Cerebralization of mathematical quantities and physical features in neural science: a critical evaluation

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the idea that the brain encodes mathematical and physical concepts like space, time, and mechanics, arguing that movement results from measurement processes rather than direct neural encoding of these notions.

Contribution

It challenges the view that neural activity directly encodes classical mechanics, emphasizing movement as a filtered measurement process in the brain.

Findings

Movement is a product of measurement and filtering processes.

Classical mechanics descriptions do not imply neural implementation.

Neural encoding of physical concepts in movement is questioned.

Abstract

At the turn of the 20th century, Henri Poincar{\'e} explained that geometry is a convention and that the properties of space and time are the properties of our measuring instruments. Intriguingly, numerous contemporary authors argue that space, time and even number are ''encoded'' within the brain, as a consequence of evolution, adaptation and natural selection. In the neuroscientific study of movement generation, the activity of neurons would ''encode'' kinematic parameters: when they emit action potentials, neurons would ''speak'' a language carrying notions of classical mechanics. In this article, we shall explain that the movement of a body segment is the ultimate product of a measurement, a filtered numerical outcome of multiple processes taking place in parallel in the central nervous system and converging on the groups of neurons responsible for muscle contractions. The fact that notions of classical mechanics efficiently describe movements does not imply their implementation in the inner workings of the brain. Their relevance to the question how the brain activity enables one to produce accurate movements is questioned within the framework of the neurophysiology of orienting gaze movements toward a visual target.