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Article 1284 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: cbarber@bbn.com (Chris Barber)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Animal Intelligence vs Human Intelligence
Message-ID: <3883@papaya.bbn.com>
Date: 12 Nov 91 15:20:08 GMT
References: <37311@shamash.cdc.com> <1991Oct24.234823.7560@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com> <37443@shamash.cdc.com> <1991Oct31.235402.12739@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com> <37658@shamash.cdc.com> <1991Nov02.075827.27740kmc@netcom.COM> <37713@shamash.cdc.com> <1991Nov05.08
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In article <37859@shamash.cdc.com> map@svl.cdc.com (Mark Peters) writes:

[stuff deleted]

>In this case, the perception of the apple *is* the "single mental unit" I  
>mentioned in regard to perception.  If I perceive an apple, a dog, and a  
>rock, I have three "mental units," namely, the perception of each 
>entity.  The sensations that give rise to each percept are put together
>according to the nature of the entities involved, namely, the nature
>of the apple, the dog, the rock, and my sensory apparatus - there is
>no possibility of an error at either the sensory or the perceptual
>level.  In this context, an error would have to be due to my senses
>acting contrary to their nature, and since they have no power to do
>this (even when damaged), this is impossible.

Wrong.  There is much opportunity for "error" in perception.  The brain (to
repeat an earlier posting) is NOT a tape recorder!  It does not perfectly
record all the information conveyed by the senses but consolidates it into a
more compact representation in doing so, some information must be lost and
this could include whether or not an apple or a dog or whaterver was
perceived.  Animals (and humans) must learn to perceive things through
experience.  This is one reason why it is so hard to develop machines which
can take dictation from normal spoken language.  Without a prior knowledge of
what the words are available, the rules of the language, and how they go
together, and in fact the meaning, it is very difficult to discern separate
words. Try listening to people speaking in an unfamilar forein tongue and tell
me that your perception of the words is the same as theirs.

I think that your cognitive model is way to simple. You seem to have:

        Sensation -> Percept -> Concept

When in fact it is much more like this (if we accept your categories at face
value):

        Sensation -> Percept +> Concept -+
                        ^ ^  |     ^     |
                        | |  |     |     |
                        | +--+     +-----+
                        |                |
                        +----------------+

And this is an oversimplification itself.  



-- 
Christopher Barber
(cbarber@bbn.com)


