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Article 2113 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: daryl@oracorp.com
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: From neurons to computation: how?
Message-ID: <1991Dec14.110633.28844@oracorp.com>
Date: 14 Dec 91 11:06:33 GMT
Organization: ORA Corporation
Lines: 90

Matthew P. Weiner writes:

> In article <310@tdatirv.UUCP>, sarima@tdatirv (Stanley Friesen) writes:
> >We may not have every detail nailed down, but every month brings us closer,
> >and so far those working in neurology have found no significant barriers or
> >discrepencies other then the sheer overwhelming *complexity* of a mammalian
> >brain.
> 
> No significant barriers other than the "sheer overwhelming *complexity*"?
> 
> Do you realize what you wrote? You sound like the doctor who said
> "there's nothing wrong with this patient, except that he's dead".
> Or how about the cub reporter for the gossip paper who is sent to
> cover the big celebrity wedding, and comes back with no story, since
> the groom didn't show up?

You are completely missing Stanley's point. He is not saying that the
problem of mind has been solved, or that we are even close to solving
it. Only that he thinks that the fundamental principles are known.
This is no more ridiculous than the assertion that, in spite of the
enormous complexity of weather systems which makes long-term
prediction impossible, there is no reason to think that there is some
unknown fifth force involved.

> >So, until the neurologists find a problem with the model of mind as the
> >emergent product of neural data processing, I will apply KISS and assume
> >that this model is correct, or at least a useful aproximation.
> 
> **WHAT** MODEL OF MIND AS THE EMERGENT PRODUCT OF NEURAL DATA PROCESSING?

The word "model" was mistaken, I think. I believe that he means that
the *approach* of viewing mind as a computational phenomenon.

> >That by KISS (or Occam's Razor) one selects the simplest theory until proven
> >wrong.  Right now that is that the human mind is an emergent property of
> >the data processing operations of the brain.
> 
> Until one theory dominates and clearly explains giant chunks of how mind
> works, there's no strength to appealing to any philosophical principles.
> Experiment, not enthusiasm, not expectation, will decide.

I don't see how the issue under discussion will be resolved by
experiment. The question being discussed is whether computation is
sufficient to produce understanding. Experiments can certainly test
various theories of how the *brain* works, but without an
*independent* objective test for understanding (as opposed to
*seeming* to understand), I don't see how the question of the sufficiency
of computation is susceptible to experiment.

> >|I posted an article on an experimentally testable proposal of
> >|Marshall that uses Froehlich's pumped phonon Bose-Einstein
> >|condensation idea based on quantizing cellular dipole vibrations as
> >|a basis for consciousness.
> 

> >Fine, and when someone does this experiment [about Bose-Einstein condensate
> >and consciousness], *and* it shows a
> >*psychologically* relevant effect as far as the human mind is
> >concerned, I will keep to the simpler theory.
> 
> And how does computation show any special *psychologically* relevant
> effect?

One thing that is so frustrating about this whole discussion is that
what seems painfully obvious to one person seems dubious or patently
false to another. Anyway, it is obvious to *me* that computation is
psychologically relevant, in the sense that much of what is
psychologically interesting (again, to *me*) about human beings can be
found in exchanges such as those found in News, which are computations
in the broad sense (whether they are in the narrow sense, as well, is the
subject of this discussion; and this *newsgroup*.)
 
>> So, enlighten me.  What relevance do these [Bose-Einstein condensates, etc.]
>> have to human psychology? 

> As much, more, or less than computers.

You mean that in some quarters, the answer is "everything", while in others
the answer is "nothing"?

> Your "in order to challenge" is incomplete, by the way.  I can also
> challenge the computational mind paradigm from the other side: forty
> years of coming up short is a dismal record for any research claim.

Perhaps some subjects are difficult, and take more than forty years to
show results.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY


