From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw Wed Aug 12 16:52:08 EDT 1992
Article 6547 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
>From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Memory and store/retrieve.
Summary: type of memory in eye of beholder
Message-ID: <712814353@sheol.UUCP>
Date: 3 Aug 92 03:03:35 GMT
References: <4474@rosie.NeXT.COM> <6guJoB3w164w@cybernet.cse.fau.edu> <1992Jul27.171820.30707@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Lines: 21

-> From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
-> Message-ID: <1992Jul27.171820.30707@mp.cs.niu.edu>
-> Now consider the lowly tree as an example of a system which meets Paul's
-> definition of memory, yet which most people would not consider to be a
-> store/retrieve memory.  [...]
-> Consider now the way a tree uses information from the past.  [...]
-> The new growth of the tree depends on the structure and buds formed in
-> the prior growing season.  Thus experience in one growing season influences
-> behavior in the next.  

Actually, this *does* seem to me to be quite well modeled as
storage and retrieval.  The system stores buds and retrieves leaves,
and by this method produces adaptive behavior pretty well tailored
to the tree's historical circumstance.

Not that I disgree so much with Neil's thesis about human memory
not being ... what to call it ... discrete.  Just that "store"
and "retrieve" operations are largely in the eye of the beholder,
not so much objective matters of fact about a memory system.
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw


