[From Bruce Gregory (961020.2055)]
Rick Marken (961020.1700)]
Bill Benzon (961020) --
>But "seeing order" is the first step to developing a picture you want
>to test.Can you give me any reason to believe that
there is something in the neural literature that would help me understand
perceptual control?
I too would be very interested to learn of references in the neural
literature related to perceptual control.
Bruce
Bruce Gregory (961020.2055) sez:
I too would be very interested to learn of references in the neural
literature related to perceptual control.
That's not quite what I said was out there. You have to interpret the
literature in your own terms. That's what I do. My point is that there is
a lot of literature, with lots of different kinds of results. You don't
have to take any of those results at face value. And yes, some work simply
can't be reinterpreted, but some can. It takes work to find it. But you
can do the work. And if you don't take the initiative and do the work, who
will? The people currently writing that literature don't know anything
about HPCT and they have no professional incentives to learn it -- it won't
get them published in the "good" journals or get their grants funded. But
they don't rule the world--especially the internet.
Beyond what I've put in my various posts so far and my 15-year-old paper, I
can't do much for you. It's up to you folks whether you want to concede
the brain to those folks (and, a real long shot, the likes of me) or take
your own shot at it.
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William L. Benzon 518.272.4733
161 2nd Street bbenzon@global2000.net
Troy, NY 12180 Account Suspended
USA
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What color would you be if you didn't know what you was?
That's what color I am.
********************************************************
[From Rick Marken (961020.1700)]
Bill Powers (961020.1100 MDT) --
Anybody can "see order" in the [neurophysiological] literature if not
required to prove that the new picture is right.Bill Benzon (961020) --
But "seeing order" is the first step to developing a picture you want
to test.Can you describe the kinds of tests that have been or might be developed
based on the "order" you have found in the neurophysiological data. I'd be
particularly interested in how these tests relate to understanding
perceptual control.
Forgive me, but that's not how I want to spend what little "creative time"
I have before starting my consulting gig.
your [Bill Powers'] belief in the neural literature's intractability
may inadvertantly discourage otherwise interested CSGers.Even if Bill Powers believed that the neural literature (like the behaviorist
literature;-)) was the work of Satan's playthings, I would be spending my free
evenings with my nose heretically buried in that literature if I had any
reason to believe that I would find anything there that might help me
understand perceptual control. Can you give me any reason to believe that
there is something in the neural literature that would help me understand
perceptual control?
Give you RM a reason? If I haven't done that by now, then, no, I can't.
One of us is going to have to work alot harder to get over, and, as above,
that's not the work I want to do now.
But I suppose I can give you a little something to think with/through
should you decide to take a look at that literature. So here's Gross
Neuroanatomy 101, a wildly non-standard version & highly idealized, but it
is a basic framework around which you can begin organizing lots of messy
details. If I were to start at the drawing board and design an idealized
human-class nervous system for purposes of simulation, this is how I'd
start:
Think of the brain as a relatively wide cylinder with the spinal cord
coming out of the bottom end. The cylinder is divided into five sections,
top to bottom: telencephalon, diencephalon, mesencephalon, metencephalon,
and myencephalon--the basic vertebrate plan. This cylinder is, in fact, 3
concentric cylinders a round a central core. The central core is the
reticular formation and is phylogenetically the oldest; the 5-fold division
is rather poor in this core. The cylinder immediately surrounding the core
is what Paul Mclean calls the reptilian brain. Roughly, this is the stack
& as such, is a fully functioning control system. The reptilian system is
surrounded by the old-mammalian system, and the old-mammalian system is, in
turn, surrounded by the new-mammalian system. The new mammalian
telencephalon is the cerebral cortex. It is a memory unit for states in
other units in the brain. Further, you can slice the whole cylinder
vertically from top to bottom with one half (5 vertical segments, 4 layers
from core to periphery) being sensory and the other half being motor.
You also need to think of this brain as operating in two environments. One
is, of course, the external world. But other operating environment (as BP
has noted) is the body itself, with which the brain shares the same
physical envelope. The system has inputs from both of these environments
and makes outputs to both of them.
********************************************************
William L. Benzon 518.272.4733
161 2nd Street bbenzon@global2000.net
Troy, NY 12180 Account Suspended
USA
********************************************************
What color would you be if you didn't know what you was?
That's what color I am.
********************************************************
[From Rick Marken (961020.1700)]
Bill Powers (961020.1100 MDT) --
Anybody can "see order" in the [neurophysiological] literature if not
required to prove that the new picture is right.
Bill Benzon (961020) --
But "seeing order" is the first step to developing a picture you want
to test.
Can you describe the kinds of tests that have been or might be developed
based on the "order" you have found in the neurophysiological data. I'd be
particularly interested in how these tests relate to understanding
perceptual control.
your [Bill Powers'] belief in the neural literature's intractability
may inadvertantly discourage otherwise interested CSGers.
Even if Bill Powers believed that the neural literature (like the behaviorist
literature;-)) was the work of Satan's playthings, I would be spending my free
evenings with my nose heretically buried in that literature if I had any
reason to believe that I would find anything there that might help me
understand perceptual control. Can you give me any reason to believe that
there is something in the neural literature that would help me understand
perceptual control?
Thanks
Rick
[From Bill Powers (961020.1100 MDT)]
Bill Benzon --
1. Well Bill, I really can't resist. If the input function is so critical,
how can you possibly justify your black box attitude about how those
functions operate?
I hadn't really thought about "justifying" it. The fact is that I don't have
any idea how these functions work above the second level, and nobody else,
as far as I can see, has devised a successful simulation of anything higher
than the third level, and even at that level a very crude and incomplete
simulation. And while these simulations do work to a degree, who's to say
that they aren't just clever designs having nothing to do with how the brain
does the same things?
But you know perfectly well that that literature is written
by people who are professionally blind to robust systems thinking.
Expecting those folks to figure out what the brain is up to is like
expecting an auto-mechanic, even a very good one, to design a new
automobile. If you or others really go at that literature as it exists,
you might be able to see order in it which is invisible to those creating
the literature.
Anybody can "see order" in the literature if not required to prove that the
new picture is right. Anyway, I'm too ignorant of the modern literature on
the brain to think of taking that route.
Note that one of the more stunning findings of neuroscience in the last 20
years is the massive "over-production" of connections during development
and their subsequent "pruning" under the influence of environmental input.
It seems that the genes wire all the connections they can and those axons
and dendrites whose synapses aren't reinforced (through Hebbian learning?)
simply degenerate.
Sounds pretty much like what I've imagined all along. Can't prove it,
though. My suggestions are just based on logical reasoning and the
assumption that what develops are control systems.
Best,
Bill P.
Bill Powers (961020.1100 MDT) sez:
Anybody can "see order" in the literature if not required to prove that the
new picture is right.
But "seeing order" is the first step to developing a picture you want to test.
Anyway, I'm too ignorant of the modern literature on
the brain to think of taking that route.
Understood. But your belief in the neural literature's intractability may
inadvertantly discourage otherwise interested CSGers.
Note that one of the more stunning findings of neuroscience in the last 20
years is the massive "over-production" of connections during development
and their subsequent "pruning" under the influence of environmental input.
It seems that the genes wire all the connections they can and those axons
and dendrites whose synapses aren't reinforced (through Hebbian learning?)
simply degenerate.Sounds pretty much like what I've imagined all along. Can't prove it,
though. My suggestions are just based on logical reasoning and the
assumption that what develops are control systems.
I thought you'd find that result familiar.
best,
Bill B
********************************************************
William L. Benzon 518.272.4733
161 2nd Street bbenzon@global2000.net
Troy, NY 12180 Account Suspended
USA
********************************************************
What color would you be if you didn't know what you was?
That's what color I am.
********************************************************