Lecture notes by Professor Tatiana Chernigovskaya

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

- The knowledge that the science of genetics and neurophysiology now has can be successfully applied in business, education, medicine, training elites, etc.

When each type of knowledge deals with only one narrow thing, it is absurd.

- Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel laureate in physics wrote in 1944 "What is life from the point of view of physics." Its main idea is that we should strive for a united all-encompassing knowledge. The concept of "university" stems from the idea of unification. When each type of knowledge deals with only one narrow thing, it is absurd. Science in this narrow version is over. When a bird flies over the ocean, it is whole, even if some study feathers, others - claws, the bird is still whole. Dividing a bird cannot be understood. As soon as we divide the calf into steaks, we lose the calf. The age of division and calculation is over, these kinds of narrow activities will be replaced by artificial intelligence. What no supercomputer can do is a discovery.

- We are in a multidisciplinary and convergent field (that is, when different knowledge penetrates into each other). We are not just "homo sapiens", we are "homo kogitus" and "homo lokvens" (that is, speaking beings). A person has many different languages: for example, mathematics (a special tool of thinking), body language (dance, sports), music (the most difficult and incomprehensible. These are just waves that hit the eardrum. That is, a purely physical action. Then all these waves come to the brain and become music. From the fact that the same waves hit the mosquito, they will not become music. Then the question arises, where is music? Is it in the Universe? Is it in our brain?).

- I often get a thought, although I do not have an answer and we do not have the data to answer it: “Why have we invested so much?” We have a huge amount of some kind of reserves in the brain. There is a lot of genetic material in genes that is not used. Although we may not know how to catch it. Perhaps they are dormant genes. Why have we been given so much?

- One of the best linguists on Earth, Noum Chomsky, takes a very tough position: "Language is not for communication." And for what? For thinking. Because the language is bad for communication. It is ambiguous and depends on a huge number of factors: who said, to whom he told, in what relationship they are, what they both read, they had a fight this morning or not. And even those who have been gone for a long time, but have their books, influence us today. The interpretation of these books depends on what I have said. If Swan Lake is shown on TV during the day, the older generation will get excited. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is completely innocent of this, swans, both black and white, both danced and dance, have nothing to do with what is happening. It turns out that the event acquires its own meanings, which have nothing to do with ballet. As Marina Tsvetaeva said: "The reader is a co-author." There are no separate pieces. The question arises. Where is the information in general: in the head, between people, does everyone have their own? That is, "homo lockvens" - he is "lockvens" bad. A good communication system is Morse code. That is why Chomsky says: language was not created for this, communication is a by-product. Language is made for thinking.

- The contribution of genetics is gigantic: what is the brain, what is language, how things are with ethnic groups. Ethnicity is a concrete thing, it pulls a gene along with it. Despite the political correctness, which the modern world now loves so much, the ethnos cannot be put anywhere. Today it is possible to research the gene down to the Sumerians. And this is very important information. Our diseases, our preferences for tastes, smells, type of thinking, psychophysiological type depend on this. Who is relative to whom, what languages are related to each other. Even 10 years ago, such information was not available.

If we are talking about the ability to be aware of their actions, to make informed decisions, then 99.9% are not people at all.

- Consciousness. It is believed that only humans have it. Again, how do we know. All the time I remember my deceased cat of unearthly beauty. He was silent all the time, looked with blue eyes and was silent. It follows that? Nothing. That he doesn't want to talk to me. Or is he a spontaneous Zen Buddhist? His life goes on. He didn't promise me anything at all. Not only he, but they all did not promise us anything. All these millions of different species that inhabit the planet, which are no worse than us. And maybe better, they, in any case, do not spoil it. What is consciousness? If we are talking about real reflection, that is, the ability to be aware of their actions, to make informed decisions, then 99.9% are not people at all. Most people do not suspect that you can look at yourself as if from the side, that maybe I'm wrong, maybe I made the wrong decision. In general, most people do not think about it … We do not know what consciousness is, and we should not fool people: "I found consciousness in such and such a lobe of the brain."

- One who does not know is not responsible for anything. Well, he doesn't know - and he doesn't know. But some part of society has information of different kinds. So they are responsible. We understand, given the possibilities of genetic analysis and gene manipulation, what can be arranged. Those who know, and will not control it in any way, means that they are scoundrels. This is how the "young chemist" kit is being sold now, imagine, the "young geneticist" kit is being sold: "Here's a complete kit for you, make a non-existent animal … by Wednesday." This cannot be allowed.

- And how can knowledge about the brain affect energy! The brain works with incredible efficiency. The best of brains at their best uses the energy of a 30-watt light bulb. 30 watt light bulb, who saw it? Is that in the refrigerator. Given that if it is done, which is difficult to imagine, the supercomputer is the same as the human brain, it will use the energy of the city for the same work. That is, if we knew how the brain copes with such tasks using such insignificant energy, everything would change for us.

Do we seriously believe that we will find the answer by chopping up the brain like cabbage with the help of a tomograph?

- When I am asked what my specialty is. This is linguistics, this is anthropology in a broad sense (both physical and cultural), this is neuroscience, artificial intelligence, of course, psychology and, of course, philosophy. The one that made us shiver when I studied at the university, because it seemed that it was idle chatter. Now I look at philosophy in a completely different way. Serious analytical epistemological philosophers are a necessary ingredient. Because people who have trained brains can ask the question correctly. We ask the wrong questions first, then we spend wild money on research, and then we get the results and misinterpret them. That is, the situation is absurd. You need to ask the question correctly! What are you looking for there ?! I remember when I started working with the brain institute, I came and said: "Let's see where the verbs are in the brain." The director of the Institute of the Brain looked at me longingly, he is a physicist, that is, a biologist for a long time, but initially a physicist, and says: "Are you seriously asking?" "Absolutely serious, I read books, articles." "Are you saying that you really think there are places in the brain that go into verbs, nouns, tables and chairs?" "Certainly! Here I have a bunch of articles from the world's best magazines! " Now I remember it as an anecdote. What are the verbs, what are you? How are you going to separate memory, moreover, different types of memory, associations that do not go on order … Therefore, when you pose a question, understand first, is the answer to this question possible? Now, looking from my bell tower, I will saythat this is the biggest problem in science in this area - the incorrectly posed questions. Hope to get global responses within one neuron or even part of that neuron. Do we seriously believe that we will find the answer by chopping up the brain like cabbage with the help of a tomograph? So what? And then what, what to do with it ?!

- Our entire evolution is a path from the simplest organisms to the most complex. And this is undoubtedly the human brain. And we owe it to him for all the achievements of human civilization, and he, moreover, is changing. It changes from any impact. We are beings who operate with sign systems. We live not only in the material world, but in the world of ideas, which is more important than chairs and beets. We live in the world of information, books. I can't stand Natasha Rostova! But she is not there and never was, that's what I'm getting at. Why am I so worried about Natasha Rostova when she is a collection of letters? She was not there, Natasha Rostova, why so much suffering ?! For us, people, the second reality, which is music, poetry, philosophy, no matter what rank - for us it has the same, if not great value. This is what distinguishes us from other living beings that inhabit this planet.

- Where did our language come from? Many people think that language is words. But as important as words are, so is what they are built of. What are these phonemes from which these words are derived? And also, what happens when these words start to combine with each other and form phrases, texts, books, etc.

- There are 49 regions in the gene that suddenly began to evolve very quickly. In general, I am amazed at the ability to develop at different rates. In the part of the genome that provides our main skills, the development there went 70 (!) Times faster than in others. When I read this, I thought it was a typo. I would say that the Creator was tired of all this, and he decided to twist this story.

- We were taught that acquired traits are not inherited. For example, if I have learned Japanese, it does not follow that my children and grandchildren will know Japanese. And the question still stands. For example, if I am very smart and start having children, then these children will be better than if I had given birth to them before I became so smart. We know that how a person lives can influence their genetics. This is both disturbing and positive news.

- You see what kind of books physicists write - "From Molecule to Metaphor". This is me about how far things have gone in convergence.

If we propose to pass the exam to the following people: Mozart, Beethoven, the idle poor student Pushkin, and also we take the chemist Mendeleev (two in chemistry, remember?), Einstein, Dirac, Schrödinger, etc. Here they will overwhelm everything.

- The conversations are going on in the following way: that, in the brain there are separate addresses for different things, the verbs of movement are here, the verbs of thinking are here, etc. Or, here the second is correct, is a network, a network of networks, a hypernetwork of hypernets, etc. All of these supercomputers are anecdote compared to what the human brain is. The question should not be where the fork or spoon is in the brain, not to look for addresses, but how it can function. And then we will be able to understand how society functions, what to do with medicine, how to rehabilitate patients after a stroke, how to arrange education. Is this how we teach children? For example, why should children teach binomial Newton? In all my life, I have never met Newton's binomial. If I meet, I'll stick my finger and say: “OK, Google” … There was no Internet before, but there were books. Why teach him? If they told me this - to train my memory, ok, that's it, I agree. But what better Shakespeare or Greek poetry? Why teach meaningless things? We pump up children with them. It is important for me to know in what year Napoleon married Josephine? No, it doesn't matter. It is important for me that a person understands what is happening on this planet. Everything else - Google already knows. I don't need people who know what Google knows professionally, because Google already exists. I need someone who comes up with an unusual thing. You know, discoveries are mistakes. If we propose to pass the exam to the following people: Mozart, Beethoven, the idle poor student Pushkin, and also we take the chemist Mendeleev (two in chemistry, remember?), Einstein, Dirac, Schrödinger, etc. Here they will overwhelm everything. We say: "Two for you, Niels Bohr." He will say: "Two, then two, but the Nobel Prize awaits me." And precisely for this "wrong" answer! So what do we want? Discoveries or an army of fools learned by binomial Newton? There is, of course, a major danger here. I know her. If everyone knows a little bit about everything, then there is a risk that we will start releasing amateurs. What to do with this, you need to think.

- About the right and left hemispheres. This has not been canceled, but there is no such rigid division. There are different artists, there are different mathematicians. Geometry is, of course, a right-brain thing. And the algorithms are left-brain. Do you know what Einstein said? I specifically take Einstein, and not the poet: "Intuition is a sacred gift!" This is what the physicist says. "And rational thinking is a humble servant." And about him, other people said: "Einstein was much more of an artist in his physics than in playing the violin." Creativity lies elsewhere - not in the type of specialty, not in the occupation, but in the type of thinking.

- (Answer to the question about the origin of man) I have no version of the origin of man. I admit all possible versions, including the act of Creation. I don't see any obstacles. When Gagarin flew around the Earth, he was asked: "Have you seen God?" "Well, there is no God, because Gagarin did not see him." How was He supposed to appear? He had to sit on a cloud, sculpt Eve? What was He supposed to do? It is not enough for you that everything does not fall apart into molecules, what else do you want? That this universe is functioning at all, do you need more miracles? And who launched evolution in general? The main thing is to turn it on, and then let it develop. Read Darwin, every third line contains the Creator with a capital letter. He has a theological education, hasn't anyone forgotten? Nowhere did Darwin write that man descended from a monkey, nowhere. And, of course, we all have common ancestors - we have no unrelated people on this planet.

- In general, there are no two people who think the same way. As Academician Shcherba said, why do you need to learn foreign languages. Not at all so that when you come to Paris you can say: "Give me a loaf." But because you thereby find yourself in another world: another language is another world. I have not met the Sumerians, I confess. Somehow they didn't come across to me on the street. Meanwhile, if you take and read the translation of the Sumerian text, then goosebumps run. These people are no longer there, this civilization is no longer at all, but you can imagine what this world looked like. Each language represents a different world.

- The brain has to work hard. The more the brain is busy with its own business, that is, it thinks hard, the better it is. Including, it changes physically. The quality of neurons is getting better, their structure is better, they are more powerful, better formed. To develop your brain, you need to read complex books. The harder the better. Everyone has their own difficulty level. If an old woman sits on a bench and solves a crossword puzzle, and this is difficult work for her, let him decide.

- And finally, the answer to the question: "Do you know what coaching is?" "Yes, I know, there are even acquaintances." "Is there any benefit from it?" "I think yes. Although I don't like the word."

Good interview with Chernigovskaya.