Connectionists: how the brain works?

[Brian J Mingus]

Hi Danko,

I think I grok what you are saying and this sounds like a useful
contribution to me. That said, I don't think most folks are interested in
understanding the entire organism, and indeed, such an endeavor would seem
to require an almost complete description of reality. Personally, I just
want to create a happy being that can think faster than me and answer my
philosophical questions and lend a hand with solving physics problems. How
will practopoiesis help me do this, beyond me using basic heuristics from
psychology, such as just taking a quick look at lesion studies and
psychopathologies, which can help inform which parts of the brain, and
which details I need to include?

For example, I already have a quite functional system that seems to
accomplish the same thing as practopoiesis. I call the "genotype" the first
principle component, and the "phenotype" all the rest of the components.

Cheers,

Brian


On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 2:38 PM, Danko Nikolic <danko.nikolic at googlemail.com
> wrote:

>  Hi all,
>
> The problem of detailed vs. abstract forms that is being discussed is in
> the heart of practopoietic theory: It addresses that problem in a way
> similar to the distinction between genotype and phenotype. For example, if
> the basic architectural principles of cortex would correspond to genotype,
> then the specific variation due to a particular sensory modality would
> correspond to phenotype. Practopoiesis generalizes these
> genotype-phenotype--like relations to all levels of system organization: It
> defines hierarchical organization of cybernetic knowledge, each higher
> level possessing more specific version of the knowledge provided by the
> preceding one.
>
> Practopoiesis suggests that the most interesting part is not a choice of
> describing the system either with detailed or with abstract operations.
> Instead, the process of transition from abstract to details is the
> important one to understand. This transition process, called 'traverse', is
> responsible for development of the organism, learning new knowledge,
> execution of cognitive operations, and generation of behavior. In each
> case, some general knowledge gets instantiated into more specific one.
> Practopoiesis explains how this happens within a hierarchy, and what the
> role of a continuous interaction with the environment is.
>
> Danko
>
>
>
> On 3/19/2014 9:07 PM, Brian J Mingus wrote:
>
>  Hi Jim,
>
>  Focusing too much on the details is risky in and of itself. Optimal
> compression requires a balance, and we can't compute what that balance is
> (all models are wrong). One thing we can say for sure is that we should err
> on the side of simplicity, and adding detail to theories before simpler
> explanations have failed is not Ockham's heuristic. That said it's still in
> the space of a Big Data fuzzy science approach, where we throw as much data
> from as many levels of analysis as we can come up with into a big pot and
> then construct a theory. The thing to keep in mind is that when we start
> pruning this model most of the details are going to disappear, because
> almost all of them are irrelevant. Indeed, the size of the description that
> includes all the details is almost infinite, whereas the length of the
> description that explains almost all the variance is extremely short,
> especially in comparison. This is why Ockham's razor is a good heuristic.
> It helps prevent us from wasting time on unnecessary details by suggesting
> that we only inquire as to the details once our existing simpler theory has
> failed to work.
>
>  Brian
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 12:42 PM, james bower <bower at uthscsa.edu> wrote:
>
>> Actually, the previous statement is only true in its most abstract form
>> -which in that form also applies to the heart, the kidney and trees too.
>>  So not sure what use that is.  (trees used cellular based communication to
>> react to predation by insects - and at least mine look like they are in
>> pain when they do so).
>>
>>
>> the further statement about similar developmental processes for cortical
>> like brain structures is also only true in its most abstract sense.  In
>> particular, the cerebellum has a quite unique form of cortical development
>> (very different from the frontal cortical structures.  cell migration
>> patterns, the way cellular components get connected, as well as general
>> timing - all of which are almost certainly important to its function.  The
>> cerebellum, for example, largely develops entirely postnatally in most
>> mammals.  It is also important to note that cerebellar development is also
>> considerably better understood than is the case for cerebral cortex.
>>
>> Again, as I have argued many times before - in biology (perhaps
>> unfortunately) the devil (and therefore the computation) is in the details.
>>  Gloss over them at your risk.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mar 19, 2014, at 12:50 PM, Juyang Weng <weng at cse.msu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > Mike,
>> >
>> > Yes, they are very different in the signals they receive and process
>> after at least several months' development prenatally, but this is
>> > not a sufficiently deep causality for us to truly understand how the
>> brain works.  Cerebral cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum are all very
>> similar in the mechanisms that enable them to develop into what they are,
>> prenatally and postnatally.
>> >
>> > An intuitive way to think of this deeper causality is: Development is
>> cell-based.  The same set of cell properties enables cells to migrate,
>> connect and form cerebral cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum while each
>> cell taking signals from other cells.
>> >
>> > -John
>> >
>> > On 3/14/14 3:40 PM, Michael Arbib wrote:
>> >> At 11:17 AM 3/14/2014, Juyang Weng wrote:
>> >>> The brain uses a single architecture to do all brain functions we are
>> aware of!  It uses the same architecture to do vision, audition, motor,
>> reasoning, decision making, motivation (including pain avoidance and
>> pleasure seeking, novelty seeking, higher emotion, etc.).
>> >>
>> >> Gosh -- and I thought cerebral cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum were
>> very different from each other.
>> >>
>> >
>> > --
>> > --
>> > Juyang (John) Weng, Professor
>> > Department of Computer Science and Engineering
>> > MSU Cognitive Science Program and MSU Neuroscience Program
>> > 428 S Shaw Ln Rm 3115
>> > Michigan State University
>> > East Lansing, MI 48824 USA
>> > Tel: 517-353-4388
>> > Fax: 517-432-1061
>> > Email: weng at cse.msu.edu
>> > URL: http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/
>> > ----------------------------------------------
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
>
> Prof. Dr. Danko Nikolic
>
>
> Web: http://www.danko-nikolic.com
>
>
> Mail address 1:
> Department of Neurophysiology
> Max Planck Institut for Brain Research
> Deutschordenstr. 46
> 60528 Frankfurt am Main
> GERMANY
>
> Mail address 2:
> Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies
> Wolfgang Goethe University
> Ruth-Moufang-Str. 1
> 60433 Frankfurt am Main
> GERMANY
>
> ----------------------------
> Office: (..49-69) 96769-736
> Lab: (..49-69) 96769-209
> Fax: (..49-69) 96769-327danko.nikolic at gmail.com
> ----------------------------
>
>
>
>
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