Thread: Cognitive Computing, Consciousness, Science Philosophy and Mind

I thought I'd share:
Source: http://freescienceonline.blogspot.com/

IBM Research's Almaden Institute Conference on Cognitive Computing.

Lecture 1:
From Brain Dynamics to Consciousness
by Gerald Edelman (The Neurosciences Institute)
Subtitle: A Prelude to the Future of Brain-Based Devices

Edelman discusses neuronal group selection, brain-based
devices, and robots playing soccer.

Lecture 2:
The Emergence of Intelligence in the Neocortical Microcircuit
by Henry Markram (EPFL/BlueBrain)

Markram discusses microcolumns in the brain, and shows several
video animations of computer models of neurons communicating in a
microcolumn. His model includes 10,000 neurons, which is a very large
number of neurons to model.

Lecture 3:
The Mechanism of Thought
by Robert Hecht-Nielsen (UCSD)

Hecht-Nielsen discusses sentence generation based on
knowledge links. It's so good, it appears to generate new sentences based
on strong semantic understanding of the input sentences. He also
demonstrates robust speech understanding. His work is sponsored by Fair
Isaac and the Office of Naval Research.

Lecture 4:
Hierarchical Temporal Memory: Theory and Implementation
by Jeff Hawkins (Palm/Numenta)
Subtitle: A new computational paradigm based on cortical theory

Lecture 5:
How the brain works, what it computes, and how/when we might build one
Part I: A Scientific Theory of Mind by James Albus (NIST)

Goal of his research is to extend the frontiers of human
knowledge to include a scientific understanding of the processes in the
human brain that give rise to the phenomenon of mind.

Part II: Theodore Berger (USC)

Discusses how to replace parts of the brain with VLSI computer
chips (in the case of bringing functionality back to a region of the brain that
was removed due to a tumor).

Part III: Energy analysis of brains vs. computers
by Kwabena Boahen (Stanford)

Part IV: Demo of separating multiple overlapping voices using a neurally-inspired algorithm.
by Ralph Linsker (IBM)

Part V: Presentation of large scale brain modeling
by Jerry Swartz (The Swartz Foundation)

Lecture 6:
The Uniqueness of the Human Brain
by V. S. Ramachandran (UCSD)

Ramachandran discusses phantom limbs and synesthesia (esp.
color-blind synesthete) as a function of neuron innervation. Specifically, he
focuses on cross-linking between nearby cortical regions, which he believes
to be genetically caused (e.g. synesthesia appears to be found frequently in
family lineages). He also discusses the link between mirror neurons and
autism, and how language invention is due to an inherent cross-linking
between portions of the visual and auditory regions (e.g. Buba/Kiki effect).

Lecture 7:
Beyond Dualism
by John Searle (UC Berkeley)

Lecture 8:
Cortical Dynamics of Working Memory
by Joaquin Fuster (UCLA)

Lecture 9:
A Quantitative Theory of Cortex
by Leslie Valiant (Harvard University)

Lecture 10:
The 4 C's of Neuroinformation Theory
by Toby Berger (University of Virginia)
Subtitle: Coding, Computing, Control and Cognition

Lecture 11:
Consciousness
by Christof Koch (Caltech)

Lecture 12:
The Future of Cognitive Computing
by William Pulleyblank (IBM Global Services)