The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces

[Strange]

Good article about research on how the brain manages location and how the same mechanism seems to be used for conceptual spaces: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-brain-maps-out-ideas-and-memories-like-spaces-20190114/

Quote

Emerging evidence suggests that the brain encodes abstract knowledge in the same way that it represents positions in space, which hints at a more universal theory of cognition

Interesting that in mathematics we also have a more abstract concept of "space" that seems to map on to this. Another argument for the "mathematics is invented, not discovered" side?

 

[Ghideon]

I wonder if it is connected to the concept of spatial synesthesia? Can someone who visualize, for instance, numerical sequences in physical space be seeing/experiencing* some aspect of how the brain stores/encodes* the information?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4214186/

 

*) I don't know the correct terms in this context. 

[Prometheus]

Had a chance of doing a masters project in this lab. Chose another one as i know nothing about neuroscience.

[Raider5678]

39 minutes ago, Strange said:

Interesting that in mathematics we also have a more abstract concept of "space" that seems to map on to this. Another argument for the "mathematics is invented, not discovered" side?

 

Perhaps.

 

Though on a personal note, it gives programmers somewhere to look for when trying to program AI with abstract knowledge.