From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!yale.edu!jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!libra.wistar.upenn.edu Thu Jan  9 10:34:05 EST 1992
Article 2554 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Occam's barber had many customers
Message-ID: <61677@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 8 Jan 92 17:41:12 GMT
References: <60551@netnews.upenn.edu> <334@tdatirv.UUCP> <60758@netnews.upenn.edu> <351@tdatirv.UUCP>
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Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
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In-reply-to: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)

Again, because of the two-week delay, I've edited very lightly.

In article <351@tdatirv.UUCP>, sarima@tdatirv (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>In article <60758@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>|In other words, NNs are too powerful to let us decide.

>But then, that is why I suspect they are sufficient for 'mind'.

We all have our suspicions.  Claims of proof with a powerful method need
more than successful theoretical modelling.

>|Physicists connected consciousness with quantum mechanics over sixty
>|decades ago.  The debate has never ended.  Your 4 *assumes* one side
>|of this debate.  Penrose *assumes* the other side.

>Oh hoh!  So that is where he is comong from, the idea of 'observation'
>in QM "collapsing" the wave function!

>In that case a recent experimental result from physics is relevant, and
>tends to support my view that QM is irrelevant to mind.

Not in the least.

>The basic result of the experiment was that a simple mechanical device,
>with no human observer (and indeed no record kept of the interaction)
>was sufficient in and of itself to act as an 'observer' (in terms of
>collapsing the wave function and eliminated interference patterns).
>This seems to clearly indicate that 'mind' is irrelevant to QM 'observation'.

This is, I presume, the quantum watched pot experiment.  Whatever it was,
it does not matter.  Von Neumann and Wigner's analysis of QM measurement
allows one to assume that the experiment and device have a joint wave
function, and that the device itself was in an interference pattern of
device states, and that only human observation collapsed the wave function.

>[Note, I have long considered QM 'observation' to be a purely physical
>phenomenon, with no connection to mind - just to complexity].

And by doing so, you have made philosophical assumptions about QM.  That
is my point.  Other interpretations of QM are usually more complicated.
As my subject line says, "Occam's barber had many customers".

>|  You
>|*have* made an additional assumption--namely that QM follows certain
>|interpretations--but because this assumption lies outside the direct
>|focus of the questions you want to investigate, you can't see or care
>|one way or the other what extra philosophical baggage you have.

>Actually, until this moment I had not realized that the reason he was so
>insistant on a QM connection with mind was the Copenhagen interpretation
>of QM.  That explains alot.  It is true that in this area he and I have
>different assumption.

Precisely.  And assumptions that make problems simpler for you make them
harder for Penrose.  And vice versa. 

>		        However as I remember it I did not develop my QM
>interpretations from a biological perspective, but rather a mechanistic
>bias against the Copenhagen approach.

So what is your QM interpretation?  From Bohr to Penrose, biology has had
little to do with the motivation for QM interpretations.

>				       [True, until the recent experiment
>it was mainly just a bias].

And it is still just a bias.

>|>You must show some observable cognitive processes that are *inconsistant*
>|>with a non-quantum explanation before such a link becomes necessary.

>|You are overstating the case.  A quantum explanation may simply be simpler
>|and/or superior.  QM is certainly more general.

>In some sense.  In fact in some sense the brain is a QM system, since that
>is the basis of all of chemistry.  But most of the relevant phenomena are
>emergent at a level several stages above QM.

Of course.  Meanwhile, if I proffer a simpler superior explanation of some
mental phenomenon via QM, I am not obligated to show other explanations are
inconsistent.  My comment merely meant that you were unfairly stacking the
deck.

>|Consider ambiguous word resolution.  There is evidence that all the
>|meanings are activated in parallel, and yet we only observe one at a
>|time.  I presume something similar happens with ambiguous figures.

>|The simplest interpretation is, quite simply, that there is a quantum
>|observable corresponding to "meaning", and by means of wave function
>|collapse, one eigenvalue--an unambiguous meaning--is observed.

>Or a NN operating as a noise filter eliminates those meanings not
>consistant with current context.

But what if they are all consistent?  If I just give you a word at random,
like "fly", *some* meaning attaches.  The same happens with ambigous figures.

For sure you can give a NN explanation.  But it is perforce more complicated.

>				   What we call consciousness appears to
>be only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in the arena of brain functions.

You got it.

>|A neural net model would have to couple with evolutionary dictates
>|that say fortune favors the unambiguous.  Entirely plausible, but
>|definitely more complicated.

>Not really hard, evolution favors quick decisions.  Vacilating can lead
>to death.  If competing alternatives are filtered out early, decisions can
>be made faster.

Like I said, "entirely plausible, but definitely more complicated."  My
point is that your appeals to Occam are groundless.

>|I posted a separate article "Linear -> Non-linear theory bifurcation",
>|explaining how this depends crucially on a linearity in the bulb.  The
>|experimental agreement does not let you distiguish between internal and
>|external models of cognition.

>This seems to be an area of neurobiology I have not managed to keep up
>on.  Could you e-mail me some references on the nature of this non-linearity
>and the observational basis for concluding its presence.

Walter J Freeman MASS ACTION IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM Chapter 4.3.  In his
various papers on rabbit olfaction, he says that it was this relationship
that led him to concentrate on olfaction.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)


