Evaluating HTMs: CPT details; specific memories

This is the last essay on "Hierarchical Temporary Memory, Concepts, Theory, and Terminology" by Hawkins and George. Here I review two issues raised in Section 6, Questions: details on how conditional probability tables (CPTs) work with HTMs, and why humans can have specific memories of events, but HTMs as currently described do not. The first is very technical, the second has more interesting implications.

CPTs are used in Bayesian networks to allow the belief (a set of probabilities about causes) of one node to modify another node. They can be create from algorithms using probability theory in conjunction with known data, the beliefs already established in the two nodes. In HTMs they are learned. As the quantization points are learned, the CPTs are the same as the learned quantization function that links the points to the temporal variables. There are two separate algorithms, but they run in parallel, creating an output to send up the hierarchy to the next node. This will probably because more transparent when we look at the actual algorithms used by the HTM nodes.

It is claimed that humans can remember specific details and events, as well as model the world, whereas HTMs don't keep specific memories. The authors talk about how the human brain might accomplish this feat, and how the capability might be added to HTMs. I instead wonder whether they are right about humans remembering specific details of specific events.

It certainly is the naive view, and since I subscribe to the common sense school of philosophy (with my own updates), assailing the view is mainly just an exercise at this point. But consider this: numerous studies have shown that eye witnesses are unreliable. I suspect that a visual memory is not like a photograph, nor is the memory of a song like a recording, nor is the memory of an event a sort of whole sensory record of a period of time. I believe humans do remember things, and can train their memories to be more like recorders, and in particular can memorize speeches, poems, sequences of numbers, etc. But I think the HTM model actually is at least approximately the way that the brain works. Different levels of the neurological system remember, or become capable of recognizing, different levels of details about things. There are mechanisms in the brain that allow recall of these memories on different levels. But I would be careful about assuming that because we can recall an event (or picture, etc.) in more or less detail we must be calling up a recording. We seldom learn anything of any length in detail by simply hearing or seeing it. If you have memorized that the first digits of pi are 3.14159, what is that a recording of? The words for the number sequence as sounded out in English, a visual memory of seeing this number in a particular typeface in a particular paragraph on paper of a particular tone, or an abstract memory corresponding to abstract groups of abstract units? Typically we must be exposed to something many times to be able to remember it or recognize it, just like an HTM.

I think we are so good at reconstructing certain types of memories that we think we have photograph or video-like recordings of them. That is why eye witnesses think they are telling the truth, when they often substitute details from other events into a "memory" [notably, a face from a lineup that actually was not present at a crime scene]. That is why our memories are so often mistaken (I could have sworn I turned off that burner!) and why we can recall so much without having a roomful of DVDs in our brains. Our memories are largely indistinguishable from our intelligence, and are both fragmented in detail and yet easily molded into a whole as necessary. This is why recognition is usually much better than recall.

The more I study HTMs, the more curious I get. I don't know what the next step will be in my investigations, but hopefully I'll let you know soon.