full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome

Unscramble the Blue Letters


What's in that information? We don't know for sure, but there are toriehes. Since the 19th century, neuroscientists have sueaetlcpd that maybe your memories — the information that makes you, you — maybe your memories are stored in the connections between your brain's neurons. And perhaps other aspects of your personal itdnitey — maybe your personality and your intellect — maybe they're also encoded in the connections between your neurons. And so now you can see why I poesrpod this hypothesis: I am my ccneomntoe. I didn't ask you to chant it because it's true; I just want you to remember it. And in fact, we don't know if this hypothesis is correct, because we have never had technologies powerful enough to test it. Finding that worm connectome took over a dozen years of tedious labor. And to find the connectomes of brains more like our own, we need more sophisticated technologies, that are aetuaomtd, that will speed up the pseorcs of finding connectomes. And in the next few minutes, I'll tell you about some of these teooigecnhls, which are currently under development in my lab and the labs of my collaborators.

Open Cloze


What's in that information? We don't know for sure, but there are ________. Since the 19th century, neuroscientists have __________ that maybe your memories — the information that makes you, you — maybe your memories are stored in the connections between your brain's neurons. And perhaps other aspects of your personal ________ — maybe your personality and your intellect — maybe they're also encoded in the connections between your neurons. And so now you can see why I ________ this hypothesis: I am my __________. I didn't ask you to chant it because it's true; I just want you to remember it. And in fact, we don't know if this hypothesis is correct, because we have never had technologies powerful enough to test it. Finding that worm connectome took over a dozen years of tedious labor. And to find the connectomes of brains more like our own, we need more sophisticated technologies, that are _________, that will speed up the _______ of finding connectomes. And in the next few minutes, I'll tell you about some of these ____________, which are currently under development in my lab and the labs of my collaborators.

Solution


  1. connectome
  2. theories
  3. automated
  4. technologies
  5. identity
  6. process
  7. speculated
  8. proposed

Original Text


What's in that information? We don't know for sure, but there are theories. Since the 19th century, neuroscientists have speculated that maybe your memories — the information that makes you, you — maybe your memories are stored in the connections between your brain's neurons. And perhaps other aspects of your personal identity — maybe your personality and your intellect — maybe they're also encoded in the connections between your neurons. And so now you can see why I proposed this hypothesis: I am my connectome. I didn't ask you to chant it because it's true; I just want you to remember it. And in fact, we don't know if this hypothesis is correct, because we have never had technologies powerful enough to test it. Finding that worm connectome took over a dozen years of tedious labor. And to find the connectomes of brains more like our own, we need more sophisticated technologies, that are automated, that will speed up the process of finding connectomes. And in the next few minutes, I'll tell you about some of these technologies, which are currently under development in my lab and the labs of my collaborators.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
neural activity 10
green neuron 3
mental disorders 2
personal identity 2
finding connectomes 2
mouse brain 2
neuron touches 2
human brain 2
stream bed 2
future civilization 2


Important Words


  1. aspects
  2. automated
  3. brains
  4. century
  5. chant
  6. collaborators
  7. connections
  8. connectome
  9. connectomes
  10. correct
  11. development
  12. dozen
  13. encoded
  14. fact
  15. find
  16. finding
  17. hypothesis
  18. identity
  19. information
  20. intellect
  21. lab
  22. labor
  23. labs
  24. memories
  25. minutes
  26. neurons
  27. neuroscientists
  28. personal
  29. personality
  30. powerful
  31. process
  32. proposed
  33. remember
  34. sophisticated
  35. speculated
  36. speed
  37. stored
  38. technologies
  39. tedious
  40. test
  41. theories
  42. worm
  43. years