Connectionists: Best practices in model publication

[Richard Loosemore]

On 1/29/14, 6:52 PM, james bower wrote:
> Interesting
>
> With respect to the cortical column discussion we didn't yet have 
> (whether they exist or not), there were actually two papers published 
> by Vernon Mountcastle in the late 1950s in which the cortical column 
> idea was introduced.
>
> The first included mostly the data, the second mostly the idea.
>
> I once plotted literature citations for the two papers.  For the first 
> 10 years, the data paper was cited much more than the theory paper. 
>  However, 15 year out they crossed and now the data paper is almost 
> never sited.
>
> So, as mentioned earlier with Marr and Albus, perhaps it is a kind of 
> theory envy in neuroscience, but it is not at all unusual in 
> neuroscience  to have exactly the opposite be the case, that the data 
> is forgotten and the theory persist.
>
> Perhaps all this is leading to an interesting article (or perhaps book 
> with a series of essays) on how physics and biology are similar and 
> different.  Anyone interested?
>
I mentioned earlier in the discussion that I myself *have* explicitly 
considered this issue:  trying to understand what it is about cognitive 
systems that could make them not directable amenable to the methods of 
physics.  I published a paper about it in 2007 and then a chapter 
expanding the same idea in 2012 (refs below).

The conclusions I came to have been (and I am sure will continue to be) 
completely ignored.

Nobody wants to hear that this or that methodology is what they *should* 
be adopting.  Nobody will never give a hoot about such a message.  It is 
considered, in the psychological/cognitive sciences to be almost rude 
(not to say gauche) to tell other people how they should be doing science.

So compile a book about the book about "physics and biology are similar 
and different" if you feel inclined, but all it will do is act as a 
bookcase-weight.

Richard Loosemore





Refs:

Loosemore, R.P.W. (2007).  Complex Systems, Artificial Intelligence and 
Theoretical Psychology.  In B. Goertzel & P. Wang (Eds.),  Proceedings 
of the 2006 AGI Workshop.  IOS Press, Amsterdam.

Loosemore, R.P.W. (2012b).  The Complex Cognitive Systems Manifesto.  
In:  The Yearbook of Nanotechnology, Volume III: Nanotechnology, the 
Brain, and the Future, S. Hays, J. S. Robert, C. A. Miller, and I. 
Bennett (Eds). New York, NY: Springer, (2012)
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