From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!think.com!yale.edu!cmcl2!psinntp!psinntp!scylla!daryl Thu Apr 16 11:34:09 EDT 1992
Article 5058 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!think.com!yale.edu!cmcl2!psinntp!psinntp!scylla!daryl
>From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Bright Air, Brilliant Fire
Message-ID: <1992Apr9.140908.29033@oracorp.com>
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 14:09:08 GMT
Lines: 24

There is a new book on the brain and the mind written by Gerald
Edelman, a Nobel prize-winner in medicine for his work on the brain.
Edelman gives his theory of the origin of the mind in the physical
properties of the brain.

Edelman discusses in one chapter, and in an appendix, some of the
issues from this newsgroup. I looked forward to his contributions to
the AI debate because he is someone who actually knows a lot about how
the brain really works. Unfortunately, he doesn't bring any special
insight into his discussion of AI, and merely repeats Searle's
arguments about semantics and syntax. He also pooh-pooh's the notion
(due to the old Putnam) that the brain can be viewed as a Turing
machine, saying that there is nothing in the brain that corresponds to
a Turing machine tape.

This is an area where credentials don't seem to mean much, since the
best scientists and philosophers (Searle, Penrose, Edelman) don't seem
to have any more insight than the interested layman.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY




