Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!RUBIN@COLUMBIA-20.ARPA From: RUBIN@COLUMBIA-20.ARPA Newsgroups: net.ai Subject: Loop detection and classical psychology Message-ID: <14961@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Fri, 23-Dec-83 12:01:07 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.14961 Posted: Fri Dec 23 12:01:07 1983 Date-Received: Wed, 4-Jan-84 03:27:11 EST Lines: 24 From: Michael Rubin I wonder if we've been incorrectly thinking of the brain's loop detection mechanism as a sort of monitor process sitting above a train of thought, and deciding when the latter is stuck in a loop and how to get out of it. This approach leads to the problem of who monitors the monitor, ad infinitum. Perhaps the brain detects loops in *hardware*, by classical habituation. If each neuron is responsible for one production (more or less), then a neuron involved in a loop will receive the same inputs so often that it will get tired of seeing those inputs and fire less frequently (return a lower certainty value), breaking the loop. The detection of higher level loops such as "Why am I trying to get this PhD?" implies that there is a hierarchy of little production systems (or whatever), one for each chunk of knowledge. [Next question - how are chunks formed? Maybe there's a low-level explanation for that too, having to do with classical conditioning....] BTW, I thought of this when I read some word or other so often that it started looking funny; that phenomenon has gotta be a misfeature of loop detection. Some neuron in the dictionary decides it's been seeing that damn word too often, so it makes its usual definition less certain; the parse routine that called it gets an uncertain definition back and calls for help. --Mike Rubin