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Article 7246 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Word Mechanics (was: parts of "Brain and Mind")
Message-ID: <1992Oct13.030550.20919@news.media.mit.edu>
Date: 13 Oct 92 03:05:50 GMT
References: <c99-aa.718545726@danube.Berkeley.EDU> <1992Oct12.174146.10180@news.media.mit.edu> <1bcpsfINNh06@smaug.West.Sun.COM>
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In article <1bcpsfINNh06@smaug.West.Sun.COM> dab@ism.isc.com (Dave Butterfield) writes:
>minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>>The infant may not have much of an "object
>>concept" yet, and might first form a functional-representation for
>>"whatever-helps-stop-being-wet-or-hungry-or-cold,etc."  And it is
>>conceivable that there could be a hardware "OR" for several such
>>discomfort-detectors, and that they have better-than-chance
>>connections to some vocal actions.  Virtually all other mammals do!
>
>I suppose one could call it an OR at some level, but I don't
>usually think of it that way.  I model the understanding going
>on in the infant's mind as not yet having the necessary
>appreciation of forms of discomfort to be able to distinguish
>between them.  It's like having a thesaurus with not very many
>entries, so concepts are only expressable at a course-grained
>level.  One could say I "OR" many different colors into "red",
>but what's really going on is that I don't have a decision
>process or criterion to distinguish among them -- my process
>has no "OR" involved, but I only pay attention to the high bits.

Maybe a misunderstanding.  Perhaps I should not have used the term
"discomfort", but I don't t se your objection to the OR idea.  It
seems necessary, in some form, because the variou noxious-condition
detectors are probably not vague 'emergents' at all, but definite
devices, e,.g., the thirst, heat, cold, and hunger detectors in the
hypothalamus.  These all, I presume, have their outputs funnelled --
innately -- over to the alarm-cry machinery.  I agree, to be sure,
that the distinctions between them are not yet distinguished by "the
infant's mind" -- whatever you might possibly mean by such a phrase in
this context.  Yes, at later stages, the infant can say other things
-- and so you're right about the need for further discriminations
vis-a-vis other parts of the brain.  But your statement suggested a
different idea, that the detectors themselves are not initially
separate -- and I find that too hard to believe.  In other words, the
OR is necessary at the start; later the  system must develop other,


