On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 8:09 PM, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ben Goertzel wrote: >> >> Richard, >> >> My point was that there are essentially no neuroscientists out there >> who believe that concepts are represented by single neurons. So you >> are in vehement agreement with the neuroscience community on this >> point. >> >> The idea that concepts may be represented by cell assemblies, or >> attractors within cell assemblies, are more prevalent. I assume >> you're familiar with the thinking/writing of for instance Walter >> Freeman and Susan Greenfield on these issues. You may consider them >> wrong, but they are not wrong due to obvious errors or due to >> obliviousness to cog sci data. > > So let me see if I've got this straight: you are saying that there are > essentially no neuroscientists who talk about spiking patterns in single > neurons encoding relationships between concepts? > > Not low-level features, as we discussed before, but medium- to high-level > concepts? > > You are saying that when they talk about the spike trains encoding bayesian > contingencies, they NEVER mean, or imply, contingencies between concepts? >
What's a concept in this context, Richard? For example, place cells activate on place fields, pretty palpable correlates, one could say they represent concepts (and it's not a perceptual correlate). There are relations between these concepts, prediction of their activity, encoding of their sequences that plays role in episodic memory, and so on. At the same time, the process by which they are computed is largely unknown, individual cells perform some kind of transformation on other cells, but how much of the concept is encoded in cells themselves rather than in cells they receive input from is also unknown. Since they jump on all kinds of contextual cues, it's likely that their activity to some extent depends on activity in most of the brain, but it doesn't invalidate analysis considering individual cells or small areas of cortex, just as gravitation pull from the Mars doesn't invalidate approximate calculations made on Earth according to Newton's laws. I don't quite see what you are criticizing, apart from specific examples of apparent confusion. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
