Connectionists: How the brain works

[james bower]

As long as we are titling at windmills

the Human Brain Project suffers from a different kind of megalomania than the BRAIN project in the US, but megalomania, just the same.

IMHO

Jim


On Jan 27, 2014, at 11:02 AM, M.A.Wiering <m.a.wiering at rug.nl> wrote:

> I lvery much ike the part in the deep belief network of having real and imaginary data.
> 
> I think there are also many opposing forces working in the brain. So maybe we
> can indeed make a complete complex system that is able to compute behavior at
> many levels, from physical behaviors, Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroscience,
> to physical devices.
> 
> I think the Human Brain Project is one small step in this direction, but a big step
> for human kind.
> 
> Best wishes,
> Marco Wiering
> University of Groningen, the Netherlands
> ===========
> 
> On 27-01-14, Geoffrey Hinton <geoffrey.hinton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Actually, evolution did invent the time-shared wheel.
>> 
>> To go over rough ground it needs to be 6 feet in diameter with very soft suspension. 
>> The way to do this without being too heavy or large is to time-share two small sections of the rim each connected to the axle by "spokes" (in compression rather than tension) that can easily change their length.  The swapping in and out of the spokes is not as energy efficient as a wheel but it solves the problem of supplying the rim with nutrients.   
>> 
>> Geoff
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 9:28 AM, Balázs Kégl <balazskegl at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > While it is at least worth considering whether the arm from fin argument applies to the nervous system, because we don’t understand how the brain works, we can’t really answer the question whether there is some simpler version that would have worked just as well.  Accordingly, as with the radio analogy, in principle, asking whether a simpler version would work as well, depends on first figuring it out how the actual system works.  As I have said, abstract models are less likely to be helpful there, because they don’t directly address the components.
>> 
>> Wouldn’t the airplane/bird analogy work here? Does being able to design an airplane help understanding how birds fly? I think it does. Evolution didn’t invent the wheel, so it had to go in a complex (and not necessarily very efficient) way to “design” locomotion, which means that airplane engines don’t really explain how birds propel themselves. On the other hand, both have wings, and controlling the flying devices looks pretty similar in the two cases. In the same way, if some artificial network can reproduce intelligent traits, we might be able to guide what we’re looking for in the brain (a model, whose necessity we agree on). Of course, scientific process rarely works in this way, but it’s because you need computers for this kind of “experimentation”, and computers are quite new.
>> 
>> Balázs
>> 
>> 
>> —
>> Balazs Kegl
>> Research Scientist (DR2)
>> Linear Accelerator Laboratory
>> CNRS / University of Paris Sud
>> http://users.web.lal.in2p3.fr/kegl
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 

 

 

Dr. James M. Bower Ph.D.

Professor of Computational Neurobiology

Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.

15355 Lambda Drive

University of Texas Health Science Center 

San Antonio, Texas  78245

 

Phone:  210 382 0553

Email: bower at uthscsa.edu

Web: http://www.bower-lab.org

twitter: superid101

linkedin: Jim Bower

 

CONFIDENTIAL NOTICE:

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

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

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.

 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/pipermail/connectionists/attachments/20140127/a8789918/attachment.html>