================================================================================================== GIORGIO A. ASCOLI* AND ALEXEI V. SAMSONOVICH (2008) "Science of the Conscious Mind." Biol. Bull. 215: pp. 204--215. ================================================================================================== [Abstract] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Key steps are the axiomatic acceptance of first-person experiences as scientific observables; the definition of a quantitative, reliable metric system based on natural language; and >> the careful distinction of subjective mental states (e.g., interpretation and intent) from physically measurable sensory and motor behaviors (input and output).<< [Introduction] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At least, by suggesting the first steps in this direction, we take the position that consciousness research does belong to the realm of hard science, which is in and by itself a matter of contention (Chalmers, 1996; Ascoli, 1999a; Kim, 1999; Tononi and Edelman, 2000). - Tononi G., and G. M. Edelman (2000) "A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination." Basic Books, New York. => done with amazon.com kindle [Scientific Accessibility of the Conscious Mind] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In practical terms, it is likely that the experimental frameworks designed to characterize the mind will have fairly complementary (or at least not entirely overlapping) technological limitations relative to those encountered in physics and biology, resulting in parallel research enterprises. However, the two theoretical constructs can be formally unified by postulating a new "supervenience" axiom, known as the principle of organizational invariance (Chalmers, 1996): =========================================================================== systems with similar functional organization must have similar experiences. =========================================================================== This means that identical brain states give rise to identical mental states. Note that the reverse is not necessarily true (the mapping can be degenerate): small changes in neural organization, such as the activation of an individual voltage-gated ionic channel, may go undetected by the conscious mind. [Semantic Maps as A Metric System for Subjective Meaning] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In particular, we need to design mathematically sound metrics reflecting definite aspects and elements of our subjective experiences, and a corresponding system of quantitative measures. Important phenomenological experience may be tied to individuals (consciousness of beauty, responsibility etc.), rather than to concrete objects whose features could be explained by the pattern-recognition properties of neural networks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The idea of semantic space, defined as the set of all possible meanings that words can express, may be formalized with the notion of cognitive mapping. Cognitive maps index representations by their context, such as spatial location, and are employed by mammals for path-finding and navigation (Samsonovich and Ascoli, 2005b; McNaughton et al., 2006). - Samsonovich, A. V., and G. A. Ascoli. (2005b) "A simple neural network model of the hippocampus suggesting its pathfinding role in episodic memory retrieval." Learn. Mem. 12, pp 193--208. => done - McNaughton, B. L., F. B. Battaglia, O. Jensen, E. I. Moser, and M. Moser (200) "Path integration and the neural basis of the ecognitive map." Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 7, pp. 663 - 678. => done -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The idea of describing the content of meaning geometrically (Gardenfors, 2004) is to embed concepts in an abstract metric space, capturing semantic relations with distances and angles (Fig. 4B). Orthogonal directions in this space would correspond to qualitatively distinct aspects of meaning, while relative positions along an axis would reflect quantitative semantic relations (e.g., Ploux and Ji, 2003)." - Gardenfors, P. (2004) Conceptual Spaces. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. - Ploux, S., and H. Ji. (2003) "A Model for matching semantic maps between languages (French/English, English/French)." Comput. Linguist. 29, pp. 155--178. [Empirical Dissociation of Mental States From Behavior] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It would be useful to design an experimental paradigm to induce distinct mental states (including independent perceptual interpretation and intentional planning) while controlling for all possible behavioral variables, and in particular maintaining identical input (sensory stimulus) and output (motor response). => the most important in this paper? [Conclusion] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A systematic and robust account of these connections will eventually be necessary to interface computational neuroscience with cognitive science by characterizing the semantics of the neural code at the highest functional level. However, the majority of cognitive neuropsychology reports are to date semiqualitative or do not directly address the characterization of the content of mental states. => text applicable to intelligence in the context of neural network Once more ================================================================================================== [Semantic Maps as A Metric System for Subjective Meaning] To define a metric system for subjective experiences, we need to identify their principal dimensions. The idea of semantic space, defined as the set of all possible meanings that words can express, may be formalized with the notion of cognitive mapping. We have recently demonstrated the existence of a semantic map of human language, in the form of a multidimensional space in which the relative position of each word quantitatively reflects the content of its meaning (Samsonovich and Ascoli, 2007b). - Samsonovich, A. V., and G. A. Ascoli. (2007) Cognitive map dimensions of the human value system extracted from natural language. pp. 111-124 in Advances in Artificial General Intelligence: Concepts, Architectures and Algorithms, B. Goertzel and P. Wang, eds. Proceedings of the AGI Workshop 2006, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, vol. 157. IOS Press, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. or http://books.google.com/books?hl=ja&lr=&id=t2G5srpFRhEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA111&dq=%22Cognitive+map+dimensions+of+the+human+value+system+extracted+from+natural+language.+%22&ots=hx0PrSOGY5&sig=Ffh1W1EJ4BIldHpFgrhbfXc_KSo# To start, all words are randomly allocated in a high-dimensional space. Their positions are then optimized to minimize an energy functional defined such that synonyms and antonyms tend to align parallel or anti-parallel, respectively.