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Science of Chess: Playing blindfold and seeing chess in your dreams

Great blog post as always! Keep them coming!

Great blog post as always! Keep them coming!

This may be a naïve question. It refers to "replaying maze navigation in hippocampal "place cells"".

Is it possible or even necessary that hippocampal and/or other "place cells" are arranged homomorphically or homologically to map, and map to, the maze structure? I refer here to mathematical homology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(mathematics)#:~:text=In%20mathematics%2C%20the%20term%20homology,homology%20of%20a%20topological%20space.

I am not a mathematician so this is a complete stab in the dark.

If there is a homomorphic arrangement it would more likely be logical rather than physical. But could even a logical arrangement reveal more about itself (its internal logic) by the order in which cells "light up" to map the maze? Or were you saying there was a physical homomorphic arrangement as follows?

"As one place cell after another became active in sequence, researchers could see how they corresponded to the correct path from the beginning of the learned maze to the end."

As I say, a naïve question and a stab in the dark from one without any expert knowledge.

This may be a naïve question. It refers to "replaying maze navigation in hippocampal "place cells"". Is it possible or even necessary that hippocampal and/or other "place cells" are arranged homomorphically or homologically to map, and map to, the maze structure? I refer here to mathematical homology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(mathematics)#:~:text=In%20mathematics%2C%20the%20term%20homology,homology%20of%20a%20topological%20space. I am not a mathematician so this is a complete stab in the dark. If there is a homomorphic arrangement it would more likely be logical rather than physical. But could even a logical arrangement reveal more about itself (its internal logic) by the order in which cells "light up" to map the maze? Or were you saying there was a physical homomorphic arrangement as follows? "As one place cell after another became active in sequence, researchers could see how they corresponded to the correct path from the beginning of the learned maze to the end." As I say, a naïve question and a stab in the dark from one without any expert knowledge.

@schruv said in #2:

Great blog post as always! Keep them coming!
Thanks for reading!

@schruv said in #2: > Great blog post as always! Keep them coming! Thanks for reading!

@Wodjul said in #3:

This may be a naïve question. It refers to "replaying maze navigation in hippocampal "place cells"".

Is it possible or even necessary that hippocampal and/or other "place cells" are arranged homomorphically or homologically to map, and map to, the maze structure? I refer here to mathematical homology.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(mathematics)#:~:text=In%20mathematics%2C%20the%20term%20homology,homology%20of%20a%20topological%20space.

I am not a mathematician so this is a complete stab in the dark.

If there is a homomorphic arrangement it would more likely be logical rather than physical. But could even a logical arrangement reveal more about itself (its internal logic) by the order in which cells "light up" to map the maze? Or were you saying there was a physical homomorphic arrangement as follows?

"As one place cell after another became active in sequence, researchers could see how they corresponded to the correct path from the beginning of the learned maze to the end."

As I say, a naïve question and a stab in the dark from one without any expert knowledge.

Not a naive question at all - also forgive my own naivete, but I don't have much familiarity at all with mathematical homology. In terms of replay, the place cells in the hippocampus aren't necessarily arranged spatially in a manner that corresponds to the geometry of the maze. Instead, I think it is what you referred to as a logical homomorphism - one knows which cells (wherever you found them) were active when the rodent was in different parts of the maze and one can observe sequential activity that looks like what happened as the rat traveled through it while awake.

I hope this answers the question, but please let me know if I'm misunderstanding something! I should add that there are a number of maps in various parts of the brain that do exhibit physical homomorphism (or an approximation). Dr. Rebecca Schwarzlose's book "Brainscapes" is a wonderful overview of this topic.

@Wodjul said in #3: > This may be a naïve question. It refers to "replaying maze navigation in hippocampal "place cells"". > > Is it possible or even necessary that hippocampal and/or other "place cells" are arranged homomorphically or homologically to map, and map to, the maze structure? I refer here to mathematical homology. > > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(mathematics)#:~:text=In%20mathematics%2C%20the%20term%20homology,homology%20of%20a%20topological%20space. > > I am not a mathematician so this is a complete stab in the dark. > > If there is a homomorphic arrangement it would more likely be logical rather than physical. But could even a logical arrangement reveal more about itself (its internal logic) by the order in which cells "light up" to map the maze? Or were you saying there was a physical homomorphic arrangement as follows? > > "As one place cell after another became active in sequence, researchers could see how they corresponded to the correct path from the beginning of the learned maze to the end." > > As I say, a naïve question and a stab in the dark from one without any expert knowledge. Not a naive question at all - also forgive my own naivete, but I don't have much familiarity at all with mathematical homology. In terms of replay, the place cells in the hippocampus aren't necessarily arranged spatially in a manner that corresponds to the geometry of the maze. Instead, I think it is what you referred to as a logical homomorphism - one knows which cells (wherever you found them) were active when the rodent was in different parts of the maze and one can observe sequential activity that looks like what happened as the rat traveled through it while awake. I hope this answers the question, but please let me know if I'm misunderstanding something! I should add that there are a number of maps in various parts of the brain that do exhibit physical homomorphism (or an approximation). Dr. Rebecca Schwarzlose's book "Brainscapes" is a wonderful overview of this topic.

Blessings, as sleep, dreams, and consciousness in general are only partially understood. Obviously individuals reporting dreams are just anecdotal, or a form of introspection. The phenomenon of dreaming about what one does during the day is universal, applying to anything, not even sure the blindfold chess stands out compared to other literature about dreams. But dreams are near impossible to study. (Consider the science fiction movie Dreamscape 1984)

I would propose this could be evidence / argument for 'spiritual phenomenon', that thought does not arise from the brain, but in a Cartesian sense that the brain is a receiver and thought itself does not arise from the brain but the soul. And scientific research on the subject, looking for a neurological solution are less convincing (correspond less with the phenomenon) that dualistic explanations separating mind and body. But one needs to make these philosophical presuppositions come prior to interpretation of the anecdotal evidence, and how to try to gather or test a theory.

Blessings, as sleep, dreams, and consciousness in general are only partially understood. Obviously individuals reporting dreams are just anecdotal, or a form of introspection. The phenomenon of dreaming about what one does during the day is universal, applying to anything, not even sure the blindfold chess stands out compared to other literature about dreams. But dreams are near impossible to study. (Consider the science fiction movie Dreamscape 1984) I would propose this could be evidence / argument for 'spiritual phenomenon', that thought does not arise from the brain, but in a Cartesian sense that the brain is a receiver and thought itself does not arise from the brain but the soul. And scientific research on the subject, looking for a neurological solution are less convincing (correspond less with the phenomenon) that dualistic explanations separating mind and body. But one needs to make these philosophical presuppositions come prior to interpretation of the anecdotal evidence, and how to try to gather or test a theory.

@NDpatzer said in #5:

Not a naive question at all - also forgive my own naivete, but I don't have much familiarity at all with mathematical homology. In terms of replay, the place cells in the hippocampus aren't necessarily arranged spatially in a manner that corresponds to the geometry of the maze. Instead, I think it is what you referred to as a logical homomorphism - one knows which cells (wherever you found them) were active when the rodent was in different parts of the maze and one can observe sequential activity that looks like what happened as the rat traveled through it while awake.

I hope this answers the question, but please let me know if I'm misunderstanding something! I should add that there are a number of maps in various parts of the brain that do exhibit physical homomorphism (or an approximation). Dr. Rebecca Schwarzlose's book "Brainscapes" is a wonderful overview of this topic.

This does an excellent job of answering my question, thanks, especially since my question was rather speculative. A further speculation of mine is that if neurologists and mathematicians of algebraic topology, chain complexes and abstract algebra got together on topics in this arena then a fruitful collaboration might arise. Probably this is already occurring. Perhaps it is mentioned in Rebecca Schwarzlose's book "Brainscapes" which unfortunately I have not read.

This goes to a subject which I am interested in. This is the relationship between real systems and formal systems. Chess is a formal system, as are languages, mathematics and books of legal or religious Law, for example. I hold that formal systems are subsets of real systems and are thus real (sub)systems themselves. Formal systems are instantiated in real systems (in media) as patterns containing information. This is the only way or mode in which formal systems exist. They exist as patterns (containing information) instantiated in real media like human brains, computer data storage and books, taken as examples.

This thesis holds if one considers the cosmos to be a monistic real system comprised of real sub-systems. This then indicates that a real system and the formal or logical system which describes it (accurately enough for successful navigation as in the above maze case) must possess a degree of physical, as well as logical, homology or homomorphism. Indeed it suggests that logical/mathematical homology must be based on a degree of physical homomorphism. Further, it may suggest that this degree of physical homomorphism must be complete in essentials in the sense that a useable map is complete in essentials.

Real systems consist of parts interacting in space-time, exchanging material, energy and or information with each other and with the monistic world or cosmos environment, creating physically measurable effects. (Measurements are interactions of real systems: the real measuring system with the real target system.) Where stored amounts of information and the potentials for operations on and with that information, and for exchange of that information, are high relative to the amounts of matter and energy involved in total in the system in question then we can have a high confidence that we are dealing with a human formal system instantiated in a real system or with a RNA/DNA style encoding, decoding, fabrication and reproduction/replication system (a biological organism, or virus, or possibly prion, in other words). There may be other examples though I cannot think of them now.

On The Philosophy of this Arena.

@DIAChessClubStudies above made a very interesting post but one that needs correction or at least elaboration. They proposed "this could be evidence / argument for 'spiritual phenomenon', that thought does not arise from the brain, but in a Cartesian sense that the brain is a receiver and thought itself does not arise from the brain but the soul." This can be seen as a faith view which does not satisfy Occam's Razor, at least not for narrow empiricists like me, nor even place matters fully it in the physical domain where we can detect objects and processes. Descartes introduces a non-physical element. The question then arises. How do the physical and the non-physical interact and communicate? How is information passed? How does the spiritual affect the physical? We cannot examine this scientifically.

Bishop George Berkeley's famous treatise "On the Principles of Human Knowledge" solved, to his satisfaction, the problem of the Cartesian split of res extensa (extended thing), and res cogitans, a thinking or a thought, and thence the communication problem between the physical and the mental and/or spiritual. Berkeley achieved this by a radical assumption of immateriality. He assumed that the physical does not exist at all. There are only subject spirits and the Supreme Spirit in his cosmology. To modern eyes it leads to a virtual reality assumption. We are living, in this case, in a MMORPG, with the Supreme Spirit as the central server and us as receivers and transmitters. To many of Berkeley's contemporaries, like Dr Samuel Jonson, no doubt well read in Locke, perhaps the key British Empiricist to that point, it sounded both non-empirical and an absurd affront to common sense. Johnson, discussing the idea with some companions while walking along a path, kicked a stone and said of Berkley's immaterialism thesis , "I refute it thus."

This was the "Appeal to the stone, also known as argumentum ad lapidem ... (actually) a logical fallacy that dismisses an argument as untrue or absurd. The dismissal is made by stating or reiterating that the argument is absurd, without providing further (or proper) argumentation." - Wikipedia.

Berkeley's entire argument is ingenious and entirely sound IFF (if and only if) you accept his first premise of there being a Supreme Spirit which operates in the manner he posits. From that point the argument is extremely clear, logical and empirically (from experience) supportable. The argument is founded on a strict monistic immatarialst assumption: that the system in question (world or cosmos) is all one system of one "substance", in this case a spiritual "substance": here using "substance" in the philosophical sense as "the basic stuff of which everything is comprised" and it means in Berkeley's philosophy "spiritual stuff", not "material stuff".

However, we can take Berkeley's strict (immaterialist) monism and invert it into a strict materialist or "existentist" monism. The priority monism of the system is the initial premise which solves the (information) communication problem in each case: as Monist Immaterialism or Monist Materialism. In the latter case it suggests, as I wrote above, that formal systems are real system subsets of the full real system. From thence, we can analyse everything in terms of matter, energy, patterns and information. And we would expect there to be at least logical or mathematical homologies relating maps and models to the real if they be valid and useable for explanation, prediction and navigation. Further we would expect the physical mapping structure at least in its instantiated patterns or processes of patterns, which contain information, to show at some level, in some translatable and interpretable way, recognizable homomorphisms with the target system, structure or process being mapped or modelled. Remember, the brain structures or rather the electrical processes in the brain structures must be translated into the physical actions of maze running. "Cogitos tu (to) servos", we could say, which undoubtedly is very bad pig Latin.

Just a few thoughts.

@NDpatzer said in #5: > Not a naive question at all - also forgive my own naivete, but I don't have much familiarity at all with mathematical homology. In terms of replay, the place cells in the hippocampus aren't necessarily arranged spatially in a manner that corresponds to the geometry of the maze. Instead, I think it is what you referred to as a logical homomorphism - one knows which cells (wherever you found them) were active when the rodent was in different parts of the maze and one can observe sequential activity that looks like what happened as the rat traveled through it while awake. > > I hope this answers the question, but please let me know if I'm misunderstanding something! I should add that there are a number of maps in various parts of the brain that do exhibit physical homomorphism (or an approximation). Dr. Rebecca Schwarzlose's book "Brainscapes" is a wonderful overview of this topic. This does an excellent job of answering my question, thanks, especially since my question was rather speculative. A further speculation of mine is that if neurologists and mathematicians of algebraic topology, chain complexes and abstract algebra got together on topics in this arena then a fruitful collaboration might arise. Probably this is already occurring. Perhaps it is mentioned in Rebecca Schwarzlose's book "Brainscapes" which unfortunately I have not read. This goes to a subject which I am interested in. This is the relationship between real systems and formal systems. Chess is a formal system, as are languages, mathematics and books of legal or religious Law, for example. I hold that formal systems are subsets of real systems and are thus real (sub)systems themselves. Formal systems are instantiated in real systems (in media) as patterns containing information. This is the only way or mode in which formal systems exist. They exist as patterns (containing information) instantiated in real media like human brains, computer data storage and books, taken as examples. This thesis holds if one considers the cosmos to be a monistic real system comprised of real sub-systems. This then indicates that a real system and the formal or logical system which describes it (accurately enough for successful navigation as in the above maze case) must possess a degree of physical, as well as logical, homology or homomorphism. Indeed it suggests that logical/mathematical homology must be based on a degree of physical homomorphism. Further, it may suggest that this degree of physical homomorphism must be complete in essentials in the sense that a useable map is complete in essentials. Real systems consist of parts interacting in space-time, exchanging material, energy and or information with each other and with the monistic world or cosmos environment, creating physically measurable effects. (Measurements are interactions of real systems: the real measuring system with the real target system.) Where stored amounts of information and the potentials for operations on and with that information, and for exchange of that information, are high relative to the amounts of matter and energy involved in total in the system in question then we can have a high confidence that we are dealing with a human formal system instantiated in a real system or with a RNA/DNA style encoding, decoding, fabrication and reproduction/replication system (a biological organism, or virus, or possibly prion, in other words). There may be other examples though I cannot think of them now. On The Philosophy of this Arena. @DIAChessClubStudies above made a very interesting post but one that needs correction or at least elaboration. They proposed "this could be evidence / argument for 'spiritual phenomenon', that thought does not arise from the brain, but in a Cartesian sense that the brain is a receiver and thought itself does not arise from the brain but the soul." This can be seen as a faith view which does not satisfy Occam's Razor, at least not for narrow empiricists like me, nor even place matters fully it in the physical domain where we can detect objects and processes. Descartes introduces a non-physical element. The question then arises. How do the physical and the non-physical interact and communicate? How is information passed? How does the spiritual affect the physical? We cannot examine this scientifically. Bishop George Berkeley's famous treatise "On the Principles of Human Knowledge" solved, to his satisfaction, the problem of the Cartesian split of res extensa (extended thing), and res cogitans, a thinking or a thought, and thence the communication problem between the physical and the mental and/or spiritual. Berkeley achieved this by a radical assumption of immateriality. He assumed that the physical does not exist at all. There are only subject spirits and the Supreme Spirit in his cosmology. To modern eyes it leads to a virtual reality assumption. We are living, in this case, in a MMORPG, with the Supreme Spirit as the central server and us as receivers and transmitters. To many of Berkeley's contemporaries, like Dr Samuel Jonson, no doubt well read in Locke, perhaps the key British Empiricist to that point, it sounded both non-empirical and an absurd affront to common sense. Johnson, discussing the idea with some companions while walking along a path, kicked a stone and said of Berkley's immaterialism thesis , "I refute it thus." This was the "Appeal to the stone, also known as argumentum ad lapidem ... (actually) a logical fallacy that dismisses an argument as untrue or absurd. The dismissal is made by stating or reiterating that the argument is absurd, without providing further (or proper) argumentation." - Wikipedia. Berkeley's entire argument is ingenious and entirely sound IFF (if and only if) you accept his first premise of there being a Supreme Spirit which operates in the manner he posits. From that point the argument is extremely clear, logical and empirically (from experience) supportable. The argument is founded on a strict monistic immatarialst assumption: that the system in question (world or cosmos) is all one system of one "substance", in this case a spiritual "substance": here using "substance" in the philosophical sense as "the basic stuff of which everything is comprised" and it means in Berkeley's philosophy "spiritual stuff", not "material stuff". However, we can take Berkeley's strict (immaterialist) monism and invert it into a strict materialist or "existentist" monism. The priority monism of the system is the initial premise which solves the (information) communication problem in each case: as Monist Immaterialism or Monist Materialism. In the latter case it suggests, as I wrote above, that formal systems are real system subsets of the full real system. From thence, we can analyse everything in terms of matter, energy, patterns and information. And we would expect there to be at least logical or mathematical homologies relating maps and models to the real if they be valid and useable for explanation, prediction and navigation. Further we would expect the physical mapping structure at least in its instantiated patterns or processes of patterns, which contain information, to show at some level, in some translatable and interpretable way, recognizable homomorphisms with the target system, structure or process being mapped or modelled. Remember, the brain structures or rather the electrical processes in the brain structures must be translated into the physical actions of maze running. "Cogitos tu (to) servos", we could say, which undoubtedly is very bad pig Latin. Just a few thoughts.

Very interesting. John Knott is a very old friend if mine whom I have known since the 1979. He was fascinated by this subject even then.

Very interesting. John Knott is a very old friend if mine whom I have known since the 1979. He was fascinated by this subject even then.

@BuftonTufton said in #8:

Very interesting. John Knott is a very old friend if mine whom I have known since the 1979. He was fascinated by this subject even then.

If you're still in touch with him, please tell him how much I enjoyed the book! There are so many fascinating details about players' preparation for blindfold play that I'm building up quite the reading list of topics to chase down. It's really a wonderful resource.

@BuftonTufton said in #8: > Very interesting. John Knott is a very old friend if mine whom I have known since the 1979. He was fascinated by this subject even then. If you're still in touch with him, please tell him how much I enjoyed the book! There are so many fascinating details about players' preparation for blindfold play that I'm building up quite the reading list of topics to chase down. It's really a wonderful resource.