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Towards Topological Mechanisms Underlying Experience Acquisition and Transmission in the Human Brain

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Abstract

Experience is a process of awareness and mastery of facts or events, gained through actual observation or second-hand knowledge. Recent findings reinforce the idea that a naturalized epistemological approach is needed to further advance our understanding of the nervous mechanisms underlying experience. This essay is an effort to build a coherent topological-based framework able to elucidate particular aspects of experience, e.g., how it is acquired by a single individual, transmitted to others and collectively stored in form of general ideas. Taking into account concepts from neuroscience, algebraic topology and Richard Avenarius’ philosophical analytical approach, we provide a scheme which is cast in an empirically testable fashion. In particular, we emphasize the foremost role of variants of the Borsuk-Ulam theorem, which tells us that, when a pair of opposite (antipodal) points on a sphere are mapped onto a single point in Euclidean space, the projection provides a description of both antipodal points. These antipodes stand for nervous functions and activities of the brain correlated with the mechanisms of acquisition and transmission of experience.

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Acknowledgements

The Authors would like to thank Chiara Russo Krauss and Thomas Feldges for commenting on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Nonlinear Science, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle, #311427, Denton, TX, 76203-5017, USA

    Arturo Tozzi

  2. Computational Intelligence Laboratory, University of Manitoba, R3T 5V6, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

    Arturo Tozzi

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, 75A Chancellor’s Circle, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 5V6, Canada

    James F. Peters

  4. Department of Mathematics, Adıyaman University, 02040, Adıyaman, Turkey

    James F. Peters

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Tozzi, A., Peters, J.F. Towards Topological Mechanisms Underlying Experience Acquisition and Transmission in the Human Brain. Integr. psych. behav. 51, 303–323 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-017-9380-z

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