Computational modelling is already something that's fairly widespread for trying to understand the brain. The only novel thing here might be how his model is designed.
Well yes, but it still seems relevant to just ask does this work? If you implement it, does it produce some kind of intelligent behavior? If not then you've disproven the hypothesis, and if so then it might have practical benefit.
I mean, the whole point of implementing this would be to see what insights can be gained.
From the study:
> The basic operations of the Assembly Calculus as presented here—projection, association, reciprocal projection, and merge—correspond to neural population events which 1) are plausible, in the sense that they can be reproduced in simulations
and predicted by mathematical analysis, and 2) provide parsimonious explanations of experimental results (for the merge and reciprocal project operations, see the discussion of language below)
This was an initial study, and I'm sure they're going to continue putting out papers exploring the model and how it compares with experimental data. It's not like everybody's going to see this one study and say "He's right! We should all use this model!" It's more that as more evidence is provided, the model becomes more relevant and it might be considered by others to be useful.
DennisP|5 years ago
FakeRemore|5 years ago
From the study:
> The basic operations of the Assembly Calculus as presented here—projection, association, reciprocal projection, and merge—correspond to neural population events which 1) are plausible, in the sense that they can be reproduced in simulations and predicted by mathematical analysis, and 2) provide parsimonious explanations of experimental results (for the merge and reciprocal project operations, see the discussion of language below)
This was an initial study, and I'm sure they're going to continue putting out papers exploring the model and how it compares with experimental data. It's not like everybody's going to see this one study and say "He's right! We should all use this model!" It's more that as more evidence is provided, the model becomes more relevant and it might be considered by others to be useful.