Re: Clarification about mirror neurons

On 30 Dec 2012, at 15:17, Alan Forrester <[email protected]> wrote:

> In BoI, David explicitly says that mirror neurons don't explain human imitation. However, there is another problem with the mirror neuron idea.
> 
> Neurons, or some set of neurons, can act as a set of universal classical gates. So mirror neurons (or some subset thereof) play a role in imitation by virtue of instantiating some algorithm. The explanation of how the imitation is done is in terms of that algorithm rather than in terms of the neurons per se. So then calling them mirror neurons is a bit like saying that a universal computer that happens to be set up to implement a chess playing algorithm is a chess playing chip when that chip could just as easily be programmed to do any other classical computation.
> 
> This could lead to mistakes. It could be the case that some of the mirror neurons could be cut out or destroyed without destroying the mirror functionality. They happen to go off because they're wired up to other neurons that do the mirror neuron algorithm. Worse, it could be the case that there are two sets of neurons A and B and you could destroy either one of them without destroying the mirror functionality but if we destroy both sets then we destroy the mirror functionality. In the absence of a specific explanation it's important to think of the mirror functionality as being software so we don't miss stuff.

In animals, the neurons used to do imitation may not change much since the knowledge in the animal's brain is coded for by genes and the animal creates no new knowledge. So then looking for neurons that go off when an animal does something and when it recognises another animal doing the same thing, mirror neurons, may provide a way of testing ideas about mirror algorithms. Having a term for that idea makes some sense and that seems to be David's position in BoI.

Alan