Walter J. Freeman (1992) Framing is a Dynamic Process. Psycoloquy: 3(62) Frame Problem (3)

Volume: 3 (next, prev) Issue: 62 (next, prev) Article: 3 (next prev first) Alternate versions: ASCII Summary
Topic:
Article:
PSYCOLOQUY (ISSN 1055-0143) is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Psycoloquy 3(62): Framing is a Dynamic Process

FRAMING IS A DYNAMIC PROCESS
Commentary on Ford & Hayes on Frame Problem

Walter J. Freeman
MCB LSA 129
Division of Neurobiology
University of California
Berkeley CA 94720

wfreeman@garnet.berkeley.edu

Abstract

It appears that Hayes's premises are that the primitive reasoning of a child suffices for framing and that the superior reasoning of a highly educated adult should do better. This does not nesessarily follow, however, since, paraphrasing from Neumann (1958), brains do logic poorly, and logical devices do framing poorly. Framing is the natural outcome of the dynamic process by which meaning is created in the forebrain under the influence of sensory flow, past experience embedded in synaptic change, and the immediacy of impending action and expected reward.

Keywords

Frame-problem, artificial intelligence, temporal logics, independent persistence, attention, Hume, dynamic frames, qualification problem.
1.0 Hayes (1992) begins his PSYCOLOQUY summary of Ford & Hayes (1991) with an appeal to the ratiocinative capacity of a child, in part as an existence proof, and in part as an emulative goal or criterion of success (yet this appeal to an example of biological intelligence does not seem to be pursued explicitly in the topics listed in the Table of Contents of Ford & Hayes 1991). It appears that Hayes's premises are that the primitive reasoning of a child suffices for framing and that the superior reasoning of a highly educated adult should do better. But, to quote von Neumann (1958) concerning the language of the brain: "Thus the outward forms of our mathematics are not absolutely relevant from the point of view of evaluating what the mathematical or logical language truly used by the central nervous system is"; and again: "whatever the system is, it cannot fail to differ considerably from what we consciously and explicitly consider as mathematics". In current terminology, brains do logic poorly, and logical devices do framing poorly.

1.1 My own experience with animal intelligence indicates that framing is a dynamic process (Freeman 1991). Rabbits trained to discriminate odors give evidence, during learning, that synaptic changes occur selectively throughout the olfactory system. Recordings of electrical activity of the bulb and cortex show that spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity recur with each act of discrimination and that the patterns reflect not the stimulus properties but the meanings of the stimuli for the individual subjects. Each new conditioned stimulus or change in a reinforcement contingency is accompanied by changes in all the known pre-existing central activity patterns relating to odors.

1.2 From these findings it follows that centrally stored information about the environment is not invariant -- nor could it be, in a true associative memory, which links each new class of discriminanda with all those that precede it. It also follows that sensory learning must be accompanied by motor learning, and that stimulus-response invariance is maintained by successful actions into and through the environment.

1.3 These properties and the chaotic dynamics that underlie them have been simulated in primitive form with networks of nonlinear ordinary differential equations, suggesting that nonlinear systems techniques may offer a new route to understanding brain function, and, in that way, can open new approaches to the study of artificial intelligence, including the frame problem.

1.4 Hayes writes (paragraph 1.0): "Any child knows that the brick is now held in the air, there is one fewer object on the ground, and THAT'S ALL." That is not all. The child may not "know" or care that it has a "brick" in hand or that "one fewer" remains, but it knows (see Gibson, 1979 on affordances) that it has picked up an object to build a play house, strike a threatening snake, break a window, or merely please an adult who has a hypothesis it cannot comprehend. Framing is the natural outcome of the dynamic process by which meaning is created in the forebrain under the influence of sensory flow, past experience embedded in synaptic change, and the immediacy of impending action and expected reward. On the whole, this view, emerging from current research in neuroscience would have been pleasing, I think, to Hume.

REFERENCES

Ford, K.M. and P.J. Hayes (1991) Reasoning Agents in a Dynamic World: The Frame Problem, Greenwich: JAI Press.

Hayes, P. J. (1992) Summary of Ford & Hayes (1991). PSYCOLOQUY 3(59) frame-problem.1.

Freeman, W. J. (1991) The Physiology of Perception. Scientific American 264: 78-85.

Gibson, J.J. (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Von Neumann, J. (1958) The Computer and the Brain. New Haven: Yale University Press.


Volume: 3 (next, prev) Issue: 62 (next, prev) Article: 3 (next prev first) Alternate versions: ASCII Summary
Topic:
Article: