Connectionists: how the brain works?

[Juyang Weng]

 > It's clear that language and general intelligence doesn't require it.

This is clearly wrong if you know and understand our DN.  I believe that 
any brain theory will miss the boat if it cannot explain the First 
Principle.  The brain is not just an information processor, it is first 
a developer for the information processor.  If one does not understand 
how the information processor develops, he definitely misses the boat in 
explaining how the brain processes information.

That is why although "theories of the brain will come in at multiple 
levels of abstraction", they may miss the boat.
The brain uses a single architecture to do all brain functions we are 
aware of!  It uses the same architecture to do vision, audition, motor, 
reasoning, decision making, motivation (including pain avoidance and 
pleasure seeking, novelty seeking, higher emotion, etc.).

-John

On 3/13/14 9:40 PM, Brian J Mingus wrote:
> 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/ <http://www.cse.msu.edu/%7Eweng/>
>     ----------------------------------------------
>
>

-- 
--
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
Fax: 517-432-1061
Email: weng at cse.msu.edu
URL: http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/
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