Connectionists: Weird beliefs about consciousness

[Danko Nikolic]

Dear Juyang,

You wrote "Senior people do not want to get a PhD in all 6 disciplines in
the attached figure: biology, neuroscience, psychology, computer science,
electrical engineering, mathematics."

I would cross electrical engineering from that list. It seems to me that
the contribution of electrical engineering is minor. But then I would add
philosophy of mind and cybernetics. These two seem a lot more important
to acquire a PhD-level knowledge in.

Best,

Danko

Dr. Danko Nikolić
www.danko-nikolic.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danko-nikolic/
--- A progress usually starts with an insight ---


On Thu, Feb 17, 2022 at 8:22 AM Juyang Weng <juyang.weng at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Tsvi:
>
> You wrote: "I believe scientists not seeing eye-to-eye with each other and
> other members of the community is in no small part due to these terms."
>
> I agree.  This is a HUGE problem, as the attached figure "Blind Men and an
> Elephant"  indicates.   What should this multidisciplinary community do?
>  Senior people do not want to get a PhD in all 6 disciplines in the
> attached figure: biology, neuroscience, psychology, computer science,
> electrical engineering, mathematics.
>
> Best regards,
> -John
>
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 10:00 PM Tsvi Achler <achler at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> After studying the brain from a multidisciplinary perspective I am well
>> aware of the difficulties speaking and understanding each other across
>> disciplines.  There are many terms that are defined differently in
>> different fields... and unfortunately things are not as simple as looking
>> them up in a dictionary.
>>
>> For example the term recurrent connections have different meanings in the
>> computational neuroscience, neural networks, and cognitive psychology
>> communities.
>> In neural networks recurrent means an output used back as an input within
>> a paradigm of delayed inputs.  It is a method of representing time or
>> sequences.  Often recurrent connections in neural networks are confused
>> with feedback back to the same inputs which are actually never used in
>> neural networks because it forms an infinite loop and is not possible to
>> rewind in order to generate an error signal.
>> In computational neuroscience recurrent connections are used to describe
>> lateral connections.
>> In cognitive psychology the term re-entrant connections are used to
>> describe feedback back to the same inputs.
>>
>> I believe in order to truly appreciate "brain-like" ideas, members of
>> this group need to familiarize themselves with these brain-focused fields.
>>  For example in cognitive psychology there is a rich literature on salience
>> (which again is a bit different from salience in the neural network
>> community).  Salience is a dynamic process which determines how well a
>> certain input or input feature is processed. Salience changes in the brain
>> depending on what other inputs or features are concurrently present or what
>> the person is instructed to focus on.  There is very little appreciation,
>> integration or implementation of these findings in feedforward networks,
>> yet salience plays a factor in every recognition decision and modality
>> including smell and touch.
>>
>> Consciousness is a particularly problematic minefield which also adds in
>> philosophy, metaphysics and subjectivity into the mix.
>>
>> Juyang, I think we both agree about the basics: the need for more
>> realistic real world recognition and to move beyond the rehearsal
>> limitations of neural networks.  I believe scientists not seeing eye-to-eye
>> with each other and other members of the community is in no small part due
>> to these terms.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> -Tsvi
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 9:54 AM Juyang Weng <juyang.weng at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Tsvi,
>>> You wrote "A huge part of the problem in any discussion about
>>> consciousness is there isn't even a clear definition of consciousness".
>>> Look at the 5 level definition of consciousness:
>>> https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consciousness
>>>
>>> You wrote: "So consciousness is not necessary or sufficient for complex
>>> thoughts or behavior."
>>> I was thinking that way too, until recently.
>>> I found consciousness IS REQUIRED for even learning basic intelligence.
>>> To put it in a short way so that people on this list can benefit:
>>> The motors (as context/actions) in the brain require consciousness in
>>> order to learn correctly in the physical world.   Please read the first
>>> model about conscious learning:
>>> J. Weng, "3D-to-2D-to-3D Conscious Learning", in Proc. IEEE 40th
>>> International Conference on Consumer Electronics, pp. 1-6, Las Vegas NV,
>>> USA, Jan.7-9, 2022. PDF file
>>> <http://www.cse.msu.edu/%7eweng/research/ConsciousLearning-ICCE-2022-rvsd-cite.pdf>
>>> .
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> -John
>>> ----
>>> From: Tsvi Achler <achler at gmail.com>
>>> To: Iam Palatnik <iam.palat at gmail.com>
>>> Cc: Connectionists <connectionists at cs.cmu.edu>
>>> Subject: Re: Connectionists: Weird beliefs about consciousness
>>>
>>> --
>>> Juyang (John) Weng
>>>
>>
>
> --
> Juyang (John) Weng
>
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