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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Organization: The Armory
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 1994 14:27:05 GMT
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In article <CyyGMH.7sL@aisb.ed.ac.uk>,
Simon Perkins <Simon.Perkins@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
># It's an old argument, but for those who aren't familiar with it I'll
># give a brief example. I look at my screen right now, and there's a
># little yellow rectangle that represents the cursor. Now I know that
># yellow light has certain physical properties, and that it stimulates
># the visual receptors in my eyes in a certain way, and the receptors
># in turn send certain signals along the optic nerve to the visual
># cortex, etc.; but nowhere in that purely physical description of a
># sequence of events is there room for the *experience* of yellowness.
>
>I think this is entirely circular. You are happy to accept that
>looking at the yellow square on the screen causes a chain of
>neurological events to occur in the brain, but then you deny that this
>is the same as an `experience' of yellowness. In doing so you are
>boldly saying that the experience of yellowness CANNOT be a physical
>phenomenon. But this is what you are setting out to prove! Namely that
>consciousness (and things `perceived' by it) CANNOT be a physical
>phenomenon.
>
>Here's an alternative argument based on the same situation (and
>equally circular, but one that I happen to belive for other reasons -
>see below):
>
>From a mechanistic point of view (such as my own), the brain is a
>(very complex) machine. Things like consciousness and intelligence are
>dynamic `properties' or descriptions of the working machine.
>Perceptual events such as the yellow square cited above trigger
>changes in the working of this machine (I assume you have no problem
>with this). And since `consciousness' is `merely' a description of the
>machine, then the consciousness is also changed. Translating this
>event into English, we say that we've experienced the yellow square.
>
>I realise that the last paragraph contains some tough pills to swallow
>for some people. After all we all `know' that we have the free will to
>choose our behaviour, don't we? However, research in neurobiology in
>animals has continually found that animal behaviour that at one level
>is frequently explained in terms of `intentions' or 'desires', can
>also be explained in terms of mechanistic neural ciruitry. My belief
>(and unfortunately I have to use that word here) is that such
>mechanistic explanations will ultimately describe all of human
>behaviour (including such `non-mechanical' things as creativity). Note
>that I don't believe we will ever be able to realistically predict how
>a human will behave - the system is too chaotic and too complex for
>that, but we will be able to see how the things that humans do can be
>attributed to neural mechanisms. (As an analogy: in retrospect we can
>see how weather changes are consistent with the laws of physics, even
>if we can't use those same laws to predict the weather very far into
>the future - and brains are almost infintely more complex).
>
>For me, it is this (admittedly small, but growing rapidly) body of
>neurological evidence, suggesting that behaviour is controlled by
>mechanistic processes, that sets the mechanistic view apart from pure
>`religion'. (But I'm prepared to admit - not that far...)
>
>There are of course many other arguments against dualism but I think
>I'll stop right there...
>-- 
>Simon Perkins                             simonpe@aisb.ed.ac.uk
>Dept. of AI,
>Edinburgh University.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon, please note: The argument about free will vs determinism is really
pretty bogus. One is a model which says that we "are" "our" thoughts. And
while that's fine for a start, it doesn't indicate that these thoughts must
necessarily be driven by some mechanical world. That kind of world, ever
unavailable to our senses, except in what we perceive "within" "ourself",
is not provable either! Uncertainty matters not at all. The world is NOT
made of atoms and cells, it is made of stories!!! There is the story that
we are aware, which we hear about and read about. It's no wonder that
we believe it. There is the story that we are made of atoms. It is useful
for some things, but not others. When people see the field of lumps appear
on the scanning tunneling microscope, or the atomic force microscope,
everybody says atoms!! But we are not "seeing" them, in a very real sense,
because people keep foregetting that they see the way they look at things!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

