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Polychrony and the Process View of Computation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Colin Klein
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Abstract

Some realistic models of neural spiking take into account spike timing, yet the practical relevance of spike timing is often unclear. In Eugene Izhikevich’s model, timing plays a crucial role by allowing for the natural formation of polychronous circuits. In such circuits, individual elements may figure in a number of distinct assemblies, their role in each determined by their timing relative to other neurons. I show that this reflects a distinct organizational principle from notions of pluripotency, redundancy, or reuse and argue that properly understanding this phenomenon requires a shift to a time-sensitive, process-based view of computation.

Type
Cognitive Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 87 , Issue 5: PSA 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II Symposia Papers , December 2020 , pp. 1140 - 1149
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

This work was supported by Australian Research Council grant FT140100422. Thanks to Felipe de Brigard and two anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on previous drafts.

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