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Evert recognition category provides a “ symbolic “ representation of the distributed feature pattern that it represents. A feature-category resonance links category and features into a bound state that enables conscious recognition of the features. My 2021
OUP book explains this in detail and provides lots of experimental support for it.</div>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Connectionists <connectionists-bounces@mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu> on behalf of Barak A. Pearlmutter <barak@pearlmutter.net><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, 26 August 2026 13:04:32<br>
<b>To:</b> Danny Silver <danny.silver@acadiau.ca><br>
<b>Cc:</b> connectionists@mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu <connectionists@mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: Connectionists: AI@50 videos...</font>
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<div class="PlainText">Dear Danny,<br>
<br>
If I might paraphrase that work, it seems to me the idea is that<br>
"subsymbolic" signals are used for local processing, while symbolic<br>
representations are used for longer distance communication, with<br>
things becoming more symbolic the longer and narrower the channel:<br>
from one brain region to another, from the brain to its future self,<br>
from one brain to another.<br>
<br>
That certainly seems consistent with the information bottleneck of<br>
Tishby et al, where distributions fragment into clustered<br>
representations as the bottleneck becomes more severe.<br>
<br>
My only issue is that, if you measure things in a conventional<br>
computer doing symbol processing, the individual bits on wires can be<br>
seen as subsymbolic. What is bit 7 of register 4? What is bit 11 of<br>
the address bus? It is not until you agglomerate things just right, at<br>
just the right level of abstraction, that the crisp symbolic nature<br>
of, say, a compiler running on a simple RISC, becomes apparent. This<br>
subproblem seems to subsume the whole question, because it's basically<br>
"figure out how it all works and then we can talk about whether there<br>
are symbolic representations." This might not obviate the distinction<br>
between symbolic and subsymbolic, but I'd argue that it does make it<br>
uninteresting.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
--Barak.<br>
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