Our Quest to Understand the Brain - with Matthew Cobb

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  • Опубліковано 14 гру 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 124

  • @TheRoyalInstitution
    @TheRoyalInstitution  4 роки тому +65

    Blast from the past! We were briefly allowed into the building the other day and we grabbed some of the videos we had shot before lockdown. We do love our livestreams but it's lovely to see the theatre again, even if just briefly.

    • @elaineandjohn9599
      @elaineandjohn9599 4 роки тому +2

      The Royal Institution Your theatre is a special place.

    • @benlee7559
      @benlee7559 4 роки тому

      You are paid for this talkshow!!!!@

    • @solomonlalani
      @solomonlalani 4 роки тому +2

      RI: love all your lectures - thanks for continuing to promote education, science, and the human spirit of inquiry!

    • @rosstuition
      @rosstuition 3 роки тому

      I always get inspired when I see videos of presentations in this venue. Still remember a talk about sea-going mammals I saw 60 years ago. The place holds the gravitas of the ghosts of long-gone scientists.

  • @goonhoongtatt1883
    @goonhoongtatt1883 4 роки тому +32

    The electricity demonstration was done in the very same room where this lecture was held. Amazing.

  • @Banzybanz
    @Banzybanz 4 роки тому +3

    21:15 I get really impressed by some of this toy robots that can seem to find their way around a table without falling off. It's incredible that a simple machine from the 1930s can also do the same.

  • @Fists91
    @Fists91 4 роки тому +8

    From that Grey Walter clip: "an electronic brain that functions like a human mind" ... "moves at random until the obstacle is cleared" Classic human behavior.

    • @johntavers6878
      @johntavers6878 4 роки тому

      that's not classic human behavior, for instance, we use tools to complete most tasks. far from random.

  • @SamuelDrives
    @SamuelDrives 4 роки тому +12

    Sir interesting lecture, but Czechoslovakia doesn't exist nearly for 30 years, best wishes from Slovakia 🇸🇰 😄

  • @erichodge567
    @erichodge567 3 роки тому +1

    I want to watch every one of these RI presentations. They are so very good.

  • @solomonlalani
    @solomonlalani 4 роки тому +1

    Such a humbling presentation

  • @PaaAL
    @PaaAL 4 роки тому +9

    Greetings from "Czechoslovakia" !! :-D

  • @nycbearff
    @nycbearff 4 роки тому

    Eventually we will manage to model how the brain works in its entirety, but that will take decades of work by many teams of scientists, using tools we don't have yet (tools we haven't imagined yet, in fact), and more computing power than currently exists on the planet. So, not next year, possibly next century. Its nice to see an actual scientist talking about this. He's clear about how little we know, how many mistaken ideas have been current in the past, and how difficult the task is - scientific thinking at its best.

  • @benjamino76
    @benjamino76 4 роки тому

    Brilliant lecture especially if you've read the book. It really is a magnum opus and hearing Matthew pick his way through the key ideas helps bring it all together.

  • @vasdgod
    @vasdgod 4 роки тому +4

    Thank you royal instituition for this wonderful lecture

  • @berndeckenfels
    @berndeckenfels 4 роки тому +4

    When I ponder, I am in my head, rub the forehead or even feel in headspace. Is this only because I am told that the bran is the significant organ or is there a real awareness?

    • @nycbearff
      @nycbearff 4 роки тому +1

      A thousand years ago, you would probably have felt yourself to be in your heart, not your head. Different people feel their "self" to be located in different amounts of their body - whole body, part body - and in different places within their body. There's no one right way to experience your "selfness". Psychologists have lots of speculations about how this happens, but no actual knowledge - it's another of the many mysteries of how the brain works.

  • @davidnelsonblair2650
    @davidnelsonblair2650 4 роки тому +1

    It is your mention of Kenneth Craik in this lecture that inspired me to get your book. (I am now though Part 1, which is a terrific example of history of science, and I look forward to pressing on.) Craik's idea is that the mind models the surroundings and acts upon the model. If you want a materialist definition of the soul, there it is. It is astonishing to me that this idea emerged so recently--but, of course, you might correctly point out that I have been exposed to the computer modeling analogy for decades. I am so glad you chose to include this detailed history. History always illuminates science.

  • @tresajessygeorge210
    @tresajessygeorge210 Рік тому

    THANK YOU...SIR...!!!

  • @horrified871
    @horrified871 4 роки тому

    From heart to passive reactive machine with localization to active system to complex networked system along with electricity and computer system. It is interesting to see how the interpretation of the brain gets sophisticated along with technological advancement and accumulation of knowledge.

  • @falstmusic
    @falstmusic 4 роки тому +5

    How about emergent properties of complex systems?

    • @adeadgirl13
      @adeadgirl13 4 роки тому +1

      I believe in this theory.

    • @EDcaseNO
      @EDcaseNO 4 роки тому +1

      is that not just an element of it being a network? strength of connections built over lifetime experience with some diffuse effects which trigger more random (odd, not necessarily unrelated) thoughts. obviously being reductive here =]

    • @falstmusic
      @falstmusic 4 роки тому +3

      @@EDcaseNO dude I agree 100%!
      If I had a theory it would look like something like that!

    • @EDcaseNO
      @EDcaseNO 4 роки тому +1

      @@falstmusic he mentions emergence a little more in the Q&A [link in vid description] it's interesting too

    • @falstmusic
      @falstmusic 4 роки тому +1

      @@EDcaseNO thanks!

  • @eggsandwine
    @eggsandwine 4 роки тому +3

    Thanks for another fascinating video. Two small historical corrections. Galen was Greek, neither Roman nor Turkish. He lived during the Roman empire era and the fact that Pergamon, his city, is in present day Turkey has nothing to do with the ancient civilization that flourished there. And the Xmas lecture of Keith in 1916 wasn't during the second world war, but the first. Nevertheless these are minor mistakes irrelevant to the essence of this great lecture.

  • @Form_Evolve_Invent_India
    @Form_Evolve_Invent_India 4 роки тому

    The picture at 12:25min of the video may be suggesting Nural Network

  • @falstmusic
    @falstmusic 4 роки тому +4

    Wow, I wonder how that could relate to recent advancements in longevity!

    • @NipapornP
      @NipapornP 4 роки тому

      Oh great, keep on wondering!

  • @rickharold7884
    @rickharold7884 4 роки тому +1

    Great video thanks!

  • @railgap
    @railgap 4 роки тому +2

    If the brain cannot comprehend, model, and full understand itself, then information theory declares we are in a simulation. ;D

    • @2drewbaker
      @2drewbaker 4 роки тому

      A knife can not cut it's self.
      But yes... The brain gathers information, forms something Similar,(simulation), to what it can deal with,..interpret, and let us believe what we touch, see, hear smell, to be "real",..but no one can deny Pain to be real,..except those few who can feel none,..and those may deal with the higher imagined pain of damage and loss of limb or life.
      That reminds me,..I have a toothache,..not that I totally forgot,..it's just been Re-Minded.

    • @nycbearff
      @nycbearff 4 роки тому

      Saying something is true does not make it true, as your mom probably taught you long ago.

  • @imfriend1y
    @imfriend1y 3 роки тому

    11:48 looks like the first basic representation of how a neural net in computer science will eventually function

    • @SBImNotWritingMyNameHere
      @SBImNotWritingMyNameHere 2 роки тому

      thats because electronic/digital neural networks were designed by looking at organic neural networks
      idk man its in the name

    • @imfriend1y
      @imfriend1y 2 роки тому

      @@SBImNotWritingMyNameHere currently there is only software based neural networks. No one has built a hardware based neural network. I wouldn't consider the closest representation being the European human brain project to be a good representative though. As it was a billion dollar abject failure.
      And neural networks based on fpga fpaa and tensors so not come close.

  • @ssiddarth
    @ssiddarth 4 роки тому +1

    Amazing Lecture, Thanks RI team 🤗

  • @richardofoz2167
    @richardofoz2167 4 роки тому

    I was expecting this to be an exposition on our current understanding of how the brain works, but unfortunately it's just a series of historical ideas which have now been disproved. A much more interesting and thought-provoking video would have presented the fascinating suggestions proposed by Jeff Hawkins in his book "On Intelligence". If you haven't read it, do yourself a favour and read it.

    • @AdrieKooijman
      @AdrieKooijman 4 роки тому

      You misinterpreted the title. The talk is about the brain (the little grey cells, the hardware), not about the mind (the softwarel.
      The book you refer to is about the software and is, although on a very different topic, a great supplement to this talk (and book).

    • @richardofoz2167
      @richardofoz2167 4 роки тому

      ​@@AdrieKooijman Hi Adrie. I disagree with your characterization of the book, which is entirely about the physical structure of the brain - what you call the hardware - and how it enables us to think and sense our surroundings (and to make predictions about what's going on around us, which is so interesting).
      And I think your hardware/software analogy is actually back to front. Computer software drives and directs the hardware. Without software, the hardware can do nothing. In Hawkins's theory of the brain, the physical structure is what enables and drives its processes. There's no way that the mind (whether conscious or subconscious) does this with the brain. On the contrary, the mind is the consequence of the brain's physical processes. This cannot be said of computer software.
      But please don't let this come between us! I'm thrilled just to find someone else familiar with his ideas, which I hope will in time be proved correct, as they make sense of so much.

    • @nycbearff
      @nycbearff 4 роки тому

      Books of speculation are interesting, but should not be mistaken for facts. We're many decades away from understanding how the brain works, what consciousness is, and what intelligence is. When anyone tells you they understand how any of these work, they are passing off speculation as facts.

    • @richardofoz2167
      @richardofoz2167 4 роки тому

      @@nycbearff As I said: I hope they will in time be proved correct. Clearly you have not read the book or you would (perhaps) understand that Hawkins makes no claims whatever of knowing the truth. But he has researched and learned a great deal about the brain. What he writes is much more than mere speculation.

  • @TheR971
    @TheR971 4 роки тому

    12:22 wow, that looks incredibly similar to restricted boltzmann machines!

  • @tarreqmaulana9494
    @tarreqmaulana9494 4 роки тому +3

    education during quarantine

  • @k.a.o.s.717
    @k.a.o.s.717 3 роки тому

    The fact they fimeld the ladybug for a while and added it to the video is the proof they are geniuses...

  • @godwinaikins6456
    @godwinaikins6456 3 роки тому

    Please run me through the full course. I have the desire to learn and observe you teach me. Don't worry I am a good student.

  • @thenobleone-3384
    @thenobleone-3384 3 роки тому

    The Heart and the Brain are the 2 most important functions of the human body.

  • @EDcaseNO
    @EDcaseNO 4 роки тому +2

    45:47 laughing at gpt-2's attempts at modelling a brain has set in motion some universal karma that now almost guarantees *it's success [GPT-x]

  • @LawrenceKassab
    @LawrenceKassab 4 роки тому +3

    John Wick taught most young people about phone exchange 😆 🤣

  • @MattExzy
    @MattExzy 4 роки тому

    Is consciousness a computation, though.. at least in the classical sense. But then again, folk will say it's not quantum, neither.

    • @SBImNotWritingMyNameHere
      @SBImNotWritingMyNameHere 2 роки тому

      it would be better to consider organic neural computation as a combination of analog computation (chemical reactions in chemical synapses) wherein signal strength can vary from 0 (minimum) and 1 (maximum)
      in comparison modern computers only use digital computation where value must be EITHER 0 or 1
      btw what are you talking abt when you say "then again, folk will say it's not quantum, neither"

  • @falstmusic
    @falstmusic 4 роки тому +1

    Bring in Peter Attia!!!

  • @shexec32
    @shexec32 4 роки тому

    1958: John Von Neumann uses the human brain to model how the computer works
    2020: Matthew Cobb uses computers to explain how the brain works.
    We've completed the circle folks.

    • @nycbearff
      @nycbearff 4 роки тому

      Except, of course, he's very clear that we don't know how the brain works and won't know for a very long time.

  • @alifjakir4664
    @alifjakir4664 4 роки тому

    "balls" says GPT-2, how excellent

  • @drajittolia7822
    @drajittolia7822 4 роки тому

    Brain is highly scientific system much more than you think

  • @David-tp7sr
    @David-tp7sr 4 роки тому +1

    Still so much to do.

  • @2drewbaker
    @2drewbaker 4 роки тому +1

    I have enouph trouble comprehending my mind, never mind the brain.

  • @billthompson7072
    @billthompson7072 3 роки тому

    Doesn't Jim Al Khalili suggest the electronics goes into overdrive.

  • @frankdelahue9761
    @frankdelahue9761 3 роки тому

    Comparing brain to microprocessor? In that case, you should compare Cerebras trillion transistor AI chip with human brain.

  • @B2T7RID2QGLEHH5UZFB0T
    @B2T7RID2QGLEHH5UZFB0T 4 роки тому +1

    43:55 looks like a bird

  • @user-vn9ld2ce1s
    @user-vn9ld2ce1s 3 роки тому

    21:50 Czechoslovakia? CZECHOSLOVAKIA???

  • @nightvisiongoggles
    @nightvisiongoggles 4 роки тому

    When we begin to understand the quantum realm and the principles of entanglement, then perhaps we may begin to understand the brain.

    • @stevenvanhulle7242
      @stevenvanhulle7242 4 роки тому

      That's a conjecture, but before I find it an interesting conjecture I'd like to know if it is based on anything at all.
      (The fact that we don't quite understand entanglement and don't quite understand the brain either doesn't count)

  • @duncanelliff3903
    @duncanelliff3903 4 роки тому

    I do not know how accurate the claim that in recent years the number of neurons in an FMRI voxel is in the same order of magnitude it was in 2008. I got curious about the claims veracity, and I conclude that making a blanket claim such as that relies on a lot of estimation, that can very easily be interpreted and presented one way. Not to mention the researcher degrees of freedom in spatial resolution. I know this complaint is a matter of misrepresentation in degree and that his point stands regardless of much better spatial resolution is today. Still, I found it personally unhelpful and misleading. It is obvious Cobb is an FMRI skeptic, but I wish he had made (or really even attempted to make) a stronger justification for the existence and practice of FMRI instead of rapidly dismissing it as useless. MIT prof Nancy Kanwisher, an FMRI supporter calls for people to actually engage with the data of FMRI and decide per instance the veracity of each published claim, and unfortunately I found Cobb to fall into the notion of "it does not do what lay folks think it does, therefore it is not a significant breakthrough in our understanding of the brain". I appreciated the talk, and maybe he has more empirical grounds than I give him credit for on the FMRI bit... hard to know. Hey! Royal Institution a nuanced look at FMRI would be really helpful, for myself and certainly others! cheers

  • @killmaestro7233
    @killmaestro7233 4 роки тому +1

    That lady bug just made me unlock a whole new level . 😉

  • @zwerko
    @zwerko 4 роки тому

    _All hail the Chicken!_

  • @cmiguel268
    @cmiguel268 4 роки тому

    The problem with trying to understand how the brains works is that we are trying to understand the brain using the brain, which is not the best tool to try to understand anything. Usually the brain works at about what? 60 percent or less, so by logic whatever you are trying to understand , be the brain, mathematics, reality and whatever else you are doing it with a tool that at best works half of its capacity. It is like trying to reach Australia from the USA in a plane that only works at 60 percent.

  • @dncbot
    @dncbot 4 роки тому

    What would a brain need a grandmother cell for? It would be utterly meaningless!

    • @AdrieKooijman
      @AdrieKooijman 4 роки тому

      Many cells may be seen as useless, but given the fact that nature usually evolves useless parts of species away I have to conclude that there is, or was, a purpose for this specific cell too.

    • @dncbot
      @dncbot 4 роки тому

      @@AdrieKooijman I'm not saying any cells are useless, what I am saying is having a cell with the function of identifying "grandmother" would be useless to the brain. The brain would have to be watching that cell, and knowing "ahh, the grandmother cell is active, that means grandmother". So the brain would need to know "grandmother" in a different way anyways. That makes the functionality of a grandmother cell redundant.
      Of course, it is very likely that activity in certain cells correlate with certain experiences. But the concept of a grandmother cell, that is obviously a poor concept.

  • @teenee4
    @teenee4 4 роки тому +1

    There is heart tissue that looks exactly like brain tissue🤯

  • @michaelpekny1255
    @michaelpekny1255 Рік тому

    Heart is hart

  • @michaelbrodsky
    @michaelbrodsky 3 роки тому

    Czechoslovakia… bahaha!!

  • @thepianoaddict
    @thepianoaddict 4 роки тому +1

    I don't need to watch this talk. I already literally got my head around my brain before I was born. I'd say that I'm just lucky that this came to me naturally.

  • @niclasbertell8783
    @niclasbertell8783 4 роки тому +1

    Re: Your brains

  • @astralcowboy5511
    @astralcowboy5511 4 роки тому +1

    Fancy introducing a guy as a ‘massive racist’ completely out of context.

  • @alexdavidson7785
    @alexdavidson7785 4 роки тому

    Is voided light
    ..we can access this anytime
    well
    Some of us

  • @Neimfeltrite
    @Neimfeltrite 4 роки тому

    The scientific community needs to step up. While I applaud wealthy actors recently appearing on TV in opposition to Trump and his supporters. Famous celebrities that under threat of loosing many of their fans, choose to put their reputations on the line to do what is right is admirable. However, race and climate change are two of the most pressing issues in our country today. Just as the most distinguished scientific minds chimed in to combat the disinformation in regards to climate change, I also think the time has come for a concerted effort to combat the false idea of race on the scientific front, by those educated and qualified to speak on the subject. Scientists need to step up and help America deal with its issues on race. Most of the political divisions in our society boil down to false assumptions on race and I think the scientific community has been negligent in tackling it.

  • @007atermis
    @007atermis 4 роки тому

    Dosent the heart have a brain?

    • @TheFrostDawg
      @TheFrostDawg 4 роки тому

      Yeah it works separately to the brain, but contains very small number of neurons compared to the brain

    • @NipapornP
      @NipapornP 4 роки тому +3

      The belly has much more neurons!

    • @nycbearff
      @nycbearff 4 роки тому

      A bunch of neurons working together is not necessarily a "brain". So yes, it has neurons, but no, it's not a brain, a brain is defined as that big neuronal system in your head.

    • @TheFrostDawg
      @TheFrostDawg 4 роки тому +1

      ​@@nycbearff might get away with calling it a heart-brain

  • @DouwedeJong
    @DouwedeJong 4 роки тому +2

    Seriously Matthew, if you are going to prepare a presentation like this, at the Royal Institute, at least read Alfred Smee's work. "Building a brain" is not the same as the 'adopting the process of thought'. The automaton is terrible misdirection and focusing only on the mechanical process using Descartes does his contribution a terrible disservice. I am only 10 min. and I am wondering why is this presentation so haphazard and why even claim that Mary Shelley might have been in sitting in one of the chairs when she came up with Frankenstein.
    I WANT SCIENCE, NOT CONJECTURE AND PROPAGANDA;

  • @neuro.weaver
    @neuro.weaver 4 роки тому +3

    How could possibly Galen be even partially Turkish when then Turkish tribes did not migrate from Southern Mongolia to Anatolia for another 1,600 years?
    Get your easy facts right before attempting to make bold claims about the hard stuff.

    • @fionafiona1146
      @fionafiona1146 4 роки тому

      Turkish as in having ancestors from the north eastern Mediterranean... Putting the diversity in Roman ethnicity on the map, he grew up with.

    • @neuro.weaver
      @neuro.weaver 4 роки тому +1

      @@fionafiona1146, the Turkish people originated from the Xiongu region of Mongolia. They did not invade Asia Minor until the 11th century - long after Rome had fallen to German hordes.
      And 1,100 years after Galen was a doctor to the gladiators of Rome.

    • @fionafiona1146
      @fionafiona1146 4 роки тому

      @@neuro.weaver
      Didn't I just critique his choice of words?

  • @billthompson7072
    @billthompson7072 3 роки тому

    ?

  • @dant9408
    @dant9408 4 роки тому +2

    Galen was Greek not Turkish...

  • @peki_ooooooo
    @peki_ooooooo 3 роки тому

    这人说了这么多,就是想说,到现在脑科学还很早呗。一堆有信息,但没有用的话。

  • @pkpcmu
    @pkpcmu 4 роки тому +1

    Oh yeah everything began with the Greeks.. Indians and Chinese didn't know anything. Skewed science

    • @nycbearff
      @nycbearff 4 роки тому

      He's talking about how they did not understand the brain - and yes, he should also have talked about how the Indian, Chinese and American cultures did not understand the brain, I suppose, although it was a short lecture which didn't pretend to be comprehensive. You need to pay a bit more attention to the ancient civilizations of the Western Hemisphere yourself, it sounds like - they were as learned in many ways as the ancient Chinese and Indian cultures, and they got there with no cross-cultural fertilization with the Eastern Hemisphere.

  • @teenee4
    @teenee4 4 роки тому

    I use phototherapy based on using bio active wavelengths for my brain.

    • @johntavers6878
      @johntavers6878 4 роки тому

      did it fix ur brain?

    • @teenee4
      @teenee4 4 роки тому

      @@johntavers6878 best results use phototherapy daily and the unit I use corrects behaviour as well as regeneration at a cellular level.

    • @johntavers6878
      @johntavers6878 4 роки тому

      @@teenee4 wow u have a good brain then

    • @teenee4
      @teenee4 4 роки тому

      @@johntavers6878 it's all about getting electrons where the body needs them👍if you use the only bio active wavelengths.

  • @ProLogic-dr9vv
    @ProLogic-dr9vv 4 роки тому

    I like to hold a word search upside down then look at it in a mirror and find the hidden words I am very good at this.

  • @RagHelen
    @RagHelen 4 роки тому

    Not good.

  • @brahmendrabachi9016
    @brahmendrabachi9016 4 роки тому

    They are going back to greeks
    Instead of that if they go back to indian history they may get even more information than this
    Because the Stories which in india Called as 'Puranas' ex as 'Mahabharatha', 'Ramayana' which they have used all these present inventing things.
    Up to know we don't the exact meanjbg of 'Consciousness' and how this CONSCIOUSNESS Related to Brain
    But the thing is those indian guys have already defined all these kind of relations.
    Our Best Example is
    Up to Know we struggled a lot to have an idea that 'Multiverse theorey can be possible.' But did u know In RAMAYANAM
    There are some words and some kind of episodes about Multiverse Theorey that they have used the concept of multiverse theorey
    If u think that Indian Stories are fake
    Then remember 'The possibility of Multiverse theorey, String Theorey' all these such things came to our mind recently with hard thinking and understanding of Nature if u say jndian history is fake then why these topics likeultiverse theorey and some other theories like string theorey had already mentioned there. Because they have a complete knowledge about nature and it patterns.
    Please recognise the Indian past technology that they have used.
    Jai Hind

    • @pansepot1490
      @pansepot1490 4 роки тому +3

      Brahmendra bachi, the lecturer mention Greeks because he’s a westerner and most of western culture derives from Greeks and Romans.
      As for the Multiverse that’s just a hypothesis with no evidence and only a small percentage of physicists think it may actually be true. Same for string theory, which is a mathematical model that has been disproved rather than confirmed by the latest cosmological observations.

  • @shambosaha9727
    @shambosaha9727 4 роки тому

    First, am I?

    • @appleslover
      @appleslover 4 роки тому

      No
      Onist

    • @nycbearff
      @nycbearff 4 роки тому

      Yes, but no one understands how that works.