I agree that the executive function to “drive” the HTM will come from the limbic structures.
The division of labor is not as clear.
The model I have at this point is a really stupid boss (the limbic system) with a really smart advisor (the neocortex) presenting very simplified choices for the boss to pick from. The boss, in turn, initiates an action which is elaborated and executed in the Neocortex.
I take it as a matter of faith that there must be activity in the cortex to enter consciousness; we are only aware of the bosses decision after we have already begun to act on it.[1][2][3]
I suspect that trying to create behavior w/o this arrangement using “just” HTMs will be fruitless.
I am guessing that these executive functions (evaluating choices & initiating actions) are the exclusive realm of the limbic system and it needs positive and negative judgment to train whatever kind of computing structures are contained within. This implies a somewhat different organization than the basic HTM model - hence my question. I have read that the Hippocampus is somewhat like a 3 layer version of the cortex. I have not seen how the Amygdala is constructed but study of that is on my ToDo list; I think the naughty/nice mechanism is found there.
If we had the same sort of breakthrough in the understanding of the limbic system that HTM brings to the cortex the pairing could be very powerful. For example - this nice biological programming example [5] that described the Amygdala modifying the learning rate.[4] This powerful adaptation means the meaningful events (such as a battle or courting) are remembered more clearly. This suggests an obvious modification to the HTM theory to captures data that is flagged some way for rapid learning. Perhaps the only drawback it that overlearning is subject to saturation (PTSD) but learned more quickly. The “saturation and obliteration of competing memories” thing is the biggest problem in this human cortical-limbic interaction as is often noted in stressful situations such as pitched-battle or sexual assault.
The nature of my question is mostly can any of this evaluation of good/bad weighting-filtering be part of the HTM computation; can the Limbic system’s projected (sampled?) activation function be context for forming patterns in the cortical sheet?
[1] http://selfpace.uconn.edu/class/ccs/Libet1985UcsCerebralInitiative.pdf
[2] https://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~hezy/Vision%20Seminar/haggard%20free%20will.pdf
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3746176/pdf/fnhum-07-00385.pdf
[4] http://nmw.bio.uci.edu/publications/Chavez,%20McGaugh%20%26%20Weinberger,%202012.pdf
[5] http://nmw.bio.uci.edu/publications/Chavez,%20McGaugh%20%26%20Weinberger,%202013.pdf