If our psychological theories commit us to a language of thought, we had better take the commitment seriously and find out what the language of thought is like.

I have recently read Sketches of Thoughts by Vinod Goel. This post comprehend my notes on the book but before I should admit that it has been a hard one for me.

Introduction

I have learned essential things while reading the introduction.

What are they? The list is in below.

• CTM (Computational Theory of Mind), therefore Fodor and therefore I’ve broadened my knowledge on  LOT(Language of Thought).
• Think tank: “Why does the language of thought have to be language?”
• Main idea: “No computation without representation”
• A book to read: Ways Of World Making

• Problem solving –> Thesis: “While it maybe true that traversal of a well-structured problem space can be explained by postulating mental representations exhibiting the CTM properties, there are many ill-structured problem spaces where mental representations need to exhibit very un-CTM-type properties. .. in particular, properties associated with symbol systems of sketching.  –> Leads to several claims.

• Project Zero and many interesting projects @ http://pzweb.harvard.edu/   
• Nelson Goodman
• Representational Relation
• Belief: mind-to-world, “A desire cannot be satisfied by changing your mind.”

Here is an entertaining and inventive writing on progressive human computer relationships discussing the dilemma of stucking between a DVR and the spouse. It is open to make criticism but don’t forget that it is just fun.

Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha.

Dukkha is equivalent in English to suffer, pain including both physical and pyschological pain.  Dukkha is one of the steps to reach Nirvana.

Why I do tell of these? Because in a short time dukkhas will be so smooth that everyone will achieve to be better self of they are if not reach Nirvana.

Cold weekends and TED Talks are goood.

The neuroscientist, whose name is Cristopher deCharms, looks inside the brain real time and not just that, he also controls it suggesting that we all will do the same in short time.

Until now, he explains, there’s been three ways to impact the brain; the therapist couch, pills and the knife. One there is an alternative way. Learning to control the brain by looking inside of it that is real time MRMI.

You think I make it up or does it sound like Matrix as he says? The percentage is forty-four to sixty-four decreasing of chronic pain in clinical trials. The areas they look to use this technology includes disease treatment, brain training, brain imaging during psychotherapy(the most appealing one to me) .

He asks

We are the first generation that enter into, using this technology, the human mind and brain. Where will we take it?

I have a suggestion, right?

Do not forget to check also out this link.

A book to read: Two Views of Mind: Abhidharma and Brain Science by Christopher deCharms.

I would like to read this book so much, it embraces both brain and Buddhism.

Giving the same example from the article, how does your partner understand that you want to add more salt to your soup after your first taste although you haven’t commented on its salt and he doesn’t even eat the soup but he gives it you just in the time you were going to reach it? How is that possible?

He would think that he does not use his conscious when he gives you the salt, he would says “it felt like that”  but in fact he does use his conscious. The author says “he looks at you, he perceives your facial expression, he thinks on its meaning, he notices your vague body movements towards to the salt and he understands that you need the salt”.

The history of mirror neurons is not far. In the beginning of 90′s, a groups of scientist realize that a group of neurons of a monkey is fired every time he watches someone at the lab eating. Moreover these were the same neurons that helped to the one to reach to the food.  Next time, they examined that when a monkey reaches and holds a fruit another monkey watching would have just the same group of neurons fired. The result was astonishing because whatever action that a monkey observes he would have the same group of neurons working as if it was the one who was performing. The neuroscientist called this group of neuron mirror neurons.

So these mirror neurons help us to share the same reality. Interesting huh?

It says in the article that the discovery of mirror neurons is equally important as the discovery of DNA.

Candansayar, Selcuk. “Zihnin Dili: Ayna Noronlar.” NTV Bilim July 2009: 49-53. Print.

I have found it on MIT’s Psychology and Cognitive Sciences reading list, perhaps you may want to check that as well.

I can say with some of certainty that I think therefore I am but I cannot say you think therefore you are because you are within my perceptual bubble.

Tonight I have watched at TED Talks Henry Markram. The title of the talk is Henry Markram builds a brain in a supercomputer. He talks about the computer model that they achieved to create neural simulation of the brain.

“Why we should have a detailed realistic computer model of the human brain?”  His reply is “there are three important reasons”. First of all he sees having such a model is essential to get along with society and he says that is a key step in evolution. He tells the second reason as that we cannot continue (I think more than being cannot, we should not continue) with animal experiments so  that all the information we have should be embedded into a working computer model.  The third one is, there are many people living with mental disorders and the drugs are widely empirical but we can find very concrete solutions with such models. Moreover, brain models assist to explore how the brain works.

The theory that they address assumes that “the brain creates a version of the universe and projects this version of the universe like a bubble all around us”. Admittedly that this is just one point of view of the ongoing debate for centuries on how the brain works, he says for the first time they achieved to create neural simulation to prove this theory.

So you can simply answer to the question “Why the moon is huge on the horizon?” by this theory. Markram answers “It is simply because our perceptual bubble does not stretch out 308000 kilometers. It runs out of space”. He says what we do is to compare the building around with the moon in our perceptual bubble and then decide if it is big. From this particular examples, he comes up to point that the decision is the key thing, it is what keeps our perceptual bubble alive. He suggests that without decision felling and thinking cannot exist.

The important question is here to ask as he says “Can the brain build such a perception?”

He explains what they did last fifteen years as cataloguing a part of the brain forest and more than that because there emerges the need of describing all the rules of communication and connectivity regarding the selectivity of neurons and the necessity of creating them in three dimension. When all of these are present, you can have the view of cortical column. Anyone should really see that simulation.

From then onwards, a new challenging question arises. How is the fabric (the circuit composed of synapses, the network of the brain) built? What is the pattern?

This is a challenge because of diversity. He says “it is very unlikely that you’ve got the same fabric, same circuitry.” He asks further “How could we  possibly create a reality that we even can understand each other?” Because “we actually share the same fabric”.

But how is the reality coming out of Handful of equations +  supercomputer (=10000 laptops (one per one calculation))?

Now that’s the most exciting and amazing part. Check out this link to see how the simulation creates the ghostly structures when it is asked about the rose. You’ll understand what I mean.

It is breathtaking if you would not think that I exaggerate. I am looking forward for the progress and the reality created by the machine. What I wonder is that will it really happen just in ten years around?

PS: I have decided to include a category labeled Prominent People. So I will add notes on Henry Markram there and try to blog on Blue Brain Project too.

Last Friday, The Jay Leno Show is on the TV and he’s telling some of his closing jokes. “They’ve made a survey about the first sex experience and seventy percent of the participants were pleased with it. The rest were women.”  The laughing audience is woman dominated.

You may want to be aware what you laugh at, because it reveals your personality. Now it is proved that laughing is originated from our experiences and believes.  How? Here it is.

This laughing matters reminded me a recent book I have read which is called On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life.  A chapter of it is about the relationship between tickling and laughing which I have found very intriguing. Let me blog on that next time as I have committed!

I am going to start to study “A Transformational Grammar of  Turkish” by Robert Meskill in the light of her recommendation.  This will be the propel of my linguistic and NLP journey. So far I did not go beyond than fiddling with some projects on the web in linguistics. Maybe it is a shame on me that I did not move into practice than just reading books.

I am in conscious of skipping blogging about my reading notes. I always complain about not having enough time but today I decided not to skip it anymore. Recalling the quote of some famous American (so do I guess)  “Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.”  Therefore I make the commitment now and plan to go ahead with blogging.

So that’s all for now.

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The one above is not my favorite quotation of Shakespeare, albeit it was the first one crossed my mind even though it has been many years since I’ve read Macbeth in my junior year at high school. If there is one thing that I yearn for from high school, that is the English literature lessons and Shakespeare who is indispensable from the content. High school days are over and no more English literature lessons there are now in college but Shakespeare is back in my life again in an unexpected way thanks to Karl Hasselström and Jon Aslund.

What I love about computer science is that it is so extensive. When you take a glance around, you will probably say “of course it is” but experiencing it by chance leaves you with such an amusement that it is hardly avoidable to put it into words. One minute it something about Shakespeare plays that I was searching for and the next minute I was all into the weird programming language called Shakespeare.

So that is how I started to fall into weird programming languages. They are categorized under the name of Estoric Programming Languages. There are other ones besides Shakespeare but it has been the most interesting one to me. I do not want to detail the language itself right now (I will try to make disclosure of it in the second edit) but instead I copy the links to show what I mean.

Links:

The Shakespeare Programming Language

The Piet Programming Language

Estoric Topics in Computer Programming

For discussions about the language