The victim of police brutality was a motorist named Jared Massey. Mr. Massey was pulled over on a Utah highway for allegedly speeding. When Mr. Massey asked the officer why he was being pulled over, and then to help him understand why he was accused of speeding before he signed the ticket, the officer ordered him to exit the vehicle. Mr. Massey was then asked to turn around and put his hands behind his back. Mr. Massey began walking back towards the car, obviously confused as to why he was being ordered to put his hands behind his back, and less than 10 seconds later was tased.

The Magical Human Brain

Unlike a computer, the brain does not have the ability to instantly scan a random series of locations in its memory. To do so would require that every memory location be connected to every other location, which is clearly not the case, biologically speaking. Alternatively, it would require an address bus, a data bus, a memory controller and RAM, much like a computer. This is not the case either. Human memory does have a random access capability but it is extremely slow compared to a computer: the axon of a neuron must grow until it physically establishes a synaptic connection. And yet, amazingly, human memory acts as if it does have instant random access capability. For example, we can instantly record (memorize) any short sequence of random musical notes and instantly recite it with no trouble even if we have never heard or used that sequence before. How can this be? How does the brain instantly record a random sequence of events that it has never encountered before and play it back in the same order?

The act of recording a sequence of events presupposes the existence of a recording medium. The only biologically plausible way to record and play back a sequence of events is to use a control neuron that is physically connected to all the neurons that represent the events in the sequence. One can imagine using synaptic strengths to encode the delays and a steady oscillatory firing of the control neuron to trigger each node at its assigned time. One can even imagine using a faster or slower oscillation frequency to play the sequence under different tempos. The point I am driving at is that, in order for the human brain to be able to instantly record and play back short random melodies, it would need a pre-wired network of all such possible sequences to serve as a universal medium. This is an extremely huge number even if we limit the melodies to seven notes each, the capacity of human short-term memory. If we include all the other possible event sequences that human memory can instantly record, the number becomes astronomical. There is no evidence for the existence of such an immense pre-wired network. In fact, the evidence is that much of the wiring of the brain occurs during learning. Is the brain using some kind of magic to do its amazing tricks? The answer depends on what one calls magic. I call it something else. I call it the spirit.

In part II, I will expand on the spirit theme and go over the real reason that dogs can't play chess.

Last week's announcement by Shai Agassi, a former SAP executive based in Palo Alto, that he's raised $200 million for a company that will try to revolutionize the electric car industry is the latest sign of this region's growing role in one of the hottest sectors of the automotive industry.