Jerome Lettvin

Jerome Ysroael Lettvin

Born February 23, 1920(1920-02-23)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died April 23, 2011(2011-04-23) (aged 91)
Hingham, Massachusetts, USA
Citizenship US
Nationality US
Fields Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Electrical Engineering, Communications Physiology, Mythopoetry
Institutions Rutgers (1988- )
MIT (1951-2011)
Stazione Zoologica
Manteno State Hospital(1948-1951)
U. of Rochester(1947)
Alma mater University of Illinois (B.S., M.D. 1943)
Notable students Norman Geschwind
Known for "What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain"
Leary-Lettvin debate
Influences Norbert Wiener
Warren McCulloch
Walter Pitts
Derek Denny-Brown
Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Charles Scott Sherrington
John Zachary Young
Spouse Maggie (1947-)

Jerome Ysroael Lettvin (February 23, 1920 - April 23, 2011) was a cognitive scientist and professor Emeritus of Electrical and Bioengineering and Communications Physiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is best known as the author of the 1959 paper, "What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain",[1] one of the most cited papers in the Science Citation Index. He wrote it along with Humberto Maturana, Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts and in the paper they gave special thanks and mention to the work of Oliver Selfridge at MIT.[2] He carried out neurophysiological studies in the spinal cord, made the first demonstration of "feature detectors" in the visual system, and studied information processing in the terminal branches of single axons. Around 1969, he originated the term grandmother cell[3] to illustrate the logical inconsistency of the concept.

Jerome Lettvin was popularly known as "Jerry", and was the author of many published articles on subjects varying from neurology and physiology to philosophy and politics.[4] Among his many activities at MIT, he served as one of the first directors of the Concourse Program, and, along with his wife Maggie, houseparent of the Bexley dorm.

Contents

Early life

Lettvin was born February 23, 1920 in Chicago as eldest of four children (including pianist Theodore Lettvin) to Solomon and Fanny Lettvin. Trained as a neurologist and psychiatrist at the University of Illinois (B.S., M.D. 1943), he practiced medicine at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.[5] After the war, he continued practicing neurology and researching nervous systems, partly at Boston City Hospital, and then at MIT with Walter Pitts and Warren McCulloch under Norbert Wiener.

Scientific philosophy

Lettvin considered any experiment a failure from which the experimental animal does not recover to a comfortable happy life. He was one of the very few neurophysiologists who successfully recorded pulses from unmyelinated vertebrate axons.

His main approach to scientific observation seemed to be "reductio ad absurdum"; or find the least observation that contradicts a key assumption in the proposed theory. This has led to unusual experiments being performed (some are listed below). In his best-known paper, "What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain", he took a major risk proposing feature detectors in the retina. When presenting this paper at a conference he was laughed off the stage by his peers. Yet for the next ten years this paper was the most cited paper in all of science. So a corollary approach to finding contradictions was taking risks; the bigger the risk, the likelier a new finding. This he promoted in all his students. Robert Provine quotes him as asking "If it does not change everything, why waste your time doing the study?"

He made a careful study of the work of Leibniz, discovering that he had constructed a mechanical computer in the 17th century, amongst other creations hundreds of years ahead of his time. Jerome Lettvin was also known for his friendship with the genius cognitive scientist and logician named Walter Pitts, a polymath who first showed the relationship between the philosophy of Leibniz, universal computing and "A Logical Calculus Immanent in Nervous Activity".

He continued to research the properties of nervous systems throughout his life, most recently focusing on ion dynamics in axon cytoskeleton.

He worried about how scientists approached their own work as evidenced in this playful translation he made from Morgenstern's poetry.

Σ Ξ MAN MET A Π MAN

After many "if"s and "but"s,
emendations, notes, and cuts,

they bring their theory, complete,
to lay, for Science, at his feet.

But Science, sad to say it, he
seldom heeds the laity

abstractedly he flips his hand,
mutters "metaphysic" and

bends himself again to start
another curve on another chart.

"Come," says Pitts, "his line is laid;
the only points he'll miss, we've made."

(This, like his other translations of Morgenstern's poems[6] from German, retains the playfulness of the originals.)

Unusual experiments

vertebrate unmyelinated axons exhibit sub-millisecond triphasic spikes
action potentials found at myelinated nodes of Ranvier are altogether absent in Remak fibers
a cut optic nerve trained to the olfactory lobe regrows, remapping the retina
(Functional Properties of regenerated axons, Brain Research 1995)
senses appear to direct brain growth rather than the reverse
axonal stimulation backfires into the cell body
action potentials can travel from axons to the axon hillock and into the cell
stimulating the bulbo-reticular inhibitory system stops strychnine convulsions
reflexes have system-wide attenuation controls
axon pulse intervals can be separated into bands;[7]
some form of information is encoded in pulse intervals
color constancy derives from boundaries and vertices imaged on the retina
(The Colors of Things, Scientific American 1986)
color is relational, not related to wavelength
images stationary on the retina fade to invisible
temporal or spatial transients are critical to vision
visible insects cause no nervous activity in a frog that sees a duck
attention obeys hierarchical rules

While working in the Marine Zoological Station in Naples, Italy, he had a 30-foot-long (9.1 m) room in which octopus holding tanks were kept, with fine mesh metal screens to keep them from escaping. One tank, at the far end, held his youngest son Jonathan's pet octopus named juvenile delinquent (JD).[8] One day he teased JD with a stick. The next morning, his son and he came to the door and noticed a puddle under the door. Fearing the worst (broken tanks), he opened the door, and was greeted by a blast of water in his face (but not his son's face). From across the room, and through the screen, JD had perfect aim, after which he jetted to the bottom of the tank, inked it up, and hid for the rest of the day. Still confused about the water under the door, Lettvin looked at the back of the door and saw a spot of water at the height of his face. JD had been practicing for revenge. From this and other experiences, Lettvin concluded that octopodes are highly intelligent, and from that time on he never ate octopus again, out of respect for octopodes as colleagues.

Later repeated by a pair of Russian scientists,[9] Lettvin demonstrated that a headless cat retains all of its normal functions like standing, scratching an itch, walking on a treadmill, and adjusting posture to prevent falling over.

Politics

Lettvin was a firm advocate of individual rights and heterogeneous society. His father nurtured these views with ideas from Kropotkin's book Mutual Aid. He has been expert witness in trials in both the U.S. and in Israel always on behalf of individual rights.

During the antiwar demonstrations of the 1960s he helped negotiate agreements between police and protesters, and took part in the 1968 student takeover of the MIT Student Center in support of an AWOL soldier.[10] He deplored when law is made using false science and false statistics, or when proper observations are distorted for advantage.

When the American Academy of Arts and Sciences withdrew its award of the annual Emerson-Thoreau medal from Ezra Pound for his leanings during World War II, Lettvin resigned from the academy, in which letter he wrote "It is not art that concerns you but politics, not taste but special interest, not excellence but propriety."

Debating

In November 1967, Lettvin debated with Timothy Leary (a licensed psychologist) about the merits and dangers of LSD. Lettvin responded "bullshit!" to Leary's claim that he would diagnose the frank symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy as a religious experience.[11][12]

He was a regular invitee at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony as "the world's smartest man" to debate extemporaneously against groups of people on their own subjects of expertise.

Published papers

References

  1. ^ Lettvin, J.Y; Maturana, H.R.; McCulloch, W.S.; Pitts, W.H., What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain, Proceedings of the IRE, Vol. 47, No. 11, November 1959
  2. ^ "We are particularly grateful to O. G. Selfridge, whose experiments with mechanical recognizers of pattern helped drive us to this work and whose criticism in part shaped its course."
  3. ^ Gross, Charles G., Genealogy of the "Grandmother Cell", NEUROSCIENTIST 8(5):512–518, 2002. DOI: 10.1177/107385802237175
  4. ^ a b Jerome Lettvin page
  5. ^ Squire, Larry R., The history of neuroscience in autobiography, Volume 2, Society for Neuroscience, 1998. Cf. pp.223-243 on Jerome Lettvin.
  6. ^ The Fat Abbot, 1962
  7. ^ Multiple meaning in single visual units
  8. ^ Jonathan D. Lettvin Home Page
  9. ^ Neurons and Networks Second Edition, John Dowling, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001, page 307, Figure 13.5
  10. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1968/11/4/six-day-mit-sanctuary-ends-quietly-without/
  11. ^ "Jerome Lettvin Stories", More Data, More Noise: A Celebration of the 60th Birthday of Jerome Y. Lettvin, MIT, February 1980. Cf. pp.20-27.
  12. ^ Collins, Bud, "LSD Lion loses to M.I.T. Mauler", The Boston Globe, November 24, 1967

Further reading