We'll probably be at the Cape, in Wellfleet, if we can make it. Maybe there are miracles, but I think more prosaic approaches yield rich results in domains like vision (Marr's main concern) and language. Like some of those I've mentioned. I don't see how to progress in other ways. From: jeffrey E. [mailto:I Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 10:20 PM To: Noam Chomsky Subject: Re: Re: 1 you are a treat and I very much appreciate your non finance views.): 2 ehud barak will be with me for the weekend in ny. not sure where you are? Marr , -try , probabilty , symmetry. entropy. it might look like computation but it is not. it might look like algorithm but it is not. the flip of a coin does not compute, have an algorithm or a mechanism. though it might look as if it does. it is not an input system, there is not mechanism drivning the heads and tails towards equal numbers. , there is not nature looking to see what the previous results were and computing the next result. like your ug it is more of a miracle. On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 9:54 PM, Noam Chomsky wrote: I wouldn't take the term "mechanism" too literally. It refers to whatever is taking place in the brain. For some, as most of those in the Nowak group, it means neural nets. For Gallistel, it's processes internal to the cell. Useful to look at these matters in terms of Marr's three levels: computation, algorithm, mechanism. From: jeffrey E. [mailto Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:46 PM To: Noam Chomsky Subject: Re: Re: 1 will do , by the way new housing starts were the highest in 7 years. the mortgage interest deduction cheerleaders , ( not me ). are thrilled. 2. i am willing to be convinced, as always 3. my admittedly naive point is that "mechanism" ,I believe ,is the wrong concept. driven in error, by the machine -computer analog since the early 1900s . instead think of probability , it is not a mechanism , On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 9:05 PM, Noam Chomsky I> wrote: 1. Not a trivial matter. I'm not the best person to ask. I'd suggest contacting people who've really thought seriously about these issues, like Robert Pollin, a fine independent economist at U Mass Amherst 2. Sherman's speculation is an interesting extension of recent discoveries about conservation, deep homologies, regulatory circuits, and other elements of what's sometimes called "the evo-devo revolution." It remains to be seen whether anything can be done with it. I think you underestimate the contributions of Berwick and his students, including Yang. 3. The idea that there is a "ug" for vision, language, etc., seems to be essentially what Randy Gallistel calls "the norm in neuroscience," quoted in the paper on modularity that I sent you. And yes, they're certainly connected, at least at the level of cells, and presumably well beyond. These are live and significant research areas. These "central modules" do not have input or output, but they are accessed by input systems and in some cases, like language, by output systems. That seems a fair picture of the rough cognitive architecture. I EFTA00637800