What is a "hybrid" model?

[Ron Sun]

Lev:

I have to disagree with several points you made.



lev goldfarb at unb.ca wrote:
>Please note that the question is not really tricky. The question simply
>suggests that there is no need to attach the term "hybrid" to the model,
>because the combination (hybrid model) is both "ugly" and is likely to
>lead almost all researchers involved in the wrong direction

I really don't care that much what label one uses, and a label simply
cannot ``lead all researchers in the wrong direction". Sorry. :-)

>really no "hybrid" mathematical structures, but rather "symbiotic
>structures", e.g. topological group

There have been _a lot of_  different
mathematical structures being proposed that purport
to capture all the essential properties of both symbolic and neural models.
I would hesitate to make any such claim right now: we simply do not
know enough yet about even the basics to make such a sweeping claim.
What we can do is working toward such an end.

>I simply cannot imagine how such (of necessity) relatively "superficial"
>experimental observations will in the foreseeable future lead us to the
>insight into the nature of the fundamentally new MATHEMATICAL STRUCTURE
>(of course, if one at all cares about it).

I would not so readily dismiss the literature on implicit learning
which I cited in the previous message as ``superficial".
I would urge you to look into these papers first.
While you are at it, you might also look into some related work in
developmental psychology (and models of developmental processes).
Personally, I found these pieces of work very PRINCIPLED and may lead
to exactly the kind of mathematical structure that we need to model
cognition (which is, of necessity, complex or even ``heterogeneous").

>Remember what Einstein said?
>(But as long as no principles are found on which to base the deduction,
>the individual empirical fact is of no use to the theorist; indeed he
>cannot even do anything with isolated general laws abstracted from
>experience. He will remain helpless in the face of separate results of
>empirical research, until principles which he can make the basis of
>deductive reasoning have revealed themselves to him.)

I cannot agree more.
It's a nice quote. But it supports my points as much as it does yours.

Cheers,
--Ron


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