From Mind to Brain Machine

The Architecture of Cognition

David DavenportComputer Eng. Dept., Bilkent University,

06533 Ankara – Turkey.email: david@bilkent.edu.tr

http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~david

Introduction Mind

conscious, aware, feeling, understanding, emotional, intelligent…

& Brain blob of gray matter, chemicals…

How do they work? Ask, Why Minds? Map solution space Look at plausible alternatives

What Purpose Do Minds Serve?

Physical basis Evolution produced brains Why? homeostasis

Maintain mental model of environment Simulation, multi-level, decoupled Include other agents & itself!

External representations Label model “I” or “me” Talking to ourselves

Greater capacity, longer term, … more successful?

Implementing Minds Represent, store, & manipulate info. Computationalism Physical Symbol System

Intensionality? Symbol Grounding

“If, in principle, syntactic relations can be made to parallel semantic relations, and if, in principle, you could have mechanisms whose operations on formulas are sensitive to their syntax, then it may be possible to construct a syntactically driven machine whose state transitions satisfy semantical criteria of coherence.” {Fodor & Pylyshyn}

Implementing Minds (2) Alternatives

ANN’s, Hybrid, Recurrent ANN’s & Dynamical systems?

Computation (modeling) “Abstract spec. of causal structure…”

Representation Observer-relative Prediction - meaning for the agent

Implementing Brains Symbolic vs. ANN

Both computational & use same technology

Difference? Copy vs. link storage Conjunction vs. disjunction

Require Active/inactive, in/out of construction

Recognition, expectations, anticipation decision, record cycle interaction

Possibilities Combining computations

Feedback loops or activation states Sequences

Feedback, delays or inhibition View-based or generative models Generating expectations Decoupling

Alternatives

Alternatives (2) Language understanding

Word – object Sentence pattern - situation

Concluding Remarks Brain too complex without “blueprint” Ask function, Enumerate solutions,

(Re)-Examine evidence Too much information! Need Theory – (thinner textbooks) More Interdisciplinary? Brain is “dirty” (multiple solutions)

the mystery of cognition remains