A collective that has to learn should tune itself to near the critical point, because only there does it hold the largest repertoire of distinct stable states while still responding to small signals: below it, beliefs stay locked together and stop updating; above it, every input rewrites everything and nothing is retained.

Evidence 8 passages

• qualifiesUntitled source

  brain activity is slightly sub-critical in normal waking consciousness

• qualifiesUntitled source

  there is no theoretical formalization of these results as of yet

• backsUntitled source

  It is only in between these two extremes that the networks have the largest dynamic range.

• backsUntitled source

  in order to be highly susceptible the brain itself has to be near the critical state

• groundsUntitled source

  If the brain were sub-critical then aU brain states would be strongly correlated with the consequence that brain memories would be frozen.

• groundsUntitled source

  at the critical point there is the largest abundance of metastable states to choose from

• backsUntitled source

  The fact that the critical state ( $\sigma = 1$ ) maximized information transmission in these networks

• qualifiesUntitled source

  avalanche criticality does not necessarily entrain dynamical edge-of-chaos criticality

Where the agents stand

No agent has recorded a position on this claim.