History and Naming of Simbrain
The first version of this program was called "odor world." I wrote it in C on a Macintosh. At the time I was studying Richard Granger of UC Irvine's olfactory model. This is where the cheeses and flowers came from. My idea was to visualize "hierarchical clustering" whereby successive "sniffs" yield, e.g., awareness of "food", "cheese", then "gouda." I never got far with this, but I got some good icons and I'd still like to work on his stuff at some point, using simbrain. The word "world" was a reference to the phenomenology I was studying alongside the neural network theory (the reference is to Husserl's "umwelt" and "lebesnwelt" as well as Heidegger's "being in the world.")
The second version was called "brain-maker," but C++ /windows graphics was a lot of headaches and again I didn't get far.
Then I took a job at a software company called Enhansiv (now Teletech). This was around the time Java's Swing libraries were coming out. With Java and Swing (and coworkers I could ask questions of) I finally felt I had a tool I could work with. Platform independence would be a bonus.
I called this version of the program "brain-o-scope." Here is how I justified that name (on an earlier version of this web-site):
Philosophers don't usually conduct real experiments, but they conduct plenty of thought experiments. To non-philosophers this is sometimes surprising. Serious academics articulate and sometimes defend their claims on the basis of such imaginative constructs as "Chinese Rooms," "twin-Earths," and "brains-in-vats". It has recently become popular in the philosophy of mind to invoke "Brain-O-Scopes" to show that looking at a brain won't tell you anything about the mind. "Even if we had a perfect Brain-O-Scope, that wouldn't tell us a thing about the experience of seeing red," or so the story goes. But I think looking at the brain can tell us something about the mind, and I have tried to build a Brain-O-Scope to prove it. The important thing in building a better Brain-O-Scope is knowing what structures to focus on. I have focused on neural activity and attractors in state space, both of which (I claim) represent phenomenological structures. For more, see the dissertation abstract and sample chapter.
However, everyone I talked to hated the name. It conjures up some 1930's "whirl-o-matic" presto-magic washing machine.
But it is amazingly hard to name a neural network in an accurate non-ugly way. I now sympathize with everyone else who's written a neural net and released it on the net. There's not much to work with. "Brain-maker" "net-builder" "network-creation-kit" etc etc.
With the deadline to submit to sourceforge (where the name can't easily be changed once chosen), I pestered my friends for some candidate names and then sent out this email:
Friends... I am about to open-source my neural net program but must first decide on a new name for it. "Brain-O-Scope" was universally lambasted, and I've come to see the light. It's just too silly. The problem is most of the alternatives are boring (e.g. "interactive neural network simulation program"). I've cobbled together a short list of available names which I like. Please let me know which if any you like best, or if you have any other suggestions.
simbrain
netcrafter
simcrafter
neurokraft
brainworldI could also choose a random name, as in "java" or "simba." But none have come to mind..
I was surprised by the diversity of responses I got, and the varied attitudes towards neural nets and names in general they reflected.
Some rightly pointed out that "brain" preteds to be more realistic than it is:
Since artificial neural nets of the connectionist sort are more theoretical psychology than brain science, I would vote for any name that doesn't have 'brain' or 'neuro' in the title.Unless, that is, there are conductance-based neuronal models in
the toolkit :) Then I would go for neurokrafter.
But as another said:
I'm happiest with names that don't imply it's all just hardware, but there's not a lot of short catchy names that don't incorporate "brain."
Many brainstormed names on my behalf ("brainstorm" was itself a suggestion). Among the other suggestions:Networld, Neural Net World, Brainprobe, Brainspace, Brainlink, BrainTamer, BrainMinder, BrainViewer, BrainPortal, Visual Brain, The Visual Brain, Virtual Brain, Brainiac , mBrain, eBrain, BrainNetWorker, BrainNetScope, BrainScoper, BrainScope, Nets4Neurons, v-synapse, e-synapse, visualthink, virtualthink, synapses, grey(matter)storm, T.H.I.N.K (The highly intelligent neural kit)
One person just said "neur-on-your-own."
Exasparted, many said to stop trying to actually describe the thing:
My favorite names for large pieces of software are things that don't pretend to describe the program. "Fred" or "James" being especially keen sorts of names, but "Toaster" and "Seatback" have a nice ring too.
My philosophy professor and his son Wyndham were interestingly vocal in this regard:
I like a short random name, not a pseudo-tech quasi-descriptor. I thought "Yoshi" is the one, but Wyndham tells me it's a hot Nintendo name already copyrighted. "Yoshineuro". "Yo Neuro"? Na. "Experio" Wyndham just suggested, as you tweak the neurons of experience, but that doesn't evoke neurons until you're in the know. "Neuro" is another. Or "Neuroworld". Not bad. "NeuroWorld"? "Mondo Neuro". Hm. "Terra Neuro"... How's the Latin conjugated? "Terra Neura"? "Neo": draw in all the billions of Matrix fans. And, ya, the neural basis of experience, that's the whole deal there! "Neo Neuro" "NeuroZen". The neural networking underlying the experience of just letting your mind happen... "Leibniz". Cause he was the first to wonder what the "mind" would like like if you wandered through the brain at a micro level... "LeibnizBrain". "NeuroLeibniz". ...How about a classical artist? "Da Vinci". Didn't he do early anatomy? Bet he found the neuron!... "Captain Neuro", too cute. What's the first name of the first scientist to isolate the neuron? I thought that was already late, like mid-1890s?
In the wake of these emails I considered "Myelin", "Santiago", and "Golgi." I liked the latter because Golgi first made it possible to see neurons (even though he didn't believe in them!). But Golgi was a jerk to Santiago Ramon y Cajal. Also, try saying "Golgi" (gol-jee) out loud! And then there was this email:
golgi sounds good. does the background story involve you eating bulgolgi at a korean restaurant?
Yes, there was plenty of good humor at my expense:
How about "Neurdor"--brings to mind some fantasy role-playing game overlord. What, that's *not* good? Don't use neurokraft, you might as well call it Kraftwerk and have a song accompany the download. Or may be "Neural World"? Or "Sammon-Head" . . .
So in the end I stuck with simbrain. It describes the program, is easy to type in, and is in balance the least bad choice.