Tony Bell: Difference between revisions

From RedwoodCenter
Jump to navigationJump to search
 
(28 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 5: Line 5:
132 Barker, MC #3190 <br />
132 Barker, MC #3190 <br />
Berkeley, CA 94720-3190 <br />
Berkeley, CA 94720-3190 <br />
phone (415) 699 6502 <br />
phone (415) 568-0346 <br />
fax (510) 643-4952 <br />
fax (510) 643-4952 <br />
tbell@berkeley.edu <br />
tbell@berkeley.edu <br />
Line 12: Line 12:
== Research Interest ==
== Research Interest ==


It's 2010.
(This webpage is under reconstruction. Only a few essential links are posted here.)


Here's my [http://www.snl.salk.edu/~tony Salk web-page] from way back.
Here's my [http://www.snl.salk.edu/~tony Salk web-page] from way back.


Here's me giving a 30 minute talk [http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/brains-r-us-2/tony-bell Levels, Time and Models] about Levels in Biology. <br>
Here's me giving a 30 minute talk [http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/brains-r-us-2/tony-bell Levels, Time and Models] about Levels in Biology. <br>
Here's me giving a 85 minute talk [http://vimeo.com/5812603 Emergence and Submergence in the Nervous System]. <br>
(The production on the latter is not so good, so here are the [http://redwood.berkeley.edu/tony/papers slides]. <br>
Also, if you wait a few minutes in, the audio drastically improves.)


What am I doing? If you watch either of these you will see, at least, where I am starting from.<br>
Here's the only paper I have written on the Levels issue. It covers my thinking up till about 2008: <br>
I really want to crack this, and I think it can be done before too long. <br>
[http://www.irp.oist.jp/ocnc/2008/bell07.pdf Towards a cross-level theory of neural learning]
Also, I believe we ''must'' solve these problems. <br>


There are 3 steps to uniting physics, biology and machine learning:
There are new results on time series analysis coming :)
 
(1) Solve the time series density estimation problem
 
(2) Solve the sensory-motor density estimation problem
 
(3) Solve the levels density estimation problem
 
The clues to (2) and (3) lie in (1). The clues to (1) lie in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. We are working on (1) and I think we've got it. <br>
A paper on this [http://www.kosmix.com/topic/tony_bell Learning out of equilibrium] will be ready shortly. Email me if you want it when it's ready.
 
The reinforcement learning literature, while elegant, has nothing relevant to say about these deep problems.
 
And unfortunately there's no way around it: to really crack this we are going to have to ''get real''. <br>
That means we use real biology and real physics to guide us. Computational fantasizing has demonstrated its limits. <br>
We will have to absorb and augment the emerging non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and (cough) quantum theory. <br>
I know this is a radical view, but still, I believe it to be correct. Fortunately, both these branches of physics, in their <br>
core mathematical structure, are relatively simple.
 
Here's an unsatisfactory paper [http://redwood.berkeley.edu/tony/papers Towards a cross-level theory of neural learning] that explains what I was thinking up till about 2008.
 
Here's my [http://www.kosmix.com/topic/tony_bell CV]. (Ignore the stuff about the cyclist journalist - that's not me :)

Latest revision as of 10:50, 14 September 2010

Tony.jpg

Anthony J. Bell Ph.D.
Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience
UC Berkeley
132 Barker, MC #3190
Berkeley, CA 94720-3190
phone (415) 568-0346
fax (510) 643-4952
tbell@berkeley.edu

Research Interest

(This webpage is under reconstruction. Only a few essential links are posted here.)

Here's my Salk web-page from way back.

Here's me giving a 30 minute talk Levels, Time and Models about Levels in Biology.

Here's the only paper I have written on the Levels issue. It covers my thinking up till about 2008:
Towards a cross-level theory of neural learning

There are new results on time series analysis coming :)