From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!garbo.ucc.umass.edu!dime!chelm.cs.umass.edu!yodaiken Wed Dec 18 16:02:22 EST 1991
Article 2210 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!garbo.ucc.umass.edu!dime!chelm.cs.umass.edu!yodaiken
>From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Scaled up slug brains
Message-ID: <40778@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 17 Dec 91 20:16:52 GMT
References: <12723@pitt.UUCP> <40705@dime.cs.umass.edu> <12743@pitt.UUCP>
Sender: news@dime.cs.umass.edu
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Lines: 46

In article <12743@pitt.UUCP> geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks) writes:
>In article <40705@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>
>>Generally, "computation" has to do with Turing machines or some variant. For
>
>Well, I've heard people argue that neural nets beyond the perceptron level
>are "Turing equivalents" but I'm not enough of a computer scientist to
>tell you exactly how that is determined.  Certainly they do not seem to

You have to define the terms. If you claim that thought is "computation"
you should be able to provide a scientific description of computation.
If you want to define computation as "any physical process, not requiring
intervention of pixies", then I believe that thought is a product of
computation. If you want to use the usual definition of computation,
however,  you have to make a better case for it.

>Anything
>that takes an input and has an output that can vary according to the input
>in some regular and orderly way would seem to be a computer.  A neuron

So, the universe is a computer, humans are computers, and the mississippi
river is a computer. Not a very useful notion.

>Well, if you believe these physical processes are discoverable and
>can be either simulated or duplicated artificially, then we aren't
>too far apart, philosophically.  I'm not claiming we have the present
>technology to create a brain, just that we are on the right track pursuing
>it technologically.

Well I don't have any special knowledge about the future, so I don't make
any claims about whether we are on the right track or not. 

>Certainly, but when you look at our brain and an ape brain, the
>circuitry is very similar.  Our brain has additional cortex and
>thus additional circuits, but that seems to be the extent of the
>difference.  There are no radical new types of cells or new neurotransmitters,
>or other geegaws.  It would seem to me that Occam's razor would say
>that it is most likely that the language abilities are in the new
>neural circuitry, especially since the regions of the brain responsible
>for the production and understanding of language are pretty well defined
>through what happens when they are injured.

Maybe, maybe not.  The difference between persisting in error and 
battling through difficulties, is not always apparent at the time.




