The Cortex and the Critical Point: Understanding the Power of Emergence

How the cerebral cortex operates near a critical phase transition point for optimum performance.

Individual neurons have limited computational powers, but when they work together, it is almost like magic. Firing synchronously and then breaking off to improvise by themselves, they can be paradoxically both independent and interdependent. This happens near the critical point: when neurons are poised between a phase where activity is damped and a phase where it is amplified, where information p...