Follow-up question to Podcast 1 with Jeff (location, orientation, and attention)

[Bitking]

@Mark_Springer

The big toe pattern has to be similar in some way to the finger pattern. The big toe pattern is a paired location vector with a sensory vector. But if the features are not similar, or the location grid cell patterns are not similar, or both together are not similar, then how can that abstract pattern at a higher level know that the finger and the toe felt the same object?

This has been an area of considerable attention. This post scratches at the surface of the answer.
While this is was asked about letters in a sentence some reflection should show that this is the visual form of the sensory perception question you are asking.

HTM & columns Working and biological consistence

This is an excellent and perceptive question. Due to how humans like to break down problems and combine them back together in disciplines such as engineering or physics, we are used to seeing hierarchy in a way that combines and condenses information as you ascend the levels.This leads to a central command and control node somewhere towards the top of the logical structure. Much of the classical literature assumes that this is what is going on in the brain and presents this as a fact without an…

There is a different and related answer to your question - your personal space. This is special as the area that you can reach and manipulate is learned as if it was part of your body. Coordinated movement in this space is learned as part of your sense of agency.

Determinism

In the squishy mess of definitions about what might be consciousness, free will, cognition, and related topics - there is considerable overlap and this makes it hard to pin down what is even being defined. In my own considerations I am a strict materialist with a strong focus on the mechanisms underlying behavior, both observable and self reported. I will add that with the new visualization tools some of the mechanisms that used to be “forever in the subjective realm” are now observable. That …