceaselessly computing.  Therefore the total number of thoughts
>>>> possible within N generations is two to the one-hundred-billionth power,
>>>> all raised to the Nth power.
>>>>
>>>> My question concerns the underlined clause:  there are three states to
>>>> a neuron:  increasing its rate, decreasing its rate, and staying the same.
>>>> Kaku says that a neuron fires or not.  This seems to say that a neuron is
>>>> idle, waiting for stimuli, whereas I think that no neuron ever is not
>>>> firing.
>>>>
>>>> Am I confused again, or is he wrong?  bill w
>>>>
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