HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013173.jpg

1.76 MB

Extraction Summary

3
People
2
Organizations
0
Locations
0
Events
1
Relationships
2
Quotes

Document Information

Type: Academic text / scientific book page (exhibit)
File Size: 1.76 MB
Summary

This document is page 257 of a scientific text titled 'Knowledge Representation via Attractor Neural Networks,' specifically section 13.4.2 regarding 'Cell Assemblies.' It discusses Hopfield nets, the CogPrime architecture, and cites researchers Gunther Palm, Susan Greenfield, and Edelman regarding neural theory. The page bears the Bates stamp 'HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013173', indicating it was evidence in a US House Oversight investigation, likely related to Jeffrey Epstein's connections to the scientific community.

People (3)

Name Role Context
Gunther Palm Researcher / Theorist
Cited for theories championing the cell assembly view in biology literature.
Susan Greenfield Researcher / Theorist
Cited for theories regarding core cell assemblies and transient ensembles.
Edelman Neural Theorist
Cited regarding the importance of repeated, slightly varied copies of the same subnetwork.

Organizations (2)

Name Type Context
CogPrime
A cognitive architecture mentioned in the text.
House Oversight Committee
Indicated by the Bates stamp footer.

Relationships (1)

Gunther Palm Academic Peers Susan Greenfield
Both cited in the same paragraph regarding cell assembly views in biology literature.

Key Quotes (2)

"Hopfield nets and their ilk play a dual role: as computational algorithms, and as conceptual models of brain function."
Source
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013173.jpg
Quote #1
"Greenfield argues that each concept has a core cell assembly, and that when the concept rises to the focus of attention, it recruits a number of other neurons beyond its core characteristic assembly into a 'transient ensemble.'"
Source
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013173.jpg
Quote #2

Full Extracted Text

Complete text extracted from the document (2,865 characters)

13.4 Knowledge Representation via Attractor Neural Networks
257
[Formula: h_ij = Sum(k=1, k!=i,j to N) w_ik p_k]
[Formula: Delta w_ij = (1/n) (p_i p_j - h_ij p_j - h_ji p_i)]
13.4.2 Knowledge Representation via Cell Assemblies
Hopfield nets and their ilk play a dual role: as computational algorithms, and as conceptual models of brain function. In CogPrime they are used as inspiration for slightly different, artificial economics based computational algorithms; but their hypothesized relevance to brain function is nevertheless of interest in a CogPrime context, as it gives some hints about the potential connection between low-level neural net mechanics and higher-level cognitive dynamics.
Hopfield nets lead naturally to a hypothesis about neural knowledge representation, which holds that a distinct mental concept is represented in the brain as either:
1. a set of "cell assemblies", where each assembly is a network of neurons that are interlinked in such a way as to fire in a (perhaps nonlinearly) synchronized manner
2. a distinct temporal activation pattern, which may occur in any one (or more) of a particular set of cell assemblies
For instance, this hypothesis is perfectly coherent if one interprets a "mental concept" as a SMEPH (defined in Chapter 14) ConceptNode, i.e. a fuzzy set of perceptual stimuli to which the organism systematically reacts in different ways. Also, although we will focus mainly on declarative knowledge here, we note that the same basic representational ideas can be applied to procedural and episodic knowledge: these may be hypothesized to correspond to temporal activation patterns as characterized above.
In the biology literature, perhaps the best-articulated modern theories championing the cell assembly view are those of Gunther Palm [Pal82, HAG07] and Susan Greenfield [SF05, CSG07]. Palm focuses on the dynamics of the formation and interaction assemblies of cortical columns. Greenfield argues that each concept has a core cell assembly, and that when the concept rises to the focus of attention, it recruits a number of other neurons beyond its core characteristic assembly into a "transient ensemble."1
It's worth noting that there may be multiple redundant assemblies representing the same concept – and potentially recruiting similar transient assemblies when highly activated. The importance of repeated, slightly varied copies of the same subnetwork has been emphasized by Edelman [Ede93] among other neural theorists.
1 The larger an ensemble is, she suggests, the more vivid it is as a conscious experience; an hypothesis that accords well with the hypothesis made in [Goe06b] that a more informationally intense pattern corresponds to a more intensely conscious quale – but we don't need to digress extensively onto matters of consciousness for the present purposes.
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013173

Discussion 0

Sign in to join the discussion

No comments yet

Be the first to share your thoughts on this epstein document