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Article 5990 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Homunculus and the witch's brew
Message-ID: <1992May31.212826.1778@news.media.mit.edu>
Keywords: computation, transduction, homunculus, sensorimotor physiology
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Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <1992May31.145204.16357@Princeton.EDU> <l2iea9INN44p@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: Sun, 31 May 1992 21:28:26 GMT
Lines: 33

In article <l2iea9INN44p@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber) writes:
>In article <1992May31.145204.16357@Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>>Many readers still do not seem to have understood ....
>>transduction,  ....
>>...People keep reverting to
>>the rival computational hypothesis  ...
>>... in which you are a computational
>>core, with the transducers simply carrying information TO it ("you"),
>>...But none of that
>>refutes the hypothesis that we are transducers; nor does it make any
>>     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.
.>   And what is a
> 'transducer' anyway? Is it not ultimately equivalent to a 
> mathematical 'transformation' ? That is , a 'transducer' which
> converts a physical-event-stream-of-type-A into a 
> physical-event-stream-of-type-B  is equivalent to a mathematical
> transformation of a sequence.

I have the same problem.  SH: are you using the term "transducer" in a
non-standard way?  The brain has lots of internal information and
processing capability, whereas the term transducer is used normally to
refer to a (many-one) transformation; if it has much internal state,
then this term is inappropriate because your assertion sounds totally
Homuncular.  And your thesis makes no sense that.  way.  Perhaps you
should withdraw this term before it is too late -- or else present a
definition that does not require reading many difficult references.
Otherwise, we'll have to refer to H(T)HH -- Harnad's (Total)
Homuncular Hypothesis.

     "Minds are simply what brains do." -- me.



