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Article 2120 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: From neurons to computation: how?
Message-ID: <40640@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 14 Dec 91 14:21:11 GMT
References: <1991Dec14.110633.28844@oracorp.com>
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In article <1991Dec14.110633.28844@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>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.

>From Donald Braben (in Beauty is our business: Springer Verlag 1990)
   As late as the 1960's, it was widely believed that if we had enough
   information on temperatures, currents, pressures, etc. over a wide enough
   area, and had computers adequate to the taks of compiling the
   information, we could predict the main features of weather with
   reasonable accuracy over long periods --- weeks or months ahead. We now
   know that this is not the case, not because of limitations to our
   technology or to our lack of commitment, but because of the intrinsic
   properties of complex systems.

There is no error more prevalent in computer "science" then that of creating
general theories from some simple examples or plausable analogies.
Stanley's belief that "fundamental  principles are known" is based on an 
analogy between computation and thought which has not been verified
and seems highly unlikely to be tight.

>> >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

Wrong question. The question being asked is whether or not "all mental
functions" a product of the operation of
"characterizable processing elements" in the
brain, and whether these "elements" behave like digital computers. 

>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*.)

Lost me here. How are these exchanges "computations"? 

>> 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.

True enough. But then the practioners should not insist that the fundamental
principles are known. 


