IUBio

Pribam quotes, please help

kkollins at pop3.concentric.net kkollins at pop3.concentric.net
Wed Jan 6 11:35:23 EST 1999


Hi, Dag, I see, in the stuff of your post, that Pribram was, essentially
correct (even though he didn't state things in terms of the neural
topology).

My Master's Thesis at Springfield College, which was left incompleted
when I "Died" (1976-7 academic year), was a holographic memory
hypothesis. The inspiration for it, as I noted years ago in another
online "place", was in what I'd read of Pribram's work, and, of course,
the work of Gabor (1940) in Physics.

All of this was brought to fruition in 1979, after reading an artical,
_Thinking About the Brain_, by F. R. C. Crock, in the Sept., 1979 issue
of _Scientific American_. _Why: Human Behavior_ was written and
distributed in the summer of 1980. With some significant modifications
(mainly with respect to hippocampal function (going from
"memory-storage" to intermediate-"level" supersystem configuration), and
from the minimization of the "Energy Consumption of Mentation" to TD
E/I-minimization, _Why: Human Behavior_ was the "Automation of
Knowing..." doc (AoK, 1986).

If I read Pribram's _Languages of the Brain_, such is noted in the
archives I've Judiciously Maintained and distributed (I can't check now.
To remove "rationale" for the break-ins that I was experiencing, I moved
everything off-site (at considerable expense in terms of the hassles
inherent... imagine a Scientist who cannot even keep his notebooks on
hand... there was a benefit, however... I had to just stuff everything
in-there, and carry it all in-memory, and, brains being brains, mine
just sorted it all out... I'm reminded of the old saying, "God works in
funny ways" :-)

Cheers, Dag, ken collins

dag.stenberg at helsinki.nospam.fi wrote:
> 
> Thiele Everett <m9233 at abc.se> wrote:
> > "In the holographic state -- in the zone of frequencies -- maybe four
> > thousand years ago is tomorrow"
> 
> My _guess_: the holographic transformation can be achieved with Fouirer
> analysis, which eliminates the time scale.
> 
> > and, perhaps from the same text:
> > "Don't think I understand all this either"
> > He [K.H.Pribram] uses terms like: "the holographic state/condition" ?
> >                     "the frequency area/zone/region" ?
> > and possibly:       "the holographic paradigm"
> 
> In Pribram, K.H. "Languages of the Brain", Prentice-Hall, 1971, chapter
> 8 is dedicated to holograms. The hologram theory has a prominent place
> in the book.
> 
> On p. 152:
>  "The essence of the holographic concept is that Images are reconstructed
> when representations in the form of distributed information systems are
> appropriately engaged. These representations operate as filters or
> screens. In fact, as we have noted, one derivative of the holographic
> process comes from a consideration of optical filtering mechanisms.
> Holography in this frame of reference is conceived as an instantaneous
> analogue cross-correlation performed by matched filters. In the brain
> correlation can take place at various levels. In more peripheral
> stations correlation occurs between successive configurations produced
> by receptor excitation : the residuals left by adaptation through
> decrementing form a buffer memory register to be updated by current
> input. At more central stations correlation entails a more complex
> interaction : at any moment illput is correlated not only with the
> configuration of excitation existing at any locus, but also with
> patterns arriving from other statiolls. An example of this sort of
> complexity is shown in the experilllental results described in Chapter 7
> where the configuration of potelltial changes in the visual cortex was
> determined not only by the visual cues observed by a monkey, but also by
> the contingencies of reillforcement and the "intention" to make one or
> another response."
> 
> In chapter 19, on p. 370:
> "My hypothesis is that all thinking bas, in addition to sign and  symbol
> manipulation, a holographic component. Holographic representations are
> excellent associative mechanisms; they powerfully and instantaneously
> perform cross-correlations. These are the very properties that have been
> attributed to thought in the problem solving process the difficulty bas
> been to make explicit the neural mechanism involved. Both this
> difficulty and the ubiquitous use by the brain of holographic
> transformations stem from another attribute :
> holograms are composed by transformations which, when they are  simply
> repeated, essentially reconstruct the original from which the
> holographic representation was composed. Holograms are the "catalysts of
> thought." Though they remain unchanged, they enter into and facilitate
> the thought process.
> According to this view, thought is a search through the distributed
> holographic memory for resolution of uncertainty, i.e., for acquisition
> of relevant information. This formulation is inadequate, however, unless
> the term relevan t infe)rmation includes appropriate configurations as
> well as items or bits in the information-theoretic sense. More often
> than not, when problems generate thought' contextual and configurational
> matchings are sought' not just specific items of information. These
> matchings, 1 believe, can occur best while the coding operation is in
> its holographic mode. Perhaps the power of thought in problem solving
> resides in the repeated return to the configurational form of
> representation that serves a rehearsal function and allows the
> occurrence of additional distributions in memory. Some of these
> distributions will, because of correlations with brain states different
> from the initial one, become imbedded in new representations. They thus
> become available, when properly triggered, as new possibilities in
> problem solving."
> 
> Not that this makes much sense to me, nor might it help you very much.
> At least it is better to look for Pribram than Pribam if you are
> searching for references in libraries.
> 
> Dag Stenberg



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