From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Memory and store/retrieve.
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 16:02:09 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.152320.2247@puma.ATL.GE.COM> ljones@andrew.ATL.GE.COM (LeRoy E Jones) writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.165648.1525@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul28.194953.7337@puma.ATL.GE.COM> ljones@andrew.ATL.GE.COM (LeRoy E Jones) writes:

>>>Even if we use the word accretion, there still is a store operation to hold
>>>the new information.
>>
>>  Except that (a) there is no control over the accretion, so it is hardly
>>		  an operation,
>>	      (b) the actual information that is recorded might be very
>>		  different from what you think is recorded.
>
>I know that you mentioned the deliberate avoidance of defining roles of the
>conscious vs. unconscious mind, but I think I need to slightly touch it or 
>concede the point.

  What would be so bad about conceding the point :-)

>                   Can't the conscious decision to attempt to remember 
>something, and the success of that attempt be considered an operation?

  But how exactly do you implement this decision to attempt to remember?
The usual method is for you to try to retain the information in your
conscious thoughts for as long as possible.  This is highly consistent
with the idea that learning is an accretion process, and that by keeping
the information in your thoughts you are lengthening the time over which
the accretion occurs.  Or perhaps you use one of these memory aid
techniques where you convert the information into a rhyme or a story or
a set of associations.  If so, you are acting so that the type of
information accreted into memory will be easier to make the inferences
from to recover what you wish to remember.

>>                           If you were designing an information system,
>>you would certainly try to organize the information.  But evolution does
>>not work that way.

>Just because you and I can't fully describe this information organization
>doesn't mean that it isn't organized.

  Agreed.  And I didn't mean to imply that there was no organization -
only that the type of organization was not likely to be anything similar
to the kind of structured ways we organize information in computer
systems.

>                                      And in your evolution example, we
>don't need to design it to be suitably extended from the onset. Think of
>software and the way it is often extended. A version is developed, and as
>user demands increase, the software is extended and evolves. Some new features
>don't mesh well with the old representations, so (in poor software engineering)
>new ones are formed, and translations are established. Eventually, new
>representations are formed which can accomodate the information in older
>representations, the translations are made and stored, and the older
>representations die out.

  Yes, but there are big differences.  In software an older representation
may die out.  In evolution, a whole species dies out.  In software you
can dump one approach and use your experience to develop a better
approach.  In evolution there is no memory of failed species.  If an
approach dies out with an extinction, its replacement must start out as
something very simple and evolve.  It cannot appear fullgrown based on
the experience of the failed species.

>>  Let me make an analogy.  From time to time you take your automobile
>>in for a tune up.
>>...
>>                                     Is it correct to say that what the
>>mechanic is doing is storing information in your automobile?

>I would not call this storage of information,

  At last!  Something we agree on.

>                                              but I wouldn't call it an
>acurate analogy of what the mind does either for two reasons.

  But I guess we don't agree on very much :-( .

>                                                              First, this
>seems to suggest that all memory supports is the use of information to
>direct future action/behavior.

  YES.  YES.  This is exactly the point.  However I would not quite
agree with your choice of wording.  Memory evolved to support the use
of information for influencing future behavior.  But that does not mean
memory cannot support other functions.  It may well support other
functions, although this is an incidental side effect.  Memory supports
what memory supports.  The roof of your house was designed to protect
you from the weather.  As an unintended side effect, it also happens to
be a place where birds can sit.

>                               What about all the useless things people
>store? I have a memory of a blue, terrycloth (sp?) robe that I used to have
>at the age of three, and I used to pull the strings out of it with my
>teeth. I don't know what that memory gains me (smile).

  There is no reason memory has to be useful.  It is an important aspect
of our intelligence that we can and do learn useless information.
Without that aspect we would not be very intelligent.  A great deal of
information is useless when we first learn it, and only becomes useful
later on because we had learned it.  If we could only learn in advance
those things we knew would be useful, we would behave as stupidly as
many failed AI projects.  I did suggest in one of my earlier messages
that the way our intelligence evolved might be quite an improbable fluke.
This breadth of learning was one of the things I had in mind.

  Note that the learning of useless information does not contradict the
assumptions of evolution.  Evolution does not care about the survival
of the individual.  It cares only about the survival of the species.
If a particular learning structure happens to be wasteful for one
individual, it does not matter, as long as there is a strongly beneficial
effect on enough members of the species to ensure its propogation and
continuity.

>                                                       Second, after the 
>mechanic makes these adjustments, it is impossible to go back to where it
>was before without trial and error adjustment.

  Certainly if you have a second tuneup, you lose the information from
the first tuneup.  But if you take your car in for a brake job, that
normally will not lose the tuneup information.  Whether new information
replaces old, or becomes co-existent with it, depends on how closely
related the information is.

>                                               People seem to have the ability
>to scrap a new piece of information, and go immediately back to the previous
>model.

  Not always true.  For example, I certainly cannot remember what it
was like splashing around in the water before I learned to swim.  That
information has been completely replaced by newer information.

>I have my own analogy, if you'll suffer me. Say there are three reporters
>from three different countries, and they speak three different languages
>as native tongues.

  [story about misinterpretations due to imperfect translations]

  This reminds me of the old story of the British industrialist who was
visiting the soviet union.  While he was away, his son got into trouble
as school.  The head master sent a telegram "your son suspended for
childish prank".  This was duly translated into Russian, then translated
back into English.  When the industrialist received it, it read "your
son hanged for juvenile delinquency."

  Yes, I don't have any disagreement with your analogy.  But it does
not contradict my view of how memory functions.  But I think the effect
of translation to different languages is rather special, and much more
is involved, such as the influence of culturally based assumptions.

>>  Thank you for some thoughtful comments and responses to my ideas.
>
>You're welcome, but this sounds a little final. Do you grow weary of the 
>discussion?

  It was not intended to be final.  I continue to appreciate your
comments.  Unconventional ideas need to be challenged, and whether my
ideas can meet your challenges makes a good test for them.

>In summary, I don't discount the inference model, but I think there is
>a store/retrieve aspect. Indeed, I think any simple model is inadequate
>to describe the workings of that blessed gray maytter.

  That sounds kind of final, too.