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Article 5845 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Grounding: Real vs. Virtual (formerly "on meaning")
Keywords: symbol, analog, Turing Test, robotics
Message-ID: <1992May22.152511.675@news.media.mit.edu>
Date: 22 May 92 15:25:11 GMT
References: <1992May20.191738.18644@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992May21.173906.22368@psych.toronto.edu> <595@trwacs.fp.trw.com>
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Cc: minsky

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.
>
>
>-- 
>Harry Erwin
>Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com


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".  In the LOGO project here, a graduate
student, Jose Valente, was introduced to a severe CP patient who could
only grunt and voluntarily move a few muscles.  He was considered
hopelessly retarded by the institution staff (age 17).  Valente
coupled him to a turtle geometry system with a head-pointer, and it
nturned out that he new quite a lot of language and quite a lot of
intuitive geometry; in a couple of years he had become a good
programmer, was admitted to Amherst, and got a job in a registrar's
office in a local university, etc.

I'm not exactly disagreeing with Harry; only thatdespite Richard
Held's great experiments -- which included monkeys! --, it seems that
humans are not quite typical "small mammals" presumably because they
can construct internal virtual realities and use these for "internal
premotor feedback."

.


