Greg Laden is a blogger, writer and independent scholar who occassionally teaches. He has a PhD from Harvard in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, as well as a Masters Degree in the same subjects. He is a biological anthropologist, but for many years before going to graduate school to study human evolution, he did archaeology in North America. He thinks of himself as a biologist who focuses on humans (past and present) and who uses archaeology as one of the tools of the trade. Greg blogs regularly on ScienceBlogs at http://www.scienceblogs.com/gregladen/.
Dr. Joseph J. Salvo attended Phillips Andover Academy, received his A.B. degree from Harvard University and his Master and Ph.D. degrees in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University. Dr. Salvo joined the GE Global Research Center in 1988. His early work focused on the development of genetically modified bacteria and fungus, for the production of novel high performance polymers. In the mid 1990's he turned his group's efforts towards developing large-scale internet-based sensing arrays to manage and oversee
business systems. Most recently, he and his team have developed a number of complex decision engines that deliver customer value through system transparency and knowledge-based computational algorithms. Commercial business implementations of his work are currently active in Europe, and Asia as well as North and South America.
Dr. Peter Tu received his undergraduate degree in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and his doctorate from Oxford University England.
In 1997, he joined the Visualization and Computer Vision Group at the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna, NY. He has developed algorithms for the FBI Automatic Fingerprint Identification System. He is the principle investigator for the ReFace program, which has the goal of automatically computing the appearance of a person’s face from skeletal remains. Dr. Tu has also developed a number of algorithms for the precise measurement of specular and high curvature objects. His current focus is the development of intelligent video algorithms for surveillance applications.
You will recall that not everyone in this blog community quite bought into the Cat Brain simulation by IBM reported last week (see this post). Well, skepticism is developing about this report.
Last week, IBM announced that they had simulated a brain with the number of neurons and synapses present in a cat's brain.In February 2008, the National Academy of Engineering issued a grand challenge to reverse engineer the human brain, sweetening a pot neuroscientists had already been stirring for a long time. There are as many theories of mind as there are researchers working on it, and in some cases there is a real grudge match between the theorists. And maybe it's because they're both affiliated with IBM in some way, but it seems that none of these are more bloody than the one between IBM Almaden's Dharmendra Modha and EPFL's Henry Markram.
So it wasn't strictly a surprise when Henry Markram, the lead on the EPFL Blue Brain project, took umbrage at the publicity IBM's project received last week. He sent the following letter to IBM CTO Bernard Meyerson, CCing many members of the media, including reporters from the UK Daily Mail, Die Zeit, Wired, Discover, Forbes, and me.
I would like to point out that the term "Theory of Mind" is used incorrectly in the above quote. To me, this misuse of the term indicates a degree in pop psychology, as one might be exposed to the phrase but not know what it is, as has apparently happened here.
This is a little embarrassing. It would be like a psychologist writing about computer programming and noting that a "hash table" is a good place to put your chopped up corned beef.
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Is that so? Who, or what authority, might I ask, gets to decree "correct" usage in cases like this, and how else would you suggest we should refer to theories about what the mind is, or general theories about how it works (which are, as the article quite rightly says, almost as numerous as are the researchers working on these issues)? Does the fact that computer programmers have a jargon use for "hash" mean that the rest of us never get to refer to chopped corned beef and potato in one syllable ever again?
I am well aware that, over the past couple of decades, the phrase "Theory of Mind" has come to be used, among psychologists, to refer to people's ability to have some insight into what others may be thinking (very likely the author of the quoted article was aware of it too), but the existence this bit of technical jargon does not get to shut down how the rest of the world speaks English. This is especially true because, even inside the relatively small community where this jargon is in common, accepted use, "Theory of Mind" is one of the most misleading, question begging bits of technobabble out there. It labels the phenomenon requiring explanation (interpersonal understanding) in terms of just one of several still controversial and competing explanations. It strongly implies what may well not be the case: that we are able to understand one another only because we (not scientists, but all socially competent persons) have some sort of implicit theory about how people's minds work, and use it to infer from their behavior to their mental states. It is as if 17th century alchemists had persuaded all the natural philosophers of their time that the "correct" (or "scientific") way to refer to fire or combustion should be "phlogiston emission." How might that have retarded the development of chemistry? ("But M. Lavoisier, how can phlogiston emission possibly be combination with this stuff you call oxygen?") "Theory of Mind" is bad enough within developmental and social psychology; now Laden wants to impose this pernicious bit of jargon on the rest of us!
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On the main topic of the post, it seems pretty clear that the publicity for Modha's "cat brain" simulation is almost entirely empty and misleading hype. The trouble is that much the same can be said about the Blue Brain project headed by its chief critic, Markham. Blue Brain is actually about simulating a single neocortical column, about 1 cubic millimeter of brain tissue (admittedly in a much more biologically realistic way than Modha's project even dreams of), but to read the publicity you would think they were on the verge of simulating an entire working human brain, and uncovering the secrets of consciousness. There may well be some genuine scientific value in both projects, but they both are being ludicrously oversold.
Posted by: Nigel | November 25, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply
The Theory of Mind violates thermodynamics and inspired the Nazis.
Posted by: steve | November 26, 2009 9:58 PM | Reply