Since everything that's discussed, below, has been in AoK all along,
and in any good Neuroanatomy text, it seems that there's an
easily-remedied short-coming in the conventional approach to
Neuroscience.
The standard course in Neuroscience should include a course in
reading of Maths concepts. The readings should be carefully selected
to introduce students to significant Maths 'paradigms', their
applications, and include an introduction to current practicioners
[Maths 'Yellow Pages' for folks in Neuroscience].
Come to think of it, an analogous conceptual 'overview' of Physics
will boost Progress, too.
The courses can be given by practitioners in their respective fields,
with a prerequisite, for them, that they gain some familiarity with
the endeavors of Neuroscience. [I'll do it. "Hire me" :-]
Why not?
Anyway, to the degree that I am at-Fault with respect to folks not
getting "neural topology", I Apologize. ["Don't hire me :-]
I 'thought' it was all just Obvious, and that folks were being
deliberately 'cruel' in 'pretending' that they "couldn't see it".
Is it the case that folks actually couldn't see the neural topology?
[Hard for me to believe - Sorry.]
If so, then all the more reason for the readings conceptual-overview
courses, above.
Done thoughtfully, these courses will be way-Fun, and they'll surely
serve Students, and all of Neuroscience, well, because they'll
'open-the-doors' to new ways of Seeing, and Integrating, the results
of the Experimentalists.
Why leave Students in the dark?
Give them these tools-for-Seeing. =Not= to make them Mathematicians
or Physicists, but to impart to them the ability to recognize the
Maths and Physics that exist within the Biology [which is way-more
than the standard course in Statistics], and to enable them to work
with Mathameticians and Physicists.
k. p. collins
Kenneth Collins wrote in message ...
>As is discussed in AoK, 'the nervous system' is a system of systems,
>so it's referred to, in NDT, as "the supersystem".
>>The problem that requires the supersystem to be approached via
>Topology is, as I've described in previous posts, that the
>"protopathic system" maps 'self' and remains primarily ipsilateral,
>while the "epicritic system" maps inputs from and outputs to the
>external environment.
>>The supersystem converges upon behavioral manifestations as
>by-products of TD E/I-minimization, which constitutes a 'reading' of
>external envrionmental WDB2T [the one-way flow of energy from order
>to disorder that is what's described by 2nd Thermo [recent laser &
>micro-bead stuff notwithstanding]], and converging upon an
>"appropriate" supersystem configuration that is directed toward
>'climbing' the external WDB2T energy gradient. In TD
>E/I-minimization, internal WDB2T becomes, more or less, 'aligned'
>with respect to external WDB2T.
>>In order to achieve this end, the internal environment is mapped
>rigorously with respect to the body-external_envrionment interface.
>>In order to achieve this mapping, while preserving 'self'-'not_self'
>correlation, requires a topological mapping that is like a manifold
>"Kline bottle".
>>The sensory and motor somatic maps in cortex 'stand on their heads',
>mapping the contralateral body half, and form mirror-images with
>respect to their same-hemisphere 'partners'. Occipital cortex maps
>visual hemi-fields upside-down, and left-right reversed. Secondary
>maps preserve the topological-mapping of the primariy areas, but
with
>topological 'enhancements' that correlate to the purposes they
serve.
>>All of the neural topology serves the single purpose of maintaining
>alignment between internal and external WDB2T, and, as is discussed
>in AoK, "Short Paper", Ap3, 5, 6], allows rapid calculation of
>solutions to problems having infinitely-large scope [AoK, Ap1], such
>as calculation of effector activations that will mobilize an
organism
>in 'a' collective-direction so that the organism will 'move away
>from' environmental sources of tissue-damaging 'stimulation', via
>'simple' TD E/I-minimization.
>>That is, the 'twists' 'turns', decussations, and hemispherical
>commisures of neural topology make-possible extremely-rapid
>calculation via simple TD E/I-minimization.
>>The calculation could be achieved via other neural architecture, and
>via other [non-TD E/I-minimization] 'arithmetic', but any other
>neural topology and any other 'arithmetic' would increase
>processing-'time', and, therefore, have lower survival-propensity
>than does this neural topology and TD E/I-minimization which
minimize
>fiber-lengths and energy-consumption, which is why evolutionary
>dynamics converged upon it [them].
>>Most of this neural topology is achieved via axonal mapping, at the
>level of the global system, via many relays, with dendritic trees
>constituting topological-merge-zones in which axons from disparate,
>but nevertheless, correlated areas 'map-up'. A particularly-vivid
>case is the fornix, which loops-around, preserving cross-sectional
>mapping, but giving-off fibers differentially-topoligically-mapped
>with respect to target topological-mapping [dendritic-field
>distributions], in the end, becoming almost its inverse
>topological-mapping. [See all of AoK for more examples.]
>>All such instances of topological-mapping occur for the =single=
>purpose of maintaining the ability to calculate via simple TD
>E/I-minimization.
>>Anyway, that's why the supersystem must be discussed in terms of
>"neural topology", and why nothing in the supersystem can be
>discussed =completely= without discussing everything in the
>supersystem. [Functionality exists at the 'level' of the
supersystem,
>not 'systems', 'subsystems', or individual neurons.. No 'stuffing'
>stuff into arbitrarily-small 'areas', or individual neurons allowed.
>Inclusion of the entiety of functional Neuroanatomy is a
prerequisite
>for doing anything =completely= in Neuroscience, even though the
>'stuff' might seem to be 'discrete'. It's not. 'Separate-out' this
or
>that, and any discussion of it necessarily becomes artificial.]
>>The nervous system is a Topologist's 'playground'.
>>k. p. collins
>>
