<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">so much fun<div><br></div><div>thanks Axel,</div><div><br></div><div>First a personal note (in case any of you are wondering at my tone), on Dec 31st I officially retired from my academic appointment in the University of Texas, by agreement with the State Attorney General. :-). So, in case anyone is wondering, I am now happily free - and feeling even less constrained than usual - a wonderful feeling. After a total of about $30MM in total federal funding over the last 30 years, yesterday I spent the last $ 1,245.53. Liberation. :-) The UT met all my conditions, only requiring that I not seek nor accept a position ever again in the University of Texas System. :-) easy to agree to that. :-)</div><div><br></div><div>Anyway, there are all kinds of levels of description of physical systems, and of course, careful understanding of the actual behavior of a physical system is very important. Again, reference to the data on planetary motion that Kepler needed to do what he did. However, one has to be able to understand the restraints provided by the data on what sorts of functional interpretations one can make. Kepler is one of my (few) scientific heroes because in spite of his natural predisposition to a kind of magical thinking about celestial harmonies, he still did the hard work that required the kind of messiness that he wasn’t predisposed to, because it was required by the data.</div><div><br></div><div>I have no problem with careful descriptions of human behavior - I have serious concerns about the use of that data to support (often through experimental manipulations these days often using the many knobs and uncontrolled variables in imaging studies) cognitive theories of brain function. </div><div><br></div><div>Recent work of this kind in my poor cerebellum being a particularly unfortunate example. The cerebellum is now being evoked as part of a growing number of cognitive theories, based largely on imaging (see below) and good old lesion studies, without any real fundamental consideration of the actual physical relationship between the structure and the rest of the brain, or the actual physiological organization of its networks. The ‘cognitive guys’ don’t know and don’t care. Instead, misinterpretations of both are being used to prop up the cognitive theory (for example, the supposed ‘timing function’ of the cerebellar parallel fibers). </div><div><br></div><div>Again, a long discussion probably not of interest to most on this mailing list - anyone that wants references, happy to send them.</div><div><br></div><div>But once again - beware Ptolemy — and lets add in pythagorus as well. :-) (actual the later another hero of the angst that unignored reality caused him :-) ).</div><div><br></div><div>Jim</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On Jan 25, 2014, at 10:37 AM, Axel Hutt <<a href="mailto:axel.hutt@inria.fr">axel.hutt@inria.fr</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hallo,<br><br>thanks to all for the important discussion.<br><br><hr id="zwchr"><blockquote id="DWT578" style="border-left-width: 2px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">[..]What that means inevitably, in my view, is that the only way we will ever understand what brain-like is, is to pay tremendous attention experimentally and in our models to the actual detailed anatomy and physiology of the brains circuits and cells.</blockquote>here I do not agree with you. Understanding cognitive processes makes it necessary to understand the major principles<br>in encoding and decoding since the physiological details are different for each subject while the basic underlying<br>mechanism is (with high probability) the same. Hence, considering more anatomical details does not lead us that far.<br>We recognize this in todays' research progress, where physiological neuroscientists extracts tons of detailed data<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>from different patients and do not understand it. One way out is the progress of theory, and not of collecting more data.<br><br>Best<br><br><br>Axel</div></div></blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(149, 0, 4);">Dr. James M. Bower Ph.D.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Professor of Computational Neurobiology</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: rgb(66, 0, 168);">Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">15355 Lambda Drive</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">University of Texas Health Science Center </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">San Antonio, Texas 78245</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Phone: 210 382 0553</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Email: <a href="mailto:bower@uthscsa.edu">bower@uthscsa.edu</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Web: <a href="http://www.bower-lab.org">http://www.bower-lab.org</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">twitter: superid101<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">linkedin: Jim Bower<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: rgb(177, 89, 19);">CONFIDENTIAL NOTICE:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: rgb(177, 89, 19);">The contents of this email and any attachments to it may be privileged or contain privileged and confidential information. This information is only for the viewing or use of the intended recipient. If you have received this e-mail in error or are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of, or the taking of any action in reliance upon, any of the information contained in this e-mail, or<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: rgb(177, 89, 19);">any of the attachments to this e-mail, is strictly prohibited and that this e-mail and all of the attachments to this e-mail, if any, must be<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: rgb(177, 89, 19);">immediately returned to the sender or destroyed and, in either case, this e-mail and all attachments to this e-mail must be immediately deleted from your computer without making any copies hereof and any and all hard copies made must be destroyed. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by e-mail immediately.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></p></div>
</div>
<br></div></body></html>