Human Memory Research Mistake

The human memory research mistake is that science has not yet focused on explaining its massive capacity and precision. While memory must reside in the nervous system, the mathematical underpinnings of science prevent it from seeing the nerve cell as a pattern recognition entity, which can remember and precisely recall patterns on a galactic scale.

A 2004 Nobel Prize winning discovery pointed directly to neurons as the vehicle of memory. The memory for thousands of smells for animals resides in the combinatorial codes of their olfactory neurons. Leslie Vosshall reports that, in her lab, ordinary volunteers, (not wine tasters or perfumers), could clearly distinguish between different combinations of 128 odor molecules, indicating an average human ability to differentiate between 1 trillion smells. Combinatorial codes can theoretically store a galactic memory and recall it with infinite precision. This view has not been followed up by science in its research.

Human and animal memory involves the ability to remember and recognize millions of images. In the muscle movements for habitual activities from running to speaking, the system stores massive combinatorial memories. Yet, the most important area for memory research has been for simple remembered responses in fear conditioning. In these experiments, mice and rats learn to avoid a mild electric shock to their feet, while they move around a small chamber. Once learned, animals do not forget. Placed back in the chamber a day, or even a month later, they remember to avoid the shock. By focusing on this simple "Dial 100" response, science fails to seek explanations for trillions of other memory links.

Science focuses on the storage of strong traumatic memories, instead of faint episodic memories.
Long term potentiation is merely a speed dial link in the system.
PKMzeta also deals with critical memories.
Dial 100 ability cannot explain the ability to store 10,000 images sequentially.
Branch growth to remember millions of images sounds more like cancer.
Damage to the hippocampus does not cause a loss of past memories.
Combinatorial codes can store astronomically large memories with microscopic precision.

Human Memory Research Mistake - Speed Dial Links
Nature created “speed dial links” between nerve cells to remember notably dangerous situations. Neural plasticity grew new branches to support such links. LTP established quick response systems. High frequency stimulation of the dendrites of a neuron were known to improve the sensitivity of the synaptic nerve junctions. Such activity was seen to be "remembered" by the cell through greater sensitivity at specific inputs. Harvard scientists listed 117 molecules involved at the synaptic junctions which could increase such sensitivity. These chemicals assisted in linking neural paths to create increased levels of activity between neurons in different areas. Can a few speed dial links explain the phenomenal range and depth of human memory?

Human Memory Research Mistake - PKMzeta
Recently, Dr. Sacktorat discovered a substance called PKMzeta, which was present and activated in neighboring cells with speed-dial links. The PKMzeta molecules formed into precise fingerlike connections among brain cells that were strengthened. The molecules remained in place to sustain the speed dial links, which enabled heightened responses to danger. However, when a drug, which interferes with PKMzeta was injected directly into the brain, the animals forgot their fear. The animals even forgot a strong disgust they had developed for a taste after the administration of the drug. It was hoped that by disabling LTP, the drug could blunt painful memories and addictive urges. The ability of LTP to handle urgent messages does not explain how the system remembers last night's dinner menu.

Human Memory Research Mistake - LTP Not The Answer
While LTP can establish “speed dial links,” combinatorial memories are required for the galaxy of events, remembered by the nervous system daily. People are reported to be able to recognize every one of 10,000 images shown to them at 1 second intervals. Such memories involve combinatorial arrangements of millions of pixels. Even habits require memories. The intricate movements of centipedes and horses need colossal memories. The graceful steps of a ballet dancer are learned through tedious practice. They require millions of motor memories repeating thousands of time a second. Such independent combinatorial memories are stored at such speeds and deal with memories of the whole nervous system for daily events. The “Dial 100” character of LTP cannot be the basis for such memories.

Human Memory Research Mistake - Branching Unlikely
Memory research follows many leads. One clue relates to the branched inputs of nerve cells, called dendrites. Branch growth is assisted by a protein called cypin. Some memory disabilities were related to deficits in cypin. So, one possibility was that nerve cells grew new branches to store memory. New branches could represent added memory. But, when the size and scale of human memory is considered, the idea of branches, however microscopic, growing to add memories sounds perilously cancerous.

Human Memory Research Mistake - The Hippocampus
Damage to the hippocampus, a component of a region of the brain called the limbic system, is known to cause patients to forget ongoing events within a few seconds. But, incidents from childhood and early adult life were still remembered. Memory had faded from a couple of years prior to the event that caused damage to the hippocampus. Older memories were still retained by the patient even without the hippocampus. Research has identified the role of the organ in storing long term contextual episodic memories all over the cortical regions.

Human Memory Research Mistake - A Wrong Focus On Maths
The brilliance of the mind can only be explained through the pattern recognition process. But, since scientists favor maths, neurons, the basic building blocks of human intelligence, are assumed to be computers. Nerve cells are presumed to compute, not recognize. So, memory research failed to note the significance of neurons in the discovery of combinatorial codes. Combinatorial codes can store astronomically large volumes of data and can explain the immense wisdom of the mind. This website suggests that the mind functions by remembering and recognizing patterns. Combinatorial codes store human memory for both events and for habitual muscular responses.

This page was last updated on 31-Dec-2013

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Once, Decades Ago, I Tripped Over The Divine

For me, the flash of insight into the sublime happened way back in 1989. The vision stunned me with the grandeur of its simplicity. The startling prospect emerged from, of all things, an algorithm! Its potential flickered into my view by accident, while transferring a Prolog AI disease recognition procedure to a Lotus spreadsheet.  I had inadvertently reversed the logic of the Expert System, instructing it to eliminate improbabilities, instead of selecting probabilities. Such algorithms are just repetitive procedures. Cold and logical lines of code. But, they yield dependable results. Algorithms are just mechanical tools. But, this algorithmic code was unique.

The capability of the algorithm was that it could sift a Google sized database of connected facts to instantly recognize patterns. This was 10 years before Google started building its vast data warehouses. But, I knew the mind identified complex patterns when you just opened your eyes!  For the next few months, glimpses of probable neural accomplishments through instant pattern recognition kept waking me up at 3 a.m. I kept adding to the list on paper. The dots just kept connecting. Decades later, more possible links keep opening up new horizons - say, the seat of consciousness or the persistence of working memory. This algorithm could distinguish between good and evil. It could make us weep in anguish or gasp in wonder.  Could it be the fabled divine gift to life?

It worked in the mind. Gray's Anatomy was an exhaustive source and a starting point for me. Its 1500 pages listed the functions of virtually every mental organ. The algorithm could link them all into a single mind that could suture an artery, while recalling a tennis match. Starting at the input level, it focused your senses. The light from the heavens. The songs of the birds. The touch of a loved one. The fragrance of a rose. The taste of chocolate. We were blessed with millions of receptors, which flashed this magnificent perception of the world to the sensory regions of our cortex. There were association regions there, which could use the algorithm on this data to identify a pencil, or a word. We could separate the idea of a gun from the idea of a war in the abundance of incoming sensory patterns.

Object and event recognition. Algorithmic pattern recognition could act at every stage of mental processing. Things were happening all around us. There was a limbic system, where the algorithm could identify between good and bad happenings. It generated emotions. This mammalian region could drive us to attack in anger, or flee in terror. It was the limbic system, which held us in thrall. It filled us with despair, or tortured us in grief. It made us question the very meaning of life. Life was so unfair. Why did we have to suffer so?

Sadly, we lacked the capacity to naturally see our emotions and feelings. The limbic system was invisible to us. It was the algorithm, which caused the motor system to transform those emotions and feelings into actions. Hunger made us raid the frig. We went to work every day to avoid the pain of guilt. Love reminded us to pick up children from school. Hatred built the death camps. In the end, urges from the limbic system drove us out of Eden.

As a precious compensation, algorithmic pattern recognition ascended to higher levels. Our prefrontal regions gifted us with science and logic. Those skills enabled us to understand the vast structures of the cosmos. We built leviathans, which could sail the oceans and fly the skies. We explored the heavens. Our powerful civilizations conquered the continents and explored the cosmos. Even more, the algorithm also pointed us to the divine, which defied logic and definition. We sensed the order and beauty, which, like the laws of nature, existed from the beginning of time.

Pattern recognition dealt with subtleties. Reason and logic could not create great symphonies, or works of art. Why do we stand in awe of the sunset? Or find joy in a lilting song, or in the laugh of a baby?  Nerve cells recognized such patterns without our awareness and fired to initiate the skin tingling thrill. Who, but the Designer, could possibly want to hard wire us to thrill to the astonishing splendor of the design?

Over three decades have passed since my first glimpse of the truth. Like an ancient city hidden by forest cover, the vast and invisible city of the mind has many avenues linking its great palaces and temples. I also realized that those divine pattern recognition paths led to still spaces, untrammelled by the ravages of emotions and feelings.... Life was worth living! Even the great sages of the past advised us to still passions to empower the sublime within us. The divine stillness lives at the core. You too can find your home there.

The information provided in this website is useful for the modification of normal behavioral patterns. Please do get professional help, before applying the advice for the treatment of any abnormal behaviors. Copyright ©2008 by Ebbi Thomas. All rights reserved. This material may be freely published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.