Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk (Oliver Sparrow)
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Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
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Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 08:49:13 +0000
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"Neil Rickert" is house cleaning:

 > .............................................  I want to clear
 > out all preconceived notions, and start from scratch.  Thus one of
 > the reasons I have argued against UG, is that it is part of the old
 > program that I want to throw out.  I would also throw out grammar,
 > semantics, beliefs, chunking.  Everything must go so that we may
 > start afresh.

Spring is in the air.

We do, however, know that there is a UG at the level of physiology, in that
what we do when we cognit :) involves highly stereotyped bits of our noddle.
(You will be aware, for example, of the paper this week in which musicians with 
perfect ptich can be shown to have a significiantly larger chunk of the 
appropriate bit of tissue that non-musicians.) This dedication of anatomy to 
function is a property of the species such that atlasses can be published that 
allow one to locate specific functions in the monkey brain on the basis of its 
skull co-ordinates. The engineering is predisposed to and 
interpretation which sees the early statgs of cognition as being layered, 
chunked and capable of associating in grammars, universal or no.

What this tells us about how one might do it if one was starting with a heap of 
ICs and sharp pencils is another issue. What it tells us about the association 
paths which are open to symbolic processing in the brain - which is far less 
structure-related - is also open. That there are certain hard wired mechanisms
of perception is the consequence of anatomy. That there are attractors built 
into the system such that specialised processors self-assemble is also a matter 
of demonstration, not discussion. How far this goes - and whether it takes us 
anywhere very useful when cleaning house - I do not know; but as nature does 
effortlessly what we find it as hard to achieve as the lifting of a cannon ball 
with tweezers, it would be silly to throw out baby, bath water and all. One 
should set out to unpack sweeping concepts such as UGs, not all-or nothing 
accept or reject them, I feel.
_________________________________________________

  Oliver Sparrow
  ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk
