🚀 go-pugleaf

My apologies for any double postings (Mike)

Dear Colleagues;

Dr. Walter Freeman will be giving a talk next Monday March 15th at 4 PM at
the University of Colorado,
Boulder Campus, in the Muenzinger Psychology Building Room E214. There will
be a reception immediately following the presentation. I hope to see you
there.

Cheers,

Daniel Barth

_______________________

Title:

A Neurobiological Interpretation of Semiotics:
Meaning vs. Representation.

Abstract:

My interest lies in that branch of semiotics called semantics, the
relationships between meaning and representation.  In my view there are no
representations in brains, only meanings.  A meaning is the focus of an
activity pattern that occupies the entire available brain.  It is
constructed through intentional action and learning from the consequences
of the action.  Communication between brains requires the construction of
representations such as words and gestures that express meanings and that
elicit other meanings in other brains.  The representations are material
objects and processes that have no meanings in themselves.  One aim of
Artificial Intelligence is to build "meaning machines", that can initiate
actions in the context of broadly assigned goals and learn about their
environments from the received results of their own actions.  A
prototypical device is based in experimental nonlinear brain dynamics and
implemented with differential equations.  The parameters are optimized to
give aperiodic attractors simulating observed brain activity.  The
attractors are stabilized with biologically modeled additive noise.  This
KIII model is tested with pattern classification of machine parts,
constituting data compression to "accept" or "reject" , which is the
meaning of the patterns.  Current work is directed toward analog
embodiment, in order to surmount the limitations of modeling with digital
computers.

Biographical sketch of Dr. Freeman:

Walter J Freeman studied physics and mathematics at M.I.T., English at
Hamilton College, philosophy at the University of Chicago, and medicine at
Yale University (M.D. cum laude 1954). He interned in internal medicine at
The Johns Hopkins Hospital and studied neurophysiology at UCLA, with
support from the Foundations Fund for Research in Psychiatry.    He
received the A. E. Bennett Award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry,
a Guggenheim Fellowship, Titulaire de la Chaire Solvay in Chemistry from
the Universit� Libre de Bruxelles, a MERIT Award from the National
Institute of Mental Health, and the Pioneer Award from the Neural Networks
Council of the IEEE.  He served as President of the International Neural
Network Society in 1994.  He has taught brain science in the University of
California at Berkeley since 1959, where he is Professor of the Graduate
School.  He is the author of >300 articles and two books: "Mass Action in
the Nervous System" (1975) and "Societies of Brains" (1995).  A third book
is in press with Weidenfeld & Nicolson: "How Brains Make Up Their Minds".


Dr. Daniel S. Barth
Professor of Neuroscience
Director, Behavioral Neuroscience Program
Department of Psychology
Campus Box 345
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0345
Phone: (303) 492-0359
FAX: (303) 492-2967