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Blinded by Biology: Bio-inspired Tech-Ontologies in Cognitive Brain Sciences

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Bio-inspired Information and Communication Technologies (BICT 2019)

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Abstract

In his pioneering paper on neuromorphic systems, Carver Mead conveyed that: “Biological information-processing systems operate on completely different principles from those with which most engineers are familiar” (Mead 1990: 1629). This paper challenges his assertion. While honoring Mead’s exceptional contributions, specific purposes, and correct conclusions, I will use a different line of argumentation. I will make use of a debate on the classification and ordering of natural phenomena to illustrate how background notions of causality permeate particular theories in science, as in the case of cognitive brain sciences. This debate shows that failures in accounting for concrete scientific phenomena more often than not arise from (1) characterizations of the architecture of nature, (2) singular conceptions of causality, or (3) particular scientific theories – and not rather from (4) technology limitations per se. I aim to track the basic bio-inspiration and show how it spreads bottom-up throughout (1) to (4), in order to identify where bioinspiration started going wrong, as well as to point out where to intervene for improving technological implementations based on those bio-inspired assumptions.

Listen to the technology and find out what it’s telling you.

Carver Mead

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Notable approaches to the study of the brain are the Human Connectome Project (USA) and the Human Brain Project Initiatives (Europe). Despite their refractory differences, both concur that the fundamental puzzles in Neuroscience are:

    • Deciphering the primary language of the brain

    • Understanding the rules governing how neurons organize into circuits;

    • Understanding how the brain communicates information from one region to another, and which circuits to use in a given situation;

    • Understanding the relation between brain circuits, genes, and behavior;

    • Developing new techniques for analyzing and observing brain function.

    • Disentangling the essential elements of neural computation.

  2. 2.

    See for example, Ng et al. (2006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Paola Hernández-Chávez

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  1. Paola Hernández-Chávez
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Correspondence to Paola Hernández-Chávez .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stefens Institute of Technology USA, Hoboken, NJ, USA

    Adriana Compagnoni

  2. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    William Casey

  3. Cylab, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Yang Cai

  4. New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Bud Mishra

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© 2019 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

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Hernández-Chávez, P. (2019). Blinded by Biology: Bio-inspired Tech-Ontologies in Cognitive Brain Sciences. In: Compagnoni, A., Casey, W., Cai, Y., Mishra, B. (eds) Bio-inspired Information and Communication Technologies. BICT 2019. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 289. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24202-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24202-2_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24202-2

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