Connectionists: how the brain works?

[james bower]

In the end, the brain will win - it will just take a while (took 1500 years for the solar system)

:-)

Jim


On Mar 14, 2014, at 5:01 PM, Tsvi Achler <achler at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jim,
> I can't agree with you more that the traditional feedforward approach
> to object recognition is suspect, but unfortunately academia has an
> addiction to this.
> My experience is that academia would rather bury someone that suggests
> a different computational model than truly evaluate it.
> -Tsvi
> 
> On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 2:29 PM, james bower <bower at uthscsa.edu> wrote:
>> I would caution again that the brain  might know much more about the
>> structure of the world at birth than we know.
>> 
>> That makes the traditional feedforward approach to object recognition (and
>> learning) suspect.
>> 
>> IMHO
>> 
>> Jim bower
>> 
>> 
>> On Mar 14, 2014, at 1:17 PM, Juyang Weng <weng at cse.msu.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> 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> 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
>>> Fax: 517-432-1061
>>> Email: weng at cse.msu.edu
>>> URL: http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/
>>> ----------------------------------------------
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> --
>> 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/
>> ----------------------------------------------
>> 
>>