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The picture of agency presented here is one well worth pursuing. Murphy and Brown have not presented us with a view that is defensible, both because it is far too sketchy to be properly assessed, and because many of the claims made will no doubt turn out to be false. However, the general outlines of the view are plausible, and there is a rich research agenda here. Perhaps future work will see some of the details worked out, and the gaps filled. (Neil Levy)

In a study published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and colleagues used a new type of brain-imaging scanner to show that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain's axons, or wiring that sends signals throughout the brain. The faster the signaling, the faster the brain processes information. And since the integrity of the brain's wiring is influenced by genes, the genes we inherit play a far greater role in intelligence than was previously thought.

Of course, it should be noted that there may be alternate architectures that incorporate forward models satisfying criteria for being sensory. However, the core idea of a forward model does not alone satisfy such criteria. It is also worth noting that the characterization of imagery as the willful reactivation of input systems threatens to make the imagery account collapse into a kind of non-sensory view. This is so if a crucial part of a state's being imagery is its activation of a control signal. (Brain Hammer)

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