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Neurons and Neuronal Signaling, Revisited

• Neuronal signals may originate inside the nervous system as well as outside
• There is some degree of indeterminacy in the generation of neuronal signals
• The organization of the nervous system is influenced by its own activity

Biology 202

From the Reflex Machine to the Adaptive Output/Input/Output Box

• The brain is an active explorer rather than a passive receiver and a contributor to its own shaping rather than simply a product of influences upon it

• The activity of the nervous system influences both input and interpretation of input

  "input is never into a quiescent or static system, but always into a system which is already excited and organized" ... Karl Lashley, The Problem of Serial Order in Behavior, 1951

• Output creates in the nervous system expectations of input

• Comparison of expectations with actual input facilitates (constitutes?) learning
  • What is essential for learning (as for science) is not getting it right but getting it wrong
  • Brain/education parallels

• Harvard Law of Animal Behavior and further implications for research
  • Expect/value the unexpected

• Where is "external world", "reality", "truth", "creating", "story telling"?

| Introduction | Science | Brain: Basics | Brain: General Architecture | Brain: Bipartite | Implications | Metacognition | Science as Story Telling On-Line Forum |