10 Jul Mainspring of Language Learning
The brain wants something to happen so it can learn. Almost anything that is not nothing will stimulate neuron growth. There’s a good Radio Lab show that explores research on this topic at “How Does Your Brain Grow.” The program includes reference to “studies in which thinking alone—brain puzzles and learning new languages—can actually stave off the onset of […]
20 Apr Digital Presence and Immortality
Immortality? I’ve heard it said that a person was “immortalized” in such and such a painting, sculpture or poem. Unless you pack the burial with all the images of a person, the fact that those images outlast the decaying body may be a form of immortality. Are authors immortal? I’m rereading All’s Well, and I […]
13 Mar Intro to Understanding Context
Understanding It has been said that it is not possible to fully understand another person’s meaning without inhabiting their experiences and their current state of mind. And yet, communication is often completely successful. The most effective communications are between people who empathize well and avoid applying their own biases when listening to others. For humans, […]
06 Mar Correlation in Neuroeconomics
I find that driving when my body is tense, especially on slick roads or in poor visibility, is uncomfortable to the point of danger. Stress is a killer. I found, as a student, that relaxing at the piano just before going in to the test helped me perform better (on the test). I think many […]
26 Feb Choosing an Ontology Framework
Ontology is a knowledge representation language like Roger Schank‘s Semantic Networks and John Sowa‘s Conceptual Graphs or Doug Lenat‘s Semantic Web. An Ontology framework is the model (structure, function and content definition) in which you choose to build your ontology. Like a Relational Database or an Object Oriented Programming Language, an ontology has defined structures, functions […]
24 Feb Intro to the End of Code
By: Joe Roushar – February 2013 In the Beginning When computer programming began, it consisted mostly of written computer instructions called code. Data was minimal. Decks of dozens to hundreds of punched cards told the computer what to do with the data, which was also encoded on punched cards. The process of writing and debugging code was tremendously tedious. As computing […]
07 Feb Your Place in the Noosphere
René Descartes suggested that if you think, you exist: cogito ergo sum. To think, to know, to intuit, to be or not to be… these are questions that lead us to consider the noosphere. Taxonomies attempt to categorize things in the universe by placing them in buckets in which all the things in the same […]
21 Jan Gating in Human Reasoning
Both neuroscience and computer science have borrowed the metaphor of the gate for representing the function of letting some things go through and restricting others. In computing it is mostly a binary function: if the gate is closed, nothing comes in, if the gate is open, everything that is at the threshold comes in. I chose the pictures above because gates […]
07 Dec Probability of Understanding Meaning
Some suggest that computers can achieve full language understanding capabilities using statistical models. Others argue that heuristics or programmatic interpretation that uses special procedures tailored to linguistic phenomena. The two camps are as far apart as ever. Consider the comments around this recent article on Tor.com. On the one side, Norvig demonstrates the validity […]