I've been giving the concept of neural feedback a lot of thought lately, in fact I cant get it out of my head (a little neurology humor for you). I have been contemplating several aspects about the flow of feedback, how our brains use it, and why it exists. When thinking about it, it becomes hard to discern what is feedback and what is memory, or if in fact they are the same thing.
For example, I went to the dentist last week to have several old fillings replaced. I hate going to the dentist. I am an ardent anti-dentite. But my dentist is actually a pretty caring guy, and does a great job of minimizing the stress and the pain. That being said, the experiences and memories I have of having work done inside my mouth are vivid.
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I recently had the pleasure of spending some vacation time with my very good friend Dr. Michael Nussdorfer. Mike is the Medical Director for Radiology at Barton Memorial Hospital in South Lake Tahoe, California. He is an expert on the anatomy of the human brain, diagnosing brain injuries, sleep disorders, and neurology in general. He is also a technology buff like myself, who shares some of my interests in expanding our understanding of neural processes.
Mike and I typically measure the quality of our vacations by the number of books we read. We often bring each other books we have recently read so we can discuss the ideas and predictions. Fiction is rare, as we usually stick to science or history subjects. For this trip I brought along Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence to share and get his opinion on some of the ideas presented. The discussion made me realize some of the underlying challenges in trying to mimic the neural processes of the human brain.
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