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Article 1290 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: map@svl.cdc.com (Mark Peters)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Animal Intelligence vs Human Intelligence
Message-ID: <37886@shamash.cdc.com>
Date: 12 Nov 91 19:54:18 GMT
References: <37311@shamash.cdc.com> <1991Oct24.234823.7560@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com> <37443@shamash.cdc.com> <1991Oct31.235402.12739@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com> <37658@shamash.cdc.com> <1991Nov02.075827.27740kmc@netcom.COM> <37713@shamash.cdc.com> <1991Nov05.08
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In <3883@papaya.bbn.com> cbarber@bbn.com (Chris Barber) writes:

>In article <37859@shamash.cdc.com> map@svl.cdc.com (Mark Peters) writes:

>[stuff deleted]

>>         The sensations that give rise to each percept are put together
>>according to the nature of the entities involved, namely, the nature
>>of the apple, the dog, the rock, and my sensory apparatus - there is
>>no possibility of an error at either the sensory or the perceptual
>>level.  In this context, an error would have to be due to my senses
>>acting contrary to their nature, and since they have no power to do
>>this (even when damaged), this is impossible.

>Wrong.  There is much opportunity for "error" in perception.  The brain (to
>repeat an earlier posting) is NOT a tape recorder!  It does not perfectly
>record all the information conveyed by the senses but consolidates it into a
>more compact representation in doing so, some information must be lost and
>this could include whether or not an apple or a dog or whaterver was
>perceived.  

But you are confusing the *conceptual* process of identification with
perception.  We most certainly can err in our identification of the
things we perceive, but this error is not attributable to the sensory-
perceptual mechanism, it is an error on the conceptual level.  

To repeat, there is no "little man" inside our sense organs who can        
arbitrarily choose to ignore, distort, or completely falsify what he
sends to the rest of the nervous system, and the same thing holds
for the perceptual level as well.  However an organism's sensory-
perceptual mechanism works, it *does* work in that way, and in no
others, even if it is damaged or otherwise "abnormal."  Under a
given set of circumstances, the sensory-perceptual mechanism will
respond in a given way and always in that way, as dictated by the
nature of the circumstances and the nature of the mechanism.

It is certainly true that not all the data gathered by our senses
reaches our conscious awareness.  But this is an example of the
infallibility of the sensory-perceptual level, not its fallibility.
It is inherent in the nature of the nervous system that we aren't
consciously aware of the firing of every single nerve cell.  The  
amount of information at that level is far too vast to deal with
consciously, which is why we have a perceptual level - percepts            
*integrate* or sum up the data of the senses, serving to reduce the
number of units we have to deal with consciously.  

Just as percepts fill a unit-reduction role with respect to sensations,
so concepts serve a unit-reduction role with respect to percepts.
Concepts integrate or sum up the information we get from percepts,
reducing the number of units we have to deal with, and thus vastly
increasing the scale of our thought.  With a single concept such
as "chair," we can think about an unlimited number of chairs - past,
present, and future, including ones we'll never see.

>I think that your cognitive model is way to simple. You seem to have:

>        Sensation -> Percept -> Concept

>When in fact it is much more like this (if we accept your categories at face
>value):

>        Sensation -> Percept +> Concept -+
>                        ^ ^  |     ^     |
>                        | |  |     |     |
>                        | +--+     +-----+
>                        |                |
>                        +----------------+

>And this is an oversimplification itself.  

Well, I'm not real sure what your symbols mean.  The view I'm advocating
holds merely that concepts have their roots in percepts, and percepts
have their roots in sensations.  This is a logical hierarchy, i.e.,
there can't be a percept prior to sensations, or a concept prior to
percepts (nor any other ordering).  As adults, we can use our conceptual
faculty to direct perception (e.g., to look for all instances of the
letter "E" in a sentence), but this is possible only because we reached
the conceptual level thru the perceptual level in the first place.

BTW - The view I'm advocating isn't mine in the sense that it is
      original with me.  I've made it "mine" by learning it and  
      its validation - credit for originating it goes to Ayn Rand
      and her philosophy of Objectivism.  

      Any errors are wholly mine, however.
     
--
Mark A. Peters                              ****** ======================
Control Data Corporation                    ****** == "What a save!!!" ==
Internet: map@svl.cdc.com                   ****** == "What an idea!!" ==


