tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post7965990987951128021..comments2024-03-28T04:04:55.806-07:00Comments on Faculty of Language: Mirror mirror in the brainNorberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15701059232144474269noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-48727672572553183852018-11-13T11:12:39.626-08:002018-11-13T11:12:39.626-08:00Congratulations on the text. Thank you.
I have not...Congratulations on the text. Thank you.<br />I have not read the book yet. I am writing my thesis on universal grammar and the system of mirror neurons seems to be the genesis of the language faculty. In addition to being mirrored on the computer system (merge) proposed by Chomsky.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04367361742839034986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-5157295893243325522014-09-26T07:29:22.364-07:002014-09-26T07:29:22.364-07:00I think more relevant in this case is the fact tha...I think more relevant in this case is the fact that this "simple" idea has had a long shelf life and is way past its sell date. There is a body of criticism gong back about 250 years that one hopes would serve as a kind of test bed if revival were being considered. What's so amazing about the empiricism/associationist myth is not that it keeps recurring, but that it keeps recurring in more or less the same way every time. In the domain of language, we have what Chomsky in another context dubbed "a body of doctrine." If one is interested in reviving an old idea here's a suggestion: take aim at some of these results and explain them. This, IMO, should be the ticket for admission to serious discussion. Or, find another relevant body of doctrine that the old ideas can explain and the new ones cannot. The problem is that more often than not, the "simple" ideas that have proven failures are not expected to meet regular standards. IT appears that this was also true of mirror neurons, if Greg is right. So, is there a reliable technique? Not if you mean an infallible one. But there is a pretty good one that we all are taught to use but it seems that some ideas are exempt from having to meet.Norberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15701059232144474269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-41554063888032950142014-09-26T03:04:58.387-07:002014-09-26T03:04:58.387-07:00Is there a way to distinguish "powerfully sim...Is there a way to distinguish "powerfully simple" ideas from facile ones? I feel like after a long day of doing real work, associationism and imitationism seem like creation myths. But charitable and skeptical people (like me even) often want to stop to give ideas like this a second chance because "if it works it could be great"; or "because of Darwin's problem."<br /><br />There must be a reliable technique for demonstrating that, in fact, the cloak of reasonableness around some facile idea is nothing more than a post-hoc justification for "it works the way a five year old would say it does."<br /><br />There ought to be a simple way of reinforcing that science seeks counter-intuitiveness first (or, lack of respect for intuitiveness) and simplicity second.ewanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00161859381870853353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-39689473119540244812014-09-23T20:18:06.979-07:002014-09-23T20:18:06.979-07:00It seems to me that wholesale rejection of associa...It seems to me that wholesale rejection of association risks loss of the infant. Association is an integral part of the meanings of words in the form of world knowledge (encyclopedic meaning). I wonder if it isn’t also integral to Merge, with its dependence on feature-checking. So far as non-syntactic, semantic features are concerned a form of association appears to be required as a mechanism to determine the compatibility of the words to be merged in a specific context.<br /><br />I haven’t read the book but Hickock’s quoted criticism of imitation theory sounds dubious. IMO much of the value of mechanical imitation lies in its capacity to transmute into miming and then intentional action once an imitated action is found to work. A good example of embodied cognition. No, I am not an associationist. I believe the innate semantic factors that I have talked about in other posts are central to cognition and behaviour. <br /><br />The pervasiveness of association (not associationism) in the thinking of neuroscientists is hardly surprising as it seems to describe much of the motivation of activity in the brain’s ‘innernet’, its directed neural activity.<br />Trevor Lloydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02578909872433991700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-56062582887489353322014-09-23T11:55:05.436-07:002014-09-23T11:55:05.436-07:00Insofar as behaviorism is a species of association...Insofar as behaviorism is a species of associationist and insofar as I itation is a favored mechanism for forming associations. Norberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15701059232144474269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-63449438592706082952014-09-23T10:14:25.381-07:002014-09-23T10:14:25.381-07:00Does the book criticize associationism at all?Does the book criticize associationism at all?Alex Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04634767958690153584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-71443035564852082632014-09-23T09:04:43.396-07:002014-09-23T09:04:43.396-07:00The great Randy Gallistel has a review article on ...The great Randy Gallistel has a review article on LTP arguing that it doesn't do what it advertises and the reason it is still so widely assumed to be the basic learning mechanism is, you guessed it, a lingering empirically unsupported associationist prejudice in the neurosciences. The paper is here:<br />http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/~galliste/images/publications/GallistelBalsamLngMemory2014.pdf<br />As I tend to believe almost everything Randy writes, I find this article compelling as well. Associationsim is everywhere. It is a plague and a scourge in the cognitive and neuro sciences. When examined carefully, it always proves to be inadequate. It would be great to see it disappear except as maybe a dead horse worth occasional beating. Norberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15701059232144474269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-49164583488182893302014-09-23T02:58:53.642-07:002014-09-23T02:58:53.642-07:00I agree with a lot of the criticisms of mirror neu...I agree with a lot of the criticisms of mirror neurons (and read the blog that GH cowrites) -- http://www.talkingbrains.org/. It's worth subscribing to it.Alex Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04634767958690153584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-63780410152874007982014-09-23T02:44:35.917-07:002014-09-23T02:44:35.917-07:00Genuine answer: i do not know whether the book doe...Genuine answer: i do not know whether the book does. It is certainly true that some claims about mirror neurons were incorrect and/or overblown. For a recent criticism have a look at this 2014 BBS paper and the commentaries:<br />http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/users/heyesc/Celia's%20pdfs/9%202014%20Cook%20et%20al%20BBS.pdfAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-38966056821191114792014-09-23T02:18:01.402-07:002014-09-23T02:18:01.402-07:00Genuine question: Does the book criticize associat...Genuine question: Does the book criticize associationism at all? Because imitation is something quite different, and I always thought that associationism (e.g. LTP) is uncontroversial in neuroscience.<br /><br />Alex Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04634767958690153584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-23393941207118098042014-09-22T11:03:24.132-07:002014-09-22T11:03:24.132-07:00Norbert isn't a neuroscientist, nor should be ...Norbert isn't a neuroscientist, nor should be be, either.<br /><br />I believe the issue with the mirror neuron folks is that they claim large swaths of cognition to their purview and demand all attention to a small class of cells. Hickok has rightly incorporated these findings into a larger, integrated theory of cognition. I agree that perhaps too much time is spent debunking the claims, but at least the debunking is done in service of an alternative and inclusive framework for how things work.William Matchinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14694924777230753361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-3963238718922966512014-09-22T08:46:19.007-07:002014-09-22T08:46:19.007-07:00You are certainly correct, Avery. The infrastructu...You are certainly correct, Avery. The infrastructure is complex and much of the mirror neuron hype in the media was just that - hype [who knew?!]. However, a hyped book to battle hype seems hardly the best response strategy. One friend of mine who actually works on mirror neurons put it much better than I could: "What disturbs me is the glee with which so many people want to destroy mirror neurons rather than help us progress to a more subtle understanding of their role."<br /><br />Especially hard to understand is Norbert's glee given that even if it were the case that everything ever claimed about the role of mirror neurons is false, that would be of zero help to him when attempting to give a positive account of the biological implementation of whatever it is that remains domain-specifically innate on MP assumptions...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-23294199136540704032014-09-22T03:32:40.371-07:002014-09-22T03:32:40.371-07:00So the message is that imitation involves a lot of...So the message is that imitation involves a lot of complex cognitive infrastructure? This would not be a surprise, since the ability to learn by imitation is extremely useful, and the infrastructure would have had a reasonably long time to develop.AveryAndrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17701162517596420514noreply@blogger.com