"Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemore2 at yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:6e2f1d09.0406300333.6d30726 at posting.google.com...
> > Ray's view that CPG's are a big part of the key to understanding
> behavior
> > has much merit. And, perhaps, so does his view of the role played by the
> > thalamic structures. But anyone who thinks that the processes of
> > habituation, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning
(especially
> > operant conditioning!) are irrelevant to this endeavor has clearly
missed
> > the boat. The basic principles investigated in the laboratory are
exactly
> > what must be explained. The acquisition of operant behavior and its
control
> > by certain stimulus configurations is a matter of the alteration of
> > spontaneous behavior by its consequences. This process is central to
> > behavior; the only process that is more fundamental is that which
> > necessarily preceded it - i.e., the very occurrence of behavior that is
> > spontaneous at the level of behavior (that is, not elicited), and this
is a
> > very old, and fundamental, phenomenon indeed.
>> RS: To start off, let me say that I am not presenting a
> Grand-Theory-of-Everything, just a speculative thrust at how a brain
> composed of neurons might think, judge, and decide.
>> GS: First, that's not a very good description of your posts. Second,
> what makes you think that I have not properly evaluated your
> position?.......both in terms of scope and particulars?
>> RS: A fictive motor
> program arrives at the ventral anterior-ventral lateral complex of the
> thalamus. If it is not halted, it becomes an actual motor program and
> proceeds to the pre-motor and motor cortex and then on to the
> motoneurons. When it hits the motoneurons, it becomes behavior.
>> GS: So you have said, and so I have heard.
>> RS: The instant the fictive motor program becomes an actual motor
> program
> it is no longer involved with the thinking, judging, deciding brain.
> However, the pattern controller, the pattern initiator, and the
> pattern generator are all capable of being modified by experience.
> This is learning. While learning is not part of thinking, judging, and
> deciding, it is clearly relevant.
>> GS: "Learning" is the modification of behavior through habituation ,
> classical conditioning, and operant conditioning. The study of such
> phenomena has everything to do with of "thinking, judging, and
> deciding," and so will an analysis of how physiology mediates these
> and associated processes (like motivation and emotion).
At last we agree on something!! How can that be?
Learning is the alteration of observed pattern via processes of
physiological change (e.g.., LTP)