AI, NN, CNS (central nervous system)

[Dave Rumelhart]

In response to the various comments concerning the relationship (or lack
thereof) between connectionist modelling and neurobiology.  I wish
especially to address myself to Jim Bower's many comments.

        I must say that I find it counter productive to press for a
hard distinction between Computational Neuroscience and connectionist
approaches to neuroscience.  In these cases, the goals are the same --
namely to understand/explain/predict observations made on certain
parts of the brains of certain animals using certain measurement
techniques.  When possible, the goals would also be to relate such
observations to the animal's behavior.  It seems that Jim (and perhaps
others) wish to distinguish between what he considers "bad" attempts at
doing this which he dubs connectionist and "good" ones, which he dubs
"computational neuroscience".  I believe that the real issue should be
framed differently -- in terms of the goals of any piece of work.  In
any theoretical discipline there is a need for development and analysis
of the formal (mathematical/ computational) tools appropriate for
expressing the theories at hand (this is in the realm of applied
mathematics and AI -- not biology) and there needs to be the application
of these tools in the modelling of particular phenomena (this is biology
or cognitive neuroscience or cognitive science).  Many scientists
do both of these things.  Perhaps most focus only on the biological or
only on the formal aspects.  It is true that much of the discussion in this
forum is about the technical mathematical/computational foundations of
computational/connectionist modelling rather than about the
biological/behavioral phenomena to which the models are to be applied.
This does not mean either that many of the participants might not be
interested in the eventual biological applications nor that tools
developed and analysed by those of us who participate may not be of value to
the neurobiologist or the psychologist.  It strikes me that much of the
excitement of the field comes from the interdisciplinary
cross-fertalization that has taken place over the past several years.
If  this communication is to continue to take place fruitfully we must
keep the channels of communication open, to learn what we can about the
questions which occupy the minds of our colleagues and not to discount
the results of one another as "irrelevant".

        D. E. Rumelhart