Connectionists: [Bmi] The Brain Principles Manifesto

[Juyang Weng]

On 2/22/15 8:21 AM, Yoonsuck Choe wrote from BMI mailing list:
>
> Hi John,
>
> Whether you put "respected" or not does not seem to be important at 
> all, and I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of it. All 
> these exchanges involving this minor matter seems to be diluting your 
> more important message. Consider this: I think Shimon was just joking 
> when he emailed you with his suggestion and I think you took it too 
> seriously.
...
> Yoonsuck
> choe at tamu.edu
>
> Yoonsuck Choe, Ph.D.              Dept. of Comp. Sci. & Engineering
> Professor                       Texas A&M University
> Director, Brain Networks Laboratory       3112 TAMU
> Email: choe at tamu.edu, choe at cs.tamu.edu    College Station, TX 77843-3112
> WWW: http://faculty.cse.tamu.edu/choe Phone: +1-979-845-5466
> Lab: http://research.cse.tamu.edu/bnl Fax:   +1-979-847-8578

Seeing the Manifesto that talks also about politics, some people in this 
community are "disturbed" as a well known professor put it but 
explicitly asked me not to forward his message to the BMI mailing list.  
Some people said that we are not experts on politics.  I guess he also 
meant that I am not a recognized expert on politics.  This is true.

Was Albert Einstein an expert on politics?  Is Noam Chomsky an expert on 
politics?

If people working on how the brain works do not talk about politics, our 
politicians would never understand their brains' mistakes.

For example, if we do not think that Mr. Kim Jong-un is worth 
respecting, we would be very reluctant to think that his issue is also a 
brain science issue.   He has been trying to reform, but other 
high-level officials in North Korea are probably resisting. The top 
group in North Korea has too much power but with few people.  In such a 
case, a coop could happen any time, either with reform or without.  If 
Mr. Kim Jong-un had not purged his uncle Jang Sung-taek and other 
high-level officials that his father handpicked to groom him, he could 
have been killed by them when he wanted to be different from his father.

A similar situation is happening in China, but fortunately, China has at 
least a term limit for the paramount leader Mr. Xi Jinping.  Otherwise, 
China could have had a moderate scale Cultural Revolution by now because 
Xi has to consider how he steps down.  Currently, the anti-graft 
struggle is like a small scale Cultural Revolution. Mr. Xi wants to be 
seen as on a par with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. 
<http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1579591/xi-jinping-wants-be-seen-par-mao-zedong-and-deng-xiaoping>  
Unfortunately, he did not have enough brain knowledge and social 
knowledge for his position, although his "do deeds" motive was well 
intended.  I predict that the power transition from Mr. Xi Jinping to 
the next successor would be very violent, much more violent than the 
intense power struggles that accompanied with his own power take over 
from Hu Jintao.  Chinese economy and people life will suffer backlashes 
and so will the world economy.

Let us read the history to understand the limitation of all brains, 
although we are not experts in a traditional sense of expert.

-John

-- 
--
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/
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