In today's ZOOM meeting, I objected to the term 'neuro-symbolic hybrid' of artificial neural networks (ANNs) with symbols.  Hybrid's imply two (sometimes more) distinctly different things.  But all the processes in the mind and brain are integrated, and they all operate continuously in different parts of the brain, which are all monitored and controlled by a central executive.  For AI, integration is the goal, and a hybrid stage is something that needs to be replaced with a tighter integration.  I believe that the final document should emphasize the dangers that  Gary Marcus and I discussed in March.

And for that matter, artificial neural networks are not new.  William James suggested the telephone network as a model, and more detailed mathematical models were developed in the 1940s.  In fact, Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of AI, wrote his PhD thesis at Princeton on a mathematical model of neural networks in the early 1950s. 

Research in the cognitive sciences involves a collaboration of all the sciences that study any and every aspect of cognition:  philosophy, psychology, logic, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and anthropology.  As an overview of the methods of integration, I attach a copy (Section 7) of an article that is in press:  Phaneroscopy:  The Science of Diagrams.

In that section, I show how the theories of C. S. Peirce and recent developments in the cognitive sciences support, illustrate, and explain the issues.  In particular, they go far beyond just a hybrid of two approaches.  They treat the brain and the mind it supports as an integrated system.  The key to integration is a central executive, located in the frontal lobes that relates and controls every component in the cerebral cortex, the cerebellum, and the brain stem.

Note the loop with a photo of Peirce standing in the center.  It shows how the four steps of abduction, deduction, observation, and induction work together.    Every iteration -- from milliseconds to hours to days -- involves guessing, reasoning, observing, and learning.   These processes are not separated.   They operate continuously.  

For details, see Section 7, which also contains several references to articles and slides with more detail.  I also recommend The Central Executive Network (CEN):  https://www.o8t.com/blog/central-executive-network#:~:text=Since%20its%20initial%20discovery%20in,middle%20and%20inferior%20temporal%20gyri 

John