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Asim,</div>
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It makes sense for you to put "meaning" in scare-quotes, since it is another ill-defined term. IMHO, the important thing is adaptive behavior. That a particular neuron fires when the organism is exposed to a stimulus is significant because that spike does work
on other parts of the system, ultimately shaping behavior. The notion of "meaning" may just be a convenience for us as observers discussing the system.</div>
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-- Fred</div>
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<b>From:</b> Connectionists <connectionists-bounces@mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu> on behalf of Asim Roy <ASIM.ROY@asu.edu><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, August 21, 2026 10:47 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> KENTRIDGE, ROBERT W. <robert.kentridge@durham.ac.uk>; Gary Marcus <gary.marcus@nyu.edu>; Stephen José Hanson <jose@rubic.rutgers.edu>; Hava Siegelmann (hava.siegelmann@gmail.com) <hava.siegelmann@gmail.com>; Juergen Schmidhuber <juergen.schmidhuber@kaust.edu.sa>;
Ali Minai <minaiaa@gmail.com><br>
<b>Cc:</b> director@inc.ucsd.edu <director@inc.ucsd.edu>; connectionists@mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu <connectionists@mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [EXTERNAL] Re: Connectionists: FW: AI@50 videos...</div>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">By the way, most of these microelectrode-based studies, starting with Horace Barlow, are single cell studies. And the single cell studies are the ones that have won Noble prizes
because of the insights they produced. The overall evidence from these studies is not just about grandmother cells, but about single cells encoding abstractions and “meaning.” Reddy and Thorpe (2014) conclude:</p>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“<span style="background-color: yellow;" class="spanWithBackgroundColor"><i>In conclusion, evidence is accumulating that “concept cells” carry
</i><b><i>high-level, abstract stimulus information</i></b></span>.”</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Single cells having “meaning” was (and still is) at the heart of discussion at that time because it contradicts the fundamental population coding idea where single neurons by themselves
have no meaning, they only have meaning collectively. And Walter Freeman at that time could not accept the idea that single cells have meaning. We were supposed to have a public debate about this at IJCNN 2011 in San Jose. Walter posed the question directly
to Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, who conducted many of these experiments under the supervision of Itzhak Fried and Christof Koch. Walter also knew Rodrigo, having been co-authors or co-editors of a book. Rodrigo came through at the last minute before the public debate,
acknowledging that the single cells in his studies indeed had “meaning.”</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Meaning” and abstraction is at the heart of these debates, not grandmother cells. And finding “meaning” in activations of single cells directly contradicts the population coding
hypothesis and supports instead the symbol system hypothesis.</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Asim Roy</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Professor, Information Systems</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Arizona State University</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/lifeboat.com/ex/bios.asim.roy__;!!IKRxdwAv5BmarQ!NHg1P4byXZZmMFLMgr8A4dQNxSlqyvsqWef4wrPXtCXR0f0bo0eMm-rIF8G6ZV0$" id="OWA5b696ac3-e032-6211-f1bd-48eb6d34d143" class="OWAAutoLink" style="color: blue; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" originalsrc="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/lifeboat.com/ex/bios.asim.roy__;!!IKRxdwAv5BmarQ!NHg1P4byXZZmMFLMgr8A4dQNxSlqyvsqWef4wrPXtCXR0f0bo0eMm-rIF8G6ZV0$" data-auth="NotApplicable"><u>Lifeboat
Foundation Bios: Professor Asim Roy</u></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0px; font-family: "Aptos", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/9973" id="OWAd1da8e8d-03b5-d24a-9a3d-f548c6665c0b" class="OWAAutoLink" style="color: blue; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" originalsrc="https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/9973" data-auth="NotApplicable"><u>Asim
Roy | iSearch (asu.edu)</u></a></span></p>
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