Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk (Oliver Sparrow)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!uhog.mit.edu!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!demon!chatham.demon.co.uk!ohgs
Subject: Re: Induction & !-Detection
References: <xy8XhJG.clayke@delphi.com> <781948600snz@chatham.demon.co.uk> <782038304snz@chatham.demon.co.uk>
Organization: Royal Institute of International Affairs
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Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 16:40:44 +0000
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.. and a good follow-on. My three chunks were, I think, that there were
at least three levels at which the pipe would be decompressed: very broadly
sorted material - eg the output of the visual V layers, associative data
in which these components are compressed in terms of symbolic expectations;
and the symbolic level itself. i.e:

Level 1:                  Level 2:               Level 3:
Percept streams           Chunked streams        Symbolic 
roughly symbolising:      with draft status:     re-enforcement

  Red stuff               50% weight "ball"       I'm playing a
  round stuff ==========> 20% weight "apple" ==>  game with John ==> BALL 
  chunky stuff                                    and Mary

Level one will select/ discard depending on the search relations generated
at level 2: "apple" evokes (arouses) taste, smell, texture.. and "ball"
evokes memories of recent exercise, squeeze in the grip, the smell of rubber
and so forth. The best resonance wins and the filtered (compressed) datum 
passes up the pipe. The broader context in which "ball" is to be endorsed
calls on a scatter of things - other factors frequently evoked by the "ball"
vector; recent track record of what has been happening, the relevance of "ball" 
to  this and past, similar experiences; etc. Should it fail - "eraser, stupid" 
- then the search and consolidation/ compression parametrs all the way up the 
pipe would change. "Learning" and "percieving" could be seen as a minimum 
error/ energy/ time search within such a hierarchy. Note that what you see
(and what you are *able* to see is not a one-way flow. The top end of the 
hieracrhy sets the rules by which the bottom end works - atoms are pushed about 
by thoughts, but without etheric mysteries. Neverthless, the thoughts set
their own rules and are "free", at least in the terms of reference of the 
poor toe-rag atoms.
 
_________________________________________________

  Oliver Sparrow
  ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk
