The problem with the self-educated is that more often than not
they miss out on the benefits of formal education and get even
the fundamentals wrong. This certainly seems to apply in Savain's
case. After all of the hype, I looked at the advertised web site.
It confirmed what I have said elsewhere before the site was put
up.
On the basis of what is written there, my assessment is that it
represents a rather shallow assimilation of ideas discussed in
the like of comp.ai groups over the past year or so, supplemented
by a similar shallow understanding of some neuroscience research,
probably picked up via popular science summaries. That's about
the only way anyone could have the written such grandiose
nonsense on the basis of so little.
I have no quibble with the notion that contingency is central to
conditioning (this has been central to learning theory for thirty
years. Nor do I have any quibble with the idea that temporal
contiguity is critical to conditioning, that too has been
central to conditioning at the neuronal level for decades (it's
also central to how logic gates and other circuitry works of
course). I have discussed the developments of the Rescorla and
Wagner research in the context of learning Theory quite
extensively over the past couple of years, and have even done so
in the context of ANNs. However, what's written at the Savain web
site is really just a pastiche of ideas with a lot of grandiose
leaps and promises which are symptomatic of a basic lack of
understanding and would be reprimanded if submitted as a piece of
undergraduate work. To redress these deficits Savain will need to
invest more time and effort in finding out what the research is
really all about.
Tagging on a few references which others such as myself haved
mentioned is not going to fool anyone.
--
David Longley (check end reply line #)
Longley Consulting London, UK
Behaviour Assessment & Profiling Technology,
Research, Data Analysis and Training Services,
Small IT Systems http://www.longley.demon.co.uk
I have no quibble with the notion that contingency is central to
conditioning (this having been central to learning theory for
thirty years). Nor do I have any quibble with the idea that
temporal contiguity is critical to conditioning, as that too has
been central to conditioning at the neuronal level for decades
(it's also central to how logic gates and other circuitry works
of course).
What's written at the Savain web site is a pastiche of ideas
drawn from interesting discussions elsewhere. It is full of
grandiose leaps and promises which are symptomatic of a basic
lack of understanding.
--
David Longley (check end reply line #)
Longley Consulting London, UK
Behaviour Assessment & Profiling Technology,
Research, Data Analysis and Training Services,
Small IT Systems http://www.longley.demon.co.uk
David Longley (check end reply line #)
Longley Consulting London, UK
Behaviour Assessment & Profiling Technology,
Research, Data Analysis and Training Services,
Small IT Systems http://www.longley.demon.co.uk