Loosemore wrote:
> > Edward > > If I were you, I would not get too excited about this paper, nor others > of this sort (see, e.g. Granger's other general brain-engineering paper > at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rhg/pubs/RHGai50.pdf). > > This kind of research comes pretty close to something that deserves to > be called "bogus neuroscience" -- very dense publication, full of > neuroanatomic detail, with occasional assertions that a particular > circuit or brain structure corresponds to a cognitive function. Only > problem: the statements about neuroanatomy are at the [Experienced > Researcher] level, while the statements about cognitive functions are at > the [First Year Psychology Student Who Took One Class In Cog Psy And > Thinks They Know Everything] level. > > The statements about cognitive functions are embarrassing in their > naivete. Richard, I think you do have a point, but as often, I think you overstate it ;-) The title of one of Granger's other papers makes an interesting point: Granger R (2006) Engines of the Brain: The computational instruction set of human cognition. AI Magazine (In press) Let's suppose that he is right and he has found, in some moderately accurate metaphorical sense, "the computational instruction set of human cognition." It's not really clear what this means.... For instance, let's suppose that Susan Greenfield is roughly right -- and concepts, when they rise to attention, take the form of transient neural assemblies, each one of which is assembled based on a core of complexly interconnected neurons. Then, the most Granger's "instruction set" would explain would be some of the mechanics by which these transient neural assemblies form. He refers to olfaction a lot, but Walter Freeman showed years ago that rabbit olfactory cortex is full of complex strange attractors that play a role in olfactory recognition. Most likely similar complex strange attractors (and associated strange transients, associated with Greenfieldian transient assemblies) play a role in cognitive cortex ... but Granger's work tells you none of this. At best it tells you the low-level neural structures and operations that mediate the emergence of these complex dynamics... So, when Granger talks about language learning and language processing, yeah, he seems to be WAY oversimplifying things. Maybe the mechanisms he isolates really ARE in some sense the basic operations underlying linguistic facility, but surely not in the simplistic sort of way he alludes to. Rather, if he's right, it would most likely be because the mechanisms he isolates serve as the infrastructure for some complex dynamical process giving rise to the strange transient assemblies representing linguistic concepts and structures. But then there are a couple missing links, -- explain how Granger's mechanisms or something analogus gives rise to Greenfieldian strange transients, with Freeman-like strange-attractor aspects -- explain how this Greenfield/Freeman stuff can give rise to complex behaviors like language learning In some chapters in my books Chaotic Logic and From Complexity to Creativity, in the late 1990's, I attempted to explain the latter, but didn't finish the job as I got distracted with AI ;-) Basically, one can look at a strange attractor and model its dynamics using formal grammar theory. So, grammars can emerge from complex dynamical systems. This is a means via which symbolic systems can palpably emerge from subsymbolic systems. In physics it's called "symbolic dynamics." Anyway I'm digressing too much into my own weird brain theories (which btw are only loosely connected to Novamente) -- my point is that SOME additional theories like this are necessary to connect Granger's neural ideas to cognition .. you can't just hack them together with glib verbiage as he seems to do in some passages in his papers... OTOH I find his discussion of various issues in neuroscience quite insightful... -- Ben G ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=56097785-8d82d0
