Generalization in action

How humans generalize is a key questions that cognitive scientists are trying to to understand. Animals and computers cannot generalize like humans can. Most of the time when we think of computational generalization, we are thinking about perception and classification, but it applies to action and movement just the same, if not, even more. I… Continue reading Generalization in action

Minimal concepts needed to encode human language in a computer

I propose that there exists a minimal set of concepts that can be used to describe and encode almost all meaning of human language. From this base set of concept primitives, complex conjoined concepts can be created due to compositionality and abstract structures. One cannot learn complex concepts like quantum mechanics, calculus, or homework without… Continue reading Minimal concepts needed to encode human language in a computer

Read, Review, and Relink. On growing your zettelkasten

I have been writing this zettelkasten now for about 3 months. It has absolutely been growing crazily. Sometimes I write several posts in a single day. When I am writing my posts, I interlink them with whatever relevant posts and I have already written. In that way, my zettelkasten grows. If you truly want to… Continue reading Read, Review, and Relink. On growing your zettelkasten

Grid Cells: The next building block in Artificial Intelligence research?

Current Machine Learning research has made huge progress in the past 20 years thanks to Deep Learning. We have computers we can talk to, powerful image recognition, and (almost) self-driving cars. Almost of these technologies are built on artificial neural networks , which in turn use perceptrons, a very simplified model of neurons. What we… Continue reading Grid Cells: The next building block in Artificial Intelligence research?

Speed Cells

Speed cells are neurons who’s firing rate depends on the speed of the organism moving throughout an environment. They were discovered in 2005. These cells are located in the Endorhinal Cortex (EC) and are believed to be used together with grid cells and head direction cells for mapping the environment. Main paper: “Speed cells in… Continue reading Speed Cells

Head direction Cells

Another type of neuron in the Endorhinal Cortex (EC). These head direction cells fire when the organism moves in a certain direction. What is very interesting about them is that they have also been implicated to fire when moving in certain directions in the mind, essentially navigating a conceptual space. It looks like these cells… Continue reading Head direction Cells