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Ali,<br>
<br>
Yes, from a scientific point of view, both development and evolution
are important to study. From an engineering point of view,
however, the cost of evolution to reach a human-level performance is
extremely high. Primates have a history of at least
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65 millions of years. <br>
<br>
This perspective does not rule out any possible benefits of
evolution in engineering studies. Partial evolution based on
development is still worth studying. <br>
<br>
The major problem in many evolutionary models is the absence of
development --- genome is mistakenly taken to be task specific,
corresponding to intelligence directly. As I understand, the main
purpose of the genome is to regulate development, not<br>
to directly generate behaviors or intelligence. <br>
<br>
-John<br>
<br>
On 10/20/11 3:02 PM, Ali Minai wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:CABG3s4tK8SA0g3nvY4ROW5QWDSP8Hutvtp-dDYcA+5v5OrUf+g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">John<br>
<br>
I think that a developmental perspective is crucial if we're ever
going to understand how the mind emerges from the brain, or how
the brain-body system works. In fact, I would say that we have to
include not only development but also evolution - not only how the
zygote develops into a functional animal, but also how simple
animals evolve into animals with more complex functionality by
using the same modules in myriad ways. I have argued (and am
writing a book chapter on this) that the "evo-devo" approach needs
to be extended into the third dimension of mental function -
asking "what systematic evolutionary and developmental processes
allow the emergence of a system capable of mental function. Just
as we have the idea of "evolvability", so there must be an
equivalent idea of "mentability" (or some such word) that
distinguishes systems capable of mental function from those
incapable of this. This should then be connected to development
and evolution.<br>
<br>
All this said, I think that these types of global theoretical
approaches complement rather than replace the focused study of
specific subsystems like the hippocampus. Of course, I say this as
someone who has worked on such systems (including the hippocampus,
where Dave's work has been a major influence for me). Both global
and parcellated investigations contribute to our understanding. To
insist on one or the other would just be an ideological choice.<br>
<br>
Best<br>
<br>
Ali<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 2:07 PM, Juyang
Weng <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:weng@cse.msu.edu">weng@cse.msu.edu</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt
0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);
padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> Dear all: <br>
<br>
After talking to some of my colleagues, we here kick of a
BMI debate via this email on <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:bmi@lists.cse.msu.edu" target="_blank">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 moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.cse.msu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/bmi"
target="_blank">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 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 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: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:517-353-4388" value="+15173534388" target="_blank">517-353-4388</a><font color="#888888">
Fax: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:517-432-1061" value="+15174321061" target="_blank">517-432-1061</a>
Email: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:weng@cse.msu.edu" target="_blank">weng@cse.msu.edu</a>
URL: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.cse.msu.edu/%7Eweng/" target="_blank">http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weng/</a>
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</font></pre>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
Ali A. Minai, Ph.D.<br>
Professor<br>
Complex Adaptive Systems Lab<br>
School of Electronic & Computing Systems<br>
University of Cincinnati<br>
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0030<br>
<br>
Phone: (513) 556-4783<br>
Fax: (513) 556-7326<br>
Email: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:Ali.Minai@uc.edu"
target="_blank">Ali.Minai@uc.edu</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:minaiaa@gmail.com" target="_blank">minaiaa@gmail.com</a><br>
<br>
WWW: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.ece.uc.edu/%7Eaminai/" target="_blank">http://www.ece.uc.edu/~aminai/</a><br>
<br>
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</blockquote>
<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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