From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utcsri!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!khise Tue Jul 28 09:41:56 EDT 1992
Article 6508 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: khise@conquest.ksu.ksu.edu (Martin Andrew Shobe)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Defining Intelligence
Date: 24 Jul 1992 15:05:26 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
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In article <1992Jul24.023513.25326@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>  Let me start by saying that I am not arguing for the sake of arguing.
>We clearly disagree on this, and we will have to agree to disagree.
>But you are reading things into my answer that are not there.  Or, to
>put it differently, I am not quibbling about words, but I really am
>saying something that you probably view as radical and contrary to the
>conventional wisdom.
>

Actually, we might be quibbling over words.
Are store/retrieve memories limited to storing and retrieving data by location?
(Both examples below do).
If so, then I agree that human memory is not a storage/retrieval memory.

>  To be sure there is no confusion, let me clarify my position.  The
>virtual memory example you cite IS a store/retrieve operation, even if
>done indirectly by the operating system, rather than directly by the
>program.  To pretend that it is not a store/retrieve system would be
>quibbling about words.
>

The point of the example was that you could have a store/retrieve memory
without a *conscious* store or retrieve command.  You showed that there 
was no conscious store or retrieve command, and then said that it meant there
was no storage/retrieval memory.  I used that example to show that the latter
does not follow from the former.  I do not believe that it is an accurate
model of human memory.

>  When I said that human memory was not a store/retrieve memory, I
>intended to claim that there is no such thing a storage operation and
>no such thing as a retrievel operation at any level, or with any degree
>of indirectness.  I am claiming that the storage/retrieval model of
>memory is just a very misleading way of looking at the workings of the
>mind.  What we perceive as storage, retrieval, memory search, is really
>something else.  We are allowing ourselves to be confused by looking
>for memory which is similar to the storage retrieval memories we have
>built in computers, tape recorders, etc.
>

Martin Shobe




