For the avoidance of doubt, I remain entirely comfortable with the position expressed in my comment: I wholeheartedly and emphatically stand behind everything I said. I am cheerfully reconciled to the prospect some of those replying to or reading my earlier comment judge me adversely for itâI invite these folks to take my endorsement here as reinforcing whatever negative impressions they formed from what I said there.
The only thing I am uncomfortable with is that someone felt they had to be anonymous to criticise something I wrote. I hope the measure I mete out to others makes it clear I am happy for similar to be meted out to me in turn. I also hope reasonable folks like the anonymous commenter are encouraged to be forthright when they think I errâthis is something I would be generally grateful to them for, regardless of whether I agree with their admonishment in a particular instance. I regret to whatever degree my behaviour has led others to doubt this is the case.
Your responses here are much more satisfying and comprehensible than your previous statements, itâs a bit of a shame we canât reset the conversation.
2. Another anonymous commentator (thanks to Linch for posting) highlights that Abbyâs line of questioning regarding EEGs ultimately resulted in a response satisfactory to her and which she didnât have the expertise to further evaluate:
if they had given the response that they gave in one of the final comments in the discussion, right at the beginning (assuming Abby would have responded similarly) the response to their exchange might have been very different i.e. I think people would have concluded that they gave a sensible response and were talking about things that Abby didnât have expertise to comment on:
_______
Abby Hoskin: If your answer relies on something about how modularism/âfunctionalism is bad: why is source localization critical for your main neuroimaging analysis of interest? If source localization is not necessary: why canât you use EEG to measure synchrony of neural oscillations?
Mike Johnson: The harmonic analysis weâre most interested in depends on accurately modeling the active harmonics (eigenmodes) of the brain. EEG doesnât directly model eigenmodes; to infer eigenmodes weâd need fairly accurate source localization. It could be there are alternative ways to test STV without modeling brain eigenmodes, and that EEG could give us. I hope thatâs the case, and I hope we find it, since EEG is certainly a lot easier to work with than fMRI.
Abby Hoskin: Ok, I appreciate this concrete response. I donât know enough about calculating eigenmodes with EEG data to predict how tractable it is.
Thanks, but Iâve already seen them. Presuming the implication here is something like âGiven these developments, donât you think you should walk back what you originally said?â, the answer is âNot really, noâ: subsequent responses may be better, but that is irrelevant to whether earlier ones were objectionable; one may be making good points, but one can still behave badly whilst making them.
(Apologies if I mistake what you are trying to say here. If it helps generally, I expectâper my parent commentâto continue to affirm what Iâve said before however the morass of commentary elsewhere on this post shakes out.)
Just want to be clear, the main post isnât about analyzing eigenmodes with EEG data. Itâs very funny that when I am intellectually honest enough to say I donât know about one specific EEG analysis that doesnât exist and is not referenced in the main text, people conclude that I donât have expertise to comment on fMRI data analysis or the nature of neural representations.
Meanwhile QRI does not have expertise to comment on many of the things they discuss, but they are super confident about everything and in the original posts especially did not clearly indicate what is speculation versus what is supported by research.
I continue to be unconvinced with the arguments laid out, but I do think both the tone of the conversation and Mike Johnsonâs answers improved after he was criticized. (Correlation? Causation?)
Generally speaking, I agree with the aphorism âYou catch more flies with honey than vinegar;â
For what itâs worth, I interpreted Gregoryâs critique as an attempt to blow up the conversation and steer away from the object level, which felt odd. Iâm happiest speaking of my research, and fielding specific questions about claims.
For the avoidance of doubt, I remain entirely comfortable with the position expressed in my comment: I wholeheartedly and emphatically stand behind everything I said. I am cheerfully reconciled to the prospect some of those replying to or reading my earlier comment judge me adversely for itâI invite these folks to take my endorsement here as reinforcing whatever negative impressions they formed from what I said there.
The only thing I am uncomfortable with is that someone felt they had to be anonymous to criticise something I wrote. I hope the measure I mete out to others makes it clear I am happy for similar to be meted out to me in turn. I also hope reasonable folks like the anonymous commenter are encouraged to be forthright when they think I errâthis is something I would be generally grateful to them for, regardless of whether I agree with their admonishment in a particular instance. I regret to whatever degree my behaviour has led others to doubt this is the case.
Greg, I want to bring two comments that have been posted since your comment above to your attention:
Abby said the following to Mike:
2. Another anonymous commentator (thanks to Linch for posting) highlights that Abbyâs line of questioning regarding EEGs ultimately resulted in a response satisfactory to her and which she didnât have the expertise to further evaluate:
Thanks, but Iâve already seen them. Presuming the implication here is something like âGiven these developments, donât you think you should walk back what you originally said?â, the answer is âNot really, noâ: subsequent responses may be better, but that is irrelevant to whether earlier ones were objectionable; one may be making good points, but one can still behave badly whilst making them.
(Apologies if I mistake what you are trying to say here. If it helps generally, I expectâper my parent commentâto continue to affirm what Iâve said before however the morass of commentary elsewhere on this post shakes out.)
Gregory, Iâll invite you to join the object-level discussion between Abby and I.
Just want to be clear, the main post isnât about analyzing eigenmodes with EEG data. Itâs very funny that when I am intellectually honest enough to say I donât know about one specific EEG analysis that doesnât exist and is not referenced in the main text, people conclude that I donât have expertise to comment on fMRI data analysis or the nature of neural representations.
Meanwhile QRI does not have expertise to comment on many of the things they discuss, but they are super confident about everything and in the original posts especially did not clearly indicate what is speculation versus what is supported by research.
I continue to be unconvinced with the arguments laid out, but I do think both the tone of the conversation and Mike Johnsonâs answers improved after he was criticized. (Correlation? Causation?)
Generally speaking, I agree with the aphorism âYou catch more flies with honey than vinegar;â
For what itâs worth, I interpreted Gregoryâs critique as an attempt to blow up the conversation and steer away from the object level, which felt odd. Iâm happiest speaking of my research, and fielding specific questions about claims.