Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sdd.hp.com!think.com!mintaka!ogicse!pdxgate!eecs!erich From: erich@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Erich Stefan Boleyn) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Perceptron limitations... Message-ID: <2261@pdxgate.UUCP> Date: 7 Apr 91 01:56:25 GMT References: <1991Apr2.092041.9391@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <1991Apr2.145525.11793@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1991Apr2.182825.4500@grebyn.com> Sender: news@pdxgate.UUCP Lines: 44 fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Oceanstar) writes: >It does my heart good to hear someone alluding to cells, even anatomy, >on this newsgroup. I feel that I am not alone out here, in my puptent >in the realm of neurobiology. And I do agree with Cameron: models that view >the brain as homogeneous, are hard for me to make heads or tails of--because >the brain is so highly structured, so complex in three dimensions. I am comstantly surprised at the low level of knowledge about neuroscience present in AI work, especially work with neural networks. Having had more formal training in neuroscience than AI/Cogsci seems quite helpful to me in general. There has been an amazing amount of work on both sides that really needs to be correlated, otherwise there will be too much of not only reinventing the wheel, but also of missing research paths because you didn't know they were there. Anyway, I agree. Off topic again (and not having the reference to earlier articles handy), I remember an article referring to some work done on dreaming rats, cats, and rabbits related to one of the ideas that you mentioned, i.e. that dreaming appeared to be corellated with complexes of neurons that were active during behavior characterized by theta-wave activity... which was then correlated to privmary survival behavior in each of the species. It seemed that on the low level, this was a means of activating more permanent changes in neural structure (by the bursts of stimulation provided in REM sleep), and conceptually, seems for reinforcing the aforementioned survival behaviors. Other than percieved higher-level effects in the human mind... (I should note that "perceived" and "actual" are very different things)... I wonder what other effects these states would have, on the neural level. I am curious about this because often cognitive effects (especially at the level where they can be noticed) seem to be a very limited explanation of neural behavior. Comments please? (or references for the more advanced kibitzers ;-) Erich "I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where it is." / -- Erich Stefan Boleyn -- \ --=> *Mad Genius wanna-be* <=-- { Honorary Grad. Student (Math) }--> Internet E-mail: \ Portland State University / Phone #: (503) 289-4635