How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed

by Ray Kurzweil

Whereas the Markram study shows a module of neurons that repeats itself across the neocortex, the Wedeen study demonstrates a remarkably orderly pattern of connections between modules. The brain starts out with a very large number of “connections-in-waiting” to which the pattern recognition modules can hook up. Thus if a given module wishes to connect to another, it does not need to grow an axon from one and a dendrite from the other to span the entire physical distance between them. It can simply harness one of these axonal connections-in-waiting and just hook up to the ends of the fiber. As Wedeen and his colleagues write, “The pathways of the brain follow a base-plan established by…early embryogenesis. Thus, the pathways of the mature brain present an image of these three primordial gradients, physically deformed by development.” In other words, as we learn and have experiences, the pattern recognition modules of the neocortex are connecting to these preestablished connections that were created when we were embryos.