"Our mind is a hyperset"

The work of our brain, like many years ago , remains the biggest mystery in the field of science of man. Nevertheless , thanks to the efforts of scientists in recent decades , ideas about how our most important “library” is arranged, have changed quite much . Olga Orlova, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Konstantin Anokhin , shares his knowledge from the host of the Hamburg account on public television of Russia .

Konstantin Vladimirovich Anokhin was born in Moscow in 1957 . In 1980 he graduated from the medical faculty of the First Moscow Medical Institute . Sechenov. In 1984 he defended his thesis at the Research Institute of Normal Physiology . Anokhin. In 1992, a doct received a degree . honey. sciences for the dissertation "early genes in the mechanisms of training and memory."

Since the mid-1980s , it has been exploring the molecular, cellular and nervous mechanisms of memory, its formation, storage and extraction. In recent years, a study of the biological foundations of consciousness has been conducting . In 2002 , he was elected a member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, and in 2008 he became a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 2011, he has been led by the Neuronauk department at the Kurchatov Institute .

- You and your colleagues , speaking about the structure of the brain , as a rule , mean the place where information is stored . For example , you have repeatedly used the metaphor of the Babylonian library from the story of Borhees . And in such cases , people who are far from science are easy to understand that some kind of information in our body is formed in our body . But , on the other hand , we still think that our consciousness is connected with such things as the memory of feelings , in the end - the soul . What to do with this ? Such things are outside of science ?

- No, this is a mistake. Firstly, any metaphor has its own boundaries. This is always a way to explain something. This is not a model. A brain metaphor as a large telephone station does not mean that our brain is a large station. We want to understand the brain as a brain. The Babylonian library also carries some idea that needs to be explained. And the main idea of ​​this metaphor is the Babylonian library is endless, as Borges believed. Enthusiasts considered that it exceeds the visible universe for an incredible hyperastronomic number of degrees.

And our mind, our consciousness, our soul, if you want, has so many degrees of freedom, it can create so many worlds in itself that cannot be counted. It contains all the images that we saw every second, it can generate what we see is what these brain cells create. All the sunrises and sunsets, all the frames of the films that we have ever seen, all the melodies that we have ever heard, and, moreover, all the sunrises and sunsets that humanity will ever be can see, or all the films that it can ever see, all the books and poems that can ever read. This is infinity.

There is another side when you said about the memory of feelings that the Babylonian library (this can mislead) is a text. This is something that is stored. And our mind and consciousness are the first thing we can create in it as a kind of image, but the other side is what we remember. If I ask you: try to recall any of the sunsets that you saw in your life-you will probably remember somewhat, especially beautiful ones. In fact, you saw hundreds and thousands of sunsets. That is, not everyone remains in your memory. But what is created in this library, and what remains later is a small part in the form of texts is not only reference information. In your or my Babylonian library and the first kiss, and the birth of a child, and maybe the death of a loved one, and all the emotions and feelings that we experienced. Both Tristan and Isolde, and Romeo and Juliet - they are all in this Babylonian library.

- A little earlier you used the cut of the comma "Reason , consciousness , soul . " In the history of culture , in the history of the Islands, the mind and soul traditionally contrasted . And for the neurobi, the lus is through a comma , is it almost a sign of equal ?

- I think we will deal with this. What we call the mind is a certain structure that we have, and we carry and store it at any time, even when we are unconscious. For example, during deep sleep without dreams. Consciousness is a process in this structure. When it is active and something happens there, our mind is awake, we are conscious.

Soul, since this is a very ancient concept, it includes a lot in itself, but more complicated. When we say that the soul flies away during sleep and returns, like the ancient Greeks, at the time of awakening, we are probably talking about consciousness. On the other hand, the soul contains all our "I". It is difficult for us to imagine the concept of the soul without this internal content. I think that in fact the soul is that part of our mind, which is not just rational, it is emotional. This is all that is accumulated by our experience. And our subjective experience is the product of the work of nerve cells. I can say this in another way. There is no brain - there is no soul, there is no psyche. Our brain dies - the soul does not remain.

- It turns out that we are our brain ?

- It would be too simple. On the one hand, we are our brain. On the other hand, this is our brain, organized in a certain way. All this information of the Babylonian library should be recorded in it. She must somehow get there. These texts should arise.

Imagine that you have this library in which a huge number of letters and words, but which do not form meanings. Can you imagine the situation that there is a brain that does not contain a developed mind, intelligence, soul and feelings? It may well be tragic cases when children with intellectual underdevelopment are born. They are not developing. They have some makings that evolution gave, but without a large deep content. Then, just looking at the brain, you will not see this, according to today's concepts. You must understand what for the properties of the organization that arise in this brain.

Therefore, the thing that for the past few years seems very important to me to understand is how the brain should be organized, so that the mind will appear in it. Reason is a kind of superstructure over simply physical matter of the brain.

- And we understand at least some basic principles , how does a thought at the neurophysiological level give rise to , precisely at the cell level ?

- Yes, we understand. For me, super-producing is to create such a theory that will allow for a variety of types of nervous system-a person, monkeys-to explain how the whole system of reason appears on the basis of the work of nerve cells. I think this theory is quite simple. It should be simple and beautiful. She should explain how the mind appeared in evolution. Just as the eye was invented by evolution many times, apparently, the mind, intelligence was also invented very many times in a variety of taxa, which walked trees of evolution that did not meet with each other. One, for example, is in mollusks. And we know today that octopuses are in very developed intellect. The other is in birds. So, evolution, having some basic principles, invented the mind and, possibly, created it more than once.

The solution should be simple and beautiful. It should automatically derive from some fundamental principles of the properties that we know in relation to the mind. How does it arise? Where does the child who were born the same as many others have the same evolutionary experience, all the wealth of his individual experience appears? How do these new elements appear, how are they related to each other?

How does one thought attract others? Where are they all stored? How can we be capable of several hundred milliseconds from this huge library of thoughts, the content of our experience, feelings, emotions to pull the necessary for us? How is this search organized? What is this architecture?

I think that a simple answer, a short answer is as follows. Our brain is a huge network. It is very similar to a network of lights in a big city or an Internet network, a social network.

- 86 billion lights ?

- Yes, 86 billion lights. This is more than any city that we see and know. And they are interconnected. They still have wires. This is a physically connected network. But our mind does not automatically live on this network, it must appear there. And he appears as a hyperset. The keyword for understanding the mind, in my opinion, is a theory that would describe what the mind is also a network. This is a network in which elements of our subjective experience serve as elements. They can be different, they can be integral chanting.

- Is this a network over the network ?

- Yes, the network above the network. When you say that the network, you immediately have: the first-the network should have some nodes, units that should be somehow connected.

- The dynamics of the process should be .

- You can pull for one, find out what others are activated. When I tell you “Tom Cruise”, you will pull out the films that you saw, maybe the girls you were familiar with, episodes ... You can then remember when you watched these films, what happened to you, who you were at that time. This is a huge network ... But a network, pay attention, is not just nerve cells, this is your subjective experience. Each of the elements is the eyes of Tom Cruise, his hairstyle, his growth-these are some elements that you, as a whole, as a person correlated with the outside world in some contacts. How are nodes and connections formed in this network? The term "Hyperset" explains mathematically or geometrically how this happens. Hyperset is such a network, the knot of which is some set of nodes below the lying network. Each of these elements of our experience is many, many cells. But together they form something new. This pyramid has a peak. And the peak carries different properties than many, many elements. You have a tail, wool, color, ears - they form a dog together. And she means something for you. A thing that is very difficult to understand and explore is, firstly, where does the dog come from, and secondly, how the dog is connected with the cat, with you and so on, that is, how connections are formed in this hyperset.

This is difficult metaphorical, because if you imagine many, many scattered elements, like a dog according to your brain, then it is associated with other elements, a cat or your home, a master and so on-those connections that are associated with those elements. That is, in fact, there is a brain. Physically, there are only nerve cells that are associated with other nerve cells. But they have properties that this hyperset forms. And this hyperset is our "I". This is our Babylonian library in which the text is recorded. Please note that it is not easy to record. This is not a book that stands on one shelf. You cannot take out the dog from one place in our brain. You have the color of her wool stored in one place, her tail and paws are stored in another, her properties are stored in the third, her barking is stored in the fourth. These are many, many books, where something about the dog is written down in the most different parts of the library. They must get together to create this new quality. And the brain knows how to do it.

- Once my son , being in class Fifth , when he realized the process, once the sealing of human civilization and realized that in Russia there was an amazing explosion in Russia from the Trov times , and in the opposite direction a thousand , hundreds of thousands of years is slow development , he was so shocked that he burst into tears . I asked : why are you crying ? He said : why not evenly ?!​ This uneven development of our civilization is very difficult to realize . And if we talk about the evolution of the brain in the neurophysiological sense , how was it ?

- This is a question that neurobiologists and molecular biologists are very actively involved in today. We have non-whether the annals by which we can restore this process, we can compare ourselves with our relatively recent ancestors that these genomes have dispersed, know how the genes that are responsible for the development of the brain are encoded in these genomes, because they have specific expression and are needed so that our brain is formed during individual development. Then we can ask the question: how many changes occurred during the time when we parted, for example, from the chimpanzee, and where did they occur? And what arose in the brain due to this? That is, this is a study of the issue.

The draft answer that exists today: everything that was created at the stage of human civilization was created by the brain, the same as ours, i.e. For tens of thousands of years, we have the same brain. Everything that happens after that is cultural things.

- That is, our cultural , those novological , scientific breakthroughs with the evolution of our brain are not directly related ?

-If it turned out that during the development of human civilization, for example, in several thousand years, some things have passed into our biological inheritance and became part of the brain, which is now being created innate, then this would be the largest revolution in understanding the mechanism of biological evolution. So far, we know that biological evolution does not keep up with the pace of what arises due to cultural inheritance. At least today's science does not know any ways to inherit cultural things so quickly. These are always dozens and hundreds of thousands of years.

- Konstantin Vladimirovich , how do you explain the absolutely paralle of the Lelous Evolution of our Civili of the Pods and Man as a biological type ? Now , people began to describe themselves - from the first attempts to comprehend themselves on the level of non -casual drawings to the development of serious religious paintings . Then a new era sets in , when all these religious pictures of the world collapse and , in fact , the scientific knowledge begins , which ends with the fact that you are sitting here and talk about how our brain arranges . And at the same time you just said that in principle , all this was created by the brain that we already have . How to explain this ?

- What is the problem?

- Why was it all ?​

-But evolution does not have the second-hand “why?”. She always moves forward, as well as scientific knowledge. Remember how Goethe has in Faust: “What is the road? There is no road! Go to the unknown! " This is how the human brain and biological evolution lives.

- How do you feel about the religious experience of your colleagues , scientists - naturalists ? Some physicists who are engaged in the fundamental problems of the device are all - laid , they say that either you can take it as a physicist and you understand that everything is much more complicated , and then the re -the negio look and experience is simply impossible for you ...

-It always seemed to me and continues to seem that dividing into a non-bodily divine soul and the brain leads to the fact that a person who is engaged in the brain explores it for a long time, tries to understand (this is especially evident on many Western scientists, great neurophysiologists of the 20th century, who were Nobel laureates, made outstanding discoveries), and at the end of their path or even in the middle of the path, and even in the middle All these processes that I studied very well at the level of individual cells, signals between them, transmitters, etc., are related to the soul and how does the soul enter the brain? But in fact, from the very beginning, you should simultaneously explain the mind in the theory of the brain. In the Russian language - I recently discovered this for myself - there is a great opportunity to say that what we must understand is the world, the world in large letters is the brain and mind. You must understand what the brain is, what the mind is, we must understand the most difficult thing: “A and B are sitting on the pipe,” we must understand “and”. And this is described by the big letters "Peace".

By the way, many physicists do not accept the idea of ​​evolution, that is, they do not understand. The idea of ​​evolution is terribly complicated. This is the idea of ​​a watchmaker as one of the metaphors. If you find a stone, you hit and discard. If you find the clock, then you have the question: where did such a difficult thing come from and where is the watchmaker? If you do not have the idea of ​​evolution, that this is a watchmaker, which worked millions of years with billions of samples and errors, and it gathered gradually, then, of course, the whole world looks like a miracle.

- You noted that your grandfather Peter Kuzmich Anokhin had a good effect on your forming as a scientist .​ And his bio -bio , in turn , was also full of meetings with outstanding people : Pavlov , Ukhtomsky , Burdenko .​ He was familiar with Lunacharsky , Vish Nevsky ... From this brilliant shoulder poisons from the scientific biography of your grandfather with whom would you be interested to talk ?

-I would also call Bekhterev, by the time that my grandfather began to work with Bekhterev. I would ask half an hour of conversation with all of them before answering your question, if you need to choose one, and ask the same questions as you ask me. And by them I could determine with whom I am most interesting to continue this conversation. Because scientists want to talk to those who were before them, not only because they are wise people. They cherish the hope that maybe the great minds and personalities of previous generations knew the answers to a kind of riddle of the world, the secret that they are trying to reveal themselves, and that they would help them.

- And if on the contrary ? Your grandfather Schu the Lecture of the Nobel Laurea Lecture Tu Physiologist Pavlov . Do you now have any knowledge that could hit him ?​​​​

- Certainly! So much happened! Если бы мне захотелось сделать ему приятное и интересное, я рассказал бы о наших возможностях с условными рефлексами, которые его интересовали больше всего. А он говорил, что мы должны понять всю силу учения об условных рефлексах, если можем показать пальцем, где было возбуждение, куда оно перешло; он был сильным материалистом. Так вот, мы сегодня можем заставить условные рефлексы соединяться и устраиваться по нашему желанию, зная, как работают нервные клетки, и образуя искусственные условные рефлексы без внешних сочетаний. И это является, на мой взгляд, очень ярким воплощением его та-кого материалистического строго-го взгляда на то, как работает нервная система.

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