[Controller]

I read On Intelligence about a year and a half ago and found some intriguing parallels between the depiction of the layers of grey matter and the hierarchy spelled out in Hierarchical Perceptual Control Theory, HPCT or just PCT.

The information about PCT at my website, www.livingcontrolsystems.com is now organized well enough that I figure it is time to bring it to your attention if you have not already reviewed it.

I am posting in the simulation forum based on the tutorials and simulations available here http://www.livingcontrolsystems.com/demos/tutor_pct.html which trace their heritage back to articles in BYTE magazine back in 1979 available here http://www.livingcontrolsystems.com/letters/pr_contents.html

As you review this site and consider these compelling tutorials and simulations, I think you will find that PCT is solidly rooted in physical science as an effort to reverse-engineer the basic structure of the nervous system, thus laying a foundation for future research into perceptual processes (which PCT does not purport to explain) and perhaps intelligence (which it also does not purport to explain).

Best, Dag

[Lloyd]

Dag;
I see some parallels and some differences between PCT and HTM. For example, the signals described in PCT as references seem to be, in some ways, parallel with the signals described in HTM as predictions, both downward flowing signals to which the upward flowing information content is compared. However, it is not clear how much further such parallels can be pursued. One problem is that, as far as I have seen in the PCT literature, there is not a great deal of discussion about cortical architecture and how the known cortical structures might apply to the PCT model. I agree with much of the intent and capabilities of the PCT model, but it seems to me that much more needs to be done before more can be said about how the model would be applied to specific cortical structures.
Lloyd