From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!csus.edu!netcomsv!mork!nagle Mon May 25 14:07:21 EDT 1992
Article 5862 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: Grounding: Real vs. Virtual (formerly "on meaning")
Message-ID: <ppyky7j.nagle@netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 23 May 92 06:54:22 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Keywords: symbol, analog, Turing Test, robotics
References: <1992May20.191738.18644@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992May21.173906.22368@psych.toronto.edu> <595@trwacs.fp.trw.com> <1992May22.152511.675@news.media.mit.edu>
Lines: 28

minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:

>In article <595@trwacs.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
>>Held's (1968) article, "Action contingent development of vision in
>>neonatal animals," (Experience and capacity, D. P. Kimble, ed., New York:
>>New York Academy of Sciences) has something to contribute to this
>>argument. Perception involves a motor process and hence motor activity is
>>necessary to organizing perception. This motor activity typical involves
>>the manipulation of "physical objects" and so provides a grounding for
>>experience. Young mammals denied the opportunity to manipulate and move
>>fail to develop cognitively.

>I'd be careful about using this for philosophical argument because it
>is not clear that motor feedback is required for human development --
>at least in "large quantities".  

       Some mammals are far more functional at birth than others.
Horses are notable for being able to stand within an hour of birth
and run with the herd within a day.  Guinea pigs are similarly functional
shortly after birth.  (Mice, and other rodents, though, are not.)
The fact that there are complex mammals born with vision,
coordination, balance, and locomotion fully functional indicates that
the notion of the mammal brain as blank at birth is not correct.

        This is a useful observation, because it allows one to reject
some hypotheses about how mammalian brains might work.

					John Nagle


