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From: push@media.mit.edu (Pushpinder Singh)
Subject: Re: Churchland takes on Dennett
In-Reply-To: rschoen@nyc.pipeline.com's message of 29 Jul 1995 01:38:13 -0400
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Date: Sun, 30 Jul 1995 07:57:04 GMT
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Robert Schoen writes:
> The controversy is over whether mental events that we take to be
> serial are the result of virtual emulation of serial devices (as
> Dennett suggests) or an illusory result of misunderstood
> connectionism.

So Churchland is saying that there is no level of explanation between
the underlying mechanism (recurrent nets and the like) and the surface
phenomena (mental events) that looks anything like a serial computation.
That's a remarkable thing to claim, given that recurrent nets are quite
serial.  Results need not pop up instantly at their outputs; the output
can feed back on the input many times before the important result
appears.  They are like FSMs in that respect.

But more generally, I don't see how one can prove there are no such
intermediate levels of explanation.  Not being able to find one today
may simply be a consequence of our poor comprehension of connectionist
mechanisms, which are rarely understood at more than an empirical level.

Churchland ought to think about how some seemingly "parallel" mental
processes (like talking and driving at the same time) could be produced
by serial mechanisms.  Perhaps there is a time-sharing of machinery
going on.  Not that there's any evidence of that either!  But I don't
see why evolution wouldn't have taken advantage, unless connectionist
mechanisms that don't embody serial virtual machines are always more
economical somehow...

-push
