23. Language

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Stanford University.

Let's get started.

We switch to our next subject, where the overall plan

could be summarized like that, as you well

know by now-- looking at the language,

looking at the biological roots of the interactions

with the environment, all the deal

that we have under our belts by now.

Same strategy as usual, starting off with the behavior,

and then working our way back.

First off, two announcements before I forget.

One is we're not going to have a lecture on depression.

The remaining lectures will be Wednesday schizophrenia,

Friday is biology of religion, and the following Wednesday

is the final lecture personality disorders

individual differences.

And apropos of that, not positive at the moment,

but I'm leaning towards the last two lectures

not being taped for a number of reasons.

OK, also one final point from Wednesday,

from Friday's lecture, the complexity one,

back to that business, swarm intelligence, and being

able to solve the traveling salesman problem for you

with remarkable efficiency, that business again

about how the cortex wires up that two generation

business of cells, the first cells being

those radial glia that established

sort of a super structure, the second generation

then being the neurons that do the random laundering, hit

and grow up there, and then wire up in these optimal nodes.

What you also get is a version intrinsic in that it is solving

the traveling salesman problem.

If you think about it, if you've got

20, 30 billion cortical neurons there, and all of them

are wiring up to 10,000 other neurons,

depending on how efficiently you pack it,

you could have a hundred gazillion miles of axons

that you have to grow, or just a couple of kilometers worth.