The Brain
The last post covered biology in general, this post will mention questions about neuroscience specifically.
Neuroscience can be divided between topics that are understood to some extent (e.g. the basics of memory) and topics that are still very mysterious (e.g. consciousness). In many subjects a lay person may as well focus on topics that are well-understood, but certain topics are so fascinating that they’re worth exploring even if scientists don’t yet understand them.
How do thoughts and memories arise from neurons?
Memory - see Kandel’s research on sea slugs
Thoughts - to what extent does brain imaging help understand this topic?
How does consciousness work?
Are emotions essential to consciousness? What about more basic sensations such as pain?
How can different levels of consciousness be delineated and understood?
To what extent are different animals conscious? Very simple animals (e.g. hydras) are not, and mammals appear to be, but where is the dividing line or gradients on spectrum?
How do Buddhist meditative views on consciousness relate to the scientific nature of the brain? (see Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright)
How did and does the brain develop?
To what extent did biological and cultural evolution affect it?
How much is nature vs. nurture?
To what extent is the brain hardwired when born vs. a general learning system?
Brain starts in very flexible state, but people eventually lose the ability to learn things like vision and speech. Some people can control extra fingers (See polydactyly.) What else could be wired to brain? It seems the brain needs to have been general-purpose to some extent to have evolved.
What happens to the brain during sleep?
Why is it so important for health?
What are dreams? Are they just side effects of neurons firing?
What is the effect of food and drugs on the brain?
How do different drugs affect the brain? What are the benefits and tradeoffs of taking them? (Caffeine, Modafinil, Nicotine, Alcohol, etc.)
How do psychedelics affect the brain? What does it reveal about the mind? How does it compare to other altered states of consciousness such as meditation?
Computational neuroscience
How do advanced machine learning systems (e.g. GPT-3 or MuZero) compare to the way the brain works? To what extent should machine learning research try to replicate the brain?
Besides neurons firing to signal to other neurons, what else does the brain use for computational processing?
Behavioral neuroscience - To what extent does understanding the physical mechanisms of the brain help with understanding human psychology? In general, can the mind be viewed as a fully operating layer or are there many leaky abstractions?
E.g. to understand motivation, one can generally discuss the mind in the abstract.
To understand how drugs affect the mind, one needs to discuss the brain itself.
To the extent that the mind is its own system, the intricacies of the brain are not relevant to most people. But when neuroscience is directly relevant to understanding the mind, it should be something taught more generally. After all what is more important than understanding the human mind?
Books
What is Thought? by Eric B. Baum
A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins
The Disordered Mind by Eric R. Kandel