Connectionists: how the brain works?

[Asim Roy]

There is plenty of neurophysiological evidence that abstractions are used in the brain - from the lowest (line orientation and other feature detector cells) to the highest levels (multimodal object recognition, complex abstract cells, place cells). Here are some references:

A theory of the brain: localist representation is used widely in the brain<http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00551/full>

An extension of the localist representation theory: grandmother cells are also widely used in the brain<http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00300/full>

Asim Roy
Arizona State University
http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.asim.roy


From: Connectionists [mailto:connectionists-bounces at mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu] On Behalf Of Brian J Mingus
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 6:41 PM
To: Juyang Weng
Cc: connectionists at mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu<mailto:connectionists at mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: [SPAM]Re: Connectionists: how the brain works?

Hi John,

Theories of the brain will come in at multiple levels of abstraction. A reasonable first pass is to take object recognition as a given. It's clear that language and general intelligence doesn't require it. Hellen Keller is a great example - deaf and blind, and with patience, extremely intelligent. Visual and auditory object recognition simply aren't required!

Brian



On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Juyang Weng <weng at cse.msu.edu<mailto:weng at cse.msu.edu>> wrote:
Danko,

Good attempt.

Any theory about brain/mind must address the First Principle:  How it learns visual invariance directly from natural cluttered environments.
Your article does not seem to address the First Principle, does it?

-John


On 3/7/14 11:22 AM, Danko Nikolic wrote:
I believe that the readers of Connectionists list my be interested in the manuscript available on arXiv (1402.5332) proposing the principles by which adaptive systems create intelligent behavior. It is a theoretical paper that has been recently submitted to a journal, and the editors agreed to post it on arXiv.

A nice context for this manuscript is, I think, the recent discussion on Connectionists list on "how the brain works?", -- including the comparison to how the radio works, arguments that neuroscience has not reached the maturity of 19th century physics, that the development should be an essential component, etc.

I assess that anyone who enjoyed following that discussion, like I did, would be interested also in what the proposed theory has to say.

The theory addresses those problems by placing the question of brain workings one level more abstract than it is usually discussed: It proposes a general set of properties that adaptive systems need to have to exhibit intelligent behavior (nevertheless, concrete examples are given from biology and technology). Finally, the theory proposes what is, in principle, missing in the current approaches in order to account for the higher, biological-like levels of adaptive behavior.

For those who are interested, I recommend using the link on my website:

http://www.danko-nikolic.com/practopoiesis/

because there I provided, in addition, a simplified introduction into some of the main conclusions derived from the theory.

I would very much like to know what people think. Comments will be appreciated.

With warm greetings from Germany,

Danko Nikolic

--
--
Juyang (John) Weng, Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
MSU Cognitive Science Program and MSU Neuroscience Program
428 S Shaw Ln Rm 3115
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824 USA
Tel: 517-353-4388<tel:517-353-4388>
Fax: 517-432-1061<tel:517-432-1061>
Email: weng at cse.msu.edu<mailto:weng at cse.msu.edu>
URL: http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/
----------------------------------------------

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/pipermail/connectionists/attachments/20140314/1d2f1566/attachment.html>