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Sand in the Brain: A Fundamental Theory To Model the Mind

Posted by timothy on from the my-brain's-usually-rusty dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In 1999, the Danish physicist Per Bak proclaimed to a group of neuroscientists that it had taken him only 10 minutes to determine where the field had gone wrong. Perhaps the brain was less complicated than they thought, he said. Perhaps, he said, the brain worked on the same fundamental principles as a simple sand pile, in which avalanches of various sizes help keep the entire system stable overall — a process he dubbed 'self-organized criticality.'"

2 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. As a physicist: by drolli · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dear fellow scientists, admire us for the 1% of the cases when things like "oh i have a very simple theory about this" are brilliant and dont hate us for the 99% of the cases where this is just idiotic and arrogant.

  2. oblig xkcd by bistromath007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    http://xkcd.com/793/

    The really interesting thing will be when Randall does a comic about how you can get easy upvotes for "oblig xkcd" posts.