This discussion reminds me of Paul Krugman's argument for cartoon models. I personally think that we can isolate, and therefore explain, simple parts of aggrega

This discussion reminds me of Paul Krugman's argument for cartoon models. I personally think that we can isolate, and therefore explain, simple parts of aggregate neural behavior by artificial construction more easily than we can by doing careful biology. Incidentally, you might be interested to know that restricted boltzmann machines are much more biologically plausible than backprop, and seem to work faster and better.