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Article 6572 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: frank@i1.msi.umn.edu (Loren Frank)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: "Interpreter" view of cognition
Message-ID: <1992Aug6.181254.23595@news2.cis.umn.edu>
Date: 6 Aug 92 18:12:54 GMT
References: <1992Jul31.211344.1250@ichips.intel.com>
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jimst@ichips.intel.com (Jim Stanley) writes:

>I am new to this newsgroup, so forgive me if this is an inappropriate
>or often-asked query.

>I recently heard of a theory of cognition which holds that the human
>brain contains a number of small specialty minds which are paged in and
>out as needed by a central 'interpreter.'  The interpreter is held to
>exist in the left hemisphere (presumably related to handedness).
>Congitive problems can arise when the interpreter can't bring in or 
>remove the proper specialty mind at the right time.

>I'd be interested to hear how far this theory has been pursued and what
>its current standing is in the psychology and physiology communities.

>Thanks in advance.

Hmm. That sounds a lot like Jerry Fodor's modular mind model, although it might
belong to someone else.
In any case, that theory is another version of the Cartesian theater where
there is one "mind" that sort of controls things and a bunch of subservient
systems that it controls. As far as I can tell, that sort of theory is 
reasonable popular, but I personally think that it is kind of silly. 
	The best attack on that viewpoint is, as far as I know, present in
Dannial Dennet's book Consciousness Explained. Basically he maintains that 
talking about a central place where everything comes together does not 
explain anything, as the operation of the central interpreter is left as a 
sort of excercise for reader. I know that there is a lot of data that 
supports Dennet's claim that there is no central viewing point, but off hand 
nothing comes to mind (I'll see if I can look some of the data up and post
it later). Maybe someone else can fill in the gaps....

Loren


