Symbolic Knowledge Structures and Intuitive Knowledge Structures

TL;DR

This paper explores two types of brain structures—symbolic and intuitive—using spiking neural networks, providing preliminary models and examples for understanding formal reasoning and informal associations.

Contribution

It introduces a speculative framework for modeling symbolic and intuitive knowledge structures in neural networks, inspired by prior work, with initial examples and ideas for future development.

Findings

Demonstrated counting through memorized sequences

Analyzed understanding of simple stylized sentences

Proposed preliminary models for brain structures

Abstract

This paper proposes that two distinct types of structures are present in the brain: Symbolic Knowledge Structures (SKSs), used for formal symbolic reasoning, and Intuitive Knowledge Structures (IKSs), used for drawing informal associations. The paper contains ideas for modeling and analyzing these structures in an algorithmic style based on Spiking Neural Networks, following the paradigm used in earlier work by Lynch, Musco, Parter, and co-workers. The paper also contains two examples of use of these structures, involving counting through a memorized sequence, and understanding simple stylized sentences. The ideas presented here are preliminary and speculative, and do not (yet) comprise a complete, coherent, algorithmic theory. I hope that posting this preliminary version will help the ideas to evolve into such a theory.