<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16705" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY
style="WORD-WRAP: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space">
<DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline">Asim
Roy</SPAN>: "a "blank slate" simply implies a network whose connection
weights and other parameters have not been set yet -"</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=531280007-01092008><STRONG><U>Jim Bower's
response</U></STRONG>: </SPAN>And, no such thing in biology, where development
doesn't end and learning begins - it is continuous, and development probably
recapitulating evolutionary history. Another reason why the mainstream ANN
models make no sense.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=531280007-01092008><FONT color=#0000ff>Jim, would love to get
some references for your statement:- "development probably recapitulating
evolutionary history." This really is the kind of process in the brain that I am
looking for. Just a few references would suffice.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=531280007-01092008><FONT
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=531280007-01092008><FONT color=#0000ff>By the way, learning
takes place during development too. Just ask anyone in cognitive science.
Development is not disassociated from learning. And ANN never implied learning
begins after development. That's a misconception. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=531280007-01092008><FONT
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=531280007-01092008><FONT color=#0000ff>On the "blank slate"
idea in ANN, just look at the phenomenon of adult neurogenesis. Our adult brains
generate new cells in the thousands on a daily basis and they are part of the
"blank slate" because they don't come with ready-made connections or anything.
The process that you refer to as "<FONT color=#000000>development probably
recapitulating evolutionary history" </FONT></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff>is called
"learning" in ANN. It's that process that constructs networks out of these
new cells and makes them operational.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=531280007-01092008><FONT
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=531280007-01092008><FONT color=#0000ff>Asim</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2></FONT> </DIV></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
comp-neuro-bounces@neuroinf.org [mailto:comp-neuro-bounces@neuroinf.org]<B>On
Behalf Of </B>james bower<BR><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, August 27, 2008 9:05
AM<BR><B>To:</B> CompNeuro List<BR><B>Subject:</B> [Comp-neuro] Discussion -
Kuhn - and brief comments<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>A few brief comments -- given that school has started, and I now have to
prepare to "influence" the latest next generation.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>First a BIG POINT:</DIV>
<DIV apple-content-edited="true"><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); TEXT-INDENT: 0px; WHITE-SPACE: normal; LETTER-SPACING: normal; BORDER-COLLAPSE: separate; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0"><SPAN
class=Apple-style-span
style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); TEXT-INDENT: 0px; WHITE-SPACE: normal; LETTER-SPACING: normal; BORDER-COLLAPSE: separate; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px">
<DIV
style="WORD-WRAP: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space">
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Klaus Stiefel: pre-paradigmatic " What he meant by that is a
disagreement about the basic explainanda"</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>No, Kuhn was focused on process to quote: "the early developmental
stages of most sciences (are) characterized by continual competition between a
number of distinct views of nature, each partially derived from, and all
roughly compatible with, the dictates of scientific observation and method,
(In pre-paradigmatic science) what differentiates these various schools
(is) not one or another failure of method - they are all "scientific" - but
what we shall come to call their incommensurable ways of seeing the world and
practicing science within it" (pg 4 The Structure of Scientific
Revolution.) If this discussion over the last two months doesn't make
it clear that, as a field, we currently have "incommensurate ways of seeing
the world and practicing science within it" I don't know what does.
Kuhn goes on to say: "Men (sic) whose research is based on shared
paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific
practice." Again, this discussion makes it pretty clear to me that we
have not yet reached that point. In fact, (and I would say reflecting
this fact) the kind of discussion we have been having here seldom ever happens
as we are content (and being pre-paradigmatic can get away with) agreeing to
not discuss what we don't agree on, another characteristic of pre-paradigmatic
science -- and the reason I don't mind starting these discussions.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Bryan Bishop: "There's a few too many layers of folk psychology
here,"</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I agree, and have characterized all of biology as fundamentally folkloric
in nature -- based on story telling, with few real definitions of anything.
Something comp bio (neuro) will, I hope, eventually fix.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>And on to the approaches we don't agree on:</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline">Bryan
Bishop</SPAN>: "I bet it becomes clear that trying to do "natural
language processing" from statistical inferences doesn't get us as much hard
science as the brain could provide."</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Of course, I agree -- and also agree that this field continues to be
distorted by what is essential snake oil we sell to the Department of Defense
about how studying the brain will help win wars. This rather self
serving commitment to "neuro-morphic engineering" as it is now called, has
been distorting our science for a while. In the last 8 years even more
dramatically. </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Mario Negrello: "I'd say instead that some approaches gather more
acolytes, and then overflow others in sheer voluminous quantity,"</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Unfortunately, as just noted, very often related to who you are selling
the science to (funders) and also, unfortunately, how 'easy' the methods are
and therefore how many can jump on the bandwagon without much preparation (or
even knowledge of the brain in this case) -- 20 years studying the
realistic model of the Purkinje cell and counting. </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Bard Ermentrout: " I suspect that it would be too hard to
adjust parameters for realistic models "</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Is hard bad? Or is the brain, in fact, hard?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR>
<DIV apple-content-edited="true">
<DIV
style="WORD-WRAP: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space">
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline">Igor
Carron</SPAN>: "The groundwork of theory as you put it has, in nuclear
technology, always been a way to acquire and use experimental findings."
<DIV><BR></DIV>And this, in fact, is the value of theory -- not to capture
'truth' as many in comp neuro seem be believe, but to organize experimental
studies -- the more the theory is removed from the actual structure of the
brain - the more it exists by itself, disconnected from the ability to
improve, or more importantly to refute it.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline">Asim
Roy</SPAN>: "a "blank slate" simply implies a network whose connection
weights and other parameters have not been set yet -"</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>And, no such thing in biology, where development doesn't end and learning
begins - it is continuous, and development probably recapitulating
evolutionary history. Another reason why the mainstream ANN models make
no sense.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Asim Roy: "Is there a way in computational neuroscience to verify any of
these theories of learning? "</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Wrong question.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Axel Hutt: " can (neuro)biology really treat a population
of some thousand elements ? "</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>We will need to figure out how - numerous groups are working on it.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Anibalmastobiza: "cerebellum, usually considered as a center for
motor processing and coordination just as it was for the basal
ganglia that now we know that is also involve in cognition"</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>While I appreciate the support, I have another question for cognitive
neuroscientists, how come anything that lights up in a brain scan becomes a
"cognitive center" seems weird to me. </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Jim</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR class=webkit-block-placeholder></DIV>
<DIV><BR class=webkit-block-placeholder></DIV>
<DIV>==================================</DIV>
<DIV><BR class=webkit-block-placeholder></DIV>
<DIV>Dr. James M. Bower Ph.D.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Professor of Computational Neuroscience</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Research Imaging Center</DIV>
<DIV>University of Texas Health Science Center - </DIV>
<DIV>- San Antonio</DIV>
<DIV>8403 Floyd Curl Drive</DIV>
<DIV>San Antonio Texas 78284-6240</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Main Number: 210- 567-8100</DIV>
<DIV>Fax: 210 567-8152</DIV>Mobile: 210-382-0553
<DIV><BR>
<DIV>
<DIV>CONFIDENTIAL NOTICE:<BR>The contents of this email and any attachments to
it may be privileged or<BR>contain privileged and confidential information.
This information is only<BR>for the viewing or use of the intended recipient.
If you have received this<BR>e-mail in error or are not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified<BR>that any disclosure, copying,
distribution or use of, or the taking of any<BR>action in reliance upon, any
of the information contained in this e-mail, or<BR>any of the attachments to
this e-mail, is strictly prohibited and that this<BR>e-mail and all of the
attachments to this e-mail, if any, must be<BR>immediately returned to the
sender or destroyed and, in either case, this<BR>e-mail and all attachments to
this e-mail must be immediately deleted from<BR>your computer without making
any copies hereof and any and all hard copies<BR>made must be destroyed. If
you have received this e-mail in error, please<BR>notify the sender by e-mail
immediately.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV><BR></DIV><BR></DIV></SPAN><BR
class=Apple-interchange-newline></SPAN><BR
class=Apple-interchange-newline></DIV><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>