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Paul Grobstein's picture

do action potentials have a "purpose"?

Maybe it will help to take this apart a bit? Maybe there isn't any "supposed to happen" at the level of action potentials? Its not "at times" that "random movement" underlies an action potential. It always does, since the battery wouldn't exist without random movement of ions across a semi-permeable membrane. THEN the question is when does a permeability change occur. And the answer is ... sometimes because of an input (we'll get to this) and other times just because of a leaky membrane, random movement, and passive current flow.

What's interesting about all this is not that it denies the existence of "purpose" but rather that it says that "purpose" must be accounted for in terms not of neurons and action potentials but rather of assemblies of neurons and action potentials. Moreover, it says that randomness is not antithetical to purpose or meaning but must instead be the underpinning from which purpose or meaning comes into existence (see Evolution/Science: Inverting the Relationship Between Randomness and Meaning).

Yep, "thinking ... causing action potentials to occur." Which implies what about "thinking"? Is it before action potentials, after action potentials, or .... ?

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