======== WDL Dis. #16 (Bcc: all WDL participants) ======

Subject: Re: WDL Dis. #12
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 11:32:27 -0800
From: Susan Carey <sc50@is6.nyu.edu>
To: Dr John J Weng <weng@cse.msu.edu>

Dear John et al.,

This is my first weighing in.  I totally concur with
>
>> I believe that some amount of prior knowledge must be built in either by
>> a designer or by evolution in order for any learning to occur.

One needs only to look at evidence for innate -representations- in
non-human animals to see that there can be no existence proof that there
can be no innate representations.  It is an empirical matter whether there
are, and what their content is.

>I am a fan of neuroscience. As far as I can see, (iii) above is
>too rough and it is a misnomer.  In a book that I am writing, I broke
>it into three to become levels (3) to (5):
>
>(5) Knowledge level (e.g., object permanence*, linear ordering,
>    symbolic skills, thinking skills, general understanding of the world
>    around us, learned part of emotions, and rich consciousness)
>(4) Inborn behavior level
>    (e.g., rooting, sucking, breathing, pain avoidance and some primitive
>     emotions in neonates.  In neurons, they are related to synapses
>     at the birth time.)
>(3) Representation level (e.g., how neurons grow based on sensory stimuli)
>(2) Architecture level (corresponding to anatomy of an organism.  E.g.,
>    a cortex area is prepared for eyes, if everything is developed
normally)
>(1) Timing level (the time schedule of neural growth of each area of the
>                 nervous system during development)
>
>Studies in neuroscience seem to show that all of the above 5 levels
>are experience-dependent.  In fact, experience can shape all these levels
>to a very great extent.  But it seems that our gene has designed a lot for
>(1) through (4).  (5) is made possible by (1) through (4) plus experience;
>but (5) is NOT wired in.  Thus, (1) through (4) seem what a programmer
>for a developmental algorithm may want to design --- but not rigidly ---
>experience dependent.

Yes, all are experience dependent, but that does not mean that there isn't
also a large role for a genetic program (as you say).  If evolution can
count on a reliable source of experience (part of the norm of reaction),
then this experience is simply part of how the genetically guided program
of development works.  But we don't want to confound the question of
innate/learned with the related but different distinction between
genetic/experientially derived.  What we also need is a characterization of
experientially driven processes that are rightly considered "learning" as
opposed to experientially driven processes that are not.  This may sound
merely verbal, but many of these debates are merely verbal.  Clearly
aspects of the chemical environment determine the initial wiring of the
nervous system, but we wouldn't want to call these mechanisms learning.  We
need to get straight what we a talking about before empirical data can be
brought to bear on the issues.

>The same paradigm seems applicable to psychology.  Psychology will
>become a much beautiful science if the field shifts its current
>emphasis on (5) to (1) - (4) instead.  (5) is very ad hoc by nature.
>A lot questions of long debates in psychology could be answered
>systematically if psychology searches answers through (1) - (4).

Eegads.  From what does this pronouncement come?  Seems like there are ad
hoc decisions at all levels, and the study of development has always been
guided by a characterization of the final state.  If we didn't know what
the heart was, what its purpose is, what its structure is, we surely
couldn't know what we know about the developmental embryology of the heart.

Susan