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Article 2134 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Scaled up slug brains
Message-ID: <40659@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 15 Dec 91 13:07:59 GMT
References: <12689@pitt.UUCP> <40650@dime.cs.umass.edu> <robison.692764882@chloro>
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In article <robison.692764882@chloro> robison@chloro.harvard.edu (Keith Robison) writes:
>yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>>In article <12689@pitt.UUCP> geb@dsl.pitt.edu (gordon e. banks) writes:
>>>In article <60044@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>>>>Well, OK.  What is the evidence that human brains are merely a scaled
>>>>up version of slug brains?  (Besides certain USENET posters and US vice
>>>>presidents?)
>>>>
>>>The words "scaled up" are my detractors', not mine...
>>>...I think the analogy holds.  The worm has the same basic elements
>>>as the human, although the human may have additional elements that
>>>do not exist in the worm, it appears that it is mainly a matter of
>>>complexity of connections and not new and different structures that
>>>characterize the differences, at least on an anatomic and neurochemical
>>>level.
>
>>Appears to whom? I must say that you have an interesting approach
>>to science. We understand a tiny bit of how system X works, system
>>Y is vastly more complicated than system X but contains similar looking
>>structures --- so assume that some unproven model of X is also a model of
>>Y. Steel gear boxes can be constructed from the same ingredients as
>>steel I-beams. Thus, using your approach, we conclude that a model of 
>>the behavior of a steel I-beam can be extended to describe the behavior of
>>a gear box.
>
>
>	No, by this approach we conclude that studying the properties of steel
>will tell us something about the properties of I-beams and gears, and that I 
>pick whichever system is the best for the techniques I have on hand.
>Don't forget, we're talking biology here, and worms (C.elegans), "slugs"
>(Aplysia), flies (Drosophila), and us probably had a common ancestor AFTER 
>the emergence of simple behavorial learning, as it is so widespread amongst
>multicellular animals.  Besides, simple conditioning can be found amongst

I doubt that you will learn much about the use of language in human beings
by extrapolating from the neural structure of Drosophila, but good luck.

>	This does not mean that ALL of the properties of invertebrate neural 
>systems will be found in vertebrate systems (or vice versa), but that MANY of
>them will be the same.  The existing molecular evidence suggests that this

No argument here. Clearly we are all built of cells, we share many
similarities and research on these simpler animals is a logical first
step towards understanding more complex ones. Note, however that Gordon
Banks makes a much stronger claim. Essentially Banks is arguing that 
the difference between slug nervous systems and human brains is just a
matter of scale. There is no evidence to support this claim other than the
commonality of neurons. Again, the differences between gear boxes and
steel beams are not just a matter of scale --- despite the commonality
of materiel.



