Thanks for this excellent overview, and all the links to resources. It’s nice to have a label for this class of models.
Recently, I’ve come to see natural language as a medium for encoding and transmitting cognitive programs. These would be analogous to computer programs, with working memory for state embeddings (heap), for intermediate predicate-call-specific data (stack), and for the causal graph itself (program code). Such programs would be used by conscious agents for simulating models of the world and for carrying out behavioral policies, depending on what part of the brain is carrying out the program.
Under this scheme, the cognitive programs themselves would run on QNR-type models, but they would be constructed or transferred between minds using (non-quasi) natural language. Language, then, involves a traversal over cognitive program space, using the rules of syntax to unravel a cognitive program when speaking/writing or to assemble one when listening/reading.
In the brain, the dynamic routing of information necessary for all this would be carried out by the basal ganglia, while the token embeddings and program code would exist as patterns in the cortex. If this is all valid, then it would seem that the brains of more intelligent species become that way due to the evolution of neural architectures that let the brain operate more like a CPU.
I would be interested to hear if you had any thoughts on this.
Thanks for this excellent overview, and all the links to resources. It’s nice to have a label for this class of models.
Recently, I’ve come to see natural language as a medium for encoding and transmitting cognitive programs. These would be analogous to computer programs, with working memory for state embeddings (heap), for intermediate predicate-call-specific data (stack), and for the causal graph itself (program code). Such programs would be used by conscious agents for simulating models of the world and for carrying out behavioral policies, depending on what part of the brain is carrying out the program.
Under this scheme, the cognitive programs themselves would run on QNR-type models, but they would be constructed or transferred between minds using (non-quasi) natural language. Language, then, involves a traversal over cognitive program space, using the rules of syntax to unravel a cognitive program when speaking/writing or to assemble one when listening/reading.
In the brain, the dynamic routing of information necessary for all this would be carried out by the basal ganglia, while the token embeddings and program code would exist as patterns in the cortex. If this is all valid, then it would seem that the brains of more intelligent species become that way due to the evolution of neural architectures that let the brain operate more like a CPU.
I would be interested to hear if you had any thoughts on this.