The human brain sees the world as an 11-dimensional multiverse

New research suggests that the human brain is almost beyond comprehension because it doesn’t process the world in two dimensions or even three. No, the human brain understands the visual world in up to 11 different dimensions. The astonishing discovery helps explain why even cutting-edge technologies like functional MRIs have such a hard time explaining what is going on inside our noggins. In a functional MRI, brain activity is monitored and represented as a three-dimensional image that changes over time. However, if the brain is actually working in 11 dimensions, looking at a 3D functional MRI and saying that it explains brain activity would be like looking at the shadow of a head of a pin and saying that it explains the entire universe, plus a multitude of other dimensions.

What Hess and her colleagues found was that the brain processes visual information by creating multi-dimensional neurological structures, called cliques, which disintegrate the instant they are understood, according to Newsweek who first reported on the research that was published in the journal Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. The cliques have up to 11 different dimensions and form in holes of space, called cavities. Once the brain understands the visual information, both the clique and cavity disappear.

The brain, IMO, is the most astounding thing that exists. It's pretty crazy to imagine the capabilities the brain has.

“The appearance of high-dimensional cavities when the brain is processing information means that the neurons in the network react to stimuli in an extremely organized manner,” said researcher Ran Levi. “It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building then razing a tower of multi-dimensional blocks, starting with rods (1D), then planks (2D), then cubes (3D), and then more complex geometries with 4D, 5D, etc. The progression of activity through the brain resembles a multi-dimensional sandcastle that materializes out of the sand and then disintegrates,”

There is also a short video on this matter called Project Blue Brain (no commentary, just visual representations)

Henry Markram, director of Blue Brain Project, explained just how momentous a discovery the multi-dimensional structures could be. “The mathematics usually applied to study networks cannot detect the high-dimensional structures and spaces that we now see clearly,” he said. “We found a world that we had never imagined. There are tens of millions of these objects even in a small speck of the brain, up through seven dimensions. In some networks, we even found structures with up to 11 dimensions.”

Do you think the brain will ever be fully understood? I personally think the Brain is like the Universe, vast and endless.

Source

a reply to: slapjacks
Great find, absolutely fascinating

One day we will fully understand the brain. I mean they say we don't fully use our brain as it is, like some low percentage. Some drugs appears to either break into our brain and release some of that potential. Like the movie Limitless. Or could it be something like the movie Lucy. Who knows...but I'm sure the brain has great power.

I also feel that with more AI technology we develop the weaker our brain becomes. Hell I used to be great at simple mathematics. Just like 5-7 years ago I could simply add 2 fairly large numbers in my head without the use of a calculator. Not so much anymore. My spelling used to be good too, now simple words tend to give me fits at times.

a reply to: slapjacks

My brain is tired, maybe this "11-dimensional analysis" is too much. Headaches galore - thanks for sharing. Fascinating theory, no doubt about it!

Here is a link to the Blue Brain Project...

bluebrain.epfl.ch...

How do you perceive/measure 4 dimensional and 5 dimensional occurrences?

Nice!

Algebraic topology contains a sub topic called "cohomology" which applies to "machine learning" (or "AI" if you like). Some artificial neural networks (ANN) are sufficiently complex that their creators do not know how they work. Like discovering that the maths describing how the mind works has multiple inputs ("dimension") to complete a task actually mirrors machine learning! I suppose it should come as no surprise there is a link between man and machine in math.

It is also nice to see that the mind is sufficiently complex enough that you can push that "Singularity" back a few more years. If ANN are fixed connections then cliques can't just magically appear so that human-computer marriage cannot happen.

Heady stuff to think about. There are thought and memories bubbling in little social clubs in my head to perform a "flash mob" only to sink back to whatever subway they were on before!

Two (probably dumb) questions:

(1) what is the mulitiverse connection here? Multi-dimensions is different than multiverse, right? Couldn't 11 dimensions all be part dimensions of this universe?

(2) what purpose would it serve for our brains to function on 11 dimensions? If we don't perceive or knowingly interact with our world that way, what would be the evolutionary advantage? Why would that even exist?

Thanks for posting this... very interesting even though it is clearly over my head.

a reply to: and14263

Topology just counts the number of inputs in-out. That is just a number which is referred to as a "dimension" of an equation.

Looks like the brain needs more help performing some tasks than others. Hence more dimensions.

It is a different use of the term (kind of not as well but I will leave that alone for the time being!).

PDFs...

bluebrain.epfl.ch...

www.pitt.edu...


Wikipedia......

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: VegHead


Precognition would be an enormous advantage to survival in the wild.

A point would be that live evolved beyond socialization beyond Pheromones which, insects use to communicate.

We are beyond that.


Any thoughts?

originally posted by: and14263
How do you perceive/measure 4 dimensional and 5 dimensional occurrences?

I am not convinced there are such dimensions extant to even measure.

Their claim of "up to 7 or even 11" dimensions is not substantiated or proven or even explained in any satisfactory manner.

For the last decade or so I've noticed that tons of "research groups" will make really shocking claims in a very creative language so as to gain attention from people, make headlines, and justify continued funding $$$ so they can keep their jobs going on into the foreseeable future.

Their description of the mental sandbox is interesting, but the invocation of all of these 'extra' dimensions is truly absurd. There is no good explanations.

What does it even mean anyways? What does M-Theory and Superstrings have to do with this? In what ways? Exactly how did they determine this scientifically? Why does 3d fail to explain what 11d satisfactorily explains?

It just looks like gibberish to me. I think it's bogus and they are utilizing exaggeration and sensationalism.

a reply to: VegHead

Topology is really the mathematics of connectivity in some sense,” she says. “It’s particularly good at taking local information and integrating it to see what global structures emerge.”

For the last two years she’s been converting Blue Brain’s virtual network of connected neurons and translating them into geometric shapes that can then be analyzed systematically. Two connected neurons look like a line segment. Three look like a flat, filled-in triangle. Four look like a solid pyramid. More connections are represented by higher dimensional shapes—and while our brains can’t imagine them, mathematics can describe them.

wired.com - The Mind-Boggling Math That (Maybe) Mapped the Brain in 11 Dimensions.

That is from the mathematician who took the raw data and applied algebraic topology to it. I hope that makes a little more sense.

I think the NY Post got the idea of physical dimensions and applied it to pure math; the research did not state it was correlated.

This wiki on Dimensions will melt your brain.
Have fun.

a reply to: Kashai

I agree that precognition would be a huge survival advantage... but I don't understand how this study would be tied to precognition.

I feel like the headline is really misleading. Like I don't think they mean 11 spatial dimensions like regular people like me assume... it sounds more mathematical. And the multiverse connection I don't see anywhere in what I'm reading... other than this multi dimensional is similar to a multiverse concept??

Hawkeye - I'm getting dumber with age too. You aren't alone. this might have made sense to me when I was 20.

a reply to: muzzleflash

The Wired article states the paper is nearly self-published so you're on the money about the research money.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
Thanks - sorry I didn't see this before. Glad you are able to wade through this and help us out.

a reply to: muzzleflash

Abstract

Particle physics always has been in a need for extra dimensions to explain subatomic phenomena in our space-time continuum.

Three spatial dimensions we see and the time we feel are not enough to elucidate sizes, masses and other properties of elementary particles. Generally speaking, there are too many particle flavors for just 4 dimensions we know.
How many dimensions does our continuum have?

The explanation below is intended to prove that there are 11 dimensions in our space-time.

www.vmig-ip.com...

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I think it's natural to be confused by what they are claiming because it's not making much sense in context of everything else.

For example (linking from the wiki on Dimensions I cited above):

They cited 11 dimensions. This seems to be referencing M-Theory.

In physics, three dimensions of space and one of time is the accepted norm. However, there are theories that attempt to unify the four fundamental forces by introducing extra dimensions. Most notably, superstring theory requires 10 spacetime dimensions, and originates from a more fundamental 11-dimensional theory tentatively called M-theory which subsumes five previously distinct superstring theories. To date, no experimental or observational evidence is available to confirm the existence of these extra dimensions. If extra dimensions exist, they must be hidden from us by some physical mechanism. One well-studied possibility is that the extra dimensions may be "curled up" at such tiny scales as to be effectively invisible to current experiments. Limits on the size and other properties of extra dimensions are set by particle experiments[clarification needed] such as those at the Large Hadron Collider.

But ok they are referencing topology;

In mathematics, topology (from the Greek τόπος, place, and λόγος, study) is concerned with the properties of space that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, crumpling and bending, but not tearing or gluing.

Here is a bit about Manifolds:

In geometric topology, the theory of manifolds is characterized by the way dimensions 1 and 2 are relatively elementary, the high-dimensional cases n > 4 are simplified by having extra space in which to "work"; and the cases n = 3 and 4 are in some senses the most difficult. This state of affairs was highly marked in the various cases of the Poincaré conjecture, where four different proof methods are applied.

Here is a link to Lebesgue covering dimension

The first formal definition of covering dimension was given by Eduard Čech, based on an earlier result of Henri Lebesgue.[1] A modern definition is as follows.

An open cover of a topological space X is a family of open sets whose union contains X. The ply or order of a cover is the smallest number n (if it exists) such that each point of the space belongs to at most n sets in the cover. A refinement of a cover C is another cover, each of whose sets is a subset of a set in C; its ply may be smaller than, or possibly larger than, the ply of C. The covering dimension of a topological space X is defined to be the minimum value of n, such that every open cover C of X has an open refinement with ply n + 1 or below. If no such minimal n exists, the space is said to be of infinite covering dimension.

As a special case, a topological space is zero-dimensional with respect to the covering dimension if every open cover of the space has a refinement consisting of disjoint open sets so that any point in the space is contained in exactly one open set of this refinement.

And of course I have to link this because it relates and it's a wacky coincidence:D-Branes and Brane

In string theory and related theories such as supergravity theories, a brane is a physical object that generalizes the notion of a point particle to higher dimensions. Branes are dynamical objects which can propagate through spacetime according to the rules of quantum mechanics. They have mass and can have other attributes such as charge.

It's a discussion on extra dimensions in the brain, so why not talk about branes?

originally posted by: VegHead
a reply to: Kashai

I agree that precognition would be a huge survival advantage... but I don't understand how this study would be tied to precognition.

I feel like the headline is really misleading. Like I don't think they mean 11 spatial dimensions like regular people like me assume... it sounds more mathematical. And the multiverse connection I don't see anywhere in what I'm reading... other than this multi dimensional is similar to a multiverse concept??

Hawkeye - I'm getting dumber with age too. You aren't alone.

this might have made sense to me when I was 20.

Given the ability to have such a precognitive experience, presents that experience can be the result of a sensory experience beyond the common.

Gravity feels strongest where spacetime is most curved, and it vanishes where spacetime is flat. This is the core of Einstein's theory of general relativity, which is often summed up in words as follows: "matter tells space-time how to curve, and curved space-time tells matter how to move".

einstein.stanford.edu...

Wikipedia..

einstein.stanford.edu...

What curves space-time is mass...

The space time doesn't curve into any other space. Curved space implies that the "distance function" is not the same as in euclidean space. It is true that to represent these curved space in terms of Euclidean distance function you would need extra dimensions.

For example let us consider the case of a uniformly curved two dimensional space with positive radius of curvature. This can be represented as the surface of a sphere of a given radius. But can you feel the third dimension if you were living on it? No, the third dimension doesn't exist for an organism living on the sphere, but it can use it to better understand it's own world.

That is not the only possible representation. As mentioned in one of the Feynman lecture books, the space can also be taken as a plane space with varying "temperature" and that each "scale" which we use for measurement has the same coefficient of expansion. The variation of temperature can then decide the distance function.

Note- The distance function here refers to the characterizing function of the space which takes in two points in the space and returns a scalar which we take to be the distance between the two points.

www.quora.com...


So an issue would then be the extent that consciousness is able to access what is fundamental to matter.