Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
Some semi-organized responses to points raised in this thread... 1) About spatial maps... It seems to be the case that the brain uses spatial maps a lot, which abstract considerably from the territory they represent Similarly in Novamente we have a spatial map data structure which has an adjustable level of detail -- but for most purposes a high level of detail isn't needed. (Most obviously, we use spatial maps right now for navigation within virtual worlds; but will also use something similar for object recognition/classification) In Novamente a spatial map is basically a spatial index into the overall AtomTable that stores knowledge as nodes and links. So we have a table of spatial maps, each spatial map living in its own relative coordinate system. 2) About the level of detail remembered about visual scenes Furthermore, it seems to be the case that the brain stores a lot of detail about some things that it sees -- and much less about others. For instance, it's famous that when observing a visual scene, a person can generally remember only around 7 visual facts about it. Trained observers can of course overcome this limitation. But there are loads of psychological studies validating how little we really remember of scenes we've seen. Check out the book Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion? which is an informative little edited volume. 3) About the constructive nature of memory In very many cases, what we feel like we're remembering is actually stuff we're reconstructing. This is validated in so many domains and ways via psychological experiment, I don't have time to dig up the references now. It's textbook cognitive psych. This applies in vision as well. We think we're remembering a detailed visual scene, but really we're remembering something sketchy and filling in the details. 4) On the value of visual imagination for cognition So, here's one question. Let's say we're imagining something visually in the course of thinking about it. And let's say that this visual imagination consists of -- some dynamics going on at the level of an underlying, abstracted representation (the form in which we really remember most visual scenes, for example) -- some dynamics going on at the level of constructed details, invented on the fly based on this abstracted representation How much thinking has to do with the underlying representation, and how much with the constructed details? I would bet the vast majority has to do with the underlying representation, yet the constructed details may also play a role, say, in activation-spreading between associated things... 5) Vision is not central to cognition So, I do think that for any mind associated with a system that has to move around in a complex world, and that uses sight as a primary modality, the manipulation of spatial maps and associated images is going to be an important aspect of cognition. However, I really don't think it's central. I think you could make a humanlike mind that lacked vision and instead possessed some totally different kind of sensorium. I think the human brain architecture would still make sense. Similarly, an architecture like Novamente still makes perfect sense if one gets rid of vision and replaces it with something else. 6) The cortex does not speak vision; the cognitive cortex did not evolve from the visual cortex It's worth noting, finally, that it is OLFACTION not vision that feeds directly into the cortex. Visual stimuli, like that of the other 3 senses, must pass thru the thalamus to get translated into cortex-language (so to speak). A lot of preprocessing in the LGN and other places is required to translate the output of the optic nerves into something the cortex can grok. So it's not the case that the cortex is somehow naturally structured to reflect the structure of visual data. More so it's naturally structured to reflect the structure of olfactory data. Or so says neuroanatomy... Furthermore, cognitive cortex evolved from olfactory cortex not visual cortex. As Gary Lynch noted years ago, this is likely because olfaction involves a lot of wildly tangled combinatory neural connections, whereas vision (as Jeff Hawkins is fond of observing) involves a lot of hierarchical connections. I suspect that the wild intercombinatory aspect of olfactory cortex proved very useful, evolutionarily, for cognition ... more so than the more rigid hierarchy of visual cortex. 7) It's just not that simple... As realizing a mind within limited computational constraints is difficult and complex, it's very tempting to take a single aspect (logic! images! reinforcement learning!) and decide this aspect is the essence of intelligence, or human intelligence. I don't think so. As I said long ago (and others said longer ago), the key thing is to have an architecture in which different semi-specialized modules can play together and learn from each other and modulate each others' intrinsic inefficiencies and shortcomings.
RE: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
Ben, Good Post I my mind the ability to map each of N things into a model of a space is a very valuable thing. It lets us represent all of the N^2 spatial relationships between those N things based on just N mappings. This is something we all know, but it is one of the many wonderful efficiencies of mathematics we often don't stop to appreciate. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Benjamin Goertzel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2007 8:49 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S. Some semi-organized responses to points raised in this thread... 1) About spatial maps... It seems to be the case that the brain uses spatial maps a lot, which abstract considerably from the territory they represent Similarly in Novamente we have a spatial map data structure which has an adjustable level of detail -- but for most purposes a high level of detail isn't needed. (Most obviously, we use spatial maps right now for navigation within virtual worlds; but will also use something similar for object recognition/classification) In Novamente a spatial map is basically a spatial index into the overall AtomTable that stores knowledge as nodes and links. So we have a table of spatial maps, each spatial map living in its own relative coordinate system. 2) About the level of detail remembered about visual scenes Furthermore, it seems to be the case that the brain stores a lot of detail about some things that it sees -- and much less about others. For instance, it's famous that when observing a visual scene, a person can generally remember only around 7 visual facts about it. Trained observers can of course overcome this limitation. But there are loads of psychological studies validating how little we really remember of scenes we've seen. Check out the book Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion? which is an informative little edited volume. 3) About the constructive nature of memory In very many cases, what we feel like we're remembering is actually stuff we're reconstructing. This is validated in so many domains and ways via psychological experiment, I don't have time to dig up the references now. It's textbook cognitive psych. This applies in vision as well. We think we're remembering a detailed visual scene, but really we're remembering something sketchy and filling in the details. 4) On the value of visual imagination for cognition So, here's one question. Let's say we're imagining something visually in the course of thinking about it. And let's say that this visual imagination consists of -- some dynamics going on at the level of an underlying, abstracted representation (the form in which we really remember most visual scenes, for example) -- some dynamics going on at the level of constructed details, invented on the fly based on this abstracted representation How much thinking has to do with the underlying representation, and how much with the constructed details? I would bet the vast majority has to do with the underlying representation, yet the constructed details may also play a role, say, in activation-spreading between associated things... 5) Vision is not central to cognition So, I do think that for any mind associated with a system that has to move around in a complex world, and that uses sight as a primary modality, the manipulation of spatial maps and associated images is going to be an important aspect of cognition. However, I really don't think it's central. I think you could make a humanlike mind that lacked vision and instead possessed some totally different kind of sensorium. I think the human brain architecture would still make sense. Similarly, an architecture like Novamente still makes perfect sense if one gets rid of vision and replaces it with something else. 6) The cortex does not speak vision; the cognitive cortex did not evolve from the visual cortex It's worth noting, finally, that it is OLFACTION not vision that feeds directly into the cortex. Visual stimuli, like that of the other 3 senses, must pass thru the thalamus to get translated into cortex-language (so to speak). A lot of preprocessing in the LGN and other places is required to translate the output of the optic nerves into something the cortex can grok. So it's not the case that the cortex is somehow naturally structured to reflect the structure of visual data. More so it's naturally structured to reflect the structure of olfactory data. Or so says neuroanatomy... Furthermore, cognitive cortex evolved from olfactory cortex not visual cortex. As Gary Lynch noted years ago, this is likely because olfaction involves a lot of wildly tangled combinatory neural connections, whereas vision (as Jeff Hawkins is fond of observing) involves a lot of hierarchical connections. I suspect that the wild intercombinatory aspect of olfactory cortex proved very useful, evolutionarily, for cognition ... more so than the more rigid
Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
On 10/21/07, Edward W. Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben, Good Post I my mind the ability to map each of N things into a model of a space is a very valuable thing. It lets us represent all of the N^2 spatial relationships between those N things based on just N mappings. This is something we all know, but it is one of the many wonderful efficiencies of mathematics we often don't stop to appreciate. Yes, a spatial index/embedding lets you efficiently get answers to a variety of queries that are inefficient to answer based on many other indices/representations.. For instance: Given X, find all entities within radius r of X ... or, find the N items most similar to X ... Thus, even for non-spatial data, it may benefit an AGI system to project data into some N-space, in such a way that Euclidean distance mimics conceptual similarity between data items, so as to make this kind of query efficient to answer... We have prototyped this trick in Novamente for a couple purposes... and eventually it will be integrated into the core system as a default service to be utilized by all MindAgents as appropriate... -- 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=8660244id_secret=56056845-c8fa33
Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
http://www.mail-archive.com/agi@v2.listbox.com/msg08026.html is where Ben Goertzel wrote stimuli evoking AGI list response. Some semi-organized responses to points raised in this thread... [...] Furthermore, it seems to be the case that the brain stores a lot of detail about some things that it sees -- and much less about others. http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/visrecog.html [...] It's textbook cognitive psych. http://mind.sourceforge.net/aisteps.html is textbook cognitive AI (theory of mind). [...] How much thinking has to do with the underlying representation, and how much with the constructed details? I would bet the vast majority has to do with the underlying representation, yet the constructed details may also play a role, say, in activation-spreading between associated things... http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/spredact.html [...] I think you could make a humanlike mind that lacked vision and instead possessed some totally different kind of sensorium. http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/sesorium.html [...] It's worth noting, finally, that it is OLFACTION not vision that feeds directly into the cortex. http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/olfrecog.html Arthur -- http://mentifex.virtualentity.com - 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=8660244id_secret=56058834-744950
Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
Benjamin, It's interesting that you mentioned this right now. My discussion with Edward in parallel thread effectively led to this issue. Basically, it's useful to be able to find regularities between arbitrary pair of concepts (say, A and B) that system supports (as kind of domain-independence). But when such weak connection between these concepts is established, it's useful to be able to find more regularities between other concepts that are connected to them (between concepts associated with A and concepts associated with B). For this purpose, it's useful to impose kind of locality field on concepts that get connected. On 10/21/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 10/21/07, Edward W. Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben, Good Post I my mind the ability to map each of N things into a model of a space is a very valuable thing. It lets us represent all of the N^2 spatial relationships between those N things based on just N mappings. This is something we all know, but it is one of the many wonderful efficiencies of mathematics we often don't stop to appreciate. Yes, a spatial index/embedding lets you efficiently get answers to a variety of queries that are inefficient to answer based on many other indices/representations.. For instance: Given X, find all entities within radius r of X ... or, find the N items most similar to X ... Thus, even for non-spatial data, it may benefit an AGI system to project data into some N-space, in such a way that Euclidean distance mimics conceptual similarity between data items, so as to make this kind of query efficient to answer... We have prototyped this trick in Novamente for a couple purposes... and eventually it will be integrated into the core system as a default service to be utilized by all MindAgents as appropriate... -- 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/?; -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] - 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=8660244id_secret=56068760-1461dc
RE: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
Vladimir, Yes, if a concept is defined by its associations, and if a significant subset of them somewhat distinguish a concept, it would seem only natural that links between associations of nodes A and node could help the two concepts find each other in a large, high dimensional space. This is somewhat akin to, although slightly different than, performing radial marker searches out from 2 or more concepts in a semantic space, something that dates back at least to Quillian. In a draft version of my Sat 10/20/2007 2:03 PM post to you there was a point FIVE that discussed this as a possible argument for decreasing the number of M in your prior post. But I had, and still have, a lot of very interesting reading to do, so I didnt want to take the time necessary to make the paragraph both well reasoned and reasonably well written. Beside I thought having four points against the notion that the information in the human brain contained only 10^9 bits was bombastic enough. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Vladimir Nesov [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2007 11:34 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S. Benjamin, It's interesting that you mentioned this right now. My discussion with Edward in parallel thread effectively led to this issue. Basically, it's useful to be able to find regularities between arbitrary pair of concepts (say, A and B) that system supports (as kind of domain-independence). But when such weak connection between these concepts is established, it's useful to be able to find more regularities between other concepts that are connected to them (between concepts associated with A and concepts associated with B). For this purpose, it's useful to impose kind of locality field on concepts that get connected. On 10/21/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 10/21/07, Edward W. Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben, Good Post I my mind the ability to map each of N things into a model of a space is a very valuable thing. It lets us represent all of the N^2 spatial relationships between those N things based on just N mappings. This is something we all know, but it is one of the many wonderful efficiencies of mathematics we often don't stop to appreciate. Yes, a spatial index/embedding lets you efficiently get answers to a variety of queries that are inefficient to answer based on many other indices/representations.. For instance: Given X, find all entities within radius r of X ... or, find the N items most similar to X ... Thus, even for non-spatial data, it may benefit an AGI system to project data into some N-space, in such a way that Euclidean distance mimics conceptual similarity between data items, so as to make this kind of query efficient to answer... We have prototyped this trick in Novamente for a couple purposes... and eventually it will be integrated into the core system as a default service to be utilized by all MindAgents as appropriate... -- 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/? http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] _ 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/? http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - 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=8660244id_secret=56072816-8f0314
Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
Ben:Furthermore, it seems to be the case that the brain stores a lot of detail about some things that it sees -- and much less about others. For instance, it's famous that when observing a visual scene, a person can generally remember only around 7 visual facts about it. Trained observers can of course overcome this limitation. But there are loads of psychological studies validating how little we really remember of scenes we've seen. Check out the book Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion? which is an informative little edited volume. Ben, Just a little point here. Para 2 does not support para 1. The argument which is a commonly used one is faulty. What we remember doesn't necessarily tell us much about what we directly perceive/ experience and the underlying processing. How much of your dialogue do you remember? In most cases, not much. The odd words perhaps and the gist of what was said. That doesn't mean you didn't speak in whole sentences, or that the brain didn't process those whole sentences. (Scientific psychology often takes a rather perverse and exaggerated delight in trying to prove the illusory nature of our perception). - 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=8660244id_secret=56118130-151495
Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
On 10/21/07, Edward W. Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vladimir, Yes, if a concept is defined by its associations, and if a significant subset of them somewhat distinguish a concept, it would seem only natural that links between associations of nodes A and node could help the two concepts find each other in a large, high dimensional space. Or, specifically, simple notion of neuron-level interaction doesn't seem to provide support for induction... -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] - 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=8660244id_secret=56132232-ed0373
RE: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
Vladmir, I think a very important issue, ist the one about how much you can multiplex the number of cell assemblies a neuron is in. If X is the total number of neurons, and M is the number of neurons in a cell assembly, as in one of your earlier posts, and you assume even distribution of connections, the total number of cell assemblies would be X/M. But with multiplexing it might be substantially higher. I have read or heard multiple people say the number can be much higher, but I have heard no one put a number or mathematical formula on exactly how much higher. Do you know anything about that? Edward W. Porter Porter Associates 24 String Bridge S12 Exeter, NH 03833 (617) 494-1722 Fax (617) 494-1822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Vladimir Nesov [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2007 6:51 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S. On 10/21/07, Edward W. Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vladimir, Yes, if a concept is defined by its associations, and if a significant subset of them somewhat distinguish a concept, it would seem only natural that links between associations of nodes A and node could help the two concepts find each other in a large, high dimensional space. Or, specifically, simple notion of neuron-level interaction doesn't seem to provide support for induction... -- Vladimir Nesovmailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ 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/? http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - 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=8660244id_secret=56134664-ee5582
Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
Edward, Did you read Izhikevich's papers (specifically, [1])? They explore the model of polychronization, where cell assemblies are formed in different ways depending on temporal shifts of firings of neurons that initiate assembly's formation. He has some experimental estimations, but they are drawn on untrained (content-wise) networks, so it's unclear if they are useful (in paper I referenced he gives a figure of about 5000 groups in a network of 1000 neurons with 100 connections per neuron and delays of 1 to 20 synch spans). Also definition of polychronous group is too wide and seem to include stable patterns of behavior of any complexity (or simplicity...), which doesn't correspond well to cell assemblies. For example, paper [2] gives a figure of 3000 groups on a network of 200 neurons. Still I don't see how it could help with induction: as I wrote in parallel thread, number of connections is a strong limitation that can't be overcome with dynamics without some kind of global identifier coding. ___ [1] Izhikevich E.M. (2006). Polychronization: Computation With Spikes. **http://vesicle.nsi.edu/users/izhikevich/publications/spnet.htm [2] Helene Paugam-Moisy, Regis Martinez and Samy Bengio. (2007). A supervised learning approach based on STDP and polychronization in spiking neuron networks. On 10/22/07, Edward W. Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vladmir, I think a very important issue, ist the one about how much you can multiplex the number of cell assemblies a neuron is in. If X is the total number of neurons, and M is the number of neurons in a cell assembly, as in one of your earlier posts, and you assume even distribution of connections, the total number of cell assemblies would be X/M. But with multiplexing it might be substantially higher. I have read or heard multiple people say the number can be much higher, but I have heard no one put a number or mathematical formula on exactly how much higher. Do you know anything about that? Edward W. Porter Porter Associates 24 String Bridge S12 Exeter, NH 03833 (617) 494-1722 Fax (617) 494-1822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- *From:* Vladimir Nesov [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *Sent:* Sunday, October 21, 2007 6:51 PM *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Subject:* Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S. On 10/21/07, Edward W. Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vladimir, Yes, if a concept is defined by its associations, and if a significant subset of them somewhat distinguish a concept, it would seem only natural that links between associations of nodes A and node could help the two concepts find each other in a large, high dimensional space. Or, specifically, simple notion of neuron-level interaction doesn't seem to provide support for induction... -- Vladimir Nesovmailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- 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/?; -- 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/?; -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] - 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=8660244id_secret=56150010-933233
Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
On 10/20/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Images are *not* an efficient way to store data. Unless they are three-dimensional images, they lack data. Normally, they include a lot of unnecessary or redundant data. It is very, very rare that a computer stores any but the smallest image without compressing it. And remember, an image can be stored as symbols in a relational database very easily as a set of x-coords, y-coords, and colors. maps ARE symbols. Whether it's a paper street map or Google maps, they're a collection of simple symbols that represent the objects they're mapping. At the most ridiculous, each pixel on the screen is a symbol that your optic nerve detects and passes to your brain to find some meaningful correspondence to interpret. I think the point that Mark is making is that the representation (display) of data can resemble a map - but the map (or image) is only one possible interpretation of the data. There are algorithms to provide close-enough approximations of details where there is insufficient data. ex: It is unlikely that an elevation map would have a 1000 meter variance over a 2 meter gap in the data points if either side of the gap are equal elevations. That kind of 'smoothing' can not be done with images alone - there must be data. If you do have only map images, you would have to extract data from the map before you can use it effectively against other data. So why store the data in an image in the first place? Arguably, the data storage mechanism is irrelevant - there will be decisions made about performance depending on the initial acquisition and later retrieval realities: maybe a camera streams video directly to disk to achieve high throughput, then later analysis compresses the scene into a symbolic representation at less than a realtime rate. You can't really argue that the video stream is an ideal way to manage the details in a knowledgebase. (eh Mike?) - 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=8660244id_secret=55761625-a2d246
Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
FWIW: A few years (decades?) ago some researchers took PET scans of people who were imagining a rectangle rotating (in 3-space, as I remember). They naturally didn't get much detail, but what they got was consistent with people applying a rotation algorithm within the visual cortex. This matches my internal reporting of what happens. Parallel processors optimize things differently than serial processors, and this wasn't a stored image. But it was consistent with an array of cells laid out in a rectangle activating, and having that activation precess as the image was visualized to rotate. Well, the detail wasn't great, and I never heard that it went anywhere after the initial results. (Somebody probably got a doctorate...and possibly left to work elsewhere.) But it was briefly written up in the popular science media (New Scientist? Brain-Mind Bulletin?) Anyway there's low resolution, possibly unconfirmed, evidence that when we visualize images, we generate a cell activation pattern within the visual cortex that has an activation boundary approximating in shape the object being visualized. (This doesn't say anything about how the information is stored.) Mark Waser wrote: Another way of putting my question/ point is that a picture (or map) of your face is surely a more efficient, informational way to store your face than any set of symbols - especially if a doctor wants to do plastic surgery on it, or someone wants to use it for any design purpose whatsoever? No, actually, most plastic surgery planning programs map your face as a limited set of three dimensional points, not an image. This allows for rotation and all sorts of useful things. And guess where they store this data . . . . a relational database -- just like any other CAD program. Images are *not* an efficient way to store data. Unless they are three-dimensional images, they lack data. Normally, they include a lot of unnecessary or redundant data. It is very, very rare that a computer stores any but the smallest image without compressing it. And remember, an image can be stored as symbols in a relational database very easily as a set of x-coords, y-coords, and colors. You're stuck on a crackpot idea with no proof and plenty of counter-examples. - 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/?; - 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=8660244id_secret=55823366-4cdb11
Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S.
Anyway there's low resolution, possibly unconfirmed, evidence that when we visualize images, we generate a cell activation pattern within the visual cortex that has an activation boundary approximating in shape the object being visualized. (This doesn't say anything about how the information is stored.) Or, in other words, the brain uses a three-dimensional *spatial* model of the object in question -- and certainly not a two-dimensional image. This goes back to the previous visual vs. spatial argument with the built-in human bias towards our primary sense. Heck, look at the word visualize. Do dolphins visualize or sonarize? In either case, what the brain is doing is creating a three-dimensional model of perceived reality -- and trivializing it by calling it an image is a really bad idea. - Original Message - From: Charles D Hixson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2007 6:49 PM Subject: Re: [agi] Human memory and number of synapses.. P.S. FWIW: A few years (decades?) ago some researchers took PET scans of people who were imagining a rectangle rotating (in 3-space, as I remember). They naturally didn't get much detail, but what they got was consistent with people applying a rotation algorithm within the visual cortex. This matches my internal reporting of what happens. Parallel processors optimize things differently than serial processors, and this wasn't a stored image. But it was consistent with an array of cells laid out in a rectangle activating, and having that activation precess as the image was visualized to rotate. Well, the detail wasn't great, and I never heard that it went anywhere after the initial results. (Somebody probably got a doctorate...and possibly left to work elsewhere.) But it was briefly written up in the popular science media (New Scientist? Brain-Mind Bulletin?) Anyway there's low resolution, possibly unconfirmed, evidence that when we visualize images, we generate a cell activation pattern within the visual cortex that has an activation boundary approximating in shape the object being visualized. (This doesn't say anything about how the information is stored.) Mark Waser wrote: Another way of putting my question/ point is that a picture (or map) of your face is surely a more efficient, informational way to store your face than any set of symbols - especially if a doctor wants to do plastic surgery on it, or someone wants to use it for any design purpose whatsoever? No, actually, most plastic surgery planning programs map your face as a limited set of three dimensional points, not an image. This allows for rotation and all sorts of useful things. And guess where they store this data . . . . a relational database -- just like any other CAD program. Images are *not* an efficient way to store data. Unless they are three-dimensional images, they lack data. Normally, they include a lot of unnecessary or redundant data. It is very, very rare that a computer stores any but the smallest image without compressing it. And remember, an image can be stored as symbols in a relational database very easily as a set of x-coords, y-coords, and colors. You're stuck on a crackpot idea with no proof and plenty of counter-examples. - 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/?; - 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/?; - 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=8660244id_secret=55854109-5699c6
