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Article 7012 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: choy@skorpio.usask.ca (I am a terminator.)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,comp.ai,comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: Knowledge search
Message-ID: <1992Sep23.022656.18585@access.usask.ca>
Date: 23 Sep 92 02:26:56 GMT
References: <20524@plains.NoDak.edu>
Sender: choy@skorpio (I am a terminator.)
Organization: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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In article <20524@plains.NoDak.edu>, vender@plains.NoDak.edu (Does it matter?) writes:
|> I am currently working on a hypothesis that:
|>   Our percepetion of conscious thoughts are actually loop
|>   going repeatedly through either the reasoning or speach centers
|>   of the brain and need some information:

You know, they say that people who speed read don't got to say the
words in their heads. When I put my mind to it, it works, but it's
like, I got these bad habits, see? I say the words. And then I
say, "Now how would I say these words?" I don't do this all the
time, but you can read without reading the words, you know what I
mean?

|>   Does anyone out there have contact with either a deaf person
|>   or a deaf person who has gained verbal speach abilities (and hearing)?

I use to know this guy. He had a funny way of saying everything, and I
couldn't ever figure out why or what he said, but one day someone told
me he was deaf. Sure, I was only 12 at that time so how was I to know
whose deaf? And the guy was a punk. I thought he was just acting stupid.
But I wondered how come he talks like dat, you know? I mean it seems
he must never have heard no one say nothing. He got no accents. He can't
say his s's too good, though I bet he knew how to swear backwards.
So I figure he must be looking at people when they talk real slow and
then make noises until people say "Yeah, that's pretty good." But I
don't think he could you know say things in his head like "I gotta make
look at their mouths and make noises, things that make my head vibrate."
He gotta think. He gotta think without language. I always felt sad that
the guy who was willing to think didn't try to do better with his life,
but what the heck.

|>   Reason:  Our first exposure to language is normally verbal speech.
|>     We learn to read by vocallizing the printed words.

This could depend on who's your teacher. If (s)he couldn't say the words
but could point out their physical meaning, then you have to take that.
I mean, I could define the word rtjkbnmmnbmrtkjjk as "love", and use that.
It's like your grade 1 teacher has a speech impediment.

|>     After some
|>     time we internally vocalize the printing (read aloud in our heads,
|>     if you will).  This would imply that
|>        1--The reasoning/language centers are connected to the speech
|>            centers, and it takes some effort to inhibit the
|>            connection to the vocal centers.  This implies that
|>            the language and speech centers are either connected or
|>            the same region.
|>     or 2--The reasoning/language centers are independent but can
|>            become connected to the speech centers.
|> 
|>   The importance:  I tend to perceive my thoughts as an internal
|>     voice.  Would a deaf person perceive his/her thoughts as
|>     sign-language?

I can remember back to my infancy, when I had vivid ideas of desiring
companionship, of standing, of seeing faces, of the idea of sameness
and difference, of gravity, of distance, of light and darkness, of
hardness and softness, of motion, of enthusiasm and fatigue, of purpose, of
ignorance, of sounds, of memory, of time, of the character of others,
of natural and artificial objects and the effort required to construct
in an organized, useful, and purposeful manner, of the desire to BLOODY
WELL EXPRESS MYSELF in calm, coherent, and consistent speech understood
by others, and to receive in kind. I never gave much thought to expressing
myself with writing though. I did have a fleeting idea of constructing
objects of the like I saw around me, but I had no idea what materials
are or how to weild them. I had the sense of being new to the world and
inexperienced and the sense of weakness. All these feelings happened
in a single vivid moment. A crazy moment of insecurity where I hoped
for a future where I can carve a niche in a strange world. It's less than
meets the eye, and it's more. We can't see the underlying physics of
our universe, but thinking may be simpler than we think.

Henry Choy
choy@cs.usask.ca


