Section 5, Chapter 9 -- Information Transformation Requirements: a summary

We have tried to make a case that information transformation requirements lead us to, and support, the concept of an "inner language", an information encoding scheme that is somewhat like the human languages used for communication.

1. Perception needs to be transformed into the specification of action and action sequences -- to account for imitation
• We can see this requirement most clearly in the case of learning by imitation. An action-sequence is perceived and then action is generated that approximates the perceived action.
• "What you see is what you do", but even chicks do it in imprinting
2. Novel action sequences need to be generated -- to account for curiosity and play
• We can see this in kittens and puppies playing and exploring the world
• Not all behaviour has to be based on past actions, imitation, and built-in (genetic) action patterns
3. Prediction of the future is needed
• Many predators can run a path to catch a prey that are not predicted by a strict "follow your eyes" rule
• The prediction is probably encoded similarly to memories from the past.
4. Compression of information is needed
• There are not enough neurons to store all the visual and action information in "raw" form
• The language encoding provides tremendous compression that 'loses' irrelevant detail. On the other hand, it allows the neurons to store a greater variety of experiences (combining vision and action), and thus supports more learning for a greater variety of situations.