[Bmi] The last call for paper for iccn2015

Wang Rubin rbwang at 163.com
Mon Dec 15 05:58:32 EST 2014


Dear Professors/Dr.

 

This is the final call for papers (see attachment) for the 5th International
Conference on Cognitive Neurodynamics 2015 (ICCN2015). The Conference will
be hosted by East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) in
Sanya, China from June 3 to 7, 2015. Due to the effort of the Chairmen and
the supports from each committee members of ICCN2015, we proudly announced
that ICCN2015 has organized 12 plenary lectures and 21 mini-symposiums. 

The original deadline for paper submission is approaching. Based on requires
of many authors, we have extended the deadline for paper submission to
January 31, 2015. 

1.     The authors should submit the full paper (not only the abstract) to
the conference through “Online Paper Submission System”.

2.     Submitted papers should be no longer than 6 A4 pages (single spaced).
The papers will be published in the conference proceeding of “Advances in
Cognitive Neurodynamics” by Springer and indexed by EI and ISTP. The
authors have to pay 50US$ for each extra page.

3.     Submitted papers should be prepared in the same paper format using
LNCS Latex 2 template or Word template. You can download these templates
from the conference website.

4.     We suggest a domestic transferring in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou,
or an international transferring in Hongkong for the foreign participants
from the areas that have no direct flight to Sanya airport.

5.     Please check the latest information on the website of ICCN2015
(http://iccn2015.ecust.edu.cn).

 

Your paper contributions are welcome and appreciated sincerely.

If you have any problem, please do not hesitate to contact Professor Pan
Xiaochuan pxc at ecust.edu.cn, or Chris Wang chriswang_520 at hotmail.com.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Rubin Wang, Dr. Prof.

Editor-in-Chief of Cognitive Neurodynamics

 

Pan Xiaochuan, Dr. Prof.

Managing Editor of Cognitive Neurodynamics

 

East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) Shanghai, China

 

发件人: Juyang Weng [mailto:weng at cse.msu.edu] 
发送时间: 2013年2月18日 9:00
收件人: hans kuijper
抄送: Professor Ron Sun; Michael A. Arbib; Michael Jordan; Michael M.
Merzenich; James Olds; Kim Plunkett; Tomaso Poggio; Terry Sejnowski; Linda
Smith; Mriganka Sur; Jianda Han; Minho Lee; Danil Prokhorov; Katharina
Rohlfing; Matthew Schlesinger; Hiroaki Wagatsuma; Jochen Triesch; Frank S.
Ravitch; George Stockman; Fathi M Salem; Yang Wang; Alan Beretta; Lynwood
Clemens; Kathy Steece-Collier; David C. Zhu; Andrea Bozoki; Jay Choi; Steve
Kozlowski; Minoru Asada; Christian Balkenius; James A. Bednar; Ho Seng Beng;
Luis Bettencourt; C. Titus Brown; Kwok Fook Kay Kenneth; Shantanu
Chakrabartty; Yoonsuck Choe; Gedeon Deák; Qunfeng Dong; Kenji Doya;
Wlodzislaw Duch; Jianfeng Feng; Wulfram Gerstner; Ben Goertzel; William
Hartmann; Christoph S. Herrmann; Zhengping Ji; Yaochu Jin; Nik Kasabov; Jun
Zhang; Hideki Kozima; Jeff Krichmar; Zhengyou Zhang; Stephen Levinson; Jack
Lipton; Pinaki Mazumder; Yan Meng; Ali Minai; Joseph Mitola; Jun Miao;
Javier R. Movellan; Andrew Y. Ng; Pierre-Yves Oudeyer; Karim Oweiss; Leonid
Perlovsky; Jiaguo Qi; Brandon Rohrer; Zhiqiang Tang; Si Wu; Stefan Schaal;
Juergen Schmidhuber; Thomas Shultz; Margaret Semrud-Clickeman; Barbara
Shinn-Cunningham; Janusz Starzyk; Olaf Sporns; David Fogel; Gary Fogel; Jun
Tani; Shuqing Zeng; Stan Franklin; Ming Xie; Xin Yao; Peter Dayan; John K
Tsotsos; Christopher M. Brown; Sebastian Thrun; Daniel Wolpert; Ronald
Arkin; DeLiang Wang; Derong Liu; Risto Miikkulainen; Gary Yen; Takeo Kanade;
Tan Kay Chen; Tianzi Jiang; Mitsuo Kawato; Manabu Tanifuji; Andrew Parker;
Jeff Elman; Stevan Harnad; Nikos Papanikolopoulos; Shigeki Sugano; Stefan
Mozar; William Lumpkins; Stephen Dukes; Seong-Whan Lee; Claire Cardie;
Dieter Fox; Henry Kautz; Manuela M. Veloso; Maja J. Mataric; Stephen Marcus;
Tieniu Tan; Tiande Shou; Larry Abbott; Stan Z. Li; Asim Roy; Eric Kandel;
Yongchun Yu; Yao Lu; Thomas Behnisch; 0570024 at fudan.edu.cn;
07300700142 at fudan.edu.cn; 11210700135 at fudan.edu.cn; Jie Zhang; Lei Tong;
lidake at 163.com; seanhe2007 at gmail.com; wbsheng at fudan.edu.cn;
yyao at fudan.edu.cn; Keith Kendrick; Rubing Wang; Xingang Zhao; Zijiang He;
Lihua Yang; Jianbo Xiu; bmilist; Cha Zhang; James von Ehr II;
kaz.kawamura at vanderbilt.edu; broderick at med.cuny.edu; lfcahill at uci.edu;
cecarr at umd.edu; frances.chance at gmail.com; anjan at mail.med.upenn.edu;
clegg at lifesci.ucsb.edu; febo at ufl.edu; robert.fyffe at wright.edu;
grafton at psych.ucsb.edu; rafagut at cinvestav.mx; heaton at mbi.ufl.edu;
frederic.isel at parisdescartes.fr; zhonglin at usc.edu; le.ma at usc.edu;
ma at lifesci.ucsb.edu; meriney at pitt.edu; mposner at darkwing.uoregon.edu;
rataylor at umn.edu; Peter Walla; weimbs at lifesci.ucsb.edu;
mahzarin_banaji at harvard.edu; bar at nmr.mgh.harvard.edu; sb205 at cam.ac.uk;
bruceb at cats.ucsc.edu; catania at umbc.edu; wim_crusio at yahoo.com;
se37 at cornell.edu; dfalk at fsu.edu; c.heyes at ucl.ac.uk;
a.karmiloff-smith at bbk.ac.uk; massimo at email.arizona.edu; Stephanie Preston;
zenon at ruccs.rutgers.edu; laurie.santos at yale.edu; saxe at mit.edu;
nestor at duke.edu; omega at umn.edu; amiri001 at umn.edu; chafe001 at umn.edu;
lewis093 at umn.edu; leuth004 at umn.edu; mcole at ucsd.edu; alac at ucsd.edu;
gjbalzano at ucsd.edu; dbaxter at ucsd.edu; dewilson at ucsd.edu;
thumphries at ucsd.edu; jalevin at ucsd.edu; cpadden at ucsd.edu;
christosims at ucsd.edu; ovasquez at ucsd.edu; adele at crl.ucsd.edu; barrett at anthro.
ucla.edu; bill at mechanism.ucsd.edu; nick.chater at wbs.ac.uk;
andy.clark at ed.ac.uk; k.frankish at gmail.com; ray.jackendoff at tufts.edu;
lalibby at ucdavis.edu; ujanel at email.unc.edu; m.oaksford at bbk.ac.uk;
pacherie at ens.fr; jesse at subcortex.com; wramsey at unlv.edu;
cranganath at ucdavis.edu; shettle at psych.utoronto.ca; standage at queensu.ca;
neil.stewart at warwick.ac.uk; pthagard at uwaterloo.ca; tt at cs.dal.ca;
lmewong at ucdavis.edu; bvonecka at risd.edu; jpoland at risd.edu;
dughof at cogsci.indiana.edu; eagleman at bcm.edu; bruce.wexler at yale.edu;
shan at pku.edu.cn; zerubave at rci.rutgers.edu; Casey O'Callaghan;
max.coltheart at mq.edu.au; Roger Penrose
主题: Re: computational terms as a sign of maturity

 

Dear Hans,

Thank you very much for your points.  

I have a basic disagreement with Roger Penrose.   I am now giving him a CC
so that he can join our discussion.  Prof. Penrose, please let me know if
you like to be dropped from this discussion.   

I suggest that Prof. Roger Penrose should learn neuroscience first and then
re-examine his positions.

In particular, the Godel's incompleteness theory that he cited has a
fundamental problem.  Kurt Godel proved his incompleteness theory in 1931. I
guess that his idea was inspired from a paradox that Bertrand Russell
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell>  discovered in 1901, now
called Russell's paradox:
\text{let } R = \{ x \mid x \not \in x \}
\text{, then } R \in R \iff R \not \in R
Put in an intuitive way, Russell defined a set so that a particular logic
question cannot be answered as simply yes or no.  Kurt Godel did a similarly
thing.

Think about a simpler version of the paradox:  I define the set of my
sisters based on the condition that the person is NOT my sister.  Then, "is
the person my sister?" cannot be answered. 

There are many ways to object to Roger Penrose's position.  My first
objection could be: "In the Brain's self-organization principles: there is
no absolutely right or wrong" as I argued in 
The 2nd Open Letter to the US President Obama: Why US Should Be Friendly
with Every Government?
<http://www.brain-mind-magazine.org/read.php?file=BMM-V1-N2-paper5-Obama.pdf
#view>     
In other words, there is no absolute yes or no answer for a brain. For any
natural-world question, two brains can come up with two different answers:
one answers yes and the other no.   Therefore, mathematical logic seems too
simple and too rigid as a tool for studying brain-mind. 

Your questions are great ones.  I am afraid that not all my answers below
are correct or agreeably by many experts on this email list.  Just for the
purpose of discussion, I try to give my response.   Let me know if I am
wrong.  You all are welcome to BMI this summer so that we can further our
interesting discussion. 

1) Can the mind be modelled directly or only indirectly (via the brain)? If
the latter, why? 
 
Weng: Yes.  Any model of the nature is an approximation, including more
basic phenomena described by Newtonian physics.  I gave a simplified model
about the rise of a mind from a grounded emerging brain in Natural and
Artificial Intelligence <http://www.brain-mind-institute.org/press.html> 


2) Can the the mind (as distinct from the brain) be modelled wholly or only
partly? If the latter, why?

Weng: Only partially, since we humans can never say that we have a complete
understanding about the nature.  Newtonian physics is an example.   An
interesting point is then whether we can model to a large degree so that the
difference from the nature is not very obvious to us. 

 

3) In the ongoing mind-body debate, to which camp do you belong?

Weng: I think that mind is impossible without the corresponding body.  This
does not mean that a robot body has to be developed (a designed body seems
to be more practical for robots at the current stage of technology). I also
belong to an optimistic camp, since the basic principles to give rise to
probably the first-order mind seem to be relatively simple.   Do not laugh
at me at this point.  Come to the BMI to convince yourself. 

 

4) Do you think we are (very complicated) robots? If so, what makes these
robots acting and behaving?

Weng: Yes, we are "meat robots" in a sense.  Five factors made us: (1)
environment, (2) sensors, (3) effectors, (4) developmental mechanisms such
as those of a cell
(I called it developmental program), and (5) how we are taught.  Although
those cellular mechanisms in (4) are relatively simple, many cells work
together to give rise to amazing minds. 

 

5) If we are robots, physically determined, where does our sense of liberty,
justice or compassion come from?

Weng: Largely from the above 5 factors, but experience played a critical
role.   We thought that we have independent minds.  But in fact, we do not
really.   Each individual mind is heavily shaped by the environment,
including mother, father, brothers and sisters, and peers.   When one says
"I want ...", what he wants is largely determined by the environment from
which he is raised and the current environmental context.  

 

6) In the sentence 'the mind models the mind' subject equals object, right?
How can?

Weng: Great question!  That is why understanding one's own mind using one's
own mind seems to be one of the last scientific problems facing humanity.
Fortunately, humans have spent so much money and resource in studying the
nature including human nature.  Now, we seem to be very close to solving
this mystery "in the first order sense" but in precise computational terms.
Yes, brain-mind phenomena can also be simulated and demonstrated by
developmental robots (not traditional non-developmental robots).  But this
demonstration needs resource and time.   We need to "raise" our robots like
the way we "raise" our children in our human environments. 

 

7) If mind and culture are somehow related (I think they are pretty much the
same), what could be the relationship between nature (brain) and culture?
And would it be (theoretically) possible to formalise this relationship?


Weng: a mind is what its corresponding brain does.   Culture seems to be the
common knwoledge and common behaviors among many brains in a society.  The
physical brains enable the rise of culture after many generations of brains
interact with the environment in this world (including other brains and
bodies).   Like culture, traditions, languages, politics, sense of right or
wrong, all emerge from such interactions.   Yes, it seems possible to
rigorously formalise this relationship theoretically in mathematical
terminology.  We all can work together along this line.   I hope that Prof.
Roger Penrose can be convinced one day. 

Just my 2 cents of worth.

-John
 

On 2/17/13 6:07 PM, hans kuijper wrote:

Dear John,

 

I think your point (a science, or discipline, is immature until its
phenomena can be explained in computational terms) is debatable. In 'On
understanding understanding' (International Studies in the Philosophy of
Science, 11:1 [1997], 7-20), Roger Penrose argues, by use of specific
examples, that 'mathematical understanding is something which cannot be
modelled in terms of entirely computational procedures'. See also his book
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Physical World, BCA, 2004, pp.
7-24, 374-378,1027-1045; and his foreword to Hector Zenil (ed.), A
Computable Universe: Understanding and Exploring Nature as Computation,
World Scientific, 2013. 

 

Talking about scientific/computational modelling, I would like to raise the
following questions:

 

1) Can the mind be modelled directly or only indirectly (via the brain)? If
the latter, why?   

 

2) Can the the mind (as distinct from the brain) be modelled wholly or only
partly? If the latter, why?

 

3) In the ongoing mind-body debate, to which camp do you belong?  

 

4) Do you think we are (very complicated) robots? If so, what makes these
robots acting and behaving?

 

5) If we are robots, physically determined, where does our sense of liberty,
justice or compassion come from?

 

6) In the sentence 'the mind models the mind' subject equals object, right?
How can?

 

7) If mind and culture are somehow related (I think they are pretty much the
same), what could be the relationship between nature (brain) and culture?
And would it be (theoretically) possible to formalise this relationship?

 

It seems to me that an unequivocal answer to thrse vexed questions is a
prerequisite for having a sensible discussion about mind's embodiedness
(link with brain) and embeddedness (link with society/Mitwelt).   

 

Kind regards, 

Hans Kuijper 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Juyang Weng <mailto:weng at cse.msu.edu>  

To: Professor Ron Sun <mailto:dr.ron.sun at gmail.com>  

Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2013 11:29 PM

Subject: computational terms as a sign of maturity

 

Ron, 

Congratulations on your planned book. I noticed the following claim on the
page Grounding Social Sciences in Cognitive Sciences <http://www.cogsci.rpi.
edu/%7Ersun/book-mitp.html> : In particular, this book will not be limited
to computational approaches.

It is true that we as scientists should be open to all kinds of account
about nature: computational, qualitative, intuitive, experimental, pure data
from observations. Yes, when a more scientific theory was not available, we
humans resort to religious, traditional, and cultural explanations. 

However, is it true that any disciplines in natural science is immature till
its phenomena, observations, data can be sufficiently explained in
computational terms?

I guess that any studies on social, cognitive science, and whatever science
are immature till many phenomena in the discipline can be explained in
computations.

What is computation? Computation is the real-time account about how elements
in the world interact constrained by principles that are best explained in
mathematical terms. Here are a few examples from a "low-level" discipline to
"higher" disciplines:

Mathematics: Explanations of quantities and structures in space and time are
immature till they can be explained in terms of computation.  For example,
how a value z is computed from two variables x and y by a function f,  in
z=f(x, y).  Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, are all
computational functions. When the precise computations have not been been
discovered or available, we have to resort to less specific properties, such
as an existence proof. However, an existence proof must still use properties
of computation, e.g., algebra. 

Physics: Explanations of the rich and complex interactions of physical
objects (e.g., when your hand let go of an apple) were immature till we
humans discovered the computational terms. Newton's Principia that
formulated the laws of motion
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion>  and universal
gravitation
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation>  is
an example.   

Chemistry:  Explanations of atoms, molecules and their interactions, and
various forms of a mixture of matters are immature till humans can explain
such phenomena through computational terms, such as the periodic tables
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table>  of chemical elements, energy,
and force. Chemistry is also governed by mathematics. 

Biology:  Explanations of biological species (e.g., plants, and animals) are
immature till humans can explain such phenomena through computational terms.
Genome and how genes regulate development is an example. Biology is also
governed by chemistry and mathematics. 

Brain science: Explanations of brain data (e.g., orientation maps, ocular
dominance maps, and topographic maps in the V1 area) are immature till
humans can explain such phenomena through computational terms.  For example,
how such maps arise in computational terms, regulated by nature (e.g.,
genes) and nurture (e.g., external environment and brain activities).  Brain
science is also governed by biology, chemistry and mathematics. 

Psychology (cognitive Science as part of it): Explanations of cognitive
phenomena (e.g., vision, audition, behaviors (including actions),
motivation, etc.) are immature till humans can explain such phenomena
through computational terms.   For that, we need computational terms of the
brain, since those psychological phenomena are external phenomena of the
brain. Existing phenomena accounted by models in psychology and the
computational models in artificial intelligence are all useful, although the
gaps between such studies and those accounted by the brain science are very
wide.  Such wide gaps must be bridged. Psychology is also governed by brain
science, biology, chemistry and mathematics. 

Social sciences:  Explanations of multi-human phenomena (e.g., traditions,
religions, culture, labor relations, laws, political science, international
conflicts, wars, etc.) are immature till humans can explain such phenomena
through computational terms. Social sciences are also governed by
psychology, brain science, biology, chemistry and mathematics. Our social
scientists and politicians must learn psychology, brain science, biology,
chemistry and mathematics. As far as I can see, filling this wide gap has
started to take place.

A current major infrastructural limitation in every country, which is also
true in a developed country like US, is that our academic disciplines are
too specialized for anybody to understand the natural bridges that fill the
wide gap. Therefore, we are partially "blind" by such an infrastructural
limitation. That is why we started the Brain-Mind Institute, to overcome
such a major limitation.  

Just my 2 cents of worth.

-John

On 2/14/13 6:29 PM, Professor Ron Sun wrote:

Hans: 

 

I think this is exactly what you are looking for:

 

*	R. Sun (ed.), Grounding Social Sciences in Cognitive Sciences
<http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/%7Ersun/book-mitp.html> . MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA. 2012. 

 

On Feb 14, 2013, at 5:38 PM, "hans kuijper" <j_kuijper at online.nl> wrote:





Dear BMILISTS,

 

Over the last three months or so, I have been following some of your work
with great interest, trying to understand it in the context of fast
developing cognitive science(s?). I do believe that the mind is embodied and
consequently biologists, particularly brain scientists, (will) have a lot to
say about this ill-defined 'thing'. 

 

However, educated in the humanities (I graduated in sinology from Leyden
University) and becoming increasingly interested in the science of
complexity, I believe that the mind is also embedded. For, as Lev Vygotsky
already argued in his book Mind in Society (1930): 'The mind cannot be
understood in isolation from the surrounding society', an original idea
revisited in Andrzej Nowak, Katarzyna Winkowska-Nowak and David Brée
(eds.), Complex Human Dynamics: From Mind to Society, Springer, 2013.

 

Culture (that other notoriously difficult to describe 'thing', about which
many books have been written) seems to be the missing link between mind and
society. So the conundrum workers in the natural and cultural (i.e. social
and human) sciences should address collaboratively is the identification,
characterisation and understanding of the intimate connection between mind's
embodiedness and embeddedness. 

 

Arguably, there is nothing more complex than a country, or a culture, being
a hypercomplex system of complex systems in context (its outside world). If
'a revolution is occurring in the social sciences', as the editors of
Complex Human Dynamics claim, that easily overlooked point is to be taken
into account. See the article 'Lifting the study of China onto a higher
plane' that I recently posted on the website www.academia.edu.     

 

Since I am currently working on a book provisionally entitled The Complexity
of Countries, I wonder if anyone of you could suggest what I should
definitely read to be well-informed about the cutting edge research not only
on brain, mind, society and culture but also (and perhaps in the first
place) on the relationships between these intricately patterned entities. 

 

Needless to say, I would be most grateful if you could help me.

 

Yours sincerely, 

 

Hans Kuijper

Joliotplaats 5

3069 JJ Rotterdam

The Netherlands





-- 
--
Juyang (John) Weng, Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
MSU Cognitive Science Program and MSU Neuroscience Program
3115 Engineering Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824 USA
Tel: 517-353-4388
Fax: 517-432-1061
Email: weng at cse.msu.edu
URL: http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/
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