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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546400720-20102011><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>Hello to everybody</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546400720-20102011><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546400720-20102011><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>Views from the top and views from the bottom must be combined.
Physics is a successful science because it concentrates on fundamental
principles, and then proceeds to experimentally verifiable predictions. There
are first principles operating in the mind and brain. There are first
principles at every level of organization of matter. For the brain-mind I would
list few:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546400720-20102011><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546400720-20102011><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>- hierarchical organization of mental
representations</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546400720-20102011><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>- bottom-up and top-down signal
interactions</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546400720-20102011><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>- instinctual drives measuring vital organismic parameters and
communicating results to decision-making mechanisms</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546400720-20102011><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>- emotions serving as neural signals communicating (as above)
satisfaction or dissatisfaction of instinctual drives</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546400720-20102011><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>(the two principles above are discovered by Grossberg-Levine
theory)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=546400720-20102011></SPAN><FONT face=Arial><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT size=2>-<SPAN class=546400720-20102011>
</SPAN>the most important instinctual drive is<SPAN
class=546400720-20102011> the "instinct for knowledge." It drives matching
of bottom-up and top-down signals so that mental representations are similar to
reality (it is more important
than</SPAN> survival or procreation<SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>, because survival is not possible without perception
and cognition)</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>- "vague-to-crisp" process evolves mental
representations to match reality, this is the operation of the instinct for
knowledge, which overcomes exponential
complexity</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>- special emotions correspond to the knowledge
instinct; these are not basic, but aesthetic emotions explaining higher human
cognitive abilities from understanding and cognition of objects an situations to
abstract concepts, and higher up to "mysterious" meanings of life and emotions
of the beautiful</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>- we need to understand the difference between language
and cognitive representations, and how they
interact</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>- how the hierarchy of cognition is learned by every
human child</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>- what are emotions of cognitive dissonances, and how
human evolution overcame these (most likely
- music)</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>- some of the above are described by mathematical
models - this is a must</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>- some of the above is experimentally confirmed - this
is a must</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011></SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>What did I miss ? (possibly something) - please add
fundamental laws, explaining a lot from few assumptions, mathematical models of
these processes making experimental predictions, and finally experimental tests
of all of the above.</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011></SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>Best</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011>Leonid</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT
size=2></FONT></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT
size=2></FONT></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=546400720-20102011></SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT size=2 face=Tahoma><B>From:</B> Juyang Weng [mailto:weng@cse.msu.edu]
<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, October 20, 2011 2:08 PM<BR><B>To:</B>
bmilist<BR><B>Subject:</B> BMI debate: Can we start to look at the brain-mind
from the entire system point of view?<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Dear all: <BR><BR>After talking to some of my colleagues, we here
kick of a BMI debate via this email on <A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated
href="mailto:bmi@lists.cse.msu.edu">bmi@lists.cse.msu.edu</A>.<BR>Many of you on
this anonymous list told me that they are interested and want to be
posted. However, we will use this<BR>anonymous list sparely.
If you want to keep posted about this debate and other BMI activities, sign on
bmi mailing list <BR>at <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="http://lists.cse.msu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/bmi">http://lists.cse.msu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/bmi</A>
or simply Google it with key words like "BMI mailing list MSU".<BR>Once you
receive email from the mailing list, you can post simply via reply.
BMI mailing list is a moderated list to avoid<BR>unrelated emails. If
there are sufficient interest, BMI might host a live web debate in a few
weeks. Post your views!<BR><BR>The following email I sent to Dave
Touretzky is the kick-off for the BMI debates. I will provide some
interesting examples soon.<BR><BR>On 10/20/11 12:59 PM, Juyang Weng wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=mid:4EA05385.5050906@cse.msu.edu type="cite">Hi
Dave,<BR><BR>I read some of your papers about hippocampus, which are very
interesting. Let me inject some basic but probably very controversial
ideas you probably will reject. If you do not mind, I will post this
discussion to the BMI mailing list. The main purpose is to attract more
talented researchers to this important brain-mind subject.
<BR><BR>How about looking at the brain from a top system point of view?
I believe that top (but detailed) theory is powerful, since the brain
basically does signal processing (not in the traditional sense). Maybe
with this view, our future design of experiments could be more
productive? Let me start from one example:<BR><BR>One of your papers is
"Synaptic Learning Models of Map Separation in the Hippocampus",
<I>Neurocomputing</I>, <B>32</B>:379-384, 2000. The co-authors
wrote: "If the perforant path projection to CA3 functions as a pattern
completion mechanism, and the DG projection via the mossy fibers performs
pattern separation (O'Reilly and McClelland, 1994), then ..."<BR><BR>My new
perspectives about the brain benefited from such local views, but I think that
such local views can also benefit from the entire brain-mind point of view, in
the sense of a giant Finite Automaton (FA). This brain FA is not
handcrafted, but rather developed, since all phenotypes emerge from a single
cell (zygote). So, I model such a developmental FA as the
Developmental Network (DN). Then, the Hippocampus is simply a very small
part of a giant DN. According to how the DN works, I predict the
following: If we focus on a small part (e.g., Hippocampus) of this DN,
we definitely will get hopelessly lost, like a hiker in a forest without a
global map. He can see some local phenomena from where he stands,
but he did not see the entire forest. <BR><BR>Focused, per-phenomenon
discoveries have been prevailing in the brain science literature in the modern
science, with few exceptions (Charles Darwin is one). This is probably
because only such papers can be accepted and funded in the modern time.
Although those phenomena are useful, they are piece meals. Now, there
seem to have enough pieces to put the grand puzzle together. I have
established what a DN can do in real time, by modeling the brain-mind from the
entire FA (DN) point of view. Since all pieces of DN seem to fit what we
know about the brain science, the brain should not be less efficient than a
DN.<BR><BR>You can say that this is just fantasy, but I have a series of
rigorous proofs. <BR><BR>Daniel M. Wolpert said at SfN 2009 that the over
1400-page long volume of "Principles of Neural Science" by Kandel et al. could
be much condensed if we could model the entire brain in computational
theory. I hope that the DN theory can help that condensing
process. <BR><BR>A major infrastructure problem is that what I talked about
above spans at least 6 disciplines. Meaningful conversations are
extremely difficult. If you feel angry or insulted by my above text, I
feel that it is partially because of this huge divide. <BR><BR>I am giving a
CC to Jay, as his work was cited. <BR><BR>Best
regards,<BR><BR>-John</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>-John<BR><PRE class=moz-signature cols="72">--
--
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: <A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:weng@cse.msu.edu">weng@cse.msu.edu</A>
URL: <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext href="http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/">http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/</A>
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