Children Cannot Be Taught, But They Can Learn

Children are not taught, they learn. How well and how much they will learn depends upon the skills that they master, long before they are aware that they are learning. Whether or not they have the chance to master those skills depends upon their caretakers.

Even the best of us is limited in what we can learn and what we can conceive. Such limitations applied to Albert Einstein and they apply to you, and your dangerous child. But all of us can learn ways to push against our limits, if we wish. Most people never come close.


The video above, "Cognitive Limits," is a useful introduction to the cognitive science of attention, memory, and learning.

Concepts of "Attention and Memory" are key to understanding how a relatively inexperienced and ignorant human infant can develop into a skilled walking and talking toddler who is into everything he can reach, learning and remembering as he goes.

Everyone is limited in what he can hold in his short-term working memory -- some more limited than others. Likewise, each person is limited as to how many active thinking processes he can maintain simultaneously -- how many dynamic activities he can keep track of.

Brief intro. to Cognitive Load Theory:

In essence, cognitive load theory proposes that since working memory is limited, learners may be bombarded by information and, if the complexity of their instructional materials is not properly managed, this will result in a cognitive overload. This cognitive overload impairs schema acquisition, later resulting in a lower performance (Sweller, 1988). Cognitive load theory had a theoretical precedence in the educational and psychological literature, well before Sweller’s 1988 article (e.g. Beatty, 1977; Marsh, 1978). Even Baddeley and Hitch (1974) considered “concurrent memory load” but Sweller’s cognitive load theory was among the first to consider working memory, as it related to learning and the design of instruction...

...Schema acquisition is the ultimate goal of cognitive load theory. Anderson’s ACT framework proposes initial schema acquisition occurs by the development of schema-based production rules, but these production rules may be developed by one of two methods (Anderson, Fincham, & Douglass, 1997), either by developing these rules during practice or by studying examples. The second method (studying examples) is the most cognitively efficient method of instruction (Sweller & Chandler, 1985; Cooper and Sweller, 1987; Paas and van Merriënboer, 1993). This realization became one of the central tenets of cognitive load theory.

Once learners have acquired a schema, those patterns of behavior (schemas) may be practiced to promote skill automation (Anderson, 1982; Kalyuga, Ayres, Chandler, and Sweller, 2003; Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977; Sweller, 1993) but expertise occurs much later in the process, and is when a learner automates complex cognitive skills (Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977), usually via problem solving. _Cognitive Load Theory

Reference examples for the deeply interested who have a research bent:

Cognitive Bottleneck in Multitasking (PDF)

Dynamic Competition and the Cognitive Bottleneck (PDF)

Advanced educators not only try to introduce useful "schemas" to the learner -- they also try to choose conceptual schemas that will be useful in multiple contexts:

Students do not automatically connect, apply, or extrapolate what they know to other learning contexts. So what foundations can we put in place to ensure we are dong the best we can to nurture conceptual understanding and seek its transfer to new contexts? Here is my attempt to map out a few strategies that work for me:

1. Make transfer the big goal of conceptual teaching and learning – always have ideas in mind about how students can transfer their conceptual understandings and skills to new contexts.
2. Concepts over content – think big picture not activities. The exploration of concepts during collaborative teacher planning sessions will lead to a multitude of activities that can be applied in the classroom – the activities will always take care of themselves!
3. Less is more – working with fewer conceptual understandings means that you can use and extend the knowledge and skills students present in a meaningful, formative way – be mindful.
4. Prior knowledge – Take the time to nurture student’s interest and avenues into the concepts you are teaching.
5. Authentic assessment – map out the formative and summative assessment opportunities that are likely to arise through the teaching and learning experiences. Through these opportunities, challenge student’s misconceptions, stereotypes and tendencies toward rigid thinking.
6. Levels of transfer – transfer can happen on a “near” level where contexts can be very similar, or transfer can happen on a “far” level where the context is more abstract and removed from the original learning, some learners are natural abstract thinkers, others are not.
7. Think discriminatively – be measured about when opportunities arise for students to apply transfer, be mindful about when you can make it happen authentically, create opportunities for success and not failure.
8. Value thinking, nurture it and make it visible – train and engage students in a variety of daily thinking routines, use Socratic questioning in discussions to connect new ideas with existing knowledge. Metacognition, metacognition, metacognition!!
9. Nurture the potential of transfer in younger students – (EY- G1) value and reflect upon the meaning of children’s connections in collaboration with others. Make children’s connections visible and a part of discussion for other learners.
10. Homework – getting students to apply what they are learning in class and explore the meaning of concepts to their own lives can provide rich and diverse opportunities for transfer. Infinitely more valuable than completing worksheets!

_Conceptual Learning in Classroom

In terms of modern classroom educational practise, many of these ideas are more useful than a lot of what one sees -- if they are ever applied in anything but the rare, ideal classroom setting, which is unlikely.

More commonly, the best of theoretical intentions go badly awry when the rubber meets the road. This is particularly true when the masses of teachers attempt to implement the conceptual ideas and schemas of theorists, most of which they themselves only vaguely comprehend.

Remember: The teacher does not teach. Instead, the learner learns. If the learner's mind is not structured and ready to learn the concept for the day, it will not matter how well the teacher has prepared his lesson.

The learning mind must be "empowered" from the earliest age, and continuously reinforced -- until it is the child himself who is doing the reinforcing. This self-reinforcement occurs at different ages for different children -- even under the most ideal conditions. Young Mozart, for example, required much less external reinforcement to achieve a given level of mastery than did young Salieri.

So far, we have skipped around one of the central issues: how to learn difficult concepts which do not come naturally to most children. We know that boosting self-esteem doesn't work for that. We know that paying a cash reward doesn't work. Even the promise of sensory pleasure and euphoric mind states are limited in how well they will expand the learner's conceptual grasp, within apparently innate cognitive and conceptual limits.

But we must learn to walk before we learn to run a marathon up a mountain. This is a blog, not a textbook. Our approach will necessarily seem a bit scattered and of variable depth. Readers may choose to stop reading and abandon the quest at any time, without penalty.

That is not necessarily the case for those who work at the Al Fin Dangerous Child Institute.

Everything You Think You Know, Just Ain't So

Humans cannot perceive reality directly. Instead, the outside world is filtered through our various senses. Significant filtering and pre-processing occur in the sensory organs themselves. Inside the brain, "primary" areas are devoted to each of the senses, where further filtering and pre-processing of information take place -- under the influence of feedback from "higher" brain areas. From the primary sensory cortex, the information proceeds to "associative" sensory areas and other cortical and sub-cortical parts of the brain, where an incredible free-for-all of clashing and matching information occurs deep below the level of consciousness.

Sensor Science

All of these sensory and mental processes find themselves immersed within a sea of emotions, influenced by the hormonal, biochemical, physiological, and genetic state of the individual. Every moment of time contains its own mix of emotions, frequently linked and tagged subconsciously to subtle sensory cues, such as fragrances, colours, or musical phrases.

This insistent background will shade our "knowing" in different ways, at different times.

Edge.org: Daniel Kahneman

Within the great tumbling scrum of the subconscious, a number of the brain's default mechanisms operate below the level of awareness, detected only by careful testing. But when put under the magnifying glass, the mind betrays its inner workings in the form of a number of sensory illusions and cognitive biases.

Image Source PDF

Many of the cognitive biases come about due to subconscious laziness, or a type of ongoing conservation of energy by the brain. Others are simply quirks resulting from the basic design of brain circuits and function.

But even after information has survived these minefields -- of sensory filters, perceptional illusions, emotional biasing, and cognitive biasing -- there are other types of information distortion which must be traversed. More on the conscious level, humans must face a large number of "logical fallacies" that are incorporated into verbal communication for many reasons -- some of the honest, and some of them quite devious.

Always remember that descriptions and explanations of logical fallacies may in themselves be fallacious and misleading.


Top 20 Logical Fallacies

Ad hominem An ad hominem argument is any that attempts to counter another’s claims or conclusions by attacking the person, rather than addressing the argument itself. True believers will often commit this fallacy by countering the arguments of skeptics by stating that skeptics are closed minded. Skeptics, on the other hand, may fall into the trap of dismissing the claims of UFO believers, for example, by stating that people who believe in UFO’s are crazy or stupid. A common form of this fallacy is also frequently present in the arguments of conspiracy theorists (who also rely heavily on ad-hoc reasoning). For example, they may argue that the government must be lying because they are corrupt. It should be noted that simply calling someone a name or otherwise making an ad hominem attack is not in itself a logical fallacy. It is only a fallacy to claim that an argument is wrong because of a negative attribute of someone making the argument. (i.e. “John is a jerk.” is not a fallacy. “John is wrong because he is a jerk.” is a logical fallacy.) The term “poisoning the well” also refers to a form of ad hominem fallacy. This is an attempt to discredit the argument of another by implying that they possess an unsavory trait, or that they are affiliated with other beliefs or people that are wrong or unpopular. A common form of this also has its own name – Godwin’s Law or the reductio ad Hitlerum. This refers to an attempt at poisoning the well by drawing an analogy between another’s position and Hitler or the Nazis.

Ad ignorantiam The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don’t know that it isn’t true. Defenders of extrasensory perception, for example, will often overemphasize how much we do not know about the human brain. It is therefore possible, they argue, that the brain may be capable of transmitting signals at a distance. UFO proponents are probably the most frequent violators of this fallacy. Almost all UFO eyewitness evidence is ultimately an argument from ignorance – lights or objects sighted in the sky are unknown, and therefore they are alien spacecraft. Intelligent design is almost entirely based upon this fallacy. The core argument for intelligent design is that there are biological structures that have not been fully explained by evolution, therefore a powerful intelligent designer must have created them. In order to make a positive claim, however, positive evidence for the specific claim must be presented. The absence of another explanation only means that we do not know – it doesn’t mean we get to make up a specific explanation.

Argument from authority The basic structure of such arguments is as follows: Professor X believes A, Professor X speaks from authority, therefore A is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim. The converse of this argument is sometimes used, that someone does not possess authority, and therefore their claims must be false. (This may also be considered an ad-hominen logical fallacy – see below.) In practice this can be a complex logical fallacy to deal with. It is legitimate to consider the training and experience of an individual when examining their assessment of a particular claim. Also, a consensus of scientific opinion does carry some legitimate authority. But it is still possible for highly educated individuals, and a broad consensus to be wrong – speaking from authority does not make a claim true. This logical fallacy crops up in more subtle ways also. For example, UFO proponents have argued that UFO sightings by airline pilots should be given special weight because pilots are trained observers, are reliable characters, and are trained not to panic in emergencies. In essence, they are arguing that we should trust the pilot’s authority as an eye witness. There are many subtypes of the argument from authority, essentially referring to the implied source of authority. A common example is the argument ad populum – a belief must be true because it is popular, essentially assuming the authority of the masses. Another example is the argument from antiquity – a belief has been around for a long time and therefore must be true.

Argument from final Consequences Such arguments (also called teleological) are based on a reversal of cause and effect, because they argue that something is caused by the ultimate effect that it has, or purpose that is serves. Christian creationists have argued, for example, that evolution must be wrong because if it were true it would lead to immorality. One type of teleological argument is the argument from design. For example, the universe has all the properties necessary to support live, therefore it was designed specifically to support life (and therefore had a designer.

Argument from Personal Incredulity I cannot explain or understand this, therefore it cannot be true. Creationists are fond of arguing that they cannot imagine the complexity of life resulting from blind evolution, but that does not mean life did not evolve.

Begging the Question The term “begging the question” is often misused to mean “raises the question,” (and common use will likely change, or at least add this new, definition). However, the intended meaning is to assume a conclusion in one’s question. This is similar to circular reasoning, and an argument is trying to slip in a conclusion in a premise or question – but it is not the same as circular reasoning because the question being begged can be a separate point. Whereas with circular reasoning the premise and conclusion are the same. The classic example of begging the question is to ask someone if they have stopped beating their wife yet. Of course, the question assumes that they every beat their wife. In my appearance on the Dr. Oz show I was asked – what are alternative medicine skeptics (termed “holdouts”) afraid of? This is a double feature of begging the question. By using the term “holdout” the question assumes that acceptance is already become the majority position and is inevitable. But also, Oz begged the question that skeptics are “afraid.” This also created a straw man (see below) of our position, which is rather based on a dedication to reasonable standards of science and evidence.

Confusing association with causation This is similar to the post-hoc fallacy in that it assumes cause and effect for two variables simply because they occur together. This fallacy is often used to give a statistical correlation a causal interpretation. For example, during the 1990’s both religious attendance and illegal drug use have been on the rise. It would be a fallacy to conclude that therefore, religious attendance causes illegal drug use. It is also possible that drug use leads to an increase in religious attendance, or that both drug use and religious attendance are increased by a third variable, such as an increase in societal unrest. It is also possible that both variables are independent of one another, and it is mere coincidence that they are both increasing at the same time. This fallacy, however, has a tendency to be abused, or applied inappropriately, to deny all statistical evidence. In fact this constitutes a logical fallacy in itself, the denial of causation. This abuse takes two basic forms. The first is to deny the significance of correlations that are demonstrated with prospective controlled data, such as would be acquired during a clinical experiment. The problem with assuming cause and effect from mere correlation is not that a causal relationship is impossible, it’s just that there are other variables that must be considered and not ruled out a-priori. A controlled trial, however, by its design attempts to control for as many variables as possible in order to maximize the probability that a positive correlation is in fact due to a causation. Further, even with purely epidemiological, or statistical, evidence it is still possible to build a strong scientific case for a specific cause. The way to do this is to look at multiple independent correlations to see if they all point to the same causal relationship. For example, it was observed that cigarette smoking correlates with getting lung cancer. The tobacco industry, invoking the “correlation is not causation” logical fallacy, argued that this did not prove causation. They offered as an alternate explanation “factor x”, a third variable that causes both smoking and lung cancer. But we can make predictions based upon the smoking causes cancer hypothesis. If this is the correct causal relationship, then duration of smoking should correlate with cancer risk, quitting smoking should decrease cancer risk, smoking unfiltered cigarettes should have a higher cancer risk than filtered cigarettes, etc. If all of these correlations turn out to be true, which they are, then we can triangulate to the smoking causes cancer hypothesis as the most likely possible causal relationship and it is not a logical fallacy to conclude from this evidence that smoking probably causes lung cancer.

Confusing currently unexplained with unexplainable Because we do not currently have an adequate explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it is forever unexplainable, or that it therefore defies the laws of nature or requires a paranormal explanation. An example of this is the "God of the Gapsa" strategy of creationists that whatever we cannot currently explain is unexplainable and was therefore an act of god.

False Analogy Analogies are very useful as they allow us to draw lessons from the familiar and apply them to the unfamiliar. Life is like a box of chocolate – you never know what you’re going to get. A false analogy is an argument based upon an assumed similarity between two things, people, or situations when in fact the two things being compared are not similar in the manner invoked. Saying that the probability of a complex organism evolving by chance is the same as a tornado ripping through a junkyard and created a 747 by chance is a false analogy. Evolution, in fact, does not work by chance but is the non-random accumulation of favorable changes. Creationists also make the analogy between life and your home, invoking the notion of thermodynamics or entropy. Over time your home will become messy, and things will start to break down. The house does not spontaneously become more clean or in better repair. The false analogy here is that a home is an inanimate collection of objects. Whereas life uses energy to grow and reproduce – the addition of energy to the system of life allows for the local reduction in entropy – for evolution to happen. Another way in which false analogies are invoked is to make an analogy between two things that are in fact analogous in many ways – just not the specific way being invoked in the argument. Just because two things are analogous in some ways does not mean they are analogous in every way.

False Continuum The idea that because there is no definitive demarcation line between two extremes, that the distinction between the extremes is not real or meaningful: There is a fuzzy line between cults and religion, therefore they are really the same thing.

False Dichotomy Arbitrarily reducing a set of many possibilities to only two. For example, evolution is not possible, therefore we must have been created (assumes these are the only two possibilities). This fallacy can also be used to oversimplify a continuum of variation to two black and white choices. For example, science and pseudoscience are not two discrete entities, but rather the methods and claims of all those who attempt to explain reality fall along a continuum from one extreme to the other.

Genetic Fallacy The term “genetic” here does not refer to DNA and genes, but to history (and therefore a connection through the concept of inheritance). This fallacy assumes that something’s current utility is dictated by and constrained by its historical utility. This is easiest to demonstrate with words – a words current use may be entirely unrelated to its etymological origins. For example, if I use the term “sunset” or “sunrise” I am not implying belief in a geocentric cosmology in which the sun revolves about the Earth and literally “rises” and “sets.”

Inconsistency Applying criteria or rules to one belief, claim, argument, or position but not to others. For example, some consumer advocates argue that we need stronger regulation of prescription drugs to ensure their safety and effectiveness, but at the same time argue that medicinal herbs should be sold with no regulation for either safety or effectiveness.

No True Scotsman This fallacy is a form of circular reasoning, in that it attempts to include a conclusion about something in the very definition of the word itself. It is therefore also a semantic argument. The term comes from the example: If Ian claims that all Scotsman are brave, and you provide a counter example of a Scotsman who is clearly a coward, Ian might respond, "Well, then, he's no true Scotsman." In essence Ian claims that all Scotsman are brave by including bravery in the definition of what it is to be a Scotsman. This argument does not establish and facts or new information, and is limited to Ian's definition of the word, "Scotsman."

Non-Sequitur In Latin this term translates to "doesn't follow". This refers to an argument in which the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. In other words, a logical connection is implied where none exists.

Post-hoc ergo propter hoc This fallacy follows the basic format of: A preceded B, therefore A caused B, and therefore assumes cause and effect for two events just because they are temporally related (the latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this").

Reductio ad absurdum In formal logic, the reductio ad absurdum is a legitimate argument. It follows the form that if the premises are assumed to be true it necessarily leads to an absurd (false) conclusion and therefore one or more premises must be false. The term is now often used to refer to the abuse of this style of argument, by stretching the logic in order to force an absurd conclusion. For example a UFO enthusiast once argued that if I am skeptical about the existence of alien visitors, I must also be skeptical of the existence of the Great Wall of China, since I have not personally seen either. This is a false reductio ad absurdum because he is ignoring evidence other than personal eyewitness evidence, and also logical inference. In short, being skeptical of UFO’s does not require rejecting the existence of the Great Wall.

Slippery Slope This logical fallacy is the argument that a position is not consistent or tenable because accepting the position means that the extreme of the position must also be accepted. But moderate positions do not necessarily lead down the slippery slope to the extreme.

Special pleading, or ad-hoc reasoning This is a subtle fallacy which is often difficult to recognize. In essence, it is the arbitrary introduction of new elements into an argument in order to fix them so that they appear valid. A good example of this is the ad-hoc dismissal of negative test results. For example, one might point out that ESP has never been demonstrated under adequate test conditions, therefore ESP is not a genuine phenomenon. Defenders of ESP have attempted to counter this argument by introducing the arbitrary premise that ESP does not work in the presence of skeptics. This fallacy is often taken to ridiculous extremes, and more and more bizarre ad hoc elements are added to explain experimental failures or logical inconsistencies.

Straw Man A straw man argument attempts to counter a position by attacking a different position – usually one that is easier to counter. The arguer invents a caricature of his opponent’s position – a “straw man” – that is easily refuted, but not the position that his opponent actually holds. For example, defenders of alternative medicine often argue that skeptics refuse to accept their claims because they conflict with their world-view. If “Western” science cannot explain how a treatment works, then it is dismissed out-of-hand. If you read skeptical treatment of so-called “alternative” modalities, however, you will find the skeptical position much more nuanced than that. Claims are not a-prior dismissed because they are not currently explained by science. Rather, in some cases (like homeopathy) there is a vast body of scientific knowledge that says that homeopathy is not possible. Having an unknown mechanism is not the same thing as demonstrably impossible (at least as best as modern science can tell). Further, skeptical treatments of homeopathy often thoroughly review the clinical evidence. Even when the question of mechanism is put aside, the evidence shows that homeopathic remedies are indistinguishable from placebo – which means they do not work.

Tautology Tautology in formal logic refers to a statement that must be true in every interpretation by its very construction. In rhetorical logic, it is an argument that utilizes circular reasoning, which means that the conclusion is also its own premise. Typically the premise is simply restated in the conclusion, without adding additional information or clarification. The structure of such arguments is A=B therefore A=B, although the premise and conclusion might be formulated differently so it is not immediately apparent as such. For example, saying that therapeutic touch works because it manipulates the life force is a tautology because the definition of therapeutic touch is the alleged manipulation (without touching) of the life force.

The Fallacy Fallacy As I mentioned near the beginning of this article, just because someone invokes an unsound argument for a conclusion, that does not necessarily mean the conclusion is false. A conclusion may happen to be true even if an argument used to support is is not sound. I may argue, for example, Obama is a Democrat because the sky is blue – an obvious non-sequitur. But the conclusion, Obama is a Democrat, is still true. Related to this, and common in the comments sections of blogs, is the position that because some random person on the internet is unable to defend a position well, that the position is therefore false. All that has really been demonstrated is that the one person in question cannot adequately defend their position. This is especially relevant when the question is highly scientific, technical, or requires specialized knowledge. A non-expert likely does not have the knowledge at their fingertips to counter an elaborate, but unscientific, argument against an accepted science. “If you (a lay person) cannot explain to me,” the argument frequently goes, “exactly how this science works, then it is false.” Rather, such questions are better handled by actual experts. And, in fact, intellectual honesty requires that at least an attempt should be made to find the best evidence and arguments for a position, articulated by those with recognized expertise, and then account for those arguments before a claim is dismissed.

The Moving Goalpost A method of denial arbitrarily moving the criteria for “proof” or acceptance out of range of whatever evidence currently exists. If new evidence comes to light meeting the prior criteria, the goalpost is pushed back further – keeping it out of range of the new evidence. Sometimes impossible criteria are set up at the start – moving the goalpost impossibly out of range -for the purpose of denying an undesirable conclusion.

Tu quoque Literally, you too. This is an attempt to justify wrong action because someone else also does it. "My evidence may be invalid, but so is yours."

__Skeptics Guide to Logical Fallacies

This is just a bare introduction to a few of the ways that human knowledge is filtered, processed, shaded, twisted, obscured, and misled -- just in the everyday course of events. Over at the blog Al Fin, the Next Level, they will be looking at some of these issues more closely from the standpoint of Dangerous Child training.

More: Thinking Skills for the Dangerous Child

World Views, Paradigms, Metaphors, and the Pre Verbal Core

Each of us views the world in a somewhat unique way. This "world view" is informed by a number of conscious and subconscious paradigms. What is a paradigm? It is a model of some aspect of reality. When large numbers of people share the same paradigms -- or models of reality -- we refer to "shared paradigms." Here are three examples of shared scientific paradigms:

• Quantum Mechanics: the extent and precision of confirmed predictions proves the basic theory (though "cutting edge" hypotheses are still up in the air, and the loonier interpretations are demonstrably false). Ultimately it will be derivable, as exact or approximate, from a deeper theory.
• Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe: the best explanation of available facts, but not enough facts to prove it. May be confirmed and refined, or may suffer a complete paradigm shift.
• Evolution of living things: the fact of evolution and the important mechanisms of mutation and natural selection are true, but further as yet unknown mechanisms cannot be ruled out.

_Doubt and Certainty

Leah Johnston

Paradigms may explain many aspects of reality -- but they can just as easily obscure and distort aspects of reality. The reliability of a paradigm has nothing to do with the number of people who share that paradigm. Frequently, the number of people who share a paradigm is inversely related to the reliability of that paradigm. Each one must be continuously tested -- without mercy or restraint.

A paradigm is a framework of perceiving, thinking and acting. It is a cognitive structure composed of aggregated concepts, values, beliefs and assumptions that organizes how we perceive, how we think and how we act — by, consciously or unconsciously, supporting rule-governed behavior. _ProcessParadigm

Where do paradigms come from? They come from more basic mental constructs, known as conceptual metaphors. It is possible for a paradigm to be assembled from thousands of distinct metaphors, in the same way that a complex computer model may be constructed using thousands of different equations.

Then what are conceptual metaphors? On the most basic level, metaphors are the language of unconscious thought -- low level mental constructs that influence every single thought that we have ever had, or that we will have in the future.

Linguist George Lakoff is one of the modern pioneers of conceptual metaphor theory. (PDF) Lakoff and frequent collaborator Mark Johnson have described a basic model of conceptual metaphor, which operates on the subconscious level to influence our every thought and argument. Conceptual metaphors also explain much of the power of modern conversational hypnotic techniques.

But even deeper than the idea of the "conceptual metaphor" as described by Johnson and Lakoff, is the idea of the pre-verbal metaphor. Conceptual metaphors can be described and labeled with words. Pre-verbal metaphors do not enjoy such advantages or luxuries.

Psychoanalysts such as Allan Schore have attempted to describe the process of early childhood development of pre-verbal metaphors -- although the phenomenon is not described in those terms.

But psychoanalysis is not always held in the highest regard these days, at least not by mainstream cognitive science. Science needs better ways of measuring and describing unconscious cognition. Not just in adolescents and adults, but in children -- particularly very young children whose unconscious cognitive processes are still in the formative stages.

What we describe as consciousness is only the barest tip of the cognitive iceberg. Beneath the waves exists a primal and dynamic menagerie of sea creatures, beyond the powers of modern science to capture, describe, or catalog. We can only detect faint and phosphorescent hints of their wakes as they swim by.

Is this really all that important? Not unless you want to better understand the basic flux of reality -- both individual, societal, and scientific.

Mass movements, for example, are based upon shared paradigms. These shared paradigms may or may not be able to survive a harsh test of reason and reality. But the movement itself may acquire sufficient momentum so that its underlying rationality loses importance -- in terms of the short and intermediate term success and victory of the mass movement. In the long run, of course, all mass movements are dead.

The best place to start for a basic understanding of the nature of scientific paradigms and scientific revolutions, is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn. (PDF)

Learning more about pre-verbal metaphors is somewhat more difficult, although I would not be betraying a trust by revealing that such a concept is among one of the most important proprietary ingredients of The Dangerous Child Method of childhood education -- specifically in the infant years.

Not everyone really wants to understand "what makes them tick." Not everyone wants to understand how easily a broad scientific consensus can turn out to be wrong -- even absurdly wrong. Not everyone wants to understand why mass movements and governments go so badly awry, so frequently.

But I am assuming that you -- by virtue of reading this blog -- are not just anyone. At the least, you will possess curiosity and some level of reading comprehension.

Applications of these ideas to The Dangerous Child Method of childhood education will be pursued mainly at Al Fin, the Next Level.


More:

Non-verbal and Multi-modal Metaphors in a Cognitivist Framework (PDF)

Also recommended: Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind . . .

The Waking Trance

Human consciousness is an odd pickle. We all experience it every waking day, but no one understands it well enough to build a good imitation. What are we missing?

Quite a lot, actually. For example, why are we so changeable from day to day or moment to moment? Is it possible that much of what we call ordinary consciousness is simply the slipping from one state of automatic trance into another?

Let's try to define "trance:"

To many psychologists a trance is a state of limited awareness. Some psychologists would also characterize trance as a form of sleep, or dreamlike awareness or a kind of altered state of consciousness.

... it is relatively easy to hypnotize a person and to keep that person in a trance state without their being aware that they are in fact in a trance. The technique of pacing and leading a subject from a rich or varied set of thoughts to a limited or impoverished set of thoughts is a technique used consciously by hypnotists, advertisers, sales people, preachers and politicians.

...how can you tell if you are in one of these ordinary, unconscious trances? You are in a trance when your attention is limited and there is a certain repetition of thoughts. In an extreme case, your attention is so limited that it feels like "tunnel vision."... Concentration, when the mind is focused on a specific problem or thought, is also a form of trance. You could characterize trance cybernetically as an awareness loop, or a circular flow of consciousness. _Unconscious Trance

Most of us spend most of our time in one type of trance or another. Even the experience of unconscious mastery is a type of trance.

In general this is fine, if we are in control of which trance we choose to be immersed within -- and if we can exit the trance whenever we wanted.

Almost every human being on Earth will revert back to what is known as "the consensual trance," the limited world of the particular social consensus within which the person happens to be immersed. It is a trance into which we are born and to which we are conditioned. Later, when we enter -- or are close to -- adulthood, we may be presented with a choice as to whether we wish to move into a different consensual trance. Very few discover the ability to experience large portions of their lives outside of the consensual trance. Even fewer make the choice to step outside the consensual trance into a greater freedom of the mind.


It is possible to move other persons into a trance, shift them from one trance state to another, or to help them emerge -- temporarily -- from a typical trance state. It is worth learning how to manipulate other persons' trance experiences in order to better apprehend when someone is attempting to do the same to you, typically in an attempt to enlist you into some kind of mass movement or ideology:

1. Build Rapport with the Listener

Your first task is to gain rapport with the listener. Rapport is simply put that feeling of connection and trust between two people. It doesn’t have to be too deep. You already have a rapport with your friends, parents and others. You can easily gain rapport with other people just by making compliment, laughing at their jokes etc.

2. Switch off the Critical Mind

After building rapport, you can now use covert hypnosis techniques to switch off the critical mind of the listener.

One of the ways to do this is to use the words “Imagine”, “What if” etc. When you use these words, the critical mind immediately shuts off, thus making the imagination work. This is very important, because we are only doing the things that we could imagine before, so invoking the mind’s eye of the listener will help you to send commands to his (her) subconscious.

3. Make Irresistible Hypnotic Commands

After bypassing the critical mind of the listener, you can now make your irresistible commands and describe the things you want a person to do.

Covert hypnosis is that simple. In covert hypnosis, your success will depend on the depth of rapport, your hypnotic language and how you follow the covert hypnosis technology. _Covert Hypnosis

It is no accident that these are simultaneously the tools of sexual seduction, religious conversion, and political enlistment and indoctrination. These are tools that are used in government and religious school classes, sports team pep talks, pick-up bars, cathedrals and mosques, clubs, associations, gangs, and mass movements of all kinds.

The tools of conversational trance manipulation have been perfected by ethical persons such as Milton Erickson, and by unethical persons such as your charismatic politician of choice.

But no one needs to put you into a trance. You do that every day, all by yourself. It is possible to go through days, weeks, months, and years without ever truly emerging from the waking trance, the consensual trance. In general, the possibility that one may emerge from such a trance is so disturbing that it can lead to psychic trauma, drug addiction, membership in a cult, or worse.

But just in case one wished to experience a different state of existence, how would he go about emerging from the waking, consensual trance?

How can anybody distinguish, then, between dream, hypnotic trance, and reality? Dehypnotization, the procedure of breaking out of the normal human state of awareness, according to both mystics and hypnotists, is a matter of direct mental experience. The method can be learned... _Howard Rheingold on Charles Tart

Maybe, maybe not. A lot depends upon the person's experience up to the point when he tries to break free. If the person were raised to be a dangerous child, he will likely have already learned ways of breaking out of the consensual trance -- at least temporarily, for specific purposes. But if the person were raised to be a psychological neotenate -- like most modern children -- his chances of learning to break free of the waking consensus will depend upon his strength of character and his motivation.

Human societies are moving toward a point where it becomes more crucial for persons to wake up. Whether this will involve waking up into yet a higher trance, or waking up outside of trance altogether, may be more a matter of semantics than we would like to think.

If a person wants you to "wake up" to his way of thinking, that is a clue that he wants you to share his trance. This is a typical experience for university students in the modern classroom of indoctrination, and for consumers of mainstream media news and commentary.

But if you want to wake up outside the consensual trance -- and perhaps into your own trance -- you will need to do some creative thinking and experimenting.

If it seems like I am trying to "dumb down" and generalise the definition of trance to the point that it encompasses all experience and consciousness, that is not my intent. I am leaving room for several types of consciousness outside of trance states.

But it takes work to reach them, and even more work to stay in them for any appreciable period of time.

Most people will never wake from the consensual trance, and that is just how they want it. But as push comes to shove, and shove comes to strike, someone will have to devise some workable alternatives. Hopefully, at least some of these alternatives will involve a larger scale emergence from the limited consensus.

This Is Your Brain Under General Anaesthesia

Neuroscience has often benefited from natural experiments—patients who lose their ability to remember, produce language, or regulate their emotions after parts of their brains are damaged or have to be surgically removed. Anesthesiologists preside over an analogous experiment every day: they watch elements of consciousness disappear. Under general anesthesia, for instance, patients lose pain perception, awareness, memory, and the ability to move. An anesthesiologist can influence each of these changes in different ways by varying the dosages and types of drugs used.

"By taking away different functions that we associate with consciousness," Brown says, "we might be able to start piecing together parts of the jigsaw puzzle." Neuroscientists could begin to do for consciousness what they have done with memory and language. _TechnologyReview

EEG Spectrum Under General Anaesthesia
Real time EEG monitoring is a useful adjunct to other ways of monitoring the anaesthetised patient. With better spatial resolution, EEG imaging of brain activity can make every surgical procedure a natural experiment in the mechanisms of consciousness.

EEG-based brain monitors are already a common sight in operating rooms; some anesthesiologists track the brain activity of their patients with commercially available monitors that use algorithms to transform EEG signals into crude indexes. (Others track only physical signs such as heart rate and blood oxygen levels.) But few of them, he says, spend time looking at the raw EEG data.

...As patients enter an anesthetized state, the normal pattern of low-intensity but high-frequency waves shifts to one of less frequent but more intense pulses—as if the constant chatter of the brain had given way to a chant. The location of activity shifts from the back of the brain to the front. Although it's possible to take patients into such a deep state of unconsciousness that their EEG is essentially flat, in most cases bursts of EEG activity alternate with periods of relative inactivity that can last for minutes. The brain processes appear "highly organized," he says. "There are very regular patterns in time, and very regular patterns in space."

...some drugs will decrease the frequency of brain waves seen in EEG readings, resulting in slow, regular oscillating waves across large areas of the brain. Other drugs cause certain areas to show fast, regular oscillations. Because anesthesiologists usually give a cocktail of drugs to each patient, these effects can happen simultaneously. The result, says Brown, is like a jammed signal: "Either way, [the different parts of the brain] can't communicate."

Over the past few years, other EEG studies have supported the idea that anesthesia doesn't simply shut the brain down but, rather, interferes with its internal communication. Mashour's research, for instance, has shown that feedback between the front and back of the brain is interrupted during general anesthesia, leading to a disconnect between different brain networks. That feedback is thought to be important for consciousness. _TechnologyReview

Clearly there are many ways to disrupt brain networks, and normal waking consciousness. Hypnosis has been used as "anaesthesia" during painful surgeries for over a hundred years. It will be fascinating to review the EEG pattern of such a surgery, for comparison to other anaesthetic agents.

We are still quite a long ways from developing the perfect anaesthetic, and from understanding human consciousness in all its states and varieties. But if western civilisation can hold up for just a few more decades against all of its internal and external enemies, some marvelous tools for enhanced health, cognition, longevity, and more, are on the way.

Constructing Your Own Cartesian Theatre

Cartesian Theater
The Cartesian Theatre is the place inside your head where you sit and watch the world unfold before your very eyes. Well, not really. In order for cognitive scientists to better understand how our brains create an interactive conscious experience, they actually had to demolish the Cartesian Theatre in order to assemble a structure of brain and mind that better fit with the research.

The search for the seat of consciousness has been a long and tumultuous journey, and by no means have humans come near the hidden prize. But some ideas are better than others -- some have thought the thing through more clearly than others, incorporating more of the confirmed research data into more elegant theories.

In "Self Comes to Mind," Antonio Damasio reveals some of his deepest and most recent ideas regarding the origin of the conscious self. It is worth quoting from Chapter 9 of the book to illustrate Damasio's search for the origin of self:

Several possible structures come to mind, but only a few can be seriously considered. An important candidate is the thalamus, a perpetual presence in any discussion of the neural basis of consciousness, specifically its collection of associative nuclei. The intermediate position of the thalamic nuclei, between the cerebral cortex and the brain stem, is ideal for signal brokering and coordination.

Although the associative thalamus is busy enough constructing the background fabric of any image, it plays a very important, albeit perhaps not the lead, role when it comes to coordinating the contents that define the autobiographical self. I will say more about the thalamus and coordination in the next chapter.

What are the other likely candidates? A strong contender is a composite collection of regions in both cerebral hemispheres that is distinguished by its connectional architecture. Each region is a macroscopic node located at a major crossroads of convergent and divergent signaling. I described them as convergence-divergence regions or CDRegions in Chapter 6 and indicated that they are made of numerous convergence-divergence zones. CDRegions are strategically located within high-order association cortices but not within the image-making sensory cortices. They surface in sites such as the temporoparietal junction, the lateral and medial temporal cortices, the lateral parietal cortices, the lateral and medial frontal cortices, and the posteromedial cortices. These CDRegions hold records of previously acquired knowledge regarding the most diverse themes. The activation of any of these regions promotes the reconstruction, by means of divergence and retroactivation into image-making areas, of varied aspects of past knowledge, including those that pertain to one’s biography, as well as those that describe genetic, nonpersonal knowledge.

...One of the main CDRegions, the posteromedial cortices (PMCs), appears to have a higher functional hierarchy relative to the others and exhibits several anatomical and functional traits that distinguish it from the rest. A decade ago I suggested that the PMC region was linked to the self process, albeit not in the role I now envision. Evidence obtained in recent years suggests that the PMC region is indeed involved in consciousness, quite specifically in self-related processes, and has provided previously unavailable information regarding the neuroanatomy and physiology of the region. (The evidence is discussed in the last sections of this chapter.)

...The final candidate is a dark horse, a mysterious structure known as the claustrum, which is closely related to the CDRegions. The claustrum, which is
located between the insular cortex and the basal ganglia of each hemisphere, has
cortical connections that might potentially play a coordinating role. Francis Crick was convinced that the claustrum was a sort of director of sensory operations charged with binding disparate components of a multisensory percept. The evidence from experimental neuroanatomy does reveal connections to varied sensory regions, thus making the coordinating role quite plausible. Intriguingly, it has a robust projection to the important CDRegion that I mentioned earlier, the PMC. The discovery of this strong link occurred only after Crick’s death and was thus not included in the posthumously published article that he wrote with Christof Koch, in which he made his case.1

The problem with the claustrum’s candidacy as coordinator resides in its small scale when we consider the job that needs to be performed. On the other hand, given
that we should not expect any of the structures discussed earlier to perform the
coordinating job single-handedly, there is no reason why the claustrum should not make a relevant contribution to the construction of the autobiographical self. _Self Comes to Mind

Damasio also describes a number of other key brain structures -- including the brain stem -- in connection with their role in constructing a conscious self. The path to consciousness is serpentine, and feeds back upon itself in intricate ways.

Antonio Damasio

What is the point to this? Simply, if you want to understand the mind -- your own or someone else's -- there are a number of things which you will need to process almost simultaneously, at various levels of basic and emergent logic. You cannot do that without having done a great deal of reading, thinking, experiencing, observing, and experimenting. Fortunately for non-scientists, the entire human world is a great experimental laboratory for studying cognition.

Secondarily, if you want to create a machine consciousness, you may want to understand how the only proof of concept in the known universe -- the human brain -- manages to achieve the task at variable levels of competence.

Readings:

For an introduction to consciousness, Susan Blackmore's intro to the topic is one of the best places to start.

Antonio Damasio's book, Self Comes to Mind, is an interesting progression beyond an introductory review on consciousness.

At a somewhat deeper level, Gyorgy Buszaki's Rhythms of the Brain will connect many elements of neuronal structure and activity with higher levels of brain function.

A Dynamic Collection of Integrated Neural Processes, Centered on the Representation of the Living Body, That Finds Expression in a Dynamic Collection of Integrated Mental Processes

B&NReview
Cognitive scientist Antonio Damasio has authored some of the most successful, influential, and widely read popular science books on the mind. His latest book, "Self Comes to Mind," is an attempt at "starting over." Damasio wants to re-draw his vision of consciousness and the mind, on a larger canvas, and with the advantage of recent research findings and more comprehensive thinking on his own part.

But can a middle-aged man truly start over? Will society allow it? The publication of Damasio's new book has spawned a large number of published responses, from the respectful Jonah Lehrer interview, to the somewhat bemused Barnes & Noble review by philosopher A C Grayling, to the quasi-temper tantrum thrown by psychologist Alison Gopnik, in Slate.

When a person accumulates a body of work and thought, it is difficult to start over. And despite his claim, Damasio is not actually beginning again at the beginning -- that would be impossible. He is taking much of the respect and credibility that he has earned from past research and writings, and risking it all in an attempt to create something quite magnificent -- the beginnings of a seminal vision of how human minds work.

Damasio makes a case for the necessity of a "self", or subjective element, in the mind. And he locates the self precisely within the body -- or at least the parts of the brain that sense and map the body. Despite Damasio's claims of "starting over," feelings and emotions play central roles in this embodied self, this anchor of higher consciousness. In fact, threads of his previous thoughts pervade his newest work.

The author builds his argument chapter by chapter, bringing the reader up to date on known brain functions, theories of mind, and new research findings which utilise the latest tools. So far, so good. But then, in connecting the threads of self, the body, feelings, consciousness, perception, movement, attention, and some types of memory, Damasio climbs far out onto the brain stem. By doing so, he may be providing jealous rivals -- some of them possessing psychological chain saws -- an opportunity to cut him off at the stump. Damasio does not care. To Damasio, the vision is the important thing, not necessarily what others might construe of it. If the vision is true, eventually it will come through.

Damasio looks at the mind from the level of brain centers and pathways, and from the higher level of mental processes up to the self. Some readers will be satisfied with his weaving of the two levels together, and others will not. It is worth the time and the struggle, in my opinion, as an introduction to cognition.

The truly hard work has yet to be done. And since an ultimate understanding of the human mind -- as far as modern humans are capable -- will require a monumental acquisition of concepts as well as a monumental erasing of mis-concepts, it is unlikely that many of the current crop of cognitive scientists will ever live to see the promised land. Starting over is much harder than one might think.

Update 27Dec2010: Philosopher Ned Block takes a shot at Damasio's book in the pages of the New York Times. I admit to being a bit puzzled by Block's obvious and repeated mischaracterisations of some of the basic ideas in Damasio's book, until I reached the final paragraph in Block's critique. It seems that Block is disturbed that some of Damasio's ideas may be used to justify suffering by cows and chickens in the livestock and food production business. Apparently, Block did not read the book at all, but rather seized upon a few sections which raised red flags in the minefield of Block's politically correct consciousness.

You would be amazed how common it is that busy book reviewers fail to read the books they are reviewing. I suppose when one is politically correct enough, one hardly has to read or think deeply about an idea in order to recognise it as heresy. Understanding such emotional and reflexive "thinking" is part of the reason why thinking people should read books such as Damasio's "Self Comes to Mind."

Giulio Tononi's Theory of Consciousness

The New York Times recently did a piece on University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Giulio Tononi, which like most mainstream treatments of science failed to penetrate at all closely to the core. Instead, one would need to read this 2004 paper by Tononi to understand a bit of what Tononi wants to achieve.

Tononi has collaborated with Nobel Prize winning scientist Gerald Edelman on a number of books and studies. So you might think that Edelman's theory of consciousness would have influenced the younger Tononi's development of his own theory of consciousness.

There are bound to be similarities between Tononi and his mentor Edelman, but Tononi seems to be cutting his own path through the wilderness of consciousness. Unlike Edelman or Antonio Damasio -- another famous cognitive scientist -- Tononi does not appear to be as aware of his own body and the crucial role the body plays in generating consciousness.

Tononi's theory of consciousness penetrates more deeply into neurobiological realities than the philosophical work of David Chalmers and than the computational neurophilosophical work of Paul or Patricia Churchill. Yet it seems as if Tononi remains largely "stuck in his head" when attempting to tease the roots of consciousness.

Consciousness is extremely complex, but it is often made far more complicated than it needs to be. One of the favourite bugaboos of "philosophers of mind" is "qualia," or experiential quanta. Philosophers such as Chalmers enjoy riding mental merry-go-rounds such as qualia, because it provides them with arcane areas of expertise and plenty of material to publish -- regardless of any lack of practical significance in the real world. Academia is academia, and "publish or perish" says nothing about grounded relevance to the actual world. (For an interesting "party crashing" of some of the sensory phenomena related to qualia, see this [via commenter Loren])

And yet consciousness cannot mean anything unless it is indeed grounded to the real world. And consciousness cannot ground to the world by means of words. Even the best verbal metaphors of mentation cannot connect consciousness to physical existence. This failure of words is often the takeoff point for computational neurophilosophers and neuroscientists and theoreticians of sophisticated computational neural networks including Bayesian approaches.

But to be brutally honest, most scholars of consciousness do not even give lip service to the bare necessities of the physical underpinnings of conscious awareness and higher level consciousness. What about Tononi? I'm not sure yet. He showed a lot of promise in his earlier collaborations with Edelman. His "Integrated Information" theory of consciousness suggests some interesting possibilities, but so far I have not seen the necessary connecting, or grounding, of the mental processes with the bodily processes -- which are absolutely crucial.

Peepholes Into a Coherent World: BrainWorks Series

NewScientist

To most of us, the brain is a "black box." It creates a seemingly coherent world with which we can interact, but we have only limited understanding how it does what it does. But when focal brain damage happens to persons, neurologists and neuroscientists can begin to see how the brain puts the pieces of the puzzle together to create the world.

It's here that people with visual agnosias come in handy. Behrmann had previously studied people with integrative agnosia, who have difficulty recognising and naming complex objects as a whole, and instead seem to pay unusual attention to their individual features. One person, for example, mistook a picture of a harmonica for a computer keyboard, presumably thinking the row of air-holes in the mouthpiece were computer keys (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, vol 29, p 19). Others have mistaken a picture of an octopus for a spider, and a pretzel for a snake.

In 2006, Behrmann put one of her patients, known as SM, through a series of experiments alongside people with normal vision. All were shown a set of three-dimensional objects on a screen, each made from two simple geometric shapes. Afterwards, the volunteers were shown a stream of these images, with a few new objects thrown in. Their task was to report whether or not they had seen the objects before.

While those with normal vision performed with nearly 100 per cent accuracy, SM made some intriguing mistakes. He knew he hadn't seen an object before if it contained a new part, but those that had the same parts in a different configuration confused him. About half the time he mistook these for the familiar objects (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, vol 32, p 1169).

To Behrmann, the results suggest that our brains normally construct objects from a series of smaller building blocks, which she calls our "visual vocabulary". To recall our concept of an object, she says, we form a mental map of the way these parts fit together. It was at this stage that SM failed. "He had a good representation of the parts, but understood little of how they were combined," Behrmann says. _NewScientist

NewScientist

Advanced brain imaging is helping neuroscientists to sort between the different the different varieties of visual agnosias. This helps us understand the different functional brain modules, and to learn where they are located.

Brain scans have revealed that people with visual form agnosia tend to have damage to the ventral (lower) part of the brain's visual area. People with optic ataxia, on the other hand, have damage to the dorsal (upper) part. This led to the idea that we have two streams of visual processing. The ventral pathway is necessary for perceiving or recognising an object, while the dorsal pathway deals with an object's physical location in our visual field and, if we need to perform an action on it, guides the movement of our bodies. For this reason, scientists often refer to the two processes as the perception-action, or the what-where, streams of visual processing.

...In fact, the closer neuroscientists look, the more modular our visual systems appear. MRI scans of people with and without agnosias have suggested that within the ventral stream, separate aspects of appearance are processed independently. This year, psychologist Cristiana Cavina-Pratesi at Durham University in the UK found that shape, texture and colour are all processed in individual regions (Cerebral Cortex, DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhp298).

Yet our experience feels markedly different. When we consciously see something, all these disparate elements are stitched seamlessly together, so we know instantly that an apple is smooth, green and round. The question of how we accomplish this is central to the study of conscious perception.

...So important is the role vision plays in most people's everyday lives that most research has concentrated on visual agnosias. Now the hunt is on for similar disorders that affect the other senses. Recently, for example, neurologists found a person who could understand speech but not other sounds. Coslett, meanwhile, is investigating whether simultanagnosics also have trouble binding other sensory sensations together, such as sights and sounds.

Now you see it...

There are many visual disorders, typically caused by damage to specific parts of the brain.

• Simultanagnosia - Seeing only one object at a time, even when viewing a scene comprising many items
  
• Integrative agnosia - Inability to recognise whole objects, tending to focus instead on individual features of an object
  
• Visual form agnosia - Inability to describe the shape, size or orientation of objects, yet exhibiting no problem in manipulating them
  
• Optic ataxia - Ability to report the shape and size of an object, though attempts to manipulate it are clumsy
  
• Prosopagnosia - Failure to recognise the faces of familiar people
  
• Pure alexia (aka agnosia for words) - Inability to identify individual characters or read text, even though subjects are sometimes able to write
  
• Agnosia for scenes - Inability to recognise known landmarks or scenes
  
• Colour agnosia - Ability to perceive colours without being able to identify, name or group them according to similarity

_NewScientist

We have discussed the binding problem before, but it is important to begin to zero in on the parts of the brain which are involved in binding different aspects of reality together into a "coherent whole."

It is also important to begin to learn the actual dynamic mechanisms which are responsible for creating the actual "sensation of consciousness." Or, "The Feeling of What Happens," as Antonio Damasio expresses it.

It is only by delving deeply into these processes that we will be able to conceptualise ways in which we may profitably reverse-engineer a human brain. But that will mean letting go of the "algorithmic theory of conscious intelligence" which has waylaid so many well-meaning artificial intelligence researchers in the past.

Scientific American has a short piece on a parallel topic

Beyond Kurzweil and Myers: A Useful Brain Emulation Viewpoint

George Dvorsky provides a measured and reasonable approach to the question of machines emulating the human brain in this well written article on "making brains". While quite short and lightly documented, Dvorsky's piece provides a useful outline of the problem, and a fairly sound description of a good approach for attacking the problem.

While I believe that reverse engineering the human brain is the right approach, I admit that it's not going to be easy. Nor is it going to be quick. This will be a multi-disciplinary endeavor that will require decades of data collection and the use of technologies that don't exist yet. And importantly, success won't come about all at once. This will be an incremental process in which individual developments will provide the foundation for overcoming the next conceptual hurdle.

But we have to start somewhere, and we have to start with a plan...The idea of reverse engineering the human brain makes sense to me. Unlike the rules-based approach, WBE works off a tried-and-true working model; we're not having to re-invent the wheel. Natural selection, through excruciatingly tedious trial-and-error, was able to create the human brain—and all without a preconceived design. There's no reason to believe that we can't figure out how this was done; if the brain could come about through autonomous processes, then it can most certainly come about through the diligent work of intelligent researchers.

...A number of critics point out that we'll never emulate a human brain on account of the chaos and complexity inherent in such a system. On this point I'll disagree. As Bostrom and Sandberg have pointed out, we will not need to understand the whole system in order to emulate it. What's required is a functional understanding of all necessary low-level information about the brain and knowledge of the local update rules that change brain states from moment to moment. What is meant by low-level at this point is an open question, but it likely won't involve a molecule-by-molecule understanding of cognition. _SentientDevelopments

Dvorsky goes on to describe the type of multi-disciplinary approach he has in mind, and bravely makes a prediction as to how long the effort will likely take: 50 to 75 years. This is a much longer timespan than Kurzweil and most AI researchers are giving, but I suspect it is closer to a realistic mark.

There are a couple of small criticisms I have to make. Dvorsky expects a workable brain emulation to be built within a "digital substrate":

.... if you believe that there's something inherently physical about intelligence that can't be translated into the digital realm, you've got your work cut out for you to explain what that is exactly—keeping in mind that any informational process is computational, including those brought about by chemical reactions. Moreover, intelligence, which is what we're after here, is something that's intrinsically non-physical to begin with.

Here, it seems that Dvorsky has it backwards. It is the persons who believe that intelligence can be made to work in a different physical substrate than the brain who bear the burden of proof to show that intelligence can be "transferred" to the "digital realm." We only have one proof of concept of intelligence up until now, which is a bloody ball of fat resting on a stalk rising between the shoulders of homo sapiens.

In another place Dvorsky asserts:

... the brain contains masterful arrays of redundancy; it's not as complicated as we currently think.

In truth, the brain is far more complicated than we can currently imagine. The question should be: Is the relevant functionality within the brain/mind which generates consciousness and intelligence, perhaps "not as complicated as we currently think?" Al Fin cognitive theorists believe that such a thing is possible, as long as we take care not to stumble amongst the numerous overlapping logical levels which present themselves whenever attempting to deal with this problem.

Dvorsky is quite right that the brain emulation problem is going to require extensive multi-disciplinary effort. We will need multi-disciplinary teams, as well as team members who themselves have multi-disciplinary training.

The great online debate between Ray Kurzweil and PZ Myers continues unabated, but it has very little to do with the eventual creation of a machine intelligence modeled after the brain.

If I had to choose one or the other to lead an effort to create an artificial brain, I would choose Kurzweil, hands down. Myers is an academic on the "intellectual" side -- an intellectual being someone who is rarely challenged by reality when he makes a mistake. Kurzweil's inventions and products have to work. That puts Kurzweil firmly in the reality-based camp, regardless of how many in the media and academia call him a kook.