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Conferences with Internet Web-Casting As Binding ConferenceswithInternetWeb-CastingasBindingEventsina GlobalBrain:ExampleDataFromComplexityDigest A. Das, C.Gershenson, Dept.ofMathematics CenterLeoApostel,VrijeUniv.Brussel,Belgium JadavpurUniv.,India [email protected] [email protected] G.Mayer-Kress, P.Das Dept.ofKinesiology Dept.ofMathematics PennStateUniv.,PA JadavpurUniv.,India [email protected] [email protected] Abstract ThereislikenessoftheInternettohumanbrainswhich strength of connection. These synaptic weights are has led to the metaphor of the world-wide computer continuouslymodifiedbyourphysicalandpsychological networkasa`GlobalBrain'.Weconsiderconferencesas activities[1]. 'bindingevents'intheGlobalBrainthatcanleadtometa- cognitivestructuresonaglobalscale.Oneofthecritical 1.2 Globalbrain factors for that phenomenon to happen (similar to the biologicalbrain)arethetime-scalescharacteristicforthe ThereislikenessoftheInternettohumanbrains.For information exchange. In an electronic newsletter- the example, the organization of information on the world Complexity Digest (ComDig) we include webcasting of wideweb(WWW)withhypertextlinkscloselyresembles audio (mp3) and video (asf) files from international theassociativeconnectionsformedbyneuronsinthebrain conferences in the weekly ComDig issues. Here we [2,3,4]. The Internet network encompasses the entire presentthetimevariationoftheweeklyrateofaccessesto globe,holdingthepossibilityforlinkingallhumanswitha theconferencefiles.Fromthoseempiricaldataitappears means of virtually instant interaction. The Internet has a that the characteristic time-scales related to access of decentralized, self-organizing nature, where information web-castingfilesisoftheorderofafewweeks.Thisisat willtravelthroughwhateverrouteavailable. least an order of magnitude shorter than the Particularly, the web is the hypermedia interface to the characteristic time-scales of peer reviewed publications information on the Internet allowing hyperlinks to other and conference proceedings. We predict that this documents.Thus,thewebmakesitpossibletoseamlessly observationwillhaveprofoundimplicationsonthenature integrate documents that are distributed over the entire of future conference proceedings, presumably in planet. In that respect, this hypermedia architecture is electronicform. similar to the one of our brain, where concepts are connected by associations, and the corresponding 1.Introduction assembliesofneuronsbysynapses. 1.1 Brain Moreover,thedifferent'nodes'ofthedigitalnetwork -controlledbycomputersallowsophisticatedprocessing of the collected data, reinforcing the similarity between Neuronsarethebuildingblocksofbrain.Oftheorder thenetworkandthebrain.Thishasledtothemetaphorof of ten billion neurons and their interconnections in our theworld-widecomputernetworkasa`globalbrain'[2]. brain make human neural networks one of the most The parallels between biological brains and the global complexnetworks.Realneuronsalsoexhibitmultipleand Internet have been discussed in some details in the oftenmultistepprocesses.Oneneuronacceptstheoutput literature[2andreferencestherein]. of other neuron(s) as input - synaptic weights at the junctionofthecommunicatingneuronsdeterminethe 1.3 Bindingproblem global audience. For conferences our goal is to make digitalrecordingsoftheeventavailableontheInternetin Onecentralquestionincognitiveneuralscienceisthe timescalesoflessthanoneweek. binding problem. In general, binding involves grouping features into objects, that is, "binding" refers to the 1.5 TimeScales associationofinformationforsomeperceptualunitysuch as in the visual system. This is a crucial issue in the CharacteristicTimeScalesRelatedtoaGlobalBrain learning process in the human brain. Researchers know arethefollowing[8,9]: that information about what an object looks like and Synchronous(talk,video-conference):~300ms wheretheobjectisarestoredintwoseparatesectionsof (“Instantaneous”) the brain and analyzed in separate parts of the visual InformationRetrieval:min(Library) system. The question is where and how does this Attention:hour(Lecture) informationcometogether?Thisproblemisbetterknown Asynchronous(e-mail):day(“Sleepoverit”) asthe'bindingproblem'[5].Inexperimentswithmonkeys Publication:week,month(PeerReview) [6],itwasfoundthat"neuronsintheprefrontalcortexhad Half-Life of Collective Activity (active use/update of activity that exquisitely represented and integrated both website),year 'what'and'where.'Thisprovidesafirstclueonhowthis information,andperhapsevenmorediverseinformation, 1.6 Aimofthispaper comes together in the brain. While early results seem to flag the prefrontal cortex as a prime binding location, it We will present the analysis of real-world data to also is possible that the information could be coming show what we have already achieved in this regard and togetherelsewhereinthebrainfirst. estimate the binding factor. We shall see that the time scale of the binding factor in the global brain is of the 1.4 Roleofconferences orderoffewweeks. The formation of cell-assemblies in the biological 2. Data brain is believed to be associated with cognitive events and feature binding in perception and learning. In the The Complexity Digest (ComDig) is an edited context of a global brain we interpret gatherings of electronicnewsletterinthefieldofcomplexity;issuesare intelligent agents with the objective to communicate published on weekly basis since 1999. The mirrored intensivelyonacommontopicasananalogousevent[7]. URLs are at www.comdig.org , www.comdig.de and Weknowfrombiologicalbrainsthattheformationofcell http://www.phil.pku.edu.cn/resguide/comdig/ assembliesalsoisaccompaniedbygammaband("40Hz"), Keeping with the scope of greater global access to synchronized electrical activity of participating neurons. information over the Internet, we report International Therebycharacteristictime-scalesofbiologicalbrainsare conferences/Seminarsinvideo/audioformats.Thesefiles, established.Weknowthatinhumancommunicationthere aswellastheissuesofComDigarefreeofchargethanks exist similar "universal" time-scales that facilitate togenerousprivatesupport.Inordertoanalyzethenature constructive interaction and the emergence of collective, of access to the posted conference files, we collected self-organizedbehavior.Oneoftheshortesttime-scalesis relateddatafromourserverfor10months(Mar.2002to that of synchronous interaction (e.g. 300ms in Feb.2003).Thewebstatisticsisgroupedonthebasisof conversation) but other time-scales determined by access for six days after the date of publication of an biological factors can be of similar importance. Current issue. Here “access” is defined by the analysis software, mega-conferenceswiththeorderof10^4participantspush provided by the Internet service provider. Data contains the limits of the concept of "face-to-face" interactions totalnumberofaccessesduringanyweek,file-wiseaccess amongparticipants.Atthesametimewecurrentlywitness numbers,etc. theadventofmodernelectroniccommunicationtoolsthat couldpushtheenvelopeofmeaningfulinteractionsinbig 3. Analysis conferencesallthewaytoscalesrelevanttoglobalbrain dimensions(10^10).Weconsiderconferencesas'binding Fig. 1 shows the total number of accesses to events'intheGlobalBrainthatcanleadtometa-cognitive www.comdig2.de during the observation period structuresonaglobalscale.Oneofthecriticalfactorsfor mentioned above. www.comdig2.de is the site that hosts that phenomenon to happen (similar to the biological ComDigconferencewebcasts.Thustheaccessfiguresdo brain)arethetime-scalesandefficiencyoftheinformation notreflectthereadershipofthenewsletteritself. exchange among the on-site presenters and local and FromFig.2itisevidentthatforsomeconference(those showninFig.2b)accessestotheconferencemediafiles decaystolessthan50%ofthemaximumratealreadyafter oneweek.Theasymptoticrateoflessthan10%isreached afteraboutfiveweeks.Notethatforanyconference,we have plotted percent values of maximum accesses recorded. 4.NatureofAccess Fig. 3 shows the actual accesses per week for the Alife8conference.Wecanclearlyseethattheasymptotic rateisreachedtwoweeksaftertheconference. Figure1.Overallnumberofaccessesperweekto www.comdig2.depages.Notethatthisisnotone oftheofficialarchivesitesofComDig. Figure3.AccessesperweekforALife8files In Fig. 4, we are showing axonal pulse train of a single neuron or a small group of neurons, yielding a post- stimulushistogram(PSTH)time-smoothedbydrawinga curve-asgiveninFig.4.SmalltrianglesshowPSTHofa groupofmutuallyexcitatoryneuronsintheolfactorybulb foranexcitedstimulus(blackdot). Figure 2a (above) & 2b(below). Showingsharpfall in number of accesses per week. Inset: curve type- conference name (difference between last day of Figure 4. Axonal pulse train of neuron(s). Original conference&thedaypostedinComDig) Fig.byFreeman[1]andreproducedwithpermission. Comparison of Figs. 3 & 4 shows again that there is 7.References likeliness to the actual brain and global brain metaphor. AlsoestimationfromFig.4showsthatconferencesserve [1] W. J. Freeman, "Tutorial On Neurobiology: From asbindingfactortotheglobalbrainwithtimesscalesof Single Neurons To Brain Chaos", Int. J. of Bifur. & fewweeks. Chaos, vol. 2, no 3, World Science, Singapore, 1992, pp.451-482. 5.Differenttypesofmediafiles [2]G.Mayer-Kress,andC.Barczys,"TheGlobalBrain We posted both video and audio formats of some AsAnEmergentStructureFromTheWorldwide presentationsandwillliketocomparetheaccessofthese ComputingNetwork,AndItsImplicationsForModeling", files. The files are in video (.asf) and audio (.mp3) TheInformationSociety,vol.11,no1,Jan-Mar1995,
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