Connectionists: Connectionists

[Stephen José Hanson]

Bob, Yes, this is a great paper.  It was a critique of Skinner's "operant" reflex.  Kornorski quite correctly pointed out that probably don't call it a reflex.    Skinner had realized as compared to classical conditioning that operants were more of an equivalence class (generalization issues--and a backdoor to symbolic structures) . ie the referenced paper in BF Sknner, The generic nature of the concepts of stimulus and response. J. Gen. Psychol., 1935, 12, 40-65.

Kornorski had also shown interactions between CC and OC.   probably undermining Skinner's original claim he discovered OC.

Skinner responded to Kornorski and Miller.. a very civilized debate.

Stephen

On 8/26/26 16:24, KENTRIDGE, ROBERT W. wrote:
Well, the Charlie Gross paper on Lettvin and the Grandmother cell expends many more lines (pages) on Konorski than on Lettvin. Konorski was an outstanding scientist. The 1934 Konorski & Miller paper on the associations underlying classical conditioning is probably the coolest paper I’ve ever read - it vies with Hecht, Schlaer, and Pirenne (1941?) as my favourite.

cheers,

Bob

Sent from Outlook for Mac
From: Gabriele Scheler <gscheler at gmail.com><mailto:gscheler at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, 26 August 2026 at 20:18
To: dst at cs.cmu.edu<mailto:dst at cs.cmu.edu> <dst at cs.cmu.edu><mailto:dst at cs.cmu.edu>; Michael Arbib <arbib at usc.edu><mailto:arbib at usc.edu>; Asim Roy <ASIM.ROY at asu.edu><mailto:ASIM.ROY at asu.edu>; KENTRIDGE, ROBERT W. <robert.kentridge at durham.ac.uk><mailto:robert.kentridge at durham.ac.uk>; solla at northwestern.edu<mailto:solla at northwestern.edu> <solla at northwestern.edu><mailto:solla at northwestern.edu>
Subject: Connectionists

[EXTERNAL EMAIL]
What happened to my post to connectionists? Awaiting moderation? And what is the joke about Marvin Minsky influencing scientology and calling himself the devil?

Compared to that my post went straight to the topic:
My published work addressing concept cells and distributed representations via high information nodes ("index cells"), my concern at suppressing researchers as exemplified by James Bowers' report, my suggestion at a more inclusive rather than narrow parochial view on neural network history and a valuable reference to Konorski as the originator of Hebbian learning - who was ostracized during Stalin's time, an experience that one should not want to repeat.

Gabriele
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Dr. Gabriele Scheler
Carl Correns Foundation for Mathematical Biology
1030 Judson Dr
Mountain View, CA 94040

https://www.theoretical-biology.org<https://www.theoretical-biology.org/>


Please re-send an email if I fail to respond.



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