From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!dciem!mmt Sun Dec  1 13:06:42 EST 1991
Article 1759 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: mmt@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Neural nets and the Chinese room
Keywords: neural net, Chinese Room, GOFAI
Message-ID: <5043@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca>
Date: 29 Nov 91 23:08:25 GMT
References: <1991Nov18.132406.1977@st-andrews.ac.uk> <436@trwacs.UUCP>
Distribution: comp.ai.philosophy
Organization: Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine
Lines: 37


> It took listening to Pribram for me
>to realize that Penrose has some real points. Although quantum processes
>are probably too low a level to have significant influence on brain
>function, the mathematics that appears to apply to the description of
>brain dynamics is the same statistical dynamics used to analyze quantum
>systems.
>
>-- 
>Harry Erwin
>Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com

Funny you should say that, because it was precisely the dynamic view of
brain function that led me to believe that Penrose's arguments were
irrelevant, and to say so in my contribution to the multiple book
review of Penrose in Behavioural and Brain Sciences.  Penrose deals
in algorithms, generalized as processes that, given a set of initial
data will produce a determined result, and that cannot be disturbed
until they are completed.  Intermediate states in the execution of the
algorithm, according to Penrose, can tell you nothing about the final
result.  It's a temporarily isolated black box.  But everything in the
brain is subject to disturbance, and nothing algorithmic (in that sense)
could possibly operate in a physical brain.  Issues of time-scale are
important here, because disturbances that occur on a time-scale much
longer than the probable execution of an algorithm are unimportant; the
algorithm can be adapted (we don't concern ourselves with continental
drift when consulting TransAtlantic airline schedules).  Matters that
affect our conscious behaviour occur on a time-scale of hundreds of
milliseconds to weeks or years.  They don't disturb neural events that
are essentially complete in a few msec (much), so it has seemed reasonable
to talk about neural systems as if they could execute algorithms.  But
there's no need to go to the ends of the universe to explain why that
isn't strictly true.
-- 
Martin Taylor (mmt@ben.dciem.dnd.ca ...!uunet!dciem!mmt) (416) 635-2048
Beauty being skin deep, it would seem that the hippopotamus has an
epidermal advantage that it has somehow failed to exploit. (Jack Kent)


