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I will send 6 emails each of which has a title of "Discipline X and
why learning X". Please give your views and suggestions so that we
can improve the BMI web in its page: Why-Me? At present, many
people do not believe that he can understand how the brain-mind
works. We must correct this misconception. -John<br>
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<h4 align="center">I Am a Biologist</h4>
<p align="left">Evolution and development interact intimately.
Without evolution, development does not have the origin of each
life. Without development, evolution cannot complete and show its
functions. Although much work has been done, how the genome
regulates development is still poorly understood. The fact that
every cell in the brain is autonomous during development is likely
helpful to understanding how the tissues, organs and organisms
emerge and work in the physical environment. However, how does the
genome give rise to tissues, organs and organisms? As many related
biological puzzles are quantitative in nature, solving these
biological puzzles require computational knowledge in EE, CS, and
mathematics. </p>
<h4 align="center">Why Learning Biology?</h4>
<p align="left">Through cell signaling (e.g., morphogens, cell
differentiation, cell connections), it is the collective effects
of many individual autonomously interacting cells that enable the
entire brain to work properly. From biological mechanisms that
regulate the cell migration, growth, and connection, as well as
the sufficiency of such cell-level activities to give rise to the
mind, there seems to be no “government” in the brain, as far as
individual cell power is concerned — no brain cell is more
powerful than any other. The brain should work almost equally well
if we delete any single cell in it. This non-intuitive fact is due
to a biological principle — the<em> principle of genomic
equivalence</em>, dramatically demonstrated recently by animal
cloning. This principle means that the information represented by
the genes in the nucleus of every cell (other than cells that have
lost their nuclei such as blood cells) is sufficient for the cell
to develop into a functional human adult body-and-brain consisting
of around 100 trillion cells, provided that it lives in a normal
human environment. Yes, every cell seems to have all the
regulating “laws” for the body and the mind to development. </p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
--
Juyang (John) Weng, Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
MSU Cognitive Science Program and MSU Neuroscience Program
3115 Engineering Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824 USA
Tel: 517-353-4388
Fax: 517-432-1061
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:weng@cse.msu.edu">weng@cse.msu.edu</a>
URL: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/">http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/</a>
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