The term attractor is used to mean the set of states towards which other states in a given basin of attraction asymptotically approach in the course of evolution - the trajectory will always fall onto the same attractor. Many natural systems can be characterized as being chaotic - cosmic, meteorological, heart and brain of living organisms and so on. For a chaotic system, its strange attractor represents the envelope of possibility within which its future motion will be contained. These considerations make the attractor concept very useful in evolution studies, including the brain evolution studies. Brain evolution is a complex chaotic weave of processes bound by diverse rules and principles, and the factors driving evolutionary changes in brain structures probably changed over time. Nevertheless, brain evolves not altogether randomly, but in accordance with a set of leading laws or principles and human brain shares the same basic anatomical plan which is found in all mammals and even in amphibians and reptiles. Thus, nature has provided us with a robust message that the brain could be seen as an attractor over the course of evolution. In other words, biological evolution of higher animals is directed by their brain. Hopefully, these chaotic considerations and my humble CEREBRART work will prompt readers to seek more supporting evidence for the chaotic brain evolution theory.
Definitely the most chaotically attractive picture I've seen here and it is saying something interesting about the long evolution of our big, complex and chaotic brain!
ReplyDeleteyou suggest that the brain could be seen as a chaotic attractor (an attractor for which the approach to its final point in phase space is chaotic) over the course of evolution. But you cannot predict how the brain will evolve in the future on the basis of a series of observations along time. So you suggest a somewhat paradoxical and chaotic hypothesis?
ReplyDeleteThe human brain is definitely an evolutionary attractor. being apart of the old evolutionary
ReplyDeleteparadigm. I agree that the process of human brain evolution could be seen as a chaotic attractor - over the course of human evolution , brain size tripled suddenly! Chaos theory may help learn us how evolution has shaped suddenly the primate brain size and structure. Did the Universe evolve the human brain to become aware of itself?
Yes I agree the brain is an evolutionary attractor because any stable evolutionary state of a biological system (and other dynamical systems) in a dynamic environment must involve a dynamic excitation-inhibition balance, the brain as an evolutionary attractor can explain the emergence of the extremely sofisticated human brain.
ReplyDeletea dynamic excitation-inhibition balance is an extremely important issue and plays a mayor role in the dynamics of brain circuits. To understand this picture more clearly, go to cerebrart basket cell post within that cerebrart blog to see brain cortical oscillations as attractors.
DeleteChaotic time evolution can be described with a relatively small class of mathematical objects, each of them specifying an iteration procedure that, despite its deterministic nature, produces time evolutions which are really unpredictable. Chaotic brain circuits are the best or most extreme example of its kind. Nevertheless, there are other kinds of explanations of the brain as an evolutionary attractor.
ReplyDeleteAnother chaotic discussion blog. Those chaotic posts are hard for common visitors to understand effectively. But your pictures are intriguing because they are fantastic-realistic. Especially, the distortions in these cerebrart pictures are intriguing.
ReplyDeleteReally chaotic discussion. Is evolution chaotic or deterministic, that is the question. If evolution is chaotic then the chaos theory of evolution is reasonable. If evolution is deterministic, then the chaos theory of evolution is futile like shoveling chaotic sand into the deterministic sea.
DeleteChaotic evolution is a catch phrase, a buzz word, a fashionable paradigm. The chaos theory of the brain evolution is interesting but there is little evidence regarding the brain as a chaotic attractor over the course of evolution.
ReplyDelete