Page 219 - Artificial Intelligence in the Age of Neural Networks and Brain Computing

210 CHAPTER 10 Computers Versus Brains: Game Is Over or More to Come?

that symbolic and nonsymbolic processing are complementary aspects and they
coexist in a delicate balance, producing what we experience as human intelligence.

3. METASTABILITY IN COGNITION AND IN BRAIN DYNAMICS
Our subjective impressions suggest that our conscious experiences are continuous
processes with typically smooth variation in time. Detailed analysis pioneered by
Freeman, however, indicates that the perception of continuity and smoothness is an
illusion and our cognitive processing contains frequent switches and rapid transitions
between relatively stable periods of cognitive processing [32e34]. In cognitive
science, this behavior is referred to as metastability and multistability, which have
been shown to be important manifestations of consciousness and human intelligence
[35,36]. Further analysis indicated that discontinuities are not merely important
aspects of cognition; rather, they are key attributes of intelligent behavior represent-
ing the cognitive “Aha” moment of sudden insight and deep understanding in humans
and animals [37].
Behavioral manifestations of metastability are described by Kelso followers as the
complementarity principle [38,39]. For example, the reader is encouraged to look at
the Necker cube in Fig. 10.3A. After some period of time, you will experience a
switching between two mental representations with the front side of the cube being
the lower or higher square, respectively. Similar effect is induced by inspecting the
“vase” in Fig. 10.3B which, after some time, spontaneously switches to the percept
of two faces and vice versa. Such spontaneous switching between metastable percep-
tual representations is interpreted according to the complementarity principle as the
result of symmetry breaking in self-organizing dynamical systems. The emergence
of pattern and pattern switching occur spontaneously, solely as a result of the dynamics
of the system: no specific ordering influence from the outside and no homunculus-like
agent or program inside is responsible for the behavior observed [39].

FIGURE 10.3
Illustration of bistability in visual perception; (A) Necker cube; (B) vase versus two faces.
Graphics are courtesy of A. de Smet.