Invariants of Behavior Constancy and Variability in Neural Systems
The study of the brain and behavior is enhanced by the discovery of invariances. Experimental brain research uncovers constancies amid variation with respect to interventions and transformations prescribed by experimental paradigms; furthermore, place cel
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Mario Negrello
Invariants of Behavior Constancy and Variability in Neural Systems
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Mario Negrello Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Okinawa, Japan [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4419-8803-4 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-8804-1 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-8804-1 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2011923227 c Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
As a cognitive scientist, I realize that in the study of the brain, challenges of epistemological nature match those of empirical nature. Issues have to be resolved on both fronts, and with matching impetus. On the empirical forefront, one has to deal with complexities of measurement, system identification, and experimental paradigms. On the epistemological side, function has to be outlined, analyzed, localized, discussed, explained. The two sides must be alloyed if the explanatory summit is to be achieved. And as a mechanical engineer, I find it difficult to dispel my natural tendency to see mechanism in everything. The meaning of the mechanism analogy in the study of organisms and brain function has to be put under adequate light to be serviceable. In the brain, mechanisms are dynamical processes, highly context dependent, that subserve an incredible breadth of organismic behavior. They are evanescent, but reliable. They are expressible through words and theories, but are exhausted by neither. I found no common denominator for my conflicting quandaries until I was introduced to cybernetics through the works of von Foerster, Braitenberg, Wiener, Pask, and Ashby, and more recently, Varela, Maturana, Pasemann, and Beer. So pervasive as to be invisible, cybernetics percolated through most of the sciences in the second half of the previous century, and is, to my mind, the only true method of achieving understanding amid the vast amount of knowledge that all sciences currently amass. It was not only once or twice that a powerful epiphany of mine could be retraced 60 years into the past, back to those of the magnificent set of revolutionary scientists who understood what it means to understand. It is to them that I pay dues where dues are due, an
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