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Old 09-24-2006, 08:33 AM   #1
coberst
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Default Neural networks and computer simulation

Neural networks and computer simulation

Computers are used to simulate hurricanes for the purpose of comprehending hurricanes and also for the purpose of predicting their behavior. Computers are often used to simulate various phenomena for similar purposes.

In the effort to utilize computers as controllers for robotics and to simulate human cognition we have developed a great deal of empirical evidence concerning human functioning. The software engineers must develop detailed comprehension of bodies in motion and intellects in action in order to write the algorithms required to build robots of all forms whether to simulate human intellect or human motion.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) research began shortly after WWII. Alan Turing was one of the important figures who decided that their efforts would not be focused on building machines but in programming computers.

Some of the achievements of AI have, in the last few decades, been turned toward neural modeling. This effort has been taken up by NTL (Neural Theory of Language) research group at Berkeley headed by Jerome Feldman and George Lakoff.

The brain’s neural network does things and the task the NTL has set for itself in the 1990s was to discover how the brain does what it does and where in the brain these tasks take place. As of 1999 NTL had decided to undertake three major modeling tasks:
1) The Spatial-Relations Learning Task
2) The Verbs of Hand Motion Learning task
3) The Motor Control and Abstract Aspectual Reasoning Task

“In each case, it has been shown that neural structures modeling aspects of the perceptual and motor systems can carry out the given task for concepts, and that, so far as anyone cal tell thus far, those perceptual and motor models are required to carry out the task.”

That is to say that the sensorimotor system in the human body can perform the functions required to conceptualize and, infer from those conceptions, in a manner required by human cognition. The logical assumption is that these self same sensorimotor neural networks are the networks the body uses to conceptualize during cognition.

Quotes from “Philosophy in The Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson
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Old 09-24-2006, 06:49 PM   #2
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

I'd absolutely love to do research with neural networks. Unfortunately, I don't know a whole lot about them. There's a prof at the university where I'm working right now who apparently does research with them. Opportunity I should look into.
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Old 09-24-2006, 08:31 PM   #3
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

I look forward to the day where I can have my hand cut off and get a new one the next day, like in Star Wars.
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Old 09-24-2006, 09:45 PM   #4
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

I look forward to that too, especially since I was born with no fingers on one of my hands :-p However, we'd need advances in robotics as well as NN for that to happen. I think, with absolutely no support whatsoever to back this up, that tissue growth will precede artificial limbs.
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Old 09-24-2006, 10:00 PM   #5
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

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Originally Posted by Mystik3345 View Post
I look forward to the day where I can have my hand cut off and get a new one the next day, like in Star Wars.
that has already happened, well the 1st step, while crude but is the 1st step non-the less.


http://www.nbc4.com/health/9852206/detail.html

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Maryland Resident Becomes First 'Bionic Woman'
First Bionic Man, Woman Show Off New Limbs In D.C.

POSTED: 6:07 pm EDT September 14, 2006
UPDATED: 7:11 pm EDT September 14, 2006
Email This Story | Print This Story
WASHINGTON -- Claudia Mitchell is being called the bionic woman, a nickname she earned when she became the first woman in the world to get a bionic arm.

The Ellicott City woman lost her left arm in a motorcycle accident several years ago, but she now has the most advanced prosthetic in the world. She and the first bionic man, Jesse Sullivan, showed off their new limbs in D.C. on Thursday.

Sullivan and Mitchell can move their artificial limbs as if they were real by simply thinking about it.

"We're tapping into the nervous system in a unique way," said Dr. Todd Kuiken of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Kuiken helped develop the bionic arm. The procedure is called muscle reinnervation. Kuiken said nerves from the shoulder are rerouted to muscles in the chest, which activate sensors in the artificial limb.

"Even though the arm is lost with bone and muscle, the nerves are still alive, and they still carry information from the brain about what the arm should do," Kuiken said.

Mitchell said the bionic arm allows her to do routine things like tying her shoes with both hands and slicing vegetables, which she couldn't do with her first prosthetic.

"The Nationals or Orioles, nobody's going to be calling me to ask them to be their pitcher," Mitchell said. "But compared to what I had, it just blows my mind."

Sullivan has two prosthetic arms, but he can climb a ladder at his house and roll on a fresh coat of paint. He's also good with a weed-whacker, bending his elbow and rotating his forearm to guide the machine. He's even mastered a more sensitive maneuver -- hugging his grandchildren.

Researchers encouraged Sullivan, who became an amputee in an industrial accident, not to go easy on his experimental limb.

"When I left, they said, 'Don't bring it back looking new,'" the 59-year-old Sullivan said with a grin, his brow showing sweat beneath a fraying Dollywood amusement park cap. At times he been so rough with the bionic arm that it has broken, including once when he pulled the end off starting a lawnmower.

That prompted researchers to make improvements, part of a U.S. government initiative to refine artificial limbs that connect body and mind.

Sullivan lost his arms in May 2001 working as a utility lineman. He suffered electrical burns so severe that doctors had to amputate both his arms at the shoulder.

Seven weeks later, due to what Sullivan calls being in the right place at the right time, he was headed to meet the Chicago researchers.

"Jesse is an absolutely remarkable human being, with or without his injuries," Kuiken said. Sullivan said his bionic arm isn't much like the one test pilot Steve Austin got in the 1970s TV series "The Six Million Dollar Man." "I don't really feel superhuman or anything," he said.

Doctors say the new prosthetic is a big step forward, but there's still a long way to go before it can become an option for more people. However, they are hoping to try it on U.S. troops who have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The National Institutes of Health has supported the research, joined more recently by the military's research-and-development wing, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Some 411 U.S. troops in Iraq and 37 in Afghanistan have had wounds that cost them at least one limb, the Army Medical Command says.

Copyright 2006 by nbc4.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Old 09-24-2006, 10:17 PM   #6
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

I don't understand what sort of discussion is supposed to be taking place. Why is this topic here? What issue are we debating?
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Old 09-25-2006, 03:43 AM   #7
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

That is to say that the sensorimotor system in the human body can perform the functions required to conceptualize and, infer from those conceptions, in a manner required by human cognition. The logical assumption is that these self same sensorimotor neural networks are the networks the body uses to conceptualize during cognition.

The above paragraph that I have copied from the OP contains the really important conclusions upon which the new cognitive science paradigm is based.


We have in our Western philosophy a traditional theory of faculty psychology wherein our reasoning is a faculty completely separate from the body. “Reason is seen as independent of perception and bodily movement.” It is this capacity of autonomous reason that makes us different in kind from all other animals. I suspect that many fundamental aspects of philosophy and psychology are focused upon declaring, whenever possible, the separateness of our species from all other animals.

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy and psychology regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

The three major findings of cognitive science are:
The mind is inherently embodied.
Thought is mostly unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

“These findings of cognitive science are profoundly disquieting [for traditional thinking] in two respects. First, they tell us that human reason is a form of animal reason, a reason inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains. Second, these results tell us that our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real.”
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Old 09-25-2006, 09:19 PM   #8
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

Coberst doesn't obviously open debate. He states things.

As far as me getting sensorimotor sensation in artificial fingers though, I never had existing ones there in the first place, so even if they were to stimulate a nerve which would usually make me feel a finger, I would not amazingly feel the presence of a finger.
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Old 09-25-2006, 09:59 PM   #9
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

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Originally Posted by Cavernio View Post
Coberst doesn't obviously open debate. He states things.
I've noticed that myself.

It's hard to reply with thoughts on a subject when all we're presented with is something we can pretty much just respond "Okay" to.
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Old 09-26-2006, 03:55 AM   #10
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Originally Posted by Laharl View Post
I've noticed that myself.

It's hard to reply with thoughts on a subject when all we're presented with is something we can pretty much just respond "Okay" to.
I think that our educational system has not prepared us to become independent thinkers. Our teachers have always given us the questions and the answers. Developing the questions is, I think, the most important matter that a person must learn after schooling is over. To become a self-learner we need to learn how to ask our self important questions. Without these questions we cannot find our own answers.
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Old 09-26-2006, 04:16 AM   #11
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
--Voltaire (1694-1778)


Until a person learns to ask questions the world will always be “duh”. My posts are always my answers to my questions. My question that led to this post was ‘what is an abstract idea?’

Can you not ask more questions about abstract ideas? Can you not ask more questions about ideas in general? Can you not ask how we construct abstract ideas in the first place? In what way do we construct any idea? How many kinds of ideas are there? Why is the question the most important part of an independent’s technique for discovery?
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Old 09-26-2006, 02:04 PM   #12
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

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Originally Posted by coberst View Post
I think that our educational system has not prepared us to become independent thinkers. Our teachers have always given us the questions and the answers. Developing the questions is, I think, the most important matter that a person must learn after schooling is over. To become a self-learner we need to learn how to ask our self important questions. Without these questions we cannot find our own answers.
The thing is, you don't pose questions.

With this thread, you started talking about neural networks and computer simulation. You gave us some facts about it. No questions were posed. I bet the majority of the people here that read it simply went "So what?" after. I know I did.

Yeah, so humans use a sensorimotor system in order to bring about cognition. So what? What's your point?
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Old 09-26-2006, 03:24 PM   #13
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

I think he's telling us that we're supposed to look at the answer he has provided with this topic and that we're supposed to come up with the questions.

The thing is, there are no real outstanding issues with something like this, so the only question most everyone that reads this topic is going to come up with is, like you came up with, "So what?".

I've noticed that this is applicable to the majority of his topics, actually. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.
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Last edited by Kilgamayan; 09-26-2006 at 03:26 PM..
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Old 09-26-2006, 06:12 PM   #14
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The thing is, you don't pose questions.

With this thread, you started talking about neural networks and computer simulation. You gave us some facts about it. No questions were posed. I bet the majority of the people here that read it simply went "So what?" after. I know I did.

Yeah, so humans use a sensorimotor system in order to bring about cognition. So what? What's your point?

Cognitive science has radically attacked the traditional Western philosophical position that there is a dichotomy between perception and conception. This traditional view that perception is strictly a faculty of body and conception (the formation and use of concepts) is purely mental and wholly separate from and independent of our ability to perceive and move.

Cognitive science has introduced revolutionary theories that, if true, will change dramatically the views of Western philosophy. Advocates of the traditional view will, of course, “say that conceptual structure must have a neural realization in the brain, which just happens to reside in a body. But they deny that anything about the body is essential for characterizing what concepts are.”

The cognitive science claim is that “the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world.”

The embodied-mind hypothesis therefore radically undercuts the perception/conception distinction. In an embodied mind, it is conceivable that the same neural system engaged in perception (or in bodily movements) plays a central role in conception. Indeed, in recent neural modeling research, models of perceptual mechanisms and motor schemas can actually do conception work in language learning and in reasoning.

A standard technique for checking out new ideas is to create computer models of the idea and subject that model to simulated conditions to determine if the model behaves as does the reality. Such modeling techniques are used constantly in projecting behavior of meteorological parameters.

Neural computer models have shown that the types of operations required to perceive and move in space require the very same type of capability associated with reasoning. That is, neural models capable of doing all of the things that a body must be able to do when perceiving and moving can also perform the same kinds of actions associated with reasoning, i.e. inferring, categorizing, and conceiving.

Our understanding of biology indicates that the body has a marvelous ability to do as any handyman does, i.e. make do with what is at hand. The body would, it seems logical to assume, take these abilities that exist in all creatures that move and survive in space and with such fundamental capabilities reshape it through evolution to become what we now know as our ability to reason. The first budding of the reasoning ability exists in all creatures that function as perceiving, moving, surviving, creatures.

Cognitive science has, it seems to me, connected our ability to reason with our bodies in such away as to make sense out of connecting reason with our biological evolution in ways that Western philosophy has not done, as far as I know.

It seems to me that Western philosophical tradition as always tried to separate mind from body and in so doing has never been able to show how mind, as was conceived by this tradition, could be part of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Cognitive science now provides us with a comprehensible model for grounding all that we are both bodily and mentally into a unified whole that makes sense without all of the attempts to make mind as some kind of transcendent, mystical, reality unassociated with biology.

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh”
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Old 09-26-2006, 08:41 PM   #15
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

You should read "The undiscovered mind" by John Horgan. He essentially states think that cognitive science isn't really uncovering what it says it is, that its so far away from discovering anything truly astonishing that it looks as if it will never be able to uncover the mind/body. He also rags on other aspects of psychology as well.
I still think of the mind as something 'transcendent' or mystical, although completely attached to our physical forms. But I've also been told that I can't think that because it's a paradox.
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Old 09-26-2006, 10:51 PM   #16
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

Corberst:

"Okay. So what?"

I'm still failing to see what's so awe-inspiring in what you're talking about in here and how this "knowledge" is going to change my life or give me something new to think about and chew on. I think you completely missed the point of my post.
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Old 09-27-2006, 04:22 AM   #17
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Originally Posted by Laharl View Post
Corberst:

"Okay. So what?"

I'm still failing to see what's so awe-inspiring in what you're talking about in here and how this "knowledge" is going to change my life or give me something new to think about and chew on. I think you completely missed the point of my post.
Here, the first paragraph of the OP, is something to chew on.

Cognitive science has radically attacked the traditional Western philosophical position that there is a dichotomy between perception and conception. This traditional view that perception is strictly a faculty of body and conception (the formation and use of concepts) is purely mental and wholly separate from and independent of our ability to perceive and move.

The point of the post is to give the reader something that will arouse their curiosity so that they can perhaps decide to seek further comprehension of the matter. It is an attempt to lead the reader off the beaten path and on to exploring new ground.

The beaten path takes you no place you have not already been. Try some new ideas, you might find them exciting.
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Old 09-27-2006, 09:35 AM   #18
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

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Originally Posted by coberst View Post
Here, the first paragraph of the OP, is something to chew on.

Cognitive science has radically attacked the traditional Western philosophical position that there is a dichotomy between perception and conception. This traditional view that perception is strictly a faculty of body and conception (the formation and use of concepts) is purely mental and wholly separate from and independent of our ability to perceive and move.
I read that and went "Good for cognitive science. /golfclap"

Quote:
The point of the post is to give the reader something that will arouse their curiosity so that they can perhaps decide to seek further comprehension of the matter. It is an attempt to lead the reader off the beaten path and on to exploring new ground.
Curiosity toward what? That is what I'm failing to see here. Are we supposed to be going "oh, so people can still be perceptive while not cognitively aware of their surroundings"? I figured that was pretty obvious anyway, seeing as people are able to train themselves to react to things without relying on any of their senses. Go see a martial arts master.

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The beaten path takes you no place you have not already been. Try some new ideas, you might find them exciting.
The beaten path is beaten for a reason, friend. You could forge your own trail, sure, but the path between two points is still a straight line.
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Old 09-27-2006, 09:21 PM   #19
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

"I figured that was pretty obvious anyway, seeing as people are able to train themselves to react to things without relying on any of their senses. Go see a martial arts master."

Right. Take out your sense of smell, sight, sound, taste and proprioception, and tell me you can react to things.
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Old 09-27-2006, 09:35 PM   #20
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Default Re: Neural networks and computer simulation

Well, you know what I meant. I think. It's possible to not rely on one's senses. I don't mean that in the sense that someone who is incapable of any sensory activity whatsoever. I mean more along the lines that it's possible to train yourself to, for example, tell if someone is taking a punch at you that you either can't see or hear coming at them. They can just sort of TELL that it's going on.

Am I making sense? Do you know what I mean now?
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