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Article 1988 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: fb0m+@andrew.cmu.edu (Franklin Boyle)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle (was.....)
Message-ID: <YdEwb8S00iUz02j910@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 9 Dec 91 19:53:44 GMT
Organization: Cntr for Design of Educational Computing, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 58

I wrote:

> |This is all very computational sounding.  Regardless of how many meta-levels
> |you propose, somewhere there is going to be an 'origin of the matcher'  
> |problem if pattern matching is the physical process through which your 
> |theory is realized.

Stanley Friesen responds:
 
> I am still not quite sure what this means!  Certainly some level has to have
> the physical encoding prewired, or preprogrammed, and it must have some
> initial, default method of filtering the encoded data.  But I do not see
> that this is anything more than a data format issue.  I suspect that any
> informationally equivalent encoding scheme can be substituted for the one
> the brain actually uses with no effect on the nature of the cognitive
process.
> [That is, the pattern matching operation in the brain is algorithmically
> independent of the encoding scheme].
 
> Are you trying to claim that the pattern matching mechanism must be tied
> to the physical encoding scheme?

What I mean is that when you develop new knowledge -- generalizations,
analogies, etc. -- it must be physically causal in order to affect the
functioning of the system. In a pattern matching system, in order for
any data (knowledge) to be causal, it must have a matcher which
physically detects it in order for it to be able to trigger the
appropriate function.
How are these matchers created so that they can effect the appropriate
responses except through feedback or deliberate programming?  My problem
with higher level cognitive functions is that one has to be able to account
for the physical creation of these matchers, and feedback from the
environment does not seem plausible in that case.


I wrote:

> |The question is; *How* is it constructed?  For higher level processes
> |and pattern matching, this seems implausible.

Stanley Friesen responds:
 
> This is an issue for neurologists to study in the lab.  I do not now claim
> to have the complete answer.  But since since neural systems seem to be
> mainly pattern matching systems, and since the human brain comes prewired
> in a *hierarchical* structure, from neuron to region to brain, it
seems likely
> that this corresponds to some sort of preset pattern matching capacity.

An alternative to pattern matching (for which the pattern structures are
*matched* and, therefore, only causal to the extent that the match *triggers*
a response) is structure *transmission*.  In pattern matching, no structure is
transmitted beyond the matcher because the matcher physically "fits" it.
So, in a pattern matching system, when patterns are input, there better
be a matcher there to handle it (the matcher could be "more general" than the 
input pattern).  Otherwise, it will do nothing more than sit in memory.

-Frank


