"In order to understand bird flight, we have to understand aerodynamics; only then does the structure of feathers and the different shapes of bird's wings make sense." -David Marr A key principle of aerodynamics is Bernoulli's principle which relates speed of a fluid and pressure. This principle can be derived from conservation of energy but also directly from Newton's Second Law of Motion (F=ma). Marr said the above quote in relation to studying the brain and how it works, which begs the question, what principles like conservation of energy are also in action in the brain? Conservation of energy is probably too broad since Bernoulli's principle breaks down if there's turbulence or thermal radiation and it's hard to imagine anything like laminar flow in the brain.

The visual cortex has arrays of neurons (or neuronal columns?) which detect specific orientations of objects in the visual field. Scientists could see this because they could push this electrode into the tissue while showing the live animal subject lines of various orientation. What's unclear in the lecture and in this image is whether what they're measuring was a single neuron or the spikes from a handful. Is each of these vertical slices a cortical column? This pertains to feasibility of bio-based AI/ML modelling because there are many fewer cortical columns (150k) than neurons (20b) in the brain. Still more interested in developing a small component with feedback loops, etc but thought this was interesting. Video:

It seems our brains are constantly making predictions about our environment. To illustrate, Jeff Hawkin's often uses a coffee cup and the expected sensations when going to grab it. What seems fun about this idea is how it relates to the abstract. What if there were an object that defied classification, never satisfying the predictions that the brain has made? It wouldn't have to be a physical object either. Let's try it with language. Right now, as you're reading you're trying to follow along and predict what I will write next. Paper straw. Doubt you were expecting that. I suspect your brain is now kind of backing away slowly because man I could write anything. A literal madman wiith a keyboard. I like plastic. Instead of surprise, how about ambiguity? It is on the surface. What is it? What surface? Is it moving or what? What kind of thing even is it? Might be fun to write something longer that plays more with ambiguity and surprise. For now I'll just say it's a paper straw on the table. GM

The brain with its white and grey matter and cortical columns is extremely fascinating. Scientists have figured out so much which can't have been integrated into AI/ML. Still not sure if any of it can be implemented with more simplicity but have some directions I'd like to go, namely integrating more feedback loops at different scales and working at the beginning with very small data sets to see what resonates a kernel of a system.

I find it fascinating that a single occurrence of a new word can be remembered with context. I recall from child development psychology that kids have a hard time recalling where they learned something, so perhaps this is a mechanism that comes coincident with the pruning that happens from adolescence on into adulthood. Of course there are countless other processes at work. Just a thought.

Complex, pointless, or unwritten rules are toxic to groups.

Ok I removed nostr.lol from noStrudel and Amethyst (posting new relay lists from each) within the same couple minutes. Here's to 100% relay send success! ☕ GM and stay classy

A lot of my excitement about new possibilities for AI/ML come from the three Joscha Back interviews by Lex Fridman and one with Jeff Hawkins with the 1,000 brains theory.

This latest AI/ML project is attempting to model and simulate the self-organizing principles in the brain. We think of the brain as efficient from a power perspective but that's mainly because of electrochemistry. The numbers of neurons and connections is astronomical so a direct simulation is not promising. The big question is can components of the brain be identified and implemented in such a way that those numbers become reasonable while retaining the magical non-linearity?

Preowned gear is amazing.

Everyone knows about activation potentials and neurons firing but what if more information processing is done in the negative by shunting to ground or by inhibiting firing in the first place?

Working on a new AI/ML project partly to learn but also to see if something interesting will arise from "scratch." A missing piece this morning is that of a reward system. I don't know how to tell this thing what's good and what's bad programatically. Seems like the perfect time to "do things that don't scale" and execute the reward function myself. I figure I'll let it ask me after each step for 👍 or 👎. An app would be cool so it could just be taps but I'm a cli-guy so maybe I'll go with vim bindings.

This emerged from the studio a couple weeks ago. Circuit Rhythm + Microfreak.

Do you have an aesthetic or multiple? How would you describe it/them? I seem to enjoy minimalism, well-defined process, environment as guide, reproducibility, and total chaos.

Got a bit tired of the nostr echo chamber so unfollowed some popular accounts and used pleb mode on noswot.org to get more variety in my feed. Looking forward to seeing more diverse, less Bitcoin-focused content.

Community notes on Twitter seem interesting. Supposedly publicly verifiable. Joined and will report experiences if notable.