TED Video: Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome

From TED.com: “Sebastian Seung is mapping a massively ambitious new model of the brain that focuses on the connections between each neuron. He calls it our “connectome,” and it’s as individual as our genome — and understanding it could open a new way to understand our brains and our minds.”

DISCLAIMER: I am many things, but I am not a poet. What follows is not a poem. I have too much respect for poetry and poets to even remotely suggest that this is a poem.

I am
the collection
of my genetic potential,
expressed by my genes into an impossibly
intricate web of neurons which communicate by neural activity,
which is shaped by my experiences, thoughts, memories, feelings, and reactions,
which trigger my neurons to communicate along changed pathways,
which changes the web of neurons expressing my genes
which vastly expands the possibilities of who
I am.

The video below prodded me to try to write those pieces down in as connected and succinct a way as possible.

In the reduction of data, something always gets lost, but I kind of like it. It’s not a poem, though.