 | This Just In... |
|
Latest scientific findings debunk Connectivism, refute theory of learning through connections and networks: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080911/sc_nm/brain_vision_dc Turns out the brain takes a lot of pictures, stores them in files, then accesses them, like a card catalogue. It files, it doesn't tag. The brain isn't Flickr. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
You merely call "connections" what anyone else would normally call "storage". Storage of images that are retrieved, the same ones, every time, or different ones, depending on the stimulus -- not connections, but information chemically stored. There may be a pattern of that chemical lay-out, but it isn't "connections." Don't like Yahoo articles? But why, George? We're to use wikis, Twitters, blogs, chance comments all over hell's half acre as our "learning matrix" -- why not a Yahoo article? I suspect some sturdy neurology *will* debunk Connectivism, because I think you're just calling "Connectivism" what you find useful, and ignore anything that doesn't fit. Storage is storage. Think of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat". Part of his brain is missing or destroyed from disease. The storage is gone. Broken. It didn't jump to another link. Sure, sometimes parts of the brain can take over for a missing part, but, more often than not, it can't. I appreciate that you feel a need to display credentials, and subscriptions, when challenged by a mere Yahoo article. But it's pretty simple stuff. Just explain why storage isn't storage, when storage *is* storage. I don't need a subscription to "Nueroinformatics" for that. I quite understand that as scientists, you've amassed all kinds of literature and thought on this subject and it's convincing to you. It isn't to me. And you can't be allowed to unleash this unscientific nonsense on the unsuspecting public until you can explain yourself in a normal way. "Distribution" is just an affectation -- it is merely a way to say "we don't like power or authority and want everything to devolve away from power -- we are anarchists". |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070419140914.htm Some science, on memory storage, doesn't sound like any theory of Connectivism to me. "By artificially manipulating CREB levels among groups of cells, we can determine where the brain stores its memories," he explained. "This approach could potentially be used to preserve memory in people suffering from Alzheimer's or other brain injury. We may be able to guide memories into healthy cells and away from sick cells in dying regions of the brain." "A memory is not a static snapshot," he said. "Memories serve a purpose. They are about acquiring information that helps us deal with similar situations in the future. What we recall helps us learn from our past experiences and better shape our lives." Memory is located in regions, and the discovered protein enables the storage. It's not about connections and networks, but imprinting and storage with the use of a chemical, which strike me as very different models or metaphors. |
 | Re: This Just In... |
|
> It's not about connections and networks, but imprinting and storage with the use of a chemical, which strike me as very different models or metaphors. Look more closely. Neurons use chemical mechanisms in order to create and strengthen connections with each other. What the popular article very loosely calls "imprinting and storage" just is the formation of new connections or the strengthening of existing connections. This is well established and not a mystery to people who have studied these issues. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
I looked already, and I knew you were going to say that. Imprinting and storage -- a chemical agent acting on some kind of substrate -- this seems like a different model and process than "connection". Connection implies merely linking. It matters because of the implication of power and property which of course the model of Connectivism is trying to destroy. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
> Connection implies merely linking. Not according to the descriptions George and I have offered many times. As I have written before, two entities are connected if and only if a change in the state of one entity can result in a change in the state of the other entity. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
Uh-oh, I knew we were going to lose individual autonomy and civil rights by signing up for Connectivist e-learning and I was right. We can't connect unless there is a "change in the state of the other entity". Pretty intrusive stuff, Stephen. Can't you just connect without changing the nature of the other entity? Why the power play? You were supposed to be decentralizing away from all power plays, meh. |
| Re: This Just In... |
| What the...? Oh this has nothing to do with what I asserted, I'll just leave this discussion off here. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
Well, actually it has *everything* to do with your subject, and indeed, could well be the heart of the matter. Here it is: Is the act of connection merely connection on one level, by two entities of equal status, merely linking up like a chain of paper clips? Is connection merely linking? Then there isn't much of a relationship, and it is merely streaming without property or power relations. Or is the act of chemical agents on the brain's tissue a relationship that isn't "connection," but a hierarchy, an agent acts upon a substrate, one side is active, the other is passive. This is a relationship, and one of storage, and one of property. If you're going to take these metaphors straight out of the bin of neuroscience, you have to go with them all the way. If you're going to suddenly declare the connection is something *more*, that connection *implies* storage and deep relationships and context, then you're pulling a fast one here. P.S. Since you feel free to take the science of organic processes and strip them for use as a metaphor for psychological learning processes, I'll also feel free to bring in metaphors from politics and social systems. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
I just wanted to say a quick few things about both your arguments and your approaches. Firstly, your argument "Don't like Yahoo articles? But why, George?" is an extreme example of a logical fallacy, and is also self-contradictory. You have argued elsewhere that online sources and community built enterprises are inferior to books and individual study, and yet you are now expecting others to accept your source because they have disagreed with you. Are you really presenting a source that you yourself claim to believe is unreliable and/or discredited by its mere location and aspect? This seems a rather foolish application of argument. The logical fallacy here, however, is much more damning. You have, in effect, put forward an inductive argument. This can be described as "Some X have property Q. A is an example of X. Therefore A has property Q.", or to put it in more specific terms pertaining to this example, your argument appears to be based on the following: Some online sources are reliable (presented by George). Yahoo news is an online source. Therefore, Yahoo news is reliable. This is a logical fallacy, and thus this argument is false. My next issue with your post here is to do with its insulting nature, and indeed it is something I have noticed across a number of your posts. You seem in the habit of describing others as "Marxist", or in this case "Anarchists". What offends me most here is that you are committing yet another logical fallacy: this time, the fallacy of "Appeal to Belief". Merely because many people believe that Marxism and Anarchism is not ideal does not make it true. You have used these terms as insults, and I would ask you to rethink this. I would also like you to justify a) why the arguments others have presented fall into these categories (preferably without using logical fallacies), and b) how these beliefs and political structures are "inferior" to your own. Simply labeling something as "anarchistic" will not create an immediate antipathy towards the subject in academic circles, as political division is very common. If it did, then you would merely be guilty of yet another logical fallacy - that of an appeal to fear, or possibly of poisoning the well. Please do get back to me on these points |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
Sorry, Edward, I don't play the game of "falsifiability" in these discussions -- it's a cult game, and a forums passtime that is a kind of pseudo-science. There's nothing wrong with common sense. There isn't anything objectively wrong with a Yahoo article, in a context where we are being shovelled a learning theory that in fact posits that nothing is more important than anything else. If there are no authorities, no proper teachers, no sources, then a Yahoo article has as much authority as a $600 a year scientific journal called "Neuroinformatics". Live by the sword, die by the sword. Yahoo isn't a mere "online source" -- it's a commercial news service. It's usually a reprint of Reuters or AP. It's not a blog, nor some "community-constructed source". Hardly. It may be wire copy and may be popularized, but it isn't a forums comment; it's written by professional reporters. Yahoo isn't "Neuroinformatics" -- but so what? It doesn't have to be in Connectivism, where if you're going to posit endless distribution and endless learning-by-connection, you can't suddenly start playing "this is more authoritative than that". Your "inductive logic" is a good example of how normal conversation between human beings is objectified in an absurd reductivism that doesn't apply and defies common sense. Yahoo News is a professional news service, not some mere "online source" of this or that forums, blog, or Twitter. Anyone can see that distinction. George finds some sources "too popular" or "too low-brow" -- a popular wire story on a scientific matter that he feels he knows better is "low". So what? I presents an interesting opportunity to force George to explain himself if he expects to put this theory over on the unsuspecting public and commission it in the schools. After all, theoretical correctitude isn't the only issue here; George's zeal to install this as pedagogical activism is a clear an imminent danger. For the purpose of setting up questions about obvious common-sense matters, Yahoo's story is as good as any popularized account. They say the brain stores and forwards. So why the "Connectivism" model superimposed on what is clearly a hierarchical and spacial model of a differnt kind? And so on. For someone like you, a retort to hubris and to zealous programs that you don't perceive as hubris and zealous programs to start with as you are part of the clan will feel like an "insult". Believe me, a graver insult is inflicting extremist ideologies on the public and the schools. No one in a liberal democracy should be forced to stand idly by while that happens, and so I don't. "Marxist" is in fact what a lot of the newfangled leftist idealogies floating around are all about, in that they are about property, state, power, freedom, labour, etc. The purpose of the decentralized, anti-hiearchical, non-property ideology of Connectivism is to use a "critical Marxist" approach to learning to destroy "faulty" models. I don't have to claim that "many people believe Marxism and Anarchy are not ideal" as some abstraction; I can point to destroyed countries and mass graves. I think ideologies and terms that clearly produced these results can safely be used as insults. I don't know if Connectivism is especially "anarchist," just because it is decentralized or rewarding endless anti-property manifestations. Communism and anarchism aren't necessarily compatible. Anarchy can sometimes lead to communism or visa versa, I guess. I don't worry about becoming paralyzed in a hall of mirrors of "logical fallacies". A setting that is urging moral neutrality toward anarchism regarding pedagogical theories isn't a normal setting anyway. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
There's so much wrong with this post I can barely begin to explain it. Let's start at the end and work up, shall we? "Communism and anarchism aren't neccessarily compatible. Anarchy can sometimes lead to communism or visa versa, I guess." Uh, what? Perhaps a quick consulting of the dictionary would help you work out the differences (the stark, definate differences) between these two political ideologies. "I can point to destroyed countries and mass graves" is sensationalism. Stop being a scare-mongerer and actually think about your issues. What I find slightly odd about a lot of the rest of it is that you seem to be arguing for the other side, as it were. "Yahoo is professional news service, not some mere 'online source'" is a bit of an odd statement, and I'd like it explained. It *is* an online source. What's "mere" about it? Also, what exactly are the differences between "professional journalists" and bloggers who research their arguments? Please explain this. So, let me get this straight. You're using the example of using Yahoo as a source as an example of how you're right because it's destroying all sense of trust, and to do this, you're using Yahoo as a source. This isn't common sense - I'd go so far as to label it "uncommon sense". Logical philosophy, logical reasoning, and propositional logic can hardly be called "pseudo-science". If you made the kind of sweeping and unsupported claims you're making here in the kind of journal you seem to be advocating you'd be laughed at. Logical consistency is very important, and has been done for some time. Perhaps you should look up "Plato" and "Aristotle" as you seem to be unaware of their existence. Also, my name is Edwin. At least have the decency to bother scrolling up to work that out when you post. |
 | Re: This Just In... |
| Actually this research, performed by "James DiCarlo of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT" demonstrates quite clearly that learning (in this case visual recognition of objects) is a function of connections and networks -the network of inferior temporal neurons in the brain . In response to the one instance of "new training" data the network of neurons changed its configuration slightly over time to respond to a teacup, when presented in this particular pattern along with sailboats, in a way that more closely matched the way it would normally respond to sailboats. In the words of the researchers... "The sailboat neuron, for example, still preferred sailboats at all locations -- except at the swap location, where it learned to prefer teacups. The longer the manipulation, the greater the confusion, exactly as predicted by the temporal contiguity hypothesis." This is essentially how one would expect an artificial neural network to respond if presented new input surrounded by familiar inputs. I think the next statement by the researchers makes it pretty clear... "We were surprised by the strength of this neuronal learning, especially after only one or two hours of exposure," DiCarlo said. "Even in adulthood, it seems that the object-recognition system is constantly being retrained by natural experience." I don't think this debunks learning through connections and networks, quite the opposite. The brain my take lots of pictures, but it doesn't store them in files. A series of pictures that are presented close together in time map more generally to an arrangement or network of neurons that fires when presented with a picture that is close enough to one of the series. If they were stored as files, and accessed like a card catalogue, the subjects of the experiments would just retrieve the teacup file (perhaps unexpectedly at first and with some dissappointment) and continue to react to the teacup as they normally would have. It doesn't file or tag, it grows. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
But Trevor, it couldn't change its configuration over time unless it *stored*. Really, the ideological need to shoehorn the reality of the brain into the metaphor for the theory is making you cut some really big corners here. George, I hardly think so, if you have to dart out of the box every five minutes to debunk my debunking -- I think I'll have to say "score". The perceptual flaw in Oliver Sacks happens because of *the absence of the stored memory* i.e. the destroyed brain cells, and the forced "reconnection" -- a very graphic example of how connection isn't learning, but a crib to make up for lost brain cells that you could have accessed had you learned the old-fashioned normal way by accessing stored knowledge from reliable experts. Connectivism is now shaping up to be a theory of dysfunction, to explain how children crippled by the Internet can go on absorbing something, after a fashion... Oliver Sacks' missing cognition of "rose" is like the dog that didn't bark, or the visible demonstration of a trail of anti-matter on the collider -- it shows there is a storage device that holds memory -- something higher that mere connections -- intelligence, the magic of reason or magic of recognition that you simply cannot explain by putting together a lot of neurons in a row and linking them. You're the one who is grasping, George. Everyone knows that you recognize a face because the image is stored in your brain. Just because somebody from Cognitive Trends says "face perception is mediated by a distributed neural system in the human brain, comprised of multilateral regions" doesn't make it so. It's merely a newfangled theory. He's explaining why a bot remembers the patterns of a face. But a human being thinks he sees someone he knows and experiences the emotional recognition even when the pattern doesn't line up -- and when he draws closer, realizes he is mistaken. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
What constitutes nodes, and what constitutes connections, is a matter of which way you choose to look at a network. The brain is a network of neurons (including glial cells) connected by synapses. You can also view it as a network of synapses connected by neurons. The information, as far as I am aware, is 'stored' in the configuration of the synapses - but synapses are best characterised as the processes involved in activating the neurons. Many of the molecules involved in the activity of the brain, including memory, have rather short half lives - they are constantly rebuilt. So for accurate mainenance they have to be re-created using the information available in their environment. This means that there is a huge inter-dependency between all the components of the brain, and that the memories and connections cannot be thought of as static instantiations. The information has to exist in a distributed network, or the whole would not function. The absence of stored memory you talk about in your reply is what most of us, I suspect, would regard as an absence of a connection. The connection is also a memory, to be sure, in that it is the 'method' for associating one thing with another which has been learned, to some degree, through experience. Associations, connections and 'facts' stored in the memory are all just 'resources' - a tag is a resource which has an association with another resource, such as a web page. The association is a resource, which can have other ones associated with it - 'tagged by' for instance, can be tagged as being the inverse of 'tags'. I suspect that your last paragraph relates in some way to the idea of 'grandmother' cells - the idea that a particular neuron (or group of neurons) will be fired when you see your grandmother. There is very little evidence to support this, but even if it is the case, you have to ask yourself what the inputs to that cell are which make it fire? If any of the connections between the chain of neurons which cause the cell to fire are broken, will it still fire properly? If not, the information is not stored in the cell itself, but in the network of which it is part - effectively it is just the output unit. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
Pat, this seems to me to merely be a semantic play. Something involves storage, but you declare it as having an underlying connecting process. I think the chemical acting on the matter isn't something that is a mere connection; it is a hiearchical operation involving property. The brain isn't mere networks, as some memories are more important than others. Intelligence, making coherence out of the inputs from the senses -- this is something more than mere connections and connectedness. George really has no way of explaining the soul. : ) |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
Ah, but does anyone really have any way of explaining the soul? Come to that, I have yet to encounter an unarguable definition of intelligence. I suspect that I am not entirely happy with definitions of 'connection' either - it can certainly be used in many different ways, as I am sure you would agree. And that brings us to the issue of semantics - because different individuals and groups use words in very different ways, it is important to hold the discussion to try to determine what the words we are using mean to one another. For that matter, what is the meaning of 'mean'?  We have very different fundamental outlooks on a number of things - and I would certainly be interested in hearing more about your views of the soul, intelligence, meaning, connection, learning etc. For preference, I would rather have that discussion without reference to utility being dependent on monetary value (something I find only economists believe, in general) or the political stance of either left or right wing - but I appreciate that these occasionally creep in. Unfortunately, judging by your response to Edwin (not Edward, by the way) I suspect that my appeals to "logic" (which I confess I am unlikely to be able to refrain from) may mean that the conversation is too strained to be of value - and that is as much a criticism of me as it may be of you. |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
Oh, I'm happy to retain them as mysteries, these definitions of the soul and intelligence, and allow religions or belief systems or even other scientific theories explain them. That's freedom. In fact, the hallmark of an open society is to be able to mount a false hypothesis to test it. That's why I'm going to bang away at Collectivism's false claims to hegemony -- wait, what was it called again? *Connectivism's* false hegemonic claims to totality of explanation for everything from biological systems to learning to social policy. I'm not going to have constrained discussions about "soul, intelligence, meaning, connection, learning" where I'm restricted at the outset by a Marxist and socialist hobble that tells me I *must* have this discussion 'without reference to utlity being dependent on monetary value*. Sorry, but I don't accept hobbles like that which are ideologically driven. I also won't accept a constraint of stripping away "right or left" in the fake belief that there is "scientific neutrality," especially from someone who demands elimination of "right or left" simultaneously with telling me I have to take out all references to monetary value. We need to get paid here Pat, and make sure our kids learn in the schools and get jobs where they can get paid, too. We can't all get university positions or government grants or play OS consultant online. |
| Re: This Just In... |
 Then we shall happily both leave discussion of the deeper things to other venues.I wasn't, in fact, meaning to constrain the discussion - though I grant it sounded like that - merely seeking to explore the other issues without being bogged down in areas we already know we disagree on. As for kids and jobs - well, kids can be educated very successfully outside of the school system, but I agree that in the current culture there is little choice but to earn at least some money to pay local taxes and the internet bills... unlike you though, I would much rather this wasn't the case - personally I have no need for money, it is just other people always seem to want it from me |
 | Re: This Just In... |
|
In my view, collectives and connectives are actually polar opposites: http://theconnective.org/what-is-the-connective/the-connective-blog/ Or just the picture: http://theconnective.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/overall_table_large1.jpg As I see it, the difference between groups and networks, or collectives and connectives, is that you join collectives out of obligation (i.e. peer pressure, geography, etc.), and you join connectives out of individual, independent choice. Also, connectives are not necessarily online and collectives are not necessarily real world. Both exist in both forms. [CC'ed from my comments at your blog] Connectives empower the individual, while at the same time adding value to the network as a whole (see Network Effects from our readings). The first time I used the term Connective was in a presentation entitled: "Internet Applications: Empowering the Individual" almost ten years ago (download at http://theconnective.org/what-is-the-connective/origin-of-the-connective/). My thesis was essentially that Internet technologies allow for the deconstruction of collectives, which emphasize command-and-control, and the construction of connectives, which emphasize democracy, freedom and choice. It was obvious then, and it is obvious now, and I'm consistently surprised someone with such extensive online experience can't see that. As I said on your blog: The Web is not Agreement. The Web is Argument. Sometimes it seems to me you have your ideologies crossed... |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
Well, as I noted, it seems to me collectives and connectives are separate, but then, I had a neutral-to-positive association with the word "connective" before coming to this course, and now I'm not sure it isn't being used merely to describe a modernized communist collective with new tools. Maybe *this* time we'll make communism work, eh? I think your categories are too categorical. Even things that we join as obligations we do so by choice. I think all of your thinking about the deconstruction of collectives and hierarchies, say, as email does to a boss at a job when all the employees can parallel process via email to each other instead of always serial processing to him, is all good and all relevant but...you then have to realize that all these insidious collectives, sometimes even more virulent, merely reassemble online. I guess you've never been on the SL forums or JIRA or Dev list or you'd understand the viciousness of the new-media collective. There's a terrible falsification of these words "open" and "democracy" especially among the opensource movement, who bandy about the term "open" but in fact they mean a severely restrictive tribe open only to those with a "patch or GTFO" mentality, and those willing to accept the most extreme Stallmanism. So I don't have any ideologies crossed. I've been around to watch the things you describe offline be deconstructed, and that's supposedly good, but I merely stick to watching how the next round occurs, both in offline RL structures reinforcing themselves with new technologies (all kinds of corporate, PR, government blogs, etc.) and online worlds recapitulating the worst little sordid self-criticism circles. Have you read Lanier's essay on Digital Maoism? |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
This just in! All about a parallel intuition that works alongside the usual neurology of math |
| Re: This Just In... |
|
Nice link. Reminds me of Gladwell's thin-slicing in Blink. Interesting to think it could apply to math as well. |