From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!trwacs!erwin Tue Mar 24 09:55:49 EST 1992
Article 4465 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!trwacs!erwin
>From: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <511@trwacs.fp.trw.com>
Date: 15 Mar 92 12:38:22 GMT
References: <BL1p0D.6II@world.std.com> <1992Mar14.182737.15329@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar14.213045.21776@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Mar15.011107.7828@news.media.mit.edu>
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA
Lines: 48

Perhaps we need to unpack some ideas about how the human mind has evolved
to address some of these issues.

There has been some speculation about the differences between the
mammalian mind and the minds of other tetrapods. Observers, noting
differences such as the development of the sense of smell, play, and
a primitively nocturnal way of live in mammals, have speculated that a
mammalian innovation is the creation of an internal self-simulation that
serves to model the possible consequences of actions and to inhibit those
actions suggested by the primary stimulus processing loop that lead to
unpleasant consequences when simulated. 

In primates, we see more complex social behavior, with the emergence of a
sense of self in the great apes. I connect these two, since the games
underlying social behavior are n-person non-zero-sum games without stable
solutions. In order to play them, you must simultaneously simulate the
players in parallel. This leads to a collection of "self"-simulations
rather than just one, with a specific self-simulation marked as ego.

The evolution from Homo afarensis to H. sapiens (ss) may well be an
evolution of the ability of the brain to simulate larger numbers of
individuals in parallel and for longer times. There is some evidence for
this in the archeological record of the replacement of H. neanderthalensis
by H. sapiens. H. neanderthalensis (per Binford) showed deficits in the
areas of long-term planning and complex social organization relative to
the invading H. sapiens groups. Interestingly, like great apes learning
sign language, the neanderthal groups did emulate the invaders for a
period, creating the Perigordian culture.

The implication is that an individual human is not a _single_ observer.
Instead, we are a collection of observers, one marked as ego, and the rest
less well-developed. Hence semantics--the interpretation of the meaning of
symbols--is one of the things the human brain is built for.

>In other words, semantics is relative to a third party, an
>interpreter, etc.,

Well, here are possible third parties, operating within the brain. If I
say "John is talking about Boston." I mean that I've simulated the
situation (perhaps in a very cursory way) and the simulation of John that
I've instantiated and matched to the John I see seems to be talking about
Boston.

Comments, anyone?
 
-- 
Harry Erwin
Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com


