18,227 research outputs found
The epistemic value of brain-machine systems for the study of the brain
Bionic systems, connecting biological tissues with computer or robotic devices through brain-machine interfaces, can be used in various ways to discover biological mechanisms. In this article I outline and discuss a âstimulation-connectionâ bionics-supported methodology for the study of the brain, and compare it with other epistemic uses of bionic systems described in the literature. This methododology differs from the âsyntheticâ, simulative method often followed in theoretically driven Artificial Intelligence and cognitive (neuro)science, even though it involves machine models of biological systems. I also bring the previous analysis to bear on some claims on the epistemic value of bionic technologies made in the recent philosophical literature. I believe that the methodological reflections proposed here may contribute to the piecewise understanding of the many ways bionic technologies can be deployed not only to restore lost sensory-motor functions, but also to discover brain mechanisms
Minds Online: The Interface between Web Science, Cognitive Science, and the Philosophy of Mind
Alongside existing research into the social, political and economic impacts of the Web, there is a need to study the Web from a cognitive and epistemic perspective. This is particularly so as new and emerging technologies alter the nature of our interactive engagements with the Web, transforming the extent to which our thoughts and actions are shaped by the online environment. Situated and ecological approaches to cognition are relevant to understanding the cognitive significance of the Web because of the emphasis they place on forces and factors that reside at the level of agentâworld interactions. In particular, by adopting a situated or ecological approach to cognition, we are able to assess the significance of the Web from the perspective of research into embodied, extended, embedded, social and collective cognition. The results of this analysis help to reshape the interdisciplinary configuration of Web Science, expanding its theoretical and empirical remit to include the disciplines of both cognitive science and the philosophy of mind
Apperceptive patterning: Artefaction, extensional beliefs and cognitive scaffolding
In âPsychopower and Ordinary Madnessâ my ambition, as it relates to Bernard Stieglerâs recent literature, was twofold: 1) critiquing Stieglerâs work on exosomatization and artefactual posthumanismâor, more specifically, nonhumanismâto problematize approaches to media archaeology that rely upon technical exteriorization; 2) challenging how Stiegler engages with Giuseppe Longo and Francis Baillyâs conception of negative entropy. These efforts were directed by a prevalent techno-cultural qualifier: the rise of Synthetic Intelligence (including neural nets, deep learning, predictive processing and Bayesian models of cognition). This paper continues this project but first directs a critical analytic lens at the Derridean practice of the ontologization of grammatization from which Stiegler emerges while also distinguishing how metalanguages operate in relation to object-oriented environmental interaction by way of inferentialism. Stalking continental (Kapp, Simondon, Leroi-Gourhan, etc.) and analytic traditions (e.g., Carnap, Chalmers, Clark, Sutton, Novaes, etc.), we move from artefacts to AI and Predictive Processing so as to link theories related to technicity with philosophy of mind. Simultaneously drawing forth Robert Brandomâs conceptualization of the roles that commitments play in retrospectively reconstructing the social experiences that lead to our endorsement(s) of norms, we compliment this account with Reza Negarestaniâs deprivatized account of intelligence while analyzing the equipollent role between language and media (both digital and analog)
Automatic Brain Tumor Segmentation using Convolutional Neural Networks with Test-Time Augmentation
Automatic brain tumor segmentation plays an important role for diagnosis,
surgical planning and treatment assessment of brain tumors. Deep convolutional
neural networks (CNNs) have been widely used for this task. Due to the
relatively small data set for training, data augmentation at training time has
been commonly used for better performance of CNNs. Recent works also
demonstrated the usefulness of using augmentation at test time, in addition to
training time, for achieving more robust predictions. We investigate how
test-time augmentation can improve CNNs' performance for brain tumor
segmentation. We used different underpinning network structures and augmented
the image by 3D rotation, flipping, scaling and adding random noise at both
training and test time. Experiments with BraTS 2018 training and validation set
show that test-time augmentation helps to improve the brain tumor segmentation
accuracy and obtain uncertainty estimation of the segmentation results.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, MICCAI BrainLes 201
A Metacognitive Approach to Trust and a Case Study: Artificial Agency
Trust is defined as a belief of a human H (âthe trustorâ) about the ability of an agent A (the âtrusteeâ) to perform future action(s). We adopt here dispositionalism and internalism about trust: H trusts A iff A has some internal dispositions as competences. The dispositional competences of A are high-level metacognitive requirements, in the line of a naturalized virtue epistemology. (Sosa, Carter) We advance a Bayesian model of two (i) confidence in the decision and (ii) model uncertainty. To trust A, H demands A to be self-assertive about confidence and able to self-correct its own models. In the Bayesian approach trust can be applied not only to humans, but to artificial agents (e.g. Machine Learning algorithms). We explain the advantage the metacognitive trust when compared to mainstream approaches and how it relates to virtue epistemology. The metacognitive ethics of trust is swiftly discussed
Learning action-oriented models through active inference
Converging theories suggest that organisms learn and exploit probabilistic models of their environment. However, it remains unclear how such models can be learned in practice. The open-ended complexity of natural environments means that it is generally infeasible for organisms to model their environment comprehensively. Alternatively, action-oriented models attempt to encode a parsimonious representation of adaptive agent-environment interactions. One approach to learning action-oriented models is to learn online in the presence of goal-directed behaviours. This constrains an agent to behaviourally relevant trajectories, reducing the diversity of the data a model need account for. Unfortunately, this approach can cause models to prematurely converge to sub-optimal solutions, through a process we refer to as a bad-bootstrap. Here, we exploit the normative framework of active inference to show that efficient action-oriented models can be learned by balancing goal-oriented and epistemic (information-seeking) behaviours in a principled manner. We illustrate our approach using a simple agent-based model of bacterial chemotaxis. We first demonstrate that learning via goal-directed behaviour indeed constrains models to behaviorally relevant aspects of the environment, but that this approach is prone to sub-optimal convergence. We then demonstrate that epistemic behaviours facilitate the construction of accurate and comprehensive models, but that these models are not tailored to any specific behavioural niche and are therefore less efficient in their use of data. Finally, we show that active inference agents learn models that are parsimonious, tailored to action, and which avoid bad bootstraps and sub-optimal convergence. Critically, our results indicate that models learned through active inference can support adaptive behaviour in spite of, and indeed because of, their departure from veridical representations of the environment. Our approach provides a principled method for learning adaptive models from limited interactions with an environment, highlighting a route to sample efficient learning algorithms
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