Hess and Markram didn't invent topological analysis of neuronal networks. They are not mapping the brain. This is a fluff piece that didn't bother to check with anyone else in the field if this paper is as groundbreaking as it's being presented, which is the absolute minimum of journalistic rigor.<p>The claim this ended up in Frontiers because no one else in neuro theory has heard of algebraic topology is laughable.<p>e: To be clear, I don't think this rises to the level of "Sokal hoax" -- it looks like an interesting result. I also have an interest in the role massive simulation can play in discovery. But to misrepresent topological analysis as an entirely novel approach or package it with phys.org-press-release nonsense like "mapping the brain in 11 dimensions" is both a disservice to the rich field on which it's building and adds noise to public communication about neuroscience, which is already plagued with bullshit.
Hmmmm. "Hess says they tried to shop around the idea to other neuroscience journals first, to avoid the conflict of interest—but didn’t have much luck, since most editors they spoke to had never heard of algebraic topology".<p>Neuroscience as a field is quite comfortable with 'n-dimensions', given the importance of matrices to data. Let alone the relationship between topology and graph/network theory... It seems highly unlikely that editors would not be at least roughly familiar with algebraic topology. It reads (to me), "Our research is not marketable, because it lacks prescriptive insight, so we published it in our own journal". The conflict of interest statement in the paper is suspect, as the article roughly mentions.<p>From the abstract: "We propose that the brain processes stimuli by forming increasingly complex functional cliques and cavities". I can't see how this says anything not already well-established, though perhaps differently described - that biological structures in the brain support the use of hierarchical network models at the neuronal IP level.<p>Anecdotally, I find the 'jargonification' of neuroscience a little disturbing. This reads like false progress. I'm simply an interested lay-person, so I'm open to correction on all the above - but as I see it, additional ways of describing 'what' does not necessarily give a 'how'.
This article about mapping the brain used the expression 'lol' in the first paragraph. I don't think it's nitpicking to say that significantly undercuts the seriousness with which I read the article.
Only distantly related, but the title reminds me of line from AI (pseudo-?) researcher Chris McKinstry[1]'s web suicide note:<p>>Oh and BTW, the mind is a maximum hypersurface and thought a trajectory on it and the amygdala and hippocampus are Hopf maps of it. No one knew this before me, and it seems no one care. So be it. My time will come in a hundred or a thousand years when the idea again returns.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McKinstry" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McKinstry</a>
It is waste of time to build telescope. What is the point. See the ship up there. I know it is there.<p>What is the point of big data. What is the point of neural network. Waste of time.<p>Until some point the telescope to what it is forbidden and said the forbidden by a guy called ... what are those things around Jupiter. It can't exist as it is not revolve around the earth<p>What is go? Silly game?<p>What is car drinking we can do it<p>... I guess to this silly scientific community it is just do not see beyond the present paradigm.<p>This may provide a way to understand the upcoming AI via ... understanding. What a waste of time!