On the stability of brain-like structures.

Previous authors have argued that the maintenance of the highly connected aggregates of nerve cells in the central nervous system in a stable state of intermediate activity presents something of a paradox. In the present paper it is shown that this is not so and that either a relatively large-scale structure of the aggregate or the presence of inhibitory connections makes a stable intermediate activity possible. It is suggested that large-scale structure can usefully be discussed from an information-theoretic viewpoint and that it is also related to the ergodic problem of classical mechanics.