Could One Physics Theory Unlock the Mysteries of the Brain?

[@QuantaScienceChannel]

If you're interested in learning more about the critical brain hypothesis, read our Quantized column by John M. Beggs, a professor of physics and neuroscience at Indiana University who is a leader in this field: www.quantamagazine.org/a-physical-theory-for-when-the-brain-performs-best-20230131/

[@leif1075]

We don't knownfor sure thst between cool hot it will necessarily pas through the perfect order phase right? Why would Why would? It could just sudde ly change from orderly to disorderly suddenly or chaotically without passing through that sweet spot..

[@jinchoung]

I don't understand - isn't the brain OBVIOUSLY operating in terms of criticality? the nature of the ACTION POTENTIAL seems like it's a poster child for it. no?

[@TOROislame]

its gotta be frequencies that tune the brain lol

[@StopFear]

Quanta Magazine, you are spreading pseudoscience.

[@9EJDI]

It would be interesting to see if the root cause of depression has its foundation this concept. Could depression be a result of dysfunction in the underlying mechanisms keeping different neural networks near the critical point?

[@rickst3r]

I love the fact that brains are trying so hard to understand themselves

[@ncedwards1234]

To be safe we feel the need to understand our environment. Realizing how profound an effect we have on our environment, it follows that to be safe we must know ourselves. We NEED to know. The drive of curiosity for me has frequently led to missed sleep and skipped meals. If we categorize it as safety, then under Maslow's hierarchy of needs, curiosity is sufficient for all the ambition we see. Though, this is just the comment of a brain speculating on its own unconscious motives. I can't be certain even if it fits the puzzle.

[@rickst3r]

@@ncedwards1234 just brains trying to understand brains, wild.

[@GeoMeridium]

I love the fact that brains love the fact that brains are trying so hard to understand themselves.

[@vsachy6005]

Lol that was naive

[@dazedmaestro1223]

Ehhhh, no.

[@jordanfarr3157]

Quanta is so good it hurts dude. This is that just-technical-enough layer for scientists to peer into each other's realms, and it is just shockingly beautiful.

[@mikemondano3624]

Just keep the facts straight. Multimedia presentations are usually much more scifi than real, and with catchy graphics.

[@StopFear]

I don't think they deserve the credit you give them. They just showed a short video with small bits and pieces touching on something that is incredibly complex. I think this is effective at attracting attention of people who do not know anything about the actual math behind the science discussed in the stitched clips of the video, but it really does not tell the viewer anything substantial enough.

[@jordanfarr3157]

@@StopFear I recommend reading Quanta. The videos are a much smaller part of what is, in my opinion, the most technical general-audience publication out there. If the videos feel too light, go read their articles. 👍

[@geordiejones5618]

Even for nerds like me who are just fans of science, channels like this always tickle my brain and give me even more appreciation for the universe at both the smallest and largest scales.

[@danielf4438]

@@geordiejones5618can you recommend “channels like this”?

[@frankburkhard5701]

Made me think of the way half of the immune system is permanently busy suppressing the other half; like a detonating bomb frozen mid-air by its own regulatory systems, so as not to take out the whole organism trough sheer overkill. Looks like the two most massive adaptive complex systems exploiting the same principles. makes sense to me.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

Good insight. Brain and immune genes are often the same indicating there maybe some kind of intelligence common to both. But, the overwhelming consensus is that the brain does not run one magic algorithm. We already know it doesn’t-different systems compute differently. But there probably are some small set of very general algorithms for cortical cells.

[@cristiansiegel5779]

@Astrid Alaniz yeah, kinda like the concept "Autopoiesis"

[@leif1075]

Is that true about the immune system? I've never heard that...hiw something? that's true? Like stopping autopha%e molecules or somethinf?

[@johnbarnhill386]

Wish the half of my immune system that suppresses the other half worked right 💀💀💀

[@ericssimpson]

What's the immune system concept called? Sounds really interesting! And yeah, I think lots of "alive" phenomena can be seen as 2 or n-many competing objective functions.

[@DudeNoEdge]

I can't comprehend how concepts like this don't make up the front page of KZbin or other websites. It's so fascinating

[@PeterPan-vt6sy]

This is the stuff that’s gonna get taught in basic high school science in 50-100 years if not less

[@johanlarsson9805]

because it is stupid and childish. Didn't you sit in the sandbox as a kid and reason about all of this? It is so obvious and mundane that it sounds so cringe when they are trying to say that it is something special! "Criticallity" just means that it is selfregulating... only as much sand as needed falls of because then no more sand needs to fall off. Had they not been self regulaing those processes would also be "all or nothing"

[@xynyde0]

@@johanlarsson9805 okay scientist

[@johanlarsson9805]

@@xynyde0 you don't HAVE to be a scientist to realize it. I'm sure others, such as yourself, could do it too.

[@xynyde0]

@@johanlarsson9805 well it appears stupid cuz its very dumbed down in the video. But its certainly not something everyone can do. Critical systems is a complex multidisciplinary topic.

[@Milkshakman]

One application of these ideas not mentioned is in better understanding human mental health. There are two papers that come to mind; "the entropic brain" and "REBUS and the Anarchic Brain", which attempt to use concepts like criticality to explain why psychedelic drugs, when used properly, can be effective treatments for a wide variety of mental health issues. To summarize, they posit that these compounds push brain dynamics to/beyond the critical point, which has the effect of inducing plasticity of beliefs; therefore allowing the possibility of reorganizing beliefs in ways conducive to increased wellbeing.

[@cristiansiegel5779]

Wow, I'll check the resources and thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter. One related application that came to my mind was collaboration between C. Zeeman and a psychotherapist regarding treating anorexia with induced trance states, trance states being in transition between fasting and gorging kind-of mind states, and in that middle state psychotherapy had probability of success (M. Guillen, Bridges to Infinity, page 170). Also, lots of discussion regarding complex systems and criticality in the perspective of mental health in the nice book "Living in the edge of chaos", by Helene Shulman.

[@cristiansiegel5779]

​@@disgruntledcommenter-o4h I tend to think of psychedelics as "drivers/forcings of change", although some recent studies indicate that single doses of psylocibin could alleviate depression.

[@mysteryhombre81]

Went to a talk about this by Dr Ben Sessa, who started and runs Europes first psychedellic therapy clinics - Awakn and was very fascinating. There was obvisouly alot more too it but just was the psychedellics / disscociatives are all used to increase entropy and turn the brain into a malluble / childlike state, at which point talk therapy and positive reinforcement rewrite the brains built up negative pathways. Hopefully becomes more mainstream in coming years, great potential to benefit humanity.

[@rosemarymcbride3419]

also made me think of DBT in this regard

[@indfnt5590]

Interesting idea. I wrote this as the definition of suicide a few month’s ago and I wasn’t sure what it would mean now. “The sudden acceleration of entropy.” Why that particular brain has rationalized non existence.

[@Alasarey]

This theory very well summarizes the perceived notion experienced from living with epilepsy. So cool to believe that the epileptic phenomenon can be described as "Super-Critical Neurological Behavior".

[@sproutingresilience4787]

And other the other side you could have thing in the subcritical like brain injury from concussions

[@PrinceBlake]

Today, I was browsing through an old friend’s Facebook pictures from our days together in Japan when I came upon a picture whose members and caption explaining the occasion stunned me. For reasons of privacy, I can’t show you the picture; also it does not belong to me. But I can describe the situation surrounding it, as much as it breaks my heart to do so. My wife and I were badly beaten and barely survived a vicious attack. My head was stitched up at the hospital and I was sent home but I wasn’t well at all. I was having seizures and had an episode while teaching, rushing to the hallway to avoid the stares of 50 students as I shook and not knowing how long or if it would stop. The police had the names of the culprits but as they were all from the same company, the police were loathe to act. The picture was taken after the funeral of a fellow teacher, taken in the aftermath of the attack. He had been my wife's teacher in a group class of which she was the only student. I can only guess that he may have gotten a clearer picture of what happened. Her teacher died of an asthma attack but Kumiko was never informed of his death by the school in which she attended. A caption to the photo described the event, a gathering of local teachers and the deceased's Japanese wife, mostly. One of those in the photo also appeared as host of an English language show on a local Okayama TV station broadcast. He was bilingual. He was later murdered in Cambodia while on vacation from his new teaching job in South Korea where he had taught for one year while also immersing himself in the language. He was a gifted tri-athlete and his brother a professional skater. With help from his mother in Virginia, I created a website tribute for our friend Doug during our time in California. The consequence of living in an alternately loving environment, mixed with episodes of horror resulted in a treasure trove of gifts thanks to our discovery of a long-abandoned model of peace initiated by professor Shiga Shigetaka in his poem on a stunning stone monument gifted to the Alamo in 1914. Shiga’s vision of an everlasting peace and friendship with America through the common bond of heroism and friendship did not endure after his death in 1927. The reasons for this, the cracks in the wall can be understood by the lack of a psychological heir, a new 'Father of Japan' that would could take the reins of intellectual leadership where Shigetaka left off. This time period represents the psychological critical point beyond which Japan succumbed to the imperial ambitions of the Japanese military which would see her embracing Nazi Germany and emboldened to attack her friend through two wars, America. (The US and Japan were cooperating partners in the period of the Boxer Rebellion and WW I.) We named our school in Japan, 'Alamo' after discovering the forgotten history at the Alamo and reading of his inspiration, a former colonel of Abraham Lincoln's who came to teach in Japan's Hokkaido for 10 months. We lived in Japan during the critical attack over Okinawa by the Islamist terrorists that revealed a massive plot against Boeing airliners flying from Asia to America. We moved back to America and I took on a job at GPS navigation company where my wife and I suffered more unprovoked attacks by company workers from Japan. We left the company and made a strong case at the Boeing building no less for stopping the "Boeing" plotters. After the workplace attacks in Torrance and Gardena, we were referred to a counseling center in the Boeing Building near LAX that had connections to law enforcement who could assess the threats we felt needed addressing. We recommended looking in flight schools for the plotters after having nightmares of falling from the twin towers and witnessing another falling victim whose appearance reminded me of a waiter I had seen while visiting the WTC's Windows of the World in 1976. Why were Kumiko and I able to see these critical moments so clearly? What stroke of luck and good fortune had enabled us to react to save both our countries from a savage attack? What had divided America politically to the point one side was not anxious to help the other side even as calamity loomed over both our heads? What had motivated the counseling center to seek to honor the requests of intruding lawyers for the Japanese company we were suing for harassment? The intrusion by Japan's lawyers only deepened our pleas through the center to vigilance against the airline plotters. In search of these answers, and after an attack by our own lawyers in their law office, we returned to Texas. After seeing images of Christ and Pi within our new American home, Kumiko was at once motivated to paint landscape scenes and began writing a manga for publication for over 15 years. Inspired by her selection of '935' as signature for her artwork, a soundalike to Japanese numbers, I plugged them into a model I had been began as a high school student but never completed. The 935 ‘patch’ was a perfect mathematical match in all directions. It breathed new life into the model and within days through her help I found the missing the pieces that had evaded me years before. There are deep reasons for this which can be explained by the model and her dipole moment, her critical moment which is perhaps the smoothest of all moments in perhaps the irony of ironies. Meaning, I think through Feynman's diagrams, and through the work at the supercollider, we all expected some angular collision to occur at this moment but instead it turned out to be the most fluid of moments where everything would come together in a moment of perigee between expanding and orbiting paths. Kumiko and I are blessed to have been able to see the writing on the wall both figuratively and literally and to have responded in a timely fashion to bring our collective wisdom to good application in pursuit of sound national security practices and a greater scientific contribution. The discovery also carries spiritual implications. Like Shigetaka's gift to the Alamo, it is a Rosetta stone for world peace, a call to vigilance to threats on one hand, and for diplomacy and kindness on the other. The model and its cross of expanding and orbiting intervals carries a stunning likeness to Biblical descriptions and passages which support the path to peace and understanding between all men and nations. We could not be happier with the results of our investigation or more hopeful for its practical application to the contribution and advocacy of peace.

[@user-pe2yx9kt4e]

Huntington’s Disease too possibly?

[@mikemondano3624]

New words change nothing. The understanding of epilepsy has not changed, either.

[@matematicke_morce]

This is eerily similar to the method I've been using for many years to overcome creative blocks. It goes like this: I come up with two very different ways that my project could go wrong, and then I alternate between fixing each of them, until I hit this critical point kind of like what's described in the video. Granted, the method isn't very time-efficient, but it's a good last resort when my other creative methods fail.

[@heckald]

Can you elaborate more?

[@melaniepowell]

As a 53 year old who has suffered from four types of Epilepsy for 48 years I totally agree and think that this is a fantastic video and I can't wait for more to be revealed!

[@CultivationPath]

Hi! this may not be related. But you may wanna check out carnivore diet. I had epilepsy for 10 years and completely cured it with only dietary change. Good luck!

[@jagatacharjee3526]

Gentleman , my brother has Epilepsy from past 2 year , doctor has suggested to take drug for 2 years constant . We are worried about the side effects after 2 yrs . Hv u seen any symptom of side effects ?

[@CultivationPath]

@@jagatacharjee3526 I can only talk about My experience, since i don't know what he is taking or what the source of the epilepsy is in his case. The side or long term effects of epilepsy drugs are well know and in my case ranged from sleep disruption, hormonal problem, total and complete lack if energy all times, really hard constant mental fog, emocional instability and permanent anxiety without reason. When I dropped them i had to do it really slow and Even after doing it that way, I had side effects for almost another 2 years I would try carnivore and see if it helps (the medical literature on ketogenic diets and it's effects on epilepsy is quite Big and supoortive, look for it online and check it out) i have found that "carnivore" is by far the superior and effective ketogenic diet. Even when the ratio of fat to proteín is not that Big.

[@Urserker]

@@CultivationPath Do you mind if I ask you what specific type of epilepsy you had? That's an interesting discovery on your part? Was the diet suggested to you specifically as an epileptic cure or did you switch for other reasons and it happened to treat your epilepsy?

[@CultivationPath]

​@@Urserker around 100 partial convulsions daily and every once in a while, some tonic-clonic convulsions (the ones where all your body shakes and you loose consciousness after). I started trying things because I was a zombie on meds and my health was getting worse. So I started playing with more exercise and "eating better". First with what is popular as "good diet" which is vegetables, eggs, chicken, etc. I saw some slightly and very small improvement on symptoms when I cut a little bit processed food, so I investigated more on that topic and after finding the literature on ketogenic diet and epilepsy, I ended up doing "dirt keto" which improved it a little bit more, barely noticeable. When I tried carnivore it was like a on/off switch, The side effects from the epileptic drugs took years to clean, but the epilepsy was gone really really fast. After a few years I can eat some "crap" things and I will feel slightly worse for a few days, keeping carnivore is by far the best, but I do like some ice-cream every other month, but no epilepsy at all anymore.

[@primenumberbuster404]

Woah I never thought yall would make a video on this topic. Thanks, this is one of my favourite ones.

[@johnathancorgan3994]

Why no mention of Stuart Kauffman? His early work with self-organized criticality and his time at the Santa Fe Institute in the 1980s and 90s were very important to this line of research.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

Mercy. This is bad neuroscience.

[@onlyeyeno]

​@@JJ-fr2ki​No offence but this is not "neuroscience", it's not even science. This "reporting", which is a form of"story telling" on a topic. And it might possibly not be a particularly good one, at least not according to the way You think it should be reported/told. And I personally don't really have an opinion either way regarding that. But I would suggest that the creators of this "reportage"("story") were not overly concerned/interested in "reporting"about the "history" of this subject, but rather just wanted to "report" on it in it's present "state". Best regards.

[@ArgumentumAdHominem]

@@onlyeyeno Precisely. A 13 minute popular overview of the topic should not be held accountable for not mentioning all of the contributors to the field, it is not realistic. They did a great job at delivering the essence of the concept to the public, that is what matters

[@Achrononmaster]

@@JJ-fr2ki Someone thinks youtube news is a science journal. Probably thinks Twitter is a science conference.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

@onlyeyeno The main story is this story covers a theory hardly better than pseudoscience dressed up in math which is 20 years old and produced nothing but BS. A look by the author into the history of the barren field of complexity and its failures, especially in neuroscienc, would have kept this misinformation from distracting the public. Tonality (an ancient concept in medicine and control theory is known. Calling it “criticality” adds nothing). When they make an actual discovery, and they’ve been over-funded for 20 years, by all means make a video and call me and my colleagues fools.

[@jake_rogers_music]

My brain reaches the critical point about 1.2 million times a day- I’m an elementary school teacher

[@BowlingO0]

😂😂😂

[@momamba5131]

I've always thought about the universal relationship between the micro and macro That was so inspiring to hear that we're going to approach the system wholely-from all aspects You know, months ago when I first did a research on slime molds and cosmic networks I unlearned the thought of "Biology is a branch of physics", I just observed nature doesn't have categories, and the physics, chemistry, biology are all the same things Thank you Quanta for inspiring us♥️♥️

[@Snowflake_tv]

Yeap. Border btw micro and macro... It must relate to bifurcation-graph.

[@adrien8572]

If Physics is the study of the universe, why Biology shouldn't be a part of it ? Is life not in the universe ?

[@momamba5131]

@@adrien8572 i say that we have to have transdisciplinary approach Like, the human body is not just a biological system, but also a physical machine

[@cristiansiegel5779]

Check out P.W. Anderson's "More is different"

[@leif1075]

What at 2:33 You cannot saybfor certain that it passes through the perfect order sweet spot as it moves from order to disorder. It could be a sudden or chaotic jump..you don't know for sure it will pass through the sweet spot right?

[@RealmsOfThePossible]

As an artist and musician I have always been fascinated with that area of figurative and abstract and harmonic and dissonant, I've institutionally felt there is where the beauty is.

[@friedpicklezzz]

Bravo. This is why I have a KZbin premium account. The level of these short documentaries far exceed the mediocre content aired on the likes such as Discovery Channel. It’s a complex topic explained really well. That’s not an easy task. I’m not in this field but could follow everything. Just the right level of detail and complexity.

[@trevoncowen9198]

Ur paying for this?

[@GorlockSlayer]

@@trevoncowen9198We’re all paying for this whether it’s through a subscription or watching ads.

[@matteogirelli1023]

Yesterday prof. Parisi, noble laureate in physics 2021 for complex systems, was awarded a doctorate in physics ad honorem by the University of Padua (where galileo galilei worked). I believe it is worth mentioning as regards this topic.

[@Snowflake_tv]

Cool. Are you Italian?

[@matteogirelli1023]

@@Snowflake_tv yes

[@thej3799]

So I can finally add an education section to my CV. PHD from university of Padua. Neat.

[@Jumpertj]

Who cares

[@cristiansiegel5779]

Yes, one of his research topics has been Spin Glasses, which were used as a model for the neuron system by Hopfield in 1982 (the "Hopfield Network")

[@mahagonx]

In 2009 the paper "SORN: a self-organizing recurrent neural network" demonstrated that spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) leads to criticality in a network (liquid state machine). Would be interesting to include it in the discussion.

[@smftrsddvjiou6443]

Yes, but our brain is not just a physical system. A computer chip also does not use critical points. The concept of phase transitions is useless as explanation for the brain.

[@dgitpadre]

My one gripe with this video is that you went all the way to Indiana University, talked about fractals, and didn't interview Doug Hofstadter to speak on this! If you've read his books you wouldn't be shocked that there is something profound in self-organized criticality. That it evades being just completely mechanical computation, and has almost harmonious properties of symmetry and self-reference. Shilling for his work aside, this was super cool, and a little bit spooky.

[@jordanfarr3157]

The fact that more than one commenter has protested not including X or Y specific researcher means that Quanta viewers know their stuff. Thanks for chiming in! I gotta check out their work!

[@AB-wf8ek]

@@jordanfarr3157 Hofstadter is famous for his book "Godel, Escher, Bach" published in 1979, which is the year I was born :) I've heard about it many times before, but still haven't read it. Recently I was interested in exactly what is so significant about Godel's Incompleteness thereom. I understand that it proves either math is fundamentally flawed, or that it's incomplete. I thought about the implications of that, and I think it has to be taken in context with the fact that, up until that point, many academics believed math could fundamentally explain everything. I'm guessing with Godel's theory, it forced them to recognize that in order to fully understand things like consciousness, it would require more than just an understanding of math, opening up a broader field of study for cognitive science.

[@froyocrew]

​@@AB-wf8ek no that's a bit of a reach. Godel's (first) incompleteness theorem says that all axiomatic formal systems of mathematics contain true statements that are unprovable. It's not like 3÷2 = 1.5 is one of those... The only ones we've shown to be unprovable are very weird and complex pure mathematics. The maths governing self referential chaos are well within our understanding

[@AB-wf8ek]

@@froyocrew So how would you describe the fundamental impact that Godel's theory had on math & science?

[@froyocrew]

@@AB-wf8ek on science? basically nothing. On math? Well any hope of ever having a consistent and complete system of math is now gone. People become ever more wary of conjectures that are seemingly impossible to prove as it may actually be unprovable. ironically however, we can sometimes prove statements by unproof: If a statement is true it cannot be proven false even if it's unprovably true. So for statements like these, sometimes you can "prove" them true by showing that they are unprovable statements, and thus must be true to begin with

[@vladyslavkorenyak872]

If you have somewhat independent critical systems that interact with each other in positive and negative ways, the homeostasis arises as an emergent propriety.

[@alexanderx33]

The thing that keeps it from exiting quasicriticality is neurotransmitter tolerance. As an error correction mechanism, receptors availability and neurotransmitter production are inversely related. When there is high release the available sites get used up and the sensetivity of the system is moderated. This is why drugs which take the brain beyond its typically acheivable criticality get less effective with additional dose and why a sustained concenration still moderates overtime even if it is not metabolized out. The potential of the system to deviate is used up. Note however that this will only be the case for drugs which do not change both systems or cause permanent changes to the system by affecting causal factors outside of the error correction mechanism and shift the equilibrium point.

[@hazyhalfmoon]

What’s the song @3:00? It’s driving me crazy

[@LegenDUS2]

I always love how one *critical* idea makes whole new field.

[@ncedwards1234]

Time for a scientific revolution!

[@themacocko6311]

I see what you did there

[@LukePluto]

Nice, glad this topic is being brought into the public eye. It was discouraging to see John Beggs' Neuronal avalanches and criticality lecture receiving so few views.

[@meingutername2158]

Great video, thank you. Complex dynamic sytems with emergent properties and chaotic behaviour are known and researched since decades. But this was the first time I heard the concept of critical point mentioned in this context, really interesting. It would be fascinating to explore how behaviour and properties of systems at critical point are connected to emergence phenomena or the typival self-x properties of such systems.

[@bokchoiman]

Probably the future of science is in studying low probability events seriously and not just treating them like some outlier that can be ignored.

[@mohamedbensaid2258]

The sound in this video is so sharp to the ear

[@jb76489]

1:04 I’m sorry but what? That is not at all what a critical point is. The transition from liquid to gas/vapor happens all along the dotted line separating those two phases. The critical point is the point past which there is no distinction between liquid and gases phases. You can boil water on your stove all day and never reach the critical point. This video is off to a bad start 3:00 not all fractals are self similar. Fractals are defined by infinite roughness, not self similarity

[@klammer75]

This needs to be discussed more! Feigenbaums constant is a great example of this!🤓🤩

[@ruairiokane4464]

Physicists: “Our new theory of physics may unlock the mysteries of the brain.” Neuroscientists: “am I a joke to you?”

[@graymoody1429]

This is trying to tackle "The hard problem of consciousness" as proposed by David Chalmers. It's an interesting phenomenon but not sure we're anywhere close to the insight needed for that haha.

[@butterbee_bb]

Maybe it’s because I was recently in academia but none of these ideas seem that new to me. Maybe I’m missing the point, but isn’t the entire theory of an action potential basically what a system in a critical state looks like? Hodgekin & Huxley have really cool work on sodium potassium channels and how they can cause this operation. Leon Glass talks about how complex dynamics applies to the heart and many many others in physiology have been doing this type of research. In my opinion the current problem in neuroscience is the lack of theorists with experimental background. This has led to a big disconnect in the field, and some theoretical tools being applied to systems that are really not appropriate

[@empatikokumalar8202]

10:46 What makes the brain critical? I think I have an answer to this question. It is a method that I have come across a lot and finally started to use consciously. When you read it, it will become clear that most of you are actually using the same method. For example, you are doing research on a subject. However, the desired result you cannot reach. What you will do is walk away from the subject. You're the only one getting away from the subject, your brain continues to work on it. It's as if your brain is separate from you. If an answer or a different point of view on the subject is elicited by the brain Whenever there is a triggering news or event on the relevant subject, that answer produced by the brain immediately comes to mind. It doesn't matter what the trigger is. The important thing is how the brain works in the meantime. This is what really needs to be investigated. Beware, if the brain itself is lacking in the subject it is investigating. For example, there is no information on a subject, it pushes you to do research on an unrelated subject without even being aware of it. The brain is really separate here. acts like a manager. It is independent of one's own control. However, in the end, you will find the solution you are looking for.

[@kermitwilson]

The intro of critical transitions showing the environment and the subsequent explanation of systems also highlights the point that the planet has spent the few dozen million years reaching a balance. Where wild fluctuations caused by catastrophic impacts (lets say a massive volcanic eruption or Milankovitch cycles) could disrupt eco chains and cause localized extinctions of flora and fauna, but not global extinction events. The entire global environment could absorb these shocks and recover fairly quickly. This emphasizes how massive a disruption humans and the industrial revolution are, an incredibly massive shock to an enclosed system. The planet cannot absorb the shock of human industrial activity, it’s too rapid of a disruption and it’s causing collapses of entire ecosystems planet wide.

[@higherresolution4490]

Excellent video. It ought to be acknowledged that this is a reframing of Chaos Theory. Critical point and Tipping Point are basically the same thing. University of Surrey physicist, Jim Al-Khalili, covers the subject very well in a BBC Horizon program called "Chaos". The phenomenon of fractals is central to chaos theory.

[@jordanzamora422]

This reminded me of Terrence McKenna's novelty theory where he posits that nature's trending toward higher and higher levels of complexity and at an increasing rate and that this will lead to some "singularity", it's pretty interesting, I'd recommend checking it out if you're curious

[@filipkramaric6636]

Do you have a link to the interview?

[@froyocrew]

Biodigital convergence

[@maninthemiddle55]

Fascinating hypothesis, excellent presentation.

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

I'm strongly neurodivergent with a seizure disorder and had a TBI in 2017, and my experiences since my brain began to rewire feel consonant with this concept as an underlying truth of brain function. I've had periods of hyper-extreme excitation where my whole nervous system just suddenly and magnificently 'streamlines' its energy usage for cocaine-like performance; I actually got fired from a job because the boss thought i was on drugs--the focus and intensity and seeming speed of an olympic sprinter... like a runner's high. But then it will go thru an equal-inverse-opposite polar shift (often but not always via seizure), and then there's a period of near narcoleptic lethargy and mental incapacity, as though the system is rebooting and coming back online. There's lots more to it, but it's like a vascillation between poles while the system retains a relative stasis in the motion itself.

[@revolutionaryfrog]

This could help to scale physics solutions to the scale of planets and galaxies. I always thought sacred geometry had some basis in reality. It's similar to how we see the golden ratio and fibonacci sequence in the formation of plants and nature. I would not be surprised if this also tied into how fungi finds the path of least resistance in underground mycelium networks and similarly how the human brain tends to develop blood vessels and neurons in branch like structures.

[@Amonimus]

Simplier analogy: velocity. If it's 1, the object stays fine, if it's less or larger than 1, then we're expecting an issue soon.

[@Chrisspru]

resonance, connection and random fluctuation are a part of everything. criticality is the automatic result. resonance modeling from acoustics (including dampening and background noise) could probably be a good approximation for criticality of multi particle systems. dampening would prevent critical runaway in the brain, while noise prevents staling. dampening and noise are inherent to thermodynamic and quantum processes (basicly everything in the universe). noise and dampening can also explain from where an idea starts and how it gains coherency. resonance and connection mean the system is self similar and works like one, which could explain conciousness as an effective self identity of a system as if it where one particle, with the self looping of the brain allowing for the observation of being self observing. self observation is evolutionarily benefitial, as it allows for self-including modeling. self observation of self observation then further grands the ability to manage internal processes of observation (active learning and mindset training) as a benefit. self identity of resonating systems would be a universal trait in this, an effect of things existing at all directly. meaning the universe in its resonance and physical calculating complexity could be concious. and there is also a cellular survival aspect of the cell not shutting of or frying itself in runaway processes.

[@alexanderx33]

In many of the systems described criticality arises simply from an optimization function. The only way change can occur within the system (of this kind) is if it is at the critical state which coincides with the optimum so you will always observe them near this state as it is the limit of where it can go.

[@alkeryn1700]

regarding the brain i once wrote a spiking neural network with around a million neuron and there was that notion that you'd need the right criticality for it to run, to low a criticality and all the neurons would turn off and never on again, too high one and they would all be fired on and could also do nothing. if you wanted the network to turn on in waves and persist over time, you needed it to be set at a sweetspot. in my simulation, network sensitivity alone was sufficient to tune the criticality, although you could also tune it on the spot depending of overall activity. also, the sensitivity had to change depending of the number of neurons, and how much synapses each had.

[@ConnoisseurOfExistence]

"Merely quantitative differences, beyond a certain point, pass into qualitative changes".

[@JonnyMack33]

I remember being 14, a high school dropout, but above average intelligence IIDSSM 😜 but a group of us kids did LSD for the first time.. and as I was chilling later on, eyes closed, pondering my new telepathy capability.. I was shown a journey flying through multicoloured fractal space.. I had no idea what a fractal was or who Mandelbrot was.. but I KNEW, instantly..there and then.. that the universe was fractal in nature. Then a few years later I saw a doc on the evolution of CGI and part of it was they couldn't quite make mountains and nature in general look realistic.. until he ran a self developing fractal program.. and BOOM.. fractals just kept making more fractals and before you knew it there was an amazing desert vista created just from fractals. I'll never forget that first incredible journey through the fractal universe.

[@kujojotarostandoceanman2641]

The critical theory also align with "the flow" state of mind, as it's said we reach max efficiency when in the perfect balance point of boredom and anxiety

[@Ma1ne2]

This channel is gold tbh. Awesome content, keep it coming!

[@martibosch3407]

You are an incredible team. I really enjoy and apply your interesting content. Thank you. Keep it real!

[@larryfisherman6449]

Keep them coming quanta !!!

[@kianhecht1787]

I heated a small circular magnet on my fridge for 1:13 and it still did not fall of the fridge. It only began to melt a portion of the outer magnet and when I touched it I got black residual on my fingertip. How much thermal energy would we need to fully dealign a ferromagnetic bar magnet like this?

[@knightjacob80]

Think of it this way. On paper, the 2 dimensions of detail are up down left right but as you learn you see that there are diagonals as well as color and shading and infinite details that effect the object in the dimension. In our reality we see the periodic table, sound waves, shapes, color, patterns, these super small things that work together to create reality in almost unimaginable ways, the more info shared and learned will map out our reality so we can know somewhat of what we can make real. What is real is based on the knowledge of how because we are in a dimension that allows us to use our observer tools/senses and organs to interpret information and change our reality based on understanding.

[@dzanc]

If I wanted to nitpick I'd point out that the axis tics in the power law plots should be logarithmic for clarity, as they are cleary log-log plots... but I don't want to nitpick :) nice video. EDIT: Also, as Ising was german, a faithful pronunciation would be [ˈiːzɪŋ]

[@Acryte]

Loved reading about self-organized criticality, complex adaptive systems, etc. in my Artificial Life class. Very cool concepts.

[@peoplesrepublicofunitedear2337]

It is great to see scientists investing themselves in statistical analysis of worldly phenomenon.

[@fraktallyfractals2083]

I am insanely thankful for this channel.

[@rosemarymcbride3419]

Lol this is just what my psychosis makes me see. I like that quasi-criticality part of the critical brain theory because it strikes me that there would need to be some kind of limiting factor in the process or you'd just die right away. Excited to see how these ideas develop

[@gerardoortiz5713]

Absolutely, you hit the right spot.

[@Minisynapse]

There might not need to be a limiting "factor" if the system is limited due to laws of physics (unless that's what you mean, but then it would be redundant to talk about "limiting factors" as anyone tackling these topics knows that laws of physic are ubiquitous.

[@finn8518]

i was about to say, this video described exactly what i KNEW on psychedelics but i obviously could not put into words, let alone prove. it is actually very common to get the feeling of all systems being fractal in a psychedelic state. consciousness included

[@DanteGabriel-lx9bq]

What if Darwin could answer this? The critical point, or the fundamental idea behind it, is that the critical point is an equilibrium point between multiple states of matter. It's the barrier that keeps the states of matter separated between them all, and I could explain the tendency to critical order (which is tied to the opposite of entropy, which we call syntropy, which is present in biological beings, a tendency that tends to order rather the disorder, which is what Entropy is responsible for) with darwinims. It is better to keep a certain biological system near the critical point to translate between multiple states in order to mutate in the most efficient and quick way possible between states if required by the environment to survive. This is a general collective explanation of why the biological sintropy systems tend to be critical order/near critical order, it's the basis of evolution, every system to change has a whole needs to change at a fundamental level first, first at a genetical level then in a morphological level. I call it "Critical Darwinsm."

[@Neva44433]

I love this channel so much and I’m always so eager to watch your videos

[@journeyfan05]

Cause and effect alone determines the limits of the human brain. Mainly it garruntees that "free will" cannot exist in a physical system. As the brain undergoes purely automatic processes it makes sense that the brain would be a "critical brain". It's amazing how the study of the universe would go on to answer so many questions about human brains.

[@TheMemesofDestruction]

Fascinating! I learned a lot. My brain thanks you. ^.^

[@TOROislame]

Does this mean death is just the critical point of human energy, and then we transition into our next state of energy?

[@vaidphysics]

Incredible video. Very beautiful. This is what GOOD science journalism looks like. Simple. Sober and deep ... unlike a certain "wormhole" video from not so long ago 😅

[@crimson4066]

Neuroscientists don't like this idea because it's nothing but an oversimplistic concept; it does not define reality. Neurons have a natural resting potential a mere 20 mV below the 'threshold' for an action potential. It's nothing new to science/psychologists/neurologists, and we know a great deal about what influences them (neurons) to depolarize and hyperpolarize; namely, ions and neurotransmitters...

[@crimson4066]

At least the first half of the video is true. But critical points in neurons/the brain is pseudoscience on par with time travel. Ridiculous

[@retinapeg1846]

I did my PhD in this! Legget garg inequalities for a ring of quantum spins, the largest possible ring of spins before the inequality is no longer violated. "A spin limit on the size of ising ring using LGI's"

[@Maurathelighthealer]

These concepts help me think about how meditation and zero point energy actually work as it relates to the brain. The better we are at achieving bliss states intense inward focus, perhaps the better our brain can hold this balance? I think of focused attention and torroidal flow. These are energy cascades. They must be ruled by Planck or Golden Ratio. Negentropy wave charge collapse squirting through a point - two pine cones kissing noses creating energetic cascades. Theres a evolutionary benefit to chaotic explosion to allow us to react quickly but to maintain stasis a balanced flow is required.

[@ExiledGypsy]

This applies to quantum theory: rather than using the phrase collapsing of wave equation, you could view it as phase transition that turns for example election to turn from a cloud of charge to a particle with concentrated mass. This gets rid of the ridiculous idea of many worlds. Einstein-Boson particle is the same thing or freezing of super cooled water. I would like to know what disproves such a perspective. In metaphysical terms the ising model is what creates necessity for dynamic balance is the face of paradoxical nature of life which is the ultimate mystery that itself needs to be at a critical point to persevere or as Schopenhauer put it the will to live.

[@Mike37551]

It would be interesting to see research that probes the link between criticality among neurons and what’s commonly known as being in a “flow state”

[@brenlh6484]

A critical brain hypothesis is when the person is in the zone. Going beyond what they are typically capable of. Or if they thought about getting to the zone. .. it just happens. I've been there many times.

[@catalinavillegas-burgos589]

Yup! Me too I have been there even playing cards or something related to randomness: when I'm at that zone, I can "predict" what card comes next or what bingo letter comes next. It's as if our brains could actually see the future if they fall in that zone. I don't know how to get there on purpose, though. I just kind of surf that wave at very specific moments of luck.

[@froyocrew]

​@@catalinavillegas-burgos589 LOL

[@mahoneytechnologies657]

This is much more important than anything going on in particle physics these days!

[@messiah.complexx]

What a insight Minglani ji💖🙏🏻

[@martinwilliams9866]

I believe that microtubules utilise critical dynamics in that under 9 nano metres water turns into a solid, which apparently is a perfect medium for proticity or an electric current of Protons. I would also suggest that the Glial network is even more influenced by critical dynamics as they are more sensitive than Neurons to external electromagnetic fields via the transverse Hall effect.

[@liqo12]

Ideas from dynamical systems and cybernetics like self similarity and feedback loops experimented with theories of neuroscience is definitely worth exploring.

[@thevirtunaut1856]

I would guess the answer to the "million-dollar question" has something to do with not what the neurons are doing, but what the characteristics and mechanisms are of intraneuronal space.

[@yqisq6966]

2:26 the animation is misleading. The transition doesn't happen smoothly. It either lines up or completely random, depending on whether the temperature is below or above the critical temperature.

[@Gigatless]

So correct me if Im wrong, is the point of criticality of the brain a state in which neurons are the most communicative and changeable?

[@CosmicSphincter]

I find that this research is fascinating, but it doesn’t touch consciousness itself. We’re getting closer and closer to understanding how thoughts and emotions and memory interact, but the fact that there is an awareness aware of the system and itself remains impossibly illusive.

[@SafetySkull]

This seems related to thermodynamics and the idea of getting work out of a system only when heat is able to flow from an area of high temperature to an area of cold temperature. The universe is in a transition between these states. A kind of critical point between the primordial singularity and the heat death of the universe. Ripe for star formation. The sun is hot enough, and space cold enough, to maintain liquid water at a certain distance.

[@Erik-pu4mj]

11:27 An explicit statement against reductionism and against any single, oversold 'answer to everything' is needed and appreciated. But following it with Beggs' "one equation," "idealized dream," and a bunch of flashy ordered systems diminishes the reality check before it, I feel. What might be seen as promising neuroscience research could be something of "inflated relevance" (to quote a comment). Love Beggs' passion, but it can turn off those critical scientists.

[@Jichael.mackson]

I had randomly started having grand mal seizures in the mornings, starting January of 2022. Fast forward to now being diagnosed with epilepsy I have had about 8 total seizures with a current streak of 4 months with no seizures I am ecstatic. Videos like this gives me hope to finding and understanding our brains more and it’s dis functions, and being able to possibly do something about it.

[@yozshu]

Try Dietary therapies like keto or carnivore, maybe you became incapable of using some nutrient you could use before or you're having an overreaction to something that makes the epilepsies worse, potentially try some b1(benfotiamine and water soluble forms) or b12(methylform).

[@Jichael.mackson]

@@yozshu I take B vitamins and other various vitamins and nutrients. My diet could have had somthing to do with it for sure, I did not eat meat for a year and switched back over (maybe the summer of 2022) , to eating meat again. I have thought about this as well.

[@methoxyll]

This is so beyond me, so fascinating and I believe we really are close to the truth of consciousness 💗

[@nyworker]

Complex phenomena and complex systems are simple forces acting at the basic particles level. The "emergence" is an emergence into an outer environment.

[@theonetruemorty4078]

I would argue that being "in the zone," experiencing a flow state, happens when a brain is hovering around a state of criticality that results in optimal efficacy of the dance between chaos and order; a liminal space in which the infinite potential of unbridled abstract conceptualization and the structured analysis of pattern recognition and "real" world application results in a synergistic functionality that supercedes either of the individual modalities that give rise to it.

[@dominicellis6185]

Isn’t this just basic correlation? If the neurons/atoms have a non-zero influence on each other then grouping is going to occur and (let’s say these forces are equal) when an external force gets you 50% of the way there, then it starts to self proliferate. Brains would then have the appropriate mix of correlations to perform the required output from an input. You could arbitrarily select parameters that create this model by saying “what input overrides x portion of the brain - oh look at that it’s the input that requires x part of the brain to compute a solution how crazy”. Here you have an arbitrary counterfactual of “not what I’m looking for” and this model would inevitably appear. It seems like the product of statistics and not physics and this theory is mistaking correlation for causation. I haven’t done deep reading on this but would be interested in others’ thoughts.

[@l1mbo69]

i mean, it is just that but it doesn't mean its statistics; the point where you say how if it got you 50% of the way there, then it could self propagate, for eg, is much more physics/applied math as its dealing with a dynamic evolution of a system

[@adelmakram5641]

One potential answer to the quasicriticality problem, is similar to renormalization theory used in quantum field theory to avoid infinity. This may translates to having our brain equipped with a pre-determined function that cancels the infinite interactions when the critical point is reached.

[@charlesbrightman4237]

Consider the following: Neutrinos apparently go right through us, all the time, but at least some times, they interact when they hit something. 'What if' the very foundation of 'thought' is a neutrino impacting something in a brain which then triggers cascading effects in a cause and effect kind of way? F=ma, neutrinos while being very small, are moving very fast and therefore pack a lot of force when they actually hit something.

[@charlesbrightman4237]

Did a single neutrino impacting something in my brain, trigger that thought? If not, then what actually triggered that thought to be thought?

[@charlesbrightman4237]

THOUGHT ABOUT THOUGHTS: (copy and paste from my files): Question: Where do thoughts actually come from? For example: Modern science claims that we have billions of brain cells with trillions of brain cell connections. How exactly does the energy signal 'know' where and when to start, what path to take, and where and when to stop to form a single coherent thought? An analogy I utilize is to spread a brain out like a map. Brain cells are represented by towns and cities, brain cell interconnections are represented by roads and highways, and the energy signal is represented by a vehicle traveling between one or more towns and/or cities. A coherent thought is a coherent trip. How exactly does the vehicle 'know' where and when to start, what path to take, and where and when to stop to form a single coherent trip? A higher intelligence has to tell it those things. But, that is a coherent 'trip' (thought) in and of itself. So, how exactly does our brain think a thought before it consciously thinks that thought? And if thoughts can be thought without consciously thinking thoughts, then what do we need to consciously think thoughts for? Just to consciously think thoughts that are already thought? What then of 'freewill' if we don't even consciously think our own thoughts? And then to further that situation, modern science claims that many different energy signals are starting at various places in the brain, take various pathways, and stop at different places, just to form a single coherent thought. (With the analogy, many vehicles are starting at various places on the map, taking various routes, and stopping at various places, all together forming a single coherent 'trip'.) And somehow it's all coordinated and can happen very quickly and very often. So, where do thoughts actually come from? Who and/or what is thinking the thoughts before I consciously think those thoughts? Do "I" even have freewill to even think these thoughts "I" am thinking about thoughts and type these thoughts to you here on this internet? Modern science also claims we have at least 3 brains: The early or reptilian brain, the mid brain, and the later more developed brain. So, are early parts of the brain thinking thoughts before the later parts of the brain consciously think those thoughts? If reptiles can think thoughts, then couldn't the early part of our brain think thoughts, and somehow pass those thoughts on to later more developed parts of later brains? Is our 'inner self' really just our reptilian brain thinking the thoughts that we think we are thinking? Are we all just later more evolved reptiles? Who don't even consciously think our own thoughts? If not, then how exactly does the brain think thoughts? Where exactly do thoughts originally come from so our brain can consciously think those thoughts? So "I" am thinking about thoughts, if it is even "I" thinking the thoughts that "I" believe "I" am thinking about thoughts. Or so "I" currently think, here again, if it is even "I" doing the thinking. "My" thinking is imploding as "I" think about thoughts. But then again, is it even 'me' that is imploding? I will have to think about it some more. Poof, I'm gone. Is just energy interacting with itself the lowest form of sub-consciousness? Is it even consciousness itself?

[@SecretEyeSpot]

Finally a component derived from a testable hypothesis. If only we could speed up the findings, we may be able to nudge fusion energy discoveries to the breaking point.

[@onlyeyeno]

@Secret EyeSpot ...??? "Finally a component derived from a testable hypothesis" ??? You have me curious what "scientific sources" You usually take part of ?? And possibly humbly suggest that if it''s such a rare occasion to see "a component derived from a testable hypothesis" that You might consider to "change" Your current set of "sources". Best regards

[@iainmackenzieUK]

Is there any information about how fast the information travels? If our universe is in a critical state, it may account for "spooky action at a distance " - entanglement experiments / observations

[@BhargavSolankisolankibhargav]

In machine learning, I would say when critical points are reached, its when the behavior moves away from local minima and jumps on to the next locala minima/maxima

[@DearFellowIdiots]

It's good to hear Yin and yang theory explained by science.

[@Servman1st]

This looks like another concept where the bifurcation equation could be applied. Enjoyed the video very much, thank you.

[@DeusExNihilo]

It seems to me that the brain isnt just one, homogeneous system. And that moments of criticality are happening all the time. I think sometimes we have moments of trans-criticallity under special circumstances where overlapping neural networks are able to communicate. Maybe that's what happens when we take psychedelics or have moments of insight

[@bradcogley8146]

what if it doesnt reach the peak level of critically because its energy intensive and everything wants to naturally conserve energy, So unless its a life or death situation determined by the brain based on its inputs, it wont want to allow itself to reach that point?

[@evanm31]

Fantastic video and would love to see more!

[@chunyinauyeung6148]

It seemed to me that operating at criticality is the natural outcome of a negative feedback system. In a simple 2D system that has 2 extreme states only, by having some sort of negative feedback system suppress the state of going to 2 extremes and thus the overall system operate some midpoint called the critical point . And we have discovered these antagonistic feedback system in our body for a long time, for example for regulating blood glucose level we have insulin that brings it down vs glucagon that brings it up. And for neural systems, even neurotransmitters themselves have an antagonistic effect on each other, we have excitatory neurotransmitters and inhibitory neurotransmitters. The reason for this is naturally to respond to the changes in the outside world. In which it shouldn't be difficult to understand why natural selection would favour such system behaviour to prevail as biological systems that can better respond to changes naturally have a higher chance of survival as you don't "do" too much or too little. The only difference is that for a complex system like the brain, there are more than 2 dimensions or extreme states if you wish so the problem seems to be more sophisticated than just going left to right, but in essence it is not that different from a simple two state system, just that they cascade with each other. Nevertheless, this classification of brain into critical system is a pretty cool research and it was a well made vid !

[@kimsland999]

Well its also stated we already use 100% of our brain all the time, but I liked your comment anyway because I agree the brain (or process of mind) will quickly adapt to its surroundings for survival purposes.

[@malikialgeriankabyleswag4200]

ralph waldo emerson wrote 200 years ago that all power and vitality is in "the darting to an aim, the transition from one to another state"..

[@evgeniinekhoroshev8204]

Following the logic of the video, uranium fission reaction in a nuclear reactor also occurs in a "critical mode" where the number of neutrons emitted is roughly the same as the number of neutrons absorbed. Too much absorption, and the reaction dies out, too much emission leads to an explosion. Interesting.

[@drdca8263]

The description that was said when showing the phase diagram, and the point labeled on the phase diagram, seemed to be, not as matched as they could have been? The verbal description seemed to suggest that any crossing from liquid to vapor due to increasing temperature would go through the critical point, but the graphic seemed to indicate that it was a particular point at the end of an edge dividing the 2 regions?

[@richardleetbluesharmonicac7192]

Scale invariance can be explained by acknowledging that the scale of matter is infinite from the macro to the micro

[@light_werks]

The homeostatic mechanism is the crystallization in brain that is connected to the earths system. We are all one brain together in quantum states based in multi conscious awareness states. The earth allows quantum states to be present in certain biomagnetic fields that are produced by heightened states of consciousness in an individual, those that are not experiencing these quantum states are not necessarily lesser, but are not testing the experience of that individual because they have not asked for the expression.

[@arasharfa]

so the concept of free will, executive dysfunction, depression, impulsivity all become very interesting when viewed through this lens. We have inhibitory and excitatory processes that balance each other, they suspend the body in a critical state.

[@PrinceBlake]

"In simpler systems, like the Ising model, a single variable like temperature can be adjusted to bring the network right to the critical point. But in complex biological systems, (9:35) the prospect of tuning to the exact point of criticality would be much more difficult." In Matthewave 935, the critical point is the dipole moment, the moment of perigee, or the point of closest return between paths expanding and paths orbiting. At the Planck scale, these highly regenerative structures constitute the essence of the wave function. Matthewave 935 not only provides an insight into the quantum world but offers a cosmological model that stands to replace the Big Bang theory with the concept of an infinite universe in constant regenerative flow at quantum scales. This model leads us to the grand, mind-beguiling scale of a universe that the James Webb telescope data suggests had no Big Bang beginning.

[@HalfWarrior]

I’ve no idea how this applies to me; but I find it very interesting being that I’ve had some significant brain damage from a stroke and am now hemiplegic from it.