Talk:Constant conjunction

...unexpected support in three scientific discoveries of the 20th century: Pavlov's laws of conditioning; Hebbian neural networks; and spike-time dependent plasticity (STDP).

In Pavlov's framework, an unconditioned stimulus can follow in constant conjunction a conditioning/conditioned stimulus within a timeframe of milliseconds to several seconds, and result in the conditioned stimulus having many of the properties of the unconditioned stimulus. Donald Hebb explained this as an intrinsic property of cell assemblies within the nervous system to form connections within large cliques of cells whenever those cells fire together within a reasonably short period of time. (A modern shorthand for his ideas states: "Cells that fire together, wire together".) Modern neuroscience has confirmed this insight as a product of the activity of synapses and STDP, so structured to strengthen connections between cells that fire within very short periods (10s of milliseconds) of each other. The longer time periods of classical conditioning are presumably a large number effect of cliques of these synapses and cells.

This extended example, at 50% of the article space, seems too specific for this short article on a topic in philosophy. Also, it seems to present a personal perspective of the previous editor, not a treatment of the philosophical literature on empiricism since Hume (nor yet, of the usage of the particular collocation under discussion).

Now, it might be an attractive argument, but it needs to be put in a more balanced and scholoarly context.

A modern shorthand for his ideas states: "Cells that fire together, wire together".

I've known about neural network learning for nearly 40 years now -- having invented it myself in 1976 ;-) -- but who is Hebb? There must be dozens of AI proposers from that era or any time since then that one could cite as seminal. 84.227.245.123 (talk) 13:09, 18 October 2014 (UTC) Reply