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From: gal2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Jacob Galley)
Subject: Origin of "connectionism"
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sef@CS.CMU.EDU (Scott Fahlman) writes:
>
>I guess if you go back to the original uses of "connectionism" (a term
>coined, I think, by Jerry Feldman, but I could be wrong about that),
>it covers a bit broader area than "neural nets". . . .

The term was used by Donald Hebb (1949) and may be even older.  I have
been reading his book, _The Organization of Behavior_.  It is
considered a classic for good reason.  He was the first to unite a
psychological (Gestalt-inspired) theory of perception with a theory of
neuronal plasticity.  The work of researchers such as Walter Freeman
seems to be descended directly from Hebb's speculative thought.

Jake.

-- 
The artificial sundering of res cogitans and res extensa is the heritage of
dualism, with the extrusion between them of LIFE---this double-faced ontology
of death creates problems which it has rendered unsolvable from the start.
								<-- Hans Jonas
