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Article 5988 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad)
Subject: Hypothesis: I am a Transducer (Formerly "Virtual Grounding")
Message-ID: <1992May31.145204.16357@Princeton.EDU>
Summary: Computationalism = Homuncularism
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Keywords: computation, transduction, homunculus, sensorimotor physiology
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Date: Sun, 31 May 1992 14:52:04 GMT
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         COMPUTATIONALISM = HOMUNCULARISM
             (Or, I AM A TRANSDUCER)

Many readers still do not seem to have understood my point about
transduction, so I will try yet another intuition pump: Although it is
an over-simplification, consider my hypothesis to be that you ARE a
transducer. If that hypothesis is correct, then there may be many
different ways to implement you -- namely, all the different ways of
implementing a transducer with your capabilities (TTT) -- but among
those ways is definitely NOT one in which instead of a transducer there
is a computer simulation of a transducer (a "virtual" transducer). I
repeat, my hypthesis is that you ARE a transducer. If that is true,
anything that is not really a transducer is not really you.

I might add that there is some real homuncular thinking involved in the
persistent misunderstanding of my hypothesis. People keep reverting to
the rival computational hypothesis (which I have tried to show is
false, Harnad 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992) in which you are a computational
core, with the transducers simply carrying information TO it ("you"),
as our senses do to "us."

But this computational view, besides all the other points against it,
is homuncular: The outside world ends with the shadow that objects cast
on our retinas. The rest is all "us." Because we have more than one
sense modality (and because most of our brain just consists of analog
extensions of the sensory and motor projections), we know that we are
still "us" if we are blind, or deaf or paralyzed. But none of that
refutes the hypothesis that we are transducers; nor does it make any
sense of what would be left if every bit of transduction (and analog
extesnions of it) were ablated from our brains (leaving, I assure you,
very little in place). One thing I'm sure would not be left over would
be the little homunculus that normally sees what we see, hears what we
hear, and thinks what we think. That is just the wrong view of
cognition, and I am beginning to think that that perseverative
computationalism is just homuncularism (an unhelpful form of dualism).

Harnad, S. (1989) Minds, Machines and Searle. Journal of Theoretical
and Experimental Artificial Intelligence 1: 5-25.

Harnad, S. (1990) The Symbol Grounding Problem.
Physica D 42: 335-346.

Harnad, S. (1991) Other bodies, Other minds: A machine incarnation
of an old philosophical problem. Minds and Machines 1: 43-54.

Harnad, S. (1992) Connecting Object to Symbol in Modeling
Cognition.  In: A. Clarke and  R. Lutz (Eds) Connectionism in Context
Springer Verlag.

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           harnad92.symbol.object
-- 
Stevan Harnad  Department of Psychology  Princeton University
harnad@clarity.princeton.edu / harnad@pucc.bitnet / srh@flash.bellcore.com 
harnad@learning.siemens.com / harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu / (609)-921-7771


