The brain stores any information or why avoid destructive? - Professor Chernigovskaya

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

Why communication is not the main task of the language, is it dangerous for the brain to delay work until the deadline, and why is the phrase that nerve cells not regenerating is hopelessly outdated? Tatiana Chernigovskaya, a professor at St. Petersburg State University, Doctor of Philology and Biology, a person and ambassador of modern science in St. Petersburg, spoke about this.

Is what surrounds us a product of our brain?

Unfortunately for me, the brain is now fashionable, people far from science have become interested in its functions. I think it has to do with the fact that we want to know who we are. Nothing more complicated than the brain, we can not even imagine. For several years now I have been under the impression of the phrase of Academician Vladislav Lektorsky "The brain is in the world, and the world is in the brain." What reason do you have for believing that everything you see is not a product of your brain? For a person with hallucinations, his vision is the same reality, it is impossible to prove to him that they do not exist. Lektorsky's phrase is dangerous - it is not clear how we can get out. So it's better not to talk about it at night.

Are people the kings of the planet?

We believe that we are the kings of nature, the best on Earth and will remain so. But we do not live long on the planet, for example, compared to dolphins and their incredible brains, which are even more complex than ours. They appeared 60 million years ago, and we are 250,000, which is not even a millisecond on the evolutionary scale, so there is nothing to be proud of. Not to mention the fact that no one claimed that this was the end of evolution. It is unclear exactly where we will move, whether it will be cyborgs, which is very likely, or a biological creature - and then it is obvious that the brain will develop. Not ears.

Are we born or become human?

In 1970, the film "Wild Child" by the genius director François Truffaut was released. The plot is based on a real case: a boy of 8-10 years old appeared, he looked like a person, but was not fully human - we call such people Mowgli, meaning that they were formed outside of society and language. The main question of the picture is "Are we born or become human?" That is, you need to work for this or is this status given by birth? I will not retell the film, but the story did not end with anything good - we are so arranged that certain processes must take place in due time. This applies to language and other higher functions.

Several years ago I was in the program "School of Scandal" with two snakes - Tatiana Tolstaya and Dunya Smirnova. The second quickly went silent, and the fighting Tatyana Nikitichna said a very clever thing: “Let's compare the gene with a coffee maker, it’s already yours and is in the kitchen. But for it to work, you need to: a) pour water; b) put coffee; c) press the button; otherwise nothing will happen. " She hit the nail on the head: if the genes are bad, nothing can be done - no luck so no luck. But if you were born and everything is all right with you, that's not all, you need to get into the social and linguistic environment in time and only thanks to this you become a human being. What is "on time"? This, of course, is a vague concept - it is better if this happens before three years, but it is necessary - before six. There are two players: genes and experience, which will or will not give innate abilities to be realized. You can be born a Mozart, but never become one.

Genetic mechanism common to all people

Now there are about 6,000 languages on Earth, they are very different from each other in structure, but they are united by a common genetic mechanism that allows any healthy child to master their native language. His brain has to do a tremendous job, decipher the most complex code. A child gets into a language environment and has to decode it, the brain writes a textbook for itself - and we would give a lot to see how this actually happens. If we succeeded, upbringing and education would change. All the efforts of the cognitive sciences so far are all about understanding how this works, because everything else depends on it. Whoever wins this brain game will get it all - but I don't think that's possible.

Is there a gene for memory?

A person has a huge number of genes that work on the brain, it is he who is the result of all evolution. There are a lot of stupid books and speculations on this topic: people are looking for a gene for memory, thinking, but this is all moor, everyone who has at least primary education understands that such complex things cannot be associated with just one gene.

How did consciousness come about?

We know that there are 49 areas in the brain where, for some reason, evolution has accelerated dramatically - changes were 70 times more active. For what reason - it is not known, you can, of course, start telling tales about aliens or the Creator, who is tired of looking at all this burden, and he decided to correct the situation. But the fact remains: our main areas, that is, the frontal and frontal regions, which are responsible for complex thinking and language, began to develop rapidly. Again, I'll ask a stupid question: why did the universe need us? She's all right, electrons and planets know how to spin. Why did nature need a creature who would learn its laws? We have not done anything good, we have ruined a lot and we continue to do so. And why did we begin to realize ourselves as a person? Perhaps the system develops and becomes more complicated up to a certain threshold, at which consciousness automatically appears. And if this is so, then we have no reason to believe that the artificial intelligence, which we play so recklessly, will not have it.

The brain stores all the information that it passed, smelled, tasted, drank, and so on, all this lies in your head

Why does the brain remember absolutely everything?

Each of us is born with our own neural network, moreover, young children have more neurons than adults, because they disappear as unnecessary. Further, the text of our life is written on this neural network. When the moment of meeting with the Creator comes, each text will be presented, and everything will be visible there: what he ate, drank, with whom he communicated. If there is no Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, then the brain stores all the information that it passed by, smelled, tasted, drank, and so on, everything is there. If you do not remember this, it does not mean that it is not in the brain. There are many ways to prove this, the simplest of which is hypnosis. Therefore, I constantly say: you cannot read stupid books, communicate with idiots, listen to bad music, eat poor-quality food, watch incompetent films. If we sleep and eat a shawarma on the street, it will be possible to remove it from the stomach, but from the head - never, what has fallen is gone.

Why is the tongue a salvation?

The human language is a salvation for us, for every nanosecond there is a wild amount of information from everywhere: sight, hearing, tactility, taste, smell, it is a continuous stream. Language is one of the tools for countering this nightmare chaos, because it gives us the ability to put it all in boxes. It is he who organizes the classes and concepts. 99% of people believe that language is communication, but it seems that this is not its main task. The world's largest linguist Noam Chomsky is sure that language was created not for communication, but for thinking, and communication is already a by-product. For communication, it is important that exactly what is transmitted is received, therefore, its ideal version is Morse code. The language is incredibly polysemous, in it the same words have opposite meanings depending on the listener. This means that it is bad for communication.

Where is memory located in the brain?

Human language is not structured like other types of communication on Earth: it is hierarchical, consists of the smallest elements - phonemes, which add up to syllables, morphemes, words, and so on. The sciences that I do are trying to understand this structure. For example, what reason do I have for believing there are nouns and verbs? At the same time, when working with patients, I see that one part of them has forgotten the verbs, and the other - the nouns. This proves that different zones are doing this. At the same time, each part of the brain performs its task, but it always works as a whole. The memory in it is everywhere. Talking about the fact that we use 5% or 10% is empty. This is a huge neural network, it is not localized anywhere and is dynamic. The same thing cannot be remembered twice, because the second time you are repeating the last process of remembering. This file has already been overwritten and will do it again.

The same thing cannot be remembered twice, because the second time you are playing the last remembering process.

Are heavy loads dangerous for the brain?

As part of one of the projects, we looked at what happens in the brain during intense work, when it must perform various tasks at high speed. We realized that he goes into a terrible state, when the worse the better - moderate doses of stress are good for him. We all fight the scary beast by a deadline. When I have the last hours left, I mobilize and do everything. But if it could be done in such a short time, why didn't I do it the day before yesterday? Why was this nuclear war necessary? But, it means that I personally (and these are individual things) need to be properly pressed. This is not the case for everyone, of course - but you need to get to know yourself.

Nerve cells - are restored

Some people still say that nerve cells do not regenerate, but this is not true. It all depends on whether you force your brain to work constantly - it must be difficult for you on a regular basis. If you do not give the muscles a load, they atrophy, and the same with the brain. He should not relax, otherwise there will be trouble. If you do strenuous intellectual work, you can push Alzheimer's for years. It all depends on you: learning changes the brain physically, the density of the neural network increases, its quality improves, dendrites and axons grow. People ask me: "Does coffee affect the brain?" Of course, yes - coffee, green tea, whiskey, absolutely everything influences.